Exiles in America(18)

He began to swim, solidly and briskly. This was his element, his habitat, his

home. He climbed through the mild, peppery burn of chlorine, reached the

end of the pool, and spun around. He wondered why he had felt so self-

conscious around the Rohanis, so nervous. He soon calmed himself in the

meditative rhythm of counting off laps.

Abbas wasn’t such a bad guy, Daniel decided. He wasn’t at all snotty or

arrogant the way he’d been two weeks ago, when he was new in town and

still on guard. “English is not my first or second language.” And Daniel had

been in a testy mood that night. He felt a teensy bit guilty now for check-

ing out the younger man’s body when the man was with his kids. But the

man had a nice body, and the kids wouldn’t know. Abbas might not know

either.

Rotating his head to breathe on every other stroke, Daniel caught sight of

the family now and then, three toy figures at the shallow end, one of them

dabbed with a harsh dot of crimson red trunks. Two-thirds of the way through

his laps, the toy figures disappeared.

Daniel swam half a mile on Saturdays, which took twenty to thirty min-

utes. When he was done, he climbed out feeling purged and solid and whole.

There was a pleasant burn in his lungs, a sweet buzz in his muscles. He as-

sumed the Rohanis were long gone.

His ears were stopped up and he heard nothing as he stepped into the

men’s showers. He was surprised to see a small boy standing in the corner,

under a cone of spray. Abbas squatted in front the boy, trying to untie Osh’s

bathing suit.

“Merde,” he said, smiling at Daniel, amused to be caught in his helpless

pose. He’d taken off his own suit and was as naked as a cat.

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C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m

Daniel hurried over to a showerhead in the opposite corner, turned on the

water, and looked away.

“Owww!” cried Osh as his father skinned the little trunks off.

Abbas stood up, shaking the tiny garment and inspecting the knot, which

was still tied. “He makes a knot I can never undo.”

“Granny knots are the worst,” said Daniel.

Now he was looking, of course. He saw a trim, dark, hairy-assed nudity.

Hairs twitched in the spray like iron filings teased by a magnet. The dick was

short, plump, and circumcised, which surprised Daniel until he remembered

that the phrase “uncircumcised dog” originally meant Christians: Jews and

Muslims shared that heritage.

Daniel kept his own suit on. “Where’s your daughter?”

“She is in the ladies’ locker room. She is a big girl. She can take care of her-

self. Come here, mon bébé. ” Abbas squirted shampoo into his hand. The little

boy squeezed his eyes shut and made a face while his father soaped his head.

The bare child like an elongated Baroque infant made Abbas look even

hairier and darker. Daniel remembered when he was the boy’s age and took

showers with his own father. He was never aware of his father’s genitals, only

of his dark, tree trunk body.

He waited until father and son had finished and padded into the locker

room—“Later,” said Abbas—before he peeled off his Speedo.

There is something wonderfully primal about fathers and sons—fathers

and straight sons anyway. With gay sons, fathers often draw away. At least

Daniel’s father had. Daniel and Zack used to argue about this, whether it was

universal that straight men fear their gay sons. Zack wasn’t so sure. He and

his straight brother had the same cool yet polite relationship with their fa-

ther. Whatever the case, Abbas and his son were still in their honeymoon

phase.

When Daniel came out, a towel tied securely at his hip, he found the father

and son still in the locker room. The boy was fully dressed and stood in front

of Abbas, who sat on a bench still wearing his towel, tenderly combing his

son’s hair.

“Now you are perfect,” he told the boy and kissed him on the forehead. “I

E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a

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see they have a sauna,” he told Daniel. “I have turned it on. Will you join me

for a quick sweat?”

What was this? Had he noticed Daniel giving him the once-over? Was he

testing him? Was he flirting? Or was this just Middle Eastern male bonding?

“Thanks, no. I need to get home.”

“Oh, please. Just a few minutes. It is no fun to sit alone. And it is too hot

for Osh. Osh, darling. Go meet your sister outside. Tell her I will be out in five

minutes. You can play your Pokémon game.”

Osh trotted off, and Abbas stood up, readjusting his towel.

“Oh, why not?” said Daniel.

He followed Abbas to the windowless redwood box between the lockers