Parts Per Million

by Julia Stoops

  Nelson leans toward Kashan and asks quietly, “Where are you from?”

  “I am Iraqi,” says Kashan.

  Whoa. Instant goose bumps.

  “This must be extremely hard for you,” says Nelson.

  Kashan stares out at the crowd. “Saddam was hard. This is also hard.”

  “Mr. Kashan,” I say. First Iraqi I’ve ever met and on the day my country invades his. How fucked up is that? “I don’t even know what to say. This is the worst shit my government can do to your people.”

  And I don’t have a minidisk recorder, either, dammit. The jail solidarity woman is still walking around saying, “They can’t hold you without due process.” Nearby someone starts singing in Spanish.

  Kashan looks at me with eyes even shinier and sadder than Nelson’s. “Maybe not the worst,” he says. “Under Saddam, my brothers—” He grimaces and draws a finger across his throat.

  Goose bumps again.

  “Mr. Kashan,” I say, “would you be willing to be interviewed? We do a radio pro—”

  “I see the people with the signs: ‘Not my government, not my war.’ I understand it is not American people’s fault.”

  Nelson shakes his head. “Yes. And no.” His voice gets breathy. “We can’t abdicate responsibility. America supported Saddam. Then this war. We didn’t do enough to stop it.”

  Brian and Emma shake heads in unison. It would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking tragic.

  “What can you do?” says Kashan, and he lifts his shoulders, his hands, like he’s emoting to the back row. “When it is not a true democracy?”

  Nelson breathes in hard. He looks up at the brown sky. Then his eyes close and his mouth opens and he starts sobbing. For the first time since. He covers his face with his hands. His wedding ring glints in the streetlight. The noise he’s making is cutting me up. Brian is on his knees, his hands butterflying around Nelson. Kashan shifts away a few inches.

  Fetzer pulls himself up, says to Nelson, “Let’s get you out of here.”

  It’s like Nelson’s trying to cough out something huge. Me and Franky coax him up. He touches Kashan’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he gasps at Kashan. “I am so sorry.”

  Kashan looks kind of disgusted. “Don’t waste your energy this way.”

  All around us is drumming. Dancing. Candles. An older woman behind us says to her friend, “That’s bullshit. They keep you longer if you don’t give your name.”

  “Thanks for sharing your blanket,” says Franky. “I, uh, hope the rest of your family is okay.”

  There’s tears in Brian’s eyes. Kashan just stares out at the crowd.

  Fetz and I each take one of Nelson’s arms and lead him away. Nelson’s bandage is dirty, even in the dark. The edge is wet. We’re leaving. We’re taking Nelson back to Kate’s. The drums are tireless. We stopped I-5. We stopped I-405. We stopped downtown. We stopped the Burnside Bridge. Put your finger on the string and it plays a different note. If enough people put their finger on the string, everything around them changes.

  “I have to stay,” I blurt out.

  We all shuffle to a halt. Fetzer rolls his eyes. “Figured you would.”

  Nelson’s crying is quieter.

  I say, “One of us should stay, right? It’s only a gesture, but what else have we got?” I hand Franky my wallet. “Rachel Corrie stood up to a fucking bulldozer. Least I can do is help keep this one stupid bridge closed.”

  “Funeral’s at nine o’clock tomorrow,” says Fetzer. He points a finger at me. “Don’t get arrested.”

  73: NELSON

  In the light of the street lamp, his own bed, the blankets off, still drying out. A twin bed. The bed of someone not expecting to share.

  His books. Dried out too, but they’re swollen, some with pages stuck together. Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology: 2000. Green History: A Reader in Environmental Literature, Philosophy and Politics. Then, Five Greek Plays. The Greek mask on the cover. Mildewed paper smell. Timeless, it says on the back. He sees Deirdre lift her head the way she did when quoting from the classics, but her mouth stays closed.

  Unopened, Five Greek Plays makes a soft thunk back into his bookcase.

  His clothes rack. The dangling arms of one of his two surviving shirts. A white shirt, a little frayed at the cuffs. The shirt of someone not expecting to impress. His tie-rail, empty. Two remaining pairs of khaki pants on hangers. His fleece melted, but his down jacket survived, and his one gray suit. The only shoes he owns are the ones he was wearing the day they ran from the house.

  The floor is water-stained and dark. On the far wall, above the desk, are his four framed Ansel Adams photos. And the map of the Milky Way that came inside a National Geographic. Puckered where drops of water hit, but otherwise unscathed. He sees Deirdre put her finger on the arrow that marks “You are here.” He sees her hand fall to her side.

  In college he’d switched majors and gone into science. But Pastor Dortmund got wind of it and sat him down, probed him on his faith. He’d told Dortmund he loved nature too much. He couldn’t have faith in an abstract god any more, he had to follow nature, wherever it led him.

  “And if nature turns out to suggest you are alone in a universe without purpose, what then?”

  “I don’t know,” he’d said, unsure but stubborn in front of the big man who’d spoken to him every Sunday from the pulpit.

  His sash window, already repaired, the new glass still with a sticker. The window squeaks as he opens it. It’s still drizzling. He’s twenty feet above the overgrown front pocket garden and Novi Street. Dusk, the falling hour. From this distance, he’d hit the ground at twenty-five miles an hour.

  McLoughlin rumbles, flickering headlights in the sliver of space between warehouses. Wet halos cling to streetlights.

  On the other side of the world is shock and awe, terror and pain.

  He thought he could change things. Boy, was he wrong.

  Maybe it was when he left the Forest Service. If he’d stuck around, his dad would still be speaking to him. And besides, he might have effected change from within. Instead he exiled himself to the margins.

  Maybe it was when he left Lise. If he’d stuck around, they’d have kids by now. Old enough to be in school by now.

  With Deirdre he thought he had another chance.

  All this restlessness. He called it “making sacrifices.” What a crock. Misguided egoism, more like. That left a wake of disappointed people and got him nowhere.

  So far Deirdre’s come to him only in his memories. With his elbows on the sill and damp air pouring in, he tries to sense if she is there.

  “Deirdre?” he whispers.

  Far away he can hear the helicopters.

  He scootches over to make room. “Why were you so unhappy?”

  On Twelfth tires hiss in the dark. A drop of water hits the back of his head like a cold pellet.

  “Why did you leave me?”

  Because you’re pigheaded and pathetic, says a voice.

  His, not hers.

  Steps behind him, and it’s Fetzer, his hand on the doorknob, his eyes dots of shine in the dark.

  “Want some tea?” says Fetzer.

  The window squeals as Nelson closes it. Now the rain and night are outside, and they are inside. The distinction seems important. But Jen is still outside. And Deirdre is nowhere.

  Fetzer stands back to let Nelson through the door. He turns on the landing light, and everything becomes heavy and bright.

  Nelson says, “Jen’s going to get arrested.”

  “She better not,” mutters Fetzer.

  “She can’t help herself.”

  Fetzer gives him a funny look and snaps, “Course she can.”

  “Deirdre couldn’t help herself,” he says.

  Fetzer folds his arms. “So, you’re what, extrapolating because Jen’s female?”

  “No,” says Nelson. The hall light is the color of clay. “Forget it. I don’t know anything.”

 
; Fetzer unfolds his arms. Slides his hand over his freshly shaved head.

  “Thanks for bringing me back here,” says Nelson.

  “Sure. No problem.”

  “I didn’t want Kate to see me like that.”

  Fetzer lowers his hand. “Sure. Come and have some tea.”

  “But I want to go back to Kate’s tonight.”

  Fetzer cocks his head. “Okay.”

  Nelson gestures toward the spare room. “This is going to sound weird, but I don’t want to sleep alone. I want to be with you guys.”

  Fetzer’s arm rests across Nelson’s back, and he steers him down the stairs. “Not weird at all. And I know Kate’s out of Earl Grey. Let’s make up a thermos.”

  They could just take the box of tea over there, but a thermos sounds so nice.

  74: JEN

  Check it out: if I rest my elbows on my knees and hold my hands up, the throbbing dies down. Who cares how dumb it looks. No one here I recognize, anyway.

  “Robbins,” calls a cop at the counter, and a guy gets up, goes over.

  I’m so damn cold. And my wrists are still weeping that fluid. Asshole wrenched my arms back like he was tightening fencing wire. “Idiot,” he’d spat into my ear. “What did your theatrics get you? Huh? Nothing.”

  Then when they were diddling around processing the crap in my pockets, stupid female cop said, “What is this, anyway?” and she waved the cable in my face. That I’d picked up off the basement floor.

  “That’s an Ultra ATA IDE ribbon cable to connect your hard drive to your controller card, and it was ripped out of my computer when my house was trashed by two violent criminals. But you arrested me for peacefully protesting. Can you tell me how that makes sense?”

  Bitch was already pissed off I didn’t have ID. She squished her mouth. “You and your friends are costing the city a lot of money.”

  “George Bush cost the city a shitload of money in August. Arrest him.”

  The cable went in the clear plastic bag, and she shoved the possessions form into my handcuffed hands behind my back.

  “Basso,” calls a cop at the counter. Another guy gets up. Got a giant circle-A painted on the back of his jacket. Huh, they’re making him turn it inside out.

  My shoes are soaking.

  Been maybe three years since I danced and sang like that, and there I was despite everything, despite Deirdre. It was like I was dancing for her, or something. Then Brian and the others moved on, and for some stupid fucking reason I decide to stay.

  My impulsive shit.

  “Don’t bother with the ‘jail solidarity’ thing,” said a cop when they took my details. “We got plenty of room for all of you in here, and we can keep you over the weekend if we want.” And now we’re sitting in rows in plastic chairs like we’re at the DMV.

  “Henderson,” calls a cop. A woman in red-and-white-striped tights stands, picks up her red-and-white-striped sweater.

  Clock says 3:16 a.m. Funeral’s in less than six hours.

  “Hey,” whispers a girl next to me. “It’s gonna be okay. We accomplished a lot. We shut the city down.”

  She’s about twelve. No, make that eighteen. Everyone’s getting younger these days. And perkier. I whisper back, “I have fucked up so badly you don’t even know.”

  Across the low barrier to the men’s section, a guy whispers, “Yeah. There was so much love on the streets tonight, it was totally inspiring.”

  “Yeah!” says another girl. She’s got long blond hair and beams like a cult follower. “It was so beautiful.” She clenches her fists. “We’re living the behaviors we want to see in the world.”

  “Quiet down!” yells a guard, but I’m already on my feet and walking toward her and yelling, “You people got way too much praise from your parents or something.”

  “Sit down! No more talking!”

  I sit down. It’s a different chair and it’s cold. The guards go back to wherever they came from. One by one the staring heads turn away.

  Burnside free fucking state is dead, kids. It wasn’t a free state, it was a few hours when the cops were probably too busy clearing the interstates and shit to make our little takeover a priority. And when they got around to us, they got around to us good and hard like we wanted them to. Tear gas and pepper spray and flashbangs. And we feel good because we resisted something. Meanwhile, bombs are still dropping on Baghdad because what we did had absolutely zero effect. Bombs are dropping on people just like Kashan.

  What’s my point? Beaming cult-follower-girl doesn’t say it, but it’s like she’s in my head and she wants to know.

  My point is. My point is. I don’t know. I was all psyched to be in the sit-in. Then a ton of people left and they picked the rest of us off one by one and we’re like, come get me, fascist oppressors. And we’re all white, right? So like Nancy says, apart from a little roughing up, it’s basically a risk-free adventure for us. And while we’re feeling good about our token resistance, people are seriously dying and losing their legs and shit in fucking bomb blasts in Baghdad. And I’m going to miss her funeral and what the fuck was it for?

  “Quit that,” says a guard.

  “Quit what?”

  “Quit fidgeting.”

  7:09 on the clock. Jesus, must have dozed off. Shit, my neck hurts. And my injury liquid has stuck my wrist to my coat. Christ, that stings. Least it’s not bleeding. Damn, I’m hungry.

  “Owens!”

  That guard’s getting closer. I stand up. “Just woke up,” I say.

  More questions at the counter. Then a female cop with straight brown bangs leads me out the room and down a black stripe on the floor in the hallway, down another hallway, black stripe, black stripe down another hallway, through mechanical buzzing doors and up an elevator to yet another officer behind yet another counter. The man has a plastic bag by his elbow. The ribbon cable and my other junk.

  Goose bumps.

  “Sign here,” says the officer.

  Hot tears in my eyes. I’m going to make the funeral.

  “And here. Your arraignment date is on this form.”

  My flimsy papers. My plastic bag of possessions. It’s seven in the morning. I’m going to make it.

  I walk out the door into drizzle. Sweet fresh air and freedom. First find a pay phone, got change for a pay phone.

  “Jen!”

  Christ, it’s Fetzer. Leaning against Franky’s car with his arms folded. He says, “Posts on Indymedia about folks being released this morning.”

  Goddamn tears get too much. Goddamn Fetzer waiting for me in the goddamn rain. He’s hugging me so tight I can’t breathe, and I’m going to make it to her funeral. Going to have breakfast. Going to put on some clean clothes. Going to be there for Nelse, for everyone.

  75: FETZER

  After it was over, we crunched across the frost-covered grass back to the cars. The sun started to come out, and the world had color, with faraway blue patches in the sky, pink cherry trees in the distance, and the deep green of the cemetery lawn.

  Nancy walked arm in arm with Nelson. The bruise on his face had gone yellow, but he had a fresh bandage and new shoes. Nancy wore simple black, and antique jet bead earrings that swished back and forth across her shoulders. I knew they were antique jet because I heard her tell Kate and Sylvia when they admired them.

  Nancy was an angel. She and her startlingly grown-up daughter, Clarissa, gathered us, spoke softly to us, handed us small cards with Dee’s full name and the beginning and ending dates of her life. She would have been thirty-one in April.

  Mr. Nguyen looked so thin in his suit and without a funny ball cap. Brian kept his eyes down and his hands in the pockets of what looked vaguely like a ninja outfit. Sylvia walked beside Kate, Kate holding the baby, dabbing a tissue into her eyes.

  What moved me the most was not Nancy’s short and powerful eulogy, nor the prayer at the graveside. It was when Nelson and Sylvia wordlessly fell into a long hug.

  He endured hugs all around, despite his rib
s. Kate stood next to me, watching. “Look, his jacket’s all crooked,” she said, and dabbed at her eyes again. “I think my heart’s going to break.”

  The casket was open, but Nelson got agitated, said he couldn’t look.

  “You’ll regret it if you don’t,” said Nancy, and she and I guided him up there. The church walls were white. The stained-glass light was red and blue and green. There were gladioli.

  Nelson’s eyes journeyed over the waxy woman lying there with opaque eyelids and doll-pink cheeks and the ends of her hair turned up in a curl. He calmed right down.

  The night before, on the way back from the sit-in on Burnside, he had stopped, grabbed a parking meter, and leaned over like he was going to be sick. Franky and I waited, a light rain falling on us. A newspaper box said, ALLIES STRIKE WITH DECISIVE FORCE. A police crowd-control vehicle passed by, a dozen black-clad riot cops standing on its runners. Helicopters throbbed overhead. Deirdre was already lying in her padded box, beyond sleep. She’d left us with our eyes pinned open, forced to look out on our chaotic world.

  Now, in the morning light, as we walked away from her grave, the air was quiet. Just the sound of shoes on frost. Deirdre was laid to rest, as they say, in the earth of Portland. And it struck me why we use the word rest.

  I turned and walked backward, watching the headstones recede. The lawn was marked with dark swaths where our shoes had broken the frost. Clarissa and Jen caught up with me. Clarissa smiled, her eyes full of love and care, and I knew my old friend Nancy had done a good job of raising a fine young woman.

  Jen’s face was still puffy from crying. Head down, she’d been quiet, contrite. Didn’t make a peep about embalming, or the resources that went into the coffin, or the wasted space of a burial plot. Nancy had explained that the church was conservative. For the sake of making it easy on everyone, she just went with their suggestions. We nodded and proceeded to participate in a ceremony that seemed foreign and strange. But then life had become foreign and strange, so we rolled with it.

  By the time everyone was climbing into the cars, the frost was melting where the sun touched, and the lawn was covered in sparkling drops.