Borderline

by Allan Stratton

  Friday morning I find an envelope wedged through the crack of my locker. Inside is a one-sheet, computer printout:

  THINK DADDY CAN SAVE YOUR ASS?

  WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE.

  Sixteen

  The whole weekend, I’m stuck inside. Dad says I can’t have anyone over, meaning Andy and Marty, who are apparently the spawn of Satan. As in, “Those Boys Have Been Trouble From Day One.” It’s worse than prison: Even murderers get visitors. At least I can talk to the guys by cell. I tell them about Eddy’s note.

  “He’s just messing with your head,” Andy says. “No way he’d come on your property.”

  All the same, I make sure the curtains in the family room are closed after dark. I’m creeped he might spy on me from the golf course.

  Monday, it’s back to Academy Hell Race. By now I know I’m fine as long as I stay in the open with people around. At lunch, I head to my corner in the caf. I’ve decided to fix Eddy’s woodworking: SABIRI SUX.

  Mitchell’s moved his studying to the far end of the table. “I can sit with you,” he says, “but I don’t want anyone to think we’re talking.”

  “Then you should stop moving your lips when you read.”

  Mitchell gets this panicked look and covers his mouth with both hands.

  I get to work. First, I line my books around the SABIRI SUX carving so no one’ll see what I’m doing—especially Mr. Carson, who’s on caf duty. Then I pull Dad’s chisel out of my knapsack. I start to connect the ends of the Ss, so they look like 8s.

  Mitchell glances over. “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?”

  He goes clammy. “Stop it. You’ll get us in trouble.”

  “How?”

  “Defacing school property.”

  “Gimme a break. It’s already defaced.” I turn each I into a T.

  Mitchell twitches so bad you’d swear he was on crack. “I’m serious, Sammy. I don’t want to get suspended.”

  “You won’t. You’re just studying.”

  “Yeah, but I know what you’re doing. I’ll be an accessory after the fact.”

  I roll my eyes. “Mitchell, grow up. Sit somewhere else.”

  “But everyone knows I sit here.”

  I decide to ignore him. The U in SUX looks like a V. I put a line on top and turn it into a triangle. Mitchell vanishes. Good.

  I put a line under the A, making it a little triangle in a big triangle, and lines at the top and bottom of the X, turning it into a kind of hourglass. Then I take out a marker and scribble in the gouges.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Sabiri?” It’s Mr. Carson, his beard flecked with egg salad. I see Mitchell, five tables over, trying to hide. The snitch. Like, I know he was the one who ratted me out. Don’t I?

  I’m brought to the vice principal’s office. I try to explain. Mr. McGregor visits the scene of the crime. He says the carving doesn’t look like SABIRI SUX; it looks like “premeditated vandalism.”

  “I know it doesn’t look like SABIRI SUX. I changed it. That was the point.”

  “Why didn’t you report it?”

  “I was embarrassed.”

  “Why didn’t anyone else report it?”

  “Why would they? It’s not like it was their name written there.” Plus, I think, what supervising teacher wants to look slack? And why would a custodian bother? It’d just be more crap to deal with.

  I try to get Mitchell to be my witness about how I was just trying to fix my name being gouged, but he’s too scared. He says he never saw anything, except what he told Mr. Carson: “Please, sir. I’m not an accessory, sir.” Hey, Mitchell, you’re right. You’re not an accessory. You’re an asshole.

  Mr. McGregor slaps me with a rest-of-the-week suspension for bringing a weapon to school—Dad’s chisel—and defacing Academy property. I also get an official report in my school file, a letter to my parents with a bill for the damage, and a warning that the next incident will result in expulsion.

  Dad hits the roof. He’s already had daily migraines since coming back from Toronto, thanks to my earlier run-ins with the law and Mr. McGregor. Like, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with his secret girlfriend, right? But with my suspension, he goes from Tylenol to Demerol.

  He also announces, “Starting today your mother and I will be doing random checks of your room. We’ll be looking for alcohol, drugs, condoms, weapons, and any other mischief you might be up to.” With that he takes a hammer and screwdriver, and pops the hinge pins on my bedroom door.

  “Dad?” I say. “There’s this little thing called privacy.”

  “Why do you need privacy? Do you have something to hide?”

  “That’s not the point. It’s sort of in the Constitution, Dad. Along with, oh, I don’t know, freedom?”

  “Freedom requires responsibility,” he glares. “You should have thought of that before you broke our trust.”

  I throw my arms in the air. “I went to a cottage unsupervised. I trespassed on an abandoned island. It was wrong. I’m sorry. But as for the serious stuff, I’m innocent.”

  “What crook says he’s guilty?” Dad demands.

  “Dad. Listen. There’s explanations.”

  “No doubt.” If his eyes were fists they’d pound me. He pulls the door loose and carries it behind the furnace.

  I turn to Mom. “This isn’t fair.”

  Mom holds up a hand. She walks upstairs.

  Great. I’m in lockdown.

  Seventeen

  It’s one A.M. Thursday night—well, early Friday morning, technically. Whatever. This time tomorrow, my suspension will be history. It’s been a slice. Nonstop video games and web surfing. I should maybe get suspended more often.

  Mind you, the surveillance sucks. Mom’s taken the evening shift so she can watch me during the day. She gets home at eleven and goes straight to bed. Dad’s already asleep. But I can’t sneak out; they’ve changed the security code. If I try to leave without them knowing, the alarm’ll go off.

  One plus is Dad’s Demerol. When his head hits the pillow, he’s history. So as soon as Mom crashes, I get uncensored webcam visits with Andy and Marty. No texting, just talk. They don’t worry about being heard either. Marty’s dad snores so loud, his mom sleeps through anything. And Andy’s alone upstairs: His dad’s officially out of the house, and his mom’s adrift in the rec room La-Z-Boy, tuned to the Home Shopping Network.

  So anyway, it’s one A.M. and the three of us are online. Andy and I are totally grossed out: Marty’s mooning the screen. I don’t know whether to laugh or gag. We’re talking fifty pounds of marbled lard with a couple of cherry-sized zits.

  Marty’s hands move his cheeks so it looks like his butt is talking: “This is your father, Sammy. I think I gotta sneeze.” The ass-puppet rips a fart.

  “You pig!” I wave my hands like I can smell it over the ether.

  Andy goes for a pee break. Marty and I horse around while he’s gone. It’s weird. Hermit Island sucked so bad that we bonded again. Now we’re buddies again like in the old days.

  Suddenly, Andy’s back. “Sammy!” he gasps. “I looked out the bathroom window. There’s strangers down on the golf course, other side of your hedge!”

  “What?”

  “At least five or six of them. It’s dark, they’re wearing black, I can’t tell how many for sure.”

  “Very funny.”

  “No kidding, bro. They’re facing your house. I think they’ve got dogs.”

  “If you’re trying to scare me, Andy, quit it.”

  “I’m not. It’s what I saw.”

  My guts melt. “You said Eddy’d never come on my property.”

  “Who says it’s Eddy?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  “Want me to call the cops?” Marty asks.

  “No,” I say. “They’re the last thing I need.”

  “What, then?”

  “I’m gonna check it out.”

  “I got your back,” An
dy says. “I’ll be in the can with my cell. Any trouble, it’s 911, whether you like it or not.”

  “What about me? What do I do?” from Marty.

  “Sit tight,” Andy says.

  I turn off my light, and feel my way to the basement stairs. I know my way to the kitchen by heart. Upstairs is completely dark, except for the spill from the street lamp, splashing across the hall floor from the bay window in the living room. I tiptoe to the family room, back pressed to the wall.

  I have a flash of Andy and Marty laughing on their webcams. If this is a joke…

  The curtains on the French doors leading out to the patio are closed.

  I hear a sound. Can’t make it out. I stand stock-still. It stops. I edge forward, barely daring to breathe. Eddy. His gang. They wouldn’t. They couldn’t. Then I flash on them spray-painting our back wall.

  They could.

  I run to the French doors. Throw open the curtains.

  Nothing. Nobody. The yard’s empty.

  I back up toward the kitchen, go to the window on my right. I peek between the curtains. From the corner of my eye, I see a red dot appear on the fabric. It disappears. Where did it go? Suddenly, the beam hits my eyes. What the hell? Holy shit, I’m caught in a scope!

  I drop to the floor. “Mom! Dad! Help!”

  I roll to the French doors to close those curtains too. Two masked men leap into view. They boot the panes by the locks. The doors smash open. They charge in.

  Our alarm goes off.

  I scramble down the hall. “MOM! DAD!”

  I’m tackled, foot of the stairs. My arm yanks up behind me.

  I see Mom at the top. She’s caught in the beam of a flashlight.

  Mom screams. Men and dogs run up after her. She races toward the bedroom. Two of the men grab her and drag her into the office.

  “MOM!!!”

  A knee drops on my neck.

  “FBI! FREEZE!”

  PART THREE

  Eighteen

  The world’s a blur of shouts. Shadows. Boots. Dogs.

  “FB—?”

  “I SAID FREEZE!”

  The knee jams into my face. It burns my left cheek into the carpet. Squashes into my eye.

  Can’t breathe. Can’t see. Except—

  Dad in a headlock. Men crowded around him. Attack dogs at the ready.

  Dad’s dazed from the Demerol. “Who—? What—?”

  They hustle him down the stairs, out the front door. The dogs follow, straining their leads.

  “Why???” Dad cries out. He disappears into the night.

  In the distance, sirens. Cops. Andy. He must’ve made the call.

  Now lights. Lights everywhere. I blink in the glare. See an army of agents tromping up and down the stairs. Dad’s computer carted away. His scanner. Drawers. Files.

  And I’m suddenly airborne. Up on my toes, my arms half out of their sockets. A hand grips my head from behind. Forces it down into my chest. I’m whirled around, forced to the kitchen, down the basement stairs into my room.

  Marty’s face is on my monitor. His eyes go wild when he sees me. Somebody yanks out the plug. The screen goes blank. Oh my god! They’re taking my computer.

  “Wait! Don’t! It’s got my homework!”

  It’s got my homework?

  Two men with rubber gloves empty my desk. Others tear down my posters, rip open my mattress.

  “What are you looking for? What?”

  Fingers dig under my collarbone. I crumple.

  My chair gets spun from behind. I face a bare wall.

  Through the open door, I hear crashes upstairs in the kitchen and family room, and down the corridor in Dad’s workshop. A whine of drills. A smash of axes, maybe crowbars. A tide of agents floods by with plastic bags from the downstairs freezer, plus Dad’s toolbox and who knows what else.

  Are the men who wrecked my room still here? Is anybody here? Am I alone? I want to turn around, to see, to know, but I’m afraid. I’m—

  I smell the stink of stale cigar smoke. Hear my two folding chairs scrape across the floor. One stops behind me, to my left. The other bangs down to my right.

  Silence.

  Whoever’s there, they’re staring at the center of the back of my head. It’s as if my skull is burning. Like their eyes are drilling their way into my brain.

  “What’s going on?”

  A long pause. Then a man’s voice from the chair to my left: “We know everything, Sami.”

  I hesitate. “How do you know my name?”

  “You weren’t listening, Sami. We know everything.”

  The man to my right shifts in his chair. His butt makes a sound on the plastic seat cover. “Is there something you’d like to tell us?” Wait, I was wrong. This voice, it isn’t a man—it’s a woman. “If you tell us, it’ll make things easier,” she says.

  I think: If you know everything, what can I tell you? “Can I turn around?”

  “No.”

  I try to picture them. I can’t. They’re like voices in a nightmare, at the end of a dark alley; wherever you turn to run, it’s always the alley, with them at the end of it.

  “Why are you here?” I whisper.

  “You know.”

  “I don’t!”

  The man snorts. I hear him get up, walk slowly around my room. Every so often he stops. Why? What’s got his attention?

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “Not if you cooperate,” the woman says.

  “How? I don’t even know what you want.”

  “The truth,” the man says. He’s over by my dresser.

  “The truth about what?” The snake slithers in my guts. I try not to panic. “Is this about Toronto?” I want to bite off my tongue.

  “Toronto?” the man says. “What do you know about Toronto?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why did you say it?”

  “It just came out.”

  “Funny thing to think of, Toronto.” He sits. “Funny thing to say, out of the blue.”

  “It’s not,” I say. “It’s—Me and my dad—We were going to see the Jays and the Leafs, and—Look, should I have a lawyer?”

  “Why do you need a lawyer?” the woman asks.

  “Because, I guess, I mean, I thought—”

  “Tell us,” she says calmly. “We don’t want to make things hard for you.”

  The snake coils in my belly. This IS about Toronto. It’s about your dad. His lies. His secret phone number.

  I don’t know that.

  So tell them. If it’s not about that, what does it matter?

  It matters because whatever I say will look bad.

  That’s not your problem. Why suffer because of your dad?

  Because he’s my dad!

  But think what he may have done. The FBI doesn’t break down doors for nothing.

  Sure they do. They make mistakes. Like with Dad’s friend, Mr. Ibrahim. He got strip-searched at Newark coming back from the Hajj because of a mix-up with his name.

  Who says there was a mix-up? Maybe he just got lucky.

  No!

  Have it your way. Ibrahim was innocent. They let him go, didn’t they? Your dad’ll go free too, if he’s clear. Like he says, who needs privacy if there’s nothing to hide?

  I won’t snitch on Dad!

  It wouldn’t be snitching. The FBI knows everything. If they don’t, they will. You won’t be giving them anything new.

  “Stop it! Leave me alone!” Oh god, I said it out loud.

  The man swoops in behind me. “If you know something and don’t say it, you’re toast. Got that? If people die, you’ll be an accessory to murder.”

  “What?”

  He squeezes my shoulders hard. “You heard me, Sami. You’ll spend the rest of your life in jail.”

  Save yourself! Save yourself!

  The man whirls my chair around. He plants his hands on my arms. Sticks his nose in my face. His breath is hot, pores huge. “You tell me, and you tell me now,” he hollers. “Where i
s Tariq Hasan?”

  “Tariq Hasan? Who’s Tariq Hasan?”

  The man doesn’t blink. “Don’t play dumb.” His head’s big and boney, cheeks hollow, hair so cropped he might as well be bald. I should be shaking, but I can’t. I’m frozen.

  The man relaxes his grip on my arms, grabs the chair behind him, swings it around between his legs, and squats on it. He’s older than he looks. I can tell by the veins on the back of his hands, and the tight flap of skin under his chin. One thing’s for sure: He’s important. Not like the others. No, this one’s in a blazer and dress pants.

  He leans forward. “I asked you a question, Sami,” he says evenly. “Don’t make me ask it again. Where is Tariq Hasan?”

  “I don’t know who you mean. Really.” My voice is so light it could float through the ceiling.

  The man reaches his arm toward the woman. She hands him a folder. He takes it without looking, pulls out an 8x10, holds it in front of my face.

  It’s shot from across a street. The guy in the center of the photo is in his early twenties. He’s slouched against a wall between a shaded window and a short set of cement steps, wearing a loose, long-sleeved shirt that drops to mid-thigh and matching baggy pants pulled in at the ankle. Oh, and he has a sketchy beard, a skullcap, and a sandal on the foot that’s pressed against the brick; and he’s smiling. Maybe he’s seen a friend. Maybe he’s thinking about a joke. Or maybe that’s just how he is.

  “This is Tariq Hasan?”

  “You know him by another name?” the woman asks.

  “I don’t know him at all.”

  The man looks right through me. He still hasn’t blinked. I’m surprised his eyeballs haven’t cracked. If they had, he wouldn’t notice. He’s the kind of machine who’d do one-armed push-ups on a busted elbow. I wonder if he has a wife. Or kids. I wonder what he’d do if strangers broke into his house in the middle of the night, threw his wife in a room, his son in the basement, and scared the living shit out of them.

  He puts the photograph back in the file and pulls out another. “Take another look.”

  It’s a close-up of Hasan’s head. He’s looking way up, like at something in a window. Or maybe he’s just catching some rays. Dark curls sneak out from under the rim of his cap and around his ears. He’s still smiling. I wish I had teeth like that; I’d have girlfriends for sure.