Wyoming

Erum found men who made her happy, between bedsheets, sprawled naked across sand or a towel, under the sun or the moon. It was her first summer in Athens, and Greece was no exception to her good fortune. She liked John from the moment he pronounced her name correctly, “Ear-um,” Qamar, “Ka-Mar.”

She met him in the market, wearing Mediterranean silks and waving a fan. Many assumed her short stature would shield her in such crowded places, but it actually prevented any wind from blowing across her dark skin and black hair, which she wore up in a braided ball. In her purse was an American Express card and an American passport, and despite her flair for the international, Athens was her first time abroad. Her parents immigrated to America from Pakistan, and though they lost none of their being, they clung to America and were skeptical of their daughter going anywhere they might be hostile to a Muslim girl, but attitudes always change, and that was no exception for her parents or country of birth. Everyone was tall, looking down at Erum, and smiling. Even the gypsies, especially the gypsies.

She bought earrings at the first stall she encountered and a bag of fresh grapes at the second. When she bought a bottle of wine, her credit card fell from her purse and was kicked and stomped on in the hustle and bustle of the outdoor market. Many gypsy mouths watered. The misfortune of the credit card being kicked around on the floor required great luck and much time, but it all happened so quickly that some of the gypsies lost sight of the American Express card, though not John, who found it wedged between his sandals.

“Ear-um, Ka-Mar.”

Neon green toenails surrounded by brown leather and pegasus wings. He was drooling and squinting, though he read everything he could. With her hands on her hips, Erum asked John if he was going to give her her card.

“Hm?”

“Malaka.”

Erum picked up her American Express, blew the market dust off, and waved her fan toward John.

“You look sick,” said Erum. “Like a sick puppy dog that doesn’t know how long its body is.”

Though everyone was tall, John was the tallest. Two feet taller than Erum, he was close to seven feet, though his only application for feet was distance. For instance, from the market to his tent was “1,300 feets.”

“Puppy dog tails?”

“What?” asked Erum.

“I am puppy dog?”

“A sick one. When was the last time you ate?”

John saw the bottle of wine beneath her grapes. He smirked and was the only one who did not know he had.

“I don’t remember. It’s been a long time since I’ve eatin’...or drank anything.”

He rubbed his stomach and tried to look more sick than he already was. He looked like a puppet pulled by a sadistic master with a sick sense of humor. Erum took his calised hands and led him through the crowd with the ease granted to a child walking with a balloon. The seas parted.

Erum lived in a place her friends on Instagram said looked pleasant, but Erum knew that it was beautiful. White stucco and a terrace with a table for two. A Persian rug and a handmade couch. No glass, just wood paneling that remained open and let in a necessary breeze if one went to sleep without wine, and though the breeze was generous that evening, there was no need for it to sleep, for Erum and John drank the wine at the table for two and slept together on the handmade couch John claimed to “may have built.”

The sun woke them up, and John was groggy, but Erum chalked it up to the second bottle of wine he drank. He went to the bathroom, and when he came back, she had never seen him so animated or alive. Her sick puppy dog was now a healthy canine. They embraced until Erum’s phone rang.

“It’s my dad,” she said.

“Papa?”

Erum smiled.

“Sure, Papa, whatever you want to call him.”

“Are you going to answer?”

“You’re naked.”

“He’ll see me?”

Erum laughed.

“No, but he’s good at hearing these things.”

“Your Papa can hear my naked body?”

Erum had giggle fever.

“Yes!”

But John just had a fever. He looked away and said, “Wow,” under his breath. Erum’s complexion changed as well. She studied him.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Is that really why you’re not going to answer?”

“What?”

“Is America as great as they say it is?”

“Sure,” said Erum. “But it sucks sometimes too, just like everywhere else, maybe even more so with all the bullshit happening in DC.”

“DC?”

“Yeah, that’s where all the old white guys are.”

John looked at the ceiling, which was also his ceiling regarding his sight, but he wasn’t looking at anything. His eyes were open and nothing more, but he stirred a pot of melancholy that could easily be chalked up to a cultural misunderstanding.

“There’s a lot of them?”

“Yes,” said Erum, silencing her phone.

“And that’s you, Papa?”

“Yes.”

“Is he in DC?”

“I’m Pakistani.”

“Oh. I want to go to DC.”

It was not his BO, but his desire to go to DC that turned Erum off. She looked at him like he had shit out a rat.

“Ew.”

John sat up.

“I feel sick.”

“You know where the bathroom is.”

Indeed, they did. She found him ten minutes later, slumped over and naked in his own vomit. Beside the toilet was half a line of heroin. She pulled him up and slapped his face. They both had tears running down their face as he spoke.

“I always wanted a papa.”

She saw a lonely child in his iris. It might have been him, but his eyes radiated a sadness that finds every kid the first time an adult lets them down, but not for long.

“He hated me.”

“Why?”

“Because I wasn’t what he wanted.”

“Stay awake,” shouted Erum while messaging her responsive host to contact an ambulance. “Don’t sleep.”

“Goodbye, Erum. Thank you.”

Erum asked why he wanted to go to DC; a primal reaction to keep him awake for a few more seconds.

“I thought, maybe one of those old guys might want a son. I would have been a good one.”

“You would have been the best,” said Erum, holding what was left, listening to the last of him today, looking forward to seeing him again.