Out of Nowhere

by Maria Padian

  I got that, even though I’m definitely not the protesting, marching sort of guy. It’s funny: until the skinheads decided to invade our town, I never realized I was much of an I-love-Enniston sort of guy, either. But they seriously pissed me off.

  So I started doing Stand Up, Enniston with Myla and her friends. A few of them knew I went to Chamberlain, but the rest? We just let them think I was some townie Myla had met. Which turned out to be fine with me. For some reason I didn’t look at them and see a bunch of rich kids driving around in their parents’ old SUVs. I didn’t think of Alex and wonder whether any of them were sports recruits. I didn’t hear my uncle’s voice in my head, making snide remarks about how they might all have $200,000 degrees, but they’d still need to call him if their sinks got blocked up.

  They just all seemed like … Myla.

  Sometime during the first week in December I started feeling bummed that it was all going to end. Myla was scheduled to take her last exam on December 15, then fly home to Minnesota for break. She’d be back for the rally, plus there was a possibility I might go out there for New Year’s if I could scratch up enough dough for a ticket (“Tell your folks you want to tour Carleton,” she suggested slyly), but still. Hanging out with her had been, like, my recovery from all the crap that went down in the fall, no less than physical therapy had been for Donnie.

  He was still not back at school at that point, but he was off pain meds (“Seriously? Tylenol instead of Percocet? I’m dyin’ with the pain, doc!” he’d argued, but no one bought it) and able to get around pretty well with an electric wheelchair. Plus he slept a lot and was completely off the booze, so except for the jagged scars on his face and the casts, he looked healthier than he had in months.

  Strangely, he seemed happier, too.

  “I mean, what can go wrong?” he said to me when I visited him at home one afternoon. “I can’t OD. I can’t drink. I’ve already been in a near-fatal car crash, so what are the chances of that happening again? I guess if the house burst into flames I’d be pretty much fucked, but maybe I could roll out in time. Strange as it sounds, Tom-boy, this is the safest I’ve felt in years. I actually sleep nights.”

  Which was more than I could say for myself. It wasn’t like I had bad dreams or anything. But my mind raced. Thoughts came crashing down on each other like a rickety house of knobby sticks. Angry thoughts. Things I should have left behind, but instead propped up against each other, arranged and rearranged.

  Maquoit went on to win the state championship, and the Enniston paper carried the photo. Not the formal team picture, the players lined up nicely by height with the coaching staff, and the trophy displayed in the center. No, they used the victorious “bro pic,” with all the guys in their black and red jerseys screaming in triumph, hoisting the trophy over their heads.

  Correction: in the photo, Alex Rhodes hoisted the trophy over his head, while his teammates lifted him.

  The day that picture came out, the sports section was the first I used to light the woodstove.

  Cherisse Ouellette continued to come to school and hang out with her coven of mindless friends like nothing had happened. Maybe something had; I didn’t know. Maybe her guidance counselor wrote in her file that she was an awful person who wrecked lives.

  Then again, maybe Mr. Haley still hadn’t figured out whether it counted as bullying if you didn’t actually know who you were bullying.

  The guys on the soccer team, even Mike Turcotte, went on as if nothing had happened. Sure, people were disappointed, and when Maquoit won there were plenty of rude comments to go around. But most of the guys just drifted into their winter sports, hockey or indoor track or basketball, and the subject of the Bashirs never came up.

  That was about the time it occurred to me that if I didn’t make some serious changes, I would lose my mind.

  So I set to work planning my escape. And just in time, ’cause pretty much every college I was applying to had a January 1 deadline. Same day as Saeed’s fake birthday. Hell, same day as every Somali kid’s birthday. I told Abdi I’d get him a cake. We’d celebrate his green card birthday and my hitting Send all at the same time. He was cool with that.

  Myla was pretty happy I’d finally gotten my act together with the apps. A little too happy, to be honest. She appointed herself my private college coach.

  “Personal!” she kept saying. “This is supposed to be a personal essay. Reveal yourself. Tell them something they won’t see on your transcript. I feel like you’re holding back.” She had this red pen I had grown to hate.

  “I don’t know if I can stand dating the freakin’ grammar police anymore,” I groused at one point when we nearly came to blows over whether to use that or which in a sentence. She didn’t even raise her head, continuing to draw lines through whole sentences I had painstakingly composed.

  “You love it,” she murmured. And she was right.

  One afternoon, when I’d arrived at the library before her and was already deeply involved in reworking a paragraph she’d trashed the day before, I felt her light tap on my shoulder. She slid into the seat beside me and placed a sheet of paper on the table.

  “Minneapolis,” she said simply. “They have an uncle there.”

  I looked at the paper. It was a printout of an email to Myla, from Samira.

  “Read it out loud,” she prompted.

  “ ‘Hello, Myla,’ ” I began.

  So many times in my life I cannot say goodbye. When we left Dadaab, it was so quickly I could not say goodbye to all my friends. I said goodbye to my grandmother, but because I have no photographs I begin to forget what she looks like. When our father died, we did not expect it, and I did not say goodbye. When we left Atlanta, I did not say goodbye to my first teachers. All of these make me sad to remember.

  But the worst was not saying goodbye to you and my teachers in Maine. You were my true lovely friend and there is a pain in my heart from missing you. I hope you are okay and not angry at me.

  We live in Minneapolis now with my uncle’s family. Their apartment is small and sometimes I think his wife is not happy we have come but my uncle tries to get us our own place, and that will be good. Minneapolis is a bigger city than Enniston and cold like Maine. There is a big mall here and the mosque and the school we can walk to. I am in school and so is Saeed and Aweys, but the schools are not as nice as Chamberlain and the teachers are not as nice. I miss Chamberlain very much but you know I work hard and get good grades.

  I miss you but I praise Allah for my family and my kind uncle. My mother has work cleaning offices at night, and I come home after school to watch my little brothers and help my uncle’s wife. My mother is often very tired but I try to help her.

  Saeed was also very sad to go but already he makes new friends in Minneapolis. There are other girls my age in this apartment building but I don’t like them very much.

  My memories are my heart photographs. I have so many of you and they are all good. I remember your laugh and your patch of colored hair. I remember when I taught you to make sambusas and when you, me, and Tom ate at the restaurant. I remember riding in your van and you played your CDs and made me sing American songs with you. You kept telling me, “Sing louder, louder, Samira!”

  Myla, there is a time to sing loud and a time to be quiet. Right now, I am quiet. I am quiet in my uncle’s home and in this new school. But I promise you I will not be quiet forever. And when I sing, it will be so loud you will hear me all the way in Maine!

  Even though many memories are sad, many are good. I remember anger but also laughter. I remember fear but also friendship. I remember feeling lost but also remember walking into The Center for the first time and finding you. I remember how I could not ride the moving stairs at the airport when we arrived in America, but I also remember the first time a teacher gave me an A. I remember my first snow and how it seemed like cold cotton falling from the sky. And I remember that even in Maine, where it gets so cold, warm rain, like tears, melts the snow and things grow aga
in.

  May Allah bless you my friend, until I see you again.

  Samira

  When I finished reading, I put down the paper with a shaky hand. Two lines of tears streamed down Myla’s face. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and instantly registered in some deep place in my chest how good it felt to hold her that way. My touch, more than my words, told her everything I wanted her to know. It was a language we both spoke and understood and trusted.

  We stayed like that for a while, neither of us caring if anyone else in the library saw us. When we did move apart, she wiped her nose with the end of her sleeve like a little kid.

  “Will you write back to her?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “But not tonight. I need to give it some thought. Not during exam week, you know? I was wondering if I should try to see her when I go home. I don’t live far from Minneapolis.” I nodded.

  “I mean, I don’t know if her family will let her. Maybe they include me in the list of all the things they wanted to get away from. But I think I should try. Don’t you?”

  “Definitely,” I said.

  Myla peered at me curiously.

  “So what do you think?” she finally asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Why isn’t she … madder?” I said. “Why isn’t she absolutely furious? I mean, she misses you, they live in a rotten situation with an aunt who doesn’t want them, she’s lonely. And she did nothing to deserve it!”

  We were both quiet for a while, staring at the email printout that said so much and also left so much out. Finally Myla spoke.

  “She’s lucky, then.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  “She’s lucky to not be furious. Because she couldn’t control it. None of it: not civil war, not losing her father, not Cherisse Ouellette, not Minneapolis, none of it. And yeah, it hurts and it’s hard. But raging only makes things harder. So she’s lucky to put that away and get on with her life as it is. She makes what choices she can, and she does it with grace. And hope. I mean, that singing part? She’s not giving up.”

  I looked at her then. This funny little person who broke me and amazed me over and over. If the only good thing to emerge from the ashes of the season was meeting Myla, then I’d been luckier than I probably deserved. But of course, she wasn’t the only thing. She was simply the best.

  I looked over her shoulder to the scattered sheets of my essays streaked with red pen. Hopeless. Hopeless to continue with any of them now. I was ashamed of everything I’d written.

  “You know,” I said to her, “I’m really close to saying something right now that would be a real soul-baring game changer between us. But since it’s study week and all, and you’ve got a lot on your mind, I’ll just say you are probably the coolest woman I will ever know.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “I know, right?” she said as she leaned forward and brushed her lips against mine.

  We got back to work then, Myla and I. She folded the email in two and fired up her laptop. I pulled out a notebook and opened to a blank page. Trying to figure out what photographs I carried in my heart. What warm rain woke the frozen earth around me.

  I began, again.

  Epilogue

  It is so cold.

  Not quite spit-and-it-freezes-before-it-hits-the-ground cold, although that would be cool. I had to read Jack London’s To Build a Fire back in eighth grade, which is the coldest damn story you’ll ever read, and he describes what seventy below feels like and spit freezing. I mean, it’s Alaska. Not Maine. We don’t usually get that cold, at least not in Enniston. So while the weather on the day of the rally is in the single digits and windy, it’s also sunny. Frostbite weather, for sure, but nothing Mainers can’t deal with, especially if they’re wearing the right socks.

  And you gotta hope they are, because they stand outside the Mumford College auditorium for hours, waiting to file inside. Every type of Mainer you can imagine: little kids with their families, students, old couples, black people, brown people … everybody. All waiting to join the counterdemonstration, which we realized needed to be in a big space.

  Because thousands turn up.

  Thousands.

  I was part of the crew that set up folding chairs the night before, and Myla tells me more than four thousand had been ordered. I’d sent a Facebook message to the soccer team and every guy, every single guy, including the entire JV, turned up to help. Still, it took us hours, and we kept looking at each other and saying, “Seriously? This many chairs?” But we need every one of them.

  Just inside the entrance I pass out programs and point people to empty seats. They file in with these big happy smiles, some carrying helium balloons, or tie-dyed flags with peace signs, or just holding their kids’ hands. You’d think they were going to the circus or some massive party. As they wander in and see the size of the crowd, they grin, amazed, emotional. “Thank you,” they say to me so sincerely. You’d think I was passing out twenty-dollar bills.

  At one point, Myla finds me.

  “Oh my God, you’re not going to believe this,” she says excitedly. She holds out her phone, where there’s a text message, but she’s jumping around so much I can’t see the screen.

  “Just tell me,” I say.

  Turns out one of her roommates was across town at the Armory, where the city had arranged for the skinheads (aka the United Church of the World) to have their rally. She was texting Myla as that meeting was going on. About thirty of them had shown up, minus their leader (seems he’d recently been arrested for plotting to murder somebody), and a couple hundred protesters had lined up, holding signs and chanting at them to go home. Cops were everywhere, but that was no surprise; we’d already heard that this was going to be the biggest law-enforcement callout in the state’s history. So far, however, only one guy got arrested: some counterprotester who was heckling the skinheads.

  “But now they’ve left!” Myla says. “She just texted me that they made their little hate speeches to each other, then snuck out a back door into a bunch of vans and drove off!” Myla’s so thrilled she practically bounces.

  I hand her a stack of programs.

  “That’s awesome, College, but we’ve got some crowd-control issues here. Go stand on the other side of the door and pass these out.”

  She plants a kiss on my cheek and bounds over to the opposite side of the line.

  At some point one of the security guys comes over to me and says all the seats are filled and I need to direct people to the standing-room areas.

  “We’re going to have to close the doors soon,” he tells me. “Fire-code regulations.”

  “There are a lot of people still waiting to get in,” I say.

  He sighs.

  “I know, but it can’t be helped. We’re piping the sound outside, so they can hear.”

  I don’t bother to tell him that a lot of these people have driven from out of state and from northern Maine, for hours, and expect to be allowed inside. Myla’s been handling phones, giving people directions and telling them where to park, all week.

  But when the doors close and the security dude explains why they can’t come in, they stay. They wrap around the outside of the auditorium in the bitter cold and seem grateful that the organizers thought to set up massive speakers outside so they can hear the speeches. Someone has donated tables lined with free hot chocolate, which helps. The kids, meanwhile, have a blast playing on these massive mounds of frozen snow.

  For hours. Two and a half hours.

  Inside, there’s a long stage and a podium set up, and all these dignitaries—the governor of Maine, our two senators, Somali elders, church leaders—are lined up in their assigned seats. Sitting right up there with them are a few familiar faces: Ismail. Ibrahim. This Somali girl named Nasra who I used to see hanging around with Samira. Mike Turcotte. They’re part of this leadership group Chamberlain has put together, kind of a diversity/anti-hate/anti-bullying thing. It’s cool; they picked decent kids to be on it. Mike
invited me to join. I turned him down.

  “Nah, man, thanks, but I’m too busy,” I told him. “Way behind on the college stuff right now.”

  He looked pretty skeptical.

  “Yeah, you and the rest of the senior class,” he said. “C’mon, Tom. It would mean a lot having you join. Team captain and all.” But I held my ground.

  I didn’t have it in me to tell Mike that I didn’t deserve to be in their group. That I got it wrong, so many times I lost count, with people who expected and needed a lot more out of me, and that I didn’t feel like disappointing anyone … or myself … again. I decided to stay within my comfort zone of success: setting up chairs and passing out programs. Even Tom Bouchard couldn’t screw that up. Beyond that: count me out.

  Right before the doors close and the program begins, I see something that I really don’t expect. In all his wheelchair glory, shaking hands and enduring sloppy kisses from all these mothers who recognize him, comes Donnie.

  Uncle Paul pushes his chair.

  “Wow. Look what the cat dragged in,” I say, walking up behind them. I place one hand on Paul’s shoulder and squeeze.

  “Tom-boy!” Donnie exclaims, twisting in his seat to get a look at me. “Just the man we were looking for. Where are all the white supremacists, dude? This crowd is way too tame.” He shivers as he speaks. His lips are blue. They’ve been waiting outside on that long line.

  “That party’s across town,” I tell him. “But you’ve missed it. I hear they made their speeches and are booking it out of here.”

  Don laughs. He looks up at Paul.

  “Guess we’re stuck here with the ‘Kumbaya’ crowd, Paulie,” he says.

  Paul doesn’t look at all surprised. His eyes dart around the auditorium, like he’s trying to figure out where to go. He looks grim.

  “Did you really wind up at the wrong rally?” I ask him quietly.

  He flashes me this give-me-a-break look.

  “No,” he says firmly. “Don told me he needed a lift here today, and since I was already planning to come, it worked out. Just wish it weren’t so damn cold out.”