Chughtai sat in the chair opposite mine, sipping the last dregs of a chocolate-strawberry milkshake through a straw. When the straw started making sucking noises, he sighed and moved the glass to the side of the table, where it joined three other empty glasses. He lifted his hand up, and the waitress came to our booth, her little notebook already out, ready to take an order.

“How’s your banana cream pie?” Chughtai asked, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper.

She eyed the graveyard of empty glasses. “It’s excellent, one of our specialities. Would you like a slice?”

Chughtai shook his head in despair. “I think you’d better bring the whole pie.” He sunk his head into the fold of his elbow.

“Chughtai man, c’mon…talk to me,” I said. “C’mon man, I’m here for you, even if the rest of the world has foresaken you. Just tell me what happened.”

Chughtai let out a huge burp, his head still buried in his elbow. Then he suddenly got up, a contorted expression on his face. “Dude,” he said, his nose wrinkled. “That was nasty! I think I’ve had too much.”

“My nose is picking it up all the way from across the table, buddy. And there’s a whole damn pie coming up too. You piece of lard, just talk to me!” I folded my arms and stared at him sternly. He looked back at me with puppy eyes filled with misery. There were patches of milkshake all over the lower part of his round face – I had no idea how they’d gotten there, seeing as how he had drank the milkshakes through a straw. Looking at his perfectly round, snooker-ball face with its ridiculously thin french beard, I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for my old pal Chughtai. He was, after all, my oldest buddy. Both of us had met in high school, and we’d been best of friends ever since, even though we now went to different colleges.

“It’s a long story,” he said slowly.

I glanced at my watch. “You’ve been chugging milkshakes for the past hour, man. In that time, you’ve slurped, you’ve burped and at one point, when you shifted positions, I think you even decided to let one rip from your rear end while you were at it. If I can sit through that experience of the senses, I can pretty much sit through anything. So kindly just begin.”

Chughtai sighed again. Then he began telling his story. “It all began with a phone call,” he said. He shook his head ruefully. “It all began with that stupid phone call a week ago. My cell phone rang and I picked it up. I couldn’t hear the other person on the line very clearly, but I was sure it was a wrong number. So I hung up. Five minutes later, the phone rang again. Again, I could hardly make out what the other person was saying, so I hung up. This happened three or four times. Now you know how I sometimes get…err…irritated by small, nonsensical things, right?”

“Oh no,” I whispered. “Tell me you didn’t lose it!”

“I did,” he said, his lower lip quivering. “The fifth time, I answered the call by shouting so loudly at the phone that this kid passing by me on the street actually sprinted away, bawling his head off. I only have a vague idea of what I said…I think at one point, I told the caller his mother was so fat that she needed hula hoops to keep her socks up. Then I threw the phone down, mashed it to pieces with the heel of my boot, dusted my hands and started walking away.

“Well, I’d walked three yards when these two cops grabbed both of my arms out of nowhere, one on either side. ‘Easy now, fella,’ one of them said, and before I knew it, I was handcuffed and being read my rights. Ten minutes later, I was behind steel bars, in the state police office.”

“You were in jail?” I said, perplexed.

He nodded grimly. “I bet you it was that kid who ran away from me. The brat probably called the cops from the first payphone he saw. I had to sit in the slammer for three hours before my father was able to pay bail and…well…bail me out.”

“Man, no wonder you’re in such a bad mood.”

He laughed in what I thought a rather bitter way. “That’s nothing, buddy. I’d have gladly spent the whole week in jail if it would have saved me from the mess I’m in now!”

“Go ooooon,” I said inquisitively.

“The minute we get home, my father locks the house door, pockets the key, and whips out his belt. I mean, he was literally foaming at the mouth – I’d never seen him that angry. I was so busy looking at him and trying to hold my pee in, I didn’t notice my elder brother creep up behind me. Suddenly, it was a double-attack – just as my father swung his belt, my brother boxed my ear from behind. I fell like a sack of potatoes. That was a good thing, I guess, because the belt missed me by a mile and wound up hitting the side of my brother’s face. The bad thing – this dude was now angrier than ever. I mean, he could’ve cooked a goat with the amount of heat seething from him.”

“But why were they so angry?” I asked.

“If you let me explain, maybe you’ll find out, freckle-face.” Chughtai sighed again. “Only me man…only me. Only I could fall into these weird situations I have no control over. It turns out that the cell phone I’d taken that morning wasn’t mine at all – it was my father’s. So it was bad enough my father was majorly cross that I’d ground his cell phone into pieces. But there’s more – the person who’d called…he wasn’t a wrong number at all, no sir!” Chughtai chuckled loudly, slamming the table with his palm. “Turns out, he was my brother’s to-be father-in-law!”

“No!” I gasped.

“And he didn’t take my rant at all well, not at all. It turns out he wasn’t too fond of ‘your mother’ jokes, especially when they were directed at him. In fact, he took it so badly, my elder brother’s engagement got called off! Canceled by the father-in-law! The geezer said he didn’t want to be associated with a family that had no respect for talking on the phone!”

“Maaan!” I exclaimed. “Chughtai man! Maaaaan! Maa….”

“Yo, shut the hell up and let me finish. So that very evening, after dodging my father and brother and getting out of the house in one piece, I decided to go and make some amends. So I got a nice bouquet of flowers, bought a card, and wrote something thoughtful on it. I still remember what I wrote…it went something like, ‘Mistakes must be forgiven, for some relations are carved in stone. I love your family with all of my heart, as does my brother. Let’s make this love official. Signed, Hassan Chughtai.’ So I went and delivered the card and bouquet. Turns out nobody was home, so I left them with the gatekeeper. Then I dusted my hands, put them in my pocket, and headed for some ice cream, whistling.”

“So that’s good, no? Didn’t that make all amends?”

Chughtai looked like he was ready to start weeping. “Not exactly,” he said. “You see, I…err… accidently delivered them to the wrong house.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Yep,” Chughtai agreed. “Turns out your ol’ pal Chughtai overshot the right address by just one house, and wound up delivering the flowers to the Thakur’s. And just in case you’re wondering, Thakur is my father’s most important business client….”

I slapped my head. “Let me guess. He canceled all business dealings with your father.”

“Even worse,” Chughtai said, resting his cheek on his palm. “It turns out he took my proposal to make things official a little too much to heart.” Chughtai’s eyelids were twitching in a nervous tic. “He wants my brother to marry his daughter. And this had all happened before I even got home later that night. Just as I walked into our driveway, ol’ Thakur himself stepped out of my house, a huge smile plastered underneath that bushy moustache of his. Right behind him was my father, a strained, mad-looking grin on his face. Thakur turned around and shook my father’s hand, and then as he was getting into his car, he spotted me and winked. My father followed his gaze and saw me, and suddenly, I could’ve sworn that foam re-appeared on his mouth.”

“Chughtai man, how the heck did you survive that night! How did you keep your father and brother at bay?”

“With an outstretched chair in one hand and a stick in the other,” he said grimly. “I’m telling you, I felt like a lion-tamer that night.
There was so much shouting and yelling in the house that one of the pictures hanging from the wall actually fell down and broke. If it wasn’t for the chair and the stick, I think I’d have been eaten alive. In the end, my father got so frustated with the chair, he wound up turning on my brother and punching him in the nose.”

“My God!” I said, feeling amazed. “What a story! What did you do then?”

“Well, it’s been two days and I haven’t been home,” he said, shrugging. “I’ve been staying at a friend’s place. My father and brother have been on the prowl for my scent, blood on their minds. All my college friends have received calls from them, asking for where I am. I dunno, maybe I’ll just move into the jungle or something…maybe live a life among the bears. It’ll be much safer there.”

“Chughtai man, c’mon! Don’t lose hope! It’s never too late to set things right.”

He shrugged again. “You tell me a way out, playmate of my childhood years. You propose it, and I’ll do it.”

“Well, think about it this way. What’s the major issue? Namely that you got your original father-in-law mad at you, and then got Thakur wanting to be your new father-in-law. So all you have to do is reverse that effect.”

“Go ooooon.” Chughtai said.

“So here’s what you have to do. Go with your original plan…send flowers and a nice card to your original father-in-law. That’ll get him all re-conciled. And at the same time, send a letter to Thakur, explaining all the misunderstanding and everything that went wrong. Hell, if he’s so impressed with you to begin with, I bet he’ll get a big laugh out of it, smack his forehead and call the whole
thing off. And guess what…you’ll be the hero then. You’ll be the knight in shining armor!”

Chughtai’s eyes hazed as he thought it over, and then slowly lit up like headlights. “My pal, my oldest buddy, I think you might have something there….”

*************

Ten days later, I received a letter from Chughtai.

It was postmarked from China.

It read:

You suck. And I’ll tell you exactly why.

I did exactly what you suggested. I composed a letter explaining everything to Thakur, laying on the funny bits, again like you suggested (getting tired of hearing that ol’ pal?) so that he’d get a ‘big laugh’ out of it. I signed it, sealed the envelope, and dropped it off at Thakur’s, and then waited to see what would happen.

But it turned out, ol’ pal, that the equation had changed slightly in the three days I hadn’t been home. My father had realized that joining ties with Thakur could be a brilliant business opportunity for him, and my brother had become completely smitten with Thakur’s daughter. That’s why they were trying to find me…to tell me that it was all good, that I could come home…that I was a ‘knight in shining armor’ (sounds familiar, monkey-nose?)

I guess I don’t have to explain the rest. Once Thakur opened that letter, the marriage was off. Oh, and Thakur canceled all business contracts with my father, so my father is apparently near bankruptcy. As for me, I’ve fled so far away that my father and brother will never find me, although you never know. Word has it that my father is assembling a guerrilla army just to hunt me down. I think you’ll understand when I say that this bit of news keeps me up at night.

In short, I think I hate you.

Your best friend….NOT!

Hassan Chughtai