Original Prin

by Randy Boyagoda

  “You want the total truth?” Prin asked.

  “100 percent,” he said.

  “Then first just tell me your gun didn’t jam—”

  “You want me to prove it on your ass right now?” he asked.

  “Trust, bro. I trust you. Trust me. I can tell you’re holding something back. Get it out. This is the time and place. Just get it out,” Prin said.

  The young man trembled and held his face in his hands. Prin reached for the Canadian Club but then Dawud looked up and he was crying.

  “I couldn’t do it. The white chick was easy. I didn’t even see her face until after she was dead. Super slutty, for sure. So I moved on and I saw this little Chinese lady and, and, easy shot, but she was holding this little kid wearing those shoes that flash and I used to have those shoes and they were both crying and looking around and yes they were infidels and yes they were an easy shot, easy shot, easy …”

  “But you didn’t do it,” Prin prayed.

  “I didn’t,” he said.

  He began sobbing, head down low, perfect, and Prin grabbed the bottle. But he couldn’t do it. Not like this. Because of this man, this man, Rae and the child were alive.

  “Bro, you showed mercy, and Allah Peace Be Upon His Name is merciful, and Allah Peace Be Upon His Name is pleased,” Prin said.

  Dawud looked up and wiped his face.

  “Yeah … we’ll see. So tell me your full truth. Do it. Do it now,” he said.

  “Okay. I didn’t just come here straight from getting cured of my cancer. I went somewhere else, first,” Prin said.

  “Where did you go?” he asked.

  “Does it really matter? I’m here now, right, and ready for jihad,” Prin said.

  “Bullshit. You’re a fraud,” he said.

  “I’M NO FRAUD!” Prin said.

  Dawud sat back a little, closer to his vodka bottle.

  “Sorry,” Prin said. “Look, I’m no fraud, bro. I’m no fraud. I’m not. But I will admit to you, I am in need of purification because of all that I did before I came here. I knew I would be purified by jihad. I knew this. I believed it, thanks to Allah and Peace Be Upon His Name. Didn’t the 9/11 martyrs go to Las Vegas before they took the planes? They did!” Prin said.

  “Tell me right now, bro. What did you do?” he asked.

  “Give me back my phone and I will show you,” Prin said.

  “Yeah right,” he said.

  He took Prin’s phone out of his pocket and considered its home screen.

  “Wait. So you said you weren’t married but then who are—”

  “My brother’s kids. My nieces,” Prin said.

  “Cute girls,” Dawud said.

  Prin lunged and grabbed the phone and the next thing he knew he was chest down on the ground, the other man’s knee in his back. Dawud bent back his wrist and he dropped the phone. The other man picked it up, stood back, and took out his gun.

  “I am at your mercy, brother,” Prin said.

  “No shit,” he said.

  “No, I mean, please, here’s the truth. Fine. See for yourself what filth I touched before coming here in search of purity, Insha’Allah,” Prin said.

  “The fuck you saying?” asked Dawud.

  “Just, just put 6791 for the passcode and then open my VaultTok app … and look for the picture of, of, the slut,” Prin said.

  Dawud immediately found the picture of Wende’s chest. He squatted down, put aside his gun, and with his free hand rubbed his forehead and expanded the image. He was muttering something, and whatever it was, it was no prayer, no curse.

  He’d forgotten Prin was even there.

  Prin reached for his Canadian Club and swung down just as Dawud dropped the phone and came up with his Absolut.

  40

  “HELP! Please, can you hear me out there? HELP! I’m trapped in here with a terrorist! Can any of you understand English?”

  “Min a’nat? Min a’anat?” asked a Dragomans soldier.

  “My name is Princely St. John Umbiligoda, and I’m a Canadian citizen and help! I’m trapped in here with a terrorist! Please! Please! Someone help me!”

  “Is he armed?” called out an American megaphone voice.

  “Yes! And he tried to kill me with a liquor bottle but I hit him first and then I tied him up and I’ve been waiting in here until it was safe to come out. But please, God, he’s waking up and I think he’s going to get loose. Please! Please, can I come out?”

  “Place your hands above your head and come out, slowly,” said the American megaphone voice.

  “There’s no time! Please don’t shoot me! Please! I will come out holding my passport, my Canadian passport, above my head with my good hand, okay? My other arm’s injured. And then please send your men in here to get him before he breaks free and blows us all up!”

  “Come out! There will be guns aimed at you and if you do not do exactly as you are told, or if you make any unnecessary movements, you will be shot. Do you understand? You will be shot. Do you understand?”

  “YES! Please, just let me out! Don’t shoot me! Shoot him!”

  “Come out, now.”

  “Okay, I’m coming out. I’m coming out. Don’t shoot me, please!”

  Prin was screaming and screaming.

  But no one could hear him.

  Wearing Prin’s jacket and holding Prin’s passport, Dawud walked out of the stockroom into spotlights and men yelling and loudspeakers screeching.

  Behind him, gagged and wearing Dawud’s balaclava and cloak, Prin stood up. His hands were bound with packing-tape. He staggered. He was dizzy and his head was throbbing and wet and the wet was something thick and coming down near one of his eyes, onto his cheek.

  Smelled like metal and meat.

  Blood.

  Eyes stinging, he looked ahead. He saw the gun tucked in the small of Dawud’s back.

  The soldiers couldn’t see.

  They couldn’t see how close the gun was to the hand he had pressed along his side. Dawud was about to shoot them.

  Original Prin lurched out of the stockroom and into the Duty-Free shop, his bound hands held out in front of him, shaking his head so the balaclava would come off but it wouldn’t and the whirring made him dizzy and he stumbled into a table of bottles that fell and broke and more blood came down the side of his face and he was screaming and screaming and sucking in his belly and straining for when they shot him.

  The American megaphone voice told him to stop right there. The voice told the other man to stop right there. The voice told both men to get down on their knees.

  Prin knelt. Dawud knelt. Then the American told them to lie down flat on the floor. Prin fell forward. Broken glass pierced his legs, his stomach. Wet. Whisky and metal and blood smells. Dawud did not lie down. From his knees, hand reaching for gun, hand reaching for gun, Dawud yelled at the men to shoot the terrorist shoot the suicide bomber shoot and save them all and they were yelling to lie down lie down right now there was yelling everywhere, everyone.

  “DOWN ON THE FLOOR!”

  Dawud almost had the gun. But they were all screaming and could not hear Prin’s screaming. How to show that he wasn’t the suicide bomber, that he was true Prin, that the other was about to kill them?

  How, Lord? How to show?

  Then a great wind came, a blowing in his ears, a rushing through him. With him. In him. He closed his eyes. His body filled and he breathed and he heard and he did not ask God why.

  It was the end, and he was not alone. But then the great wind left him.

  But he was not alone.

  He never was.

  He opened his eyes and saw this man with a gun get up from his knees running and crying God is great God is great but the world is the world and the world became fire.

  It’s the end. No it’s not.
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  No it’s not?

  The shooting had stopped. Phones were ringing. Glass kept breaking. Men kept yelling. Children were crying.

  Children.

  No, it’s not.

  No, it’s not.

  No, it’s not.

  Photo: Chris Donovan

  Randy Boyagoda is one of Canada’s funniest and most provocative writers. A regular presence on CBC Radio, his most recent novel, Beggar’s Feast, was selected as a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize. His first novel, Governor of the Northern Province, was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. He lives in Toronto with his wife and four daughters. He is a professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he is also Principal of St. Michael’s College.