Mr. Bashkim Ahmeti
C/O Dr. Martina Moore
Orson Hulet Elementary School
2201 Navarre Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89120
Dear Bashkim:
Thank you for reading this. I know it must be scary for you to read a letter from me. I am so sorry about what I wrote before. I feel terrible about it, and I lie awake at night thinking about how you must have felt when you read it.
I don’t know how to explain myself. I don’t even remember writing the letter to you. I was very sad about something that happened to a friend of mine, and I think I went a little bit crazy. I am not making an excuse, but that is what happened.
I am very sorry for saying something about your name. People used to make fun of my name. They would ask why I had two last names, and why I didn’t know how to say Luis, when they were the ones who did not know how to say it. I know I must have been crazy the day I wrote you, because I can’t imagine writing something like that to anyone.
If you would like to write to me again, I would be happy to keep writing to you. Again, I am very sorry.
Luis
I see something funny about the letter. His name doesn’t look the same as the rest. Luis writes his name shaky, like Baba does. I wonder if Luis is as old as Baba. Can old people be soldiers? I didn’t notice that he had a shaky name before.
I don’t know what to say to Dr. Moore after I finish reading the letter. Did Luis shoot the boy because he went crazy? I don’t want him to talk about that boy again, but I don’t want him to pretend there is no boy.
I feel sorry for Specialist Rodriguez too. This letter is nice. He doesn’t even sound like someone who would kill a boy. Maybe my nene is right that wars can be too hard. Maybe Specialist Rodriguez wasn’t supposed to be in a war. What if I had to be in a war?
I sit in the chair awhile, looking at the letter, and then I don’t want to sit there anymore. I help myself to some goldfish crackers that Dr. Moore has.
“So, Bashkim. Do you want to talk about what Specialist Rodriguez wrote?”
I don’t really, right that minute, but I do say, “My nene says that war can be too hard for a soldier. She said that Specialist Rodriguez might be a good man or a bad man, and we couldn’t tell from that one letter.”
“I think your nene is wise, Bashkim. I am glad that you have talked to her about Specialist Rodriguez.”
I decide not to tell Dr. Moore that I have not really talked to my nene about him. Instead, I say:
“My baba was not in a war, but he was in prison. He went to prison for seeing a police officer do something bad. That happens in Albania. And it makes my baba kind of . . . mad . . . too.”
I wish I hadn’t said that last thing about Baba. I don’t want to tell the principal about how my baba gets mad, or how he hurts my nene. That could really cause a lot of problems. I start to get up, because I don’t want Dr. Moore to ask me any questions.
“Bashkim. Thank you for telling me about your baba.”
“Yes, Dr. Moore.” I am standing up now, because I really want to leave.
“If you ever want to talk about what happened to your baba, you can come here anytime.”
I nod my head, and then I walk back to my classroom fast. I almost forgot not to talk about some things.
December 12, 2008
Specialist Luis Rodriguez-Reyes
A BTRY 2-57FA
FOB Kalsu
APO, AE 09312
Dear Specialist Rodriguez-Reyes:
Dr. Moore gave me your letter. I understand about soldiers feeling bad in war. My baba is sometimes crazy from being in prison in Albania. He did not do anything wrong, but he was in prison anyway, and that is what makes him get mad at people.
I hope you are having a better time in Iraq now.
Your friend,
Bashkim Ahmeti
December 19, 2008
Mr. Bashkim Ahmeti
C/O Dr. Martina Moore
Orson Hulet Elementary School
2201 Navarre Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89120
Dear Bashkim:
Thank you for your letter. I really appreciate it.
I am not in Iraq anymore. I am in Washington DC, in a hospital. You call your father Baba, and I call my grandmother Abuela. My abuela raised me. I never had a baba, or at least one that I knew.
I grew up in Las Vegas too. Have you ever ridden a dirt bike in the dry lake bed? I used to love to do that. I broke my arm once, but it was worth it.
Do you play any sports? I played basketball, and I ran track a couple of years in high school. In Iraq, some of us would sometimes get a pickup game started, but I guess that stopped after a while.
I hope school is going well for you. Hello to your baba—
Luis
December 30, 2008
Specialist Luis Rodriguez-Reyes
A BTRY 2-57FA
FOB Kalsu
APO, AE 09312
Dear Specialist Rodriguez:
Do you want to stop using letter form? If you do, that’s okay with me.
I play soccer for the Las Vegas Storm. We have orange uniforms, with blue letters, and every kid has his own bag. I am number 4, and my bag has my number on it too. That way, everyone knows it is mine.
My baba was a soccer player in Albania. He was almost like a professional, until he had to go to prison. He shows me how to play, when I am not in practice with my coach.
Why are you in a hospital?
Sincerely,
Bashkim
January 9, 2009
Dear Bashkim—
I hate letter form.
That’s cool that you play soccer. I played on a team for a few years when I was younger, but then I started liking basketball more. What position do you play? How is your team doing? Are you playing now?
My abuela is a big soccer fan. She loves México, and Brazilia. She loves Brazil just because they used to have a great player named Pelé. Have you heard of him? A lot of my friends played soccer or baseball. But I liked basketball best. My abuela let me choose, since she had never played any sport and could not help me herself.
It sounds like you have a great baba. I didn’t have a dad growing up. I am glad you do.
Best wishes,
Luis
p.s. I got hurt in Iraq, and they flew me to this hospital in DC for rehabilitation. I’m fine though.
January 18, 2009
Dear Luis—
Las Vegas Storm won a big soccer tournament last Thanksgiving, even though there were teams from other states. I am a striker, and I scored two goals in the championship game. My baba was so happy, and my nene too.
My friend Carlo is Mexican, and he has two last names too. They are Garcia-Lopez. I figured you were Mexican as soon as I saw your name. Carlo has four brothers and sisters. That’s why he can’t play soccer. Because there are too many of them to all get uniforms and bags and things.
I am going to be a magician when I grow up. Our music teacher at school is a magician, and he is really good. Are you glad you are a soldier? Have you ever seen a magician?
Sincerely,
Bashkim
p.s. I’m sorry you got hurt in Iraq.
February 3, 2009
Dear Bashkim—
My uncle Timo likes magic tricks. When I was a kid, he used to pull quarters out of my ear, and he knew so many card tricks. It takes a long time to become a good magician, so it’s good to get started now.
My abuela does not like magic acts. She went to Siegfried and Roy once—that was a big magic act on the Strip before you were born—and she says the tricks made her think that the magicians knew the devil. They must have been pretty good magicians, huh? My abuela would never let me go to a show, but maybe I will go see yo
ur teacher when I get home.
I bet the weather is nice where you are. I am starting to think about going home a lot.
Take care,
Luis
February 15, 2009
Dear Luis—
Happy Valentine’s Day, late.
My teacher Mrs. Monaghan had a big party for us yesterday. Some of the kids brought food. My nene let me bring ice-cream treats, which I never did before. The kids liked them even better than Alyssa’s cupcakes.
We had a talent show for entertainment. Mrs. Monaghan believes in spontaneous talent shows. That means we don’t practice. But we all knew we would have one, so Carlo and I did a talent. I sat on his knee, because he is bigger than me, and we pretended that I was a puppet and he was a venterwilkist. Everybody laughed, because Carlo is funny.
I hope you had a good Valentine’s Day too. It was one of the best days I have ever had.
Bashkim
February 21, 2009
Dear Bashkim:
There’s a group of volunteers at this hospital, and they had a Valentine’s Party for the patients. We didn’t have a talent show, but I ate a lot of heart-shaped cookies. I thought of you too, because I figured you would have a party or something at your school.
I’m going to be in this hospital for a while, but when I get out, they are going to send me back home, at least for a while. Maybe we can go to a park or something. I don’t know if I am going to be too good at soccer anymore, but we could kick a ball around. I’d like to meet your baba too.
Have fun at school,
Luis
18
* * *
Luis
THE FIRST TIME I heard his voice, I was strung up in the walking machine. It’s kind of like a conveyer belt with a harness hanging above it. The therapist hooks me into the harness—which holds me like a swing—and then my legs dangle until they lower me enough that my feet touch the moving belt. I can’t move my feet, but the doctors say that I don’t have any nerve damage, I will be able to move them, and walk. I just have to get my brain to remember that my feet are there.
Like I said, I am one fucked-up soldier.
The walking machine is a lot of work, not just for me but for the two people that are moving my feet too. There’s one person holding my left ankle and another holding my right. I can’t feel them holding me, but I can look down and see that they are. And they just move my foot and my ankle and my knee as if I were walking, and I sort of stumble-walk in my harness hanging above them. They have to keep a rhythm, so Terence, who has my left foot, says, “Left, left, left,” in a really steady way, which reminds me of the movies I used to watch when I was a kid about being in the Army. It doesn’t remind me of being in the Army, though. That’s kind of funny.
I try to amuse myself when I am in this contraption, because as stupid as it looks, it’s a hell of a lot of work. I’m sweating and panting and, man, I just want them to quit, I’m just waiting for them to say it’s been long enough. Every day, I have to do it for a few more minutes. The first day, we counted the number of steps I took, but now Terence times me for a certain number of minutes, and then I get a two-minute break, and then we go back to it. Over and over. I want a smoke.
But I still noticed his voice. I was on the machine, sweating and pushing and trying to feel my feet, and I noticed this voice asking for directions. I heard it clearly. For some reason, it stuck in my head a moment. But then, I was concentrating on walking, and I forgot to think about that voice.
The doctors say my brain doesn’t know that my feet are there, but that’s not quite right. I know my feet are there. I can almost feel them, I know they’re moving, they’re being moved, and I can almost imagine moving them myself, but they just don’t feel like my feet. They feel like an idea of feet.
Weird, huh?
If it weren’t me, this whole brain thing would be pretty interesting.
WHEN I GO BACK TO
my room, the nurse mentions that someone has asked about me. She says he didn’t leave his name, but he looked like a soldier.
That makes me nervous. I suppose someone is doing an investigation. And I’m cool with that. I’m okay with being punished for what I did. I mean, I think I am. I still feel scared. And I can’t even stand to think about how my abuela will feel if it gets in the paper or something. If her friends know about it. I always sort of thought I made up for what my mother had done, for the way my abuela didn’t have any nice stories to tell about her daughter.
Yeah, that’s over.
I asked the nurse if he left a message, but she said, no, he didn’t leave anything.
I’ve got an hour free before I have occupational therapy, so I look out the window and I think about whether I’ll be able to see the sky if I get sent to jail. I figure I should look out the window a lot, try to memorize everything, what I see, what I hear. Which is mostly birds, and cars way down below, and a lot of wind. I keep my windows open no matter how cold it gets, because I like to hear something outside of this hospital, and it helps me relax: the wind, a bird chirp, a squawk, a horn, the low chug of a truck engine waiting at a light. It’s been raining a lot, day after day, so everything looks slick and shiny out the window. I wish I could hear the rain. I don’t know how tall this hospital is, but the fourth floor is not the top, and I can’t hear the rain.
It doesn’t rain much in Nevada, but when it does, it comes down like someone dumped a bucket. When I was a kid, I could never quite imagine a raindrop. Rain in Las Vegas is a sheet, it’s a deluge, and then it stops. It wasn’t until I went to basic training that I felt drops of water from the sky, you know, before the rain really starts or as it stops. I suppose it must be possible to feel that in Nevada, but I never felt it; it’s not how I thought of rain.
HE COMES IN WHILE I
am thinking these thoughts.
Quiet. But I hear him breathing. I’m pretty sensitive that way. And I’m starting to be more on alert here.
The thing is, I don’t move easily, not even to turn my head, and when I do move, there’s nothing subtle about it.
“Luis Rodriguez?”
I knock a pillow off the side of my bed trying to shift position and look toward him. My arms and legs jerk like that sometimes when I’m just trying to move my head. That’s the brain thing.
“Yes.”
He doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me. Really stares.
I’m thinking: wow, this is some funky investigation. Is he waiting for me to crack, start yelling that I shot a kid or something? Because he’s really not making me that nervous. He better ask me straight up if he wants me to tell him something.
“You look like him.”
Like who? This dude is weird.
“I thought you would. I mean, I remember that. But, shit, you really look like him.”
There’s something about his voice. I realize it’s the voice I heard in the gym, on the machine. Of course, he’s Mexican. That’s part of it. He sounds like a lot of guys I know.
I decide not to speak. Not to ask him who I look like. I really don’t care. I wish he would just do what he’s going to do, get his information, read me my rights, whatever, and get out. I can’t imagine the Army wants someone as fucked up as me in Leavenworth. They’ll want me after I can walk again. When I can really miss my freedom.
That’s a joke. Sort of.
“Do you remember me?”
What the hell? Do I remember him? I’ve never seen him in my life. He’s too old to have been downrange with me. Unless he was an officer or something. And he doesn’t look like an officer. He looks like a grunt.
“I’m your Uncle Mike. Miguel. Your dad’s brother.”
Fuck me. I didn’t even know my dad had a brother.
“You don’t remember me.”
That’s for sure.
“You didn’t eve
n know I existed, did you?”
He looks upset.
I still don’t talk. Because my life is really getting crazy. Who is this guy? My dad died before I was born. I never met anyone in his family. The only things I know about my dad are things I heard my mother and my abuela fighting about, when Abuela would spit out the word gang, or when my mother would be so fucked up on the couch, she’d call me Marco.
“Your dad was my little brother. I loved him.”
That’s what he says. That is all he fucking says.
And then he just walks away.
“Hey! Hey!”
I yell, so he sort of turns and says, “Later, man. I shouldn’t have come. But you sure look like him.”
It takes a lot of effort, because I’ve just been on that damn walking machine, but I push myself up in bed, I kind of shove my chest out, and I flail my arms. I guess I’m trying to get him to think I’m going to follow him. He stops. Watches me thrash around there.
Then he digs in his pocket, and he pulls out a rosary. I know what it is, of course. He looks at that string of beads—they’re kind of chocolate brown in color, like they might be seeds or something, not glass, not plastic or anything—and he looks at those beads for quite a while.
I don’t say a word. I try not even to breathe, because I can tell the man is struggling.
He lifts the beads to his face, and he kisses the cross, just barely. “Adios, Papi,” he says.
Then he lays the beads on my lap.
“These belonged to your abuelo. My dad. He made a lot of trips around these beads, once every day for me and once every day for your dad. Once every day for you too.”
We look at each other, eye to eye, but for some reason, I don’t speak. I’m kind of in shock or something. And then he walks out of the room.
And that’s it. I’m stuck in the bed, right? It’s not like I can chase the guy down. It’s not like I can do anything. I don’t even know where he lives. Mike Rodriguez? That should be simple. Not too many of those out there.
How the hell did he find me? How the hell does he know who I am? Why did he think I’d recognize him? Why did his voice stick in my mind when I heard it in the gym?
We Are Called to Rise Page 14
