JAMAL

JAMAL

( A short story I wrote last year)

I got kicked out of my father’s house, when I was seventeen years old, He had been loading me with more and more shores , occasionally I would explode and say something like : What more do you want? I gave you all the energy I had, I have nothing else to give”, but he would calm me down and we would kiss and make up, but one day when I was sixteen years old, my parents were visiting my aunt, I was home alone, and dad’s drunk friend Moe came over one time and tried to have sex with me, and I knock him out with a baseball bat, I decided it’s time to leave so I went to my room, packed a few clothes in my back pack , my papers, didn’t even tell any of my parents that I was leaving, and became a drifter all over the USA. I got back to LA, ten years later, when I was twenty six, but I still didn’t call my father, till I was thirty five. My dad now is eighty five years old , He forgave me and I did the same, I call him every day seven days a week and come over twice a week.

My first job as soon as I left my dad’s house was a care giver for Micheal Jones a 50s B movies actor who was in a wheel chair and would drink like a fish if his wife Lucy wouldn’t stop him. I loved Michael because when he felt good he would give me free acting lessons. Besides as soon as I was free of my dad’s expectations, I plunged head on into an acting career, I took acting classes, and I went to auditions as much as possible, and I started getting small roles at first, then they got bigger and bigger, but I still didn’t hit the big time, I just made a meager living, between acting gigs and care giving. I liked care giving, because the family that I would work for provided me with room and board and treated me like their own son. I would get the jobs either from the paper classified ads back then, or through an agency on Wilshire Blvd, Quality Care, that placed care givers in homes, I love it because I can do this work between auditions and acting gigs

I had been staying in a motel on Sunset Blvd, close to a strip joint called Venus House. Occasionally I could not sleep, and I would drop by and order a Coca Cola and watch the girls strip. One girl in particular caught my attention , her name was Lisa, she was Asian American, had big boobs. She didn’t strip fully like the other girls , but she was a topless waitress.

One day as she was serving me my Coca Cola, she fired off a bunch of questions like : What kind of work I did? and I told her that I was a union actor, and just finished an acting gig for the Royal Hollywood Shakespeare Company , and that I also do care giving gigs, then she asked me why I never ordered any alcoholic beverages, I told her because I was a Muslim, Then she asked me why I was coming there and I told her that I liked to look at naked women.

Two weeks later I had promised myself that this will be the last time I go to that strip joint, I was running out of money, I had eighty -five cents in my pocket , but I had paid my rent at the motel for two weeks, but had no clue about my housing situation after that. Lisa noticed that I was depressed that evening, I told her it’s nothing. I stayed till the placed closed at three AM, and as I was leaving, Lisa asked me if I needed a ride back to the motel, I accepted.

In the car Lisa was so inquisitive about my welfare, I felt like she really cared for me. When we arrived at the motel she asked if she could come in, because she had an idea, and I was thinking that it was some kind of idea to deal with my situation, it was, but as soon we walked in she grabbed my crotch, and we wound up screwing.

As we were relaxing after a good session of love making, she suggested that I move in with her, until she talks to her mom and dad, because her Dad Jack may need a care giver, that he can barely walk and is obese and that they had a care giver for him but he was fired because he drank a lot, and that because I do not drink I would be perfect. Two days later Lisa told her parents about me and they asked her to invite me to their house to interview for the job. I went and was hired immediately, I moved in the following day.

. I really like Lisa’s parents Mary and Jack, they made me feel so much at home. Mary was Asian American, and she was even hotter than Lisa, even in her forties, especially in her short skirt, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her legs. Jack was disabled in bed most of the time , obese and could barely walk, so Mary needed a strong man to help Jack lean on him when he walks and lift him sometimes so she can clean him up. Occasionally when he fall in the bathroom or outside and either I or some of the neighbors come and help take him to the hospital.

I liked Jack a lot also because he taught me about the stock market, classical old movies , and fine beer and wine, he also taught me to play poker. Occasionally Jack would have his British style ale beer, , he would offer me some but I wouldn’t accept , because I am a Muslim and Muslims do not drink. Mary would have a glass of wine too,that was the beginning , but as time went by Mary and their daughter Lisa would drink more and more,, Lisa would also do crack cocaine. We had so many arguments about her needing to go ito rehab and so with Mary who started using oxycodone Then they would argue and fight, It drove me nuts.

Poor Jack would try to stop them but no success, but when Lisa finally went to rehab, things calmed down, but Mary’s addiction was getting worse and worse. One day I had a conversation with her about it. I explained to her that my Muslim faith helps me stay sober and that her Christian faith will do the same for her.

In retrospect, after decades of care giving, Mary and Jack are the ones that I cared most about especially because Jack reminded me of my father. That worked for a while until I came home one day and Jack was asleep and Mary was drunk again, I lost it, so I took her bottle and poured it down the drain, and she started yelling at me : Who the hell do you think you are coming in here and telling us how to live”. I didn’t care. My answer to her look Mary, I care you guys a lot, if you don’t straighten up, I am gonna whip your ass, no more drinking get it together”

Her answer was : You’re fired , but that did not work because Jack backed me up, and finally we both convinced Mary to go into outpatient treatment for oxycodone and alcohol dependency.

As Mary slowly recovered, she became totally different person, loving, caring, and hard working, she even started going to church. I met the church people , they are so nice, they would come and pick Mary up every Sunday morning, Jack started going to church too and he invited me to go with them and I did , of course I never told anyone in church that I was a Muslim, but I had a good time especially with the lunch and fellowship after the service. Mary changed so much , she became nicer to Jack instead of yelling at him anytime he asked for anything. She even got her driver’s license back.

Finally things improved Mary recovered , Lisa got out of rehab , I begged her to quit the strip joint, and she did and got a job at the supermarket down the street, but my nightmares returned, Mary would wake me up at three AM or so, and she would tell me that I was screaming in my sleep. I finally spilled the beans and told her about when I was in the army a bunch of us rented a house boat on the Pacific Ocean in Acapulco Mexico, we kept daring him to dive like the rest of us and could not understand why he was hesitating so much. It was because he came from the mountains and never swam in his life, but because he was drunk he dived anyway, but a downward spiral sucked him and his body was fished out eleven miles away. I ran back and got a rope with floating device and tossed it to him he grabbed it, but his hand slid, I still can’t forget the fear in his eyes, as he looked at me with desperation, as he got sucked down into the ocean. Mary was deeply affected by my story and recommended her therapist, I agreed to see him, she would even go with me to the sessions wait for me till I am done and drive me back home. Mary’s therapist and mine was Jewish, his name was Dr Carl Goldberg, On our first session he thanked me for serving our country, and told me how much he appreciated that a Muslim would serve his country like I did and I told him that it is my natural duty, that I was a US citizen and duty calls.

I’ll never forget Dr Goldberg, he went above and beyond the call of duty in helping me, he would even come over to our place to see how I am doing and we would all sit outside on the porch and drink Turkish coffee, then finally it hit me: what a beautiful thing here we are a Mary and Jack the Christians, Dr Goldberg the Jew, and me the Muslim all sitting, having coffee, eating and fellow shipping, that is the future for all of us. As time went by Lisa and I realized that we had fallen in love with each other and that we should tie the knot, but when Mary’s sister flew in from India, we put that on hold.

Kathy’s rich Indian husband had passed away and left her a fortune. She stayed at the Fairmont Miramar for two months, them bought a huge mansion in Beverly Hills, and the view from her balcony of the Grey Stone Mansion once owned by an extremely rich industrialist back in the early 1900s, it is now a city of Beverly Hills park. I never forget the house warming party Kathy invited us to, I had never seen so many drunks in my life one place, I drank my tea and coffee, and got drunk on her paintings and art collection , especially the stuff she brought with her from India. I could not eat some of the things at the buffet, like lobster and crab because it was not Halal.

The house warming party was not the only one, Kathy would invite us to a party at least twice a month, and poor Jack , he could barely walk , but he would still come , but I would let him have only one beer, Mary would also stay with us drinking only coffee. I would serve Jack his only beer and quickly assemble a few people to play poker, before he asks for another one, while the rest of the guests dancing and partying their heads off. I do admit that although Kathy was in her early fifties , she had a very nice figure, incredible cleavage and I was sexually attracted to her, but I did not allow myself to even think about having sex with her since I was in love with Lisa and was about to tell her that I wanted to marry her.

Once at one of the parties, Kathy was obviously drunk, and boy did she look sexy that night with that V cut silk dress showing off her ample cleavage, so she asks me to help her get some stuff out of the garage, but when we get there she had a key and she opens the door a separate bedroom , she pushes me in, then pushes me on the bed and tries to have sex with me, I pushed her way went back to the party, asked Mary if I could go home because I was not feeling well,I asked her to order a taxi for me, but she talked me into waiting till we all go home together, big mistake. About an hour or so later, in front of all the party guests , the police show up and arrest me. The charge is rape. Kathy called them and told them and all the guests that I took her back to the garage and raped her. Mary told all the guests that her sister Kathy was drunk, hallucinating and lying.

While in jail it took a week for Kathy to tell Mary to find out that I was in jail and tried, they visited me as soon as they did. Right away Mary told me that she wouldn’t believe it she told her to her face that she was lying and that she had seen the way she had been looking at my crotch. Tensions between the two sisters got so bad.

I woke up one night on loud yelling and arguing between Mary and Kathy, and it was about me and Lisa especially when we Kathy found out that Jack and Mary had let me and Lisa go out to dinner by ourselves. Kathy was yelling saying :” how could you let her go out with that camel Jockey”,and Mary would say things like, : “He is a decent guy and we love him”.

Mary and Jack stood by me , which I am eternally grateful for, which infuriated Kathy, but things all of a sudden took a strange turn when Kathy all of a sudden came over telling us that it is all behind us , that she will kiss and apologize and make up, that

because of me, but what drove Kathy to the edge is when Lisa told her that we were about to get married and that he is nothing but an ugly bitch. Kathy promised that she will fix us a real nice wedding present, little did we know what that present was.

Lisa, Mary and Jack visited me in jail, and promised to help me get out, they worked tirelessly with the public defender, they even gathered testimonies from the neighbors about the way I conduct myself, and that hey had seen Kathy drunk ranting and raving like a fool, but Kathy was a racist pig and she had a lot of contacts in LA who shared her views including racist politicians and celebrities, she even launched a media campaign against : “ the likes of Jamal” to deport me.

I had none of what Kathy had , so did I think, until I get a call from Bruce Massey the blockbuster film producer who had heard about my case like everyone else, he expressed his support to me and promised to spare no expense to exonerate me, and he starts a media campaign combating what Kathy is trying to do, and you know what we won, I was freed and Kathy was proven to be the liar that she is. Both my lawyer and Mr Massey advised me to sue her for every penny she got , I did and I won twenty million dollars, and Kathy was sentenced to five years in prison and fined ten thousand dollars.

As soon as I got the money, Lisa and I had our wedding at the Villa L’Auberge in North San Diego County, and we bought a house close to Mary and Jack and I kept care giving with Jack while doing acting gigs , Lisa became a stay home housewife while we take turns taking care of Jack.

We spent all our money, on the wedding and getting established, but things didn’t work out according to the plan, Lisa ran off with another guy, and I drank alcohol. I drank so much that my health conditions got worse and worse, and had to go to an alcohol addiction treatment program for two years, when I got out I found out that I losy the house, but that is along story by itself, I’ll spare you guys the details.

Anyway, thanks to my cousin I am staying in his apartment now, I do the house work while he works. I forgot to tell you that when I found out that Lisa took off I had a nervous breakdown, and I am now on a bunch of psychiatric medication, also I found out I have diabetes, and all kinds of other problems, but my faith in God is strong, He will see me through it all.