I bought another handgun, he says. Glock 19. Now we need more Winchester 308 ammunition.
It is early on a cold, wet fall morning in September 2002. I am sitting behind him in the last pew on the left side of the aisle, in a cold, narrow, white-painted brick Catholic Church off Woodfield Road in Gaithersburg, about 20 miles northwest of Washington DC, where he rides his Ninja 300 early on Monday mornings when the church is empty. And in the dark, I follow the glossy blue bike in my little two-wheel-drive fire red pickup truck, a hundred yards behind him on the rain-washed, still and empty roads.
I rub the snot out of my eyes. With my tongue, I feel the plaque on my front teeth. Off Muddy Branch he swings a sharp right on Diamond when I thought he might go left, and he skids madly on a carpet of wet leaves. His right knee scrapes the road and bounces him, and he lets go of the gas and wobbles straight. Left foot ready to pounce on the clutch, I am mumbling the fifth Kalma, a supplication for forgiveness, a prayer I have known since I was five when we had to repeat it every Saturday morning. In my mind, I can see his tightly smiling face in his helmet. In Arabic I do not understand, out loud I repeat the dua.
Astaghfirullah rabbi min kulli zambiyon wa atubu Ilayhi
I ask forgiveness of my sins from Allah who is my Lord and I turn toward Him.
We are racing through old town Gaithersburg now, with the railroad on our right, at 50 on a two-lane road with a speed limit of 20. There’s a V intersection with a stop light in the middle of a triangle. He leans right toward the road that runs by the railroad, but then changes his mind, hangs a sharp left on Washington Grove, knees close to the road and torso counter balanced, no skid this time. I swing left and hit the triangle curb with both left tires, just miss the stoplight, fall back on the road. A wooded residential neighborhood. School bus stopped ahead and he jiggles the bike once for fun and screeches to a stop. From his waist he twists to look at me and through the helmet I see his grin. Two moms stare, and I scratch my beard and look away.
On 124, he opens out all the way, and I fall behind. I lose him at a light, but I know he will pull over and wait. And then almost at Damascus we see the little white church on the left and he slows into the gravel lot in the back. He walks confidently to the front, and I follow, limping ten feet behind.
‘Built 1904’ is engraved in block capital letters in a small marble stone on white painted brick to the left of the church door. It is dark inside. He crosses himself and slides into the second to last pew on his left. I slip into the row behind. There’s no one else here. For a minute he is quiet, head bowed. I steal a moment of hope. Then. Tell me about the bank, he says.
I stare through the gray into the sliver of orange light let in from the stained glass windows on the east wall. Four narrow, dirty, dark windows on the east wall and four on the west. I don’t want to tell Conor. His knee is jabbering on the pew in front. He’s lost maybe 30 pounds. When he first started doing meth, he told me it helped him focus. He seemed full of insight. Now he just asks the same questions.
Tell me about the bank. Tell me about every teller, the manager, the alarms under the teller cash drawer, the weekly armored car. Tell me about the small vaults to the left of each teller, the big vault. Have you ever fired a gun? You ever fire a gun?
My throat is tight, my chest is tight. I am pulling hairs out of my beard one by one and laying them neatly inside my white prayer cap, which lays face up on my right on the old dark wood, where they curl in different directions. I’ve told him so many times. I hate guns.
Do all Pakistanis wear prayer caps?
Eyes closed, I shake my head.
Did you wear one as a kid?
Again, I shake my head.
Did your dad?
Why is he asking? Does he even care?
Then why do you?
My eyes closed tight I picture my happy place, Dumani, the peak that walls my home, climbing straight up in the sky, my father’s gentle voice as he worked on the car on the side of the mountain, my Mehrban chachajan and Peer in his white shalwar walking down to us from his home four kilometers up the mountain.
I thought that was you, he says to my father. I saw the car from my home, and I thought it was you.
He says the same words every Saturday. Of course it’s us. Who else would be fixing our Datsun Sunny at the same place, on the gravel where the mountain walls the empty road.
My father wipes black grease on a black towel and holds both of my Peer’s hands in his.
Asalamalekum, baaro kaako, Mehrban chacha says, and their eyes are so happy. I limp over, and chachajan draws me close and hugs me sideways as he holds my father’s hand in his. I am happy.
Ali. The American accent, stressing the first syllable of my name, snaps me out of my daydream.
He’s turned around halfway and facing me, shaking my knee.
The bank. Ali.
I don’t want to tell it again, Conor.
Show me your right hand, he says and grins, and with his right he holds my wrist, and he swings his left around and puts the Glock in my palm and with both hands he closes my fist around it. Feel it, he says. Reflexively, I drop it, and it clatters on the wood floor. He laughs. He’s still holding my wrist.
What are you mumbling, he says?
It’s a muslim prayer, I say, looking straight ahead, peering in the dark for a glimpse of Jesus.
What’s it say?
It’s about forgiveness.
For what?
For all our slights. For all our sins. It’s about the greatness of God. And how he forgives.
You praying for me? He laughs. I’ll be fine, brother.
It’s just a prayer for forgiveness.
You don’t need forgiveness, Ali. I do.
And he touches my knee for an instant, and I am shocked for it is more touch than a straight man has offered me in the nine years I’ve been in the U.S. And I look at him, and for a moment, turned all the way around from that impossibly narrow waist and looking into my eyes, he is soft again, and I see in his eyes old Conor searching for trust. And for the first time I give him all I have. I don’t look away.
I sure do, he says. And I won’t get it, but that’s okay. As long as Kara is okay.
She’ll be okay. I try to hold his eyes, but they are empty again, looking into a dark thought inside.
Yes. Once she has the money. She’ll be okay. And he swings back around.
Put the gun away, please.
You see the sun through the windows?
The orange sun rising low in the sky diffuses through the bare branches of a maple tree outside on our right, speckles shadows on the dark wood, on the dark walls on my left. Jesus is on his crucifix in front, but the inside lights aren’t on, and I strain to find him. I can’t. I can only imagine him there, hope he’s there for us. The Glock sits on the floor visible from the center aisle. I slide my right foot out of my leather sandal and with my forefoot, I push it under the pew ahead, below where Conor sits. I put my hand on my heart and say again the first half of the first prayer I learned.
You see how the light dances? He points to the gently shimmering floor, between the pew and the wall on my left. If you look just once you may think you see a pattern, but you don’t. You need to keep looking, steadily, with a clear mind, and not imagine anything. And you keep looking, without trying to connect the dots. Just keep looking and then you think you have it. And then the pattern changes because the light is different. And then, after weeks of watching the pattern, watching all the changes, it enters you, becomes you.
There is no pattern, I say, as I look desperately into his black eyes, sunk inside black hollows on his high cheeks. It’s the wind through the tree. The wind is random, the light is random, and there are fewer leaves and more light every day. And one day all the leaves will fall.
But he hasn’t heard. He’s kneeling on the floor, sniffling, mumbling to himself, as he does. He pulls a plastic bag of white powder out from his right jacket pocket. Maybe 16 ounces. Another big bag from his left, and that has little zip locks. He looks at me, eyes bright with excitement. Clear now and confident, he says: I can fast. I can think. I can wait.
And he gets to work.
He pours out the entire big bag onto the pew. A ten-inch diameter pile. From his back pocket he pulls out his drivers license and a ATM card. His hands shaking, but careful, he makes a perfect circle, then cuts a small bag worth, guides to the corner of the wooden bench, brings out a small zip lock. He looks up at me, long hair covering much of his face, eyes sunk deep.
Every variation is a pattern, he says. The sun, the leaves, the wind. If I can study all the variations, I can predict what will happen. Then there are no surprises.
He’s said the same thing every week for the past six weeks. He just repeats himself now. He used to be so confident, and I believed him. But now he just repeats it to help his confidence.
My head hurts. I close my eyes, and I try to see my mountain. My abbu. My Peer.
* * *
Next —> Chapter II
Chapter I