Peer Pressure
by Benny Mon
Part 1 of 2by Benny Mon
It was, to say the least, hot as fuck when we moved to Lamakan. After 19 hours on a plane, with a five-hour layover in Doha between legs, we flew into Amoharl International Airport, and I swear I was getting a sunburn through the window even when we were still thousands of feet in the air. And I have brown skin! When I looked out the window, all I could see was desert. Nothing but sand from here to infinity. Amoharl was on the other side of the plane - I wouldn’t be able to see the city till we landed - and there was literally nothing else on the island. I don’t have to tell you that all that sand didn’t exactly make me feel any better.
Sand or no sand, my parents and I had gotten in a fight before we even left LA, but that was normal at the time. As soon as they told me we were moving to some random island halfway around the world for a year, it was a rare day we weren’t in some kind of fight. Of course, they were always happy to remind me that if I’d applied myself in school, I could have been getting ready for my sophomore year of college, I would have a place of my own, wouldn’t be dependent on them, blah blah blah. The fact is, I didn’t like school, I was never good at it, and my parents are so rich I’ll never have to work a day in my life. So what was the point of going to college? It was their fucking fault they wouldn’t just give me an allowance and let me move out and do my own thing. I think they thought if they held me hostage long enough I’d get my act together and get a job and make some money. But I had zero fucking interest in that.
God, I’m sorry. My parents and I, we get along better now, but I was so angry back then. The bottom line is that we weren’t talking when we got off the plane, walked through all those freaky, white corridors in the airport, (it’s like a mental institution), got waved through passport control, (I told you we’re rich), and got to the place where a driver was standing with a sign that said “The Puris” on it. Walking from the terminal to the limo felt like 10 second in an oven, but then we were inside the car with the AC blasting.
Across from us was my dad’s business partner in Lamakan, Sami Tamkin, a guy who’d grown up between LA and Dubai but only been in Lamakan for a year. “Call me Sam,” he said, and he smiled. He smiled a lot. He reached over and shook my dad’s hand. “Shiv, good to see you.” He took my mom’s hand and literally kissed it, and she even fucking giggled. “Christina, a pleasure to meet you.” And then he looked at me. “And you must be Sarah.” I shook his hand, I said hi. I was polite.
Sami opened a cabinet and pulled out a silver tray with three glasses of a milky brown beverage.
My dad smiled. “You brought us chai.”
Sami waved a hand and his eyes widened. “Better than chai, trust me. They call it shey, so there might have been some tea in it at some point, but it’s mostly milk and sugar and some other spices I’ve never heard of. It’s amazing.”
“Ah, that’s ok,” my dad said. “We ate on the plane.”
My mom nodded.
“I’ll take one,” I said. Sami handed it to me, and when I took a sip I felt like the world go purple and my head spun, in a good way. Not literally, you know, but it was so fucking good. I downed the rest of it in two or three gulps, and Sami smiled wide and went to refill my cup from a little glass pitcher he had.
“Really, Sami,” said my dad and putting up his hand, “one’s enough.” I could feel his eyes burning into the back of my head.
“Nonsense,” said Sami, pushing past my dad’s hand and refilling my glass. “This is what any Lamakni will give a guest when they arrive, and it’s impolite to leave an empty plate or glass un-refilled--especially a young lady’s.”
“And you’re an American - an Emirati at best” my dad shot back. “Not a Lamakni. You haven’t even lived here a year.”
“My friend,” said Sami, putting the pitcher back in the cabinet, “you’re not going to last a month with that attitude. Almoharl may be a cosmopolitan place, but they are proud of their traditions here. If you want make their money into even more money - and that’s what they’re paying us to do - then you’re going to need to get used to the culture, assimilate a little. And, listen, it’s not forever. You’re only here for a year, right?”
I have no idea if they kept talking about this. I just tuned it out while I sipped on my second glass of shey. It was delicious, and I knew I was driving my parents crazy, and that was enough for me.
But I did notice that there was almost no one on the street - just cars, not even buses. And the occasional poor person who was so skinny they looked like a skeleton, and most of them weren’t even moving at all. They just sat in the shade wherever they could find it and tried to stay still, or they walked around in drapey clothes with a hood that made it impossible to tell if they were even a man or a woman. This was even worse than LA.
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