Audacious, page 9
Kayli was always running away
But I’m not ready to celebrate yet.
BACK TO SCHOOL
School starts again
I’m not welcome
Which suits me
I sleep in.
Kayli’s principal calls
Wants a meeting
Kayli refuses
Stays home
After a very late lunch,
Mom who is already
Well sick of us
Takes charge
Pencils are sharpened
Books are opened
Homeschooling
Starts.
EMPTY SPACE
It says more about you
And what you intended to say
Than even the artwork itself
Everyone knows what should be there
My piece is up in the library
And that insipid watercolor
And in between we left a large
Empty space
People have been writing on the wall
“Free speech” and “No censorship”
“My body—my decision”
I saw the girl who wrote that
She didn’t think anyone was looking
Some have drawn pictures:
Boobs and butts and…
Signed them—“By Asthmatic”
“By Ugly” “By Disabled”
Stink Eye wants to wash it off
But can’t because
There’s an informal “honor guard”
All day.
Kids sit by it and read
During their spares
And stay after school
Or come early
To make sure
No one wipes you away.
The principal made an announcement
Saying anyone caught writing on
Or skipping class to guard the wall
Will get detention
But they are calling it
“The Freedom Wall”
There’s even a Facebook page!
I think the janitor whatshisname
Is on your side
He has refused to clean it off
Anyway, people are using
Permanent ink
They would have to paint
To cover it up
Someone drew a kind of frame
All Celtic swirls and thorns
It’s amazing
I wish you could see it
I’ll send you a picture
Or check Facebook
They update the image daily
It’s so cool, habibti
You’re famous
I’m proud to be your boyfriend
It’s like you awoke something
Like everyone at this school
Suddenly gets it.
FAMILY MEETING
When four minds meet
Like four envoys
Each from a faraway land
At first we cannot communicate
We speak different languages
And have different customs
And different beliefs
And want different things
But slowly we begin to understand
Each other, to sympathize
And even agree
On some simple ideas
We eat together, break bread
And share wine
And eventually laugh
About our shared problems
There are “non-negotiables”
Homework and curfews
And sacrifices
Church and clothes
And we all agree
Mom should have therapy
And Kayli, a tutor
And I need to stay out of jail.
DAD: PART TWO
He’s just about to adjourn the meeting
I’m expecting Mom to say something
Or Kayli even, but they are silent
I guess they’re leaving it up to me
Like I have all the credibility right now.
Dad, I say, you have a place in all this
He turns to me, an open face
Like a window to an empty attic room
With space to pack with broken furniture
And other unwanted things.
We need you around
We need to know that you care
About us as much as you care
About your students
We’re your family.
We need you to face up to stuff
Mom has an eating disorder
Kayli has a learning problem
I don’t know what’s wrong with me
Maybe I’m just attention seeking.
But it’s you we all need
Not doctors
Or tutors
Or lawyers
You.
HOMESCHOOLING
By noon Kayli has mastered Pythagoras
And is using his theorem to design a quilt.
When Dad comes home at three
They apply said theorem to a wall bracket.
Next Kayli announces confidently
She’s going to build a doghouse.
Maybe start with a birdhouse, Dad says
You’re allergic to dogs.
WORD
By email first
Then two texts
Then the Freedom Wall
Facebook page
Posts a photo
Word gets to me
Puffy’s lavender watercolor
Has been defaced
The words JEW and KIKE
Scrawled in black paint
Dripping like vile blood
A vampire’s tag.
And beneath
In smaller letters
More words, smaller words
Looping across the soft pastels
In black permanent marker
I feel myself choke
As the picture uploads
Free Palestine
It reads.
MYSTERY
No one seems to know
How
Or
When
It happened
But this morning when Sarah arrived
To stand guard at the Freedom Wall
The damage was done
No one is sure
Who
Or
Why
But Freckle texts me:
Thrs nly 1 plstnian at schl
Cn u tlk 2 Smr?
TRUST
But before I get the chance, he calls
Meet me at Starbucks, he says
I haven’t left the house in four days
But I agree, and change out of my pajamas
Cinnamon-scented steam rises
From the cups on the table between us.
Everyone thinks I did it, don’t they?
Freckle, I mean Genie thinks so, I admit
Something about saying her real name
Troubles me, I don’t know why.
Freckle? Samir says, with a smile
You’re hilarious. That suits her so well.
We sip our chai, holding hands
Did you do it? I finally ask.
Samir looks into my eyes
I feel myself catch fire, burn to ashes
And blow away on a gust of wind
As someone opens the door.
No, I quickly say, Samir lets go
Of my hand and says, No, I didn’t. No.
FATHERING
With eagle eye
Now that we have told him
We rely
On his strength
Dad’s vision and concern
Will go to any length.
Kayli tells me you’re upset
Dad says later
What he doesn’t get
Would fill a lake
But I tell him anyway
For his sake:
Why do I have to mistrust
So universally
Can’t I just
Love Samir and believe
He tells the truth?
Is that naïve?
Because deep down I feel
Some doubt
Small doubt, but solid and real
He used that black paint
In his art, which I guess
Is why I feel so faint.
Dad nods, looking wise
And tells me
Love can cloud our eyes
And those in love are easily misled
Sometimes you should ignore your heart
And listen to your head.
AND ANOTHER THING
Two in the morning
Staring at the dark ceiling
My phone beeps
On the desk
Hala dlvrd boy. V prmture.
Pray. Luv Samir.
Oh God, dear God, I start
But can’t go on
Because why should I ask for help
From someone whose fault it is?
Sndng luv. R U at hosp?
Im awke. Call?
Then I wait, wondering
How I can confess I haven’t prayed
And hoping maybe he won’t ask
My phone rings.
Why are you up so late?
Or did my text wake you?
I was awake, couldn’t sleep
Just thinking about everything
Are you okay?
Have you seen the baby?
Just through a window here in NICU
He’s tiny and red. Poor angel.
I bite back tears
Thinking of Gabriel.
He’ll make it, I’m sure, I say
They can do amazing things now.
The doctors say it’s no one’s fault
But Hala blames herself.
Privately I think of God
Mercilessly, capriciously deciding
Who lives and who dies
And when and how.
But she did everything she could
Vitamins, eating right, resting
Do you want to come over
I mean, just to sleep?
I’ve said it without thinking
And hope, kind of, that he’ll say no.
No thanks. Tempting, but I can’t
My parents are leaving in a few minutes
He hangs up.
Does it matter, I wonder,
If he defaced Puffy’s painting?
Can I live with that?
gdnght thx 4 tlkng 2 me
try 2 sleep luv u
But if he did and he lied
What does that mean?
He wants me to trust him
Does he trust me?
LOGIC
I could pray
For God to let Hala’s baby live
And if He did
I might hate Him all the more
For making Samir’s family suffer
Needlessly.
Had I some disease
And God cured me
I might ask why
He gave me the disease
In the first place
Does suffering amuse Him?
Mom prays for strength
To resist her compulsions
And she claims she finds it
But why would God
Make such a defective brain
That can go so horribly wrong?
I know Mom and Dad both pray
When Kayli gasps for breath
Once her lips turned blue
While we waited for the ambulance
Mom started saying the Hail Mary
And Dad the Lord’s Prayer
And the ambulance came
And saved her
Just in time, Mom said
God cleared the traffic
And put the wind at their backs
But why give her asthma at all?
CONFRONTATION
God
Where were you when Gabriel died?
Where were you
When they bulldozed Samir’s home
Or when his cousin died?
When buses blow up
When bridges collapse
When little children starve
Or drown
Get shot
Or raped
Do you watch
Or look away?
MY SECRET
Then like an old friend
I recognize the bleak fact
That there is no God.
All those years I was
Talking to myself, praying
To an empty sky.
chapter thirteen
CHIFFON
AND NOW SAMIR
In the middle of Mom’s history lesson
(Which, frankly, is quite bizarre)
The doorbell rings
Samir, red-faced, from running
And cold
And…
They sent me home from school
“Pending investigation”
David’s father is on the warpath again
“Hate crime” they are calling it
I wish I HAD done it
They don’t know what a hate crime is.
He has tears in his eyes
I know he didn’t do it
How could I have ever thought he would?
Despite Mom’s disapproval
I drag him upstairs, and hold him
Until he stops trembling.
RACHEL
I call Puffy’s mother
It’s all I can think to do.
We meet at the falafel place
Because Samir has a shift at Starbucks.
I love baklava, she says
Licking honey from her fingers
You look better
How is your mom?
Samir didn’t do it, I say
She looks doubtful, then sighs
We left Israel to get away from all that
But it has followed us here.
Samir respects art; that’s not his way.
His painting was very hurtful to us
To him too, I say
That’s why he painted it.
If he didn’t do it, who did?
I don’t know, I confess
Sarah is very upset, so is Genie
And when she says Genie
Genie, I remember the name
Genie, swirled onto my math book
The numbers too, but the name
The last e in Genie, looped and sideways
Just like the last e in Free Palestine.
GENI-EEEEEE
I have to go now
(My coffee is about to come back up)
I have to go now
(This horror is about to get worse)
I have to go now
(I have to think of a way to prove it)
I have to go now
(Genie did it; that’s so messed up)
I have to go now
(Why would she do it to her own best friend?)
I have to go now
(Even I don’t get the psychology here)
I have to go now
(I thought Genie and I were becoming friends)
I have to go now
Thank you, Rachel, for your help
On Christmas Day
And your understanding now
But I have to go.
REHEARSAL
The anti-virus I installed was a free trial
It just expired.
They say there’s a nasty worm going around
Let me update you to the full version
And run a scan on Pinky.
It will take a couple of hours
Maybe overnight might be best
Do you want to just leave it here?
I’ll come by later to get it.
Then I pick up the phone
And dial.
PINKY
Pinky sits expectant
Like she understands
My devious plans
As though she invites my hands
To tear apart her files
She smiles
Her musical greeting
As if we’re meeting
For the first time
But this is the second crime
I’ve inflicted on poor Pinky.
Pinky opens up
Like a flower in the sun
Ready to be pollinated
Or invaded, investigated.
This would be so fun
If it wasn’t for the dumb reason
I’m committing this act of treason
On someone I thought I knew
While admitting
I don’t want it to be true
But Pinky doesn’t care.
Laid bare
Like a corpse on a slab
In some damp and spooky
Underground lab
While some freaky Dr. Frankenstein
That’s me
Pokes around the guts
To see what I can see
And finds enough useless stuff
To write a cheesy girl book
But Pinky’s not off the hook
Yet.
I will never forget the feeling
Like it’s someone’s heart
I’m stealing back,
Because I thought it was mine
But all the time
There was a piece, a slice
A serving of a smile
That maybe I was undeserving
I find a file, which I unlock
In shock and fear
A file named
Samir.
EXCERPTS FROM GENIE’S JOURNAL:
LAST YEAR
We held hands on the bus
Samir has the softest hands…
…He kissed me in the hallway
By the gym
No one saw
My lips are still tingling…
…No one can know
Especially not Dad.
I can't even tell Sarah.
She would be horrified…
…Samir has this new friend, Khalid
He’s an über-Muslim
All praying and fasting and long sleeves
The whole fundy package…
…We were going to do it!
But Samir didn’t show up tonight
When Dad came home at one thirty
I had to tell him I watched a sad movie
Because he could tell I'd been crying…
…Samir wouldn’t talk to me today at school
He said he had to rush to math
But there was at least five minutes
Until the bell…
…I'll never forgive him
How could he do this?
We were so in love.
AND FINALLY
A Facebook message
From Sarah to Genie
U don't really think Sam did it do u?
