Happy closed his door and went searching for his clothes again. His eyes went to the box of VHS tapes he’d opened prior to leaving earlier. He inspected the titles. The first one he picked up had the title Hairy Hunks. He squirmed. The next one was Heavy Honies. They were pornos. He’d never seen one. Why did his parents have them?
The yelling from the other room had mercifully died down. Nervously, he pulled the box tight closed, hid it under another one.
He thought about the pornos in the box. Is that how he was made?
He turned his mind to more productive thoughts. He had a job to do.
The near left quarter of the room was open space that the door could swing in to. It was also just enough space for Happy’s new computer desk. It stood leaning against one of the dressers in it’s packaging. Mummi and him had carted it home from Canadian Tire on sale a few weeks ago. The computer it would house was being custom-built at the store on Racine. It would have 512 megabytes of RAM, a DVD drive, a CD-burning drive and a 4 set of speakers for surround sound.
Happy tipped the side of the desk to see if the wobble had subsided. It hadn’t. Babbu told him to stop and hold it still he as he brought the top half into position. The desk was particleboard with wood veneer gotten on super-sale at Canadian Tire. The bottom half held the table tops, big enough for a monitor, while the keyboard and mousepad would rest on a fold-out section below it. The top half was a crowning frame supporting the structure. One side of the frame was thicker to accommodate a stack of 20 CD-ROM slots.
Happy thought about how to raise the question of the school gang with Babbu. He had never asked anyone but Mummi for advice. Happy put down his wrench as spoke.
“Babbu Uncle, can I ask you a question?” Happy said.
Babbu grunted and looked down. He was holding the top half of the desk in his hands, ready to place it down. Happy realized he could’ve picked a better moment.
“What’s up?” Babbu said, wary.
Babbu plopped the top into the pegs sticking out of the bottom. The whole unit make a click and a crunch, signaling the two pieces would never come apart again without breaking the whole dame thing.
“These boys are school asked me to be their friend but they’re… cool kids… and I don’t think I belong,” Happy said.
A cockroach multi-leg ran across the floor, apparently disturbed by the vibes from the major assembly.
“Hmm.. how are your grades,” Babbu said.
Happy was taken aback.
“Um… it’s only the 2nd day so grades don’t come for another few weeks,” Happy said.
“OK, keep your grades high. A+,” Babbu said.
Babbu had taken off high shoes to work on the desk and his socks were the stinkiest Happy had ever smelled. They got stinkier the more he worked and the more he sweat
“OK but everything gets assigned homework because the teachers keep getting interrupted and it’s hard to ask for help from everyone as I have 6 teachers in a day,” Happy said.
“Doesn’t matter, work hard. Work at your computer to make the A+” Babbu said.
“OK, I understand, but what about friends?” Happy said.
Happy wasn’t surprised an adult cared about anything other than the numbers on the 1st semester report card that was due before Christmas break.
“How are their grades?” Babbu said.
“Bad,” Happy said.
This is when Babbu finally starting being useful.
“So they’ll work for you one day. Not so bad, but keep them happy. You need some mittars. You can’t let your mummi be your best friend,” Babbu said.
“That makes sense. I think I can impress them and be the boss one day,” Happy said.
“And how about girls? You should be chatting with them and getting a girlfriend soon” Babbu said.
“I chatted with girls yesterday,” Happy said.
“Attaboy, don’t tell your mom about them. Find the nicest and cutest one and you can bring her back to my place if you ever need somewhere to go,” Babbu said.
Mummi appeared in the ajar doorway.
“Chal Babbu, Happy’s Daddi will be home soon and we should get roti going,” Mummi said.
She started waddling back to the kitchen but stopped and turned back around to the crack in the door.
“Do you want roti,” Mummi followed up forgetting he was a guest.
Babbu declined , plugged in the monitor into the surge bar and began to get his things.
When we left Mummi she was arguing with Daddi. This is a good cadence to check in with her and our first 1-1 interaction between them both. It should emphasize the conflict we triggered in Ch 1 - controlling
“What were you two talking about?” Mummi said.
Happy held the funnel steady with it’s spout in the whiskey bottle while Mummi held the glass of water half-tipped above. She waited to let it rain.
“He was just encouraging me to do good in school,” Happy said.
Mummi let the glass tip for a second and a few teaspoons of water spilled out. She pulled the glass back up just as suddenly.
“Be careful around him, he’s no good,” Mummi said.
Happy took the bait.
“Why do you say that? He helped put together the desk,” Happy said.
Mummi squinted at the whiskey, making sure the water amount she’d selected hadn’t turned the colour too light in one good. It would get lighter as Daddi drank and as she added more water throughout the night. The goal was to never pass the point where he’d notice.
“He’s single because his wife left him. Being single and that age isn’t good. He’s a kanjar and will try things,” Mummi said.
“He helped me with the desk while we stand here trying to trick Daddi into being less drunk,” Happy said.
Mummi put the glass down firmly on the table, signalling to Happy get could yield the funnel.
“Your Daddi works all day to make sure we can pay this rent. He may drink but he’s never missed a day of work since he came to this country,” Mummi said.
“So drinking is OK if you work hard?” Happy said.
She grabbed Happy’s shoulders and shook him.
“No, never drink. It’s poison and God would punish you,”
She looked deep in his eyes.
“And I would die,” Mummi said.
When Daddi got home, Happy was able to close the door and hop on his computer in earnest. Mummi and Daddi’s arguing felt fainter than usual as he dialled onto the internet. He was excited because his internet no longer stopped the phone from working, meaning he could stay on as long as he wanted.
The glow of the computer screen lit the room better than the overhead lamp which only had 1 of 2 lightbulbs working, and were covered in a boob lamp. When Happy tilted his head up he could make out the dark specks of dead bugs in the concave side of the glass shade.
His first stop on the web came from Allhiphop, a forum where all things rap were discussed. The buzz was around 50 cent, a new rapper who had been shot 9 times and survived. He was releasing mixtapes for money on the streets of New York and they were uploaded to the file sharing sites the day afterwards. He was constantly in beef with other rappers and his tracks were constantly updated with the latest disses. The forums allowed Happy to see what the crowds of US listeners thought of the songs so he could form his own opinion. He went on other side forums on dating, comedy and films while he was there. People were recommending a film called American History X where a skinhead smashes a kala’s head against a sidewalk curb and they were calling it a great movie.
Happy took a break from browsing and pulled a near-pristine notebook from his backpack. It contained the messenger handle that Sweety had penned earlier in class: desiprincess89.
Happy logged in and added her, as well as Ram, who’s ID he still had from the summer when he’d tested his Messenger account at the local library.
When he clicked Add, the app told him she was already online. Her profile picture was of a red rose, and her username was an Aaliyah lyric.
“Kiddha,” Happy said.
“You look like a stalker, no pic, no handle,” Sweety said.
“Maybe I like being mysterious,” Happy said.
“No that won’t work, on here you need to be expressive. If no one knows you in real life, you need som reason they want to follow you on here,” Sweety said.
Happy went to his profile and set his name to Blueprint.
“Blueprint? What’s that?” Sweety said.
“It’s instructions on how to build a building. Like I’m gonna get the plans to build something big,” Happy said.
“Aww, that’s cool,” Sweety said.
Happy, feeling emboldened, went to change his handle: The Strong Move Quiet, The Weak Start Riots.
“Where’s that from?” Sweety said.
“It’s a quote from Memphis Bleek. He’s Jay-Z’s right hand,” Happy said.
“Oh Jay-Z, I like the song with the squeeky singing girls,” Sweety said.
“That’s called Hard Knock Life. Do you have Saad’s addie?” Happy said.
“No, but Amit gave me his today,” Sweety said.
“Thanks,” Happy said.
“Also, you should add Dilmit, she thinks you’re cute,” Sweety said.
“What if I don’t want to chat with her ;)?” Happy said.
“Just add her and chat,” Sweety said.
Happy added Amit and Dilmit. He appeared online a few minutes later, with the handle Fuck Bitches Get Money.
“Yo, what u sayin?,” Happy said.
“Whoz dis,” Amit said.
“Happy bro,” Happy said.
“Oh I only talk to girls on here,” Amit said.
“Aight, see you tmw,” Happy said.
Amit stayed online for a couple of minutes, probably inspecting his messages for any signs of pussy and then logged off.
Happy waited for more accepts. All of a sudden Dilmit, or tumeradilhai came online.
“Yo, what u sayin?” Happy wrote.
There was no response.
He went back to searched the web. He went to Stormfront and read the detailed arguments about white supremacy and how MLK cheated on his wife. He read about theories as to why Bush had knocked down the twin towers. He downloaded topless pic of Seven of Nine from Star Trek Voyager. He weighted in on a poll as to who had won the beef, Jay-Z or Nas.1
Then he held the beep of an incoming message.
Footnotes
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He stays up all night online on the early 2000s internet ↩