The Town of Babylon

by Alejandro Varela

Everyone is leering at us with abandon, the sort of audaciousness I’ve only ever experienced in after-hours sex clubs and the suburbs.

Simone’s face spreads out, confused and a bit pained, before turning small. Eyes squeezed, lips puckered. I know that look. It’s homophobia. Is it possible that Simone has forgotten I’m gay? Has she forgotten that she’s gay?

All my life, I’ve witnessed my mother’s struggles. My brother’s, too. Also my dad’s. And our neighbor Patty’s. On the one hand, society’s limited beauty standards are a pox on us all, but on the other hand, cortisol. My mother eats small portions and healthy meals, and she’s always been active—Jane Fonda’s workouts, Tae Bo, power walking, jogging, yoga, Pilates. None of which has proved useful in the battle against the invisible beasts—loneliness, isolation, condescension, self-doubt, fear, loathing, anxiety—who have the home-court advantage in a society that values competition and trumpets personal responsibility while side-eyeing cooperation and denigrating help.

The very notion of suburbs. I hate all of it. As far as I can tell, the suburbs are where people go to preserve their ignorance, in service of a delusion they’ve mistaken for a dream. They tired of the more interesting human experiment and fled. Cowards, the lot. Working class, middle class, and one-percenters alike.

Isn’t the weight of expectation substantially greater for her than for most everyone else? Or am I lowering the bar? Would Simone be insulted to know that I’m withholding my discomfort? Maybe she’d want to know that Heera’s brother, who wears a head wrap, has been ridiculed, badgered, spat upon, shoved, and threatened numerous times since 9/11, by Islamophobic assholes who think he’s Muslim. Ikbir, too, was forced to decorate his storefront with US flags after the attacks. Or maybe this isn’t the hill to die on. Maybe there is nothing insulting at all about acknowledging the homophonic nature of Sikh and sick. Besides, Ikbir has never hired a Black person to work at the store; maybe I don’t need to feel too sorry for him. On the other hand, Radhika and Heera have a Black Lives Matter sign in their kitchen window. Fuck, isn’t this what Europe wanted all along, to pit its colonies against one another?

Adult-onset conservatism is also just exhaustion. A lifetime of being optimistic about life’s unsolved problems fosters disappointment and, eventually, pessimism. But no one wants to believe they’re pessimistic, so they switch perspectives and move the goalposts.

There’s a sad painting of a bowl of fruit, in a style that’s indistinguishable from the still lives hanging in every art museum in the world. Seeing it here, in this Home Depot bedroom, in this unkempt house, on this miserable block, in this nothing town, makes me question the role of art.

The entire night had been about taking care of me—door holding and handholding and, later, a masterclass in eating me out.

She was the first person I ever heard say, “no fuss, no muss.”