Man of the Hour

by Peter Blauner

  “Ah.” The tattooed man squinted at the sun, as if he were mad at it. “I used to work at Bobby Reynolds’s sideshow down the street. But then it closed up. There’s only room for the one Dick Zigun runs down here now. People don’t want to pay to see freaks anymore. They get them for free on television.”

  “You got me.” David high-fived him and drained his soda, the caffeine buzz lightening him up for a minute. “Sorry I put you out of business.”

  “Hey, the difference between you and me is I chose to be a freak.” The man looked at David’s empty cup. “You want a beer?”

  “No, I’ll only hate myself later. I gotta go back and talk to the kids some more.”

  The collapse into alcoholic defeatism had a definite appeal. A part of him wished he could just hang out on this sunny day, drinking and talking to his fellow outcast. It was a relief being out of the spotlight for a few minutes. But the dire business of his life kept coming back at him like a wrecking ball.

  “By the way,” he said, “you didn’t see anybody or anything unusual the day of the bombing, did you?”

  “Just crackheads, hookers, bearded ladies, and sword swallowers.” The tattooed man shrugged and took David’s money. “This is Coney Island, you know.”

  Back at the school, a few more students came to see him. Some just to gawk at the Amazing Terror Teacher of Coney Island, but others—perhaps prompted by Ralph Marcovicci’s more heated denials of all the accusations on the news last night—wanted to help.

  “I think it was the bitches,” Seniqua Rollins said immediately after sitting down.

  Almost six months pregnant, she could barely fit into the little office space with all the video equipment, books, and school supplies.

  “What are you talking about?” asked David, leaning back to try to give her some room. With the two of them, it was like a couple of hippos in a phone booth.

  “The bitches, man. The Right-to-Life bitches. They blew up the bus.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know. Somebody did it.”

  He looked at her belly, swelling under a blue-and-white shirt, and decided it showed a certain broad-mindedness to see beyond the politics of her own pregnancy, even if it was to venture into totally unsubstantiated conspiracy theory. More important, she took it for granted that he was innocent.

  “Seniqua, what did the police ask you about the explosion?”

  “Same-o-same-o. They wanted to know like what did you say to us before. And how you didn’t come into the class for twenty minutes. And why you would’ve done it.”

  “So what did you tell them?”

  “I told ’em you saved my fuckin’ life, and if they didn’t like it they could kiss my ass two times.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Something was rolling around just beyond his fingertips. An idea. An image that could save him. What was it? He heard the tramp of feet overhead and distant raised voices rehearsing for the School Sing in the auditorium upstairs.

  “What about the book bag? Did they ask you about my book bag?”

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded. “They wanted to know if I saw you bring it on the bus.”

  “And you told them you did. Right?”

  She nodded again. So much for having any wiggle room on that issue.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’d a lied for you, but I can’t afford to get myself jammed up with the police right now. I’m already on probation for a fight I had on the subway. Some bitch got slashed.”

  “I understand.” He cracked his knuckles. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to lie for me, anyway. But is there anything you didn’t tell the police about the bombing that you want to tell me?”

  “Nope. I’d a given it up by now. For real. I don’t want nothing bad on my conscience when I’m about to have my baby.”

  She patted her stomach tenderly. He noticed her face suddenly looked much older, as if she were getting bum-rushed into adulthood by having a child so young.

  “By the way,” he said, still not wanting to intrude too much on the question of paternity. “What are you going to do about that baby? Are you going to get any help from the father?”

  “No, I’ll raise ’im up myself.” She smirked defiantly. “None of those tiny-dick bitches I was with are worth a damn anyway.”

  During a lull in the next period, David walked upstairs and asked Michelle, the principal’s secretary, if he could borrow the key to the bathroom across the hall. Instead of going there, though, he used one of the other keys on the ring to open the door to the records room down the corridor. He slid his maxed-out Visa card into the lock space to keep it from closing, returned the keys to Michelle, and then crept back into the file room when no one was looking.

  He wanted to see for himself if there were students who had anything suspect in their disciplinary records. But as soon as he flipped on the light, he knew the search was doomed. The room was an ancient archive, with a permanent haze of brown dust particles and a smell like old horses. Even worse, he quickly discovered, as he pulled open cabinet drawers with his pulse racing, the student files were arranged not by year, but by alphabet, so the records went back to the turn of the century, when Coney Island was the honky-tonk jewel by the sea and Luna Park lit up the boardwalk. Joseph Adler, class of 1905, was suspended for a week for swearing in the hallways, said one file. Miriam Avery, class of 1952, was caught smoking in the ladies’ room. The whole room was a shrine to more innocent days and not of much use to him.

  He was about to reach for another file anyway when the door suddenly opened and Michelle came in.

  “What do you think you’re doing here?” she asked in a voice that would shrivel the erection on a chimp.

  He slammed the drawer shut, nearly crushing his finger. “One of the kids needed a transcript to go with his application,” he said lamely. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “The next time you want something from this room, you ask me in writing. All right?” She fixed him with the death-ray glare of a bureaucrat violated. “Now outta here before I call security on you.”

  He went back downstairs, appropriately chastened and rattled. He didn’t like what he’d just done. He was supposed to be protecting his kids, not trying to dig up dirt on them. But desperation was pushing him into strange, ugly corners.

  Elizabeth Hamdy appeared in the doorway just toward the end of ninth period. She stood there for a few seconds, studying him as he corrected essays, not wanting to make her presence known. When he looked up, she backed away a step, like a fawn encountering a hunter in the forest.

  “Come on in,” he said. “I promise I won’t bite.”

  She came in slowly and cautiously, all watchful eyes and books clutched to her chest.

  “Have a seat. It’s all right.”

  He looked over and saw Donna Vitale had stopped in the doorway behind her. They were supposed to have dinner tonight, but her presence at this moment seemed intrusive. He wondered if she had, in fact, been sent down to spy on him. She mouthed “Talk to you later,” and moved on.

  “So do you have something for me to read?” He turned back to Elizabeth, aware she’d been staring at him while he was distracted.

  “Oh yes.” She dropped her eyes quickly and deposited an immaculate five-page typescript onto his desk. “This is my paper.”

  He picked it up and read the heading “Crossing the River.” The rest of the piece drew him in immediately. It was about her father crossing the Jordan. All the details she’d omitted in telling the story in class were there. How his family had been in the same village for four hundred years until the Israelis shelled it. How his old, enfeebled father begged him, a boy of sixteen, to take his brother and sister across the river to safety. How he could see the brown-and-white stones under the swift, shallow water as he carried his little sister on his back and held his brother’s hand, with his childhood disappearing over his shoulder. How the prospect of the alien world ahead terrified him.

&
nbsp; “This is beautiful,” said David. “It’s exquisitely written and brilliantly organized. There’s only one problem with it.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not in it. I thought I was going to be reading your college essay.”

  Her knees turned inward slightly. “Well, I guess I haven’t made up my mind about that yet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I haven’t decided if I’m applying or not.”

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” He frowned and put her paper down. “You could go to any Ivy League school in the country. Why wouldn’t you apply?”

  “It’s hard to explain.” She wouldn’t look at him. “I’m not sure if it’s the right thing to go.”

  “This wouldn’t be your brother influencing you, would it?”

  He’d noticed she’d been high-strung and a little withdrawn ever since Nasser came by to talk to him a couple of weeks back. And after the fight in the parking lot, he could imagine the kind of pressure she was under at home.

  “It’s my whole family,” she said. “We’ve been apart so much. I don’t know if I should go away too.”

  “Well, it would be a shame if you missed this opportunity.”

  Again, she was staring down at the floor and sucking in her beautiful sculpted cheeks. He didn’t blame her for being nervous and uncomfortable. It must have taken a certain kind of courage to come and talk to him. Or some type of desperation he didn’t understand.

  “I’m not sure if it’s an opportunity I want. It’s hard for me to explain. Sometimes I don’t know if I want to be part of the modern world and forget all the traditions. I mean, I want to, but I can’t. The traditions in my family, they’re still part of me. Girls in Arab families aren’t supposed to move away. They’re supposed to make good marriages for their families.”

  “I didn’t know you were so committed to that.”

  “I’m not.” She played with the ends of her hair. “I mean, I don’t know what I am. It’s like I’m stuck in the middle of the river. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s Nasser who has me all mixed up.”

  “Look, would you just do me a favor?” he said. “Just try it out. You know how I’m always pushing you guys to experiment with new ideas in class? Just write the college essay and then decide. Lay it all out for yourself, so you can see the scenario and imagine what it would be like. Define who you are and what you want out of life. There’s no future until you make it with your own hands.”

  Right. He could have been talking to himself. Define who you are in the world. Don’t let them plow you under. Take a stand. Be a man. Save your own life, you stupid son of a bitch. No one else is going to do it for you.

  “But how should I do it? What should I write about?”

  “Try writing the rest of the family’s story. Tell us what happened on the other side of the river.”

  She said nothing. She was watching him again, with that otherworldly look. A conversation going on behind the eyes. He remembered Nasser looking at him the same way. He had the same feeling of something urgent being left unsaid.

  “Well, I’ll think about it.” She gathered her things and stood. He noticed she was leaving the paper on his desk.

  “Elizabeth, can I ask you a question?”

  She stopped in the doorway, twisting her hair again. “What?”

  It was lovely hair, he noticed once more. A shame she’d kept it under a scarf for so long. Had she added a red streak to it?

  “You didn’t by any chance notice anything strange happening before the bus blew up?”

  “Strange?” She was looking at him directly for the first time in the conversation.

  “Yeah, there are all the stories and rumors about what really might have happened.” He tried to smile.

  A small line bisected her forehead and her mouth closed. Her knees were even more expressive; turning out and then in and then out again.

  “I wasn’t there.”

  He kept his eyes on her, listening to some kind of soft thrum in the distance. He wondered if it was the school’s boiler or the sound of the ocean somehow carrying through the walls of the school.

  “I know you weren’t there,” he said. “But I wondered if you’d heard anything.”

  “What makes you say that?” She dropped her hair and then picked it up again.

  “I just remembered that you kept trying to talk to me the week after the bombing and I wondered if it was because you had something to tell me. I wasn’t being very receptive at the time, was I?”

  “No.” Her mouth formed a small tense circle. “I mean, yes. It was nothing. Nothing I need to talk to you about anymore.”

  The thrum grew louder, but she was edging toward the door. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I’m ready to listen now.”

  “It’s okay.” She stepped out into the hall and started to disappear into a crowd of passing students. “I think I’m working it out on my own.”

  49

  ELIZABETH WAS COMING UP the path to the Avenue Z house a half hour later when she saw a husky, blond man with a light, almost translucent mustache waiting by the front door.

  “Elizabeth Hamdy?” He took out a badge and showed it to her. “I’m Chris Calloway, from the Joint Terrorist Task Force. You mind if I come in, talk to you a minute?”

  She was just getting over the queasiness of her conversation with Mr. Fitzgerald, and now this. She’d been looking forward to having a little time alone in the house with her thoughts and her diary.

  “What’s the matter?” she said, fumbling for her keys. “I already talked to a detective. Mr. Noonan, I think.”

  “Oh yeah, sure, I know.” He smiled, waiting for her to unlock the door. “I just wanted to follow up.”

  “Follow up?”

  He moved up behind her in the doorway, and she was aware of the neighbors peering at them from behind their window curtains. Those bitter, clannish people with their baggy eyes and soap opera afternoons, always looking for a reason to dislike the one Arab family on the street “Yeah, I’m just following up,” Calloway said, a little steel glinting in his smile. “You understand. This is a huge case. Everybody’s looking over everybody’s shoulder. I just want to make sure we have all our details straight, for the files. In case my boss gets called on the carpet. You don’t mind helping me out, do you?”

  She felt her clothes tighten on her, like someone was pulling them from behind. “No, of course not.”

  She let him in and was immediately sorry she had. He strolled through the alcove and into the living room, taking in everything, revealing nothing. He looked like he might buy the house or just as easily trash it.

  “The Dome of the Rock, right?” He stopped in front of the picture over the couch.

  “You recognize it?” His presence in the room was like a bad smell, turning her stomach a little.

  “I was in the reserves in the Middle East,” he explained. “I spent some time in Israel, learned some of the history. It’s the third holiest site for Muslims. Right?”

  “Right.” She composed a demure smile. “I guess the other detective who was here didn’t know much about that.”

  “There’s a lot Detective Noonan didn’t know.” He sat down on the couch, spreading his legs wide and putting his arms on the tops of the cushions, taking up as much room as possible.

  “Can I get you a cup of tea?” she asked.

  “No, I don’t want to take up a lot of your time.” He reclined like a sultan. “I just have a couple of questions.”

  “Okay. I want to help.”

  He looked at her for a long time without saying anything. Perhaps half a minute, as he continued to spread out. She became aware of different parts of her own body, squirming, itching, needing attention.

  “So I talked to your brother,” he said, crossing thick legs in stone-washed blue jeans. “Nasser.”

  “Oh yes?”

  Her brother’s name was like a little firecracker in her ear. This was going to be bad, she knew
. Something upsetting. She paused and listened a moment, making sure her stepmother and half sisters hadn’t stopped by the house for money on their way to go shopping at the Kings Highway mall. She didn’t want them to be scared and confused by this strange man being here.

  “Yes, we had a very interesting conversation.” The detective flopped a thick beige notebook onto his lap and made a show of turning the pages. “He told me he was with you on the day the bomb went off at school.”

  “Oh.” Elizabeth began to fuss with her hair, pulling two tendrils down in front of her eye and then letting them go, lest it appear she was trying to hide something. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

  So that was why he was here. To find out about Nasser. No wonder her brother had been calling and leaving messages for her since last night. She tried to make herself relax, putting her hands in her front pockets and rising slightly on the balls of her feet.

  “He took me shopping for a helmet and pads for my Rollerblading,” she said. “It was close to my birthday.”

  She paused, remembering that day again. Nasser showing up late. The smoke from down at the beach. Traffic on the Belt Parkway. And then she couldn’t make herself think about it anymore.

  “Is that right?” Calloway casually flipped back two pages in his notebook and raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes, I’m sure of it.”

  “Then why’d you tell Detective Noonan you stayed home with a headache that day?” he said suddenly.

  She dropped back on her heels, caught off guard. “I …” Her eyes darted around, waiting for her mouth to come up with an explanation. “I guess I didn’t want my teachers to know I was playing hooky.”

  Calloway sat up and focused, like a dog hearing the word bone.

  “Is that right?” he said. “You were worried about your teachers?”

  The room began to feel pressurized. She felt blood leaving her head and half-turned away from him, fearing she would crumble. “I have good grades,” she said. “I didn’t want to get in trouble.”

  Sensing her weakness, he got off the couch and stood in front of her, no more than a foot away, intimidating her with his size. She realized how few men had ever stood this close to her before.