She of the Mountains (3 page)

What else could he do but return his surveillance to his body, which now appeared to him as ugly—and appropriately so. He told himself that every zit on his cheeks, forehead, nose, shoulders, and back was a punishment he deserved for the abnormality beneath his skin. He blamed his hands and their desire for touch, and in response, his hands lost their desire to touch his body at night. He tried to forget about his wrong penis, disgusted by both its misdirected longing when erect and its pathetic floppiness when soft, and in response, his penis shrivelled up, forgetting about him.

He wished that the
you're gay
s would forget him too. And in a way, they had. He began to hear the words even without words—in the chuckling in the mall food court, the murmurs behind him in the theatre, the staring on Whyte Avenue, and even in the silence of his bedroom, in his very own breath. He wondered about their hatred, which had become his hatred. Where did hatred reside? What did it look like? Was there a “hate gene” too? Was it the antithesis to the gay gene, its nemesis? Was it the cure? How could both genes coexist in one body, in his body? It seemed to him that one trait would have to recede at some point and the other express its dominance.

He stopped going to class regularly and was silent when he did attend, his hands rolled into fists in his lap even if he knew the answers. He stopped signing up for extracurricular activities,
stopped spending so much time with his mother, and stopped seeking pleasure altogether. His world was reduced to bare necessity. Home was where he slept and ate, and school was where he learned.

He graduated from high school amorphous, his teenage body and its vast possibilities left on the unpaved field where it was first attacked.

Ganesh! Ganaphathi! Gadhadhara!

Seeing my lifeless child on the doorstep where he had been on guard, what else can I do but cry his name over and over again? His name and new names, future pet names I didn't have the luxury of giving him, in the hope that one of them will reach him, wherever he is, and bring him back to me.

Vingavinashaya! Vinayaka! Vishwamukha! Vingeshwara!

I stop at the sound of my own name.

Parvati, my love … You knew this boy?

I turn around, and there is Shiv, back from hunting, his blue hue almost purple now.

He was my own, my beloved, my son
, I wail.

Your son? Our son? But how?

I laugh at the redundancy of the question. He remembers. He remembers who I am and looks away. I follow his eyes to where his trishul, his weapon of choice, lies.

You? You did this?

I stand up and the sun sinks.

He would not let me in. I didn't know. How could I have known?

YOU?

He looks down. I close my eyes while the greatest betrayal buries itself beside my greatest loss. For a moment, it is as though all of the divine matter that makes up my form—stardust and intention—has dissolved, and I am pure, condensed feeling. Is this what it is like to be human?

Shiv is now on his knees, trying to bring the body and head together, as though such an obvious gesture is enough to revive Ganesh. How dare he? This demonstration of arrogance fuels me. Without contemplation, my feet begin to beat the ground, my body lifting and landing, cracking the walls and pillars that hold together our abode with the abundant force of my grief. I will bring every mountain down and raise every ocean, for without life, the life of my perfect child, there can only be destruction. Without Ganesh, there can be no Parvati, just Shiva.

I stop at the sound of my name. It is a name I have never been called before, but instinctively I recognize it as my own:
Uma.

I turn around, and there he is, on his feet, standing, smiling. My Ganesh, alive, with the head of an elephant.

Gajanana! Gajakarna! Gajavakra! Vakratunda!

He didn't expect to feel this way.

He didn't expect to feel at all. But during the extended six-month break before university and his self-imposed exile from others, save for his family, his body's natural drive to regenerate solidified him into a new shape.

He and his body were now frenemies: His body provided him with services, getting him from point A to point B, and he, on good days, provided his body with motivation, a reason to get from point A to point B. They tolerated each other. Together, they had learned to tolerate the remaining
you're gay
s—the ones that still appeared occasionally at the grocery store and in his dreams—until they became synonymous with
I'm gay
.

It was strange, at first, to label his new self with a word that had been used as a weapon against him. But his new body still felt old curiosities that he found increasingly difficult to suppress.

The first time he said the words aloud,
I think I'm gay
, he ducked, expecting retribution from his brother or the ceiling or the walls around them.

Oh. That's cool
, Shanth said.

It is?
He looked up.

I mean, you're my brother. I love you. It doesn't change anything.

It doesn't?

It just means now you can tell me if my butt looks good in jeans.

After telling his brother, each time he said
I'm gay
it felt a little easier. He found that all of the characteristics that had set him apart from the other boys were conveniently explained and compartmentalized under

I'M GAY

Tori Amos fan/Watches
Beverly Hills, 90210
/Wears eyeliner/Shops at The Gap/Likes to cook/Adores Mom/Has mostly female friends/Sings all the time

No justification necessary. Just a simple
I'm gay
. There wasn't much more that anyone wanted to say or do to him once he used their language.

When he told Sophie Reinhart,
I'm gay
, she squealed as though she had unwrapped her dream present on her birthday, and said he
had
to meet her friend, The Only Other Gay in Edmonton.

You will have so much in common!

The Only Other Gay loved being gay. The Only Other Gay had his own apartment and his own gay boyfriend and a stack of gay jeans that hit the ceiling. This made him feel even more self-conscious about his single pair of Levi's. Orange Tabs. Social suicide.

The Only Other Gay knew everything about being gay. Conversation generally centred around words like
top, bottom,
cut, uncut
and questions like
Who does your hair?
and
What is your favourite Madonna CD?
He found out that he was a
bottom
because of his
slender build
and
feminine features
and would get used to having penises up his bum even if the thought terrified him. He wondered how gay he could really be when he couldn't relate to anything he was learning about his supposed self. For instance, what did circumcision have to do with being gay?

He also learned that
a gay with no community is a lonely gay
. This had to be true because he often felt incredibly lonely, even for friendship. Community meant going to The Only Local Gay Bar every Saturday night, where apparently, even more gays existed. It wasn't until he went to The Only Local Gay Bar with The Only Other Gay and watched as head after head turned and eye after eye stared at his new friend that he understood exactly why The Only Other Gay loved being gay. This place was the exact opposite of the world outside the bar—here it was possible to be liked.

Since he had been given the impression that The Only Local Gay Bar was exclusively for men, he was surprised to see women there.

She is pretty … I kind of want to talk to her,
he said.

About what? Where her shoes are from?
The Only Other Gay snapped.

Do you think she likes boys?
he asked, ignoring The Only Other Gay's sarcasm.

The Only Other Gay laughed.

Honey, we all liked girls at one point. But the Bi Highway always leads to Gaytown.

Perhaps The Only Other Gay, who was clearly an expert on Gaytown, was right. He never mentioned women again. Instead, he focused on becoming the best gay he could be: his T-shirts got tighter and brighter, and he hoped that he too could one day command the same approval The Only Other Gay received.

Lately, though, something was happening inside his body, despite the
I'm gay
. He didn't immediately recognize it as attraction because transitioning from
you're gay
into
I'm gay
had also allowed him to stop having to think about, question, and sometimes be ashamed of his desires.
I'm gay
simplified them, reminding him that he desired boys and could wholeheartedly trust his renewed centralized hardening as The Measuring Stick.

But his body walked a bit faster every morning, the closer he got to work, hoping that the office would be empty so he could enjoy a private, deep inhale when he was welcomed by the lingering citrus scent of her perfume.

The sun rises and sets ten times before I finally let go of my son. I would keep holding him if his new ears didn't occasionally slap my face with their natural flapping.

Shiv and I aren't speaking, but not because I am still angry. How could I be? He was only looking out for me. But how can I justify the decapitation of a child? And how can he?

In the eyes of The Destroyer, does all destruction look and rank the same? As The Creator, I can certainly relate to this, for all creation is dear to me, belongs to me. But in the quiet of the night, when all my children are asleep, I secretly admit that Ganesh belongs to me a little bit more than the others do. While they are born from my will, Ganesh was made from my will and my body.