Tavoos

by Jon Doughboy

In the foyer there’s a majolica peacock the size of a punch bowl shimmering inertly and full, stuffed to its decorative brim with nail clippings and you say, as you open its back to show me, “They’re my father’s, he keeps them, I don’t know why, don’t ask me why, he’s disgusting, isn’t he disgusting?” and I don’t have time to respond because this is the first time I’m meeting your parents and your mom is in my face suddenly, pores pancaked with foundation, an artificially beige clown, eyebrows penciled in stark and black, saying “Admiring our little Tavoos, are you?” and I say “Admiring might be too strong a word” because I want to be polite and assume she’s talking about the nail clippings which have to be the real conversation piece here when she adds, “Tavoos is Farsi for peacock, dear” and you pull me towards a mohair couch that I try to plop onto but it’s the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever sat on, must have iron filings for stuffing, so I sit ramrod straight as my ass goes numb and your father comes in and plants a long, disgustingly long, extravagantly long and wet and slurping kiss on your right cheek, far too close to your mouth for my taste but I chock this up to a cultural difference and he says, “We’re having lambchops, tender, tender, chops, like meat cookies,” then he asks me, “You like lamb, don’t you?” and I nod even though I don’t because I don’t want to appear close-minded or provincial though I also think I am provincial and what of it? I like my little province, I’m even proud of it, and maybe I’m not so much close-minded as particular, selective, and that’s an admirable trait, isn’t it? Because this provincial boy had the good taste to choose your daughter, sir, I want to say, but instead, I nod like a sycophant and listen to your parents discuss the lambchops or badmouth me in Farsi, a language I’ve promised to start learning to show you that I care, to demonstrate my seriousness, and you say, “I’m not crazy, right? Isn’t he disgusting? I hate them,” and as you’re whispering in a rage, you’re also chewing your fingernails and spitting them onto the plush carpet floor and I want to get you the peacock, the Tavoos, and to lighten the mood I say, “Like father, like—” but you stop me mid-sentence, eyes burning with a complicated hate, for me or your parents or an inheritance you refuse to acknowledge, so I stay silent, listening to you chew your nails, and I think to myself, Tavoos means peacock, Tavoos pronounced like caboose, like spruce moose, like taught noose—well, look at me, I’m finally starting to learn Farsi.

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