The Eyes of   Poloma

She called me again last night. We talked for an hour.

“ I  kicked Cory out a week ago. He still comes by,  tells me how much he loves me. I am over that nonsense though. There is no way I am getting back with him”.

I used to date Dee about five years ago.  Then she hooked up with Cory. Moved   out of town with him. Now Cory is history. Cory gave her a baby. The little girl is about a year old.

Now she wanted to get back with me. It seemed that way, anyways.

“Come to Poloma next weekend. I want to talk to you for hours like we used to” She had said.

It was a very little town. First I couldn’t even find Poloma, Missouri on   the Yahoo map. I had to do a lot of zooming to get   directions.

Five hours from my house, I was driving through some very pretty country in the Ozarks. The landscape reminded me of  the forests at the Bihar-Bengal-Orissa border. Red earth, bubbling streams, little cute waterfalls, ravines and small hills covered by dense vegetation. The trees were different, but they covered   every inch of   land that was not farmed. This place would be fabulous in the fall, I thought. The maples, the walnuts and the oaks would be blazing with color!

The road was really hilly and twisty for the last twenty miles. Finally, after a sharp bend, the town came into view. Population: 3037, a sign said. There was an old Courthouse and a cute old library on the main street. I saw a sign -  King Motel: Clean rooms, and went straight to the hotel office.

A strong smell of spices hit me as I got in the lobby. I felt happy. Desis are everywhere!

These desis were a little different though, as I soon found out!!

There was an elderly desi gentleman at the counter.

“Bhattacharya?” He said as he ran my credit card through the machine. “ From  Kolkata?

“We are from Gujarat” Grandpa said “We had this motel for twenty-five years”

“What brings you here? Business?”

“No. just visiting a friend”

“American girl? Not some Kahlua (a derogatory term desis use for blacks), I hope.”

“Why not marry a desi girl? You look old enough to settle down” He added

“I was married to a desi girl. For fifteen years.” I wryly informed him.

“So find another one. Don’t fool around with American whores. Look at what clothes they wear. Butts, tits – you can see them all. Shameless bitches. Sleep with anyone they want. If you go to an office, the secretary screws boss, screws janitor, and everyone in between.”

Some office he has been to!

I tried logic.

“ Umm.., there are nice women here. They just wear different clothes. And they date to find a good man to settle down with.”

“Hell no,   this country has no families. Brothers and sisters,  fathers and daughters, banging all the time.”

According to him, America was a country of sex-crazed humanoid rabbits, I guess.

I was a little annoyed, a little amused. Apparently,  twenty-five years in America hasn’t done a thing for grandpa.

I went to Dee’s place. Saw her daughter for the first time. Baby Lana looked just like her mom.

“I want to be with you" She said "Cory still shows up here unannounced. He will freak out if he sees you here. Let’s go to your hotel room”

We talked a lot.  We had a lot of catching up to do. Pretty Lana was teething. Fussed  all night long. We took turns holding her. And we held each other. I wanted to do more than talk. Dee  teased me, naughty girl! Showed me a lot of cleavage that night! But that was it! You can not make love with a teething baby next to you who starts crying every   so often.

I could see the eyes watching us  in the morning. A   desi with his housekeeping cart rolled along as I was talking to Dee outside my car. Grandpa’s  son passed by with a clipboard in hand,  apparently inspecting the rooms. A sari-clad woman darted across the parking lot.

After I took her back home, I came back to take a shower. First I went to the hotel office to get some coffee.

Grandpa was there. Beaming.

“That’s a fine young chick.” Grandpa said. “ Is she cheating on her husband?”

“Nope, she broke  up with her boyfriend.”

“All night  long. Baap  re. Was it worth it?”

I didn’t answer that.  I was getting mad.

“How much did you pay her?” Grandpa was relentless!

“Look you moron, if I was paying her, I would get a babysitter for the night so I can be with her.”

“You should have, then you would get your money’s worth.!!” Grandpa added!

Needless to say, I took  a shower and left the motel in a hurry.

A few blocks down the road, there was a Quality Inn,  an international chain for moderately priced hotels.

A middle-aged woman was chewing a cud of tobacco at the counter.

My credit card went through. But she wasn’t satisfied.

“Can I see two forms of picture ID?” She said, slurping tobacco juice.

I gave her my driver’s license and my staff card from my university.

“Hattachahacha” (That was how she pronounced it, anyway) She said “ Interesting name. Are you from Eye-raq?”

“Nope, from India”

“Oh, the dot-people. But, you don’t look like the dots, they are darker than you.”

“ What do you do here? Do you go to school?”

I don’t answer that. My staff card clearly said “Professor, Department of Mathematics”. Apparently, that did not ring a bell! Anyway, I was glad that she knew where the dot people came from!

The town of Poloma, as you may have guessed by now, was inhabited almost entirely by hillbillies. Many of them were very large. It seemed like one out of three people were obese. We are talking  more than 225 pounds, some even bordering on 350 pounds! Apparently, they did not like people who were different. Perhaps because I was  a slender 150 lbs., or perhaps for some other reason, I remained  an object of scrutiny for the duration of my stay in Poloma!

Dee and I went to lunch at a local Bar-B-Q place. The eyes continued  to stare at me! Hard! Dee’s plate of pork ribs was delicious. Mine was burned, for some reason.

After lunch, we went to Wal-Mart for some baby  clothes and stuff. The  eyes, obviously, were right there, burning my back. At the check-out line, a teenage girl behind me could not contain herself any longer.

“Hey, where are you from?” She asked

I told her.

“Is she your girlfriend?” She pointed to Dee holding little Lana

“That’s not your baby, is it?” She asked again. Man, these folks were nosy!

Finally, I took my car to the car wash. The drive through the winding roads put a lot of grime on  my car.

I dropped Dee and Lana at the convenience store  across the street to get some drinks and chips.

I had to stand in line at the car wash. I started  cleaning my  floor mats.

“Hey, nice car” This was from a young man ahead of  me on the line.

“Where are you from, dude? Mexico?”

I told him, again.

“Just passing through? How do you like Poloma?”

He seemed like a nice friendly young man. Finally, a decent person. Or, so I thought.

“Very nice” I said  “Poloma is charming”

Dee  had come out of the store by now. She smiled and  waved at me. I waved back, signaled to her to cross the street and come over to my car.

“Holy Shit!” The nice man said, “That’s a fine young chick! Are you with her?”

“Yes” I was waiting for what was  coming next.

“Jesus Christ! You are one  lucky dude! How much are you paying her?"

“Don’t spend all your money on her, dude!” Was his parting advice, as the car ahead of him moved out and he started his car   to go into the car wash bay.

I was done with Poloma!

“I can’t take this anymore.  Lock up your place. Let’s drive to St. Louis where people are more civilized. Or, they are too busy to care about others. Whatever. I would bring you back here Sunday night.”

I sped through the  twisty and curvy roads out of Poloma. St. Louis was about  ninety minutes away..

“Watch your speed” Dee said “I don’t want you to wreck”

“Sorry” I said as I slowed down  “The four-lane turnpike is coming up shortly. The last forty miles would be a breeze.”

I felt a lot better as we hit the turnpike. I could joke again, thank God!

“You are the prettiest woman in Poloma” I .said, smiling.

“Hey! That’s not a compliment! The chicks in Poloma are all ugly!” She said, laughing.

“Let me rephrase that. You are the prettiest woman I have ever seen” I said as I leaned to the side to kiss her.

“Watch the road, loverboy! She said as she  kissed me back.

Little Lana was  happily cackling in the car seat at the back.. The teething   pain had stopped, for now.

In spite of the eyes of  Poloma, this turned out to be a nice trip, after all!