Watched

by Marina Budhos

  No text from Ibrahim. None. A-hole. The shock of what he did is starting to fade. What’s left is a slow-burning fury. A hurt that claws. I almost delete his number. Almost.

  Ibrahim has been off lately. Showed up with glazed eyes, as if he’d spent too much time online. No car. Said it was in the shop, but it was weeks, maybe months. Sat in the diner, nursing his coffee for an hour. One day he showed me a stapled pamphlet. The kind given out by those black dudes in robes selling incense, saying the world is coming to an end.

  “You look like crap,” Taylor says as I walk over to the car. Today he’s back in his Oxford shirt look, pale hair silvering his arms.

  “I feel that way.”

  “Rough time?”

  “Yeah. I told my parents. Like you told me to.”

  “Come on.” Taylor pats the front seat. “You need a little sustenance. Then we’ll take a look around.”

  He’s not alone. Sanchez is in the back, hunched against a door. He looks as unhappy to see me as I am to set eyes on him.

  “Where?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  I glance over my shoulder. My parents will be worried. Or maybe they won’t. Ever since I told them about graduation, there’s been a deep freeze. Abba isn’t talking to me. Not all weekend, even when I unloaded cartons and flattened the cardboard, even when I spent a couple of hours with Zahir making a Lego castle and then taking him for ice cream after. None of it helped. Maybe they’re glad when I’m gone. Out of their way.

  “Okay,” I agree.

  We don’t talk much, which I like. Not a peep from Sanchez. Even better. Taylor drives with one hand resting on the wheel. He’s got a fancy watch, not like the fake one that Ibrahim bought off the Chinese subway guy. You can tell by the gold—it’s not cheesy yellow, but a deep rich color—what Amma eyes in the Indian jewelry shops on Seventy-Fourth Street but can never afford. Taylor’s got taste, class. He didn’t drop a crumb when we ate, sleeves cuffed just so. Doesn’t talk unless he has to. Doesn’t need to prove himself.

  I like this kind of moving. Soon we’re skimming along the West Side Highway in Manhattan. Tall, old-fashioned buildings on my right; to my left runs the Hudson River, small whitecaps ruffling the surface, a low cluster of buildings in Jersey. For a couple of years now Abba’s been talking about moving to Jersey—Paterson, where the store rents are cheaper. Maybe get a real little house, some yard for Zahir. Somehow they never get ahead enough to make it happen.

  In front of us rise the towers of the George Washington Bridge; for a second panic flutters in my throat. Is he taking me across? Then we’re circling off a ramp and steering down narrow streets, where people are straggling out onto the front stoops, in front of the stores, or leaning on cars.

  Taylor parks where a cluster of teenage boys gathered just outside a deli. A couple of them clutch beer bottles in paper bags; others are just smoking. He turns off the ignition, cups the keys in his hand.

  “Come on. I need to pick up some fruit.”

  To my surprise, I like following Taylor. He’s cool, appraising. His gray eyes tick off everything: the guys on the corner, from their sneakers to their hoodies, fists stuffed into their pockets; the crumpled bag someone tosses into a garbage bin. He’s moving as if this neighborhood, this whole city is his court. He can glide on its polished surface, sink a ball when he wants. Even when he’s buying a bag of grapes from the vendor on the corner, I can see how he keeps a part of himself detached, observing.

  “I see kids like that all the time.” He jabs a thumb at the group on the corner. “That one, he’s been in for a year. Or that one, goofing around? Tells me he’s going to get his GED. You know where they’ll all wind up?”

  “Where?”

  “The usual. Flipping burgers. Working for some moving company. In jail with a girlfriend hounding them for child support.” He adds, “Is that what your parents brought you here for?”

  I stiffen, press my shoulder blades back. Lectures bounce off my mind like dull coins. Then I remember Mrs. D, her chapped lips and wet eyes. Me and my friends, we used to hang on the corner near the high school like these guys, idling, not sure what to do. Lorenzo dropped out before senior year. Feroze got in trouble for fights. Were we so different?

  I’m relieved we don’t go anywhere just yet—we sit on a bench and watch some other guys play pickup on a court. Their shoulders shine with sweat; their feet blur on the pavement. Taylor’s watching closely. “A lot of kids, they go for the easy stuff. Want to be heroes.”

  I laugh. “Like my little brother. He’s big into Spider-Man.”

  “Nice.”

  “Yeah. He’s great.”

  Relaxing, he stretches his arm across the back of the bench. “Hero,” he muses. “What’s that mean? There’s a lot about being a hero that’s really chill. It’s not the big, flashy stuff.”

  I nod.

  “Invisible. That’s the best kind.”

  A light drizzle starts and suddenly Taylor’s up, gazing at me with those steel-gray eyes. I feel cold and warm at the same time. And I wish, for some crazy reason, he’d just brush his hand on my shoulder. Just once.

  —

  Now we’re parked in Woodside. The rain is heavy, beading on the windshield; it’s like being sunk in a submarine. I’ll never get out of here. Never step out of our crummy elevator and see my family’s shoes neatly lined up by the mat, or hear Amma calling to my father over the spray of dishwater. These guys have me. They may even drag me back to the station house, book me for real this time.

  The worst part is that moment between me and Taylor is gone. When we returned to the car, Sanchez sat in the front seat, with shaved head, his mocking grin. “Missed you.”

  I gave him a curt nod, slid into the back, and we took off. The traffic was a sluggish drip down East River Drive, Sanchez popping grapes into his mouth the whole time.

  “How come we’re here?” I ask.

  “The Heights, that’s our old beat.”

  “And now?”

  Sanchez swivels around. “Now we get to hang in my neck of the woods. Bay Ridge. Flatbush. And yours too. Corona. Flushing.”

  A wet, clammy dread spreads through my stomach. The air in here is too close, smelling of damp carpet and the grapes Sanchez polished off. I know what they mean: The Muslim neighborhoods. The kebab houses. Mosques. Little shops, like my parents’.

  Taylor and Sanchez have grown alert, intent on a figure that’s hurrying across the pavement in the drenching rain. We’re across from a low clutch of small stores that slope down the street in a saggy row: a Chinese restaurant, a hair salon, a real estate agent, and an electronics place.

  “See that kid?”

  Through the bleary glass, I can see a boy breaking down cartons by the curb, kicking them flat. He looks to be about my age. Black hair cropped close, almond-colored skin.

  “His name is Omar,” Taylor explains. “He works in his uncle’s shop. Took a trip to Yemen last year. Recently he’s had some interesting activity online.” He points to a door I didn’t notice before, leading to the second floor, where there’s a sign that reads CYBER CITY. MONEYGRAMS. INTERNET CAFÉ. “That’s where he does his business.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything!”

  Sanchez turns to me, as if anticipating this. “Of course it doesn’t. But we can’t be too sure, can we?”

  “But that’s—”

  “Profiling?” he says.

  I hunch deeper in the backseat, furious.

  Taylor bends toward me, speaking in that soothing voice. “Look, that’s where you come in, buddy. You can tell the difference, right? Between just a little playing around on a site? And someone interested in the real thing.”

  “This is crazy!” I burst out. “This stuff doesn’t go on. It’s just made up, from TV and the news and—”

  “How can we know?”

  “You can! I can just tell—”

  My words hang there, like an arrow that’s met its target, air vibrating,
feather quivering. Ding. Of course. That’s what they want me to say. I can tell. The boy has since gone in, drawing his hood up over his head and dashing inside. I’m glad for him. I can’t stand our gaze on him, greasy with need.

  Taylor says, “You’re smarter than you let on, Naeem. You’ve got real skill. You’re observant. You catch things. Like that whole acting bit. Stuff doesn’t go by you. That’s why we like you. You can join a team. Be part of something bigger.”

  “Bigger?”

  “You’ll be feeding us information to send on to the unit. Not many kids your age get to be part of such an operation.” He says this as if he’s recruiting me for basketball.

  “What if they find out?” I ask quietly.

  “Who?”

  “My friends. My family.”

  He grins broadly. “That won’t happen, will it?”

  I feel as if I’m going to throw up. I think about Thirty-Seventh Street, how I can see every one of those shops—the dosa place and paan seller, the men on the corners selling religious books and prayer rugs. The Mexican guys who sit on crates in the back of the bigger outfits, shaking dirt out of the spinach leaves. Or the girls over at the waxing and threading salon, who tease me all the time about my hair. How could I sell them out?

  And this kid, breaking down cardboard out front. That could be me, doing the same for my parents. What’s the difference?

  But maybe not. Maybe that day when I walked over and stared at the detective, I opened a door. I didn’t want to stay crouched, hidden. Me and Ibrahim standing outside some restaurant watching people eat twenty-dollar salads, wanting in.

  Why not? Abdul, son of a friend of Abba’s, joined the force. I see him sometimes, strolling down the block, hands on his holster. Every time we hear about a terrorist attack, we all feel it: the dread and surging nausea. Abba stares at the TV, his eyes wet. “This is no religion,” he mutters. For days after, we walk around shaky, hushed. As if even the air could bruise.

  I can change that. Abba no longer in the slant of shadow, fearful, wary. No one asking questions at the store, frightening him. Money.

  We don’t move. We don’t stir. The bag of grapes is crumpled on the floor. The rain finally stops, leaving slick streaks on the windows.

  “So what do you think, Naeem?” Taylor asks softly.

  I can’t answer. My eyes drill down to the carpet under my feet.

  His voice is low, soothing. “You want to turn your life around?”

  A rustling noise up front. When I lift my head, I see it’s Sanchez, wearing a stupid grin. I feel sick; I want to heave onto the carpet.

  This is the moment Sanchez has been waiting for. In his fingers: a little plastic baggy with my weed.

  “I found this the other day. In your backpack.” He massages the thick plastic, showing the weed I sometimes keep in there, the stuff I got from Ibrahim. “What do we have here? Not just a dime bag, huh?”

  My throat’s gone tight as a straw. I can hardly breathe.

  “Shoplifting is nothing. But this—” He shakes the bag once more. The dried leaves and seeds jiggle. “More than a dime bag.” He tips his head. “And with shoplifting too.”

  “Not good.” Taylor.

  At that moment, I realize this isn’t a choice. Not really. If I say no, I’m back to the station house, where I’m just another Queens kid with goofy ears and a lousy high school transcript, pressing his thumbs on ink. Not for shoplifting, either. Possession. No small thing. I’m the failure son, calling Abba, his face worse than before, lines of grief running down his cheeks. Amma in the back of the store, silently crying.

  It’s a test. Multiple choices. Like Ibrahim tilting in that three-way mirror, selves flashing back in a Joseph Abboud suit, silk-smooth, fine. I can see a different self walking down Seventy-Fourth Street, shouldering past the cop. Loose, easy, in the know. Just like Taylor. Professional. Gauging, noticing. I can feel my college ID in my pocket. Handing over the crisp bills to my father—twenty, sixty, four hundred, five hundred. New spice grinders and pots stacked up in their store.

  “Naeem?” Taylor whispers.

  I look at him, my insides pulpy raw. He’s broken my heart. He’s smashed me into hundreds of pieces and put me back, so I’m glued to him. He knows that. I know that too.

  He doesn’t even have to ask.

  —

  It’s two hours later when I step outside, the light embryonic, pale. The rain has rinsed the streets clean. My knees are spongy-weak; my eyes can barely filter the signs. I don’t even know what neighborhood I’m in. A thousand years have passed. I’ve been in the Bat Cave; I’ve been abducted by aliens, sent back down to earth, Queens.

  The streetlamps click on. I test my walk, as if navigating an ice patch, make my way to a bodega. I scan the shelves, choose a bottle of Snapple. At the counter, I check out the cashier. Her iPhone sits tilted on the counter as she combs through Facebook. The lit screen gives her face a bluish tone.

  I see this hole-in-the-wall through their eyes: the phone cards they sell for five, ten bucks. “You know about that place?” I point to the worn stair leading up to a travel agency.

  She looks puzzled, pushes the Snapple toward me. “Why?”

  “Nothing.” I feel stupid. I was just practicing; I don’t really know what I’m doing.

  As I step outside, up ahead, I can see the elevated 7 line, a new train threading past, the windows checkered yellow.

  Now I understand about the magic of Before and After, poof. The passport man, Hernandez, he understood. You’ll do well here, he said, as if I were already a made-over kid. And that’s what I did. For a while.

  But this is better. You make a mistake. Like Peter Parker, you touch the radioactive spider. You become web-footed, springy-fast, reaching into other people’s lives. I can part the way, like Taylor. I slide out my MetroCard, hustle up the stairs like everyone else. From here, I can see the tops of buildings, right into other people’s windows. A girl is turning on a faucet. Soon I’ll do so much more. The train arrives, doors sliding open.

  I step into the car. I am a watcher now. And I am new.

  FILE

  Subject: Muslim Youth United Conference

  Address: Queens College

  Approximately two hundred in attendance (list attached)

  Locations

  • Conference scheduled for 6/22 from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. MYUC has in the past had discussion groups of Kitab At-Tawheed. Has also brought speakers who are members of radical groups.

  • Of note Yousef Kased at previous conference. He mentioned that he traveled to Saudi Arabia recently.

  • Two students of Yemeni background discussed recent trips to Yemen.

  Vehicle Information

  Make: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

  Model: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

  Year: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

  Color: _ _ _ _ _ _ _

  Body Style: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

  Plate # _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

  State: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

  (e.g., 4-door, 2-door)

  • List attached.

  I barely sleep the night before my first official meeting with Taylor.

  All night, I turn, sweaty sheets corkscrewing around me as it really hits me, what I’ve agreed to do. I feel like a tuning fork; the slightest touch vibrates, shocks me awake. The streetlamp right outside the bedroom blinds burns in a furry orb. I keep looking over at the mound of Zahir, worried that I’m keeping him up. But he’s fastened tight into his dreams—one hand fisting his blanket, the other arm flung off the side of the bed, tender wrist turned up.

  What are dreams? They are voyages, movement. We are superheroes, all of us; our skin glows. We have magic spines. We are Captain America: put in a capsule, waking as someone else, with new muscles. This is what I want: to feel instant change. The scales of my body shimmering, magnetic. But the morning of my meeting with Taylor is nothing like that. I wake to a dark room, drawing fretful breaths.

  These last weeks of school have b
een rough. We’re in that start-and-stop time of exams and half days, everyone wilting down to the finish line. I’ve tried to block out all the talk about graduation and parties. I’m not going to the ceremony, of course. Amma’s special shalwar stays in the closet, green-blue and glimmering like a frozen waterfall. Abba barely speaks to me, except to give orders about taking out the store garbage or stacking the newspapers. I just swallow it down. I’ll make it up to them. I will.

  Now it’s early morning and the streets seem scrubbed raw, like me. A hard light facets the storefronts. The half-moons of dirt under my fingernails scraped clean. My cheeks sting from shaving so close, and from the Ralph Lauren cologne I bought on the street once for Abba.

  “That you, Naeem?”

  I turn around. To my surprise, it’s my old friend Jamal. He looks the same: hair in a ’fro that makes him look like a skinny dandelion puff.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “Got a job a few blocks away. Rebuilding computers.” He gives a sheepish smile.

  It figures. That’s what Jamal did all the time, in his parents’ basement. He’s so good at that stuff, that’s why he got into an engineering school.

  “You?”

  I flinch, just a little. “Gotta meet someone.”

  His eyes slide around me, like he’s trying to fill in the picture of the friend who disappeared on him. I remember once, when Ibrahim came and picked me up, he asked, “That kid your friend?”

  “Sometimes,” I replied.

  “Funny-looking dude.”

  “He’s okay.” I’d felt a swipe of guilt. But after that, it’s like I couldn’t go back to Jamal. I know he wondered what happened, why I dropped him like that. But I couldn’t explain it. And there are some things you can’t go back to.

  Now he checks his iPhone. “I should go. My boss clocks me.”

  “Yeah.”

  It’s a weird thing about friends: who’s on top, who’s on the bottom. Used to be I definitely thought I had it over on Jamal on the coolness scale. But now, watching him head down the block to his new job, with that little hike to his step, it’s me who feels smaller, left behind.