Heart or Mind

by Patrick Jones

  She knows she shouldn’t, but Jawahir asks anyway. “Why does that matter?”

  “Like I said, go big, go long. As you know, homecoming is almost upon us, and I think you and Rodney as a couple could be a symbol of these two groups coming together. Everyone would see that it is possible for people to overcome their prejudices when they get to know each other as people. Agree?”

  Jawahir nods again. “But like I said, that’s over between us.”

  Evans shakes her head back and forth, sighing but saying nothing. “Then who were you texting on your cell phone during first period? And second period? Do I need to go on?”

  “Nobody.” Did a teacher see her or was it Ayaan snitching on her again?

  “Well, if you should happen to text this person you say you broke up with, you can tell him that I gathered enough information about what happened with Farhan to convince his PO to leave him alone. And you can also tell him that if he agrees to my plan, then I’ll talk to his PO, and I’ll let him back in my school. If not, then not.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Actually I can.”

  Jawahir starts to speak, but realizes her words mean nothing to Evans.

  “I’d hurry up about it,” Evans says. “Homecoming is on Friday. Basically, Jawahir, the clock is ticking.”

  Jawahir turns from Evans and stares at the clock on the wall. Never has time moved more slowly than now; never did it move so quickly as the night she spent with Rodney.

  “You’re dismissed.”

  After leaving Evans’ office, Jawahir heads not for her next class, but for the light rail. She’ll finish up her few precious phone minutes talking to Rodney, pretending he is sitting behind her on the train as she whispers, “Rodney, I love you, please come back to me because my life is broken and only you can fix it.”

  21

  RODNEY

  “Welcome back, Rodney,” Principal Evans says in a voice way too upbeat for the events of the day. Rodney had borrowed money from his cousin and boarded the train the day he got Jawahir’s phone call. His first day back at school was marked by a near fight in every class, if not between him and one of the Somali students, then between one of his friends and one of Farhan’s friends.

  Rodney tries to smile, but can’t make himself do so until he drops his hand from his lap and Jawahir, sitting next to him, catches it in her hand. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Principal Evans.”

  Principal Evans points at their intertwined hands. “You don’t need to say a word. Most communication is nonverbal, and that right there is the symbol that this school needs to heal.”

  The students in the “healing group”—almost all girls—nod in agreement. Reverend Cook tells a parable about the power of symbols, followed by Shaykh Abdi Abdallah relating a similar tale. Rodney scratches his head as these wise men of God try to out-do one another like two twelve-year-olds.

  Once they are finished, Principal Evans opens up the discussion about the importance of Rodney and Jawahir attending the homecoming dance. She makes a big show out of handing them their tickets.

  “I guess the next dress you’re going to buy won’t be for my funeral,” Rodney jokes, but Jawahir doesn’t laugh. Rodney looks at her and sees the color drain from her face. She releases Rodney’s hand from hers.

  “Daughter, is that him?” an older Somali man shouts at Jawahir from the open doorway. “I said, is that him?”

  Jawahir stands and puts herself in front of Rodney. The man screams obscenities at him. Shaykh Abdi Abdallah tries to calm the man down, but with little success. The Somali students in the group rise from their chairs and move away from the men. Shouting, mostly in Somali but with mixed in English words, the men stand toe to toe.

  The lone security guard, a young African American man, speaks into his radio and then tries to get between the two men, grabbing at Jawahir’s dad’s coat. “Don’t touch me!” Jawahir’s father pulls away from the guard.

  “Sir, please, if you’d just step out into my office,” Evans says, her voice shaking. “I will explain how I believe your daughter’s bravery is going to change the school climate for the better!”

  This sets him off more. He shouts threats at Principal Evans. The meeting ends when a security team arrives. Jawahir’s father resists, even punching the black officer, until he’s maced and subdued.

  22

  JAWAHIR

  “I forbid this!” Jawahir’s father stands blocking the front door. His arms are crossed, his eyes glaring at his daughter. Rodney’s outside in the back of a rented car that Larry is driving.

  “You promised!” she shouts. Then Jawahir reminds her father that in return for the school not pressing charges for his assault on the school security officer, he agreed to let Jawahir attend the dance.

  Jawahir’s mom is upstairs with Jawahir’s younger brothers to protect them from watching this scene: the site of a humbled father isn’t something, Jawahir knows, that her parents want their sons to see.

  “Would you rather spend the night in jail?” Jawahir asks.

  “You mean like Rodney has?”

  Jawahir doesn’t answer. Her father doesn’t know that, he just assumes the worst. Always has and always will. One minute, Jawahir believes that she and Rodney can be the healing symbol that Principals Evans wants, but at times like now, she knows there’s no chance. The wound is too deep. It needs, as Rodney said, time and distance, neither which seems possible.

  “If you don’t move, Father, I will call the police to have you arrested,” Jawahir says as calmly as she can even though her knees are shaking. “I was a witness. I will testify against you. Gladly.”

  “You don’t have a phone to call—”

  Jawahir produces the phone from under her dress. He doesn’t know all the minutes are gone.

  “Fine, go to your dance, daughter, but know that you will be alone.”

  “No, Rodney will be with me. You can’t stop us—”

  “I have talked to the other fathers. They are not allowing their children to attend. You will be all alone in the world. You should get used to that feeling. He will leave you, like all of them leave their families. You think he is special because he looks at you, because he kisses you, because—”

  “We’re in love, Father!”

  When Jawahir reaches the car, her cheek is bright red from the force of her father’s hand striking her face.

  23

  RODNEY

  “This is very disappointing,” Principal Evans says to Rodney and Jawahir. Not only have most of the Somali students boycotted the dance, a good number of African American ones have as well.

  “Maybe they’ll show up later,” Rodney says over his shoulder as Evans leaves the table. In the nearly empty gym, Rodney and Jawahir hold hands and kiss like any other homecoming couple.

  “Rodney, a second,” Bryant says. Bryant hasn’t said a word to Rodney since the fight. Rodney tenses, tries to figure out what Bryant might want, not liking any of the possibilities.

  “Busy.”

  “It’s important, bro.”

  “Then tell me now.”

  “It’s private,” Bryant whispers. “It’s not about her.”

  “There’s no her, Bryant. There’s an us. What we’ve been through, what we’ve still got to go through, that unites people. It’s not like being on a team losing a few games, this is serious stuff.”

  “Fine.” Bryant pulls a chair out and sits down. He smiles at Jawahir, but Rodney doesn’t think it’s sincere. “I just wanted to let you know that most of us, well, we’re still not down with this, but—”

  “It doesn’t matter what you think.” Rodney quickly recalls all the times in the past he wishes he would’ve said that, felt that way, and not followed the crowd onto the street and in harm’s way.

  “You should know it’s all good. Everybody likes how you stood up for Marquese. How you took—”

  Rodney cuts him off, worried about the next words out of his mouth. “
Enough, Bryant!”

  “I just want to say, we got your back if you should—” It is as far as Bryant gets before he, Rodney, and Jawahir turn toward a huge commotion. The door to the gym bursts open as a group of Farhan’s friends pour into the gym wielding baseball bats and metal pipes.

  “Let’s go!” Jawahir shouts, but Rodney motions for her to get under the table. He rips off his jacket, picks up the metal chair on which he’d been sitting, and charges into the middle of the melee.

  24

  JAWAHIR

  Jawahir prays, as she always does, for the violence to end, but never has it been so close, so loud, so real.

  Jawahir waits under the table, closing her eyes against the awful sounds, until she feels Rodney’s hand grab hers. “Let’s go!” Rodney shouts. She crawls out shaking, but starts crying when she sees Rodney’s condition. His head is bleeding, as is his chest. His shirt is ripped wide open, while his pants have a huge hole in the right leg that blood pours far too quickly.

  Jawahir looks past Rodney to see the carnage of wounded warriors behind him.

  “Now!”

  Jawahir scrambles to her feet, but before leaving with Rodney she grabs the tablecloth. As they run for the exit—Rodney more limping than running—Jawahir tries to rip the cloth into bandages. They exit the gym through a side door into the school. Like that first day they kissed, they announce themselves by opening a security door. The sirens of the door can’t match those of the police cars and ambulances Rodney hears pulling up in front of the school. The flashing lights color the night as red as the blood spilled on the gym floor.

  “What are we doing to do?” Jawahir asks.

  Rodney motions for her to sit with him against the wall. “I’ll call Larry to come get us.”

  “You should go to a hospital,” Jawahir begs.

  Rodney shakes his head. “No, they ask too many questions.”

  Jawahir starts wiping away the blood from Rodney’s face. “What did you do?”

  Rodney says nothing. He just breathes heavy and lets Jawahir attend to him. She wraps a makeshift bandage around his forehead. She reaches for his hurt leg, but he pulls away in pain. “I’m fine.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Rodney rolls his pants up. A massive bleeding gash runs from his ankle to his knee. As Jawahir does her best to stop the bleeding, Rodney’s on his phone with Larry. They speak quickly, mostly Rodney agreeing to whatever Larry says to him. “He’ll meet us a couple blocks away. We’ve got to go.”

  “Can you walk a few blocks?”

  “What, you won’t carry me?” Rodney cracks, but Jawahir’s too scared to laugh or smile. “Look, tonight I’ll lean on you and another night, you’ll lean on me. And we’ll do that—”

  “Forever.” Jawahir helps Rodney to his feet and helps him stand, then walk. “And ever.”

  25

  RODNEY

  “You should’ve listened to me, Poe. I told you this was a mistake,” Larry says. Rodney’s sprawled on his back in the small apartment. Larry’s cleaning the wound on his leg, while Jawahir works on the multiple cuts on his face and neck. “No offense, Jawahir, but I got to look out for my own.”

  “That’s the problem,” Jawahir says. “We’re all God’s own. We’re all riders on the same train.”

  “Maybe,” Larry grunts. “What the hell happened in there?”

  Rodney answers part of the question, what happened to him, but he won’t answer all of it. He won’t tell Larry or Jawahir what he did, which was simple: whatever it took to protect Jawahir.

  “So what are you going to do?” Larry asks. Rodney wishes his uncle would stop asking questions that he has no idea how to answer. Jawahir starts to answer for Rodney, but Larry cuts her off. “Again, no offense, but you’re fourteen, maybe fifteen, so how can you know anything?”

  Jawahir nods and goes back to cleaning the nasty cut across Rodney’s nose.

  “I’m almost forty and I can tell you how the world works, and it’s not like that. I know when you’re young, you gotta believe the world is a place where everything works out, but it doesn’t. It’s the opposite. I’m a grown man with a college degree, but the only history I get to know is that of the same streets I travel over and over again, driving that stupid van for no money while wearing a uniform uglier than the one in Stillwater.”

  “Larry, cool it,” Rodney says.

  “No, listen. You two had better cool it, because this time people got hurt, next time people might die. Do you hear what I’m saying? Is this love you think you have worth people dying for?”

  Rodney sits up and smiles through his busted-up lips at Jawahir. “Yes, Uncle Larry, yes it is.”

  Larry shakes his head first like he’s disgusted but then a grin breaks out on his face. “Good one, Poe. That’s like you, an endless romantic willing to do anything in the name of truth, love, and beauty.”

  Rodney wipes the blood, someone else’s probably, from his hands and then as gentle as the night was violent, places them softly on Jawahir’s shoulders. “She is truth, love, and beauty.”

  Jawahir lays her head against Rodney’s bruised right hand. “He is truth, love, and beauty.”

  “I’d tell you to get a room, but you already got one,” Larry cracks. “Mine.”

  “Last night here, I promise,” Rodney says.

  Larry finishes applying the bandage to Rodney’s leg. “I’ll find someplace else—”

  “No, I think we’re going to be up all night talking,” Rodney says. “This is too hard. We have to figure out what to do. I got to use those CBT skills I learned at CHS. Get away from the negative and—”

  “Rodney, I don’t see a win here.” Larry stands and starts to walk toward his bedroom.

  “What do you mean, Larry?” Rodney asks.

  “Do you think suddenly everything’s going to be okay?” Larry reaches into his shirt pocket, pulls out a smoke, and lights it. As the embers burn, Rodney remembers Larry comparing love to fire, that as long as there is fuel there is fire. He can’t imagine ever running out of fuel for Jawahir.

  Rodney doesn’t answer.

  Larry reaches for the light switch. “I’m sorry, but it seems to me that your love is hopeless.”

  “No!” Jawahir cries. “Our love is endless!”

  Rodney motions for Jawahir to lie next to him. “You’re both right and wrong. Larry, I know you think we’re just stupid kids in love, but we’re smart. We know our love is hopeless. But you know what? If you could feel what I feel, you’d know she’s right: our hearts tell us our love is endless.”

  Larry flicks off the light and heads toward his room. “So I guess that’s the real question. All this other stuff is just smoke. You got to get to the source, Poe. What’s stronger: the heart or the mind?”

  26

  JAWAHIR

  “Back to back,” Jawahir whispers as they board the northbound train. They had answered Larry’s questions through the night and into dawn on the sofa bed in Larry’s apartment.

  “It’s only three stops, then we change trains and head back south,” Rodney whispers. Like the first time they rode the train to talk, Jawahir holds a book in front of her face while Rodney pretends to talk into his phone. But it’s early Saturday morning, and the train is mostly empty except for a few mothers with young children and older men reading newspapers. No one notices them; no one knows them.

  “I wish we could ride this train forever,” Jawahir says. “Talking like this. No one bothering us.”

  “Me too, but we can’t, we know that. Like we talked about last night, every train ends up someplace, but we don’t have anywhere to go. We’ve got no money, no relatives who will shelter us, and no place that will accept us. We’re a nation of two exiled from the world.”

  “I like that, Rodney, but I’d like to think of us as two people on a sinking ship who know enough to get off. We get on a life raft and just drift and drift endlessly until the end of time.”

  The train jolts at the Am
erican Boulevard station, the one just before the train heads into the tunnel for the airport stops. Jawahir faces the tunnel like a drowning woman would stare at a life vest.

  The train’s extra noisy in the tunnel, so they exchange no words, which is fine with Jawahir. All the words have been said, all the options considered, and Larry’s question of heart and mind answered.

  A few TSA and MSP workers get on and off at the Terminal 2 station, but even more enter and exit at Terminal 1. Jawahir and Rodney join the exit and move to the other side of the track. They hold hands, swinging them back and forth, like some old grandfather clock. Time is ticking down. The southbound train comes into the station. They get on and sit next to each other, laughing nervously about nothing as the train picks up speed. It heads back to Terminal 2 and then exits into daylight. Just before they leave the tunnel, Jawahir points to the timetable of the next trains. “North or south?” she asks.

  “Like heaven, north is up, so north.” Rodney checks the timetable and his phone, and they exit.

  Hand in hand they walk from the stop up 34th Avenue, not saying a word. In the distance, they hear no alarm of an exit door kicked open, no police car arriving, no ambulance pulling away. Nothing but the lonesome whistle of the metro train. I will never be lonesome or alone again, Jawahir thinks.

  As the train makes the stop at American Boulevard, the last stop before entering the airport tunnel, Jawahir climbs over the fence first and then helps Rodney scale the metal barrier.

  “Our love is hopeless,” Rodney points at his head.

  “No, our love is endless.” Jawahir puts a hand over her heart.

  “It is both,” Rodney reminds her, and she nods.

  “I love you Rodney—”

  “I love you Jawahir, now and—”

  “Forever,” they say together as they stare into in each other’s eyes, no longer talking back to back. Beneath them, the rumble of the train shakes the bridge they stand on, like a tiny earthquake. Cars pass by, planes fly over, and the train rolls on as people of every color get on with their lives, except Rodney and Jawahir, who join hands and jump from the top of the tunnel into the path of the speeding oncoming train.