A man in a black hoodie and black sweatpants stole down the sidewalk, stopped next to the liquor store entrance. Diffused sunlight washed over the scene. The man looked both ways, up and down the street. A blue car idled a few yards away in the direction he had just come. Other than this blue car, the block was empty. A cool, wet breeze blew across the man’s yellow-brown face. He raised his hood and tightened it. Then he pulled up from around his neck a black cloth, now obscuring most of his face. The only thing one could see was two dark eyes with dark eyebrows.
He quickly entered the store, a large room with red carpet that flowed around rows of shelves, all stocked with various bottles, some full of wine at $10 a bottle, others containing beer or hard liquor. The store was empty of life, save for a diminutive, portly, balding man reading a magazine behind the counter in the front of the store.
The masked man slid up to the counter and brandished a gun, which he had produced from one of his pockets. “Money, please,” he rasped to the clerk.
The clerk spoke with a thin, trembling voice. “I can’t open the register without a purchase.”
“So buy me a drink.” One could see exasperation in his eyes.
“What, uh, would you—“
“Just do it!” The robber demanded.
So he did it, emptied the register of tens and twenties. Handed them to the bandit, who stuffed them into his pocket. Then they did the same with the ones and fives.
Then, just as quickly as he had come, the masked man slid out of the store. He ran up to the getaway car, opened the passenger’s side door, and got in. The car peeled out and disappeared.
A squirrel, weak and tiny, scampered across the road as Mira barreled rolled down Linden Street. He was three-quarters of the way across, directly in front of Mira’s car, when he froze. She slammed on the brakes, but it seemed she could not avoid running over the little guy. Then he suddenly about-faced and shot back in the opposite direction, toward the lane of oncoming traffic., from which an SUV sped toward the hapless creature, who froze again, huddling up on the double yellow line in the center of the road. Despite his hairy situation, it appeared that he was safe. But at the last second, he made a dash for the curb, across the path of the towering SUV. The last thing Mira heard through her open driver-side window was a distinct crunch. She winced, as an ache spread through her gut. And then she frowned.
Mira understood—sometimes she felt like she was the only one in the world who understood—how poor Squirrelly had felt. Now, “Squirrelly,” always in the past tense, a tradition she had kept to herself since she was a little girl. A tear peeked out from the corner of her eye. Anyone else would have thought she was childish or silly, but that was how she felt. She sympathized with even the lowest of God’s creatures. What’s more, she understood why the squirrel had gotten run over. The squirrel had been safe huddling in the middle of the road. In fact, if he were to have remained still, he would have remained safe. But tell that to a little squirrel, with 100-foot-tall, 10-ton monsters roaring all around, approaching closer, closer, louder, louder. He had no time to think. It was fight or flight. And when the monsters are coming for you, you run. It matters not that you have nothing to fear, nor that you have nothing to hide, nor that you are completely innocent. You run, even at the risk of a gruesome and ignominious death. Because something deep inside, something that was programmed into you from before you were born, tells you it’s your best chance. And you have neither the time nor the energy to figure it out sensibly. So you run. You run as fast as you can. And if you’re lucky, the final blow is fast and quick, and you don’t see it coming.
Mira found a safe spot to pull her car over to the side of the road. The car came to a stop, and she put it in park. And then she rested her head on her forearms on the steering wheel. And she closed her eyes and frowned, and she breathed deeply. The smell of wet leaves and cool rain filled the air. It had always been a happy smell, because it portended holidays and a break from the hot sticky mess of summer. Now, however, it was a bittersweet smell, like the ending of Waterloo Bridge, the one with Vivien Leigh. She got hit by a truck, too.
Images flashed through Mira’s memory. A dozen people running for their lives. Protest signs littering the ground. “Due process! Not abuse of process.” And “Uphold the law. Fire Baedes.” And “How, Chief? … could you allow this?” A man’s hand holding one of these, his other hand in Baedes’s face, like a cheap rip-off of the native peoples, shouting “How, Chief!?” Mira shuddered.
A sound interrupted her thoughts, voices. She raised her head to see a family in Halloween garb. It was a little early for Halloween outings, only Saturday, and the holiday fell on a Wednesday this year, and only late afternoon, not evening.
The family’s two daughters looked like genuine Arabian princesses, one in pink, the other in purple. Both wore cute little silver-and-black blouses and a full veil, which didn’t quite match the rest of the costume. Like their olive skin, though, the veils only added to the authenticity of the costumes. They giggled as they shuffled along in their poofy pants and long, flowing sleeves.
The little boy, plodded along behind his sisters and over a foot shorter than them, was dressed up as the red Power Ranger, sans helmet, which he held in his hands. He quietly and deliberately, and muscles rippled down his chest and arms. Mira giggled at how cute he was, thinking it would probably be 15 more years before those muscles would actually fit him.
The mother’s costume, Mira thought, was the most clever. Her hair was tied up in a bun, with a pink bow. And she wore a pink and red kimono and very authentic looking geisha makeup. Mira knew that she was not Japanese, but her delicate features belied her ancestry. Mira thought she looked beautiful with her regal stature, dark hair, paled face, and bright red lips. What made her costume so clever was that she was the only one of the five whose costume did not include a mask, because she didn’t need one. Irony of ironies, her mask covered her face completely; yet, it didn’t even exist, to Mira, a profundity.
And the father, who accompanied his wife, wore a ninja outfit, sword at his side, though he had his mask pulled open, to reveal his whole face. There was something about his face, Mira thought, something in his eyes, something that made him strong and noble, the loving and loved protector of his family, a quiet superhero.
The family filed out of their walkway and out onto the sidewalk. Mira heard one of the girls say something about playing with someone named Ariel at the party. The other said she was glad they only had to go as far as next door.
Suddenly, the sound of a car engine and squealing tires interrupted the gaiety. As Mira watched in the fading sunlight, a police car quickly pulled up in front of where she was parked. Immediately, two uniformed officers leaped out and brandished their pistols.
“Hands in the air!” they both shouted. “Everyone! Put your hands in the air.”
The whole family raised their hands, the little boy holding his helmet over his head.
“Drop the helmet!” one cop shouted at the boy, pointing his gun at the child.
“Habid, put your helmet on the sidewalk,” one of his sisters told him.
He did so, then raised his hands high in the air. His eyes began to tear.
The cops clearly hadn’t seen Mira sitting in her car, observing all this. One cop ordered the father up against the car, while the other kept his gun trained on the rest of the family. The one with the father put away his weapon and searched the father. He took the father’s sword, which was clearly only a prop, and threw it onto the ground several yards away. “No gun,” he said to his partner. He pulled out the father’s wallet and found in it several $20 bills. “Where’s the rest of the money?” he asked the man being searched. “And what did you do with the gun?”
The man was clearly confused. “This is all the money I have.” He spoke with a thick middle-eastern accent, not quite Arabic, not quite Hindi. “You can have it. Please don’t hurt my family.”
“What about the gun?” the cop demanded.
The man stammered, in the same broken English. “I— I have no gun, sir.”
The cop turned again to his partner. “We’re gonna need backup. I’ll call.”
The partner nodded. “Okay.”
The first cop then pulled the man’s hands behind his back and in one well-practiced motion handcuffed him. “You are under arrest for armed robbery of Hammond Street Wines. You have the right to remain silent—“
“What?! I have been here with my family. All day I have been. How could any of us rob anyone? We do not even drink wine.”
“Yeah, well then how did you know the robbery was today?” The cop yanked the man away from the car, opened the door, and shoved him in by the head. “You have the right to remain silent,” he repeated. “You have the right to an attorney…” He stuck his head into the car as he continued his well-rehearsed speech.
Eventually, he ordered the family to lean against the car, including the little boy, who couldn’t have been more than six years old. He began patting them down, starting with the woman. This was especially uncomfortable for her, denigrating even. Anyone else might just have made an educated guess at how the woman felt about it, but Mira knew. As certainly as she knew her own feelings, she knew. Her eyes glued to the scene before her, without look at the seat beside her, Mira reached for her small, black purse on the passenger’s seat beside her. She opened it and from within extracted her cell phone. With one eye still on the scene outside and one eye on the phone, she punched several keys. Then she raised the phone to her ear and listened to the line ring through.
“Hello. Ted Jackson, here,” said the voice on the other end. In the background sounded white noise like Niagara Falls.
The “hello” part was Mira’s idea. She had suggested it to Ted some time ago. He often failed to understand what value words like “hello” and “sorry” had in normal conversation. But he had been surprisingly open to the change, even though he didn’t completely appreciate it.
“Ted,” Mira said softly. “I’m witnessing a man being falsely arrested.”
“Whoa,” Ted said. “Start over. What happened?”
“These two cops charge out with guns and arrest this guy who obviously hasn’t done anything wrong. And now they’re harassing his family!” She was almost whispering, to avoid drawing attention to herself. Even so, she conveyed emotion through her voice.
“Calm down,” Ted said. “Start at the beginning.”
The first time Ted had ever asked her to “start at the beginning,” it had been very hard for her. She had kept skipping to conclusions instead of simply relaying the facts. And she hadn’t understood why Ted was being so picky. It was a frustrating experience. But after many such conversations with him, now, it was old hat. Mira quickly recounted what she had witnessed, so that Ted could draw the same conclusion she had. They went through this exercise frequently, and although he almost always arrived at the same conclusion she did, she never understood how he got there. Now, Mira finished her story by telling Ted how troubled the cop was, because he was convinced there was a gun hidden in a six-year-old boy’s muscle-suit.
“Where are you?” Ted asked.
“On Linden Street, right off of Washington.”
“I’m about 10 minutes away. Stay put.” He emphasized that point. “If the officers want your statement, let them ask you. Don’t you offer to help. Meanwhile, if you have a pen and paper, write down everything you see.”
“Okay.” With one hand, she began rifling through her purse for her small notebook and pencil.
Ted added, “And remember what I told you before.”
“Okay.” Mira didn’t think about it, because she didn’t want to remember.
“You’re up to this?” Ted asked, uncharacteristic.
Mira breathed. “Yes, I’ve got it,” she said confidently.
“I’ll see you in a few minutes,” Ted said.
“Thanks, Ted.”
They hung up. All the while the cops had been badgering the family for information. Either these people, including the six-year-old, were all trained spies, or else there wasn’t any information to be had. And they weren’t trained spies.
Mira opened her notebook and caused her pencil to scribble furiously on the page. But she had only written half of the story when she heard a new noise, a storm door opening and closing. A man emerged from the house next door. He stood at an average height, with an average build, appeared an average color, with brown eyes and hair. Probably had a wife and 1.85 children. And he approached the police officers, both now interrogating the family. One of the daughters was openly crying, along with her brother. The approaching man wore gray pants, a beige sweater, and a scowl. Suddenly, Mira felt sick to her stomach.
One of the cops whispered something to his cohort then went off to meet the newcomer. Mira could only hear bits and pieces of the conversation, because the repeated interrogation of the other cop, who was closer, drowned out most of it.
The cop said something, then the man.
“Nothing…” the cop replied.
“… my friends,” replied the man.
“… robbery… arrested…”
More discussion.
“That’s ridiculous,” said the man.
The cop responded with something Mira couldn’t hear. He was clearly trying to handle the man.
Then the man said something and tried to walk around the cop.
“Stay here, sir!” the cop warned.
The other cop paused his interrogation.
“If they’re not under arrest, they’re free to come with me,” the man said.
“No they’re not, sir!”
Now the man shouted at his friends. “Fatima! Are you alright?”
No response. Mira knew the woman was crying, even though Mira could only partially see her face. The kids were all probably also. A wave of nausea washed through Mira’s gut, and she felt her teeth grind in her mouth. A tear trickled from her right eye, but she forced herself to write in her notebook. The black lines dug deeply into the paper, and the pencil point snapped off.
Mira’s phone rang, and she saw on the phone’s display that Ted was calling. Mira flipped opened the phone’s clamshell case and hastily took the call.
Clydene pulled a Pyrex pot from the refrigerator. Inside sloshed a brine, dark brown in color, in which soaked two large pork chops.
Ted had worked late at the office every day all week, and Clyde had hardly seen him. He had left home before she awoke and had come home exhausted, going straight to bed. And now he had worked Saturday, too, and evening was approaching. All their friends were preparing for dates or had other plans, and Clyde herself was looking forward to dinner and a movie, alone with her husband. The dining table was already set, and the candles were out, ready to be lit.
Clydene set the pot on the counter. She took a quick detour to the stove to turn down the potatoes, which were begin to boil over. She removed each chop from the brine, patting it down with a paper towel and laying it on a plate. Flames were already streaming from the burner under the heavy, iron skillet. She wet her hand from the sink faucet, dropped a few drops of water onto the skillet, saw it fizzle gently.
“Perfect,” Clyde said to no one.
She picked up the pork chops, one at a time, each between two fingers, and laid them gently in the skillet. As each one touched the hot surface, it fizzled up, and Clyde drew in the wonderful aroma of pork and thyme.
The phone rang that familiar electronic jingle. Clydene quickly washed her hands and dried them on the fluffy kitchen towel before striding to the wall where the phone hung and answering it.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi. Ted here.”
“Hey, you,” Clyde cooed as she smiled. “Will you be home soon?”
“I’m going to be delayed.”
Clyde’s gut tensed up, but she resolved to hear him out.
Nothing more from her husband.
“Whatever it is,” she suggested, “can’t you bring it home?” Clyde heard car noises in the background, and Ted was sounding cell-phone-y. “Are you in the car?”
“Yes. I’m in Abe’s Turn. But I’m going to be delayed.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Is everything alright?”
“I think so. Mira called in a panic. Apparently, it’s Lando Benitez all over again.”
“Oh.” Clyde didn’t know what to say next, or even how to interpret Ted’s last comment. Was he being sarcastic? She knew Mira’s passionate sympathy sometimes got on his nerves. Or was there really a situation? And was Mira alright? In any case, Clyde thought she might not mind it if a terrorist blew up the Abe’s Turn police station, because she missed her husband and lover. Why don’t terrorists ever blow up the right buildings? she wondered “Okay. I’ll keep dinner,” into the phone. “Call me as soon as you can, okay?”
“I will, as soon as I know something new.”
“Bye-bye, Love,” she lamented.
They hung up.
Clyde leaned against the kitchen counter and sighed. She stared at the table, dark and empty of human company. Then she set about her next task, to figure out what she was going to do with two half-cooked pork chops that weren’t going to be eaten until God knows when.
Ted had been driving home at the end of an interminably long week. While most lawyers worked long after the sun went down, Ted was in the office almost every morning before the sun rose. Even though this day the sun had not yet set, and even though it was Saturday, he had been going for over 12 hours at the office and was looking forward to a quiet evening with his wife. That’s when his cell phone rang.
He almost didn’t take the call. There were some very good reasons to let it ring through to voice mail. One, he was tired. Two, he was driving. Three, it was Mira, and Mira often meant work. On the other hand, when Mira meant work, it was always work he was proud of. Besides, she was a friend. And Ted secretly admired Mira more than anyone else he knew, admired her for reasons that were also secret.
Ted donned his hands-free set and answered the phone.
Mira spoke in a panic. “I’m sitting in my car, witnessing a man being falsely arrested. What should I do?”
“Hold on,” Ted said. “I need more information. Take it from the beginning. What happened?”
“These two cops charge out with guns and arrest an innocent man, and now they’re harassing his family!”
Ted was afraid Mira was going to lose it and break down, and then he’d never figure out what was going on. He was too tired for this, too angry at the jackasses that had set Mira off, and too frustrated. “Calm down,” he said, more to himself than to her. He breathed and slowed his speech. “Start over, please. Tell me, step by step, what happened: from the beginning.”
Mira then told him a story similar to those he’d heard before, but raising enough questions to make him suspicious of foul play. Firstly, this was happening in Abe’s Turn. Dramatic arrests happened, yes, but usually in the city, not in Abe’s Turn. The residents of Abe’s Turn engaged in white-collar crime, if they dared commit any crime at all. Dramatic arrests occurred when an officer approached a suspect who had a guilty conscience, and the suspect bolted. Frequently, drugs were involved. None of those factors came into play here.
Other questions, more of them than Ted could keep track of. Why didn’t the officers question the suspect? If he had an alibi, why didn’t they look into it? His alibi seemed pretty convincing on its face, because the whole family was dressed up and only heading next door. And if this was about a robbery that had just occurred, which Mira’s story seemed to indicate, then where was the evidence? The very fact that they felt the need to badger a six-year-old about a hidden gun, that fact alone showed that there was something wrong with their case.
Or maybe Mira was exaggerating. She said it was “Lando Benitez all over again,” whatever that meant. Yes, the situation had some superficial similarities, visitors from another country, victims whose skin happened to be the wrong color for the local prejudices. But Ted knew, these factors occurred more commonly than anyone would like to admit. Most of those poor people fortunately did not end up like Lando Benitez. Ted didn’t see any reason to think this situation was that bad, yet.
As it turns out, Ted was only a few minutes away from the action. He told Mira to stay where she was but to create a written record of everything she saw. Her written notes could be useful if he needed her testimony. Then he hung up and called his beloved Clydene to let her know he would be late to dinner. When he explained why, she understood completely. Ted didn’t understand the depth of affection those two had for each other. He took a moment to chuckle that if he ever wanted to have an affair, all he’d have to do was to say it was with Mira, and Clyde would go along with it.
He stopped at a red light on Washington Street, only one intersection away from Linden. He called Mira back.
“I’m right around the corner. What’s the situation?”
There was much blathering in her explanation, but he got the gist of it. The accused man’s neighbor, clearly a friend, was causing a ruckus with his upset.
Excellent, Ted thought. Already fighting on multiple fronts. That would make it easier for Ted to sneak in as a lawyer and get information.
The friend had also revealed the name of the accused: Hashim Osama.
With a name like that… Ever since Ted’s 34’th birthday, it was more likely a man named Hashim Osama would get struck by lightning than that he would get a fair shake. The thought enraged Ted, and suddenly he no longer needed to depend on Mira’s compassion and empathy as a reason to fight. Suddenly, he had his own reason to fight, a passion that forced him to commit to the fight, to commit to win.
Ted squealed around the corner and pulled up to the curb. He hadn’t realized, he had been pushing down hard on the accelerator, as if he were driving a bullet.
“Okay, Mira. I’m here. Sit tight,” he said. He hung up, pulled off his hands-free set, and popped his cell phone in his suit pocket.
With the mannerisms of a Man in Black, he stood from the car, confidently closed the door, straightened his tie. Hands in plain site, he approached quickly but carefully, exuding authority.
“I’m an attorney,” he said. “May I speak to Mr. Osama?”
“At the station,” the cop said.
“What about his wife? Is she under arrest?”
“How did you know to come here?” said the cop.
Ted ignored the question. There were several ways he might have known, and Ted didn’t need to explain himself.
“May I speak with her?” Ted asked.
The cop glanced at the still anxious friend, who was temporarily dumbfounded. “How do I know you’re really a lawyer?” he asked.
The guy was a twerp. Ted was ready to show identification, to rub it in his face. But before he could, the other cop spoke up. “He is. I’ve seen him around.”
At that time, another police car pulled up, lights flashing. Two more cops got out, and the first walked over to meet them. Ted approached Fatima and whispered in her ear. “My name is Ted Jackson. I’m an attorney. A friend called me when she saw what was happening to you. Would you like me to represent you?”
No answer.
“Alright. Just sit tight.”
He went up to the cop. “Do you have any more questions for the family?”
“I think we’re done for now.”
Ted’s presence had clearly changed the situation. They no longer appeared panicked about missing booty, hidden guns, violent superhuman six-year-olds in red muscle suits, or any other such thing.
Ted turned back to Fatima. “You and your children can go now,” he said.
She remained mute and frozen.
He approached her again. “Fatima,” he repeated, “you and the kids can go back home. Or maybe you can visit with your neighbors.”
She looked right at him. There were long tear-streaks running down her cheeks. She spoke through thick layers of mucus and tears and accent. “What about my husband?”
“We’ll get that straightened out.” Then he lowered his voice. “But you and the kids should get away.”
She still didn’t move.
Then a bang emanated from the police car, and a muted voice shouted something unintelligible in a non-English language.
Every eye stared on in horror.
She went.
