Assimilation Sketch

by

Jay Antani

While the other fourth-graders buzzed about the classroom, restless for the last bell to ring, Vik kept to his desk and pondered his latest pencil sketch of Spiderman. In this one, his hero swooped onto the page on his web-twine, one leg poised magnificently to deliver a deathblow.

Alone yet strong, vulnerable yet full of purpose, Spiderman deeply appealed to Vik. And, beneath his costume, was Peter Parker--as much an alien in his world as Vik now felt in the midst of a gang of white American kids, grinning and goofing with each other in a language that bullied his brain and perplexed his tongue.

Vik tilted his head, turned his drawing this way and that, a displeased smirk on his lips. All of Vik's sketches of Spiderman so far suffered from the same flaw, a simple one, Vik was sure. It just hadn't revealed itself yet.

The webbing of the costume looked okay, so did the two prescient, gleaming eggs of Spiderman's eyes. No, whatever it was, it had to do with the hood. It looked lifeless, a stumpy thumb afloat in white space.

Vik put his pencil away and fished out his wallet. It had been his grandfather's wallet, but it was Vik's now, given to him the day he left India two months ago with his parents. It was plain, brown, and had a strap to button it shut. Its leather smelled of Ahmedabad's dust, its motor-rickshaws and Fiats, and the sandalwood incense of the Ganesh temple that he and his grandfather would walk past in mornings towards school.

Vik listened to the oily creak of its leather as he played with it in his hands, and he remembered Sunday mornings, sitting beside his grandfather, cross-legged on the living room cot. His grandfather, a cup-and-saucer of chai in his hand, would read aloud from the Ramayana storybook--a phantasmagoria of ten-headed demons, warrior-kings and Vik's favorite, the island-leaping Monkey God. Vik remembered leaning against his grandfather, borne aloft on the waves of his rich, deep voice. Occasionally, he looked up and caught a glimpse of his grandfather reading from the book through his black spectacles and stroking the gravelly, heroic stubble along his chin.

That's when the revelation hit. Putting aside the wallet, Vik picked up his pencil and drew a smooth, curved line to form the lower half of Spiderman's head. He needed a chin, and that was all! Suddenly, the drawing felt complete. It lived! It became one with the Spiderman of his comic books--the ones he pored over after school each day, adoring their pictures without quite managing the steeplechase of their words.

Just then, a hand reached in, snatched the wallet. The squeak of sneakers, the scraping of a bumped desk, and chortling noises followed. Joe Eldridge -- pudgy, freckle-faced, thatch-haired Joe Eldridge -- scuttling away in his fuzzy long-sleeves and patched-up blue jeans, snickering, had taken the wallet. Vik knew that Joe picked fights and beat up other fourth graders after school before the buses departed. More than anyone else, Vik wanted most vigilantly to avoid Joe Eldridge.

For a second, Vik tried to dismiss the theft: The wallet only contained his lunch ticket and 65 cents. It was nothing to embarrass himself over in a room full of strangers, nothing worth causing a commotion about. That would surely attract the teacher--Miss Marker's--attention. Let him go, Vik thought.  But he couldn't, he couldn't. As Joe marched off, flush with victory, Vik felt his grandfather going away with him. Everything he knew, everything he needed close to him was in Joe's throttling fingers. Vik could feel those fingers on his wallet, clutching the life out of it.

His heart thudding in his chest, Vik rose up and made towards Joe who, by now, had slithered back into this seat by the classroom door. He sat there, slouching, prodding at the wallet. Nearing him, Vik felt words escaping from his tightened throat. "Give it back."

Joe sneered, "You wanna get your butt kicked?" and he bared his gapped teeth. "Now get outta my face, Indian." He turned in his seat to his sidekick Danny--sinewy, smaller than Joe, with ferret-like eyes--who sat behind him. For Danny's amusement, he turned the wallet upside-down and shook it, torturing it like it was a wounded bird. "Dude doesn't even have any money in here," Joe said.

"After school, " Vik fumbled, and he felt the bottom drop out from under his heart and his stomach in freefall. Please don't cry, he urged himself, and he prayed that Miss Marker, seated at her desk not far away, chattering with two girls, hadn't noticed them yet. "After school, you give my wallet back."

Sliding his gaze back at Vik, Joe stood up slowly and hovered over him. "Tell you what," Joe licked his lips. "What'll you give me for it?"

From the hallway came the jackhammer-loud trill of the bell. The bell triggered a stampede of sneakered feet towards the door, and, soon, a cloud of squeals and shouts rose above bobbing heads.

Give him? Vik had nothing to give. What little he had he'd used to barricade himself against the tidal wave of homesickness that threatened to swallow him up everyday in America.

"I'll take that drawing," Joe said. With the hand clutching the wallet, he gestured towards Vik's desk.

Vik turned from the wallet to the piece of paper on his desk. His mind in a whirl of confusion and quick impulses, he found himself stumbling back to his desk and retrieving his drawing of Spiderman. Next thing he knew, he was offering the drawing to Joe. Snatching the paper out of Vik's hand, Joe began to inspect it.

Craning over Joe's shoulder, Danny studied the drawing too. He puckered his lips with curiosity, and his eyes bugged out behind straw-like bangs. Vik became aware of three other classmates. Having strayed from the exiting herd, they lingered at Joe's heels, wide-eyed with wonderment, all eyes fixed on Vik's artwork. Above the classroom's giggly shouts, Miss Marker's voice rose up to admonish someone about tying their shoes.

"That's even better than yours," Danny cheeped, wagging his fingers back and forth over the drawing. Scrunching his face, Joe jerked away Danny's hand.

"I'm gonna keep this one," Joe said, his tone softened, the rapacious glint gone from his eyes. Vik felt his heart swell, and, that moment, he reached in and rescued his wallet from Joe's hand. The wallet fell back into his hands as smoothly as water from a rushing stream. He started back to his desk, aware of the three astonished faces watching him depart.

Vik took a couple of steps, then turned to the little tribe. "Tomorrow," he bargained, pressing the wallet to his nose, "I draw Spiderman for each of you."

End