Tiger Milk (2 page)

Some old man, typical senior citizen, walks past us.

Get your feet down, he says.

We’re getting out at the next station anyway you old Nazi, says Jameelah.

The old idiot stands there with his mouth open. Jameelah chugs the rest of the Tiger Milk and drops the container on the floor. At the station we get out and sit down on a bench to mix another round in an empty soda bottle I have in my bag.

Crazy, says Jameelah as she pours brandy into the bottle, there are some words with magical power in Germany. When you say one of them the world comes to a complete halt. Nazi. The world just stops and stares at you.

More like words that are cursed, I say. The old bastard felt insulted. You know how it is with the word Nazi.

Yeah, okay, that’s true, Nazi is a bad example, but if you think about it there really are words that make people stare at you, whether they feel personally insulted or not. I mean, forget the old guy, imagine what would happen if I just said Nazi out loud, not even at anyone. Everyone would stare. Or Jew. You can’t say Jew. Even though it’s really just a normal word.

That’s another bad example.

Jameelah puckers her lips, thinking it over.

True, true. But you know what I mean, like … I can’t think of a good one right now.

The last few drops of school milk trickle into the soda bottle with the brandy.

Vagina, I say.

What?

Vagina’s one of those words, I say.

Jameelah looks at me blankly for a second.

Vagina, vagina, she shouts, exactly, that’s what I mean! It’s just a normal word.

No reason to shout, I say.

What, you, too? You said it first, she shouts, that’s exactly what I mean, you can’t say it, you just can’t say it.

She jumps up and the mouse on the tag on her backpack swings around like it’s gone crazy.

New game, says Jameelah and the millions of bracelets she’s wearing jangle in my face, let’s try to think of all the totally normal words in the world that you’re not allowed to say.

Only if you come up with the next one, I say.

She thinks.

Nazi, Jew, vagina, it’s not that easy to think of another one.

Jameelah grabs a pouch of loose tobacco out of her backpack and starts to roll herself a cigarette. She tries to sprinkle the tobacco out smoothly and evenly on the rolling paper, precision work she’s doing. Neither of us says anything for a while, maybe because we both know what’s coming and we both know we could still reconsider it. But I don’t want to reconsider it. And anyway, it was Jameelah’s idea originally.

We’re going to do it again aren’t we, I ask.

Jameelah doesn’t react, she just sits there calmly, rolling her cigarette.

Come on, I say.

Jameelah licks the edge of the rolling paper and shoves the finished cigarette in her mouth and then looks at me.

You think we should, she says, pulling her Zippo out of her backpack.

I think we should. It was a good laugh last time.

More like crass, that’s what it was last time, crass. Or cross.

Yeah, it was cross. But it was fun, too, right?

Her dark eyes bore into me. She takes a drag on her cigarette and blows the smoke out the side of her mouth. I grab the cigarette from her and take a drag.

Why else did we dress like this?

Jameelah cracks a smile.

Fine, she says, you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Give me a break, you sound like our teacher.

I hand the cigarette back to her.

But today I get to put the condom on, Jameelah says, the red one.

We hop down the stairs of the subway station together, two steps at a time, down to Kurfürstenstrasse.

There’s a lot happening on the street, as always. People are racing from one shop to the next. It seems like everyone on Kurfürstenstrasse has a bit of tuna salad or ketchup stuck to the corner of their mouth. That’s because every third storefront is a place to get cheap food. I counted one time. Department store, optician, bakery; clothing store, office supplies, sandwich shop; more clothes, bed linen, fish and chips. On and on. The further down the street you go the cheaper the places get, that’s where the mobile phone stores and ninety-nine-cent shops are and loads of Turkish bridal shops and nail salons. Just beyond the discount baby store is where you start to see the women standing around.

I’m hungry. You have any money?

No, really, none.

With our last few cents we buy a packet of Yum Yum ramen noodles at a ninety-nine-cent shop and then stroll on down the street all slick and cool, crunching away on the dry noodles like potato chips. Further down there’s nothing but peep shows, porn theatres, and kebab shops. There are lots of women standing around down here, but none of them are wearing striped stockings, they’re in shiny leggings or leather skirts that lace up the side.

Tasty. That’s what Jameelah said last time. The laces look just like strands of black liquorice. I’m not so sure I think that’s funny.

Sometimes there are girls the same age as us standing here. Today one of them looks familiar to me but I can’t place her. She’s wearing one of the skirts with the liquorice laces, striped tights, and a tank-top with spaghetti straps. She’s holding a leash that’s dangling in the gutter, soaking up water from a puddle, and on the other end of the leash is a huge black dog. The dog has on a red handkerchief instead of a collar and its mouth is hanging open. I’m pretty sure that if it could talk it would hit us up for spare change. The girl is sitting on the kerb rummaging through her army rucksack and she looks up at us suspiciously. She has dark makeup around her eyes and her dyed-black hair is parted in the middle and her arms are covered with scabs. I’m letting the last few Yum Yum noodle crumbs dissolve in my mouth when Jameelah grabs me by the t-shirt. A car comes around the corner and the girl with black hair quickly jumps up and pulls her dog out of the street. The driver leans out the window and grins at us, his face is all red. Jameelah gives him the finger, but the girl runs after the car and together with her dog jumps into the backseat.

Shit, I think looking at the ground. The pavement is dotted with old pieces of gum.

Give me the tobacco.

Jameelah reaches into her jacket pocket and then walks over and leans against the wall of the nearby building, she tucks one knee up and props her foot against the wall behind her. I crack a smile. Now we really do look just like all the other girls around here. Jameelah winks at me and nods at a guy across the street who’s leaning against a signpost and looking across at us. He’s tall and thin, wearing skinny jeans and a pair of those idiotic-looking horn-rimmed glasses. He looks kind of sweet though and I can’t imagine he could possibly be waiting across the street because of us.

I shake my head at Jameelah.

I’ll bet you, says Jameelah, I’ll bet you he comes over here.

She waves at him and I see his eyebrows arch. He hesitates for a second and then crosses the street with an awkward grin on his face.

Him, I ask.

Jameelah nods without taking her eyes off the guy.

Watch this, she whispers.

As the guy gets closer I start to feel a little strange. But that’s normal, you always feel a little strange at first, it happens every time, it’s just part of the whole thing. Jameelah takes my hand and we saunter toward him.

Hey, says Jameelah.

The guy looks us up and down and grins.

What are you staring at, says Jameelah.

I’m not staring, he says.

He’s pretty old, he must be thirty. He looked younger from far away because of his clothes. He’s barely got any hair left, with just a bit of fluff above each ear.

Our last two classes of the day were cancelled, says Jameelah.

Aha, he says, so what are you up to then?

I’m Stella Stardust, says Jameelah, and this is my friend Sophia Saturna. I’ll bet you have one of those apartments with wooden floors and stucco moulding and all that stuff, right? And tons of old vinyl? You definitely look like the type of person who collects records.

No vinyl but a lot of CDs, the guy answers, shoving his hand into his jeans pocket, do you know what CDs are?

Nah, we’re walking talking MP3 players you know, at night we plug giant thumb drives into our ports, kind of like in the Matrix, you know? We keep them on our nightstands right next to our kiddie cassettes and the music is downloaded automatically onto our internal hard drives along with everything else, like our homework assignments, telephone numbers, French vocabulary lists, everything.

The guy looks at Jameelah and laughs out loud.

What’s so funny about that, says Jameelah, barely able to keep from laughing herself.

Shaking his head, he stares at her like he’s watching the climactic scene of the most interesting movie ever. For a second I think he might actually believe Jameelah’s bullshit. Belief is wanting things to be true that you know are impossible. And this guy is one of those people, the type of guy who wants to believe everything because he spends all day taking care of boring shit, emailing and crunching numbers and sucking up to clients, yeah, he probably has to meet with clients constantly and once in a while when he’s running back and forth to the copier he stops and asks himself why he bothers with it all. He’d much rather lose himself in our lies.

What do I have to do to see these ports, he says folding his arms across his chest.

It’ll cost a hundred euros, I say.

Jameelah winks at me and her eyes guide my gaze to her left hand. She forms a circle with her pointer finger and thumb.

I actually never do this kind of thing, he says as we climb into the backseat of his car which is parked at a nearby garage.

We never do this kind of thing either, Jameelah says giggling. She picks up a pile of glossy magazines on the seat and tosses them into my lap.

Are you rich, I ask.

He laughs.

No, not really, he says adjusting his rearview window so he can see us.

There’s no such thing as not really. Are you rich or not?

I don’t talk about money, he says trying to sound all slick and cool.

Jameelah looks at me and rolls her eyes.

What an idiot, she whispers.

The apartment is incredible, exactly the way we imagined it would be, gigantic, full of beautiful furniture, kind of like what you see at Ikea except more expensive, and there’s not a speck of dust anywhere. He must have a cleaning lady I think to myself.

Do you guys want ice cream, he asks.

I don’t like ice cream, I say, though it’s a lie.

Right, we don’t like ice cream, says Jameelah opening her rucksack, where’s the kitchen anyway, she asks, and do you have any milk?

There’s a tall CD rack next to the bed. The guy really does still buy CDs. From the far corner of the place I hear the sound of utensils clanging. Jameelah and the guy are in the kitchen. Then Jameelah slides across the wooden floor in her stockings and stops in front of me.

Hey, she whispers, Sophia Saturna.

She smiles, nods at the silk scarves hanging from the rungs of the cast iron bed frame, and looks at me inquisitively. I nod and push play on the CD player and the music is decent so I turn up the volume. Jameelah slides back toward the kitchen, balancing herself like a newborn foal taking its first steps across the pasture. I have to laugh because I know that couldn’t be farther from the truth. All of a sudden the apartment goes dark. A disco ball hanging from the ceiling starts to spin and tiny flecks of light dance on the walls. The guy must have taken off his t-shirt in the kitchen because his upper body is naked when he reappears. The tiny points of light spin across his skin and it reminds me of Friday nights at the ice skating rink. There’s no hair on his chest, I bet he shaves it. He holds out a glass for me and smiles. He looks like a nice guy somehow, but that just makes me feel kind of sorry for him.

Jameelah takes off her top, hops onto the bed, and starts jumping up and down on the mattress. I toss my t-shirt on top of Jameelah’s things and join her. Our heads bob up and down as we jump. The guy stands in front of us and takes cautious sips from his glass of Tiger Milk.

Come on up, Jameelah shouts, the air’s much nicer up here.

He gingerly tests the mattress with his big feet and I notice that his second toe is longer than his big toe. He says something but the music is so loud that I can’t understand it. I grab his hand so he doesn’t fall over and as I do I ask myself whether the length of your second toe plays a role in keeping your balance. Mama had said something once about people with long second toes, I can’t remember what it was, but it was something bad, something like people with long second toes die young, that wasn’t it but it was something like that. Mama often says things that sound wrong. Mama says that back when Papa left he took her engagement ring, the one with the green gemstone in the middle, it was real, she says, it belonged to his mother, she says that every time she starts going on about the ring, it was real, she says, and Papa took it to give to his new girlfriend, and then she starts to cry and says that you just don’t do that, and the way she says it makes it sound as if the fact that the ring is gone, that Papa took it with him, is much worse than anything else about Papa leaving.

We jump around on the bed to the deafening music. The guy pulls me close.

You have such beautiful hair, so blonde, he shouts in my ear so loud that it hurts.

He tries to grab my hair as it flies around and I kiss him and he grabs my ass. Jameelah drops to her knees and pulls the guy down with her and opens his belt and pulls down his jeans and he’s wearing boxers and they get pulled part way down with the jeans but it looks kind of nice, even the bulge where his hard-on is sticking out. Jameelah takes a big swig of Tiger Milk and dribbled it all over the guy’s chest. She leans over him and starts to slurp up the milk from his body and he wraps his long legs around her and I take two of the silk scarves and tie his hands to the bed frame. We take turns kissing him and take off the rest of our things until we’re naked except for our stockings. Jameelah ties his feet to the other end of the bed, her stockings are rolled most of the way down, I don’t know why and I want to pull them up for her but she does the opposite and takes them all the way off. She’s hidden the condom somewhere inside, and when she finds it she rips open the package. The condom’s bright red and I wonder what flavour it is, must taste like something red, I think, maybe strawberry or cherry, but then Jameelah puts it in her mouth tip first and things get serious. We take the big white sheet that’s crumpled at the bottom of the bed and lay it around the guy so that only his cock, which is all red, is showing, like during surgery, when everything is covered with that green fabric except the spot where they are going to operate. The guy lays there completely still, as if we’ve given him anaesthesia.