Fives and Twenty-Fives Read online

  If I met her today? I’d tell her that in all my time with the Marines I never once heard the words “college money.”

  When I first got home, though, it felt like I’d gone back in time. Starting at the welcome-home party. So, are you going to college, now? Gonna use that college money?

  Dad put that party together for me even after I asked him not to. I don’t think he ever understood what “sent home” meant. He was just proud, I guess. Real proud.

  Uncle Chuck and Aunt Linda let him have the party out at their camp on Bayou Teche. Hung a banner that said GOD BLESS AMERICA. You know that banner you get at Walmart? With the block letters and the flag? Uncle Chuck and Aunt Linda paid for everything. Invited a lot of people I didn’t know. Everyone brought kids. All night, they jumped in and out of the pool, screaming. My god, they would not stop screaming.

  My cousins all drove in from Baton Rouge, too. They were just starting college, then. They all gathered around and asked me the questions.

  Kill anyone? What’s it like to shoot a machine gun? Must’ve been hot in the desert, huh?

  Then they started telling stories to each other, mostly about bars. Not even stories, really. Just who was there, how drunk they were. After a while, they started talking about what they’d do in Baton Rouge that night, so I wandered over to the ice chest to grab a Coke.

  On the way, I heard Uncle Chuck say to my dad, “I don’t understand what he means by ‘general discharge.’ I tell you what, if it ain’t honorable, it’s the other kind. Hell, in the Air Force, I got an honorable discharge just for three years sitting around Germany. Ain’t hard.”

  And I can’t say that I went blind, exactly. Because I saw things. But for a few minutes I was outside the world. I heard it, though. Like I had sat down at the kitchen table to listen while a couple of grown men in the living room beat the shit out of each other.

  The world came back to me as we were grappling across the patio, each of us with the other in a headlock. I tasted my own blood and felt Uncle Chuck’s blood smearing across my cheek from his busted lip. I heard the kids screaming again, but no splashing in the pool. My cousins, Uncle Chuck’s sons, pulled us apart with him screaming at me and calling me a fucking psychopath, and both of us trying hard to break free and keep throwing punches.

  I felt another hand, all rough and calloused, pressed against my forehead. It was my father.

  “Please, Les,” he whispered in my ear. “Okay? Please.”

  So I gave in. Went limp until my cousins let go of me. All the while, my dad kept a gentle pressure on my forehead. He walked me back away from the crowded patio, then tried to hug me. But I shrugged him off. As I walked away, I heard him apologizing to Uncle Chuck and Aunt Linda. They were lecturing him about how much they’d spent on putting the party together and how ungrateful I’d been acting even before the fight.

  That was the end of the hero talk. The end of family holidays, too. I drove my truck down the levee and found a spot under some cypress trees by the river with no noise but the bugs, nothing on the ground but branches, and all the leaves exactly where the trees had put them.

  After a few hours calming myself down, I went home and apologized to my dad. That’s when I decided to stay in Houma with him. Ditched the idea of moving out and getting my own place.

  Dad. He’s gonna freeze out there in that shed. I walk to my bedroom window and feel cold air trickling in. Am I gonna have to drag him out of that shed by his collar?

  I shake it off, all this frustration, and go back to my computer, where the message from Paul and Landry is still open on the screen. It’s a Facebook invite from a new metal band they’re calling Vermin Uprising. They have a show in New Orleans. Some bar called Siberia. Maybe they’re just inviting everyone they know to this thing. But what the hell? I’ll just drive up for the night and say hello. I click on the accept button, then drift around Facebook awhile. Looking at people I used to know from high school, all married with kids.

  On a whim, I decide to look for Dodge. I use his real name at first—Kateb. But nothing comes back. So I do a search on Google for “Iraqi interpreter Dodge.” Again, I get nothing.

  He might have changed his name, which wouldn’t have been a bad idea. Or maybe he’s dead. I give up, close the laptop, and go back to the window to watch the lights in the shed, wondering when he’ll finish up out there so I can go to sleep.

  To: Mr. Kateb al-Hariri. Sousse, Tunisia

  From: The U.S. Department of State

  The Bureau of Consular Affairs has been unable to verify that you were ever employed as an interpreter by U.S. forces serving in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Detailed records, made available by the Department of Defense, contain no mention of your name, nor of the code name (Dodge) you claim you were issued. As a result, your petition for special immigrant status has been denied. You can appeal this ruling by submitting a new Form I-360, with additional details, documents, and references for caseworker review.

  The 2009 National Defense Authorization Act allows for the issuance of up to 500 Special Immigrant Visas to Iraqi translators and interpreters who worked for the U.S. military, but demand for these visas is expected to exceed the annual limit. Please consider applying for a student visa instead.

  These Boys, These Missouri Boys

  The Americans sent me this letter via the standard Tunisian post. Someone at the postal center, some secret policeman, opened the letter before the carrier brought it here to my flat. American symbols, eagles and olive branches, adorn the envelope. The secret policeman at the postal center probably copied the letter, made note of the address, and placed my name onto some list. What is worse, the fundamentalist gentlemen from downstairs, with their thick beards and scowls, watched me retrieve the post and now must wonder who the shy Iraqi kid is, in truth.

  They are still trying to get me killed, the Americans.

  I take the letter and the envelope down the dark hallway to the toilet, burn it there, and flush the ashes. I should think less on America and more on attending university here in Sousse. Their university is lovely, situated on the sea, its ancient, whitewashed edifices highlighted in blue. Truly, all the buildings here in Sousse are lovely, quite a few of them adorned with stylish filigree. It is no wonder the Europeans flock to this place with their cameras and their sunscreen, lie on the beach, and wait for me to bring them their drinks.

  The whitewash makes me think of Tom Sawyer and his fence, and I am reminded, again, that I should think more on my thesis and less on the dream of America. My thesis is still the key to everything. I must remember the parts I lost in Baghdad, consider my new ideas. In this way, I should become a true scholar.

  With the best of intentions, I open the thesis document on my computer and laugh. Because, of course, it is impossible. My thesis? It is all about America, man. The place I have never been. And in any case, it is pointless to attempt creative work when assailed by the noise of the riots. It is too loud even for thinking.

  Outside, the university students throw bricks and scream the president’s name. They chant for all young people to come out into the streets and join their revolution. They sing the Tunisian national anthem and “Tunisia Our Country,” by that rapper El Général. They are not doing him any favors with that. President Ben Ali will have El Général arrested soon, I predict.

  Now they are chanting for Ben Ali to join them in the streets, too. Thinking they can give him some justice. Foolishness.

  Each night for this past week, the crowd has moved closer to the government center and the main square. Today, I overheard English tourists on the beach discussing whether they should leave, mentioning how the rioters in Tunis touched the iron gates of the presidential palace last night. Insanity. Riot police pushed them back and splashed the streets with a bit of blood. Soon President Ben Ali will send his army into the streets to relieve the police, and then the real bleeding will begin.

  Through my window I see red police lights flashing in the smoke and tear
gas. Nearer to our flat than it had been an hour before, this riot. Police chase the people down. They are coming my way, and the state intelligence service will be behind them carrying lists. Perhaps they carry a copy of that American letter. Perhaps they will find me and see that the name on my Syrian passport is different from the name on that letter.

  My flatmates are out there. University gentlemen making time with the ladies and the cool kids. They had wanted me to come out with them tonight, but I declined. “Go have fun without me,” I told them. “I had my adventures at home. Besides, I have to work in the morning. The English tourists on the beach need more drinks before they decide what to do.”

  I sit down at my computer and reopen my thesis. With fingers on the keys, I consider where to start and try to remember where I stopped. I think of Baghdad years ago, when I met Professor Al-Rawi for the first time to discuss The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, his favorite book by his favorite American.

  He awarded me the special task of reading it in the off-term, when the other students of English relaxed at home. Each day, I went to his office on the Karada campus and he explained to me things which I could not have possibly understood then.

  Truly, I did not comprehend a single thing at first. How Mark Twain wrote. How these Americans spoke, so ignorant and rough. Why Americans today thought of this story of terribly behaved children as such high art.

  “Kateb, you must understand the context,” Professor Al-Rawi said. “What the American reader knew then, what Americans today do not remember, and what you certainly cannot understand. These were not just boys making silly plans in caves. These were boys growing up just in time for their war. Sitting there, making plans to start this robber’s gang, this was quite humorous to Americans reading the book in the nineteenth century.”

  “But not the Americans of today?”

  He lit a cigarette. “Humorous, yes. But for other reasons. You see, Americans today . . . forget. Ten years after these boys met to scheme in caves, their civil war fell upon them. These boys, these Missouri boys, they would have cut each other’s throats in that war. And the sides they would pick? This was determined in their youth, you see.”

  We were silent for a moment while I considered this.

  “Have you thought about Huck Finn cutting Tom Sawyer’s throat?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You should, Kateb. You should think about that.” Then he smiled, like he knew all along what would come for us.

  A grenade goes off in the street. A stun grenade, I should think, from the exaggerated noise and the lack of shrapnel clicking off the cobblestones. Lethal grenades, I know, make only the noise that they must.

  The riot turns a corner now and moves closer to me. Soon we will lose our electricity, and I have only this old desktop computer with no backup battery for emergencies. This makes writing treacherous, and I must save my work often. I stop, save my changes, and close the document. Then I think that while there is still some electricity remaining I should look at the Internet to pass time. I open a few windows of porno to distract, but this does not work.

  Soon, I am searching for Pleasant’s name, and the mulasim’s name, too. This is what the American letter told me I should do. Find Americans who would know me. Americans who would know that I am truthful, Americans who could write letters for me saying, “Kateb. Yes, I knew him. He served with us. A good man. He helped us.”

  I find Pleasant soon enough, right on Facebook. But the mulasim? He is nowhere, as though he is hiding.

  I begin my note to Pleasant, “Old friend. Crazy-man Lester. This is Dodge.” Then I close Facebook without sending.

  Then, though I know I should not, that it is pointless and no good can come of it, I open the video clip of Mohamed Bouazizi, again. What started these riots. Burning himself in front of the Sidi Bouzid police station. I have watched it many times, now. We are the same age, almost. And he is skinny, like me. He cries and hits himself in the face. He throws paint thinner down his back, howling like a wild thing. Then, when he lights his match, he is suddenly calm. Like he knows this will work. That the revolution will grow from this.

  The foreign news, still sneaking through on the Internet, claims that Mohamed Bouazizi is still alive in hospital. I check on him several times each day, without good reason. I did not know him. I am not even Tunisian. Why should I care so much?

  In any case, I still find it foolish, this chanting in the streets on his account. What do they think will happen? That President Ben Ali will leave because a young man selling fruit from a cart lights a match? That because the kids all have cameras on their mobile phones, President Ben Ali will not kill them with bullets and clubs?

  An idea comes to me and I return to my thesis to put down one more thought, quickly, before I abandon work for the evening. I scan for the passage about Huck’s guilt and make a new paragraph.

  “Huck believes in the Widow Douglas,” I begin. “Her opinions on right and wrong he considers as fact. He even accepts the Widow’s assertion that he will go to Hell as a hard truth, with the simple caveat that he does not mind going to Hell so long as Tom joins him there. He wishes to do what is right for his friends on Earth, even when he knows it is wrong. His abiding desire to help his friend Jim, in particular, brings him dire feelings of guilt, as if he has betrayed the good Widow.”

  Just then, the electricity leaves our flat with a loud pop. The computer screen becomes black and I lose these words. But I am not upset. I have already changed my mind about them.

  I sit in the darkness and listen to the chanting in the streets before getting up from my chair and moving to the window. Without heat now, I grope in darkness for my coat and put it on over my jumper. It is a nice coat, abandoned by some careless French tourist at the resort. The bosses allowed me to take it home once they realized that I owned so few winter clothes.

  The crowd will come around the corner at any moment, and I wonder if my flatmates will appear with it. I wonder if I should go onto the streets if only to see this thing. This revolution.

  Then I think of Lester, his picture on Facebook in my mind’s eye, and I wonder if he will help me, if he even should. I wonder where Mulasim Donovan can be found, if not on Facebook. I write down a note in the dark. Universities. Newspapers. Places to look for him.

  Professor Liebert:

  As requested, please see the attached excerpt from my Official Military Personnel File, and the substantial leadership instruction (equivalent to over thirty semester hours) I received as an officer-in-training at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Again, I ask that you apply this instruction as a transfer credit so that I may be excused from Management 901: Leadership Dynamics and Business Ethics.

  Respectfully,

  Peter Donovan

  Leadership Dynamics

  The classroom has stadium-style seating with chairs built into tables. Concentric semicircles rise up from the podium on carpeted terraces. A wealthy alum, his name bolted to the door on a bronze plaque I’ve never read, paid for the renovation as part of Liebert’s endowed professorship of business ethics and leadership.

  The university designed this lecture room for modern, multimedia instruction, but never ran that idea by Liebert, apparently. He has thirty years of tenure, so no one can complain that he doesn’t have an e-mail account and refuses to prepare PowerPoint presentations. Even the whiteboard annoys him. He laments constantly on the demise of chalk.

  Liebert stalks up and down the terraces, hunched over with his hands clasped behind his back. Wild, gray hair shifts slightly from one side to the other as he glances at our laptop screens to make sure we’re not checking our e-mail or streaming videos, while, at the podium, Paige Dufossat briefs the weekly case study. The semester is almost over. We’ll submit our final papers in a few weeks, and I’ll start my winter internship at Poydras Capital, a downtown investment firm.

  I’m still savagely hungover from my night with Zahn. Knowing Liebert’s habits by now, I’ve hidden Twenty
Small Sailboats to Take You Anywhere inside the casebook. It’s the only thing that keeps me from putting my head down on the table and passing out. I spend the class reviewing the dimensions and handling characteristics of the twenty-eight-foot, sloop-rigged Pearson Triton, in response to the line I have on a Katrina wreck at West End. The harbormaster might let me have it for free if I move it at my own expense.

  I haven’t read the case study, but glean from the sparing attention I give Paige’s brief that it’s about a fast-food chain expanding into the Chinese market. Now she moves to her conclusions, the moment when she can only fail. It’s Liebert’s practice to destroy any ideas that aren’t his own. We all know it by now. She grasps the podium and, using only the muscles of her neck, throws her long, brown hair over each shoulder while bringing her gaze back to Professor Liebert.

  “So, in my opinion,” she says stoically, “the executive’s lack of empathy for a foreign culture and his unwillingness to adapt to the Chinese mind-set led to these difficulties in supply-chain management, which in turn led to the stalled expansion effort.”

  She knows what’s coming next. I can see it on her face. Or maybe it’s just the default state of her delicate features that I mistake for fear. Her appearance doesn’t exactly scream, “Ruthless business executive,” like that of some of the other girls in our class. Most of her female classmates arrive on campus in heels and power suits, but Paige is more of a T-shirt-and-jeans type who eschews makeup. It works for her, allowing her pale blue eyes and her slight, upturned nose to stand out.

  I can’t recall offhand the eye color of any other classmate. Nor can I imagine any other classmate citing “lack of empathy” for a business failure. Paige can’t expect Professor Liebert to respond favorably to any of this, which makes it an interesting choice. I wonder where she’s going with it. I close the casebook and its clandestine rider, sitting up for the first time in an hour.