by Jim Klise
The Art
of Secrets
James Klise
ALGONQUIN 2014
At last, here’s one just for Kate.
According to Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, in Chicago, Illinois, “outsider art” can be defined as the “work of artists who demonstrate little influence from the mainstream art world and who instead are motivated by their unique personal visions.”
CONTENTS
ACT 1
Saba Khan, sophomore
Farooq Khan, U.S. citizen
Steve Davinski, senior
Javier Conejera, sophomore
Dr. Regina Stickman, Principal
Kendra Spoon, sophomore
Kevin Spoon, senior
Wendy Pinch, Department of Physical Education
Farooq Khan, U.S. citizen
Saba Khan, sophomore
Steve Davinski, senior
Steve Davinski, senior & Saba Khan, sophomore
Javier Conejera, sophomore
Ariel Ames, Department of English
Saba Khan, sophomore
Kendra Spoon, sophomore
Jean Delacroix, Department of Art
Steve Davinski, senior
Appraisal Correspondence
Steve Davinski, senior
Kevin Spoon, senior
Saba Khan, sophomore
ACT II
Farooq Khan, U.S. citizen
Dr. Regina Stickman, Principal
Saba Khan, sophomore
Steve Davinski, senior
Wendy Pinch, Department of Physical Education
Javier Conejera, sophomore
Kendra Spoon, sophomore
Ariel Ames, Department of English
Jean Delacroix, Department of Art
Steve Davinski, senior
Kendra Spoon, sophomore
Javier Conejera, sophomore
The City of Chicago Fire Department
Steve Davinski, senior & Saba Khan, sophomore
Kevin Spoon, senior
Saba Khan, sophomore
ACT III
Farooq Khan, U.S. Citizen
Dr. Regina Stickman, Principal
Steve Davinski, senior
Saba Khan, sophomore
Javier Conejera, sophomore
Jean Delacroix, Department of Art
Wendy Pinch & Ariel Ames
Javier Conejera, sophomore
Saba Khan, sophomore
Kevin Spoon, senior
Steve Davinski, senior
Dr. Regina Stickman, Principal
An Unnamed College Admissions Counselor
Louise Denison, International Fine Art Authentication & Appraisals
Saba Khan, sophomore
Acknowledgments
Reader’s Guide
About the Author
About Algonquin Young Readers
ACT 1
Apartment fire leaves four homeless
Fire and police crews responded to a fire that gutted a two-bedroom apartment in West Rogers Park yesterday. The three-story brick building was evacuated and no injuries were reported.
According to the Chicago Fire Department, the fire began in a first-floor unit at 6313 N. Artesian around 4:00 p.m. By 6:00 p.m., the fire was extinguished, although some smoke was still visible from the street. Smoke damage affected the units above, and the building owner reported substantial basement flooding.
Fire Department spokesperson Harry Manning said, “This was a small fire that did a lot of damage to one unit quickly.” Officials are investigating the cause of the blaze.
The building is located just one block south of Devon Avenue, an area that is home to a diverse immigrant community from India and the Middle East. Onlookers gathered to watch the fire crews at work, and some reported knowing the displaced family, a couple with two children, who had occupied the rental unit for over a decade.
“It’s only a tragedy,” said one woman passing the scene. “Some are born under a bad star.”
Another neighbor added quickly, “But this is a friendly block. We will look after this family and see they are cared for.”
Chicago Tribune, October 2
On the evening of MONDAY, OCTOBER 29,
Saba Khan, sophomore,
endeavors to record a few burdensome thoughts before turning out the light.
Today at school, when the social worker asked what was “top of mind,” I answered sleep. Still having a little trouble getting my stressed-out brain to shut down at night. I asked the SW if I could get a prescription—something temporary, only a few nights a week, to help to guarantee some zzz’s. I know these drugs exist. I’ve seen the TV ads with the glow-in-the-dark bug that flies around your bedroom at night + lands on your cheek while you dream.
The SW said, “I totally get it. I have something for you.” She swiveled around + rooted through a drawer in the cabinet behind her desk.
Sweet sleep at last, I thought. Yes. Bring it.
Glancing past the SW, my eyes settled on a delicate saint figurine that stands on her bookshelf. It’s pretty, white glass. The lady stoops forward slightly, her eyes looking up to heaven. Or maybe she’s looking up at the poster of the cartoon squirrel dangling by its tail from a tree branch. Underneath the squirrel, the words say, “Hang in there, baby! Forget about the nuts for now!”
The SW turned around + handed me . . . this notebook. She said, “You’re a strong writer, yes? So if you’re still having trouble sleeping, write down what’s on your mind. Whatever’s stressing you out. Write it all down, then put it away. You’ll sleep better knowing it’s all in the notebook rather than in your head.”
When I asked her if she’d read it, she was like, “No, the writing is for you, a place where you can store any worries until you feel rested + ready to deal with them. The important thing is, you seem to be doing fine, all things considered.”
That “all things” amused me. How impressive, I thought, that she has considered all the things.
OK . . . so I asked the SW for a magical, ethereal, glow-in-the-dark bug + she gave me this ordinary spiral-bound notebook. She hadn’t said the word “journal,” which was genius, because I refuse to journal. I’m no Anne Frank. Anne Frank did not have a laptop or the Internet—but then, ugh, neither do I anymore. This notebook is not what I wanted, but it is 10 o’clock already + there’s a long night ahead + I’m desperate.
So here goes.
First of all, people at school need to review some simple facts. Everybody saw us in the park, at the tennis courts. The coaches saw us. My teammates saw us. Witnesses have provided statements on our behalf. Can a person be in 2 places at once?
Let the record show: My whole family was at the park on the afternoon of October 1, watching me completely destroy my opponent from Fenwick, a bony white girl with a weak grip + no sense of play. It definitely helped that I was rocking the new shorter haircut, the ends curling just past my shoulders, so that when I wore the yellow/red sweatband across my forehead, the girls laughed + said, “Look out—yo, it’s Wonder Woman!” I loved it. I grabbed my racket + owned that court. As everyone knows, Day 1 after a new haircut is the most powerful day.
Just like everyone knows that while I, Wonder Woman, kicked that Fenwick girl’s butt on the center court, way across town a fire destroyed everything in our apartment. I saw the pictures afterward. Our kitchen furniture looked scary—black + lumpy, like chicken wings that have been left on a grill for too long.
We lost everything, 15 years of stuff. Photographs sent from Pakistan + the jewelry Ammi brought in a cardboard suitcase when she + Papa first came to this country.
15 years of my family’s history, destroyed in under 2 hours.
4 weeks later, people are sti
ll looking at us funny. Nobody comes straight out + asks the blaming questions: How could you let that happen? How irresponsible can you people be? Or—who did you piss off? Nobody asks, but the accusations are plain on their faces. Sometimes I think people want to hold victims responsible for the bad things that happen to them.
Cartoon squirrel is right. Forget about the nuts for now!
[She puts the notebook on the floor next to the bed and turns out the light.]
[Forty minutes later, she turns the light on again and opens the notebook.]
Also: The newspaper described all of us—the whole neighborhood—as “immigrants.” We are Americans! I was born at Swedish Covenant Hospital on Foster Avenue. So was Salman. He’s only 6 + already he wants to be a U.S. Marine. Ammi + Papa did the paperwork, passed the citizen tests + took the oath. They probably know more about the U.S. Constitution than most parents at school. Papa splits Bulls season tickets with some guys at the factory, so he gets to see 5 Bulls games every winter. He’s obsessed! Meanwhile, Ammi loves other American games: Clue, Yahtzee, Pictionary, Pit. It was like a sickness with the mothers in our old building, this bizarre fever for playing box games meant for kids.
I admit, I do feel more American than them, if that even makes sense. Maybe because Salman + I are citizens by birth, we’re less traditional. They still dress like they did before they came here. I never wear the salwar kameez unless it’s a holiday or we have visitors from Pakistan. On school days, it’s fine with Ammi that I leave my dupattas at home in a drawer—in general, headscarves are not my personal choice—but I like having the option. When I take off my worthless school uniform, I dress the same as my friends—jeans, T-shirts, stretchy tops, even sweatshirts when it gets cold.
But I’m a good person. I work hard. I pray when I’m supposed to. I fast when the calendar says to. I try to be thoughtful, generous + respectful. My guess is, Ammi + Papa are as proud of me as they are of Salman.
Sometimes, like any of my friends, I have to negotiate. Last year, when I decided to join the tennis team, Papa pitched a fit. He didn’t like the idea of me going out in shorts, exposing my legs to the eyes of strangers. “You are 14,” he told me at the time, “not a little girl anymore.” Ammi convinced him to let me play. “It is good to be strong,” she reasoned at supper. Later she whispered to me, “Plus, when you win at something, it puts color in your cheek.”
Papa finally agreed, but only under the condition that I wear sweatpants when I play. He never liked the team T-shirts. “Too revealing,” he said. He always says that. Too revealing.
“Why is the T-shirt too revealing?” I asked him. “What do we have to protect? My sacred elbows?”
He smiled. “No,” he said. “Not your lovely elbows.”
“Scaly ugly elbows!” teased Salman from the sofa.
I was super annoyed at both of them. “What then? What is there to protect?”
Papa took off his wire-rimmed glasses, as he does whenever he wants us to stare into his big dark eyes + really listen to him. There are times when Papa looks at me + he seems to see more than just me. “Your innocence,” he answered finally, “as well as the innocence of others.”
I fully acknowledge that Ammi + Papa have taken huge risks + sacrificed everything for us. + sure, when I play tennis, I wear a loose T-shirt to please them. But I’m not the same as them. Sometimes I don’t want to negotiate. The fact is, I’m not the innocent kid they think I am.
If only they knew.
In a way, the fire might have been the best thing that ever happened to me. But maybe even writing that is t.o.o. r.e.v.e.a.l.i.n.g.
On THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, after receiving the keys for a temporary new home,
Farooq Khan, U.S. citizen,
stops by his mosque so that he may speak confidentially to the imam.
“America, land of opportunities.” That’s what we always heard in Pakistan, yes? All the opportunities to be found in America. Khawla and I laugh about it now, somewhat bitterly.
Opportunities, for example, like years of hard work in a factory, where I put shampoo bottles into shipping boxes.
Opportunities like the flames of a merciless fire that take away all the things we save my wages for.
Opportunities like tennis?
I did not play tennis in Pakistan. The first time I held a tennis ball in my hand, it was one my daughter, Saba, brought home. I did not expect its texture to be furry and soft, like an odd, neon-green fruit.
I went to all of Saba’s tennis matches. If my daughter was going into the world wearing nothing but a T-shirt, I wanted the world to know I was there to protect her.
My wife went also, because she loves to watch Saba play. Saba is graceful, strong, and smart on the court. I admit there is something soothing about watching the ball sailing back and forth over the net; nothing but the sound of the ball hitting the racket, then the court, and the squeak and scuffle of rubber-soled shoes. When two opponents are playing well, it is almost like a prayer to watch. Excellence in all forms honors God.
Khawla and I went to every match, never missing one. We sat on the hood of our Ford sedan and watched from the parking lot, while our son, Salman, read library books in the front seat, or played with the dashboard—played at driving, a normal childhood fantasy, yes?
As the tennis season progressed, summer ended and fall arrived. The trees that surrounded the courts turned yellow, orange, and red—fiery, you could say. In retrospect, like an omen.
At the last match, against Fenwick, my wife found a vending machine and purchased a small bag of barbecue-flavored potato chips. We shared them during the match. “Delicious,” we agreed.
“Not as good as Pringles,” Khawla decided.
We eat the junk food. Sometimes we watch American television. Every Fourth of July, we picnic with the rest of Chicago at the lakeshore, waiting for the pinwheels and starbursts to appear over the water after dark.
Until the fire, we made our home in a two-bedroom apartment in a handsome brick building with a courtyard. A crowded, safe area, not trendy or expensive. Streets filled with people like us who came to this country in search of the best opportunities for our children.
Opportunities—how we clung to that word! It is a dreamer’s word.
After Saba’s tennis match, we drove back to that apartment, with no idea of the inferno that awaited us. Khawla and I discussed supper, listing the ordinary, usual things that would be waiting for us in the cupboard. “If only we had more of the barbecue chips,” I said.
“Children, listen,” my wife laughed, “your father is a cowboy now.”
We approached our street, and my daughter remarked that the air smelled funny, like smoke from a fire.
A police SUV blocked the entrance to our street, lights flashing. And then we could see, farther down the block, the long red trucks.
My son became excited, overly so, as he does whenever he sees a fire truck. “Fire, fire!”
We parked and got out of the car. Our eyes followed the direction of the fire hoses, first to our own building, then incredulously to where our own windows would be—but here oddly open, black-rimmed, bold dancing flames inside. No longer like windows, but like three smoky wood ovens in a row.
The blaze was contained to our unit, everything charred in a flash. The rest of the building was spared, except for the smoke and water damage.
We had nothing left. Nothing but our rusty old Ford. Even Salman’s books were from the library.
The fire marshal told us the fire might have been started on purpose. “It burned so fast,” he said. He used the word arson. He promised an investigation.
Arson.
My wife spoke up, saying this was impossible. We have no enemies in this country, nor in the one we left behind. We have only friends.
Her words were proven true by the swift offers of places to stay, friends from this mosque, neighbors. The community gathered around us, lifted us. Overnight a calendar was created, a weekly schedule of beds
and meals, opportunities to donate food and furniture, all for us. I can hardly believe it myself, but starting tonight my family will sleep in a high-rise, luxury condominium with a view of Lake Michigan. Temporary, of course, but free, donated by a family at my daughter’s school. The angels have cared for us.
And yet despite these blessings, or perhaps because of them, I have lived in a kind of misery these past weeks. I am a man who may have lost much more than the physical objects in his home.
[He removes his eyeglasses, placing them on the table between him and the imam.]
I have been carrying a secret—a burden I want to share with you now, so that this black spot on my conscience may be removed and I can pray again with a clean heart.
When the fire marshal told us that the fire might have been started on purpose, a sickening dread washed over my body, a suspicion that with all my strength I struggled to conceal. My eyes met the eyes of my son, and I realized with a paralyzing fear the likelihood that the arsonist was not an enemy to my family but my own innocent boy who has fallen prey to the seductive power of fire.
There were two occasions at tennis matches, our backs momentarily turned from him, when Salman had toyed with the cigarette lighter in the car, poking bits of paper and sticks at it to see how quickly smoke would appear. We could smell the smoke from where we sat. His mother slapped his fingers and took to keeping him on the grass where she could watch him.
Then late one night, only a week before the apartment fire, I found my son sitting in our kitchen, using a wooden match from the stove to set fire to a plastic toy soldier. He claimed to be repairing the figure, refastening its head by melting the plastic. I scolded him, but did not punish him for it. The Prophet said that a strong man controls his anger. But now I worry . . . this series of small events, this dangerous fascination . . .
In front of the fire marshal, I could not voice these fears. I cannot even discuss this suspicion with my wife. The fire has distressed the woman enough.
Today a member of the fire department visited me at the factory, accompanied by a police officer. They were friendly to me, but the news was not good. The initial investigation has confirmed that the fire was started with rags soaked in turpentine. Arson.