Original Prin

by Randy Boyagoda

  “Okay, we can stay for a few minutes and then go to the movie,” said Prin.

  They all high-fived him and Prin felt great and at one with America, this ham and savage land where people actually said things like

  “USA! USA! USA!”

  “My fellow patriots, who’s ready to meet a great American hero?” asked Schlaffler.

  “USA! USA! USA!”

  “Welcome to our Honor American Heroes Rally at Plymouth Heights Mall. A quick thank you to our sponsors, Greinke Auto Detailing and Accenture. And now, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to Bryan ‘Big Bear’ Kowalski, who did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with the greatest army on earth before returning home to Wisconsin to find out his job at the local paper mill got folded up and mailed to Mexico,” said Schlaffler.

  “BOO!”

  “But did he just give up and get on the Democrats’ welfare-wagon-to-nowhere?” asked Schlaffler.

  “NO!”

  “That’s right. He tried to re-enlist. But guess what? Those chicken hawks and turkey vultures and plain old turkeys in Washington had just passed more cutbacks to our armed forces, so there was no re-enlisting. Okay, I know what you’re thinking: now he gets on that Washington welfare wagon. Right? WRONG!” said Schlaffler.

  “USA! USA! USA!”

  “Guess what this guy did? With beautiful wife Jenny and new baby girl Dakota and three-year-old son Barron at home, he went back over using his own family’s savings! He joined some freedom fighters in Syria, took on the radical Muslim jihadi crusaders in basically the most dangerous part of the world, and now he’s come home, and he’s decided to join us here, today, at Plymouth Heights Mall, to tell us all about it. He’s going to be on the Schlaffler Show tonight as well, 7 pm on WXUSA 1850 and Sirius 145, so tell all your friends and enemies to tune in. Yes, right before the birthday of our great nation, a beacon of freedom in a world of darkness, we’re going to hear from a red-blooded beacon of Bravery and Freedom. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a Schlaffler DefCon 1 welcome for my friend, my personal hero, Brian ‘Big Bear’ Kowalski!’” said Schlaffler.

  A big guy with an embarrassed smile climbed onto the stage, gave a thumbs-up to the crowd, and awkwardly bear-hugged Schlaffler, who then stood back, took off his Schlaffler Show cap and placed it on his heart. He saluted the young man. Everyone in the crowd did the same.

  “So, ‘Big Bear,’ what can you tell us about the situation over there?” asked Schlaffler.

  “First of all, Schlaffler, I just want to thank you and all of you here today for your support. When I was over there, you know, fighting, giving 110 percent, knowing that I had people like all of you believing in me and what I was doing, it just helped a lot with the adversity,” said Kowalski.

  “So yeah, okay, tell us about that adversity, Brian,” said Schlaffler.

  “Well, yeah, you know, it’s pretty complicated, all the different groups fighting each other. And sometimes they fight, you know, one group’s members start fighting each other, and then the Russians and Turks and Iranians and us get all mixed up in it too. Pretty confusing,” said Kowalski.

  “But basically, they all hate America, right?” asked Schlaffler.

  “No. No way!” said Kowalski.

  “Seriously?” said Schlaffler.

  “The rebel group I was with, man, they just love America,” said Kowalski.

  “USA! USA! USA!”

  “That’s not what the so-called mainstream media tells us, with its so-called facts and truths, you know, Brian,” said Schlaffler.

  “Right. But, well, I went over and helped train a group of Christian militia fighters who were trying to protect their village because the national army and the coalition people basically weren’t doing anything and they had the terrorist militias making incursions all the time,” said Kowalski.

  “Wow. That’s, you know, personally, to know, you know, the Bible says, ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name.’ Even there, in the Middle East, it’s true, huh? So Brian, did you all pray together?” asked Schlaffler.

  “Actually, when we weren’t training, mostly we just talked about football,” said Kowalski.

  “Are you kidding me?” asked Schlaffler.

  “No!” said Kowalski.

  “Okay, but when you say football, you mean soccer, like the Europeans call it, right?” asked Schlaffler.

  Here Schlaffler held his hands out in mincing fashion and did an off-balance dainty dance to hoots from the growing crowd.

  “No, when I say football, I mean, you know, football. When I first got there, this one guy, Muktar, I called him Mookie, anyway, he asked me where I was from, and I said Neenah, Wisconsin, up near Green Bay. And Mookie smiles and does the Aaron Rogers touchdown move, you all know it, the Championship Belt,” said Kowalski.

  Schlaffler, Big Bear, and everyone in the crowd pantomimed buckling up a giant belt to their heavy hips. Prin kept his hands vaguely on his waist.

  “NO KIDDING!” said Schlaffler.

  “That’s right. Anyway, before we went out on perimeter duty together that first night, Mookie says to me, ‘The Packers are America’s team!’” said Kowalski.

  At that, the mall crowd went wild and stayed wild for a long while. They died down just as Prin saw two bearded men in ballcaps and long coats running towards the stage from the side. They had serious faces. They were wearing long coats in July. Weren’t those serious faces? What did Patrick say about men running with serious faces? In a mall in Milwaukee, on the Fourth of July, were those serious, bearded faces and long coats?

  “THEY’VE GOT GUNS!”

  Prin was knocked down and someone trampled his arm. From near the stage he heard a snapping sound, shots fired. He got up and could only see two of his nephews knocking about as people scrambled in all directions. Someone grabbed his arm, hard—thank God, the third nephew. He reached into a mass of moving, screaming bodies. He pulled one of his other nephews towards him; the other pushed and found him, but he didn’t know which way to go with them, it was like they were stuck in a wind turbine. Whoever had the guns, my God, where were they now?

  Molly and the girls.

  But with the crush of plump, pulsing bodies, his nephews gripping his arms—he couldn’t run for them if he tried. And still he tried, dragging his nephews with him, pushing and pushing to get to empty space and hide them and run as fast as he could, in an unknown direction, to save his wife and children from unknown gunmen. His face squished into the hot Easter ham of someone’s tank-top bared shoulder and he turned his face and that’s when his eyes went back to the stage and he saw Schlaffler down on one knee, his hat knocked off and his bald head blood-spattered.

  Under the mall lights, his blood ran hot pink.

  23

  “Back to our continuing coverage of today’s Terror at Plymouth Heights Mall. What we know so far is that, shortly before 2 pm, two anti-war activists staged a terrorism-style attack on popular conservative talk-radio personality Perry Schlaffler. They shot him with a series of fluorescent paintball bullets, and in the process disrupted his rally to celebrate a Wisconsin veteran who recently returned from fighting radical Islamists in Syria. In an odd twist, the assailants were tackled by the veteran himself and are now under heavy police guard at Columbia-St. Mary’s Hospital as they recover from their injuries. The veteran, twenty-nine-year-old Brian Kowalski, a Neenah native and recently divorced father of two, was questioned by authorities then released. He was unavailable for comment. Two employees of a cellphone supplies kiosk near the attack site were also questioned and released by authorities. A dozen people sustained minor injuries.

  “In a YouTube video released shortly after the attack began, the activists claimed their actions were meant to draw attention to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among returning soldiers and to the need for increased funds for wellness counselling and advan
ced research in this area. Unconfirmed reports suggest the accused are former graduate students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. University officials have no comment. Plymouth Heights Mall will be closed for the rest of the week, mall officials are saying, while law enforcement conducts its investigation. Damage and lost revenue are predicted to run into the millions. And if you’re wondering about Schlaffler himself, well, he was on the air as usual tonight. He promises his next Rally for American Heroes will be even bigger and reminds his listeners that he always gets the last laughter. He also says he’ll keep his head painted pink until October to raise money for breast cancer. Now let’s look at some more viewer-supplied cellphone footage of that chaos before returning to national network coverage.”

  “Look, Prin! That’s you and the boys! Oh now look at my grandsons. They look like lost little lambs,” said Molly’s mother.

  To Molly’s mother, a retired Montessori teacher, all children basically looked like lost little lambs. But in the blur and shake of a cellphone video, you could see how terrified the boys were, hanging on to each other and to Prin. Molly and the girls had been at the far, far end of the mall, along with Molly’s sisters and their daughters, all of them going through no-return steep-discounted bedding and pillows in the basement of Macy’s. They heard nothing, knew nothing, until Molly’s mother called to see if they were okay. Around then the mall’s fire alarms went off and it went from there.

  Prin would have called right after all the running around had stopped, but his nephews wouldn’t let go of his hands for even a moment—and he didn’t get upset with them, American teenage boys crying in public. In fact, Prin vowed he would never tell a soul, which was pointless now that their red puffy faces were beaming into television screens across the city. Would they be able to boast about being there when it happened? What if someone shared a devastating screenshot? At least they still had the chief lifeguard’s lips.

  24

  “Prin, I don’t think you should go to Dragomans,” said Molly.

  “Really Molly? Because my parents both called to say they think we shouldn’t come to Milwaukee anymore,” said Prin.

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Molly.

  “I agree. So what’s changed that now you think I shouldn’t go to Dragomans?” asked Prin.

  “What happened today,” said Molly.

  “What happened today, Molly, in Milwaukee, at the mall you’ve been going to your whole life? Because of a right-wing talk-radio idiot and some paint-balling left-wing goons? That makes no sense,” said Prin.

  Standing in the kitchen, they were both quiet, making all the more noticeable the gruesome sound of Molly cutting through the veins of a grapefruit and dropping the pieces into bowls.

  “Okay, sorry dear,” Prin said.

  “Sorry about what, exactly? About constantly trying to make me not worry about your going to the Middle East with your ex-girlfriend?” asked Molly.

  “So you are worried!” said Prin.

  “Yes! But not about her, not about you and her. I’m worried about you, about why you want to go over there,” said Molly.

  “Dear, I’ve told you, it’s not me—”

  “It’s God. Right,” said Molly.

  “So you don’t believe me!” said Prin.

  “This is what I know: I don’t want you to go. Your wife, the mother of your children, she doesn’t want you to go. Isn’t that enough? How could that not be enough for you? For God?” asked Molly.

  “You think something like this could happen there?” asked Prin.

  “Why go across the world to court disaster?” asked Molly.

  “Because these days it can find you just as easily around the corner from your mother’s house, dear. We’re all courting disaster by getting out of bed in the morning, by going to the mall, by going to the zoo. Remember?” said Prin.

  She gutted another grapefruit.

  “Molly, nothing’s going to happen. The government over there has too much invested in this to risk it going wrong. And I’m reading everything I can find online about Dragomans. I even asked Patrick when we Skyped yesterday—”

  “And what did he think?” asked Molly.

  “Well, it’s Patrick,” said Prin.

  “Meaning, he said you shouldn’t go, right?” said Molly.

  “Not exactly. He just gave me some advice for how to avoid risks while I’m over there. For seventy-two hours, I’ll remind you again, and almost all of those seventy-two hours will be spent behind the security gates at the airport, or behind the security gates at the government building where we’re holding the class, or behind the security gates at a government hotel,” said Prin.

  “All of those are targets,” said Molly.

  “True, they are—anywhere in the world, Molly. I really think you’re just shaken up by what happened today, which, in the end, was really nothing, correct?” said Prin.

  “What if it’s a warning? I mean, like you said—first the lemurs, now this,” said Molly.

  “A warning from who?” asked Prin.

  “Whom,” said Molly.

  “Are you saying God decided to use a dead lemur, and then Perry Schlaffler and two grad-school dropouts, to warn me not to give a lecture on Kafka in the Middle East? Listen, believe me, and I really mean believe me, Molly, when I say I think God has ways more blunt and more subtle of letting us know His will,” said Prin.

  She spat out a grapefruit seed.

  25

  A week later, they took him to the airport. Prin told the girls he was just off to give another boring professor lecture in some boring place, and then he’d come home, yes, with Tic Tacs for everyone. Molly smiled and stayed quiet. For days now, the two of them had been very quiet. She had wanted him to stay back, and that wasn’t enough.

  “I’ll be home soon, girls!” said Prin.

  He turned towards the departure gate.

  “Daddy, you promise?” Maisie called out.

  “Prin! Answer her!” Molly said.

  She said this playfully, for the sake of the children. Almost playfully.

  “PRIN!”

  Part Two

  26

  “Are we there yet?” Prin asked.

  “Yes, for sure,” the driver said.

  “But you keep saying that,” Prin said.

  “That’s because it keeps being true!” the driver said.

  “Okay,” Prin said.

  “Okay?” the driver said.

  “Okay,” Prin said.

  “OKAY!” the driver said.

  “Okay,” Prin said.

  “Good,” the driver said. Then he turned on the radio. Taylor Swift. He turned up the volume.

  They were stuck in traffic somewhere in the capital city. All around them were delivery trucks and buses and scooters and taxis. Everyone was honking and moving very slowly under a hard white sun and brilliant blue sky. Traffic cops in maroon berets stood in the middle of narrow intersections, their brown uniforms sweated through. Close by, on either side of the narrow road, were old square limestone buildings now faded and cracked and patched here and there, their ground floors chockablock with market stalls made from corrugated metal painted red and blue and green. The narrow walkways beside the jammed road were crowded with old, gap-toothed men sitting and standing around little tables full of teacups and pulled-apart newspapers. Small silver radios shot sunlight from certain angles.

  There were a few women as well. They were covered and round and weighed down with shopping bags spilling the floppy tops of vegetables and, in more than one case, pair of bound-up chicken feet. Each followed behind a bored-looking man talking on a phone. Some were bored-looking boys. Two kinds of young men were standing around everywhere and ignoring each other: the first were leather-jacketed and jeans-wearing, all strutty and square-shouldered and smoking and s
norting at each other like background players in a Grease revival; the other were thin young men concerned with looking extremely pious, a few of them wore long beige robes, all of them sported cuffed pants and brown parsley beards. The more-important-looking ones kept rubbing their foreheads, which had little dent marks, and picked their teeth with thick, ginger-coloured twigs.

  From the apartments above the stalls and walkways children peeked out here and there, sometimes calling to each other but mostly just staring down and around. One boy appeared to be staring at Prin, who thought and thought and thought and then waved. The kid waved back right away. Then he disappeared and came back with a soccer ball, which he proudly showed to Prin. But before Prin could give him a thumbs-up, someone called the kid away and the window went black. Prin still wasn’t sure if he was going to live or die in Dragomans.

  The driver honked again, again in vain, and then adjusted his rear-view mirror to mug an apologetic face at Prin. He knocked the golden charm dangling from the mirror. It was shaped like a three-fingered hand and had a yellow-jewelled eyeball in the middle.

  “Sorry, sir. Traffic is always like this close to the government buildings. Lots of security checks. Shouldn’t be much longer,” the driver said.

  “Good to know. Can you turn down the music? And is this the only route?” Prin said.

  “Sorry, I love the Taylor Swift. This is the only good route. All the diplomats and VIPs like you use this route, sir. Bill Clinton uses it when he comes to give the speeches. You don’t believe me?” the driver asked.

  “About Bill Clinton? Yes, I believe you,” Prin said.

  “I believe you too,” the driver said.

  He turned and smiled and nodded and turned the music back up. Prin felt vertiginous, jet-lagged, and more nervous than he probably needed to be while taking in his shaky, refracted self in the mirror-squares of the driver’s sunglasses, the eye of the charm shaking below. And why exactly did this driver, or Shane from the zoo, or Fr. Pat, believe in him? What did he believe about himself, just now? Was he truly a VIP? What made him a VIP? To who? Whom? Oh yes, that’s right. He still didn’t know what God believed about him, but even if nothing and no one else was warming and filling and moving his very being to remind him of it, Prin could remind himself of it.