The Dud

Mohammad couldn't even get a date.

At twenty years old, he wasn't in school, had no job, and lived with his mother. The girls wouldn't say that was why they wouldn't go out with him. They were tactful. "Muslims don't date," they'd say, or, "Speak to me again, my brother'll kill you," or, "Next time I won't miss."



One day, after morning prayers, Mohammad met with Shabazz, his mentor. Mohammad's father had moved to Norway with his mistress, a U.N. peacekeeper.

They sat in the grass under an orange tree in the mosque courtyard. Mohammad was helping Shabazz untangle the knots in his beard.

"How many virgins?" Mohammad asked.

"A lot," Shabazz said, and then explained to Mohammad how Martyrdom was a glorious path to victory over the infidels.

"And I can touch them anywhere?" Mohammad asked.

"Anywhere you want," Shabazz said, and elaborated on the eternal struggle between Islam and darkness.

"What about their breasts?" Mohammad asked.

"If that's your thing," Shabazz said.

"It is," Mohammad said, and then asked other questions he had about Paradise, like, "Can I do it with the virgins right away?" and, "I won't have to sit through an orientation, will I?" and "Really?" and "Will I have to brush my teeth first?"

"Do you want to brush your teeth?"

"No."

"You can skip it."

"Sweet."



Mohammad was selected to conduct a martyrdom operation against a Zionist personnel carrier, or, as the Israelis would say, blow up a bus. It was a suicide mission, so he was guaranteed a spot in Paradise. Besides, his mother had been pestering him for months to get a job. This would show her.

He found her hanging laundry in their back yard. She wore a black robe and a yellow headscarf. She looked like a killer bee.

"Mom," he said. "I got a job."

"Does it have health insurance?" she asked.

"No."

"You need health insurance. You think nothing bad will ever happen to you, but it will, when you least suspect it. Your uncle Salim stepped on a land mine. If he didn't have health insurance, they wouldn't have closed the stump."

"After I die, you get twenty thousand dollars."

"So you got life insurance. What about health insurance? Catastrophic at least."

Mohammad promised his mother he would talk to his new employer about health insurance, but this didn't slow her down a bit. Health insurance was her favorite topic. She went on chat rooms about it.

After half an hour, she asked, "What's the job."

"I got it through my friends."

"You mean your gang. Those hoodlum friends of yours."

"It's not a gang. We're freedom fighters."

"So freedom fighters stand on the corner and smoke cigarettes?"

Mohammad decided not to let his mother visit his palace in Paradise. He ended up just telling her he got a job helping build a house. If she knew the truth, it would just cause problems. Let it be a surprise.

The next day, Mohammad went to the garage of Ahmed the mechanic. Ahmed duct-taped a heavy bomb to Mohammad's chest while chain-smoking cigarettes. Ahmed was a dumpy man who smelled like rotten olives.

"You go to Jerusalem," Ahmed lisped. "Find a bus. Make sure there's people on it. Get on the bus. Are you following this?"

"Yes."

"You won't forget? I should write it down?"

"No."

"You can't read?"

"I can read. I read good."

Ahmed finished with the duct tape and dropped the roll on the ground. He tied a short black cable from the bomb through one of the front belt loops on Mohammad's jeans. He pointed to a small black box at the end of the cable.

"This is the detonator," Ahmed said. "And that little red button on it opens the gate to
Paradise."

Mohammad waited with a crowd at the bus stop. The afternoon sun baked him inside his baggy, hooded poncho. He put the hood down so he wouldn't look suspicious.

A bus screeched to a stop. Mohammad pressed through the crowd, climbed up the stairs, paid the driver, and pushed through spicy body odors to the center of the bus. He pushed passed a couple soldiers, an old Jewish woman who gave him a nasty look, and several Hasidic Jews in their long black coats and black hats. He got to the center of the crowd. Get ready, virgins. He reached under his poncho, grabbed the detonator, and pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

He pressed it again.

Again, nothing.

His throat was so dry he couldn't swallow. He couldn't even commit suicide right. Or maybe he just wasn't pushing hard enough. Under his poncho, he held the detonator with one hand and pounder the button with the other.

"Oh my God!" the old Jewish woman shrieked.

Mohammad looked at her. She was staring straight at him with her eyes popped wide and her lips quivering.

"He's masturbating!" she shouted. "Somebody stop him!"

Mohammad took his hands out from under the poncho, reached over, and pressed the button on the wall. It lit up and made a dinging sound, letting the driver know to stop at the next stop. It was a crowded bus. The people didn't know who the hysterical old woman was talking about and they looked around at all the possible suspects. Maybe she meant one of the Hasidic Jews. Who knew what they did under their caftans? Mohammad would be gone before anyone realized the old woman was talking about him.

They came to the next bus stop and the bus driver drove right past it.

"Hey!" Mohammad yelled at the driver. "I'm getting off!"

Now every eye turned and looked directly at Mohammad.

"The bus," Mohammad said. "I meant I'm getting off the bus, de-bussing, exiting the vehicle."

The bus came to a sudden stop. The door opened. Mohammad hurried down the steps onto the concrete and walked quickly into an empty park. He could breathe again. A nice breeze started to blow and the sunshine warmed his face.

"Hey, Spanky!" a voice called from behind, from the direction of the bus. Maybe the voice meant a different Spanky. Mohammad turned around and saw two soldiers from the bus walking towards him. They were dressed in olive green fatigues, with automatic rifles hanging from straps around their necks. One was European-looking and the other was African. Their hands rested on their rifles.

Mohammad knew they would torture him. They would pull out his toenails and he wouldn't be able to get new ones because he didn't have health insurance. Ahmed should have given him a cyanide capsule, just in case. If only Mohammad were Japanese, he could snap his own neck.

The white one came right up to Mohammad. The black one stook off to the side a few paces, both hands on his rifle.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" the white one asked. He had been chewing mint-flavored gum. "Are you crazy? There's women and children there!"

"I didn't do it," Mohammad said.

"You weren't milking the camel?" the black soldier said.

"Of course not."

"Then why did that lady say she say your hand thumping around in your pants?" the white one said.

Mohammad couldn't say he was trying to detonate a bomb. That would be bad. But what could he say he was doing? Vigoriously looking for his keys? He couldn't think of anything. He just knew he couldn't let them know he had a bomb.

"Okay," Mohammad said. "I was masturbating."

The black soldiers gun made a clicking noise. The white one didn't say anything, just looked like he might throw up.

"I was masturbating," Mohammad said. "On the bus."

"Why?" the white one asked Mohammad.

"Because he's a pervert," the black one said. "He has a bus fetish. It's the thrill of possibly getting caught." He looked at Mohammad. "You're enjoying this right now, aren't you?"

"No," Mohammad said. "There's just so many beautiful Jewish girls, I couldn't take it. I was
desperate. But I tried to be discreet."

The white one said, "I guess you would have to be pretty desperate to do something like that."

The black one said to Mohammad, "People like you make me sick."

"I'm sorry," Mohammad said. "I realize now that what I did was wrong. I'll never do it again. Could you let me go with just a warning this time?"

"We're not the police," the white soldier said. "There's a war on. We're looking for terrorists.
There's no time to fight sex perverts."

"Don't do it again," the black one told Mohammad.

The soldiers walked back to the bus stop.

Mohammad hurried back to Ahmed's to get another bomb.



Ahmed untaped the bomb along with a fair amount of Mohammad's chest hair. Ahmed set the bomb on the table, lit a fresh cigarette, and began tinkering with the bomb.

After five cigarettes, he turned to Mohammad.

"There's nothing wrong with the bomb," Ahmed said. "There's something wrong with you."

"I did just like you told me."

"Did you remember to press the button?"

"Yes, of course."

"Did you say Allah Akbar?"

Mohammad slapped himself on the forehead and ground his teeth. He felt like the stupidest person in the world.

"Unbelievable!" Ahmed said, exhaling smoke in Mohammad's face. "How do you forget to say Allah Akbar? We say it all the time! Everytime we have a demonstration, what do we chant? I knew I should have written it down! I've sent hundreds of martyrs on martyrdom operations, and let me tell you, they weren't exactly geniuses, but this is the first time anyone's forgot to say Allah Akbar!"

Mohammad apologized and asked for another chance, but Ahmed said he only got one.



Mohammad went home and walked in the house. His mother was sitting on the carpet, knitting a sweater. How could he tell her he had lost another job? Maybe if he told her the truth, she would say, "I'm proud of you for telling the truth." It was worth a try.

"I was humiliated by the Jews," he said. "And then I didn't say Allah Akbar. So I was fired."

As soon as he said the word "fired," her fingers tightened around the knitting needles and she looked at him like she was thinking of poking him with them. So much for the truth. He would try a little white lie.

"The Jews were drunk," he said. "And they told me to shout Allah Akbar. They said I had to do it or be fired. I have my pride. There's some things you can't trade for health insurance."

His mother set down her knitting and folded her arms.

"Don't try to lie to me," she said. "I know what you were doing, and you weren't doing any work for the Jews. You think I don't notice what kind of people you hang out with? I know what you're up to. Drugs. You're taking dope."

Mohammad was angry. All the other mothers would be proud of what he tried to do.

"I'm not taking drugs," he said. "For your information, I did have a job. A good job. I was a
martyr."

She grabbed a knitting needle and threw it at him, barely missing his head.

"Are you crazy?" she said.

"Well, I was fired," he said.

"How do you get fired from a martyr job? It's not rocket science. All you do is pull the rip cord and go kablooey."

"It's not a rip cord. It's a button."

"So you don't know how to use buttons? I should sew snaps on all your clothes?"

"The button was fine." He started slapping his forehead. "I forgot to say Allah Akbar. I don't know how I forgot."

"Well, I have a pretty good idea how you forgot. Drugs." She shook her head. "Mohammad, I'm very concerned. I want you to talk to Shabazz."

The New Math

There were only about twenty of us in the class, but Dennis Jenkins, the graduate student teaching us, seemed to think he was addressing Congress. He was that enthusiastic.

"Who was behind the September eleventh attacks?" he asked.

I was silent. I wasn't going to help him indulge in his conspiracy theories.

"Osama bin Laden," a girl in the front row said.

"Why would he do that?" Jenkins asked. "September eleventh didn't help Muslims at all. If anything, Muslims are a lot worse off. The question is: Who benefited from September eleventh?"

"Gary Condit," I said.

The class laughed. Right before September eleventh, Condit probably murdering his mistress was the big news story. Maybe he crashed the planes to create a diversion.

Jenkins wasn't laughing. He glared at me with his cold blue eyes like he wanted to kill me. Then his look softened and he forced out a little laugh, trying to show he had a sense of humor.

"Seriously," Jenkins said, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "The one behind the September eleventh attacks was Israel. If Americans believed they were being attacked by Muslims, then Israel and America would have a common enemy, and Americans would support Israel."

It's hard to know how to respond to a teacher who's a complete lunatic. Most of the class just stared at the wall. Only Nathan spoke. Nathan was the only Jew besides me who hadn't already dropped the class. He loved to argue with teachers. I think he specifically looked for Israel-haters when he enrolled in classes.

"There's no way Israel would have done that," he said. "Or even could have for that matter. It's completely impossible to pull off a conspiracy like that."

"No it isn't," Jenkins said. "Most western media is occupied territory."

"Hold on," I said to Jenkins. "Can we talk about something else? We've been in class for a week now and all you've talked about is Israel."

"There's still such a thing as freedom of speech in this country," Jenkins said.

"But this is a math class," I said.

"The Palestinians don't get to learn math," Jenkins said. "Israel puts up roadblocks so they can't get to school."

"The roadblocks are to stop terrorists," Nathan said. "And even if you're against the roadblocks, anyone who thinks Israel was behind the September eleventh attacks is an anti-Semite."

Jenkins snorted.

"That's the typical tactic," he said. "Accuse anyone who's critical of Israel of anti-Semitism." He sighed. "You criticize Israel and they try to crucify you."

The class was staring intently at the wall. Those bricks must have been mighty interesting.

"Trying to crucify you?" Nathan said. "That's the most anti-Semitic thing I've ever heard in my life."

"People were also angry at John Lennon when he compared himself to Jesus," Jenkins said. "I'd say I'm in good company."

"He was commenting on how popular the Beatles were, not accusing the Jews of deicide," Nathan said.

"If John Lennon were here today, he would be speaking out against Israel," Jenkins said.

"No he wouldn't," Nathan said. "John Lennon was pro-Israel."

Apparently, Nathan knew a lot about Classic Rock. He explained John Lennon's views on the Middle East, distaste for Islamic fundamentalism, and support of Jewish nationalism, particularly the socialistic, secular variety.

Jenkins listened politely with a small grin on his face, like he knew something Nathan didn't.

When Nathan finished, Jenkins said, "Then why did they kill him?"

"Who?" Nathan said. "Israel? They didn't. Mark David Chapman did."

"And why would he do that?" Jenkins asked.

"Because he was crazy," Nathan said.

Jenkins snorted.

"Right," he said. "The lone gunman theory."

Now Jenkins addressed the whole class.

"Who benefited from John Lennon's death?" he asked.

"But John Lennon was pro-Israel," Nathan said.

"Of course he couldn't directly oppose Israel," Jenkins said. "The music industry is occupied territory. But he left hidden messages revealing what he really thought about Israel. You can hear them in his songs."

"Sure," Nathan said. "If you're Charles Manson."



After class, Nathan and I stormed out into the courtyard. I offered him a cigarette.

"No, I quit," he said and took one.

I lit his cigarette and then my own.

"Thanks," he said, inhaling deeply.

"You should have let him ramble on," I said. "I wanted to hear which Beatles songs had hidden messages. Maybe if you play Paperback Writer backwards, it says Death to Israel."

"What is wrong with him anyway?" Nathan said.

"He was probably one of those kids who never got invited to Bar Mitzvahs," I said.

"We should break his kneecaps," Nathan said.

"No. We'll just talk to the head of the math department."

"They won't care. They'll just say Freedom of Speech."

"They'll care that he doesn't teach math. It's been a whole week and he hasn't said a word about math, other than that the Arabs invented Algebra. Seems like the kind of thing they'd invent. If Algebra is sitting around and blaming the Jews for all the world's problems, we have a great teacher."

"You laugh it off," Nathan said. "That's why people always scapegoat us. They would never these things about black people. You so much as look at a black person funny and he'll kill you."

"And the Mexicans all have knives," I said.

"I'm serious," he said. "People have to know that if they attack Jews, there's gonna be consequences. Not just that we'll call them anti-Semites. Serious physical consequences."

"Broken kneecaps?"

"He's going after our family. We'll go after his."



Nathan and I decided it would be a good idea to call Jenkins's parents and threaten to kill them. We got his permanent phone number from the University listings. Jenkins couldn't be more than twenty-two or twenty-three, so his permanent number was probably his parents' house. We bought a phone card and went to a public pay phone next to a bus stop. I would do the talking since I was an Acting major. I dialed the number and heard it ring. It picked up.

"Hello, Jenkins residence," a woman's voice said. She sounded Hispanic.

"Mr. or Mrs. Jenkins," I said.

"Mrs. Jenkins is out of town and Mr. Jenkins is in the dining room eating dinner. He doesn't like to be disturbed. May I take a message?"

"I need to speak to Mr. Jenkins now. It's a matter of life or death. His life or death."

"I'm sorry. I can only disturb him if it's an emergency."

"It is an emergency."

"Okay then. Just a moment. Who should I say is calling?"

I said the first name that came to mind.

"My name's Nathan," I said.

Nathan punched me in the shoulder.

"Hold on," she said. She put me on musical hold. It was Easy Listening music.

"Why'd you give my name?"

"It was the first thing I thought of."

"Why didn't you just make up a name?"

"Their maid's Hispanic. It threw me off."

"Whatever happened to British butlers?" Nathan asked. "Like Alfred from Batman, or Mr. Belvedere?"

"Hello," an angry man's voice growled through the phone. "What are you selling that you drag me away from my dinner omelet?"

"I'm not selling anything."

"So you want donations? Freeloading, is that is?"

"No."

"Taking a survey then? Think I've nothing better to do with my time than answer your questions? Well I'm not interested. Take me off your list."

He hung up.

"He's gone," I said to Nathan. "What should we do now?"

"Don't give up now," he said. "We've come too far."

I called again.

After a few rings, it picked up.

"Hello," the man's voice said.

"I think we got disconnected," I said.

"I said take me off your list! That means you have to put me on your Do Not Call list! Now you have to pay a five-hundred dollar fine! I'm recording this call!"

He hung up again.

"We should have just broken the kneecaps," Nathan said.

I called again.

After several rings, the phone picked up.

"Hello," the man said again.

"I'm going to kill you," I said.

"Well I'm definitely not buying anything from you now," he chuckled. For some reason, he didn't sound angry.

"I admire your nerve," he said. "It takes guts to keep calling back. Any man calls three times, I'll listen to his pitch. It's a survey now, right?"

"Right," I said, my curiosity getting the better of me. I could find out if the son got it from the father.

"Just a few questions," I said. "First, who killed John Lennon?"

"Who killed Jack Lemon?"

"No, John Lennon."

"The singer?"

"Yeah."

There was silence. I could feel him thinking hard. I looked at Nathan. He was tapping his knee.

"He died of a drug overdose, right?" the man said.

"Close," I said. "He was killed by a deranged fan."

"Ahhh. Okay, gimme another one."

"Okay," I said. "Who was behind the September eleventh attacks?"

"Oh, come on," he said. "That's too easy. Everybody knows that."

Nathan snatched the phone from my hand.

"Your son says it was the Jews," he screamed into the phone. "Next time he does that, we're gonna burn your house down with you inside!"

Nathan slammed down the phone.

A couple of girls with tennis rackets stopped walking and stared at us.

"We're rehearsing for a play," I said to them. "We're actors. The other guy's sick and
contagious so we're doing it over the phone."




The next morning, I walked down the hall to the math class about twenty minutes late. A girl with a heavy-looking backpack walked towards me.

"Did you hear what happened?" she asked me.

"No."

"They fired Dennis Jenkins."

"Why?" I asked. "The math thing or the Jew thing?"

She looked at me funny and walked away.

I was kind of disappointed by this news. Now they'd try to make us learn math.

I walked into the classroom. It wasn't what I expected. Jenkins was at the front of the room, talking about Israel. Maybe the girl was wrong; maybe he wasn't fired. But something else was strange. There were more than twice as many students as usual. Some had to sit on desks, others on the floor. I saw Nathan sitting in a chair and I sat down on the floor next to him.

"What's going on?" I whispered to him.

"They've taken over," Nathan said. "He calls it a teach-in. Any minute now the cops might come and drag him out."

I wondered why Nathan would stay for this. Probably didn't want to miss a chance to argue about Israel. However, I had no intention of sticking around any longer.

The student sitting on my other side tapped me on the shoulder. He definitely wasn't enrolled in this class. He had long hair and reminded me of Charlie Brown's friend, Pig Pen.

"Do you get high?" Pig Pen asked. He was holding a huge joint in his hand.

"Sure," I said.

I could stick around for a little while.

He lit the joint with a small plastic lighter, took a hit, and passed it to me.

The door swung open and a portly man in a worn gray suit waddled in.

"Show's over," he said, like a bartender closing for the night. "I'm the new teacher. If you're not in this class, leave now."

The new teacher stared down at me.

"Young man, please don't use drugs in my class," he said.

"But the Palestinians don't get math," I said.

I took a deep drag on the joint and then started coughing uncontrollably. It was strong stuff. I passed it to Nathan.

"I hope you're happy, Jenkins," the new teacher said. "This boy could be permanently scarred by your classroom antics."

"I'm liberating their occupied minds," Jenkins said.

The new teacher's neck veins shuddered.

"Leave right now, Jenkins," he said.

"We're not leaving this room until Israel leaves Palestine," Jenkins said.

The class applauded.

"What about to go to the bathroom?" I asked.

Jenkins shrugged his shoulders.

"It could get messy," he said.

The class applauded again.

"Do I have to get the police?" the new teacher asked.

"You'll have to get more than that," Jenkins said. "We'll resist non-violently until the bitter end."

"Have it your way." The new teacher walked out the door. There was a long, loud round of applause. Eventually, the clapping died down and Jenkins continued with his lecture.

I felt my heart pounding in my foot. And I had only taken one hit. Maybe the weed was laced with something. I worried I might die.

Jenkins brushed his hair out of his eyes. "Last night, Israeli agents called my father on the phone. They disturbed him right in the middle of dinner. Then they proceeded to threaten his life, demanding I stop criticizing Israel. All of this is prohibited by the Geneva Convention. Israel tears down the homes of innocent Palestinians just for being related to suicide bombers. Now they're threatening my father, just because I exercise my free speech."

"Notice how he doesn't mention the Hispanic servant," I said to Nathan.

I might have said it too loud.

Like I said, the drugs were really strong.

Jenkins was glaring at me, like when I made the Gary Condit joke. The whole class turned and looked at me. I had a flash of sobriety. My heart pounded in my chest.

"You called my father," Jenkins said.

"Yeah, sure," I said. "And the Jews killed John Lennon."

"If you didn't call, how'd you know about Consuelo?" he asked.

"You seem like the type that would have a Hispanic maid," I said.

Jenkins ran straight at me. If the pot hadn't slowed my reflexes, I might have been able to react. He flying-drop-kicked me in the face. I felt a crunch as my nose caved in. Blood and teeth fragments shot out from my mouth. He punched me in the side. I heard my ribs crack and felt a sharp pain. I saw Nathan run out the door, but there was no time to feel betrayed. Jenkins grabbed my head and slammed it into the floor. The whole room was spinning. The class non-violently watched Jenkins slam my head into the floor again and again.



I opened my eyes and saw a white ceiling.

"You're awake," I heard my mother say. I was lying in a bed and felt nauseous. My mother came up and stood over me. She looked tired and gray.

"Don't try to move," she said. "You're filled with tubes."

She pressed a button next to my bed, probably calling a nurse.

"Dad's coming," she said. "He's on a plane now."

My father always traveled for business. My mother put her hand on mine.

"You have a fractured skull, six of your ribs are broken, and your pelvis has turned to dust," she said.

"I don't remember him breaking my pelvis," I said.

"There was a stomping," she said. "He stomped you after you fainted."

"I didn't faint. He knocked me out."

She pushed the button for the nurse again.

"You also have quite a few stitches," she said.

"How many?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"About how many?"

"I really don't know."

"Eleven? Five hundred?"

"Oh, more than that."

She put her hand on my forehead.

"Now I know you just woke up from your coma," she said, "but..."

"I was in a coma?"

No wonder she looked gray.

"Just a light one," she said.

"For how long?"

"I don't know exactly."

"Ten years? Twenty years?"

"Just a few hours."

She pounded on the button for the nurse.

"The paramedics found a pack of cigarettes in your pocket," she said. "Do you smoke?"

I looked to the door, hoping the nurse would show up.

"You can't smoke any more," she said. "You've only got one lung now."



Later, my father and I were alone in the hospital room. He stood over my bed, cracking his knuckles.

"I already know, so you might as well tell me the truth," he said. "What really happened?"

"He's anti-Semitic," I said.

"He beat you up cause you're a Jew?"

"He thought I threatened to kill his family."

"Did you?"

"No. Well, maybe a little."

He glanced at my I.V. bag, like he was thinking of doing something to it.

"Why would you get involved in something like this," he said. "Every time I turn on the car, I'm gonna have to check for bombs first."

"He said the Jews were behind September eleventh. I should just sit there and let him say that?"

"Why not? Nobody listens to their teachers."

He shook his head.

"You got your whole family involved," he said. "The terrorists are gonna go after everyone
named Rosenstein now."

"They already were."

"Don't talk to me like that. I'm the one paying for those tubes. Now I'm gonna have to change our name. From now on, the family name isn't Rosenstein. It's Rose."

"What? Bad enough you won't stand up for Israel. Now you're changing your name so it doesn't sound Jewish?"

"I'm changing it so your teacher's friends don't crash a plane into our house."

"You're doing exactly what the terrorists want you to do," I said.

"We let you study theatre," he said.

He looked down into my bruised and shattered face.

"You'll have to be a character actor now," he said.

My Visit to the Wall

A tanned woman wearing dark sunglasses pushed into the men's line for the metal detector. The ultra-Orthodox Jew in front of me gasped.

"What kind of whore walks through a man's metal detector?" he asked the sky in a loud voice.

The woman ignored him.

"We might as well take off our pants," the man continued. "This is a holy place and she's desecrating the sanctity. And budging too. Why does this always happen to us?"

The woman looked up at the sky.

"What a heavy day," she said. "I'm bleeding like a stuck pig. My tampon's sure getting a workout. Why does this always happen to us?"

She set her keys and coins in a plastic basket and walked through the metal detector without setting it off. She stuffed the metal back in her pockets and walked off.

"Stop her," the ultra-Orthodox man said to the soldier manning the metal detector. "She's getting away. She can't go in there. She's ritually unclean."

"Does she have any metal?" the soldier asked him.

"She's menstruating," the ultra-Orthodox man said.

"I'm just here to detect metal," the soldier said.

The ultra-Orthodox man grumbled that he intended to write a sharply-worded letter. He put his keys in the basket, walked through the metal detector without setting it off, took back his keys, and walked off.

I emptied the metal from my pockets into the basket. There were almost a hundred little coins. I had played the bongo drum on Ben Yehuda Street and people had thrown money. I walked through the metal detector and it beeped at me, so I went back, took off my belt,
set it next to the basket of coins, and walked through the metal detector. It beeped at me again.

The soldier approached with a black metal-detecting baton. He looked embarrassed for me. I had failed. I couldn't locate all the metal by myself.

"I have a metal plate in my head," I said.

He waved the baton up and down my body, looking for weapons, then waved it around my head several times.

He frowned. "You don't have a metal plate in your head," he said.

"No, I don't," I admitted.

"Why did you say you do if you don't?"

I shrugged. "I didn't think you'd find out."

"I have a metal-detecting baton," he pointed out.

"Do I still get to go in?" I asked.

He waved me on with his baton. I stuffed my coins into my pockets and walked out into the Western Wall plaza. I hadn't been there in years but it still looked the same. In the main plaza, men and women mingled, but up against the wall, it was divided into men's and women's sections. The men's section took up most of the wall. Women had a tiny section on the far
right part of it. On the far left side, the men's section continued into a cave. Thousands of years had buried that part of the wall and a cave had been dug up against it.

A short, round man with dirty whiskers and a yellowed shirt held his hand out to me.

"Money for poor families," he said.

"I'm sorry. I don't have any."

"I can hear you jingling."

He heard my bongo drum profits.

"Those are my keys," I said.

"You have a lot of keys," he said suspiciously.

"I'm a night watchman," I lied. In the movies, night watchmen have lots of keys. They're also Irish.

"Where are you a night watchman?" he asked.

"The circus," I said. It was the first place that came to mind.

"And if I call there, they'll confirm your story?"

"I don't have to prove anything to you."

I walked away, but slowly and carefully so I wouldn't jingle.

At the entrance to the men's section was a metal bin filled with thin white pieces of cardboard, folded and stapled, for men who had nothing to cover their heads with. I had forgotten to bring my kippah, so I took one, put it on my head, and started to walk down to the wall.

A big imposing man stepped in front of me, dressed all in black and with a thick black beard. He reminded me of a grizzly bear. He had an arm tefillin in one hand, a head tefillin in the other, and was obviously one of the Chabad guys, whose mission in life seemed to be coming up to Jews on the street and trying to get them to wrap leather straps around their arms and foreheads.

"Are you okay?" he asked me, looking concerned.

"I'm fine."

"Do you have to go to the bathroom?"

"No."

"Then why are you walking like that?"

"I'm trying not to jingle."

He looked puzzled.

"I play the bongo drum," I explained.

"Did you put on tefillin today?" he asked.

"Yes," I lied.

"Are you lying?" he asked.

"No," I lied.

He glanced suspiciously at my cardboard kippah.

"A person who puts on tefillin generally has his own kippah," he said. "And doesn't play bongos."

"Maybe I don't want to put it on," I said.

"The Torah says Jews have to put on tefillin," he said. "You're Jewish, right?"

"No," I lied.

"Are you lying?" he asked. "You don't have to lie. I'm not the Gestapo."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

I walked around him and jingled up to the wall. I found a spot right up against it. To my left, a Chasidic man in a long black coat prayed fervently, rocking back and forth with his eyes shut. I was afraid he might smack his head into the wall.

"Easy does it," I said to him.

He kept rocking back and forth, possibly too deep in prayer to realize I was there.

To my right, a tall, pale man was crying with his head pressed against the wall.

"Are you okay?" I asked him.

He turned his head and looked at me like I was crazy.

"I'm fine."

"You're crying."

"I know."

"Do you want to talk about it? Sometimes it helps."

"Leave me alone." He closed his eyes and pressed his face up against the wall.

I reached into my pocket and took out a small slip of paper that I had written something on earlier. I stuffed it into a crack between the giant stones that was filled with countless other bits of paper. People put their most intimate prayers into the wall. God's suggestion box.

One superstition is that if you tell anyone what you asked for, it won't come true. So no one had ever told me what they asked for. If I took someone else's paper out of the wall and took a quick peek, maybe nobody would notice. I looked both ways like I was getting ready to cross the street. The Chasidic Jew was still frantically praying and Crybaby was still crying. I looked up. Maybe a Muslim was peering over the side of the Temple Mount. I wouldn't want him to catch me looking at someone else's paper. There was no Muslim, but a pigeon perched on one of the higher stones. Pigeons: the international symbol for peace, sort of. This was an answer to my prayer, I realized as I stared up at the pigeon. It was a sign.

Then the bird shit on my face.

The Chasidic Jew tried to keep pretending he didn't notice me, but a couple laughs slipped out of him.

I needed something to clean off my face with. I didn't want to use my shirt. It was a nice shirt.

I tapped Crybaby on the shoulder.

"Do you have a tissue?"

"Are you making fun of me?"

"No. A bird used my face for a toilet."

"Well maybe if you were nicer to people that wouldn't happen."

There was no time to argue. The bird droppings were about to drip over my upper lip and into my mouth. I reached into the wall and pulled out a crumpled-up piece of paper.

"Are you crazy?" Crybaby screamed. "This is a holy place! What are you, some kind of degenerate?"

"I was straightening it. It was about to fall out."

"How would you feel if someone read your prayer?"

"I wouldn't care. I'm not ashamed of it. I asked for peace."

Now I had said it out loud and it wouldn't come true. Crybaby gave me a dirty look like I had just started the third intifada.

"Put it back," he said.

"Don't tell me what to do," I said.

He grabbed for the paper in my hand. I pulled it away and ran into the cave. Over my shoulder, I saw him running after me. I wiped away the bird droppings with my forearm while blurring past wooden bookshelves stuffed with prayer books and ultra-Religious Jews praying.

"There's no way out!" Crybaby screamed after me, cackling. "It's a dead end!"

I was being chased for it, so I figured I might as well see what the paper said. While running, I uncrumpled the paper and read from it. It said, "I want a new towel."

And I thought I had problems. You know you've fallen on hard times when you have to ask God for a new towel.

The cave wasn't exactly a dead end. There was one thing Crybaby hadn't counted on. I hopped over a red velvet rope and ran up the stairs to the women's balcony. One woman screamed. Another fainted. I looked back down the stairs and saw Crybaby shaking
his fist at me, unable to pass the velvet rope.

"This is a holy place!" he screamed. "Come down! I just wanna talk to you!"

"Fat chance," I said and walked to the door marked exit.

I saw Crybaby start running back the direction we came in.

The exit from the women's balcony led straight to the main plaza. Crybaby couldn't catch me. He had to run straight along the wall to get out of the cave and then he had to come out of the men's section. I walked toward the exit from the Western Wall plaza. The exit was right next to the entrance with the metal detectors.

"Hold it right there, Mr. Jingles," a nasally voice barked at me. It was the man who asked me for money earlier.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Put that back," he said, pointing to the cardboard kippah on my head. "That's property of the Western Wall."

I didn't have time to put it back in the bin. At any moment, Crybaby would come swooping out of the cave.

"Can you do it for me?" I asked.

"What's the matter?" he asked sarcastically. "Too tired from being up all night at your job as a night watchman?"

"I'll give you a few shekels," I offered.

"I know why you jingle," he said. "You went swimming in a wishing well and took all the coins."

I had no time for this. I rushed to the bin with the kippahs, making jingling noises as I ran.

"Mr. Jingles swimming in a wishing well," he sang after me.

I hoped Crybaby had realized how silly he was being and cooled off, but then I saw him tear out of the cave in a fury. He spotted me and charged. He was going to catch me. I should have just left with the cardboard kippah and taken my chances with the law.

Suddenly, the Chabad guy cut off Crybaby, brandishing a set of tefillin like they were numchucks. I tossed the cardboard kippah back in the bin and saw Crybaby explaining to the Chabad guy that yes, he had already put on tefillin today. He said something else, pointed towards me, and the Chabad guy turned to look. The both started sprinting towards me. I ran towards the exit next to the metal detectors. Once I got out, I could lose them in the Muslim quarter. They wouldn't follow me there.

I passed the man who was still singing, "Mr. Jingles swimming in a wishing well."

When I came to the exit, I looked back over my shoulder and saw that three men were now chasing me: Crybaby, the Chabad guy, and the one who called me Mr. Jingles.

"Stop him!" they cried to the soldier that I sped past.

"He stole a prayer from the wall!"

"He stole money from a wishing well!"

"He didn't put on tefillin!"

"Does he have any metal?" the soldier asked.

The Breast Feeder

It was the middle of the dinner shift when Reggie, the manager, came chugging up to me. The act of standing usually made him sweat. Now his bloated pink flesh looked like monsoon season. He smiled at me and I could tell he was going to ask me to do something unpleasant.

“Some of the guests have been complaining about that,” he said, pointing to a booth where a woman was breastfeeding a baby.

“That’s Travis’s table,” I said. Travis was the other waiter. It was a small restaurant and there were only two of us.

“He asked her to stop, but the gentleman with her grew abusive, and you know how sensitive Travis is. I thought you should handle it.”

“But you’re the manager.”

“Yes, but you’re good at talking to people. Very diplomatic.”

“Yeah, okay, I guess I could.”

“You’re the best.” He clapped me on the shoulder and chugged away.

I had no idea what I was going to say. Maybe I could tell them we didn’t allow outside beverages. I had no problem with breastfeeding in public and wondered who complained. I looked around the tables for a stodgy old dowager but didn’t see one.

At the breastfeeding table, the man and woman were dressed for the beach in bathing suits and sandals. Her blouse was unbuttoned and her bikini top lay next to a half-eaten plate of lasagna. She was petite and looked a little pale. The man with her looked like a linebacker. Not just his frame, but he had black lines painted under his eyes to keep the sun out. He saw me approaching and gave me a knowing glare.

“See here, fella,” he said. “My wife’s not doing anything wrong. It’s perfectly natural.”

“Well, I have had a little work done,” she admitted.

“A wedding gift from my parents,” the man said proudly. “What do you think?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. I hadn’t expected to be asked to judge her breasts, though it was a nice set of pomegranates.

“You look like a goose just shit on your grave?” the man said. “Didn’t your mother ever breastfeed you?”

“I had a wet nurse,” I managed to mutter.

“Call the cops if you’re going to,” he said. “Law’s on our side. She doesn’t have to cover herself. This ain’t Burkastan.”

“I feel just like those black people at the lunch counter,” the woman said.

They both glared at me like I was a racist pulling black people away from lunch counters and spraying them with a fire hose. And who knows? Maybe there was some civil rights law protecting breast feeders in public restaurants. What did I know? I wasn’t a lawyer.

“I’m not calling the police,” I assured them.

I would have to find some sort of compromise.

“What if I found you a bottle?” I suggested. “Would you use it?”

The woman shook her head. “The breast is best. That’s what I always say.”

“It’s true,” the man admitted. “She says it a lot.”

“Meet me halfway here,” I said. “Could you at least cover up the other one? If you’re not using it, there’s no reason for it to be out and about.”

“Jews milk cows on the Sabbath,” she said.

The worst thing about crazy people is their non-sequitors about Jewish people. I gritted my teeth for an anti-Semitic rant. It didn’t help that her husband was painted up like Mel Gibson from Braveheart. He stared at her, awestruck.

“I always wondered what they did on the Shabbat,” he said with heartfelt fascination. “You’re so smart. How do you know all this stuff?”

She beamed with pride at the compliment.

“They aren’t supposed to work on the Sabbath,” she said. “But they can milk a cow so it doesn’t suffer.”

She gave me a big grin. I worried that she might be retarded. Or maybe she had autism, like Rain Man, only instead of being a math genius, her gift was spouting out annoying bits of trivia. And she was responsible for a baby.

“Heavy saddlebags,” she continued. “If one gets too full, it aches, so I rotate them. If I don’t rotate, I’m like a cow without a Jew.”

“Couldn’t you just put it away until you need it?” I asked.

“I want to have it at the ready,” she said. “Time to change.”

She plucked the baby’s mouth off her nipple. It made the popping sound of a suction cup being pulled off a window.

I thought she was going to switch him over to the other breast, but instead she swept aside her dishes with her arm and lay the baby down on the table on his back and unsnapped his shorts.

“Not here,” I said as she undressed the kid. The dirty diaper sink nearly knocked me over. The kid had something the consistency of Sloppy Joe clinging to his backside.

“I’m calling the police,” I said.

The woman looked betrayed. “You said you weren’t going to call the police,” she said.

“That was totally different,” I said.

She dropped the soiled diaper next to the plate of lasagna where it sprawled out like a dead
raccoon. The baby started emitting piercing banshee wails.

“Now look what you've done,” the man said to me. “You made my boy cry, and when my boy cries, I cry, and then people get hurt.”

He picked up his glass of ice water and threw it in my face. It felt like a thousand needles stinging me. Blood pulsed to my ears. The man just sat there smirking at me while the woman nonchalantly took a fresh diaper out of her oversized purse and searched through the purse for baby wipes. The time for diplomacy had past. Send home the weapons inspectors. There was nothing left to talk about. Now was the time for me to run. Run and hide under a bed.

I looked around for help. Travis was taking drink orders at another table, pretending he didn’t notice. Reggie was nowhere to be seen, and none of the customers showed signs of springing to my aid. Only Mario, the Mexican busboy, came walking up to the table. He wore a hairnet and carried a pitcher of ice water. He walked straight up to the man, took the man’s empty water glass, and refilled it. The man handed Mario an empty breadbasket and asked for more. Mario took the empty breadbasket and walked back into the kitchen.

The woman gave up trying to find baby wipes in her big purse, and she picked up a white, cloth napkin from the table and dipped it in her water glass.

“Don’t do that,” I said. “That napkin belongs to the restaurant.”

But she ignored me and used the damp napkin to wipe up the dark Sloppy Joe from her baby’s backside.

“What is wrong with you?” I said. “Were you home schooled? Don’t’ you know that other people exist? Isn’t there any consideration for anyone? Why can’t you just—DON’T DOUBLE DIP!!!”

Too late. She double dipped. She plunged the soiled napkin deep into her water glass, gave it a little squeeze, and pulled it out, dirty water running down her wrist. Brown tendrils floated in the beige water. It looked like a chocolate lava lamp.

My screaming started the baby wailing again. “Shhh, shhh,” the woman cooed, patting the baby’s bottom with the soiled napkin as if to soothe him. The man dropped a meaty fist down on the table, rattling the silverware.

“She can double dip if she wants to double dip,” he said. “Double dip all day long.”

He grabbed her water glass and threw the tainted water at my face. I ducked out of the way and the dirty water splashed on the white tiled floor. A great hush fell over the restaurant.

The kitchen door swung open and Mario walked out, carrying an overloaded breadbasket in one hand and the pitcher of ice water in the other. He stopped and looked at the brown mess on the floor.

“I’m not cleaning that up,” he said in perfect English.

He then walked up to the table that was being used as a changing table, set down the bread basket, and refilled the woman’s water glass.

I was shaking furiously. As a waiter, you have to take a lot of shit, but it’s usually just a metaphor.

“You two,” I roared, “are the most disgusting pair I have ever had the misfortune to meet. You don’t deserve to eat in restaurants with civilized people. You should eat on the floor, out of a dog dish. Or better yet, go live in the woods. Maybe there you could—DON’T DRINK THAT!!!”

Too late. She swallowed down a long deep gulp of her tainted water and then smacked her lips in satisfaction. Changing the kid had given her quite a thirst. She looked at me quizzically.

“That water’s tainted,” I said incredulously. “You double dipped in that glass.”

“But then he threw it at you,” she said.

“Did you forget that?” the man asked me.

“No,” I said. “I didn’t forget.”

The woman swirled her water around like a glass of wine and inhaled slowly through her nostrils.

“The busboy refilled it,” she explained. “This is fresh water.”

“But there was a residue at the bottom of the glass,” I said.

“You’re a residue at the bottom of the glass,” the man said to me. “You need to stop telling us what to do and stop trying to force your opinions on other people. Don’t tell my wife how to dress. We don’t tell you how to dress. And don’t try to tell us what to eat or drink. My wife can drink whatever she wants. And don’t’ tell us what to do with our son. We’ll raise our child any way we see fit. You may not agree, but we’re not hurting anyone. We’re happy and that’s all that matters.”

To demonstrate their happiness to me, he grasped her face in his hands and gave her a tongue kiss. Long, deep, and sloppy.

“Her mouth is dirty,” I said.

“What goes in your mouth doesn’t make it dirty,” the woman said. “What comes out of your mouth makes it dirty.”

Once again the man grinned at her, awestruck.

“You’re so wise,” he told her. “I’m telling you, one of these days they’re going to give you the Nobel Prize.”

“She’ll never get the Nobel Prize,” I said. “They don’t give them to stupid people.”

“What about Arafat,” the woman said. “They gave him the Nobel Peace Prize.”

The man lowered his head. He was in the presence of greatness.

“Ever since I got you those encyclopedias,” he said.

“Arafat died of AIDS,” she added.

“How do you know this stuff?” he said in giddy amazement.

“Everyone know that,” I hissed.

The man looked at me and sighed.

“Tell you what,” he said. “You give us dessert on the house and we’ll forget this whole thing ever happened.”

“That sounds fair,” I said, thinking of the box of rat poison in the supply closet.

“And you better not spit in it,” he said.

“What would you like?” I asked.

“Since it’s on the house, we’ll have whatever’s the most expensive,” he said.

“Death by Chocolate,” I said.

“Sounds rich,” he said. “But we’ll try it.”

I excused myself, offered my heartfelt apologies, walked around the puddle of shit water, through the swinging doors into the kitchen. I realized with disappointment that I didn’t have it in me to poison their dessert.

I found Reggie hiding back by the freezer.

“I heard it get pretty heated over there,” he said. “Everything straightened out?”

“Yes,” I said. “Her breasts are still out, but we’re giving them free Death by Chocolate now.”

“How did that happen?”

“Diplomacy failed.”

Reggie slowly shook his head and pursed his lips.

“Only managers can comp food and beverages,” he said. “It’ll have to come out of your pocket.”

He was serious. I knew that look on his face.

He saw I was angry so he said, “I’ll let you use your ten percent employee discount.”

I took off my apron and threw it at him.

“I quit,” I said.

“You have to give two weeks notice,” he said.

I turned and walked out the back door into the alley.

“Don’t use me as a reference!” he shouted after me.

Begging for Salt

Jae Min wore a shallow threshing basket over his head and down his back. He knocked on the apartment door and a woman with a large ugly mole on her cheek answered. Jae Min lowered his eyes, bowed deeply, and held out a small wooden bowl with both hands.

“Salt please,” he said.

“Are you serious?” the woman asked.

Jae Min stared at the woman’s bare feet. Her toenails were long and yellow.

“What are you, from a farm?” she asked.

“Yes.”

His family had just moved to Seoul and Jae Min was still getting used to seeing tall metal apartment buildings.

“Tell your parents it’s the twenty-first century,” she said. “This is a barbaric tradition and doesn’t help. If anything, it’ll only make it worse. You should see a chiropractor. Or a psychiatrist.”

“Can I have salt, please?”

“No.”

She slammed the door shut, almost knocking the wooden bowl out of his hands.

Jae Min clenched his hand on the wooden bowl and straightened the large straw bed-wetter hat. If the woman thought it was such a barbaric tradition, she should have just given him a lot of salt and he could stop begging. His mother wouldn’t allow him back into their new apartment until the bowl was filled to the top with salt.

Although some people were sympathetic, they weren’t willing to part with too much salt. They’d give him a spoonful or so. His bowl was about half full when he knocked on the door to apartment 718.

The door opened and Jae Min’s jaw fell open. A foreigner stood in front of him. Her eyes reminded him of big blue soccer balls. She wore Nike tennis shoes.

“You shouldn’t wear shoes in the house,” Jae Min said. “It’s bad for your health.”

“Hi.” She smiled. “You’re a cute one, aren’t you?”

Jae Min didn’t understand a word she said. She was speaking some sort of foreign language. He sighed, bowed, held out the bowl, and said, “Give me salt, please.”

“I can’t understand you,” she said. “But I like your costume. Is this like Korean Halloween?”

“Give me salt please,” Jae Min repeated.

“Okay,” she said. “One second.”

She walked over and opened the cabinet above the sink, took out a plastic bag, pulled out a few fun size Snickers bars, and dropped them in Jae Min’s basket.

The candy bars sat on the salt like big black bugs on rice. Why didn’t foreigners learn Korean?
Now he would have to act it out using charades.

He set the bowl with the Snickers bars on the floor, where the foreigner’s shoes should have been.

He pointed to himself. Then he pressed his hands together to make a pillow, laid his head on them, and made soft snoring noises.

“You’re tired?” the foreigner guessed.

He slid his palms down his thighs and made splashing noises with his mouth.

“You have to go to the bathroom?”

She stepped aside and waved him in.

“Please, go ahead,” she said.

Jae Min stared at her. Why was she inviting him into her apartment? He guessed it was because of the different culture. Maybe in America, when children showed up at the door wearing a bed-wetter hat, you invited them inside before giving them salt. Jae Min took off his shoes, picked up the wooden bowl, and walked into the apartment.

He looked up into the open cabinet above the sink and saw several boxes of pasta, canned vegetables, croutons, pancake mix, and a Tupperware container, filled with what looked like salt.

“Salt,” he said and pointed at the Tupperware container.

“Are you hungry?” the foreigner said. “Do you need some kim chi?”

Jae Min pulled the Snickers bars out of his bowl, slammed them on the table, pushed the bowl towards the foreigner, and pointed at the salt inside it.

“I don’t understand,” the foreigner said. “Are you tired? Hungry? Have to go to the bathroom? All of the above? You’re quite the little whiner, aren’t you?”

Jae Min felt his ears burning up but reminded himself the foreigners had a different culture. In America, maybe when children wet the bed and had to wear the bed-wetter hat and go door to door begging for salt, instead of giving the children salt, the children had to get it for themselves.
“You’re not a missionary, are you?” the foreigner said. “You seem too young, but you never know with these missionaries.”

The cabinet was too high and he was too short, so Jae Min climbed up on the sink.

“Hey, what are you doing?” the foreigner said. “Be careful!”

Several cups filled with soapy water were on the counter and Jae Min stepped around them. The counter’s surface was wet and soaked through his socks. He balanced himself with one foot on the faucet and one on the counter. With the wooden bowl in one hand, he used his free hand to take the lid off the Tupperware container.

“Okay, you need to borrow some salt,” the foreigner said. “Come on down. I’ll give it to you. You’ll hurt yourself.”

Jae Min scooped with one cupped hand into the bowl. There would be more than enough there to fill up the bowl. Several times over if he had to come back another day.

Just as he filled the bowl to the top, his foot slipped on the counter and he fell backwards. He grabbed onto the Tupperware container to stop his fall but it came down with him. His head smacked into the ground and a sharp dizziness shook him. The foreigner shrieked. Jae Min heard cups crashing and the wooden bowl spinning.

“Are you okay?” the foreigner asked.

Jae Min felt something wet under him and realized the soapy water from the cups spilled on the floor. He saw that his bowl had spilled it’s salt on the floor. So had the Tupperware container. The soapy water turned all the salt into sludge. He would have to start all over again. Tears rose in his eyes and his chest felt heavy.

“Don’t cry,” the foreigner said and tried to help him up.

He pulled away from her.

“You crazy dog baby!” he screamed.

It didn’t do any good. She couldn’t understand Korean.

He snatched the empty bowl, picked up his bed-wetter hat, put it on his head, stuffed his wet,
floppy socks into his shoes, and stormed out the door.

He wished he knew English. Then he could tell this foreigner how stupid American culture was. They made small Korean children climb up on the sink to get the salt, when foreigners were tall, enormous really, and could easily reach the topmost shelves.When he finished filling his bowl with salt and could return home, he would get his mother to enroll him at the foreign language academy so he could learn how to say, “Go back to the States,” in English.

Family Game Night

Thursday night, on his way home from work, Bill pulled over, took the booster seat from the back seat and threw it off the bridge into the river. Johnny was nine years old and the tallest kid in his class, but Karen still insisted he use a car seat. She was afraid they would crash and didn’t want him to slide out of the grown-up sized seatbelt, fly through the windshield, and be grated up by the asphalt.

Karen was at city hall every week, lobbying for a new stop sign here and a new traffic light there. The town was now littered with them. She went to every PTA meeting and tried to outlaw dodge ball. She was against all competitive sports, dodge ball, soccer, kickball, believing they taught children you win by making someone else lose and that they led to war. If they got rid of competitive sports, there would be world peace.

“What do you want us to do?” Bill had asked her. “Just let the Chinese teach their kids soccer and have them take over the world?”

“When I was a child, I was always picked last,” she said. “I don’t want Johnny to have that experience.”

Bill parked in the driveway and turned off the car. The missing car seat wouldn’t be the only surprise for her. He had picked up something on the way home. He took the brown plastic bag off the passenger seat and walked up to the house.

They had started without him. Johnny was sitting at the wooden table that had plastic-covered safety corners. Hundreds of black and white puzzle pieces covered the table and Johnny was deeply focused on finding the edge pieces.

“It’s a zebra,” he mumbled, not looking up from his task.

Thursday was family game night. In addition to competitive sports, Karen also didn’t like competitive board games, so family game night usually meant putting a puzzle together. There weren’t that many non-competitive board games. Chess was a war game where pawns were routinely sacrificed. Checkers was no good. Monopoly wasn’t much better. Hungry Hungry Hippos taught all the wrong things.

Bill tousled Johnny’s hair and walked into the kitchen where Karen was spreading peanut butter on Ritz crackers. Bill set the bag down on the counter with a thud.

“I’m worried about Johnny,” Karen said.

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“What if someone kidnaps him?”

Bill sighed. “I’m just a podiatrist. There’s no ransom money.”

“What if a pedophile takes him?”

“That won’t happen.”

“Why not?”

Bill looked into the living room and saw Johnny sitting there, playing with his toes, staring slack-jawed at the puzzle pieces. A pedophile wouldn’t take Johnny because he just wasn’t that good looking. He was a lumpy bland-looking boy with cheese-colored skin. But he didn’t tell Karen that.

“I thought we could try something a little different tonight,” he said, taking a box out of the bag.

“What’s that?” Karen asked.

“Jenga,” he said.

The picture on the box showed a handsome family pulling blocks from the middle of a rectangular tower.

“That puzzle’s too easy,” Karen said. “Johnny can handle a zebra.”

“It’s not a puzzle,” Bill said. “We take turns pulling out a piece from underneath and put it on the top. Whoever knocks it over first loses.”

“You know how I feel about competitive games,” she said.

“What should we do?” he asked. “Just let the Chinese kids play Chinese checkers and take over the world?”

“You know the Global Positioning System in your car?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

The GPS navigator was a little box that sent a signal to a satellite. The satellite showed the location of the car on a computerized map on the dashboard. It made driving easier and if someone stole the car, the police would be able to locate it, though Bill doubted anyone would want his Chevy.

“They make them really small now,” Karen said. “The size of a raison.”

“So what?”

She squeezed the fleshy part under one of her arms. “The doctor can implant one in Johnny right here.”

“What?”

“It’s an outpatient surgery. It’s only a local anesthetic.”

Bill laughed. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“If anyone takes him, we’ll know where he is.”

“Why does he have to be cut? Can’t you just sew it into his clothes?”

“Oh no. That’s the first thing a kidnapper would tear off him.”

“You’re not putting an implant in our son. It’s the mark of the beast.”

“We don’t believe in that.”

He looked at his wife and wasn’t so sure anymore that he didn’t believe it. Had he married the anti-Christ?

“The problem is the insurance company,” she said. “They said it’s an ‘elective’ surgery and our policy doesn’t cover it.”

“You called the insurance company?”

“I asked Dr. Benson about the procedure.” Dr. Benson was Johnny’s pediatrician. “He said that he isn’t a licensed surgeon so he can’t do the operation himself. I asked him if he could refer us to someone, but he said no.”

“I should hope so.”

Her eyes looked cold as she stared at him. “Why can’t you be more understanding, like Johnny was?”

“You talked to Johnny about it?”

“I told him that he would be hooked up to a satellite, and you know how much he loves space. And I told him that now since I would know where he was, he’d be able to trick or treat, as long as he brought the basket home and let me look through it first. I don’t want him biting into an apple with a razor blade in it. And now we can take a vacation. If he gets lost, we can locate him to within half a meter. We can finally take him to Disney Land.”

“I threw the car seat in the river.”

She screwed shut the lid on the peanut butter.

“Did it float?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It was dark. The people driving by probably thought I was drowning a baby.”

“Try to be pleasant,” she said, took the tray of crackers, and walked to the living room. She sat down next to Johnny, picked up a piece of zebra, and looked for where it went.

Bill left Jenga on the kitchen counter, walked into the living room, and sat down at the table.

“We’re going to Disney Land,” Johnny told him.

“You’re not getting any surgery,” Bill said.

Johnny looked confused.

“But I already did,” he said.

“I tried to tell you,” Karen said.

Bill grabbed Johnny, pulled back the sleeve on his T-shirt, and saw gauze taped underneath his arm.

“What have you done?” Bill screamed.

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” Karen said.

Bill shook Johnny. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Mom told me not to.”

“You’re insane!” he screamed at his wife.

“Don’t yell. You’ll traumatize him.”

“And unnecessary surgery won’t?”

“I knew you’d react like this. Why do you think I didn’t tell you?”

“Johnny, go get in the car.”

“Don’t overreact,” Karen said.

“I’m calling the police,” Bill said.

“For what? I didn’t break any law,” Karen said.

“I’m pretty sure you did. There’s a law against putting homing devices in people. At least there should be.”

“Okay, maybe I should have consulted you first. I’m sorry. But what’s done is done. At least he’s safe now.”

“Not around you he isn’t. I’m taking him out of here where you can’t hurt him.”

“You can’t escape. Wherever you go, I’ll know where he is. I have him on the GPS.”

Bill marched into the kitchen, took the box of Jenga, and walked back into the living room.
“We’re playing Jenga,” he said, as he tore off the plastic shrink-wrap and opened the box.

“We’re not playing Jenga,” she said.

“Oh yes we are. Johnny, sit back down. We’re gonna play a nice game of Jenga.”

Johnny looked back and forth.

Bill dumped the Jenga blocks onto the table. He started to stack them up into a tower.

Johnny sat down at the table and gazed at the Jenga blocks.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s a puzzle,” Karen said. “Let’s help your father put it together.”

Karen picked up one of the blocks and set it on the other blocks, helping Bill set up the tower.
Johnny looked at the box, at the picture of what the completed puzzle should look like. “That’s a puzzle for babies,” he said.

“They’re like Legos,” Karen said. “We can build anything.”

“No,” Bill said. “They’re not building blocks. It’s a game. We take turns pulling out a block and setting it on the top. Whoever knocks down the tower loses.”

Karen swatted at the half-built tower and sent it crashing to the table and carpet.

“Mom, you lost,” Johnny said.

She turned to Bill, a mad look in her eye.

“You want to play dodge ball?” she said. “We’ll play dodge ball!”

She picked up a Jenga piece and threw it at Bill. He blocked it from hitting his face just in time and it bounced off his forearm.

“Stop that!” he said, backing away from her. “You’re crazy.”

She threw another piece at him that hit him in the shoulder. He picked up a cushion from the couch to use as a shield.

“You want to play competitive?” she said. “We’ll play.”

She ran at him, sticking her head out and chomping her teeth.

“I’m a hungry hungry hippo!” she said and tried to bite him. He smacked her in the face with the pillow and she fell down.

He grabbed Johnny and pulled him out the front door, toward the car.

“I don’t have my shoes,” Johnny said.

“You don’t need them,” Bill said.

“What if I step on glass?”

“Don’t.”

“I need to go to the bathroom first.”

“Can’t you hold it?”

Karen was throwing Jenga pieces at him again.

“I don’t have to go, but mom says I should always try before getting in the car.”

“Not this time.”

They ran to the car and Johnny tried to get in the backseat to his car seat, but it wasn’t there.

“Just get in,” Bill said.

“But what if we crash?”

“I won’t crash.”

“I’ll go through the windshield!”

“No, you won’t!”

Johnny climbed in and Bill slammed the door behind him. Then Bill got in the front seat and
pressed the automatic door lock. Karen slapped her hands against the hood and the windows.
Then she flopped on the ground and bit the front tire. “I’m a hippo!” she cried, and bit it again like she was trying to puncture the tire.

Bill turned the ignition, peeled out of the driveway, and sped away down the street, not stopping at an unnecessary stop sign that Karen had city hall put up.

“That’s kidnapping!” she shouted after them. “Kidnapper!”

Johnny’s hands grasped the seat.

“Did you really kidnap me?” he asked.

“Of course not. I’m your father. I couldn’t kidnap you.”

“So you’re not going to chain me up in a basement and beat me with a hose?”

“Of course not. Where would you get an idea like that?”

“Mom.”