Mowgli from Queens

Nuha Fariha

It was four o’clock on a very warm fall afternoon in the Seeonee Apartments when Baloo woke up from his day’s rest, scratched under his belly, yawned, and reached for his blunt. The tip had cooled and blackened, leaving ashy marks on the mahogany coffee table.

“What it do, Baloo?” he mumbled as he searched nearby for a lighter. Had it fallen between the folds of the broken-down blue couch? Or was it resting on the end of the tabletop, crowded with Taco Bell boxes and sticky Baja Blast? Perhaps it was hidden just behind the collection of old Dazed and Confused DVDs collecting dust on the bottom of the TV stand.

“Looking for something, Baloo?” Bagheera eyed the situation from the kitchen with an air of resigned bemusement before walking over with a fresh plate of baked cookies. “Maybe try just under your feet.”

“Ah ha! Thank you, old friend.” Baloo picked up the green lighter from the Mughal rug, relit the blunt, and, after a long drag, proffered the orange tip towards Bagheera.

“No problem. Just woke up from your hibernation?”

“Not a full hibernation. I just nap a lot. You know this.”

“Of course. How could I forget?”

“Forget your worries and your strife. That’s a song about the good life!” Baloo made his way around the table and down the cluttered hallway to the bathroom. “By the way, where is Mowgli?”

Without warning, the door to Apartment 313 swung open. Mowgli trooped in, lanky arms and gangly legs, his ruffled maroon uniform sweater wrapped around his hips. By now, he knew the layout of the apartment well, and he made himself at home on the couch after giving Bagheera a hug. Ever since Raksha had taken on that extra shift at the hospital, ever since Akeela disappeared, Apartment 313 had become home of sorts.

“How’s it going, man?” Baloo turned to offer Mowgli the still-lit joint. Wincing from Bagheera’s steely gaze, the thirteen-year-old solemnly shook his head.

“Is this your teaching, Baloo?” Bagheera sternly addressed. “I’d like to have a word with you. There’s no room in the apartment for these tricks.”

“Tricks?” Baloo scoffed. “Remember, Bagheera, he is very little. We have to show him the jungle ways.” He winked at Mowgli who was holding two cookies between his hands with a third in his mouth.

“The jungle?” the thirteen-year-old asked as he swallowed another bite of the still warm chocolate chip cookie. He had heard rumors of this jungle, just beyond the outskirts of Corona Flushing Park. It was rumored to be the home of the notorious Bander-logs gang, though everyone seemed to hush whenever he brought up the topic.

“Of course, Seeonee Apartments, the finest in the concrete jungle!” Baloo retorted. “I swear I say this to you every year and you never seem to remember. Come on, stop eating for a minute and recite it with me: This is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky. The Wolf that keeps it may prosper, but the Wolf that breaks it will die.”

“For the strength of the pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the pack.” Mowgli joined in. “Akeela used to say that a lot, but he never explained. Can you tell me?”

“Stop filling this boy’s head with nonsense, Baloo,” Bagheera chided, taking the now-empty cookie platter back to the kitchen. “And you, Mowgli, will not get involved in any of this nonsense. Now, did this so-called school of yours give you any kind of homework today?”

For the last two years, Mowgli had felt an itch on the back of his hand. For the last two years, Mowgli had been waiting for Akeela to come home. The two weren’t connected. He couldn’t quite explain it to any physician. Though his frazzled mother, Raksha, had tried all the herbal remedies from the Chinese pharmacy down the block, the itch persisted. Mowgli kind of liked it; the itch kept him company and gave the mother and son a ritual every weekend.

Every Saturday morning, Raksha would wake him up at exactly nine o’clock in the morning, still dressed in her baby blue scrubs from the night before. “Come on, we’re going to miss the train.”

The two would sidestep past sleeping bodies on the dimly lit staircase leading out of the concrete building, still adjusting to the brisk October morning. Outside, the brightly colored fall leaves painted a colorful mural for their harried jog down three blocks before climbing onto the F27.

“It’s just no use m’am. Oils, topicals, essences, we’ve tried them all,” Mr. Li shrugged as Raksha dragged Mowgli between cramped aisles. “Maybe it’s a family curse. After all, Akeela had a similar issue before he—” He quickly stopped talking when he noticed Raksha’s fierce glare.

“Thank you, Mr. Li. We’ll be heading home now.”

“Mama, are we cursed?” Mowgli asked Raksha during dinner that night. He continued to poke his wavy fries into the ketchup, not expecting Raksha to respond. The pile of fried halal chicken covered in its greasy paper casing sat between mother and son.

“Stop playing with your food. And no, you’re not cursed.” Raksha’s pointed teeth glowed in the dim lighting as she bit into the fleshy chicken blubber. It had been like this since Akeela’s disappearance; someone had replaced his cheerful mother with this silent, resentful, strict other.

“When will Akeela come home then? Is he lost in the jungle?” Mowgli tipped pulpy, dried ketchup back into the container. He asked, knowing the response would not be any different tonight.

“I don’t know, Mowgli!” Raksha’s exasperated tone softened as she took in the boy’s long serious face. “Hey, maybe we can watch a movie together tonight, something just for the two of us.”

“Okay. We can watch The Jungle Book!”

Raksha groaned but acquiesced. It was the eighth time this week, but for some reason Mowgli found comfort in the music, the colorful outfits, the characters’ quirks. He was obsessed with the jungle. She gathered up the leftovers and mentally took stock — more than enough to reheat for the following day’s dinner.

That night, under the glow of the TV, Raksha stroked Mowgli’s sleeping head. “Never forget this, Mowgli. You’re mine. Mine to me. No matter where you go, or what they may call you, you will always be my son.”

As he drifted off to sleep, Mowgli remembered his last day with Akeela. It was the perfect day, the perfect Eid. Raksha prepared the apartment the night before, cleaning and cooking all night, leaving the delicious scents of cardamom, cinnamon, and clove still hovering in the air. She took out the carrot halwa from the fridge to warm over the stove for Mowgli and Akeela’s breakfast, fresh parathas already on the tal on the stove.

“Hurry up or you’ll miss him!” she scolded Mowgli as he stumbled out, feeling excited to finally wear his new pyjamas and yellow kurta.

Next to the door, broad-shouldered Akeela laughed as he watched his son run around.

“Hey man, what happened to the morning greeting?”

It was an Eid tradition, to be blessed at the feet of both of his parents, one Mowgli secretly loved to do. He scampered to the doorway where his parents gathered side by side.

“May Allah bless you, my child.”

The rest of the day passed in a blur — they prayed in the community garden with all the other uncles and brothers from the Seeonee Apartments, visited Rikki Tikki and his cousins, challenged Baloo to a fujka eating contest, sang ghazals late into the night with Bagheera and Raksha. Mowgli hardly even noticed when Akeela went to answer the door.

“Excuse me, you’ll have to come with us for some more questioning,” a deep voice purred from behind the door. A flash of dyed red beard, a worried exchange between Akeela and Raksha, Akeela’s resigned shoulders as he steps out. He never returned.

In the dream, Mowgli stands paralyzed in the spot. He wants to scream, he wants to stop Akeela from opening the door, but all he can do is watch.

Outside of the dull red metal trailers of Richmond Hill High School, Mowgli chewed on the last warm bite of his pakora. Though he had grown up with these kids, he still kept his distance. With the disappearance of his father, he became even more withdrawn, choosing to spend lunch time in this little corner where he could count the cars and observe the playground shenanigans. Suddenly, he was pushed up against the surrounding chain link fence.

“Wha—” with flecks of spiced pea and potato mixture falling out of his mouth, the young boy looked straight into the hypnotizing green eyes of Shere Khan. The badge on his right shoulder caught the slim glint of the noontime October sun. Nausea crept up Mowgli’s throat as he recognized the exact shade of orange-red of the policeman’s hair.

“Stop asking about the jungle. You don’t want to know more. I can easily do much worse.” Specks of spit from Shere Khan’s mouth collected on Mowgli’s fragile collar. The boy felt paralyzed again. 

“What do you want from him? Haven’t you had enough? He’s already gone.” Raksha appeared next to Mowgli in her blue school nurse scrubs. Shere Khan backed off, leaving Mowgli to readjust his hoodie and backpack.

“You cannot protect him forever. The day you miss, your cub’s blood will run down my chin.” With that ominous warning, Shere Khan stalked off leaving Raksha to pull her boy close to her.

“You come straight home, okay Mowgli?” Raksha scanned Mowgli's inscrutable expression and noticed the red scratches lining his right hand. She feared the worst might happen tonight.

Later that afternoon, Mowgli urgently knocked on the door of Apartment 313, opened by a sleepy Bagheera in a black velvet tracksuit.

“Mowgli? You’re here early today—”

Mowgli rushed in, leaving muddy sneaker marks on the polished floors.

“How old is the jungle, Bagheera?”

Bagheera straightened up. “Mowgli, I thought we had put this nonsense conversation behind us.”

“I want to know.” He crossed his arms.

Bagheera sighed and took out two chipped mugs from a clapboard cabinet, placing two sticks of cinnamon into a pot of water.

“The jungle has been here since before you were born and it will be here after you die. The jungle is eternal.” She handed a mug of warm cinnamon tea to Mowgli. “You know, when I first met you all those seasons ago, Mowgli, I saw something in you.”

“That I’m weird? Why am I different from the other kids?” Mowgli took a seat on the blue couch, careful not to jostle the snoring Baloo.

“You are different. You are special. You are a thinker, just like Akeela.” Taking a sip from her mug, Bagheera held Mowgli’s gaze. “Listen to me, Mowgli. The jungle is a dangerous place. Yesterday, I was another panther in that cage. I bit, I scratched, I spent my life fighting. Until one day, I just stopped. Don’t fight, little brother.”

“Is that what happened to Akeela? Did he fight too hard?” Mowgli drank the hot liquid in one quick, biting swallow. “I want to know, Bagheera. This is my chance. I have to go to the jungle. I have to see it for myself.”

Bagheera sighed again and looked for answers at the bottom of her teacup.

With a vengeance, Shere Khan started to knock again on the door of Apartment 313.

“Yes, can I help you? I’m more likely to give help than to ask for it, you know.” Bagheera put down her Whole Foods bags to search for the keys in her black hoodie.

“Have you seen Mowgli?” growled the policeman, his mane of hair a menacing red in the hallways’ dim glow.

“Not since last night. And this is where I bid you adieu, dear friend.” Bagheera tipped open the door to the apartment to reveal a nonchalant Baloo laughing along with Matthew McConaughey, a blunt in his hand.

“Oh, hi there. Care to join me?” Baloo said.

Shere Khan glared before turning around. “Ok, give me a call if you do. Word on the street is that Mowgli is heading to the jungle, to the Ancient Ruins.”

Putting the grocery bags onto the table, Bagheera sighed. “The Jungle. Oh I hate to think about what will happen when he meets the King of theirs.”

“The Jungle?” Baloo paused the TV. “What’s he doing there? And why did Shere Khan want anyway?”

“They’re searching for Mowgli. You know that Shere Khan won’t wait. He’ll get Mowgli while he’s young and helpless. Just one swipe.” Bagheera shuddered, putting the Lactaid onto the empty fridge shelf.

“This is not good, Bagheera. This is very not good.” Baloo scrambled around the apartment, knocking over even more clutter onto the floor as he gathered his jacket and shoes.

“Ah, it was inevitable, Baloo. The boy couldn’t help himself. It was bound to happen. Mowgli is where he belongs now.” Bagheera dumped the sticky sweet brown remains of her tea into the sink. “We tried our best.”

“I have to go and rescue him. You stay here and keep watch with Raksha. With any luck, we’ll get to him before… well, before.” Baloo’s uncertain silhouette filled the wide door frame.

Bagheera nodded. “Godspeed, old friend.”

It was just past midnight when Mowgli stepped into the abandoned tire yard tucked away in a corner of Flushing Meadows Corona Park. “He-hello?” His meek voice reverberated off the tin shed in the middle as a light flickered on. A mixture of cold rain created a net of wet leaves on the ground. In the distance, he heard the howls of hungry dogs, though he couldn’t locate the exact source.

“Sometimes, fear is the only intelligent response,” a voice whispered from the far corner of the yard, coming steadily closer.

“Who— who are you?” Mowgli shivered and tugged on his hoodie strings. He was beginning to understand just how terrible his idea might have been.

“It’s me, Kaa.” His slit-like yellow eyes glowered under the moonlight. “Are you afraid of me?” Mowgli didn’t respond. “Say something or I shall get bored. And when I get bored, I get hungry.”

“What do you want? Why are you here?” Mowgli tried to keep his composure as Kaa slid closer and closer still.

“I am the jungle’s eyes. I can see the past and future. I saw chaos and darkness come onto our lands. I saw Shere Khan killing a man and breaking jungle law one fateful night. I saw the jungle place its hopes into the hands of a small creature the likes of which it had never seen before.”

“Wait, what? Shere Khan killed someone?” Mowgli gulped. He remembered Raksha’s tenseness around the orange-haired policeman earlier that day. He remembered Akeela’s sudden disappearance from his life, the quiet days that followed. His right hand began to itch again. “Was it my father? Was it Akeela?”

“WHO DARES DISTURB MY PEACE?” King Louie’s roar made the windchimes quake. Unbeknownst to Mowgli, the enormous monstrous figure had appeared before him with a small army behind him. “WHO ARE YOU?”

“It’s me, Mowgli! I have come to find the truth.” Mowgli squared his shoulders and stood taller. He would not be paralyzed today.

“Ah, man cub. We’ve been waiting for you to come. Took you long enough.” King Louie signaled for his henchman to circle the lanky boy. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”

Mowgli ducked as a lead pipe came for his head. Behind him, another nameless henchman kicked him, toppling the boy onto the slick ground. A bright spurt of blood colored the yellowing leaves. King Louie came up over Mowgli’s hunched frame, lifting his head between his hands. Mowgli’s soft brown eyes flickered open.

“Not very prepared today, are we?” He shook his head. “Let the dogs take out this trash in the morning.” He signaled to the henchmen to open the cages that surrounded the yard. From behind their cages, hungry canines continued to howl, shaking the rain droplets from their mangy flea-bitten coats. 

Mowgli began to lose consciousness. A blur of black and yellow drew closer. Unable to even raise his voice, he slumped over. Kaa lit a cigarette and, blowing out a puff, whispered over Mowgli’s face. “One day you will speak and the jungle will listen. What will you say then?”

As dawn broke out over the Bander-log’s yard, Baloo burst through the chain-link, the reverberations from his imitation Gucci sandals causing the rats to scatter amid the moldy stack of tires.

“Excuse me! Anybody here? Excuse me!” He bumbled towards the shed in the middle.

“WHO DARES TO DISTURB MY PEACE AGAIN?” King Louie re-emerged from behind the rusted tin shack, regal in his purple fur coat.

“Oh my gosh, is that you, King Louie? This is so exciting. The legends do you no justice sir. You are...truly...ENORMOUS. Look at all that fur. How...how majestic!” Louie’s henchmen, squalid and red-eyed, drew closer.

“Now, hang on,” Baloo continued as he held out his empty hands. “I’ve climbed a mountain to see you — taken the R25 train too — just to be in your presence. For me this is a dream come true.”

He spied Mowgli’s battered frame on the ground. “And I see that you have my little friend too. Whew, what a night you seem to have had. If you don’t mind, maybe we can resume this meeting at a later date.”

“Fine, you may take the man-cub this time. He’s not as amusing as others seem to say anyway.” King Louie held up a hand to stop his henchman.

As he lifted Mowgli’s limp body and carried him away, Baloo whispered, “You have never been a more endangered species than you are at this minute.”

“Baloo? Is that you?” Mowgli raised his head from the overly starched sheets. The hospital lights made his already gaunt face look paler still, casting a sickly glow over him.

“Hello, little brother,” Baloo took Mowgli’s slender hand into his own.

“How... how did I get here? What happened? Am I dying, Baloo? What happened in the jungle?” The boy began to take in the details of the room, Baloo’s concerned face, and the stack of unopened cookies on the bedside counter.

“Oh, that? Yeah, I saved your life. No biggie, I snatched you from the jaws of death — the COILS of death, if you will. Luckily they said it wasn’t too late for you.” Baloo’s bravado began to slip. “But Mowgli, you have to stop doing this, man. I can’t even sneak a blunt in here.”

“I just wanted to know Baloo. I wanted to know the truth. About Akeela, about Shere Khan, about everything.” Mowgli’s head began to pulsate again. “I... I found out some things from Kaa. Is it true, Baloo? Did...did Shere Khan really kill a man?”

Baloo sighed. “It’s true that Akeela did disappear the same time that the rumor about Shere Khan started. But no one, and I mean no one, has ever been able to figure out what exactly happened. And sometimes, Mowgli, it’s better to not know. It’s safer.”

Nodding, Mowgli opened up the roll of cookies. “Sometimes. It’s funny though, my hand no longer itches. Isn’t that funny?”

And he grew and grew strong as a boy who must grow and who does not know that he is learning any lessons and who has nothing in the world to think of except things to eat.