Him, Me, Muhammad Ali. Randa Jarrar

He is drunk at work, drunk while we “make love,” drunk when he throws a dictionary at my belly and causes me internal bleeding. He is drunk when I am in the hospital waiting for a diagnosis from a doctor who scans my DOB and shakes her head. Drunk when I tell him the baby will be all right. That night, I have to drive home, and I look over at him when we’re stopped at a red light, see his Adam’s apple dance up and down, eyes shut, dark forehead covered in sweat. This is it? I ask myself, hating the government and financial aid rules, my reproductive system, his big dick, my father, and mostly, my God. Not just God, but the God, the one who wrote the book resting in the car-door pocket on my left, the book that my boyfriend erroneously skims from left to right, the book that provides Guilt big enough to make me want to marry this ape with several mental illnesses he does not plan on addressing any time soon. The light turns green, a sign from God, I decide, that yeah, this is it.

      James has no idea how broke we are, five days after the hospital bill comes. I pick up the phone and call the college library, ask them if I could come in and work. When he finds out that I got the job, twenty-five hours a week at $6.50 an hour, he puts his hand on my shoulder and winks. I say to him sweetly, “Habibi, ibn il-sharmoota. Yarab tmoot.” (My love, you son of a whore, I hope you die.) “What’s that mean, baby?” He wants to know, and I lie, “It means I’ll love you forever and ever.”

      So I take the job at the library, and he’s driving out to Jersey every day, which means I have to walk to the job at the library. It’s a lovely stroll, I must admit. Here are my favorite moments:

      1. Stepping in broken glass while wearing my ugly, pregnant-girl sandals.

      2. Getting mugged at knifepoint two blocks up from our apartment and having to give the kid my backpack, which contains three interlibrary loan books by Sahar Khalifeh, all in Arabic. He must have felt like one lucky motherfucker.

      3. Stepping in dog (or human) shit while wearing my ugly, pregnant-girl sandals.

      I tell James the walk isn’t worth it, and he says I should watch my step more. I say, “Yeah, that’s easy for you to say, you don’t have a three-by-two-foot addition to the front of your fucking body.”

      “You’re right, hon,” he says, one hand on my thigh and the other holding a Bud. “But I can’t afford not to work in Jers. I did get a weekend job at the scrap-metal yard.” He leans over and kisses me. His lips are soft and wet, and the more I look at him, the more fine the asshole seems. His eyes are a golden hue that always shocks me because it seems too light for his complexion. His hair, always five weeks too late for a cut, curls up in gorgeous black bunches. We make love, and the whole time, I’m yelling, “Habibi, ibn il-sharmoota. Yarab tmoot,” and the guy is moaning, “Yeah, you hot Arabic princess, baby, I love you too.”

      While I’m in the shower, the door has to stay open because I’m growing at an alarming rate. He shaves at the sink, which is the size of a small notebook, and I attempt to wash my nether regions. “I’m not Arabic,” I decide to inform him.

      “What, you lied about that, too?” he says in mid-shave, his razor, edged with white foam, pointing at me.

      “No, you moron,” I say. “I am not a language; if you must, you can call me Arab. But never Arabian or Arabic.”

      “Yeah,” he says, shaving his dimpled chin. “All right, so you ain’t a horse or a language. Got it.”

      I tell him I love him, and I really mean it, but that I need a showerhead thing because I can’t reach my pussy any more.

      He starts to come home from the scrap-metal job with a lot of cash. I don’t know how he’s getting it, but now we have more than just a jar of peanut butter in the fridge. He says he finds metal everywhere and the boss gives him money for it.

      “Where do you find this metal?” I ask him.

      “Everywhere, shit, there’s metal all over the place. If people only knew.”

      “What kind of metal?”

      “Like, tire rims, old roofs, window frames, aluminum siding, metal metal, anything. Then I take it to the scrap yard and Mikey gives me cash for however much it weighs.”

      “He goes by weight? Like gold?” I say.

      “Yes, like gold,” he says in a mocking voice and a sour face. “Now will you get me a beer?”

      There are long weeks when we have no money again. “It’s because there’s no metal anywhere; they must’ve caught on, those fuckin’ bums,” he says, staring off into the distance . . . well, not so much into the distance since our living room is pretty tiny. I think the beer in his callused palm is a Pabst.