“Dude, stop yelling and eating at the same time. It’s frickin’ disgusting.”
Bernie’s beat went on. “Whatever, I’m gonna keep investing, keep working, and keep living. I ain’t gonna take seriously all these fringe conspiracy theories that every superstitious whack job with a blog, a pulpit or a microphone puts forth.” Bernie never minced words with his opinions and he was on a roll with his refutation of Frank’s mindset.
Blaze smiled and lowered his voice, in an attempt to lower the temperature of the conversation, as he responded, “I only know so much, and most of that is probably bullshit, but...”
“Now you’re being honest.”
“Shut up you wise ass. Look, you ought to adopt a more humble attitude yourself. None of us truly know how the future will unfold. Maybe you should stop focusing so much on money and wealth and get in touch more with your spiritual side. Life is like a blink of the eye when compared to eternity, pally. I learned that well in the Marines and the CIA. I’ll never take a day for granted again. Every day is a gift.”
Bernie looked at Blaze as if he was from outer space.
“You gonna finish that frickin’ toast or you gonna continue to get sappy with me like the Jesus freak that you are?”
“Jeez, you German bastard. I thought you were a good Catholic? Believing in JC don’t make no one freaky.”
“Just give me the toast you ballbreaker. We’ve got to get back to the office and make some money. The world ain’t coming to an end today.”
CHAPTER TEN
CHINA (MEMORIES)
She could smell the air—pollution and all—like it was yesterday; the ancient feel of the cities and thunderous awe of the countryside. She had not grown up there, but Diem had felt as if she had. Her multiple visits to China were ever-present in her soul and ubiquitous in the deep enclaves of her heart.
She recalled all the times her grandfather told her stories in Mandarin as he sat rocking back and forth in his chair. She received those stories from him in her youth. Now as an adult, the roaring waves of her imagination had washed those old memories ashore. Visceral, beautiful memories. Now, just the slightest smell of second hand cigarette smoke would take her mind instantly to those story-telling sessions her grandfather weaved so effortlessly while chain smoking in his favorite chair.
As Diem grew up, she knew that her family always held an obvious affinity for many things of the old country. Yet their decision to ultimately come to America was not one that wrought any regret. Instead, they regretted the fact that the reason for their departure—Communism—existed in their beloved country in the first place. She understood the ramifications of all of that, but chose in her adulthood to focus on the preservation of the valuable and noble trimmings and underpinnings of Chinese culture and familial tradition, not the political context surrounding it all.
It was on one afternoon in autumn, after she passed by a man smoking on a park bench, that her mind was carried back in time to her tenth anniversary with Blaze. An anniversary for which Blaze agreed to accompany her to China for a visit with her extended family.
It was Blaze’s first time in China, and it was there that Diem saw a side of him that she vowed to capture and foster in him forever. The warrior exterior that Blaze carried with him like a medieval suit of armor was beginning to melt. This exterior enveloped even his most shallow of surface emotions. But it had finally been penetrated when he settled into the Chinese interlude he and Diem shared.
Several days into the trip, Diem had realized that Blaze had not once discussed anything in regard to the realm of his work or any related current events connected to his all-consuming occupation. This had never happened before. His mind was always elsewhere. Usually in places he was not at liberty to share with her. Places he wouldn’t burden her with even if he was at liberty. Ten years into their marriage, this phenomenon prompted her to fall more in love with Blaze than ever.
She became hopelessly smitten by the man he became when his professional persona fell away completely. His humor was light and ordinary. He smiled easily and frequently. His step was easier and without tenacious guard. She squeezed his hand tight as they explored the land on long walks. She felt herself behaving like a flirtatious schoolgirl for the first time in years.
When Blaze’s mind was free, his guard dismantled, and his soul disarmed, he was downright fun—even boyishly awkward and handsomely clumsy. In those moments, Diem could not imagine him doing the things in the cover of darkness that she was told she wasn’t allowed to imagine him doing.
If he only knew the jokes that her relatives were making about the awkward white guy she’d brought over, he’d have been blushing the entire time. This vulnerability was not a trait of a career CIA assassin. His all-consuming professional mission was to jettison vulnerability of all kinds in perpetuity. Diem did not know all the details of his job, but she knew the overarching elements and saw the underlying effects. This knowledge, although only a small taste of the full truth, was almost too much for her to carry.
She had carried this newfound mission, of preserving this side of Blaze, for some time after the trip with a fierce evangelical fervor. Ultimately, Blaze’s temperament had been successfully chipped away at by her determined Chinese assertiveness. As Shane and Dennis continued to grow, the leverage was too strong for him to resist. She convinced him that he had a patriarchal duty to resign from his front post at the center of harm’s way. In direct opposition to his innate bullheaded Irishness, he eventually hung his hat and had been trying to find his way in the business world ever since.
The truth was, though, that Blaze was not very good at navigating through civilian life and normal working life. It showed clearly in his face and resounded audibly in his voice. Diem was happy he was now safe and home with the boys. But she also knew he was slowly dying inside. She secretly was beginning to understand what he meant when he claimed he was born to be a warrior. She fought the instinct to sympathize with Blaze’s desire to go back in the field. She was not quite ready to come to honest grips with that realization.
The boys were still very young and the way Diem saw it, Blaze could keep on dying inside for quite some time before he would need any rescuing. For now, she decided, harm’s way was going to have to give way to Diem’s way.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LAREDO, TEXAS
Juan Herrara belched. His large belly was full. Two big macs and large fries. Three beers. Time for a smoke.
Juan inhaled the cigarette smoke slowly and exhaled with relief. His room was a mess. Nowhere really to sit. Just a mattress on the floor. Shit everywhere. Laundry, empty cigarette boxes, random electronics, wires, and a low rider bicycle with a missing front wheel. He sat on the floor and leaned his ass and lower back against his mattress, exposing his plumber’s crack. He was playing Call of Duty on the XBOX. Rap music filled the air. He could hear his mom and her drug dealer having sex in the room next to him. The walls were thin. He leaned over to turn up the music. Fucking whore.
Juan really didn’t like the fact that his mom was banging a white guy. It was bad enough when other Mexicans were giving her dope for sex, but now Blanco was in the other room laying pipe. Not that he really cared that much. He hated her anyhow. She’d been a slave to heroin and anyone who could supply her with the drug for almost the entire eighteen years Juan had been alive.
He could hear them getting louder. It made him sick. He banged on the wall. “Shut the fuck up!”
They kept at it. Harder, faster, louder.
Then he heard a crash. Glass breaking. His mom screamed. Blanco was yelling.
“You’re not finished yet bitch. You want your fix don’t ya? We’re done when I say!” Blanco shouted.
Juan got up and ran to bust open his mother’s bedroom door. She was under the covers. Crying. Blood dripping down her face. Green pieces of a broken Heineken beer bottle shattered beside her
.
Blanco stared at Juan with raw anger. He lifted his arm and waived Juan away. “Get the hell out of here kid. This is between your mother and me. Go back in your room you fat shit.”
Juan ignored him and shook his head in disgust. He didn’t even care if Blanco killed her. He just wanted them to both shut the hell up. He gave up on caring about her years ago.
Juan’s mom wiped the blood and tears from her face with the bed sheets. “Just go back to your room honey. We’re okay, just a little fight baby, that’s all.”
“Whatever, Mom.” Juan shut the door.
Juan went back to his room. Back to Call of Duty. Back to the blaring hip hop. He cracked open another beer. He wished she would just die already. She doesn’t do anyone any good anyway. Lazy bitch. She don’t care about me or Marie. Juan took care of his sister Marie, not his mom. Now eleven, Juan had practically raised her. He’d do anything to take care of her. He treated her like she was his daughter. He prepared her lunch every day to take to school. He walked her home from daycare. Anything she needed, he’d get her. Even if he had to steal it. She recently began menstruating and Juan researched on the Internet what a parent should tell a young girl going through puberty. He gave her the talk. Then he stole her a shit ton of tampons and pads from the drug store. Thank God Marie is at Gramma’s tonight and doesn’t have to hear Mom banging Blanco and getting her ass whooped.
Juan took another swig of beer. His prepaid cell rang.
“Yeah?”
“What’s up? You comin’ with us tonight. We’re heading to the clubs. Gonna act up. Find some chicas. Fuck up anyone who gets in our way.”
It was Angel, one of the neighborhood guys that Juan just began hanging with. Angel used to bully Juan. Used to beat him down in front of everyone. Humiliated the hell out of him. He once gave him a huge wedgie and ripped his underwear. Right in front of Juan’s sister. Juan couldn’t walk right for days. He couldn’t see right for days either. Angel gave him a huge black eye that day. It was one of many.
“Hell yeah I’ll go. What time?” Juan was psyched.
“Be at my crib at 9pm. We’ll all roll down together. Don’t come without your protection. Shit could get ugly at this club.”
“Word. See you then.”
Juan smiled. He was excited. He stopped thinking about his mom. He stopped worrying about Marie. And he had long forgotten any wrongs Angel had done to him.
Angel and his crew were now Juan’s friends. They still teased him, but that was all right. They had his back. They were his brothers.
The last time they went to the cantinas across the border Angel and the crew pushed back a bunch of dudes from jumping Juan. Juan was protected. Juan had beef with one dude that night and beat him near dead with a cue ball in a dirty sock. He earned mad respect from Angel and his crew. Since then, he’d been fighting every weekend.
Maybe I’ll score tonight. Been a minute since I got some.
Juan put on his baseball cap, put his cell in his left pocket and his switchblade in his right pocket. He slammed the door on his way out. Not a thought given to the tattered mother he left behind. It was time to go drink and fight. And maybe get laid.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT HADI SAMANI, TEHRAN, IRAN
There was no comedic irony to be acknowledged by Iranian President Hadi Samani in regard to the death of his life’s mentor; his spiritual and political role model, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As honored and humbled as he had felt to assume his mentor’s position when he had passed, thus fulfilling the meaning of his name—guide or leader—he still simmered with unspeakable rage when he thought of the audacity of his mentor’s killer. Samani was a close friend of his mentor and an integral part of his cabinet. It was not only an audacious act, but one carried out by someone who, in Hadi’s mind, should had been executed a long time ago. It was an act carried out by one whose social status was such that his success in killing Hadi’s mentor was the ultimate embarrassment in the eyes of Islam.
When it was reported that Samani’s mentor and his driver were blown up by a car bomb detonated remotely by cell phone, that was devastating enough. When it was discovered that the attack was coordinated by the group known as GALOI, or Gays and Lesbians of Iran, the magnitude of the insult became unbearable. The act was beyond shameful. The infidels worldwide mocked Iran’s loss and championed the efforts of the homosexuals. There was no doubt that many homosexuals in Iran, while denouncing the murderous act, still felt some vindication that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in fact terminated by one of the people he claimed did not exist in his country.
Unfortunately for members of GALOI and other homosexuals in Iran, Hadi Samani’s vengeful hand proved to retaliate in a couple of very unpleasant ways. First, he had anyone who stepped out of the closet executed by public hanging. Additionally, he developed a law enforcement agency whose sole purpose was to defend Islam by reaching into that proverbial closet and dragging Iran’s gays and lesbians kicking and screaming to their inevitable hanging. There were a rapid series of small group hangings as well as nationally televised executions by large group firing squads. These televised events featured audio narrators reading the Koran during the executions, and hailing the imminent coming of the Twelfth Imam. Also known as Imam Al-Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam was lauded to be the One to put an end to such immoral sexual perversions with the coming Caliphate. More homosexuals had been executed in the first six months of Samani’s presidency than the entire reign of his mentor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Gay rights activists worldwide had come to view A-Jad as Santa Claus in comparison to Samani.
As the newly elected president of Iran, Samani held his first cabinet meeting at a sacred section of real estate. It was there that all his cabinet members had signed their written pledge of loyalty to the Mahdi. Samani and his cabinet members were all faithful members of the Hojjatieh Society. Hojjat means ‘authoritative source’ and refers to the Mahdi.
This sacred site was not only the burial ground of his beloved mentor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but it was also the spot where the tomb of Imam Reza, the fourth Shiite Imam—the only one that had been buried in Iran—lay in rest. The gravity and weight of purpose that enshrouded this first cabinet meeting was truly one of destiny and purpose that further validated the strong conviction that Samani held.
Samani was deeply convinced that it was indeed he who had been divinely chosen to pursue taajil in such a way as to see the glorious un-occultation of his beloved Mahdi on his presidential watch. Taajil is the sacred notion amongst the Shiite Islamic Twelvers that the return of the Twelfth Mahdi can be encouraged and hastened—but not forced or controlled—by the actions of the followers of the Mahdi. The Mahdi, or the Twelfth Imam, who had been in hiding, or ‘occultation’ since 874 AD, was the One who was to come and erase the yoke of humiliation from the collective neck of mankind. Of course, this process of the stripping of the yoke would naturally occur by the removal of infidels, or the quick conversion of them. As Samani saw it, the Caliphate was at hand and all that was needed was for the conditions to be arranged for the Mahdi to return and take His destined seat of authority in Kufa, Iraq. Iraq is the country of the Mahdi’s birth, and it is to Iraq that He will return to administer his rule of the worldwide Islamic caliphate that Samani and the faithful had been feverishly preparing for with diligent, defiant, and faithful hearts.
Samani had not showered in three days. As he walked into his office he threw his work gloves, which reeked of garbage, promptly in the trash. Three days was sufficient, he reckoned, for the neglect of bathing. He was beginning to disdain his own smell. He had concluded that his abstinence from bathing and participation in the lowly activity of collecting trash, alongside the common government workers of Tehran, were for the moment complete. He had duly offered these actions of humility and sacrifice to his beloved Allah. Samani believed such expressions of humility were absolutely crucial for him to contin
ue the sanctification process of his soul. He was convinced such actions were needed if he was to remain positioned to be, as he believed he was ordained, one of the 313 chosen believers who were to join the Mahdi in His return. The beloved Imam Al-Mahdi would return with his chief deputy, Jesus of Nazareth, by his side to help him initiate the commencement of the long awaited global Caliphate.
Samani showered quickly and proficiently in the manner with which he purposefully completed all tasks. After he dressed in his customary plain tan clothes, that to the western eye looked more like a generic version of a UPS uniform, he lit up his thirty-five inch hookah pipe. The expensive pipe was vastly ornate with diamonds and crystals. Samani began reflecting deeply about his rise to power. His countenance grew more pensive as his thoughts percolated. He continued pondering as he let the aromatic smoke of the vanilla flavored tobacco slowly leave his mouth and lead his breath into the air to transform the fragrance of his office. He gazed at the two digital counters that hung on the wall adjacent to the large window overseeing the city. One digital counter was placed there by his teacher, Ahmadinejad. The other, he had installed upon taking office. Ahmadinejad had ordered the installation of the first counter as a means to make tangible the reality of the coming of the Mahdi. It also stood to remind him and others of the importance of living each day in accordance with the expectation of His return. That counter displayed the cumulative days that had passed since the beloved Twelfth Mahdi had gone into hiding. As each day passed, and that number grew, so did the anticipation of Samani that the return was near and imminent. The second counter was of lesser significance but certainly dovetailed with the sentiment of the first. The installation of this counter was ordered during the first week of Samani’s presidency to illustrate the absurdity of length in which the imperialist satanic entity of the west had been occupying Iraq, the beloved home country of the Mahdi. It had now been fifteen years and counting.
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