The Man with No Name
By Harpreet Singh Soorae
The Next Day
Is there anything nicer than springtime in Handsworth? Of course not, of course not. I walk the streets and say hello to some people I know. Buy the latest Sahotas album. Relax on Soho Road and watch the Kosovan women begging.
All around me I feel people thinking to themselves, who is this mysterious man who walks with a wiggle in his off-step? I do a pimp roll then realise it doesn't look that good. I am happy. Maybe I have a job.
I walk past Harbans Singh Solicitors and Notaries and decide to make an enquiry. It's a sullen looking girl at the reception. Typical Birmingham Indian sour-face girl.
-I have an enquiry to make.
-Yes.
-I want to change my name by deed poll. How much will it cost?
-Shall I make an appointment for you to see Mr Singh?
-No. I just want to know how much it costs.
-I don't know. I will have to make an appointment and you'll have to ask Mr Singh.
-I'm unemployed.
-First appointment is free.
-Then?
-Then it depends what you want him to do. Rates are by the half hour.
-Can I get legal aid to change my name by deed poll?
The sour-face laughs.
-I don't think so.
-And this Mr Singh, he's a kosher solicitor? He's not just a travel agent who pretends he's a lawyer?
-No. Mr Singh has been a solicitor for twenty five years...
-Only there was this dude called Chatterjee in West Brom who pretended to be a dentist when he was really just a pharmacist...
-Do you want an appointment or not?
She thinks I am a bum. So I say,
-Do you ever feel as an Indian growing up in this country what is called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, do you ever feel a sense of strangeness, of things being ever so slightly strange, like you are part of a misunderstood, invisible, marginalised community that exists, if it exists at all, on the fringes of the consciousness of the mainstream of this society, and that sometimes it would be better to negate yourself and bleach away all difference, because the struggle to preserve any kind of individual notion of difference is too strong and too heavy a burden to pay, given that the alternative is to preserve an ossified, communalist social paradigm, what is called the Indian community, and that it is just all too much? Do you ever feel that? Do you? Do you?
-No.
She starts filing her nails. I have talked too much. Clint never says more than a few words at a time.
-What's your name?
-Why?
-Just wondering...I'm gonna change my name. People call me Clint. But I am the man with no name. It's the best way to be. Indians are all snakes and backstabbers. But whitey is a bastard too.
All of a sudden she is looking at me, interested. She asks,
-So what is your real name?
-If I told you I would have to kill you.
She laughs. Something is happening. I walk out of there with her telephone number. Her name is Sunita.
Even the dog shit on the pavement looks good for the rest of the day. I meet Sati in the park. We crack open our cans of Special Brew in silence. After a while I speak.
-When you look at me Sati, what do you think?
-Clint in A Fistful of Dollars.
-Don't try and butter me up.
-I'm not, I swear.
-Like how?
-Like mysterious and deadly.
-Like as if I am a man who does not have a name because he is too deadly?
-Exactly like that.
-So do people say to you, Sati, who is that Indian? He is deadly and strange...
-All the people say that.
We contemplate the quietness, and I am shy to speculate if the quietness comes from within me or is just the silence of the world hushing in lethargy, where we sit park-benching, sipping the cool sweet Special Brew.
-What's your real name?
-Satwinder.
-You like it?
-God chose that name from the Holy Book. It's not mine to like or not like, know what I mean?
-Yeah. But we don't even have a choice. We are given these names before we even have a chance to make ourselves. No opportunity afforded by this community. And all the stress we get in this world is from these names. Cut the name and we cut the chain.
Birds tweeting chime timpani in the air's silence, then sound rushes back just as Sati speaks.
-Clint, you are the man with no name. But you still feel pain. You are trying to blame the name. But it's not the thing that makes you insane. Whatever's rotting like a bad drain making you lame is inside you, alone in your brain. Your name is nothing. It's just the chaff around the grain.
I cannot argue with this. It is profound, and in all likelihood, this unexpected and shocking moment of insight will be the intellectual pinnacle of this idiot's life. I take a photograph of my can of Special Brew on my phone and send it to Sunita. Underneath it I write a text message:
All my life I have tried to be someone special and wanted to escape from what I am. But what do you do when you escape and it is cold in the new place you found and made? I am just an unemployed bum. I won't bother calling you. You deserve better than an Indian bum like me. I am drinking Special Brew in the park with Sati. Marry a lawyer or something. Best wishes, Clint.
Five minutes later I get a reply.
Dear Man With No Name;
I only gave you my number and smiled to get rid of you, you bastard. I meant to give you a false number but was so flustered to get you out of my sight that I gave you my true number by mistake. I definitely didn't expect you to text me. People like you make me sick. Get a job you loser. Don't contact me and don't think of me again. You're just a typical Indian male scumbag. I hate you.
I show the message to Sati. He sighs and says,
-Indian girls are getting feisty these days.
We drink another couple of cans in the park. The flowers flitter in an April breeze. The sense of the roots in the earth crouching, preparing the colours and fruits for summer is tangible, it feels like a chatter, a promise of something good and sweet to come. Some bumble-bees dance in the air for us. The traffic appears to subdue itself. I think for a moment of how it seems that life has no real epiphanies, no moments that alter it all, but rather is comprised of slow, steady gradations either upward or down, and there is no point trying to contain or explain it. It has no reason, just like my name has no reason. We are arbitrary, just like our names are, ultimately, arbitrary. We have no reason and meaning other than that which we provide for ourselves. And the man who has no name ultimately has no reason.
A dog waddles up to Sati and pisses on his leg.
I look at the leg, dribbling dog and bubbling piss, and think, 'My Life'.
Soon the sun will begin to set on another day of my sentence. It is a nameless and strange thing, my life, with no tides, high or low, just a soothing seep and drift. We rise and saunter past some girls who look at us disapprovingly. Then we hustle towards Rookery Road and make plans to burgle Sati's uncle's shop.
Harpreet Singh Soorae lives in Birmingham, England. A selection of his short-stories will be included in an anthology of new writers to be published by Tindal Street Press in August.
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The image on the front page of the site is a rendering of a found image of a street scene in Handsworth by Arnab Chakladar.