Children of Dust_ A Memoir of Pakistan - Ali Eteraz [65]
When Moosa and I were alone, I wanted to say something to let him know that I didn’t approve of her lifestyle and wouldn’t try to hang out with her again. However, to say that I would ignore her because she was immodest wouldn’t quite work, because that would suggest that I’d noticed her (lack of) clothing, which would mean that I paid attention to immodest women—and only wack Muslims did things like that.
“She’s ugly,” I declared. It was just as effective.
I soon got an opportunity to redeem myself in Moosa’s eyes. A Jamaican guy we knew came over to the dorm when he heard that Moosa had a DVD burner. He brought a bag full of discs with him.
“I’ll make you a business deal,” he offered, scattering his stuff on my bed. “I’ll give you a dollar for each one you burn, and if you want to burn an extra copy for yourself, that’s fine too. I have two hundred blanks on me.”
“You just want me to burn them?” asked Moosa.
“Yup.”
“What do you do with all these movies anyway?” I asked.
“I’m a distributor,” he said. “I sell them.”
The deal was struck immediately and the guy left.
“That’s a sweet deal,” I noted as Moosa popped the first DVD in and the computer started whirring. “I wonder if he has a copy of The Rock with Sean Connery.”
“Let’s see if he has Executive Decision,” Moosa suggested. “It has a Muslim in the story line, although like always they make us look evil.”
Suddenly the film came onscreen and Moosa let out a massive yelp. “Shit! It’s porn!” he exclaimed, clinging to the wall as if he’d been shot.
“Are you serious?”
I leaned over the monitor: sure enough, there was a gorgeous black-haired girl giving a blow job. Up and down, up and down. Her hair was so black it was purple. Up and down. The actress was stunning. Part of me thought that if Moosa was so scandalized, he should leave the room so that I could enjoy the goods. Rather than expressing what I really thought, I pulled back from the screen and took on a serious air, twisting my face into a disgusted sneer.
“That’s wack!” I said, reaching forward to flick off the screen.
“What are we going to do now?” Moosa asked.
This was my opportunity to demonstrate what a good Muslim I was.
“Give back the DVDs, dude.”
Moosa was reluctant. “Maybe I could just burn this set and not do anymore. I could keep the screen off as they copy.”
“Yes,” I said in a moralistic tone. “But it’s porn, and that’s haram. It’s like distributing alcohol.”
“I know,” Moosa replied. “But it’s not gay porn at least.”
“Good idea running loopholes with God.”
“I was just kidding,” Moosa said, cowed by my hard line. “I’ll give these back.”
We were now even, the two of us, after what had happened with Kyla.
Moosa Farid and I found a crew of brothers from the MSA to hang out with. We all took turns talking about how we’d never been religious before but were trying to become religious, now that we were “in the real world,” and we urged one another to confess salacious stories from our past.
Moosa went first and talked about how he regretted hooking up with some girl when he was a sophomore in high school. I went next and talked about how I had kissed Una, and how I regretted feeling tempted to go to the prom with a beautiful cheerleader, and how sometimes in class I used to touch the girls’ bare skin at the place where shirt and skirt separated. Our honesty spurred the others.
“I became wack in high school,” a tall brother named Aslam admitted. “I sinned. I sinned a lot. Bad sin, too. Ate pork. Got a blow job. Fingered a girl. Dated a blond. She was hot too. We don’t even need to talk about her, but I’ve got her picture if you don’t believe me. Looking back, I can’t believe that I was seventeen and sinful. Man, when Muhammad bin Qasim, the