Party (13 page)

I move through the crowd again, this time headed for the hallway and staircase that lead out of the living room. I glance around for Max, but he is not where I left him. I walk down
the hall: bathroom, occupied. An empty bedroom. The hall turns left, and I follow it. Another bedroom, another bathroom. This house is endless! I am jealous of whoever lives here.

I see a dim light shining from behind a half-open door.

I listen closely, in case there are two people inside
getting together
. But I hear nothing, so I go for a closer look.

It is a beautiful office, with a dark wood desk, a plush black leather chair, and two leather seats. Two of the walls are filled with books, law books mostly. And curled up in one of the two leather seats is Beckett, with a copy of
Batman
in her hands.

She looks up, startled. “Oh!” she says, and adds, “Azize.”

“What are you doing hiding back here?” I ask with a smile, and sit across from her.

She winces. “I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know what I’m doing here at all, to tell you the truth.”

“I don’t believe parties are meant to be spent alone reading comics. I believe that is for school hours.”

She quite nearly grins, but still looks unhappy.

“What book is that?” I ask.

“Oh, it’s old,” she says. “
Year One
. Just rereading it. What’s it look like out there?”

“Crowded. Very crowded.” I think of Max, somewhere out there hoping to talk to her. “You should come out. Say hello to people.”

“I think I’m just going to go home in a little bit. I should never have come here.”

“Beckett,” I say, “please forgive me, but I must ask—what is it you are so upset about?”

“I’m not upset.”

“You are not happy.”

She shrugs, then sighs. “Can I tell you something?”

“Of course. You can trust me.”

“I have to drop out of school.”

“What? For what reason?” Education is terribly important in my family. My father would destroy me like the Hulk if I said I would drop out of school.

“I have to go to work,” she says.

This, I understand. Work is only slightly less important than school to my father. And that is only for now. Education exists to prepare us for work, so one day, work will indeed become most important.

“I see.”

“I only came tonight to kind of say goodbye, I guess,” Beckett says. “Except it turns out I don’t really have anyone to say goodbye to.”

“Is there no other way? To finish school, I mean. You must have a diploma.”

“Maybe online sometime down the road. I don’t know.”

“Well, if you do drop out, I will miss you next year.”

“Really?”

“Of course!”

Beckett gives me a small smile, and I am proud. “Thanks,” she says. “That means a lot to me.”

“But before you go,” I say, and stand up, “I really do think
you should try talking to some more people out there. Introduce yourself to someone new. I did. It was not so bad.”

“Yeah?” she says. “Well, I’ll think about it. Listen, don’t tell anyone I’m back here, okay? I don’t want to deal with it.”

“I won’t,” I say. “But I give you only five minutes. Then you must come out and say hello to someone.”

“
Ten
minutes.”

I smile. “Very well. Ten minutes.”

“And I get to go outside. It’s way too loud and all smoky inside.”

“Okay,” I say. “Ten minutes, then we go to the backyard.”

“Thanks.”

I smile again, and leave her alone. She is such a nice girl. But it is also clear she would rather be alone.

I go back out to the living room and look for Max. Should I tell him to go to the office? That would seem the nice thing to do. But if he wishes to be romantic with her, now is perhaps not the best mood to catch her in.

I am still thinking this when someone bumps into me from behind. Hard. I almost fall over.

I turn around. The person behind me is African American, and approximately the size of Bane, the villain who broke Batman’s back. He wears a silver and black jersey of the Oakland Raiders.

This person says nothing, only stands there glaring down at me. After a moment, he leans toward me, and I recognize him as one of the popular football players from school. I do not know his first name, but I think his last name is Lincoln,
because I’ve seen it on his jersey as he runs for touchdown after touchdown at our home games.

“Hey,” Bane/Lincoln yells in my face. His breath stinks of liquor. “You brung that pissa?”

“Yes,” I say.

“We got pissa fromma terroris’. Anybody order pissa from a terroris’?”

I stand still. My mind aimlessly flips channels of response. No one else seems to hear us, but I see the other skateboarder, Brent, who came into my store. He is sitting on the couch, watching us, his mouth hanging open as if he is in shock.

That is probably the same look on my face right now. Rage churns my stomach.

“
What
did you call me?”

Lincoln tosses a palm into my shoulder. The blow, while not a punch, pushes me toward the front door. It does not hurt, not exactly, but it feels like a sledgehammer.

“Best take that outside,” the football player warns. He looks me up and down. “Towelhead terrorist motherfucker.”

I begin to shake. My arms and legs grow cold. A silent home movie unspools in my mind. My father, bloodied, on the floor of his own store back in Phoenix, weeping inconsolably. This was many years ago. Back then, and even now, I do not know whether he weeps from the beating he has received from two local ignorant cowboy-type men or from the fear and anger at their ignorance. They used the same words this football player has.

I have never talked to my father about that day. But the
movie springs into my thoughts and will not go away, like a DVD that keeps skipping on its track.

We had moved to California the following month.
It will be safer in Santa Barbara
, my father said through bruised and swollen lips.
People there are not like they are here, Azize. You’ll see. Too many cowboys in Arizona
.

The cold in my limbs is melted by sudden fire, and I scream. I willingly forget my father’s teaching to forgive. This ignorant football player cannot get away with these words! My mouth chooses the words of its own accord. I have no control, I am enraged.

“You are a fucking nigger! You goddam ass! Who are you? Fuck you, nig—!”

Lincoln reaches for me, but someone else slides in between us.

It is Max.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says, and puts a hand on Lincoln’s chest. “Chill out, bro.”

Lincoln snarls. My body quakes with adrenaline.

“Look,” Max says to me, “maybe you better take off, dude. Okay?”

“Did you hear what he said?” I demand. “Did you hear what he called me?”

“Bro, this is a really
big
dude who just polished off a bottle of Jack all by himself,” Max says to me. “Let it go. Just call it a night, okay?”

Lincoln is still staring at me. I feel we are two fighters being photographed for an upcoming match. Max’s words sink in,
though. This football player is enormous. I am not afraid of him, but he is clearly the stronger of us. He looks as though he would like to tear me limb from limb.

“Okay,” I say. “I will go. But he is wrong! He is the asshole!”

“Sure, he’s wrong, no sweat,” Max says. “Just call it a night.”

I glare once more at Lincoln, thinking of some more excellent
küfür
words, but instead turn and go to the front door. I go outside, slamming the door hard behind me.

I mutter to myself as I go to my car. Where is the justice? I have done nothing! What does this American football player know of terrorism? Nothing! He should spend some time in Türkiye, perhaps in the southeastern provinces with my family, before he calls me such a name. I am an American, too! I want to tell him. Not that he will listen. He is like the cowboys in Arizona.

I do not like Santa Barbara as much as I did when I woke up this morning.

I open my car door and climb inside. I realize through my rage that I have forgotten about Beckett. I am supposed to go bring her out to the party in a few minutes, escort her to the back patio to meet someone new.

I cannot. If I go back inside, there will only be trouble. I hear my father’s words in my head.
We must forgive them, Azize
.

Before I am able to close my door, a hand pulls me from the car and throws me to the street. My keys clatter away. My chin scrapes against the blacktop.

“What you got now, bitch?

Lincoln. He has followed me outside.

Good! I will defend myself.

I jump to my feet, but Lincoln is on me in a heartbeat of time, a brick fist smashing my face, my ribs. The pain is immediate, intense, but far away. He holds an empty liquor bottle in his other hand. He needs only one to defeat me. Adrenaline protects me from feeling the worst of it, but I know I am hurt. I hear parts of me crack inside.

I fall to the road on my hands and knees, stunned and gasping for air. My sternum feels like breakfast cereal. Bells jangle in my head.

Get up. I must get up.

Get. Up
.

His foot crashes into my thigh, taking the limb from beneath me and sending me face-first into the street. I taste oil. Blood. Another kick lands on my hip, another on my shoulder. All three areas sting momentarily, then ache and knot under my skin.

Get up!
Fight him!

I swing a meaningless, impotent fist at his feet, which are now in front of me, but Lincoln is out of reach.

“You juss stay right there,” I hear him say. And I watch as his sneakers walk unsteadily toward the front door.

No!
I will fight back. He is drunk. I can fight him! Ata does not understand that these people speak only one language. That sometimes there is only one way to make your point and stand up for yourself!

I push myself up and lunge for Lincoln. I swing as hard as I can at the back of his head. My knuckles crack against his
skull. I wait for him to fall to the ground, unconscious and defeated.

Things do not go as planned.

Lincoln whips around, touches his head where I hit him, and says, “Sum’bitch.”

I turn and try to run for my life. I have no choice. It is clear now I cannot defeat him after all. His drunkenness has made him impervious to attack, not uncoordinated and weak as I had expected.

Maybe this is why Ata tells me to forgive. Because I would live longer.

I don’t even think of heading for my car, I just run as fast as I can down Beachfront Avenue toward Shoreline. But I am trying to outrun a person who runs for a living. Delivering pizza and reading
Hulk
does not build up the same muscles as playing football.

Lincoln
is
the Hulk. I am the smarter but weaker Bruce Banner.

I hear him stampeding behind me. Terror gives me speed, but not enough. We pass all the cars parked on the street for the party as I run blindly toward Shoreline Drive. If I can make it there, I will be safe. Surely. I can run to the park across the street, put something between us, try to talk to him. Apologize for what I have said, even if he will not. That is what a smart man would do.

I do not get the chance.

His body crashes into me from behind, taking us both to the ground, where I inhale the taste of grass of a stranger’s
lawn. My breath is expelled from my lungs. I hear more than feel something snap in my rib cage.

I am smothered by the full weight of my assailant. I hear glass shatter over my head, splitting my scalp. He pummels my skull, opening a gash on my forehead and smashing one ear to pulp. I feel each blow ricochet down my spine, dull thumps that spin my eyeballs in their sockets.

I’m sorry, Ata. I’m sorry
.

At last there is a pause, long enough for me to realize with some detachment that my consciousness is fading. I lie motionless on the grass, feeling blood pour down my face and neck in a gory bath. Shards of glass glitter in the grass.

I hear him speak through ragged breaths. He has spent himself on destroying me.

“Think you bad, huh? Yeah. Not so bad now, are you, mother? Shoulda keep your ass shut, huh?”

He kicks me again, and the pain in my ribs explodes, as if those shards of glass are rammed into my lungs.

He throws me onto my back and wraps one hand around my throat. I pry at his fingers, but it is useless.

Is this what my father felt?

I am sorry, Ata
.

Tell my mother that I—

“Thass what you get,” I hear him say above me.

I see a light appear. Beautiful light. It outlines the football player from behind, giving his body a dim halo. It is perhaps a superhero, using a superpower to destroy him.

It is light, light like on the boat I will buy when—

B
Y THE TIME
I
WAS ABLE TO START MAKING OUT WITH
B
ETHANY
C
LARK … WAIT
, C
ARTER … IN AN UPSTAIRS BEDROOM
, I
WAS UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF ABOUT FIVE BEERS
. We started on the couch, but this big dude Anthony Lincoln was taking up most of it, staring at CNN and clenching his hands. The news! At a party! Weird, man. It took three beers for me and two for Bethany before I convinced her to check out the bedrooms in this place. The couch was too small for all three of us.

The truth is, there are three things to do at a party: drink or get high, fight, and get laid. Or variations on them. And the other truth is, we only drink or get high so that the next day,
no matter what asshole thing we did at the party, we can say, “Oh, I was drunk. Sorry.” And people buy it. It’s the stupidest excuse in the world. You still chose to drink. You knew going into it you wouldn’t be yourself. That’s why you do it.

But there’s this little sober part of you that you can still hear, this little voice that is thinking totally clear and going all like,
You can get away with grabbing that chick’s ass. You can get away with coldcocking that assclown from French class. You can do it with this chick because the next time you see her, you can claim Drunk
.