The Boys who will be Men

The supreme guru of all things in sight was perched birdlike on a sand dune at Clifton beach. Before her lay a vast expanse of murky green ocean, behind her a river of tar pouring its scarabs onto an adjoining flyover. The queen of all she smelt was repelling a hostile stream of blood relatives (seven younger brothers) as they tried to dislodge her from her perch. At 13 she was the largest and all their attempts to dislodge her were in vain.

Ayesha liked to be on top.

This afternoon was no different from countless others. Both parents had gone to work leaving her to attend to her siblings once they returned from school. She herself had been suspended for a week and the words of her headmaster cymballed furiously through her parents' room at night.

"Ayesha is unteachable. Her violent behavior is a threat to her classmates."

Violent Ayesha perches on a hilltop weathering unseen storms.

Across the road rises a shoebox of an army housing project. A familiar horn pierces the din of passing cars and her head turns. There is a streak of color in a window and a hand appears, beckons. She rises and trudges slantwise through the sand towards the road. Everything has gone strangely silent. The cars move in soft focus, filtered light and the boys shuffle their feet and avoid her eyes as she passes.

"Daddy's home" they message.

Queen grows smaller as she crosses the road, air rushes immediately to fill the vacuum, the menace of a trucker's horn dulls as the target vanishes into the apartment.

"She's feeding him", says one.

"Yeah she's gone to feed daddy."

Nod in unison, shuffle. Life is meaningless without testosterone and estrogen.

Inside the fan in the dining/living/drawing room keens. Ayesha lays the table for one, her mother eats at the cafeteria at work under a "Our toast passed health inspection only last year" sign. Her father bulky, graying, amorphous eats in silence. When he finishes she picks up his plate and washes it so her mother won't have to when she tidies up the kitchen later. A cockroach crawls out of the drain as the water runs and she picks it up by a feeler and starts pulling its legs off one by one. The body in the trash can and the legs go in the sink as a deterrent.

The brothers were in the water now dunking each other. One saw a bluebottle and yelled. A collective movement towards sand and shoes began and the bluebottle was stamped upon by by each pair in turn. A plan was made to search for and mutilate crabs in the rocks by the sea wall where the tide came under cover of darkness.

"Think she's still feeding him"

"Uhuh."

"He doesn't eat that much at dinner."

"There isn't that much to eat at dinner."

"Because he eats it all at lunch."

"He's old enough to feed himself."

"He likes having her around."

"She's not like other girls."

"No."

"Nope."


Somethin g unsaid stirred in the air around them and was still. The youngest found himself wishing the mother would return early.

There's no one in the dining/living/drawing room now. A feeler appears in the holes in the drain, twitches, touches a leg. Another cockroach scurries towards the dishtowel where gravy congeals. It doesn't seem to recognize the threat of the trunkless legs. Cockies are said to be one of the two species that will survive a nuclear war. Massacres don't faze them; trunkless legs don't move them. Crush one and another appears. Cockroaches don't give a shit.
There is a rhythmic slapping sound coming from the bedroom. If you strain your ears you can hear piggy grunts, but the neighbor is watching a national geographic feature on hyenas. He doesn't have a job but he has cable TV. Manic laughter permeates the walls, kamikaze cockroach dances on the kitchen sink, piggy grunts in the bedroom.

"Hehehehehhee"

The boys were spinning crazily across the sand in a V formation, eyes closed, dervish style. Feet squelched in camel dung and gulls screeched overhead. One banged into another.

"You hit me!"

"I did not you fell on me!"

"You stopped!"

"It's not my fault if you're blind."

"You're ugly."

"You're adopted."

"You're a girl."


The second stopped defeated. "Heheheheh" they all sniggered.

There's a movement at the wall and a grubby head appears. The eyes are slightly glazed and there is a trickle of blood at the corner of one swollen lip. She heads for her dune.

The boys tumbled over each other in their haste to get to her first. "I don't want to play ", she snapped. Brushed off flylike they regrouped at a distance and watched. Her movements were stilted and vacant as if a chasm had opened under her and was gaping between her legs and she was straddling it to avoid being sucked inside. She was nearly at the top of the all of 16 feet high peak when her legs gave and she slid downwards. The gulls cackled madly in flight.

Dive.

Catch

Gulp

Swallow


Another collective movement began; this time to end clustered around her. Faces opened like oyster shells, pink flesh convulsed in need within. Ayesha remained crouched at the base of the hill that seemed suddenly to have towered into battlements and soared into cloud cover, accessible only to the brave, the foolish and the pure.

"She's hurt, look, blood."

"Cant climb can she?"

"Uhuh."

"We could get up there now."

"She couldn't stop us."

"Not seven of us."


An invisible string of razor wire wound itself around her neck. At each end of the spool were fourteen hands, small and sinewy hinting of strength to come. She knew in a year or two they would be much too strong for her. Already eyes turned from her to summit. The eldest found himself anxiously wishing she would bawl, admit her weakness so they could give her sympathy as he knew the untouched could give to the beaten. But she's not like other girls he thought.

"Lets flip a coin."

"Who's got a coin."

Noone had a coin.


"Ayesha?"

She fished in a pocket and drew out a coin.

"You know what we're flipping for?"

"Uhuh." (grunt piggy grunt piggy grunt)

"You don't have to give it to us."

"We could just take it."

"You'll lose your guru seat."

"You'd be our slave."

"We'd tie you up."


She vomited suddenly into soft sand that soaked it up like a dishtowel. The boys watched fascinated as a chain of drool hung from her mouth."

"Ugh."

"Cool!"

"Sh e's sick."

"Can't beat her now."

"Wouldn't be fair."

"Let's go home."


There was a sense of relief as they dragged her home. Traffic stopped for the mini procession and faceless drivers waved magnanimous hands. Man was once again saving woman.

"I don't want to be on top anymore", she said.

"We'll just keep it empty till you get well."


At dinner that night the mother scolded the younger for picking at his food. Ayesha stroked his cheek, said, "If you don't eat you won't grow up to be big and strong like your father." Nobody had an appetite any more. The father continued to eat in mechanical silence, precision strokes munching away at the gender divide.