Free The Taqwacores by Michael Knight

crashed at our place. Him and Fasiq have been fighting over the better couch ever since.”
    “Why’d he get off the 90?” I asked.
    “Who knows,” Jehangir replied. “But it’s Amazing Ayyub, you know? Nothing makes sense with that guy. He’s a homeless, probably now jobless bum who makes an ass-clown of himself but it works for him. He can wipe his ass with just his bare hand and girls would say ’wow, he’s so interesting, so unique!”
    “How do you think he would have done out there in California?” I asked. “You know, with the taqwacores?”
    “They would have eaten him up, bro. He could have been the next big thing out there.”
    “Why?”

    “Because he’s Amazing Ayyub! Look at ’im. He’d be the Taqwacore Mahdi.”
    Rabeya occupied the porch recliner when we got home, burqa’d up as per usual. “Salaam alaik,” said Jehangir as we walked towards the house.
    “Wa alaik,” Rabeya replied. She had an open bag of marshmallows in her lap.
    “Amazing Ayyub fuckin’ spit on some jocks and deserted his job.”
    “Jesus,” sighed Rabeya, weary and free of surprise. “Oh, Yusef—I almost forgot, when you guys were out Lynn came through looking for you.”
    “Really?”
    “Like him, specifically?” Jehangir asked.
    “Him, specifically,” Rabeya replied, taking a marshmallow and slipping it under her niqab.
    “Did she say what she wanted?” I asked.
    “Just said to give her a call,” she replied while chewing.
    “That’s cool.”
    “I think it’s time for prayer,” said Jehangir.
    “Which one?” I asked.
    “Zuhr, I think.” He looked up at the sun. “Anybody got a watch?”
    “It’s Asr time,” said Rabeya.
    “Oh. Shit, if I fall asleep wake me for Maghrib.” With that Jehangir went inside. Through the screen door I watched him go upstairs. Rabeya took another marshmallow and put it up to her hidden mouth.
    “Did you know,” I said, standing by the recliner, “supposedly—I don’t know, I guess they say that, um, marshmallows are made with pork gelatin?”
    She leaned over and punched me hard in the stomach.

    Amazing Ayyub came home and said he didn’t know if he still had a job because he never made it back to the gas station. Mentioned some upcoming medical experiments he could sell his body to for quick cash.
    The sun went down. I made the du’a my father had taught me. Jehangir was knocked out in his room; I’d wait to hear his input before calling Lynn.
    Sayyed had given us a prayer timetable from the local masjid to stick up on our refrigerator. When Maghrib came I went up the stairs, first to Rude Dawud’s room on my immediate left. I knocked, then opened the door to see Albert standing tall waving his arms around and preaching rapidly on Babylon as Dawud sat at his desk.
    “Rude Dawud,” I said, “man, it’s time to pray.”
    “I’ll be right down, brother.”
    From there I went to Umar’s room and knocked. He opened the door with salaams.
    “Wa-alaikum as-salaam,” I returned. “Time for Maghrib.”
    “Al-hamdulilah, brother.” The Kashmir and Jammu flag hung in the distance behind Umar’s right shoulder.
    And then to Jehangir.
    Knocked once, no answer. Knocked twice. Knocked three times. “That’s the sunna,” said Umar behind me. “Knock three times, that’s it.” Umar went to the bathroom to make his wudhu. I opened Jehangir’s door and went in.
    First thing I saw was Jehangir on his stomach, sprawled across the bed. The second thing was a three-by-five American flag on the wall behind him, right next to a cloth wall-hanging of the Masjid Haram in Makkah. Then there were the assorted expecteds: Sid Vicious poster, fliers for taqwacore shows he had collected out West, tacked-up photos of old and new friends all jumbled together in a jamaat that couldn’t happen on this earth because Jehangir
had traveled so much, the characters of his story were spread out too far and wide.
    “Yo,” I said. “Time to pray.”
    “I had a dream I