Watched

by Marina Budhos

  Then I’m on the subway stairs, on a train. The stops slide past. My breaths are even now; the sweat pricks dry on my skin. At the Union Turnpike stop, more people stream in. It’s the end of the day. I don’t want to go home yet. I can’t.

  I get out at the Woodhaven Boulevard stop and walk up Queens Boulevard, traffic moving thick as syrup. My phone buzzes in my pocket. Tareq. A text. Call me. I delete it. Then another. Okay, you had your little freak out. Time to come back. Bhayia? Now a voice message: Come on, man. This is your chance. Carry through for a change. This one stung. Then a string of texts from Taylor, cooler, not letting on. Just checking in, buddy. Everything OK? See u today? What’s up? Talk? Check in?

  I delete them all, walk fast down Ninetieth Street toward the neighborhood I know so well. Up ahead, rising above all the low little houses, is my high school. When I first saw the place it looked like a fairy-tale castle. Turrets, funny-shaped windows, an arched front door. I was sure once I stepped inside it would be magic. I’d change, miraculously, from that middle school kid who’d screwed up. I’d turn back to good.

  The school is closed, of course. Not even the security guard I used to sneak past. For a second I see a light on behind a window blind and my heart gives a little jump. I think about Mrs. D, sitting behind her piles of folders, chiding me. What would she think of what I’m doing?

  Maybe there aren’t miracles anymore.

  —

  The Q53 is just pulling into the stop on Woodhaven Boulevard. Before I know it, I’m springing up the steps and sitting in the back. The bus engine rumbles and groans. I lean against the cool window, shut my eyes.

  It must be an hour later when I finally get out at the beach. I smell of diesel and my shirt is crumpled. In the window I can see my hair stands up on end. Outside, there’s a woman selling mangos on a stick, cut up in a long flower shape, sprinkled with salt. I buy one, sucking down the sweet shreds as I make my way to the boardwalk.

  It’s still not dark. Joggers pass, weaving between mothers with their strollers. A pair of old ladies in matching pink tracksuits power-walk, elbows scissoring at their sides. The air is crumbling, falling into the gray sea as pink-blue dust. I can see, on the slowly emptying beach, a guy in a uniform stabbing garbage from the sand with a long pole. I kick off my sneakers and head down.

  The instant I hit sand the temperature lowers. A breeze cuts in and sweeps up from below, grazes my bare ankles. Everything smells briny-wet. I roll up my jeans, push my way across the sand toward the water.

  Slowly, I inch my way in, feet sinking into the shallows. First my ankles, then all the way to my knees. The bottom of my pants tug heavy, but I don’t care. I bend, washing off the grit of the city, this day. As if I haven’t washed in a thousand days.

  Then I go over to a jetty, where I sit for a while, watching the wavelets slap up against greasy rock. What is my family doing now? I picture Zahir coming off the bus a few hours ago. Eating his ices, sitting on the stool in the shop, bending the paper cup so he gets every last drop. His tongue streaked blue. Then Amma takes him back to the apartment to make supper, while Abba stays back in the shop. I know the routine: counting the bills for the cash bag, turning out lights, the last bundle of cardboard for the curb, snapping off the Xerox machine. By now a patch of black sky shows through the rear window. By now they are checking how many hours in the stretch between prayer and food and sleep and waking. This is their duty, their home.

  What’s mine?

  Waves sigh. The night is full on now, cold, even. I can’t make out my legs against the stone. The line between shore and water dims and blurs. There are lights winking on at my back. Stores, houses, apartments, people going on to the next chore, the next moment. I sit. I’m so tired. I’m ancient-sea-creature tired. A million years have passed this summer and fall. A million tiny bones broken. I’m just a fish, a scale, powder. Nothing.

  So many times this summer, Abba said: We need to take the day off. Go to the beach. I can fish. You boys can swim. But it never happened. We never unlatched the links of our days to find ourselves.

  I set my head on my arms and cry.

  I made it here, Abba, I want to say. I’m here.

  Morning fog rolls in thickly across the beach. A horn bleats. It takes a moment for me to remember where I am. I texted my parents, told them I was sleeping at a friend’s. They sounded worried, but after some back-and-forth, they gave in. So I spent the night under the boardwalk, managing to stay in the shadows so the cops didn’t see. For some reason I felt safe. After all, I’ve been on their side, right? I wasn’t afraid.

  It wasn’t an easy night: knees jammed against my chest, damp seeping up my haunches. I couldn’t get warm. Now, sitting on a bench, I feel a fresh coolness stirring in the air. I buy two fried egg sandwiches and a muffin from a truck. I’m ravenous: I wolf everything down, watching the gulls caw and wheel across the sky.

  I check my phone. More messages from Tareq. I’ll tell them. Everyone will know. How about that? Even your do-gooder Tas. Your girlfriend. You want that? I remember Tareq tight up against me, the jagged pain in my shoulder. Then I swipe them all away.

  It’s still early. The bus is waiting by the corner; the driver finishing up a coffee before she tosses it into the garbage bin. It’s the same bus I took to get here yesterday.

  I pause, tilt my face up to the sky. It’s Indian summer weather. A few trees are flush with burning color, as if ready to ignite: deep red, flame yellow. People are walking with their jackets folded over their arms, surprised by the sudden warmth. A surprise, a gift. I board the bus, take it back in the direction I came from.

  —

  A plastic jack-o’-lantern jeers on the top step of Ishrat’s house. Clumps of cottony spiderweb are spread on the bushes.

  The door opens. “What are you doing here?” she asks.

  “Sorry.”

  She glances over her shoulder. She’s thrown on a fluffy sweatshirt over her nightgown, used the hood to cover her hair. Her round face is still soft with sleep.

  “Can we just sit here?” I point to the stoop.

  “I guess.”

  Still in her bare feet, she steps out and sits down. I settle a few inches away from her. This is a quiet part of the neighborhood, just a distant chug and rattle of garbage trucks. We tip our chins up to the sun, soaking it in. It feels good. Not touching. Her shoulders near mine.

  “You want some water or something?”

  “No.”

  I don’t explain myself. How can I? I got off the bus and walked and walked as a pink sky spread across the apartment roofs. Before I knew it I was in front of Ishrat’s house, ringing the bell, lucky that she was the one to answer.

  “We were wondering what happened to you,” she says now. “You kind of disappeared at the end of camp. Didn’t even say good-bye.”

  I don’t answer.

  “I was pissed,” she goes on. “Really pissed.”

  I swivel to face her. It’s funny how much she reminds me of Amma. The same little mole to the side of her mouth.

  A woman pokes her head out the door. “Ishrat?”

  “Hey, Ma.”

  Ishrat’s mother looks so different from Ishrat. Her glossy black hair is cut at a fashionable slant, her face slender. I tense, thinking she’s going to be upset to see me, but she just looks puzzled. “Oh, hello there!”

  “Hi.” I give a small, shy wave.

  “This is Naeem. Remember I told you? From the camp?”

  She brightens. “Why are you sitting there? Come in, come in, have some tea! You’ll catch a cold.” She speaks a British-accented English, educated.

  “Ma,” Ishrat laughs. “It’s like summer.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s so.” She gives a small, impish smile. Clearly she just wants to spy on us, get the scoop. I feel a stab of envy. How easy it seems for Ishrat, this choosing who she can be. Wearing a scarf. Sitting out on a stoop with a boy. The affectionate space between her and her mother.

 
; “Good to meet you, Naeem,” her mother says as she lets the screen door flap shut. “Come see us again! You’re always welcome!” she sings out. I can imagine her just as Ishrat described: doing theater, smoking cigarettes with her university friends.

  It’s time to go. I don’t want to. But I feel it.

  I rise from the steps and say, “You’re going to hear things about me.”

  Her eyes seem to lighten. She says nothing.

  “They’re true.”

  She spreads her broad hands across her knees. “Okay.”

  “Okay-okay?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she laughs.

  I start to walk down the path. “See you,” she calls.

  I turn once. Her nightgown drapes over her legs. But I can just see the jutting bones of her ankles. For some reason, this makes me happy. “Yeah.” I smile. “See you around.”

  —

  From all the way down the corridor, I can hear her jangling keys. I jump up from the floor. Taslima’s moving toward me, backpack slung over her shoulder. Her hair is freshly washed, damp-wet around her neck. She stops, her eyes opening with surprise.

  “Well, well. Long time no see.” She’s angry.

  I shrug. “Yeah.”

  “You look terrible.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Are you?”

  “No,” I admit.

  Setting her hands on her hips, she gives me the once-over: my rumpled jeans, my unwashed hair and face. I can tell she isn’t sure whether to be pissed or worried about me. “What’s going on?” I know what she really wants to ask: Where the heck have you been these past weeks? But she manages to hold herself back.

  “Can we go inside?”

  “You have a problem?”

  “Not like you think.”

  Wary, she unlocks the door, flips on the light switch. The room floods with a pale fluorescence that hurts my eyes.

  Taslima waits for a cue from me. But I don’t know where to begin. I decide to drag out two metal folding chairs, the way we do for group talk. This time a circle of two. She sits across from me, picking at her fingernails. I’m aware of the sand shaking out of my jeans every time I shift on the chair. My shirt feels greasy and my teeth have a funky film.

  “So you know how I came to you this summer? Looking for work?”

  “Yeah. I did it for Uncle. To keep you out of trouble.”

  I nod. “I was already in trouble.”

  She tilts her head, puzzled.

  “I got caught…with some stolen stuff. Shirts. Then some weed…” My voice trails off.

  “Uncle knows this?”

  “My parents don’t know anything.”

  “But how—how could they not know? I mean—don’t you have a court date or something?”

  I can’t speak. I lean my palms on either side of my thighs, on the cold metal, as if to eject the words.

  “I made a deal.”

  “A deal?”

  “I got a job. Kind of like an assignment.” I add, “For the cops.”

  It takes a minute. Her shoulders jerk back, as if she’s been struck. “You? This whole—”

  “The whole time,” I admit.

  “The kids? The camp—”

  “All of it.”

  Taslima drops her head, elbows on her knees, the thin wings of her shoulder blades drawn tight. She looks like she’s going to be sick. Then she hurls her backpack, straps fluttering, against a wall. Calls me every kind of curse and name, in Bangla and English. But I stay with it, with her. Even when she tells me to go and then takes it back, I don’t slink away. I’ve never done that before.

  “How could you do this?”

  My thoughts are swimming. “I don’t know! It’s not so bad.”

  “Not so bad! You think you’re doing some good?”

  “Yes!” I say hotly. “I was trying to protect you. Others. Help. These are kids! People. Lots of people.” I bite down on what I want to say: guys like Ibrahim. But I can’t tell her. “It happens, Taslima, it does! Have you seen those videos? They’re evil! They get sucked in! Like Noor!”

  “What about her?”

  “I told you! I didn’t turn her in. I could have! I protected her! I protected all of you!”

  “So you’re proud of yourself?” she mutters.

  “Yes! No.”

  “But to treat us all like criminals? Like would-be terrorists?” She spins around in the center of the room, slaps her sides. “Do you know how hard I work to build up trust with these kids? And you just kill it? Just like that?” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe it. I can’t.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “No, you’re not!”

  We stare at each other, breathing hard. Then I grab my backpack and rise. “Forget it. I shouldn’t have come.”

  “You’re right. You shouldn’t have.”

  Outside it’s started to rain, a metallic patter bouncing against the air-conditioning unit. Drops spatter the windows gray. I hunch, as if already protecting myself against the wet. I don’t even know why I told her. This is the Taslima I’ve always known: righteous, so sure of herself. Why did I ever think she’d understand?

  “Wait, Naeem.” I turn. “Why did you come here?”

  I run my tongue over dry lips. I feel as if my whole body is loosening, breaking apart. “I want out,” I breathe.

  Taslima’s shoulders go soft. “Of course,” she whispers. “Of course you do.”

  She throws me a weary smile. She looks tired. I am too, a deep and long exhaustion, like being creased and folded in too many times. All of us are. I wish we could live in another time, when we could have a camp and paint murals and kick a soccer ball. That’s all we want. All everyone wants. To be normal.

  Now she fetches her backpack from across the room, scoops up her car keys. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Tim. My ex-husband,” she explains. “He runs a law clinic.”

  I hesitate. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know.”

  Taslima snaps off the light. We stand for a brief moment in the dark. I can feel her draw near me, smell the musk of her hair, sandalwood on her skin. She puts her arms around me. There are just her skinny arms, her flinty elbows. So much air and space between us.

  “Oh, you stupid, stupid boy,” she murmurs.

  I walk toward Taylor.

  It’s still morning. The burst of rain is gone, leaving the sky a smooth, polished blue. The streets seem rinsed and fresh, a damp, clean smell coming up from the ground. There’s a smoke-crisp smell of fall in the air.

  This is the same park where he and I first shot hoops, where the cops used to watch me, hidden behind tinted windshields. Scanning my knees, my ankles, my face. Who was I? Just some kid, maybe trouble, maybe not.

  The same rubber-lined area where me and Jamal used to run into the spouting sprinklers. I laugh to think of that. We were just goofing. Not dirty or criminal. Not sure of what we were: monster or superhero or both.

  Just kids. That’s what Tim said to me: “You may be eighteen. But you’re just a kid.”

  An hour ago, Taslima took me to Tim’s apartment; he was there with a colleague. They were waiting for me.

  When I walked in the door, my heart gave a jump. The pen guy. From my parents’ shop! Tweed jacket, blowing on his coffee.

  But when he stood to greet me, I saw I was wrong. He just looked like that guy. He held out his hand, warm, efficient. “Hi, I’m Salim. I work with Tim.”

  I already felt better. The three of us sat around Tim’s dining table, going over my situation. I talked and watched as Salim’s hand moved across a yellow legal pad. He tilted his head and listened. I felt as if I was being brought inside, into a new circle.

  “The police don’t have a hold on you,” he finally explained. “None.”

  After months and months puffed up on lies, it was like someone had tugged on a cord, let all the pressure out of me. I wasn’t a superhero. I was a cartoon float
in some fake parade. I felt the hiss of air as I slowly drifted back to earth. I blinked. Everything felt hard but good too. Solid and hurting.

  “That can’t be. What about the weed, the shoplifting? My green card?”

  Tim shook his head. “Not enough.”

  “But Tareq. He—” I hesitated. “He said he’d tell everyone.”

  Salim offers a sad smile. “He can’t. It’ll blow his cover too.”

  I thrust up from my chair. It took a few minutes to process, rearrange the molecules in my body. “What do I do? I don’t get it.”

  They told me not to answer any texts from Taylor or Tareq. Go dark on them. It was different with Taylor, I said. Tim admitted that these cops seemed to treat me a little better. Usually they rough guys up a lot more. But they both were firm on this point. Never talk to a cop without your lawyer. You understand? I thanked them over and over, put their card deep in my pocket, and left.

  On the bus ride home, I kept hearing them: You’re not special, Naeem, Salim and Tim kept saying. Get that out of your head right now. They’re using you. Some part of me didn’t believe it, didn’t want to. And even though I knew it was stupid, I dug out my phone. Hit Taylor’s number.

  Meet me at the playground.

  —

  Now Taylor’s striding toward me and my heart’s jammed up in my throat. I’m surprised at how he looks like a kid himself, in high-top sneakers and a T-shirt. I wish I hadn’t done this. He’s a cop. I’ve never stood up to a cop before. No way. Tim and Salim were right. What am I doing here?

  “Hey,” I call.

  “Hey.” His body language is wary. “What’s going on? Heard you cut out.”

  “I did.” I look around the playground for Sanchez. Then I see him, one shoulder against a fence, near a bench.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Taylor is startled. I don’t usually address him this way. “Sure.”

  We sit on the bench. I’m perched on a slat’s edge. Taylor has his legs stretched out, hands cupped in his lap. I know him by now. Underneath he’s nervous. We’re tilted off the usual routine.

  “I’ve been to see Ibrahim’s mother. I mean, she’s not exactly his mother—” I stop. “She called me.”