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."