“Are you? Is that why you barely have any fingernails?” she said.
“I haven’t been to the spa lately.”
She didn’t respond.
“So that’s it; I’m anxious and depressed. So is half the world,” Deni said defensively.
“Half the world doesn’t commit a crime,” Dr. Sodhi said. “There is also something that troubles you deeply that either you’re not telling me or that you have repressed. It caused you to put up a façade to the world, and made you compliant with conflict.” She sat forward and then looked up at Deni. “There is no doubt in my mind you are a smart kid with high ideals, but at some point your high ideals met with an emotional breaking point. Have you any idea what that was?”
Deni’s eager demeanor retreated to a posture of self-defense. “No.”
“What you’re resisting the most is the answer to your issues,” she said. “What happened? What was it?”
Deni grunted and smirked. “I can’t say.”
“Why can’t you say?” she asked.
“You don’t understand. You wouldn’t understand,” he said.
Dr. Sodhi sat back in her seat. “Try me.”
“Loyalty,” he said.
“I don’t understand loyalty?” she questioned.
“Would you die for someone you loved? Would you kill for someone you loved? What is the limit you would go to, to protect someone you love?” he asked.
“Who are you protecting?” she answered with another question. “Is this about your brother?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, do I need to spell it out for you?” Deni exclaimed.
“Yes Deni, you do,” Dr. Sodhi responded strongly.
Deni pushed back against his chair. “I got fucking nothing!”
“Does this have to do with your brother?” she pushed.
Deni laughed. “Leave me the fuck alone! Why can’t everyone just leave me the fuck alone?”
“You’re alone now. You’re going to spend your remaining years in solitary unless you start helping me and yourself!” yelled Dr. Sodhi.
Deni closed his eyes and recalled a bullet eject from the barrel of a Smith & Wesson 9mm, and then another one, and another one. He watched helpless as the bullets repeated in slow motion with the casings dripping to the floor.
Five-year-old Deni lifted his gaze at grass at level and saw a pheasant a few yards in front of him. He sat back on his heel and silently picked up his rifle. Letting it rest easily in his small hand, he placed his chin on the barrel and saw the pheasant in the sight. The pheasant turned and looked in Deni’s direction, and Deni shot. The pheasant fell slowly and its body disappeared in the tall grass.
“Deni,” Dr. Sodhi said to get his attention. “Deni.”
Deni lifted his head and wore a stiff, contorted expression. “Have you seen a being die?”
“I sat with my grandfather as he passed, yes,” said Dr. Sodhi.
“The moment you can see life in their eyes, and then there is nothing. You can actually witness the soul leaving the body,” he explained.
“I found it to be a very special experience to watch a person pass from this existence to the next,” said Dr. Sodhi.
“I no longer fear death. The body ceases, but the soul continues. I will continue, long after my body dies,” replied Deni.
Dr. Sodhi sat back in her seat and stared curiously at Deni. “Where will you go?”
“Warriors who die fighting in the cause of God are ushered immediately to God’s presence,” replied Deni. “When I leave this body, I will meet God, Allah. You see, this trial, these therapy sessions are meaningless. What happens here on earth is trivial and mundane in comparison to Paradise.”
“Deni, we’re getting off subject,” replied Dr. Sodhi. “Do you want to tell me what spurred your inspiration with the divine?”
Deni grunted and looked away.
“If the truth is God and all that is meaningful is Paradise, why are you clinging so fast to the mundane? Why hold on so tightly if it doesn’t serve you in Paradise?”
“Because I will meet my loved ones there,” he responded.
“Your brother?” questioned Dr. Sodhi.
“All my brothers,” replied Deni, “and sisters. I will be one with them all.”
“Deni, knock it off!” scolded Dr. Sodhi. “You haven’t made it to Paradise yet, you’re still here and will be for some time, so before you move on, it’s best you set things right here. You seem to be diverting questions about your brother, so I’m going to assume that’s your issue. Am I wrong?”
“I’m done,” he said.
“Okay,” said Dr. Sodhi with a sigh. She rose from her seat and collected her file. “I’ll have the guard take you back to your cell.”
Within a few minutes, Deni was manhandled by the guard and then escorted back to the cell. Once released of his shackles he buried his face in his palms and cringed.
“What the hell are you doing? What the fuck? Why’d you do that? Why would you do that!” Deni yelled.
Deni raised his face from his hands, gazed around his cell and then stripped naked. Stepping into the shower, he could barely feel the lukewarm water rinse his body.
Deni stood in his Mikail’s shower with his head lowered under the shower head. The water rained over him, but it could never wash away his suffering. He wanted to cry, but his body was frozen, paralyzed with guilt and fear. No longer could he face himself—ever.
Mik’s wife, Jamie, handed Deni a plate of fried eggs with the sweetest smile. Deni looked up into her brown eyes and round cheeks. She wore the soft, delicateness of the Pennsylvania Dutch. “Mik has been real worried about you lately. He said you’re having a lot of problems,” she said.
The fried eggs Jamie placed before him were perfect. He was amazed she was always able to flip an egg without one oozing wound, yet he had absolutely no appetite. In order not to offend her kindness, Deni cut into the soft fleshy egg and watched the yellow yolk flow. The life source of the embryo chicken; the embryo sack is the creation of all beings and here I am about to eat it. What is life; is it just a container full of fluids?
“Are you okay, Deni? If you need someone to talk to, you can talk to me,” said Jamie.
“I’m cool,” he said.
The prison shower had shut off and Deni stood naked with goose bumps forming on his cooled skin. Bringing himself back to consciousness, he grabbed his towel and wrapped it around his waist. Having no energy to dress, he fell naked, face-down on his cement bed.
Hours later, the guard opened the food slit and set inside his dinner. Deni didn’t bother getting up to get his food; he let it sit there until morning. When his breakfast arrived, he again made no motion to get up or eat.
Deni didn’t know how much time had passed, when a guard came into his cell and wrestled him up. “Get up! Get dressed! You’re attorney’s here.”
Deni let his body go limp in the guard’s grasp.
“Either you get up and get dressed, or I am dragging you down there naked,” said the guard.
Slowly Deni peeled himself off his bed and dressed into his scrubs. He was barely cognizant as the guard escorted him through the prison hallways and to the interview room with which he had become far too acquainted. He watched Marsha standing in the doorway talking to the guard.
“He didn’t eat his dinner or his breakfast,” the guard said to Marsha, “Found him naked and faced down in bed with his pants covering his head.”
“Thank you,” said Marsha as she stepped inside the interview room. She glanced down at Deni. “Deni, what’s going on?”
“I want to die. Can you please stick the needle in me now?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I talked to Dr. Sodhi yesterday afternoon after your session. She thought maybe you’d open up to me.”
“Why would she think that?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe you trust me more,” she said.
“Marsha I can’t tell you this.”
�
��Why?”
“Because it’s a betrayal, I will not betray those I love,” he said.
“What about yourself? You’re betraying yourself by carrying this burden, Deni.” Marsha broke professionalism and reached out to Deni as a mother. She held on his hands and said, “Honey, you have to let it go. You must let it go. They only thing that is killing you is your own pride, guilt and fear, no other killing device can destroy you. We can put the needle in you, sweetheart, but your soul will never be at rest.”
Deni removed his hands from Marsha’s clutch and stood up. He stumbled to the far corner of the room in his shackles and pressed his face against the cool cement. “I’m not good. I’m flawed. I’m corrupt.” He turned his back toward Marsha. “I wasted a lot of time doing meaningless shit, I did a lot of drugs, drank a lot of alcohol, had a lot of sex.” He lowered his head. “And yes, I masturbated to porn. I like cheerleaders, blonde cheerleaders…blonde lesbian cheerleaders.” He turned his face slightly to Marsha and joked, “I jaywalked, didn’t come to complete stops at stop signs. I tore labels off of mattresses.”
“You just described half the teenage boys in America,” replied Marsha calmly and then she chuckled. “And you would have been the envy of the other half.”
Deni turned around to face Marsha. “That’s the problem; America is a corrupt, sinful place. Americans are so desensitized to everything that makes a person humane and virtuous. I fell into America’s trap and also became desensitized to everything that is good and pure. Love, beauty, and sexuality are not masturbating to porn, but I was sucked in. Drugs and alcohol do nothing but dim one’s mind and poison one’s body. I fell for it.” He wandered back to the table and sat before Marsha. “I was eight and I saw it. I saw the craziness that was America, yet I fell.”
“I agree with you. America may not be the most virtuous place on earth, but Deni, what you described to me hardly makes you a bad or evil person. It makes you human. It made you a young man trying to cope with the stresses around you,” explained Marsha. “Every person must find their way through the madness, true you may have lost yourself in it, but eventually you would have grown past. There is nothing you should feel ashamed about.”
“Maybe not in your eyes, but in God’s,” said Deni.
“I’m positive Allah would not want to see you suffer,” replied Marsha.
“What do you know of Allah?” questioned Deni.
“He’s a good and just God—a God of love and peace. Do you believe he would want to see any of his children in pain? Just as he didn’t want to see all the innocent civilians killed and maimed in America’s war you protested, he would not want to see your anguish.”
“Those are good people, living a just and virtuous life,” responded Deni. “I am not.”
Marsha sat back in her seat. “Clearly, I cannot make you see what you refuse.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“A good soul,” she said. “Good souls get lost; they face adversity and struggles. They suffer personal judgments and have deep reflections, but they always come back to the bright side. You had the opportunity to find that bright side, but you chose the dark path. Why? That’s all we want to know. Why did you choose the dark path?”
Deni stared at Marsha and said the first thing that came to mind. “Because it’s what I deserved.”
Marsha reached out to Deni and took his hands in hers. “Confess to me. Bare your burden so your soul can be liberated.”
Chapter 20
It was the winter break of Deni’s sophomore year; Deni stayed with his older brother, and his wife. If Deni thought the Atkins’ were uptight Anglo-Saxons, staying at Mikail’s house was like living in a military barracks. The Atkins took consideration making sure Deni was content and comfortable. Funny, that family does not have the same consideration for one’s comfort and contentment, he thought.
There was relatively no concern for Deni at Mikail’s house. Under Mikail’s roof, everyone lived to his standard. They watched the television shows he wanted to watch, eat what he wanted to eat, and went to bed when he was tired. Jamie had grown accustomed to Mikail’s schedule and like a dutiful wife, she obeyed. Deni marveled at how Jamie was able to keep her sweetness despite Mikail’s pressures.
Deni didn’t speak too much; he understood. Years ago he admired his older brother, but the move from Russia to America had been harder for his brother. Barely able to speak and read the language, Mikail found promise as a football player and a pretty girlfriend, but that promise was taken away shortly after it was given. It was like giving a dog a bone and taking it away as soon as the dog tasted it. Of course the dog would growl, thought Deni, and Mikail did a lot of growling.
Resting back on his brother’s couch, watching some news channel on the television, Deni wondered why his life turned out so differently than Mikail’s. Was it because I was younger when we moved to America? Is it the opportunities I received? Do I really deserve the opportunities? Is it just personality that it was easier for me to adjust?
It didn’t really matter what Deni thought, in Mikail’s house, Mikail did all thinking, so Deni didn’t offer much conversation. He quietly sat on the couch, doing time until he was able to escape back to the college dormitory room at Temple.
The next morning, Deni was woken and pushed out of Mikail’s living room sofa bed. Mikail had heavily encouraged Deni to go jogging with him in the morning. Deni was used to getting up for early morning football practice, but on his vacation—forget it.
Mikail drove to a park at the edge of the Schuylkill River. Deni pulled himself lethargically out of the car and slowly followed Mikail down a dirt path alongside the river. It was arduous, painful running. The sky was gray; the bare trees gave an overall sense of death, which was what Deni felt like doing. His lungs froze with the heavy cold air, and his legs stiffened.
Looking back, Mikail laughed. “You’re supposed to be in shape? How can you let an old man like me beat you?”
Deni didn’t respond and kept running. No answer would be good enough. Perhaps it wasn’t the jogging, perhaps it was the company; perhaps it was the pressure and the competition. He never really minded jogging before.
Summer leaves newly emerged on the trees. The morning dew was still heavy in the air with the summer sun trying to burn through. Deni always hated running laps around the track, or even the treadmill, which seemed futile. There was something about running through nature, winding alongside the river that felt more natural, or maybe it was his company.
It was amazing she could keep pace, and even pull out ahead, but Heather did run long distance for several years. She had beautiful long legs and a very easy stride. Many times, he’d lag behind a few steps just to watch her run. She is like a gazelle and I guess that would make me the wolf, he thought.
Heather looked back over her shoulder, “Am I going too fast for you?”
Deni chuckled, breathless and then caught up to her. “Nah, just trying to make you feel good.”
She picked up a bit of speed and jogged out in front of Deni. “Yeah, care to put it to a race.”
“With you? Fuck no! I’d be choking on your dust,” Deni said.
Heather laughed; she knew it to be true. She could smoke him, maybe not in a quick sprint. He had the speed but she had the endurance. It seemed to be the nature of their relationship. He was fast in short spurts, but she always had the patience. Soon, together they found the same stride and ran in silence. Being alone with Heather was Deni’s most peaceful and comforting time.
Somehow Deni endured the jog with Mikail; maybe it was because he feared the repressions of stopping or taking a break. Deni was one of the few people who understood Mikail—this sibling competition Mikail needed. He needed to succeed; he needed to win and be the best. Deni played his game. It didn’t matter to him. If he could make his brother feel good, then it would be the best for everyone.
When they returned, Jaime had breakfast waiting—pancakes and eggs. After Jamie had left for
work, Mikail collected Elena’s belongings and they all headed off to the Islamic center just outside of town.
It had been a long time since Deni visited the center; it had to be Mikail’s marriage to Jamie. He remembered it well; he was hung over from drinking the night before with T-Bone and the guys. Surely, his parents and Mikail did not know, but Allah sure did. He was punished throughout the ceremony with a throbbing headache and swirling stomach.
“When was the last day you prayed?” asked Mikail.
Deni didn’t know the answer, but said, “I pray every day.”
“Good,” said Mikail.
Later that evening, Deni met with his family for dinner and tonight Kamiila had a surprise for him¾a mystery guest. Her name was Ceyda Terzi, and Kamiila made sure to point out to Deni that Ceyda’s name meant beautiful. Ceyda, a biology major at Albright College, had a mound of dark hair and was smart, polite and most importantly Muslim. She came from a well off family outside Philadelphia and of course her father was a doctor.
Everything seemed to be going the way Kamiila desired. She kept close ties with her daughters, and her relationship with Jamie was warming despite a chilly beginning. Finding the right girl for Deni would complete her goal.
Deni was quiet during dinner. He let Ceyda speak for him, as if they already were married. What the hell, there’s nothing to say. My life is already signed away. Ma probably already signed the marriage license, he thought. He realized now why his father was so quiet and his brother was holding on to control; when a woman gets a hold of a man’s life, there is no turning back. Marriage is the death sentence of a man’s soul. It’s just a tool for child production and bread winning.
After dinner, Ceyda followed Deni to the family living room and took a seat alongside him on the couch. “I get the feeling this was a surprise for you,” she said.
Deni laughed. “My mother is a matchmaking ninja. I never know when she’s going to sneak someone on me.”
The Insurrectionist Page 20
