“But how?”
“There are ways.”
“With what?” Ibrahim asks.
“I have to talk to my guys. See what they can do.” He checks his watch. “You hungry, bhayia?”
This is what Tareq always does. He lures, then stops. Offers a meal. It makes Ibrahim feel cared for, rewarded, fed. The fish is hungry.
Ibrahim and I watch Tareq hitch up his pants around his waist, head into a pizza parlor to get us some slices that we’ll eat in the car. He does that a lot, so all our conversations can be recorded. Ibrahim and I are left alone, which doesn’t happen much. I know the dashboard camera is switched off. Anything we say now is off the record.
“Hey, Ibrahim,” I ask. “You really down with this?”
He looks at me, puzzled.
“It’s kind of weird,” I go on. “I mean, a few months ago, you were into stuff. Like the suit—”
“That was before,” he says dreamily.
“Before what?”
“Before I met Tareq-bhayia.”
I’m starting to panic. If it weren’t for me, there wouldn’t be a Tareq. He wouldn’t be here, hanging on his every word.
Stop, I want to signal to Ibrahim. Stop.
—
Shadows drape over the windshield. I’m in the front seat now. The camera switched off. Tareq and I listen to the slow tick-tick of the engine, just turned off, sighing through the cylinders.
Ibrahim is maneuvering down the driveway, past the bulky SUV. He’s excited like a kid just back from his first day of school. I’m starting to understand the shape of this plan. He hasn’t said it out loud yet, but I can see it, like stones leading out of dark water to a shore, shining ahead. Equipment. Targets. Some kind of pretend operation.
“Not bad for a few months’ work,” Tareq comments. “That guy, man, was ready. Never seen anything like it.”
I stare down at my hands, which look thin and bony. “I don’t know. I never heard Ibrahim talk this way. You’re the one who’s pushing him. Like that talk about targets. He’d never think that up.”
He slides his sunglasses over his head, massages his eyes. “Don’t get philosophical on me, man.”
“You’ve done this awhile,” I venture.
This time he doesn’t cut me off. “Yeah,” he sighs. “They put me on a lot of assignments.”
“That’s cool.”
His voice is low. “Yeah. Right.”
A twilight-sad feeling draws down through me. I remember the rumors: How Tareq was supposed to go to prison. But then that evaporated. Now Tareq seems about a hundred years old, older than Abba, even.
I ask timidly, “After this…what happens to you?”
He shrugs. “Texas, maybe. Chicago. You do this for a while, people start to figure out who you are. It’s better if they keep you moving. Places where they don’t know you.”
“Don’t you ever want to stop?”
He turns toward me. His eyes are deep, tired. “Naeem. I can’t stop. This is all I have.”
And then it really hits me: if he wasn’t in this corner, it would be another one, far worse. Prison. Why did I think it was anything else?
“Give it two days,” he says. “That way, he gets a chance to get worked up. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Outside, yellow leaves scuttle at my feet. I cut across a park, moving in and out of patches of chilled air and sun. I remember on the grass with the kids this summer. Their eager, sometimes angry talk. How much I liked it. I didn’t really even say good-bye to them once the camp ended. By that time I was in too deep with Tareq.
I’m not sure where I want to go now: Back to the store? Home? I’ve got two pages of equations. Maybe I can duck into a coffee shop, shake my sadness. For the first time, I know: I’ve lost my friend.
—
When I get to the apartment, I find Zahir sitting cross-legged on his bed. The comic books, all the ones I’ve bought him, have been put away. The Spider-Man towel is gone. “Hey,” I ask. “What happened to your stuff?”
He turns, a serious look on his face. “You know, I’ve been thinking. I’m not so into Spider-Man. I think my favorite superhero is Batman.”
“Why?”
He cups his chin in his hands, considers. “Because he raised himself to be a genius. He’s the smartest superhero. He doesn’t have any special powers.” He tilts his head and gives me a sly look. “And he’s a billionaire.”
Laughing, I rumple his hair. “How’s that math going?”
As I’m leaving the bedroom, I notice there are two missed calls on my cell phone, from a number I don’t recognize. No message. I hit Call Back.
“Naeem?” The voice is high, a woman’s, rushing in.
“Yeah?”
“My name is Mrs. Syed. Shirin is my given name. You are friend of Ibrahim’s?”
“Yes,” I say slowly.
I can hear the relief on the other side. “Please. I am worried about my boy. Can you come see me?”
Ibrahim’s mother is younger than I expected. Sort of like my stepmother, but her face is long, resembling Ibrahim’s, and deeply scored with lines. She lets the three bolt locks snap back before she swings the door open. I see a small apartment with the nylon curtains drawn. Not that much different from the apartment where I found Ibrahim.
“Come in, come in!”
I chuck off my shoes and follow her down a narrow hall. We sit at a table, where she sets down a plate of dry biscuits. “Please, eat.”
“No, thank you, Auntie.” It’s hard for me to even look at her. I try to sit angled away from her. Just a few minutes. Then I’ll be on my way.
“You want Nescafé?”
“That’s okay.”
Since I don’t speak Urdu, we talk in English, but it’s a struggle for her. I feel bad, seeing how she pushes the words out, halting, slow. “I am so very glad to meet you,” she says. “He is always saying Naeem this, Naeem that!”
“Really?” A tiny glow opens in me.
When she smiles, she has a gap between her two front teeth. “I say all the time, bring him home, bring him home! But he tells me you are so busy with school.”
“I guess.”
She keeps fiddling with her head scarf. “I find your number in his old phone.” She adds, “You have seen him?”
Here I grow uneasy. “Yes,” I say carefully. I glance around for signs of Ibrahim. On one wall, over a cabinet, several photos are arrayed, but I don’t see any of him.
“I am worried,” she says. “He calls me last night. He says many things I don’t understand. So much, I do not know what he does now. He is not living with us. He stays at apartment of relative who is away. He is leaving when my husband gets angry. My husband is working very hard.”
“His taxis?” I ask.
“Taxis?” She looks puzzled.
“Ibrahim said your husband has a bunch of taxis? He drove me in one once.”
An uncertain look flashes across her face. “There are no taxis,” she sighs. “Once, little time, my husband work for taxi company.”
“So he doesn’t own one?”
“No!” She is surprised. “You know how much medallion cost?”
I nod. Of course I know. I never believed the business about the fleet, but I thought maybe one car. But this apartment is cramped. The table we’re sitting at is so small our knees nearly touch. The sofa is stacked with blankets. There’s only one bedroom, probably for the kids. The parents sleep in the living room. Why did I think otherwise?
“So…,” I say slowly. “Why did Ibrahim leave?”
“He has fight with my husband.”
I notice she never calls him Ibrahim’s father. She goes on, shaking her head.
“We come here and my husband is driving taxi. Then he gets job. He works for man on Long Island. Good job, very good job! Private driver. Jewish man. Very nice man.
“Sometimes Ibrahim goes with my husband to work. He stay at house while my husband drive employer all ar
ound. He say, okay, I clean cars or do something for you. Man is very nice to Ibrahim. Tell him things. You do this. Do that. You study, go to college. He give him money, even, go buy books for school.”
She gets up from the table and lifts up a picture that’s been snuck into another frame. There he is: in aviator sunglasses, leaning against the hood of a green Mercedes-Benz, thumbs up. A big sand-colored house with hedges in the background.
She shakes her head. “Then Ibrahim do bad things.”
“Like?”
She glances away. “He goes into man’s wife’s bathroom. Use her bath.”
I can’t help myself: a tickle of laughter pushes up in my throat. I can imagine crazy Ibrahim, padding around in some rich lady’s bathroom, testing the taps, tipping bottles of fancy bubble bath into the swirling water.
“That’s not so bad—”
Her voice goes hushed. “Then he start to take things. Maybe watch here. Clothing. Shirt. Sometimes he takes out car! First they have no idea. One time he use credit card. Go to big restaurant. Even hotel, sign in as my husband’s boss! They find out and very big problem. My husband, he realize. He get very angry. They have big fight. ‘You are liar and thief!’ He kick him out of house.” She starts to rub her face, several times. “We do not do this. We do not send a boy to street.”
I let out a thin stream of air. “Wow. That must be hard. To kick out your own son.”
Her neck jerks up, as if on a spring. “Ibrahim never tells you?”
“Tells me what?”
She hesitates. “He is not my son.”
“I don’t understand. Ibrahim’s dad—”
She says softly, “Ibrahim. He is nobody’s son.”
“What?”
“We take him in many years ago. Cousin of my husband. They are very poor and they are having trouble. Nobody want him. My husband has big heart. So we take him as favor. But this time when they start to fight, my husband he say very bad things. He says Ibrahim is his shame. Nobody’s boy.”
She sucks in her breath. This time I look at her full on to see the pain.
“I think…” She is searching for the word. “I think this breaks him.”
That word—break—sits between us. The air goes quiet.
Now I understand the pictures. In a gold frame is a big wedding photo—what looks like a younger Shirin, still bony and narrow-faced, and a plump man, sitting stiffly in front of pillows, his embroidered turban sitting a little crooked on his head. I can imagine what she says: My husband has big heart. He looks outgoing, the one who pushes himself into a knot of men, makes them laugh. Then several pictures of two boys, twins, in front of matching green bicycles, or waving. They look round-faced, like their father, belonging. But none of Ibrahim. As if he doesn’t exist.
“Ibrahim call me last night, late. He is talking fast, very fast. I cannot follow. He is saying all kind of crazy things. Big plan, he tell me. He is going to do good. He say he meet some man.”
I sit up, alert. “A man?”
“Yes. I think, this makes no sense. Anyone, they offer you money like that, it’s no good. But then he say, this man. He knows you?” Her gaze turns to me, imploring.
I try to swallow, but there’s a dry catch in my throat. “Yes.”
“That’s why I call you. I think, Naeem, he is good boy. In school. He is Ibrahim’s friend. He can tell me.”
I feel as if my head is filling with bits of sharp metal. I will never be able to get up from this table, never be able to speak. What do I say? “I know this man,” I say slowly.
She smiles. Her eyes shine with relief. “I knew it.”
Her stockinged feet give a little whisper as she rises. She clutches my arm. “Ibrahim, he is always like this. Love big talk. Money. He is kind of boy, he gets…” She struggles again with the word. “Easy trust. Impressed.” She smiles. “My English is not so good.”
I say gently, “No, Auntie, it’s very good.”
She sighs. “I am not happy he leaves the family. But my husband says, a boy, he has to go away to find himself.” She adds, hopeful, “You will speak to him? No matter my husband says. I treat him like my own.”
“Yes, yes.” Then I add, “I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you.”
We move toward the door and I put my shoes back on.
“Inshallah, it will be better,” she says.
“Inshallah, it will, Auntie.”
And I slip out the door.
Doors.
Doors that I pushed open when I was five years old. I was searching for my amma, for some part of myself that was torn away. That is what my father explained: when someone dies, they take a piece of you.
Doors. Abba told me how the soldiers knocked on his family’s door, during the time when his brother Rasul disappeared to the Freedom Fighters. They knifed the pillows, feathers scattering. They snapped open the lock on the cupboard and pulled out saris and chiffons and cottons, laughing. Abba saw how his parents suffered. He became the cautious one. The clutch of fear showed in his eyes. He could not trust. He did not want courage. He left for America to not be so afraid anymore. But the fear didn’t go away. There are always new doors, here too.
As I make my way to meet Tareq a few blocks from Ibrahim’s apartment, I close my eyes and I see how it will happen for Ibrahim. Knuckles on wood. Badges flicked from a jacket pocket. Men in dark blue Windbreakers shoulder in. The woman staring on the other side of the fence, her mouth a surprised O.
You read about it in the papers or on TV. The kind of news that makes your parents tuck their necks in just a little more. But now I know. It’s a door that’s been put there. And my friend is going to walk right through it.
I walk until I can’t stand it anymore and I stop by the side of the pavement and throw up into the hedges. I wipe the sourness away with the back of my hand, dry my fingers in the stiff leaves. When I turn, I see Tareq’s shadow in the shiny BMW.
—
“You’re late,” Tareq says. He flicks his wrist, showing the fancy watch. His eyebrows gather to a bushy dark point. “That’s not good.”
“Sorry. I had to help my father.” The passenger seat creaks as I slide in beside him. “Listen. Can we talk?”
“About?”
“This. The plan.”
He shakes his head. “We went over it a million times. Just get him in the car. That’s all. I’ll take care of the rest.” He inserts the key in the ignition.
Desperate, I grab his arm. “Wait. Tareq. I don’t know about this—”
He gives me a cross-eyed, puzzled look. “What are you talking about?”
My hands are fisted in my lap. “I saw his mother. I mean, she’s not his real mother, but she raised him. She called me. Ibrahim’s kind of mixed up.” I don’t like the sound of my voice—pleading.
He scowls. “Naeem, we have a plan.”
“I know.” And then it rushes out of me. “They said it’s a conveyor belt, right? Why can’t he just get off? We can go in there. Tell him he’s in trouble. We can take him over to Taslima’s group. Or Mahmoud’s. They can talk to him—”
Furious, Tareq leans in, grabs my shirt, breathing heavily. “Are you out of your mind?”
I stare at him.
“This isn’t a little game, Naeem. Tell him?”
“Not everything—”
He lets go of my shirt. My throat throbs.
“I knew it,” he says, shaking his head. “They should have never brought you in. Punk.”
No! I want to say, but my mouth’s sealed shut.
Tareq turns on the car and we drive toward Ibrahim’s. My whole body is braced against the seat. As if trying to slow us down. One block, two. Ibrahim’s street. We park, and he shuts off the ignition. The house is still. Everything’s still. Silence against my ears. His thumb is stroking the steering wheel. His voice is low. “I don’t think you get it, Naeem. I’m not going to let you screw this up.”
“Why not?” I hate how thin and whin
y my voice is.
He sighs. “In this whole scheme, you’re nothing. I’m nothing. We’re vermin. Mice. Chasing crumbs. And I’m sure as hell not going to let you take me off the chase. You hear?”
“Yes.”
Tareq snatches the keys into his palm. “You get your act together, you hear?” When I don’t move, he scowls. “You coming?”
I don’t answer.
“Naeem?”
The engine’s ticking is up my throat, through my mouth, sighing through the cylinders.
“Come on, man, you’re my closer.” He tries a fist bump but I don’t go for it.
The next thing I knew I’m slammed hard against the door. My shoulder spikes with pain. Tareq’s face is tight against mine, his voice ragged-angry. “Naeem. If you’re not there, he gets nervous. You know that.”
I can’t stand it. The nausea wells up in me. I tear off my seat belt and fling open the door.
“Yo!” I hear behind me.
But I don’t stop. The heat smacks me in the face. For an instant, I weave on the pavement. But then I’m running, running, I don’t know where.
Gotham, my Gotham.
I remember when Abba sent me those postcards, back in Bangladesh. The Empire State Building. Yankee Stadium. A night skyline of Manhattan, black ink and diamonds. I could not believe I would live in such a place. That it might be mine. My abba, the man who scuffed down the hall each morning in his faded, checked lungi and T-shirt, set his rough hand on my cheek, had disappeared into its magic canyons. But it was true. And he sent for me too. He believed we had found a magic place without fear. Never again would he be as afraid as he’d been in his own home.
And now I am running through the city I found. All I know is I have to move, to keep going. If I run, no one will know. That I was part of the plan, the story, the door that opened the other way. All I know is I can’t be there, not in that corner. Not what Tareq is.
Past the high school where I once kissed a girl, Sheena. I would wait at the bottom of the stairs, every molecule in my body wanting her. But she’s evaporated. Why was she so important? My stupid teenage years, every cut class, every mistake zooms past me.
Watched Page 16