1.
That night Sylvester popped oxy and fried up another order of egg chow mien. As his pupils slowly dilated, the skies lapsed. Time drifted. He cooked brain dead beneath the swinging bulb as the soft burn sunk in from the pills. It had been six months now he’d been running this stall out in Tangra. The customers passing through from the local dance bars, they sat with their heads down beneath the blue tarpaulin, the table scattered with cracked china bowls of chicken bones and cigarette ash.
The nights always ended this way. He let his cook take over as he stood half naked in the summer heat, the sweet reek of sewage rising from the open gutters as he rubbed his belly, looking through the cupboard by the tandoor. He’d stashed the drawer with R.S, Teachers, Kingfisher. Bottles of Old Monk wrapped in Bengali tabloids. When business slowed down, him and the cook sat behind the counter with little plastic cups of watered down rum. Staring out to the deserted Chinatown streets in silence, the men downed their drinks hard, hiding the bottle as police cars coasted past.
Sylvester turned to the cook, this seventeen year old in a ratty gym shirt, black kohl lining his eyes.
‘Go down to Bashir’s stall tomorrow,’ Sylvester said, ‘He still hasn’t paid up.’
The cook nodded. Sylvester brought out some videos of dolphin tricks on his phone, watching intently as he spoke.
‘And kaka too, but tell him to come and bring me the money himself. If he says he can’t, don’t touch him, don’t do anything. Just come back and tell me.’
‘Alright bhai,’ the cook said, pouring another drink for him under the table. The dolphins were playing with a beach ball.
After a moment Sylvester put down his phone, brushed ash off the faded Chinese dragon tattooed on his forearm. Then he looked at the cook again.
‘I don’t know how much longer I’ll be running this place.’
Half way through another swig, the cook said, ‘Arrey relax, no tension. What? Is it Bappa?’
‘What Bappa? Lawra. He’s nothing.’ Sylvester picked up the phone, browsed his feed, ‘He’s a fucking kid, he won’t do anything. No I’m talking something good. Business.’
‘What? The Bangalore thing?’
‘Not Bangalore. That was small time. This is big money,’ Sylvester said, hammering his finger into the table- ‘A restaurant in Goa, I’m talking.’
‘I thought it was going to be Bangalore.’
‘Ah, fuck Bangalore. No real money in Bangalore, it looks like there’s money, but there’s nothing. I have a friend out there and he said business is bullshit right now. Also the traffic is bullshit too.’
‘What friend in Bangalore?’
‘You don’t know him. But the traffic out there is so bad, really. Trust me, nothing good about doing business there. My wife hates it too, no good schools or something. But Goa, now that’s something. Great place.’
‘Bangalore didn’t work out?’
‘Arrey boka choda,’ Sylvester said, motioning for another peg- ‘What am I saying. Fuck Bangalore. Fucked up stupid city.’
They sat there staring ahead, drinking. For a long time Sylvester said nothing. Then, his head falling back against the wall, he watched the halogens flickering above him- breathed.
2.
He had a mother from Manipur, a father from Juangxi. It was why they called him Kaala China. The black Chinaman. He was born on this street, by the Kali temple. It was still the way he remembered it as a kid. The slow, southern opera emerging from the corridors of the Mah-jongg halls, the funeral parlours. The old Chinese women smoking menthols in the rundown beauty salons. His father died in this neighbourhood. Then, years later, his sister. Most of the guys he’d hung with in missionary school left a long time ago. Those who remained mostly worked in the garages or basement kitchens. After their shifts you’d see them inhaling dendrite in the parking lot past the desolate Cathedral, its neon cross flaring through the concentrated dark.
He always told people they wouldn’t see him much longer. The closest Sylvester came to leaving was after they buried his father one September, by the time the old man had lost his job at the tannery. He recalls how the cemetery had been so quiet as they watched the casket descending. The cedars still. The air this scent of rain and decay and dark camphor burning. The morning after he shaved, packed his suitcase and sat down on the edge of his bed for what seemed like hours, trying to remember how to breathe.
Years after the funeral, at one of his fathers memorials, he’d staggered home through the back gullies of the neighbourhood. Following those roads, beneath the power lines and abandoned factories, he watched how the night deepened, turned resonant, as though he were in the initial traces of blindness. He’d reached out for the walls as he passed through.
When he got home he carried his daughter up over his back, told her about Goa as he came down from the pills.
‘But all my friends are here,’ She said.
‘And you’ll make so many more friends. You’ll love it, the trees, the mountains, the animals. We’ll live in a village.’
‘I don’t care. I don’t want to live in a village. I like it here.’
‘The roads are better there,’ He went on, ‘The air is clean.’
There were people who called this street his territory. It always made him smirk. Yeah, he ran a few businesses out here, collected tribute from the stalls- got his dues from the construction sites, but half of it went to paying off the cops and syndicates. Besides, it was said this street had been run by greater men before him. By the sauce factory you could still see the landfill where the old bhai’s used to dump their bodies. He remembered how he’d come across some of them as a child. The dead lying naked in the dirt, their eyes wide, mouths open. Their faces in the silent screams of theatre masks.
Since he was a kid he’d seen the bhai’s under the old communist regime. Bhalu, Bhokul, Uncle Jackie. Shafique from the Eastern outskirts. Their old clubhouse had been demolished a long time ago, replaced by the skeletal beginnings of a skyscraper. Still, he remembered all those afternoons they’d whispered about Murgi Taang, who used to dismember men in the old pig slaughterhouse, past the corner store. He was dead now. Bhalu was dead. Uncle Jackie, retired. Shafique, reformed. Maybe dead. Bhakul was one of the few left from back then. These days you’d find him waiting in a quiet backroom, his broken knuckles twined in prayer beads.
There was a time Sylvester thought he’d looked like Mithun Chakraborty, though things were different now. Now he was an old man lingering in the back alleys, a plastic bottle of Bangla shoved down the crotch of his jeans. You would see him stood small and hairless with glassy dolls eyes. Sometimes local women came to Sylvester and told him the old man was following their daughters, muttering things they couldn’t repeat. It was routine. Sylvester would nod and go down to beat him, though he’d always have him back for a drink afterwards, put out cigarettes and free chow mien before the old man could ask.
There were days Sylvester even let him sit by the tandoor.
He’d come by, ‘Ki Sylvester babu? Let’s get a drink?’
One time as Bhokul’s hands shook over a plastic cup of whiskey, he talked about the 90’s.
‘We fought, sure. But it was a good fight,’ He said, ‘The right fight. We took care of people, you know, no matter what we did back then. We took care of them. That’s the thing about this place, it will love you, feed you. There is love here. Maybe it will kill you, slowly. But you won’t die hungry. When you die you’ll die with a full belly.’
The cook laughed, ‘Ja lawra. You think people here don’t die hungry?’
But Sylvester told the cook to be quiet, listen. Then he nodded for Bhokul to go on.
‘We did a lot back then, a lot. But it was the right fight.’
Sylvester turned to the cook, ‘I remember how it was back then. You think things are bad now? Shit, now it’s peaceful, it’s nothing.’
‘It was good,’ Bhokul said, ‘It was me and bhai back then, but he’s gone now, he was something. It was… It was… Give me the name.’
‘Rwitik,’ Sylvester said, ‘Kaankatta.’
‘Rwitik, yes. Rwitik, we… we…’
‘Hey,’ Sylvester said, ‘Remember what happened with you and Murgi Taang?’
‘Murgi Taang?’
‘What, you don’t remember Murgi Taang?’
‘No,’ Bhokul said, ‘I do.’
‘Tell the kid what happened,’ Sylvester said.
‘Yeah. Yeah.’
Bhokul became quiet for a while, stared into his drink. Then when Sylvester got bored he went back to frying up the next order.
Sylvester thought about it often. Sometimes when he saw Bhokul on the corner, holding a cigarette and a bottle, he’d go quiet awhile. One night when he couldn’t sleep, Bhokul was in his head. After an hour of lying there, he got out of bed quietly, so he wouldn’t wake his wife. In the small dark bathroom he sat on the toilet seat and stared at the walls, his Navy cuts resting on his knee. He took one out of the pack and slipped it between his lips and lit it. A few moments later, as he brought it out and slowly grinded it into his skin, it didn’t really hurt. It wasn’t something he’d thought about. It just happened. All he did was stare ahead and let the flesh smoke. This was ritual. The razors, the cigarette burns were ritual. As he lay down in bed, the old scars smoothed out along his chest, like the veins of dark marble. His father had promised to leave this city for years.
3.
Friday night he was out on the streets again. He took the back alleys, moving between his betting shop and the tandoor, burning through Navy Cuts as he walked. He could see joss sticks lit out along the windows of the gully. Within the passage, the lights came through from the dance bars, neon tinging the mists of pale incense smoke. Slowly the silhouettes emerged past the haze. Kids crouched down in the corner, inhaling out of a Lays packet. Nearby the strays played with the remains of a dead crow. The street was near silent as the dogs stood over the body, salvaging the imprint of sinew, bones and black feathers. There was only the soft rustle of the plastic bag expanding and contracting, expanding and contracting. Somewhere a woman called out her daughters name.
He made it out to the main street to see the party men eating at his table. The cook gave Sylvester a nod as he walked over to the tandoor, passed him the whiskey from under the counter. He took a swig before he slipped the street kids a two hundred. Pick up some whiskey, he told them, some chaat. Some of the other boys were out doing a little work for him in exchange for chow mien. Nothing big, you’d see them squatting as they swabbed down his table or stacked up the plates, though he’d probably have to get someone else to do the job right afterwards. All he did was make up little things for them, just so he had an excuse.
Sylvester sat back down and bummed a cigarette from one of the party cadre’s.
‘How’re things mama?’
‘You know how it is. How’s you?’ Sylvester smiled and pulled out a chair for him.
‘Alright.’
‘Your mother’s alright?’
The man flung a hand in the air, ‘The doctors in this city are useless.’
‘Let me know if you need anything,’ Sylvester said before picking up his phone.
He motioned at the party cadre, ‘One moment.’
The cadre nodded as Sylvester walked a little down the road to take the call.
‘Okay,’ He said over the phone, ‘So I’ll pick up tissues, soap, and carrots. Wait with the soap which one do you want me to get? I don’t want to hear you complain being the wrong one. Okay. Okay. I won’t get the lemon one, then? The coconut? Okay, okay, okay.’
He put the cell away and came back, sat by the cadre. They watched some boys walk past, teenagers in silver chains, their trackies stained with dirt.
‘Everybody’s a hero now.’ The party cadre said.
‘Not on my street.’
‘You watch out for those kids, they’re trouble makers.’
‘They’re kids is all. Dom para, I think. Not all bad I guess. They won’t do shit here.’
The party cadre smiled, ‘How are things anyway.’
‘Shit, you know, tough times. Got something good, though.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah, a friend of mine in Goa is talking about us opening up a restaurant, nice modern place. Air conditioned.’
‘Very good.’
‘Yeah, Goa’s good these days. It’s the future. Out here, nothing, no business.’
‘Damn right. No projects these days, nothing coming through,’ The cadre said, emptying the chilli sauce out over his chicken pakoras.
‘Don’t talk about real estate. It’s a shit business. I’m going to quit it.’
The party man nodded, ‘No money in this city.’
Sylvester considered this. Then, after a pause, he began again.
‘You know, listen. I don’t care about money,’ He said, scratching his crotch through his short shorts, ‘What’s money? Okay, business is bad now, but you know how much I’ve made. Remember a few years ago, I was driving a four wheeler, the nicest bikes. But you know the problem with me? I gave it all away. I said, fuck it, money’s not important. Family is number one. Friends. But those whoresons prey on kindness. If you’re good in this world then you’re fucked.’
‘You’re too good, mama.’ The party cadre said between mouthfuls.
‘Yeah.’
‘You can’t trust anyone.’
‘Obviously.’
Sylvester sat with his back against the wall and put up the videos that generated on his feed, footage of Tik Tok kids, Mukbangs, the slaughter of chickens on the level, grey plains of the American Midwest. You won’t believe how McNuggets are made.
Cars passed. Men sat by the street corners, stirring tobacco in their palms. He glanced up after hearing a shout down the streets. He could see a child sprinting down towards the tandoor, one of the neighbourhood boys. The kid ran down towards them and stooped over panting. He was small and thin in a torn shirt. He stood with his hand against the post, too breathless to say anything.
‘What happened, babu?’ Sylvester said, lowering the phone for a moment.
The party cadre looked up at the kid, ‘What is it babu?’
The kid spoke between gasps, ‘They got Babu Pandey.’
‘What?’
‘They killed him.’
Sylvester looked up from a video of a Mukbang ‘Who killed him.’
‘They stabbed him like fifty times,’ The kid went on, repeating it over and over, ‘They just came on motorbikes and stabbed him. I don’t know, but they just kept stabbing him, I don’t know.’
Now, as they listened, they could hear sirens across the neighbourhood. A small crowd began gathering around as the boy tried to speak. The street kids said nothing as they stood together, their hands over one another’s shoulders. When Sylvester realised the kid couldn’t tell him anything, he went right back to the video, half watching this pretty Korean girl eat Wendy’s in a clean white flat.
‘They just kept stabbing him,’ The kid kept repeating, ‘They just kept stabbing him and stabbing him and stabbing him.’
The crowd was speaking among themselves. There was more shouting, someone asked how this could keep happening. There was talk about coming back with a gun. Sylvester watched how the Korean girl laid Wendy’s boxes out besides these little cartons of hot sauce. She made sure to smile at the camera, covered her lips as she ate. The kid kept shouting but Sylvester didn’t listen. He didn’t have to. By now each one was a lull, a faint distortion. It was as though, just for a moment, he’d seen the lights flicker in an empty room.
The video ended. The next one loaded up on his feed, the close up of a boy lip syncing to a Bollywood song.
‘Take the kid home,’ Sylvester said, turning to the cook.
‘His arm came off. They cut it off, they cut it off. It was bending like this. I don’t know why.’
4.
His father once lectured him for burying these two neighbourhood strays as a child. That was about it, he was a decent kid otherwise. He used to talk to all the old ladies after morning service. The locals knew him as the boy who stood in the Church choir each Sunday, staring at his feet as he pretended to sing. Even then, sometimes it seemed as though they’d never stop talking about the burials, how his father had shouted at him in front of the neighbourhood. They’d all heard about the way he’d stood in that wasteland for hours, digging holes for those dead dogs, naming them just as they went under. He couldn’t tell you now why he’d done it. It hadn’t seemed so funny back then.
Within a few days they were all hearing rumours about Babu Pandey. There were some guys saying it was Blue and his people, probably on contract. Almost certainly political. There were shots of the murder circulating over neighbourhood WhatsApp groups. A stream of photos depicted Babu Pandey lying in his pressed white kurta, his limbs contorted, almost spiderlike in the way they twisted along the black concrete.
Before Pandey there had been Jitu Mondal, one of the men who’d gone missing. Mubarak Ali, found by one of the construction projects, his death listed a cardiac arrest. It had been worse when he was growing up. He always talked about the first body he’d seen as a kid. It had emerged after a rainstorm, washed in with the high tide. Somewhere down the line he’d been stripped naked. The water had made his body pale and shrivelled, like afterbirth. Sylvester recalled how only his hands had been different. In death his hair and nails had grown long, leaving his decaying fingers almost elegant, slender, resembling those of a bride.
He still thought about him sometimes, even as the photos of Pandey’s body came in on his phone. Initially blurred, the images took a second to sharpen, the death scene emerging in deep focus. He saw clumps of hair and palms spread open. Loose beads left scattered, a sandal lying by the curb. Then there were the raw, blue marks where the rings had been pulled off his fingers. Sylvester knew how this was to be done. You slipped them off slowly, methodically. One after the other. No rush.
5.
That night as he came home from the club he could hear the television on in the other room. His wife’s soap operas. He pushed a stack of cardboard boxes off the couch and sat down, his head in his hands. This was an old place, not far from the stall. A small flat with tube lights and plastic plants and the constant sound of laundry dripping on the bathroom tile. He didn’t tell his wife he was home. He considered checking on his daughter, but hours later, when he was back at the bar, he convinced himself he didn’t go because he didn’t want to wake her. In the end he didn’t say anything to anyone. As he sat there he could feel the room stretching in front of him, his breaths going slow. The voices on television got louder. Moments on as his mind cleared, he realised he was out in the streets again, walking towards the Canton. Ahead the lone strays stood in the light of the dance bars, their black furs glazed in neon, the nights colours still washed out and smeared from the pills.
Within an hour he was by the stall again, sitting with Bhokul, Paagla Ahmed and some of the boys from Topsia. On occasion he’d take a little walk out to the front and watch the streets. Tonight it was quiet. Men played cards as they lay upon the rickshaws. Some of the kids ran through the gullies, trying to catch a neighbourhood cat by its tail. Past the restaurants, the old factories stood silent and monolithic, like a city of catacombs, the skyscrapers slowly rising above them. Along the rooftops of the old houses, black vines entangled the arches, pylons and satellite towers. Down in the bylanes he could see people walking towards the abandoned tannery. He recognised them. They were all leatherworkers, friends of his fathers. They came through, drew up plastic chairs and sat smoking in the lot of the vast, anonymous structure. Thin men in chinos and loose Cubans, passing cigarettes between their long, bone china fingers. He gave them a salute and they nodded, raised their smokes.
‘You know those guys?’ One of the Topsia boys said.
‘He knows everybody,’ Ahmed laughed, ‘he’s the don, bhai.’
Bhokul laughed along with him.
Sylvester looked at him a moment, then turned to the others as he sat down.
‘Don, what Don, who’s a Don?’ He said, then after a moment, ‘Who the fuck wants to be a goonda anyway? Look at Babu Pandey.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Ja lawra, have you seen the photo?’ Ahmed said, ‘Oi Sylvester, show him the photo.
Sylvester brought it up and they all gathered around.
‘Damn,’ Ahmed said, ‘He’s decent with a chopper.’
‘My ass,’ Sylvester said, taking a swig of the rum under the counter, ‘What the fuck does it take to use a chopper?’
Bhokul, sitting up on the counter, chuckled until he was hacking up phlegm. When nobody else responded, Sylvester walked out to the street and swayed a little, supported himself by leaning onto the table. He pulled off his shirt and stood there with a hand over his belly.
‘Listen, what I’m saying is anybody can run a chopper, shoot some gandu. A fucking kid can run a chopper. You don’t think I’ve done it? I’ve seen shootouts, chopper baazi. You name it. Lawra, the shit I could tell you. My first time I was eighteen,’ Sylvester said, turning then to the cook, ‘Your age. I was always drunk as hell. I didn’t give a fuck back then.’
‘Lal party?’ The cook said.
‘Yeah. Lal party. That era was different, bhai. The communists were a different breed. Murders all the time back then. But listen, any Gandu can kill somebody. But make a living, run a business, support a family- that’s something real. Lawra, I’ve got mouths to feed. Now that’s something real.’
Bhokul nodded, staring at him.
Still rubbing his belly, he walked around the tandoor and stood in the street, looking out to the abandoned tanneries. His fathers friends were still there, smoking, drinking chai brought down from the stalls. They could hear the sirens far off.
His tandoor was the sole light in the street, the bulb swinging through the darkness. The men spoke in low tones. Then they turned together as they heard a voice.
‘Supari,’ a voice said from far off, ‘Supari, supari, supari. Who wants a supari?’
The cook frowned as he poured them their drinks, turned to Sylvester as he heard this voice coming in. High and hoarse. Sing-song, almost.
Sylvester looked out towards it. They could see a man make a slow turn on his glazed red Kawasaki. He was tall and jacked in a too tight polo, homemade tattoos of skulls, birds and crosses along his veined arms. It was Premo, one of Blue’s boys. They knew the name.
‘Supari,’ He said, driving up to Sylvester. He didn’t seem like he wanted to stop, ‘Who wants a supari? Supari, supari, supari.’
He hit the brakes right by Sylvester, who stood still, leaned against the counter.
‘Ay bhai, how are you doing Kaala China’ Premo said. Sylvester grimaced. Nobody said that to his face.
‘Okay. How’s you?’
‘Fry up a chow mien for me.’ Premo said.
Sylvester didn’t move.
‘Bhai, come on, a chow mien,’ Then he turned to the men at the table, ‘Supari anybody? Discount price.’
‘You come from the bar?’
Premo grinned.
‘Chicken?’
‘Mixed.’
Sylvester turned to the cook. The cook nodded, put down the bottle and headed behind the counter to fry up the order.
Sylvester turned to Premo, ‘Thirty.’
The crowd was watching. Premo stood there, still smiling, ‘You’ll make me pay before I eat?’
‘You seem like you’re in a hurry.’
‘What hurry?’ Premo sunk down on his motorcycle. Then, when everyone had gone quiet, Premo turned to them and said, ‘Come on, nobody wants a Supari?’
‘How about you? You need anything done’ He turned to Sylvester, who gave him a tired smile.
‘Nobody wants a supari? Come on,’ Premo said, playing the crowd. Then he turned and pointed to Sylvester, ‘How about for him? How much will you give me for him?’
Sylvester chuckled, ‘What, me? You want me?’
‘Yeah how much will you give me for this fucker.’
Sylvester looked around, then turned to Premo, nodded, ‘Come.’
Premo revved up the engine and laughed.
‘I’m right here,’ Sylvester said again, raising his arms.
They waited beneath the power lines and blackened dust, watching. Premo revved up the engine again, but Sylvester didn’t move. He stood there with his arms out, belly slung over his short shorts, staring down the motorcycle.
‘Come.’ He said.
By now all the men in the tandoor were laughing too. Sylvester looked to one of the street kids, winked, then turned back to Premo, ‘Come to me. I’m right here.’
Premo let his motorcycle settle as he turned to the others. He was still grinning, but by now he couldn’t quite look any of them in the eye.
‘Alright, alright,’ Premo said, ‘Anyway, I’ve got to go see this girl.’
‘Nice.’ Sylvester said, moving to the side so he could lean against the tandoor.
Premo nodded at him, turned to salute some of the party cadres at the table.
‘Meeting a girl.’ He repeated for them.
Then after waiting a little, he gunned it and drove down the street. Sylvester turned to the others, looked at them a moment, and then walked back towards the bottle.
‘What about the chow mien?’ The cook said.
‘Yeah,’ One of the others said, ‘He didn’t even eat his fucking chow mien.’
Then, after a pause, ‘These fuckers are getting ballsy.’
Sylvester shook his head and looked out to the alley, towards the factory, but the plastic chairs were empty. Someone poured him another drink.
6.
The other day a couple of old women approached Sylvester as he was walking through the neighbourhood, collecting dues from the street hawkers. He recognised them. Old women from the Chinese committee. They told him Bhokul was causing trouble again, this time by the school.
He sat them down by the roadside and bought them tea as they spoke. They kept their voices low, came closer as they whispered to him in Hakka, touched his hand.
‘Don’t worry aunty,’ He told, ‘You forget about it.’
‘This can’t happen again.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Then he laughed, ‘Anything for you.’
The old lady waved him off.
‘Anything else I can help you with, aunty?’ Sylvester’s hands clasped together, like a priest.
As they were stood up he helped them, taking each one by the hand. The women smiled at him. They told him he’d been eating too much. He’d once been a handsome boy but now he was getting too fat.
7.
For a long time he figured he’d follow his father into the leather trade. Sylvester still remembered the sere, chemical reek when the old man came home. Back then there were animal skins draped by the roadside, all eviscerated, scorched of blood and salt. As a kid his father told him the cows were killed and skinned while their flesh still felt warm against your palm. Like anyone out here, he’d seen men working half naked among the remains, drenching the ashen hides in arsenic, chromium, lye. Back then the slaughter was industrial. It had smelled of bleach and chemically burnt hair.
Years later, after the government shut down the tanneries, him and his crew would climb the fence and go through a bottle of rum in the barren grey halls. By then the neighbourhood had nothing for them. They’d all coasted into party politics, these boys who came down each night and drank there bare chested, examining the marks across each others backs. He’d always flinched as he’d felt their cold hands against his skin, their fingertips brushing the bullet holes, singes and little black shanty tattoos. Still he’d been quiet as they’d touched him, the silence reverberating through the salting chamber like deep, taurine breaths.
Those days he would say they were just kids. Sometimes kids did bad things. After his father died he got into cough syrup. There were days he hustled enough for prescriptions, cheap African coke. It made his little sister scream and cry but sometimes when he came home he couldn’t stop cutting himself in his room.
The first time he broke someone’s legs for the cadre’s he got enough to pay off the slum lord. After that the work kept coming in. Him and the neighbourhood boys would go out to the old leather complex on motorcycles, bombing out the Congress offices, running their guys down with choppers. For a long time his right hand was butchered by the jammed magazine of a rusted desi katta. Once as he was going giddy from the pills, bleeding out, he’d used pliers to pull a bullet from his thigh, watching mesmerized as he’d let it scatter and ring in the stained bathroom sink. When it was over the cops would throw them all in lock up. He’d sit in the bare room smoking bidi’s till morning, his eyes tracing the slant of the sunlight along the wall.
There was no rise. When the Communists were pushed out the men who didn’t swap over were imprisoned or killed. In the end he was the only one Chinese enough to still watch over the street. By then he was telling everyone he was a family man. He had his kid to think about, his wife. Still the work kept coming in. After one job he’d stood with an iron rod in his hand, watching this man as he lay there, his arm twisted, the bone sticking out like a dogtooth. He’d used the money to buy an LG mini fridge.
8.
The Bhokul thing wasn’t so different from anything he’d done before. That evening he shook out this capsule of oxy, picked up whatever fell out on his bed. After he popped he sat on the closed toilet seat for a while, his head in one hand, the smoke in the other. He’d already made some calls around the neighbourhood, put out the word. His people would make sure Bhokul came down to see him that night.
The pills were coming through now, a slow, blooming paralysis. Outside he could hear his wife whispering over the landline. The sound of his daughters cartoons.
He didn’t know how the hours passed. He regained consciousness as he was in the living room, watching television with his daughter, then again in the kitchen as his wife was shouting at him. Time blacked out and remerged, sometimes blurred and softened. He found himself sitting beside the cook at the tandoor, no memory of leaving home. This was how it had always been. Before he hurt somebody, he let the oxy hush him. The pills made him feel warm inside, as though this would all be gone soon, as though this would all be forgotten. He wanted to sever a connection and make his brain go dark.
Sylvester sat with the cup of whiskey in his hand. The cook was lighting his cigarettes, pouring his drinks. Sylvester was talking but he didn’t know what he was saying. After a while he realised he was staring at the frozen chicken legs thawing out in their blue plastic tubs.
‘What mama, what’s good?’ One of his boys said, coming down with two others. Sylvester glanced at them a moment, then he went back to staring ahead.
‘Where’s that boka choda.’ Someone asked.
‘Arrey bhai he’ll come, don’t worry. The chutiya will come.’
‘He’ll come, he’ll come,’ The cook said, ‘No tension.’
They sat there for a long time, waiting. Sylvester slowly clenched his fist, breathed, his head falling back against the wall. The boys were talking about what they’d do to Bhokul. He said something back. He was still staring ahead as one hand felt around the for a matches. Then when he took a moment, looked a little closer at the broken display glass, he realised he could just about see the smeared handprints of children. It made him flinch.
It was the sound that got him out of the daze. He thought it was a scream, but it wasn’t. It was laughter. He could see these men coming down towards them on a bike.
‘Ay lawra Kaala China, where the fuck have you been?’
As they came closer Sylvester recognised Blue on his Bullet, Premo and one his other boys on the back.
‘I’ve been right here, lawra,’ Sylvester said, not standing up. All of his boys were looking up.
‘Bhai, kaala china, what’s up? We heard someone was getting fucked up tonight.’ Blue said, slowing down, parking his bike up by Sylvester’s guys.
He got off the bike and his boys followed. He was this lean dark man with long hair and a moustache. His malas and pendants swung as he walked. Sylvester could feel the doze coming in again, but he made himself stay conscious, watching them.
‘Fry up some chow mien, na?’ Blue said, then he waved his hand, ‘No wait, wait for this fucker to come, we’ll bust his ass and eat.’
Sylvester stood up slowly, ‘You heard?
‘That bara’s going to get his ass whipped bara and I’m not going to hear?’ Blue laughed, ‘That gandu got his ass busted up by my father, I’ve busted his ass too, if he’s getting his ass busted again I’ll hear.’
Premo laughed behind him.
‘Ah fuck that,’ Sylvester said, ‘He’s gone crazy.’
‘Lawra crazy,’ Blue said, leaning against the tandoor, smiling, ‘What crazy?’
‘Fuck I’m not saying what he did was right. He’s just crazy,’ Sylvester said.
‘Bhai tell me something.’
‘Ah the fucker’s crazy.’
‘Let me finish.’ Blue said, ‘What I’m saying is if he can fuck with women, if he can think about women, then how crazy can he be?’
‘Saiye. He’s right.’ The cook said.’
‘Whatever,’ Sylvester stood up now, ‘All I’m saying is he’s fucked up, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He was fucked up before, but he never did shit like this.’
Blue laughed.
‘I’m not saying it’s okay,’ Sylvester said, ‘It’s just different. He never did this shit. You know I’ll fuck him up.’
Sylvester walked around the tandoor and stood there, his hands in the waistband of his jeans.
‘I told that son of a whore to stay away from the fucking school.’
‘Someone like that you bust his ass. You don’t say that shit to ladies.’
There was a moment of silence before Premo walked a little closer to Sylvester, said, ‘How you been?’
He turned as Blue came a little closer towards him. Sylvester’s boys were looking at each other. The cook stood there, watching.
‘I’ve been alright,’ Sylvester wasn’t looking at him.
‘Premo says he comes down here sometimes,’ Blue said, ‘Hangs out.’
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘Nothing. I’m just asking.’
‘You’re his fucking mother or what?’
Blue clapped his hands and laughed a little harder than he should have. Premo looked at him, frowning, then after a moment he realised he should laugh along.
‘Look at this guy,’ Blue said, grabbing Sylvester by the shoulders, ‘Look at this siyana, Don.’
Sylvester didn’t laugh along as Blue pulled him a little closer, rubbed his head with one hand.
‘Oi fucker,’ Sylvester said, moving away, pushing Blue a little.
‘Hey,’ Something in Blue’s voice went cold.
‘Relax,’ He said, Premo about to step up behind him. Sylvester’s guys were staring them down.
‘I’m relaxed.’ Sylvester said, not breaking the glare, ‘you relax.’
Blue was looking him in the eyes too, but then he smiled, reached out to touch Sylvester’s arm.
‘Then I’m relaxed. If you’re relaxed, I’m relaxed.’
Sylvester shrugged him off.
‘Maybe I’ll come by with Premo some time too,’ Blue said.
‘Yeah.’ Premo said.
‘Whatever,’ Sylvester said. His guys were stood watching, some stepping forward a little, but still quiet.
Blue patted his shoulder, ‘This guy. Fuck. This guy.’
Premo crossed his arms and grinned.
‘I grew up watching this guy, you know?’ Blue said, motioning towards Sylvester, ‘Shit he was a fucking terror. In his time? Lawra.’
Sylvester ignored him.
‘Premo, remember that paan walla? We saw that paan walla once?’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘God, remember how much blood there was? Lawra. Fuck, what did the poor fuck do Lawra. Fucking danger to society.’
‘Alright, stop with the bullshit,’ Sylvester said, ‘When’s this fucker coming?’
They stood there a little longer. By that point Blue was telling a story about a fight he was in. It made his boys laugh.
Sylvester was glaring out to the streets. After a while they saw Bhokul coming in from one of the gullies. In the beginning, he pretended not to see them. Then, he glanced over, smiled. He was stooped over as he walked towards them. An old man in crocs, cargo shorts and a stained blue polo, scarred and broken and dressed like a child.
‘Sylvester, baba, what’s happening? How have you been?’, He said, his voice too sweet.
Sylvester went up to him and took him by the shoulder and began walking him down the street. The rest of them followed.
‘Arrey what’s happening babu?’
‘Cut that shit boka choda.’ Sylvester said.
‘Get this fucker.’ Blue said.
Sylvester kept pushing Bhokul as they all walked through an alley, towards the tanneries.
‘I told you not to go to that school fucker.’
‘Sylvester, what? I was just talking to them.’
‘Boka choda.’
He shoved Bhokul and watched him stagger. Then he grabbed him, kept leading him by the arm. Blue walked up on the other side of him and slapped him across the back of the head, said, ‘What gandu?’
Sylvester pulled him away from Blue and kept pushing him ahead, the old man tripping over, trying to keep up. They were walking between the factories now. There were red lanterns strung up alongside the iron gateways, beneath the swarm of power lines. The street dogs scattered as they passed.
Sylvester pushed him against the wall of a tannery, punched him hard against the side of his head and watched him fall back. Now the old man was gawking, as though he didn’t know this was what was going to happen. Sylvester smacked him as he tried to stand, kicked him in the belly, made him grunt and retch like he was going to throw up.
‘I’m sorry, fuck, I’m sorry.’
‘Get the fucker.’ Blue said.
Sylvester kicked him in the jaw, then again in the gut, getting him under the ribs.
‘Boka choda, what did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you not to go near the fucking school.’
He got down and grabbed Bhokul by the shirt, began punching him in the head, letting it lash back against the concrete. As Sylvester hit him, the rest of the men stood there, their silhouettes lingering in the back alleys. They could hear the sound of the wind rushing through an abandoned factory, into the passage of the desolate arcade.
Bhokul was crying now, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
Sylvester let him go. Watched him roll over, his hands covering his face.
‘No more baba I’m sorry.’
‘Bara.’ Sylvester looked back at the others.
Premo waited a moment, then said, ‘What? That’s it?’
‘What the fuck.’ Blue said.
One of Sylvester’s boys spoke up, ‘What? Fucker’s crazy? What can you do with a crazy fucker.’
Two of the others nodded. The cook didn’t say anything.
‘What crazy?,’ Blue said, ‘Shit, you know what we do to these guys in our neighbourhood?’
Sylvester waved Blue off before turning back to Bhokul, ‘Get the fucker out of here. Don’t do it again.’
Bhokul got up and faked a limp as he began to walk away.
‘Yeah, let the gandu go, let’s see what he does,’ Blue said.
‘Whatever.’ Sylvester said, ‘Come on, let’s go, let’s get some beer.’
‘You know what we do with these fuckers in Dhapa?’
‘You’re not in Dhapa,’ Sylvester said, making his way into the back streets, his boys following him. As they left Blue looked at Premo and raised his eyebrows. They turned and watched Bhokul as he fell against the tannery’s walls, his hands feeling for them, letting them guide him towards Chinatown.
9.
A few days later he heard the story through the neighbourhood. The word was Blue and his crew jumped Bhokul outside the Bangla shanty. The way they described it, the boys had dragged him out to the back streets, held him down as Blue hacked at his right arm with a chopper, saying he wanted it, saying it was his. Some people said they took the arm, but it turned out to be a rumour. He’d been too drunk to cut it off that night. In the end they drove away as Bhokul lay there screaming in the street.
After Sylvester heard what happened he busted his knuckles punching the office wall. He hit it hard and stared at the blood seeping into the washed out concrete. He punched it again, then again, asking himself why they wouldn’t stop.
Maybe a few years ago he’d have stepped up to Blue. After he heard the story he went through his closet, brought out this revolver he’d folded in newspaper. He pointed it at the wall, getting a feel for it again, the way its weight settled along his arm. Then, after a moment, he wrapped it up and left it on the shelf. Walked out to the living room and watched TV.
‘Baba?,’ His daughter said, coming up behind him.
‘What baby?’
‘I don’t want to go to Goa,’ She said, sitting down on the plastic chair.
‘I don’t think we’ll go.’
‘Really?’ She smiled, then switched the channel.
He paused for a moment, thought about it. There was a cartoon on. This one he’d seen before, though he didn’t know the name. It was about a cat and a bird, but they didn’t do much, just tried to kill each other. An ad for detergent came on.
‘No, we’ll go,’ He said, ‘I think we’ll go.’
10.
He saw Bhokul again two weeks later. Sylvester was sitting by the tandoor, having a peg of Teachers. It was one of the holy days. The Hindus were blasting prayer music out of the Kali temple. Beneath the arches, he could see the acolytes dancing blind drunk by the shrine, their eyes in the deadened haze of sleepwalkers. He knew Bhokul was among them. Still, the old man would pretend they hadn’t seen each other, at least for a while.
When the cook found him among the crowd he told Sylvester. Tapped him on the shoulder, pointed it so he could see Bhokul. By now the old man’s face had swollen up. The left eye was red and shrunken, the arm still in its sling.
‘Look at the fucker,’ The cook said.
‘Hm.’
‘Look, he won’t even fucking look at you.’
Bhokul raised his other arm in the air and sang along to the music.
‘You don’t think that fucker’ll come back?’
Sylvester watched Bhokul as he laughed among the temple processions, swaying as the distant, howling prayers played off the old cassette. He tried keeping his arm still, but it trembled and twitched as he danced. Nobody stared. By now they’d all seen how he was slowly fragmenting. A part of his nose had been bitten off. An ear was missing. His finger and toe nails had been removed by the police in 1996. Still, Sylvester couldn’t imagine him dying. It seemed like he would always walk through the back gullies, gradually losing pieces of himself, forgetting. Maybe one day he would no longer recollect the killings. His mind decaying until he was innocent again.
Illustration: Suman Mukherjee