Not on Fire, but Burning

by Greg Hrbek

  •

  First there had been the phone call from Omar’s mother. Then the e-mail from Omar. Then out of nowhere, Karim. Not apologizing, thank God. Not making me accept an apology. But the way he came over and all the stuff he said: it was like, if he could, he’d go back in time and do things differently. After he left, I wheeled the mower into the garage, took a cold shower, and found a message in my inbox: KHALEELA KINGSLEY WANTS TO BE FRIENDS ON LIFEBOOK. I confirmed the request instantly. Scrolled through her feed. Found the photo of me and her at the party, and became the twelfth person to like it. One of the other likes was from him. Which made me think. The kid came to you. Then he gave her your name so she could find you. The least you can do is add him. Five minutes later, there he was. Number 526. A little after that, my father appeared at my door to ask if my face still felt as bad as it looked, and also to say:

  “This is your call.”

  “What is.”

  “What to do now. You remember what I said before. You want to go to the police, I’ll take you there.”

  The next morning, I was looking in the mirror. The bruises weren’t gone, but they were starting to disappear; a few more days and no evidence would remain. I couldn’t figure out how I really felt about it. The police. That idea was way behind the curve. But was the incident really going to just fade out of sight and mind, like a post that no one cared about, that wasn’t even worth a comment?

  No. Because even if, on that same morning, Keenan Cartwright hadn’t told a counselor at Invention Camp (an engineering major from the Rhode Island Colony, who had suggested to Keenan the week prior, that you had to watch Muslims very carefully in a camp that teaches electronics skills potentially usable in the construction of remote triggering devices)—even if Keenan had not told this young man about what had happened in his neighborhood over the weekend, the incident would not have been forgotten. In fact, over time, it would have been spoken of often, as all concerned parties, children and adults alike, came to see that something good can come of violence: that the prejudices that lead to violence can be overcome—not through acts of violence, but by passing through such acts … Although an outcome of this type is purely theoretical. Because Keenan Cartwright is a constant across all pathways. When given the option, he will always tell his counselor at lunch on that Monday what occurred at the pool party on Saturday—and by Tuesday will be in receipt of an e-mail from a representative of the local chapter of a nonprofit organization called the American Resistance Alliance. I’m sure you’ve heard of us. Keenan has not. But he needs no information beyond the profile picture on the group’s Lifebook page—the flag of the Islamic Caliphate going up in flames—to know that he (along with 3,582 other people) likes them, and that they should talk to Dorian.

  Which brings us to Wednesday.

  Same old drill. The four boys return home from their separate summer camps and convene at the in-law apartment. Today, Zebedee is first and claims prime real estate under an ancient window air conditioner as large, loud, and energy-efficient as a jet propulsion engine. Second is Dorian. Whose face, having taken a hit during a morning game of Bombardment, is in a fresh state of pain. Last comes Dean. Totally chonged, wearing a shirt with an iron-on marijuana leaf.

  “Yo, Rastafari-mon,” Keenan says.

  “Hello, mons.”

  “In your honor,” Keenan says, “we play some Old Testament.” He scrolls on his handheld and switches to a song from the days before digital downloads: I shot the sher-riff, but I did not shoot the dep-yoo-tee.

  “I bet your grandma listened to this,” Dorian says.

  “So?”

  “So play something that doesn’t suck.”

  “Sure. As soon as you do something that doesn’t suck. Deal?”

  “Do?” Plaxico says.

  “Yeah, do, my Obama. About Saturday.”

  “You have any sodas?” Dean asks.

  “There’s juice boxes.”

  The grandfather clock plays Westminster Chimes. Strikes the hour of five. There comes a knock on the sliding glass door. They can all see him: a guy much older than they. Probably a friend of the family, Dorian thinks; expecting, when Keenan lets him in, that he will shortcut without ceremony through the apartment. Instead, in a strangely official manner, he says: “Hello, gentlemen.” Older than their brothers though younger than their fathers. Blond hair so perfectly barbered it might be chipped from stone. In one hand, a tablet computer in a leather case.

  “Let me guess,” he continues. “You’re Dorian.”

  Dorian nods.

  Then, in a tone somewhere between reassurance and disappointment: “You don’t look that severely fucked up.”

  “You shoulda seen him on Saturday,” Keenan says.

  The guy ignores this, and holds his hand out. “I’m Jon-David,” he says. And though some voice inside is saying Don’t take it, Dorian can’t see another choice. They shake. Awkwardly. Hands not quite locking together. Then he’s requesting some bottled water, sitting down on the couch, and saying: “Is there a smell in here?”

  “Prune juice,” Dean says.

  Keenan, returning with the water: “Used to be my grandma’s apartment.”

  “You use this water exclusively?”

  “Yes.”

  “He bathes in it,” Dean says.

  From the look on his face, it’s clear that Jon-David doesn’t find the comment very amusing. To Dean, he says: “You drink tap water?”

  Dean shrugs.

  “In this county alone, there are thousands of miles of unprotected pipeline. Any raghead with a bicycle pump and a grade-school understanding of hydraulics could introduce botulism, plague, you name it, into the distribution system. See, there’s this thing going on called World War III. Or have you not heard of it?”

  “Sorry,” Dean says.

  As Jon-David uncaps the water and takes a long drink, Dorian is thinking: I know who he is. I’ve seen people like him downtown, standing on corners, handing out flyers. One time, I accepted one, and my mother immediately took it out of my hands and crumpled it into a ball …

  “But I shouldn’t have to tell you guys. A battle was fought here.” (Gesturing at the battered face.) “Guess who lost.”

  “I wasn’t there,” Keenan says.

  Dean: “Me neither.”

  Jon-David nods, as if these qualifiers are perfectly understandable. Then, closing one eye, he says: “Well, where the fuck were you?”

  Dorian waits for his friends to explain about the Calypso Fest and the fractured femur.

  “Some people think the war is in the Middle East. But the real war is right here. In America. You have to remember that. In the schools and in the backyards. There are four of you. There were four of them, correct? If you’d all been there, it would’ve been a fair fight.” He takes the pad from the case. “Would could should. Let’s talk names.”

  “Ab-Del-Karim,” Keenan says.

  Jon-David, fingers darting around the keyboard: “Last name?”

  “Hoo-sane,” Dean replies.

  Keenan shakes his head. “No, Hassad.”

  “This is the kid across the street,” Jon-David surmises. “Father’s name?”

  “Banfelder.”

  “House number.”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Okay,” says Jon-David. “The other three.”

  Keenan gives Dorian a look.

  “What?”

  “He needs the names.”

  “Can I ask a question,” Plaxico says.

  “Shoot.”

  “You take these names and then what?”

  “Kidnap the suspect, tie him down on his back, and you get to pour water over his face and into the breathing passages.”

  “Are you fuggin serious,” Keenan says.

  “No.” Then, looking directly at Plaxico: “I’m with a watch group. We investigate incidents on a local level. I gather information, like names, and type it into a database. While we’re on the subject, what’s yours
?”

  “Zebedee.”

  “Very unusual.”

  Dean says: “One of his ancestors got lynched.”

  “About a millennium ago,” adds Keenan.

  When Jon-David asks Plaxico if this is true, Plaxico says not a thousand years ago, more like eighty. Then Jon-David, laying his tablet aside, asks in a very serious voice to hear the story. Which all the boys know. Mississippi Territory, 1959. Time of relatives they would never see except in the shifted hues of chromogenic photographs. Great-grandparents, great-uncles and great-aunts. Great-Uncle Zebedee, whose own great-grandfather (this was a whole other story) had sailed in chains from Africa to New Orleans. One afternoon, Zebedee runs out of gas on a dusty road and a group of white men in a pickup truck offer to drive him into town. But what they actually do is take him away from town. They tie one end of a rope to the hitch of the truck and the other around his two hands—and they drive. They drive to a meadow and with the same rope hang him from a tree until dead …

  Thunder.

  Far off, but louder than the drone of the air-conditioner. Dorian glances at the window. The sun is gone. Finally, it’s going to storm.

  “That,” Jon-David said, “must have sucked … at least as much, possibly more, than getting abducted by Islamo-fascists and locked in a closet for several days, waiting to find out whether the United States government will agree to unconditionally surrender. And when it decides to not unconditionally surrender, you get your head cut off on videotape and your body gets chopped into ten pieces.”

  Another rumble, closer this time.

  “Let me ask you something. You’re at the mall. You’re gonna throw a penny in the fountain and make a wish, and when you step up to the railing there’s a pink backpack there, just sitting there, unattended. What do you do?”

  “Blue phone,” Keenan says.

  Jon-David (nodding): “It could be some girl’s schoolbooks. Or it could be a remote-control bomb laced with radioactive medical waste. No responsible citizen turns away. Same thing here. Muslims being violent. You don’t just turn away from that. The other day, it was a bloody nose and a black eye. Tomorrow, a knife, a gun, or worse. The other day, Dorian. Tomorrow, maybe you, Zebedee. Because this isn’t about white or black. We’re equal now. We’re truly equal. Because there’s an evil out there and it wants every single one of us.”

  He reaches for his tablet.

  “Now how about we get down to business and you give me the rest of the goddamn names.”

  10

  When Jaddi had spoken of therapy and serious issues requiring professional help, Karim hadn’t been sure what he meant. Therapy, the old guy explained, was merely talking. Talking about what, Karim had asked. And the old guy took a deep breath and started to respond, but then seemed to forget; and then said, in a voice that was gentle in a strange way: “Anything, bud. Anything that’s on your mind.” Karim nodded. Then said: “Did you ever do it?” “Do what?” “Therapy.” “Me,” Jaddi said. “Yeah, I did—a long time ago.” “So you had serious issues, too?” And then the old guy breathed another breath. He seemed to be going deep inside himself for an answer, which turned out to be: “I’d say everyone does, at one time or another.” Again, Karim could not quite find the meaning. Yet there was something clear about the vagueness, a comforting blur of sense.

  So, on Monday morning, he did not resist getting into the Argo Electric for the drive across town to the appointment with the psychologist. In fact, as he sat in the passenger seat, securely strapped (thinking about the night before, of going outside and speaking to the boy next door, whom he could now, in a way, call a friend), Karim’s heart was seeping a feeling so long unfelt that, if asked to name it, he would have hesitated, unsure, before saying:

  Hope.

  They arrived ten minutes early at a small white building on a residential street. A sign by the door read: THE PLACE WITHIN—PEDIATRIC WELLNESS. Jaddi opened the door. They spoke to someone at a desk. Then paged through magazines until a door opened and a woman (not old, not young; in a dress not bright but colorful) introduced herself as Dr. Khaled, and guided Karim, hand on shoulder, into a room that was windowless and dimly lit, and furnished with a couch, two chairs, a low table, and a small machine emitting a constant shushing sound, like an urging of secrecy. At first, it was just as the old guy said it would be. A simple conversation (in a weave of English and Arabic) about what was on his mind. Her told her, for instance, that he now had five friends on Lifebook. The fifth he had made just last night. And he told her willingly about the party—what he had done to the boy who was now his friend, and why he thought he’d done it: because of the drugs he used to take, which led him to the subject of his other friends, his old friends from the camp, their names were Hazem and Yassim … All of this spoken of his own free will—and as the words came out of him, that long unfelt emotion flowed more freely from his heart. More than confident, he felt certain, as if life were a math problem with only one possible answer, that everything was only going to get better from here on. Then Dr. Khaled said she wanted him to try something.

  “I want you to think,” she said, “of a favorite place.”

  “Where,” he said.

  “Anywhere.”

  “I haven’t been any place.”

  “That’s all right,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be somewhere you’ve really been. It can be a place you imagine.”

  He sat on the couch, listening to the meaningless whir of the noise machine.

  “Have you thought of a place?”

  He shook his head.

  “Karim.” The doctor leaned forward. “I want you to think of somewhere you wish you could be. The best place you can think of.”

  The next instant, it came to him. The answer was obvious now that he understood the question. Karim thought the doctor would want to know what place he’d chosen. But she only asked him to hold a coin, an old silver dollar with the head of a president he didn’t recognize, between his thumb and first finger—and to look at it, just keep looking at it. “That’s good. After a while, your fingers will begin to get a little tired of holding it, that’s all right, and the coin can fall down to the floor. It will be safe there. You can get it later. When it falls, that is your signal to yourself to let those eyes close by themselves. That’s right. Now I would like you to see yourself, feel yourself in that favorite place. Look around and see the shapes and colors, hear the sounds …”

  Strange.

  How a moment ago, he was in the room holding the coin, but he doesn’t seem to be holding the coin anymore—and he doesn’t seem to be in the room either. He knows he is, but it’s like the room has crawled out of itself like one of those crazy insects, left itself behind like an old skin, and now he’s in a completely different place, though one that was in the room all along and in a way still is the room … What do you see, Karim? Green. Green hills. What else? A lake, a really big one, with mountains on the other side, and down at the end of the lake, there’s a fountain. A lake with a fountain. Yeah. Tell me about the fountain. It goes high up, really high, so high that it’s making a rain. So a wind is blowing? Yeah. Strong or gentle? Gentle. That’s nice. Warm or cool? Both. Can you feel the rain? Yeah. How is it, touching your skin? Really soft. Good. Are you comfortable? Yeah. You feel good? Mm-hm. When you feel comfortable, let me know by lifting a finger. (Lifting a finger.) Good. Now I want you to really be there, on one of those green hills feeling that gentle rain, because you really are there in your daydreaming. (Being there, really being there.) Now, while you’re feeling very comfortable, very good, with the gentle rain falling softly on your skin, I want you to look all around and tell me if you see anyone else. Is anyone else there, in the place where you are? (Looking, through the mist, the myriad droplets of which are reflecting and refracting light and causing a rainbow to appear before his eyes, through the colors of which he sees them: his mother first, then his father, then his sister; and he walking now in his daydreaming toward them and th
ey seeing him, too, and smiling, and now opening their arms.) Those are pretty, sparkling tears, Karim. Can you cry some more of them?

  •

  Finally, it’s going to storm. They have all been waiting, desperately: for a wave of northern air as big as a nation to clash with the heat and drive it away, if only for a time. When Dorian and Plaxico exit Keenan’s place, just before five o’clock, after a half hour of talking with Jon-David Sullivan III of the Saratoga Chapter of the American Resistance Alliance, the sky is dark and wind is thrashing the leaves on the trees. “C’mon,” Dorian says. They run across the Cartwright property. To the Wakefield house is a sprint of no more than a hundred yards. But the two boys can’t beat the rain: an instantaneous downpour that soaks their clothes through in a matter of seconds.