Sahil Mehta: THE COMMUNIST • Cleaver Magazine

Flash by Sahil Mehta
THE COMMUNIST

The crimson tattoo, a hammer and sickle, was located about an inch south and half an inch to the right of his belly button.

His penis, when enlarged by interest or intrigue, would point at the tattoo so that when I went down on him, it felt like I was declaring my allegiance to Marx. A Che Guevara poster looked approvingly upon our communion.

I started calling his penis Little Lenin, although there was nothing little about it.

Caleb Masterson III picked me up at the Student Union where I worked at the cafeteria.

I was used to feeling invisible and hideously ugly in my maroon uniform. So, when Caleb beckoned me over, I assumed he wanted me to clean up a spill.

He casually asked me for my number, as if enquiring about the state of an elderly neighbor’s petunias. I was equally impressed and taken aback by his bold ask to deny him my number, even though I wasn’t out then.

It didn’t hurt that he looked better than anyone I had conjured up in the safe luxury of my dreams.

Caleb believed that all socio-economic institutions were corrupt instruments of capitalist imperialism, so we couldn’t label or define our relationship, which was theoretically open. However, I’m quite sure that I was Little Lenin’s only caller back then, gentleman or otherwise.

Caleb and I did well together.

Caleb’s mother tracked me down once. She countered her implicit acknowledgment of our relationship by warning me about my less-than-salubrious effects on her only son. She forbade me from talking to him.

Caleb told me to ignore her advice but to pretend I was capitulating to her demands. He needed his allowance until equality and fraternity ruled the world.

Three years later, our undefined relationship had begun to resemble my parents’ marriage: I did the lion’s share of domestic work and Caleb pretended he didn’t notice any disparity in our contributions. Perhaps, our relationship resembled his parents’ marriage as well, minus the dozen maids of course, but privilege’s silken blinders seemed impervious to the cold light of an egalitarian dawn.

Then I graduated from college. I accepted a well-paying job that promised a ticket out of a lifetime of borderline impoverishment.

Caleb and I began to drift apart. He broke up with me a few months later. My suit and tie were snuffing out his revolutionary fervor, he said. Little Lenin refused to rise to the occasion. The still dark color of my skin and my history of economic dispossession weren’t enough to satisfy Caleb’s proletarian lust. I had become too successful to validate his communist cred.

I ran into Caleb recently. He has a potbelly but still retains vestiges of the alabaster god I once worshiped.

He has a husband and two children. He showed me a picture of the twins, designer blond and expensively beautiful.

He votes Republican these days.

I wondered if the hammer and sickle survived the fall of communism, but I didn’t ask.

Sahil Mehta was born and raised in India. He currently lives in Boston, MA, where he works in the hospitality industry. His work has appeared in Foglifter Journal, Sixfold, and other publications. His debut novel will be published by Rebel Satori Press.