Anissa's Redemption

by Zack Love

  “Thanks, Babe. When are you going up there to speak?” he asked her teasingly.

  “Can I use my violin instead of English?” she replied playfully.

  “Hey, that’s actually a great idea!” I exclaimed. “Why don’t we organize some kind of benefit concert for the MCA where Maria performs for everyone?”

  Maria’s face lit up. “I would love that!”

  Michael smiled enthusiastically. “Let’s do it! Inās, you’re in charge of the planning committee for that one.”

  My sister and I high-fived each other victoriously. Moments later, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a gathering of bearded men, some of whom looked vaguely familiar. Then I recognized them as the men who had threatened me at the last Union Square protest, when Michael knocked out their biggest member, a thug who had towered over him.

  Next thing I knew, Michael was knocked down by that same guy, who came out of nowhere to push Michael back over one of his comrades who had surreptitiously crouched behind Michael so that he would trip and fall onto his back when pushed by the huge guy. After that, everything happened very fast. There were four guys punching and kicking Michael, who was on the ground struggling to parry the flurry of blows raining down on him.

  “Hey, stop!” I yelled, whacking one of the guys with the wooden stick to which my sign was attached.

  “Help, everyone!” Maria yelled to the people around her before jumping into the fray and hitting another guy with the wooden part of her placard.

  The two guys that we hit turned their attention to us, but that still left Michael to struggle with two men, including the huge guy who was pummeling him on the ground. We were all in a brawl at that point, so it was hard to tell exactly what happened, but at one point I saw someone strike the huge guy in the head with a tablet computer, which stunned him just long enough for Michael to get on his feet and throw some powerful kicks and punches at the two men who had been beating him up. Then the loud sirens of a police car blared, and there were soon a bunch of cops standing around us with their guns drawn, telling us to freeze and raise our hands.

  We were being handcuffed, but I was so shocked by everything that I wasn’t even focused on the injustice of us, the victims, being arrested along with the aggressors who had attacked us for no reason. Everyone involved was bruised up a bit, but Michael got the worst of it. Yet, even the lingering pain from the scrapes and punches I had received were overshadowed by the thing that stunned me the most: it turned out that the man who had helped Michael was none other than Julien! I couldn’t believe it. And he was being arrested with us.

  Maria and I were taken into custody in one car, and the others involved in the melee were brought to the police station in other vehicles. About two hours later, we were all charged with public disorder and misdemeanor assault. By far, the most surreal part of the whole incident was when Julien, Michael, Maria, and I were all in a waiting room together with about five other people being held for unrelated, minor offenses (the police had the good sense to keep the guys who had attacked us in a separate room).

  There was something laughably bizarre about the whole scene, with each of us, including Julien, standing there, in handcuffs, bruised up and sullied to varying degrees. Julien actually captured the absurdity of the moment with a perfect line of humor: “So whose brilliant idea was it for us to go on a double date like this? I really prefer restaurants.”

  The four of us shared a much-needed laugh.

  “How did you hear about this protest?” I suddenly asked Julien, still confused and surprised by everything.

  “Don’t you know what you’re tweeting?” he teased me. “I showed up a little late, but just in time to practice my tablet-as-a-weapon skills.”

  Michael gave him an impressed look. “Maybe the manufacturer should mention head-smashing as a product feature.”

  Julien nodded in amusement. “True, I guess you get one solid head smash per tablet.”

  I couldn’t help making fun of Julien’s nerdy qualities. “Who brings a tablet computer to a protest anyway?”

  “Only I do, obviously. But I was doing some work on an investor presentation during the drive down to Union Square from an uptown meeting. Good thing I backed up my work to the cloud just before turning my tablet into a thug-swatter.”

  Michael’s expression turned more serious and genuine. “It means a lot that you came to show support. And I owe you one for getting that giant off me. Actually, I owe you for a lot more than that,” he added with a humble smile.

  “Don’t mention it,” Julien replied graciously. “I figured it was time to roll up my sleeves a little with this cause I’ve been supporting from afar.”

  I was so touched that I moved towards Julien to give him a huge hug, only to be rudely reminded (by the handcuffs binding my hands together behind my back) that doing so wasn’t an option at that moment. But he understood from the way I looked at him, full of love and admiration, that he was meant to be hugged by me at that moment.

  “I just hate that this is probably going to end up in the tabloids,” I added regretfully.

  Julien tried to allay my concerns with some light irony. “Well, this city would be a lot less fun if we couldn’t all read about my adventures in the paper every other day, right?”

  Michael again seemed more serious. “Unfortunately, publicity about this incident could also make you a target now.”

  “What do you mean?” Julien asked.

  “Well, if Islamists now see that a high-profile billionaire is attending rallies against them, they might assume that you should be stopped before you use your power to oppose them in more significant ways.”

  Julien’s lips tightened for a moment of concern and then he shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well, I guess it’s too late now. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ‘If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.’ And at this point, Antioch seems like a pretty good candidate to me. After all, we’re all here for the love of Antioch, and, in one way or another, we all connected as deeply as we did because of Antioch.”

  Chapter 36: Anissa

  Tuesday, August 26, 2014

  To My Dearest,

  Last Sunday, after Julien had instructed his personal attorney to find suitable criminal defense lawyers for each of us, we were all released from the police station by around 10 p.m. By the time Michael, Maria, and I stepped out into the fresh air of freedom, Julien had already left. I assumed (correctly) that he was very behind on his preparations for the big investor meeting, including the presentation that he had been refining on his tablet while getting to the protest. Yesterday, I texted Julien a quick thank you for everything and asked when I could see him again, and he said that his pressures would be done by 6 p.m. tonight, so we planned to see each other at his place at 7:30 p.m.

  When the elevator doors closed behind me on the sixty-fifth floor of Julien’s penthouse, I stepped right into his arms, and we just hugged for a few minutes. “It’s so great to see you again,” I finally said, as we released each other.

  “Better here than in the processing room of the police station, right?” he replied wryly.

  I chuckled. “I still can’t believe that whole scenario. The entire thing is beyond surreal.”

  “Kind of like my hidden past, right?”

  I shook my head. “No, nothing quite comes close to that.”

  Julien picked up a folded up newspaper and dropped it on the counter nearby. “Well, this is pretty surreal to me,” he remarked, shaking his head. “I assume you’ve seen it already?”

  I looked at the paper and saw a mug shot of each of us, side by side, next to the headline “Columbia Prof in Slammer with Student Gal Pal.”

  “No, I didn’t see this one. I saw some of the other papers, but they didn’t have our photos.”

  “Their photography style is a bit blander than the pics of us from that Latino benefit dinner.”

  I chuckled at his dry humor. “But how did they c
ome up with the term ‘gal pal?’”

  “Read it, and you’ll see.”

  I shook my head in angry frustration at the press, and began perusing the article.

  “Columbia University Professor and hedge fund billionaire, Julien Morales, was arrested yesterday afternoon in a brawl that broke out at a Union Square protest calling for stronger U.S. military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and highlighting the genocidal campaign by ISIS against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities. According to eyewitnesses, the thirty-nine-year-old, Mexican-American finance tycoon used his computer tablet as a weapon to attack a man who was among a group of counter-protestors beating up Michael Kassab, a twenty-eight-year-old Columbia University doctoral student and the founding head of the Mideast Christian Association. Mr. Kassab helped to organize the rally and spoke at the event prior to being assaulted. Anissa Toma, an eighteen-year-old Columbia undergraduate was also arrested for her involvement in the melee. Ms. Toma was enrolled in Professor Morales’ Psychology and Markets class last spring, and, according to some of her classmates, was close with and possibly a lover of Mr. Morales during that time. The owner of JM Analytics & Trading (JMAT), a prestigious Midtown hedge fund, Mr. Morales is known more for his playboy lifestyle than his political activism, although he has long been a major benefactor of Latin American causes. He was photographed together with Ms. Toma at a Latino charity gala last month. Earlier in the summer, a Manhattan courier who was attacked by a JMAT security employee sued Mr. Morales for negligently hiring a homeless man suffering from PTSD to work in security.”

  I couldn’t believe the article I had just read. No wonder the media can’t cover the Middle East fairly: they can’t even report on a protest fracas properly – forever labeling Julien as a “playboy,” even though he hasn’t thrown one of his parties in months, and then repeating the incident with the traumatized war veteran in a way that just makes Julien look bad, without mentioning that he was trying to do a good thing, that he paid huge sums to compensate the injured party, or that he continued to care for the veteran even after he was fired from JMAT. The article also failed to mention that the counter-protestors attacked us for no reason at all and that Julien was coming to the justified defense of Michael, who was on the ground being brutalized by a mob. I tried to contain my rage as I shook my head. “This is awful,” I finally vented. “But how did they even know that I’m a Columbia student?”

  “Well, the demonstration itself was well covered by the media, and I’m sure their reporters contacted other protestors who were there, and asked lots of questions about those who were arrested.”

  I then recalled that there were several Columbia students who are active in the MCA and showed up for the demonstration. “I guess one of them must have been asked about me, and said that I was a fellow student, without realizing that the reporter would then try to dig up everything else about me, including the fact that, a few weeks ago, we were photographed as a couple in the Latino media, and that I was your student.”

  Julien sighed. “Anything to sell more newspapers.” He extended his hand, and I took it. “Come on,” he said, leading me back to the same sofa where we had sat when he revealed his awful past to me. “Let’s talk about more important things – like how happy I am to see you again. Here.”

  We sat down on the sofa next to each other. “Well, I probably shouldn’t have left the way I did... I was just so shocked, as you can imagine.”

  “Yes, I can. In fact, I think you reacted quite calmly relative to how other Syrian-Christian women dating their Mexican-American professors who turned out to have an Islamist past would have reacted,” he added absurdly.

  I chuckled. “Listen, Julien, I was upset but I completely understand that you were just a boy acting under duress. And you’ve clearly rejected that past and want nothing to do with it. In fact, you’ve done everything you possibly can to repudiate it – concealing it from the rest of the world and supporting the defense of Mideast Christians, a cause that’s antithetical to the Islamist worldview. You struggled with your past so profoundly that, in the end, paradoxically enough, you actually fulfilled your father’s original intent when he named you ‘Jihad.’”

  Julien looked impressed. “I never thought of it like that, but that’s a great way to spin my original name now, if anyone else knew it. But, as you can imagine, it must always remain our little secret.”

  “Of course.” I moved closer to Julien and took his hand in mine. “Actually, as painful as it was for both of us to have all of your dark secrets come out, I think it really brought us so much closer, in ways that I’m still discovering.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. For example, I think I can now actually explain your recurring nightmare in which your blanket turns into razor blades and cuts you open.”

  “Oh, this is interesting. Even my therapist couldn’t figure this one out. Although she also didn’t get even a tiny fraction of the information I gave you about my childhood, so I can’t really blame her. Anyway, let me hear your analysis.”

  “The blanket represents your father, because the very thing that is supposed to protect you ends up harming you.”

  He looked away for a moment, as if to contemplate the truth of my interpretation. “I think you’re right!” he suddenly exclaimed, almost in disbelief. “That’s a brilliant insight.”

  “See that? Maybe I should have gotten better than a B in your class,” I quipped playfully.

  He took hold of my arm and pulled me towards him. “Now who’s a teacher’s pet?” he asked, as he brought my lips to his while stroking my nape. We kissed, and our tongues danced with each other, as I felt myself lost in warmth and desire again.

  After making out for a wonderfully long time, Julien finally gave our lips and tongues a break and offered to bring us something to drink. “I should have offered when you first came in, but that article took over our attention.” He rose from the sofa to bring us some juice.

  Julien returned with two cold glasses of organic carrot juice and rested them on the coffee table nearby. After he sat back down next to me, his eyes fixed intensely on mine. “Anissa, I sent you my journal entries, because I wanted you to know just how irreversibly I have committed to you. You brought me to a place of trust and love that I never knew existed.”

  “I feel the same about you,” I said meekly, with a smile.

  “Good, because I’m not sure what life would even mean to me at this point, if you were no longer in it. So, as far as I’m concerned, there’s nowhere left for us to go but forward.”

  “Forward?”

  “Yes. As a couple,” he said, taking my hand.

  I smiled at his mysteriously circuitous approach to whatever he was about to propose. “And how would we do that?”

  “Well, it’s really time for Icarus to fly again.”

  Now I was even more uncertain about where he was going, but played along. “Your vet said he’s fully recovered?”

  “Yes – a while ago, actually. But I’ve been worried about how empty my bedroom will feel after he’s set free. So... Will you take his place and move in with me?”

  I smiled at his cleverly crafted surprise. “I understand that you want me in your life, but do you really expect me to live in that little cage of his?”

  We shared a much needed laugh. “Hey, you’ll have a fabulous view of Manhattan, and you’ll get fed very well!”

  “The very best vegetarian seeds I could ever want,” I bantered back.

  “So, is that a yes?” he asked sheepishly.

  I took my hands away. “Only if you’ll accept this from me now,” I said, removing the necklace that my mother had given me.

  He smiled and opened up his palm to receive it.

  I dropped the necklace in his hand, and he closed his fingers on it, before moving towards me for another kiss.

  Chapter 37: Anissa

  Wednesday, September 3, 2014

  To My Dearest,


  It’s been a very happy and milestone-filled time since I last wrote to you. Yesterday was my first day of classes as a college sophomore, and the day before, I finished moving my things to Julien’s penthouse. He actually had a very special ceremony planned to honor the occasion.

  Julien came home from work at around 7 p.m., and we went down to the nearby Gramercy Park together, carrying the cage with Icarus in it. We stopped in an area that was relatively empty and had a few trees nearby.

  “I’m going to give you the honors,” he said. “Open the cage door and let Icarus step onto your palm, and then take your hand out and set him free.”

  I felt my chest warm with excitement and joy at the symbolic beauty of the moment, as I crouched down a little to open the cage door and slowly insert my outstretched hand so that Icarus could climb on top of it. It was also my first time feeling a sparrow on my palm, and his scratchy little feet actually tickled my hand a bit, as did his soft feathers, which lightly grazed the lower part of my arm. He made some jerky and excited movements in my hand, which was still in the cage. Julien gestured with his head a little, as if to encourage me. “Go on. It’s time. Just slowly bring your hand out of the cage, and he’ll decide when to go.”

  I did as he said, and gradually stood up, with my open palm in front of me, and Icarus tentatively probing the air around him with little movements of his head. He stretched his wings out a little and nearly turned around in a complete circle, as if to take leave of Julien and me before flying away. Then he turned to face the direction of my fingertips, flapped his wings and awkwardly lifted off of my hand. He flew about fifteen feet and then landed by the foot of the tree near us.

  Julien looked at Icarus and then at me. “One wounded soul in my bedroom moves out, and another moves in.”

  “Not so injured, now that I’m with you,” I added with a smile. He took me into his arms and we kissed.