Watched

by Marina Budhos

  That day Abba showed me we must find ourselves wherever we are. And it will be all right.

  In the next days, I’m like a twin engine boring down, homed. I put in a few hours at the leadership camp. Then I’m back to checking out mosques, helping with the charity, delivering soup and pasta boxes. I’m sure Taylor’s guys, filing away their reports somewhere in their maze of offices, must be getting a kick out of my pics. Woo-hoo. Serious stuff here. Campbell’s Chicken and Stars soup. Some kind of message in that?

  There are a lot of people coming and going. I even ask, “Have you seen a pale, skinny dude?”

  One of the volunteers, bent over a box, straightens up. “He goes to Queens?”

  “LaGuardia.” Then I add, “Sometimes.”

  He shakes his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  When I’m done, sometimes I stick around for evening prayers. Or I walk, doing circles around the area. Used to be this neighborhood was considered kind of rough. But a few years ago, people began buying up houses. A few of Abba’s friends tried to get him to join them. Now there are Bangladeshi restaurants and markets. A family we know owns a big brick house with two apartments, pulling in a good rent.

  I text Ibrahim. Nothing.

  A string of twenty-two messages, all unanswered. I don’t care. There’s a slow burn in me. I want him to know I’m not the same Naeem. Not the dumb sucker who just followed along where his words led. Not the kid who dropped his old friends or took the heat for some stupid shirts. He owes me.

  I walk and walk, even in the heat, staring up at those satellite dishes perched on roofs, trying to see right through the milky nylon curtains. Maybe because my parents always talked about this neighborhood in hushed tones, I’m sure there’s trouble.

  Somewhere, someone’s on the Internet, on the wrong site, going the bad way.

  Somewhere in there is Ibrahim.

  —

  Sunday afternoon: quiet in the store. The only sound is the rip-rip of cardboard—my X-Acto knife slicing open taped boxes. The air here is dim, a rectangular slab of light just barely reaching me in the back.

  The new supplies have arrived—paper and nice pens, five dollars for two; folders and Post-its and envelopes. Amma had a new sign made up: School & Office Supplies Here! She’s bought rotating wire racks with baskets, for highlighters and Scotch tape. The copier will be installed on Monday.

  Abba stands outside, fiddling with the new backpacks on rollers that they display in front of the store, a metal chain looped through their handles. A little girl walks by with her grandmother, who often comes into the store. Abba warmly puts his hand on her head as she starts to ride the little mechanical painted pony next door, her skirt flaring around her knees.

  I promised myself to stick with helping in the store so it will be ready for Monday, when we have a rush. There’s just this: the sound of cardboard flapping open; another package slid on a shelf. Later I’ll finish my essay, the last one for this course. Like prayer, my work for Taylor, the help with Taslima. I’m fastened to something small, steady.

  I don’t hear the text-ding the first time.

  Let’s hang. I.

  I pause, packets in hand. The tips of my fingers tingle. I stare at the unfinished boxes. No. I’m not letting him do this to me.

  You there?

  Another box. Each like a spike of energy, my fix.

  Abba peeks his head in the store doorway. Even with the sunlight streaming in, backlighting his head, I can see a slight furrow in his brow. “Everything good, Naeem?”

  A shot of guilt. “Yes, Abba.”

  “You’ll get it done today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bhalo,” he says. Good.

  I set the X-Acto knife down. Just a message. Yeah.

  The answer comes in a flash. Come hang.

  I hesitate. Where?

  The phone lights up: Exxon Station. Hillside Ave. Near 170th.

  My ears pulse. My palms are wet. Abba will kill me. But I can’t stop myself. I’ve got to get out of here, back out on the damp and glaring streets, finding Ibrahim. Finding what I need to know.

  Even from across the street, I spot him.

  A thin figure, hopping from car to car at the full-service island, sliding the credit cards. Ibrahim pumping gas? The guy trying on a suit three months ago is in a mechanic’s blue coverall, smiling as he hands a card back to a driver.

  “Ibrahim,” I call.

  When he turns around, his face shows gladness, worry. “Asalamu alaikum,” he calls.

  “Alaikum asalam.”

  “How are you?”

  He embraces me, but I go stiff under his thumping hands. “Good,” I mumble. “You?”

  As he steps back, I see that his hair curls a little in the humidity. A patch of discolored skin shows near his ear, which I never noticed before. “It’s a bitch. Friend of mine broke his leg, so I’m filling in.” He shakes his head. “Serious setback.”

  On the subway over, walking the blocks from the stop, I raked this over in my head. How I’d slug him in the jaw, throw him flat on his back. But it’s weird. Ibrahim’s greeting me as if we hung in his car last night. He’s happy to see me.

  “Wanna get a bite? I can take a break now. Catch up.”

  “I guess.”

  My heart is thumping hard as I follow him into the little office, where he’s stripping off the mechanic suit, fast. It’s dirty, stiff with grease, sitting in peaked curves on the floor. Underneath he’s wearing the same kurta I saw that night at the mosque over a pair of jeans.

  He calls to another man over in the mechanic shop, an old Punjabi, who shuffles forward with slow, wary steps. The man mutters something in Urdu, which I can’t understand; they argue a few minutes. “My friend’s uncle,” Ibrahim explains as we head out. “He doesn’t know how to close out the shift. Gets confused about the credit cards sometimes. Doesn’t want me to leave him here.”

  “I can come later.”

  “No, no, man. That’s what sucks about being a manager. Gotta do everything!”

  I feel dubious that Ibrahim is a manager, but it’s as it always was—the half-truths, a custardy glide of words. Don’t fall for it, I tell myself.

  We walk several blocks to a joint where we order chicken and rice. I’m watchful, trying to figure out who he really is. He seems like the same old Ibrahim, leaning tight toward me, laughing as he grabs my Fanta soda and sucks it down. His eyes are soft. “How are you?” he asks, worried, as if I’m the one who disappeared off the face of the earth.

  “Okay.” There’s a nervous thrumming in the pit of my stomach, like a snare drum. I keep waiting for him to say something. About that night. The mall. Leaving me stranded. Or what’s kept him from calling.

  “What’ve you been up to?” he asks.

  “Summer school.”

  “That’s a drag.”

  “And you?” I line up the words, bead by bead.

  His eyes flare. “Lots. Me and my uncles, we had a business we started. Great stuff—”

  “What was it?” I remember him once mentioning an electronics and phone shop out on Long Island—they’d found some good space in a strip mall where the rents were cheap. “Wireless?”

  “Wireless!” he laughs. “No, no.” He wipes his mouth. “You know family politics. They’d rather spend more time arguing with each other.” His knee starts to bounce up and down the way it used to. He can’t stay still. “That’s why I’m going out on my own. That’s how to do it. Seize the opportunity.”

  Beneath the patter, he seems anxious. The plans that used to flow from him come in spurts. And his skin has that sallow color, as if he’s been indoors a lot, under fluorescent lights. He looks unwashed, the collar of his shirt frayed.

  “So you’re working at a gas station?” I chew my meat slowly. It’s tasteless.

  He blushes. “For a while.” He lapses into silence, takes a few stabs at his plate. “That’s the thing, Naeem. It’s not just what’s in front of you. It
’s what you do in the long run.” He offers a vague smile. “I’ve been reading, Naeem. Bettering myself.”

  “Bettering?”

  “It’s so easy to get seduced by the here and now. Temptation. Material. Stuff.”

  Like shoving three stolen shirts in my backpack? I want to yell. This is just Ibrahim weaseling out of things, as he always does. The fake Ray-Ban sunglasses he loved to draw off his face. Turning in that suit, jerking the cuffs by his wrist.

  When Ibrahim shuffles his feet and jumps up from the table, something breaks inside me. This is what he always does. He dances from one place to another, and I follow. I go with his story, ride along. I reach over, grab his wrist and hold it tight. “Why didn’t you call?”

  He looks at me, surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “I was texting you for days.”

  His eyes go foggy. “I told you, it’s been crazy—”

  “What about the last three months?”

  I can see he’s taken aback, even a little scared. I still have his wrist in my grip. I’ve never shown this kind of anger to him. But I am not letting him go. “That night? In the mall?”

  He flinches. “Oh yeah. That.”

  “What were you doing? Putting those shirts in my backpack?”

  He shakes his head, helpless. “I told you. I wasn’t myself. That wasn’t me.”

  “It was you!” My chair bangs backward. A few of the other people in the restaurant pop up their heads. I tense. Don’t make a scene: Two Muslim-looking kids. What will they think?

  “It was a test, Naeem.”

  “A test?”

  “Yes,” he murmurs. “We all have tests.” He gives me a bleary smile. “Now it’s all good. You’re here, aren’t you? You’ve found your way to me.”

  I want to punch him across his jaw. Blurt out everything—the cops and the drive, Taylor and Sanchez. But I’m shaking so hard it’s like I’m sick with a chill. The guy behind the counter—a heavyset Caribbean man flipping meat on a grill—gives us a warning look.

  “Are you going to let me go?” he asks weakly. He pulls back his wrist and massages the skin. Then he shakes his head, as if I’m the crazy one.

  —

  We walk in silence. Me with my hands thrust in my pockets. I’m so angry I can’t speak. How is it that none of it matters? I don’t matter. He doesn’t care. About me, about our friendship. He never did. Who was I kidding? I’m a tagalong who used to show up at the smallest text.

  He’s still got that Ibrahim energy—dancing forward on the pavement, then back, then forward again. But it’s like I’m coming out of a fog. A watchful sheath comes over me. I notice things. The beard. The inward look of his eyes. The odd way he shrinks back when a girl passes us in a tank top and cutoff shorts.

  “You pray?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Not every day.” He adds proudly, “Haven’t touched weed. Beer. Nothing.”

  I take this in. Don’t say a word.

  As we get close to the station, he puts his hand on my shoulder. “Later, man. Let’s hang soon.”

  “I don’t have your number.”

  He pulls out his phone and I notice it isn’t his old phone. It’s the kind you get at Target, preloaded, for fifty bucks. An instant later his number dings in my in-box. Soon, bro! Peace be with you. Then he rolls his eyes as if he’s under some great burden, managing the station.

  The Punjabi man meets Ibrahim halfway onto the lot, his elbows angled back. Even from here I can hear him yelling. This isn’t about some goof-up with the cash register. He’s furious. I watch for a while. I’m not letting him go.

  —

  A day after I saw him, Ibrahim’s number didn’t work. Two days later I go to the gas station; Ibrahim’s not there. Now I know I have to follow through. Stupid mistake: leaving without even finding out where he lives. I want to throttle him. But I’m staying on this.

  The Punjabi man is shaking his head. “Doesn’t work here. No more.” He makes a small motion, as if to brush Ibrahim away.

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “No work here. Don’t know.”

  I walk away. How does Ibrahim do it? Always one step ahead of me. Then I stop, rub my temples. Focus. I go back to the gas station. I will not let him slip away from me like this. Not again.

  The old guy is sorting bills at the register. His fingers look dry, wrinkled.

  “I know you know,” I say. “There’s a problem. I need to get ahold of him.”

  The man hesitates.

  “A big problem,” I add.

  Sighing, he lifts up the plastic tray and fishes out a scrap of paper. “He does not stay with family. Some apartment.”

  The handwriting is jagged. The paper glows like it’s radioactive. Like I’m going to disappear, poof, the instant I touch it.

  It’s not even a real street. More a narrow driveway made tight with an SUV and a livery car. I just barely scrape past the side-view mirror to find a little door on the side of the house. No buzzer, so I rap my knuckles. From across the way, over a metal fence, a woman who is pinning up her laundry stares at me. “Knock hard!” she yells. “They have TV on loud there!”

  Turns out the door is open, the hallway ceiling so low that the people upstairs seem to be walking right on my head. At the very end there’s another door, also open. Inside, a small room with a massive TV, filling the air with blue aquarium light. Everything swims before me seaweed-tangled. I can just make out a mound of DVD cases on the floor, a small table with a computer. And Ibrahim, sitting on a futon, his elbows on his knees.

  He looks up, his face creased in a tired smile. “Hey! How’d you find me?”

  “Hey.” I sit down beside him, hear the futon creak. “I stopped by the gas station.”

  His expression darkens. “That’s over.”

  “What happened?”

  He shrugs. “Crappy place. Not worth it.” He turns and I notice his eyes are bloodshot. I wonder if he’s been dipping back into weed.

  “Busy?” I ask.

  “Nah.”

  We sit there, awkward. I don’t like how he spoke as if he’s on some remote mountaintop, far above, peering down, me the kid. He’s trying to make me small. Doesn’t he know? I’m the one at the higher altitude. I jerk up from the futon, check out his belongings, loiter by the computer, try to see if there are any sites to note.

  “Wanna smoke?”

  He smiles. His teeth are small, yellow. “Weed?”

  “Yeah. Last I heard that’s what it’s called.”

  He gives a scowl, like the one he gave that girl on the street the other day. Then he shakes his head, wistful. “That’s not good, Naeem. You need to get your life together. Not put those poisons in your body.”

  My eyes rove the small room: a pizza box next to the computer, a few crusts furry with mold. Laundry mashed in a corner.

  “So what’s up with you?” he asks.

  “Same. School. Finishing this class. Next up is pre-cal. Then I can get my degree.”

  “Good luck with that,” he scoffs.

  I feel a burn. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “All that is bullshit. They just keep you like a little rat, chasing after nothing. What’s a degree but a load of debt? Colleges, universities, they’re just money machines selling thoughts you can have yourself. You know what they say. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, take classes.” Then he adds, “And those who really can’t do anything teach.”

  “My teacher’s really good.”

  This makes him curious. “She like you?”

  I flush, thinking of Professor Emily jumping around the room, how she’s not afraid to write across the top of the page You know better. You can do better. Proof! Slowly I’m working at it, trying a little more. The last one I pulled a B–. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Just keep an eye on that. Don’t let her cut you down, man. Mess with your head.”

  In the old days, I would have joined Ibrahim in his put-down. Isn’t that wh
at we used to do? Huddle at a diner, tell stories about our teachers giving us a hard time. He’d egg me on, tell me to flash my Naeem straight-teeth smile. Now his comment makes me angry. It’s like looking at myself through the wrong end of a telescope, from an earlier time: puny, with veins of meanness.

  “I had a teacher like that once,” Ibrahim goes on. “She was hot. She took me aside. I think she had a thing for me. But you know what I found out?”

  “What?”

  “She was a total fake. Yelled at me in class. In front of everyone! Then she failed me. Over one stupid paper. Said I plagiarized, which is bull. I didn’t do that. I filed a complaint. How unprofessional she was. The whole thing was a setup.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shakes his head. “You think a guy with my name is gonna win? No way.”

  This is new, a bitter turn I’ve never seen. Before, everything to Ibrahim was a great gliding game—you skated on the surface, you moved on. You didn’t nurse a grudge. You didn’t give them that power over you. Now he’s a crabbed little guy with moldy pizza crust in a dark room.

  “What’d you do?”

  He laughs. “Fought it out with the dean. I could see he was in with her.” He halts, pulls himself up short.

  “But did you do it?”

  He looks at me, shocked. “Dude, you too? Of course I didn’t.” But he doesn’t sound so sure.

  I’m confused. If he plagiarized, then it was his fault. But maybe the teacher, the dean did give him a hard time because he was a Muslim. I think about all the stories in the leadership camp. The girl who was jeered at on a subway for her head scarf. The graffiti on the wall of a mosque. Noor dumping her bag before the security guard. That anxious twist in the pit of your stomach every time there’s another big news story about a terrorist. It can make you crazy, one of the kids said. Sometimes you’re imagining it. Other times you’re not.

  “So what’s next?” I ask.

  “I have a plan,” he says, and grins.

  I shiver. “What plan?”

  He laughs. “Oh, Naeem. You crack me up. ‘What plan?’ ” he mimics. “What do you think? This is some kind of a little book report? A Power Point you do for extra credit? This is on another plane, brother. You have to go beyond what you know.” He adds, “Beyond what most people think of you.”