From: tam@tam.esd.sgi.com (tam nguyen)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: A short story
Keywords: samuel
Date: 10 Sep 92 23:25:09 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.

A Short Story
=============

I am done with dysfunctions and dysphlexia. What is dysphlexia? If you
told a teenager that unless (s)he is 21 years old, (s)he can't have
sex, when (s)he has just mutated into teen-dom, at age 12 years and 1
pico-second, and then if the teen asked you back: ``Can I carry a
condom until I am 21,'' then you've witnessed dysphlexia. Sounds
eerie? Then you haven't met the Rolling Meadows Teens of Chicago. An
urban legend goes as: ``Fire spitting dragons fly above movie theatres
and oriental restaurants.'' Time to update it. ``Fire splitting
dragons fly passionately above the heads of Rolling Meadows
teenagers.'' The dragons are like the Damascus sword. Anyway, what's
my scoop? The scoop is, I've met a teen of Indian descent recently.
Let's call her, for the rest of the article, Abra.


I met Abra in a Taco Ball in front of Big Kahoonas, a local flesh bar,
where ID's are checked at the entrance as a precaution against aliens
from the outer space. It was 11 p.m. and Abra was barely cheerful. Her
eyes were red and the gait was saying, ``Take me to a bed and drop dead.''
She was with a friend about her age, probably late teens. They were
smoking cigarettes as though tobacco was going to be rationed the very
next day. Or George Burns has left behind a will saying, `mix my ashes
with tobacco leaves and spray all over the earth.' I know they were
inside Big Kahoonas, before coming to Taco Bell, and drank beer there.
How do I know? Because I saw them.


It's her friend who noticed the Indian nexus, probably by the action
of nicotine on her barren neurons (Pavlov would've named such a
phenomenon ``born again neurons to experience life with dependency'').
She issued a glance of recognition in my direction and made up a smile
for the sake of her Indian friend, who would've bought her several
beers that evening.

The lady from the east wakes up to this naked-teeth reality, visible
only in some people's grins, and condescends to look in my direction.
At that time I would be clearing the drip of molten cheese and red
taco sauce around my moustache, which was hardly a Freudian hint, even
for a Pavlovian neuron. So she would've quickly turned her head away.
That's the American way. You would use anything deprecating to
blackmail, subjugate, exploit, and if possible surrender your sexual
opposite, no matter whether you had sex or ever had sex for that
matter. Polaroids were invented just to catch such moments. But, such
a thinking is paranoid, which even I will agree.

So I step up to mike. What mike? ``Ahem, are you gals from Rolling
Meadows?''  ``Yeah, so?'' ``I saw you in the Big Kahoonas and thought
you were bootlegging.'' ``What's that mean?'' ``Did you see
Untouchables?'' ``I know there is Unforgiven and who is that
California guy that acted in it...I forget.'' !!How can you, when you
don't even know? Then, Clint Eastwood would've been a better gentleman
that I was!! (Bangs are my thoughts folks just as inside parans are
the words by my alter-ego. Just kidding.) ``So which school you gals