Drifter: Rockstar of the highway. Scholar of the road. They carve their legend with skid marks on the streets of the Arabian peninsula.
It’s hard to come up with something really cool going that fast.
1998 Land Cruiser at 155 km/hr. Zainab held the wheel, Yasmin the auxiliary cord, and Rummana the grab handle. Zainab was about to pull the handbrake. They all couldn't wait to shout and float momentarily.
*krrkkk*
The wheels skidded on the asphalt. Yasmin turned the volume up on a 220bpm version of "Barbie Girl." The vehicle rotated around the highway and itself. The crew all held their noses. Rummana told them once that if they held their noses and blew they wouldn't get dizzy. Thinking back on it right now, he questioned if that was actually about popping your ears when a plane prepares for landing. It worked for them, almost everything worked for them.
The car came to a stop in the wrong direction. A truck was driving towards it at the legal speed limit (115km/hr). They looked at it coldly, like you would a painting you didn't quite understand.
“Dare me.”
“I dare you.”
“I dare you.”
The car accelerated, with the handbrake still pulled all the way up. The wheels crunched and bit at the asphalt. A rough twist of the steering wheel, a frivolous push and pull on the handbrake, and they got away with a warning: honk, beep.
“Truck horns sound funny, man.”
“Loud as hell.”
“For sure.”
Zainab scanned his body, the car, his friends, the street, the truck, the dirt. He knew that everything breathing before was still breathing now. He exhaled. Rummana loosened his grip on the handle.
“Whites?”
“I got some.”
“Yeah.”
Rummana threw a plastic bag a bit too big for its insides on the center console. The boys were giddy. White powder on the gearbox. They all painted through it with their ring finger and stuffed the whites in their gums.
“Shit burns.”
“Amani?”
“Yeah, he said he mixed the glue with pepper.”
Yasmin rolled down the tinted window. Spat. Rolled up. They sat there for a while…
“Call up the boy.”
“He broke my heart, man.”
“How did that happen?”
“He said he wanted to be with Jana. He said Jana got cooler rims, would make him better at swerving.”
“You believe that?”
“Fuck does it matter? God, he looks so good with the braces.”
Yasmin pulled up his phone. Showed the rest a video wherein a fourteen year old boy smiles, showing his yellow-y teeth. His bangs covered his eyebrows and brushed past his eyes. The video was slightly filtered, there was an exacerbated blush on his cheeks. Some muted, nebulous Top 100 song was playing in the background.
Lyrics: Oh I want you. Cry for me cry for me, oh oh.
“See what I mean? He knows how that shit makes me feel.”
“Tough, man.”
“Yeah.”
Yasmin was holding his cock through the cloth. Squeezing it lightly while replaying the video at full volume. “He really got you acting some type of way, huh?” said Zainab, as he tongued the powder around his mouth. “If it were me, I’d make my feelings known.” Yasmin interpreted that as a challenge. He held up his phone at arms length. Turned on the camera and selected an appropriate filter: DEMON MODE. It made his eyes neon red. He pulled out a lighter from his breast pocket, and began filming:
Ayman… Aymoonka I love you so much. You know I would never hurt you, boy. Look how much this shit means to me. You know the others are just trying to fuck you.
He ignited the lighter and stuck his tongue out.
You know how much this thit means to me, boy. I tweat you wight. I tweat you wight. I burn mythelf for you, I burn in hell for you. I know you. I love you. I know you miss sitting on my lap boy, me touching you. Aymoonka…
He jerked his neck down to meet the lighter. His tongue licked the flame for about 5 seconds. Saliva dripped on his lap and the car seat.
That's how much I love you boy.
Five years ago…
Classroom. Students on every corner pushed their desks together, there were four squares of desks and five students in each square. Group activity, Ziyad’s (latterly Zainab’s) least favorite part.
“Okay class, Ali has a video he’d like to share with you.”
“You know,” the kid sitting next to Ziyad nudged him with his shoulder, “I heard Ali doesn’t wear underwear or anything. He just lets it loose.” Ziyad fixated on Ali’s crotch, then the teacher, then his classmate, then the projector. “Did you see? I bet he’s hard right now.”
Spacebar.
Projector showed:
Toyota Hilux, wheels swallowing dirt, group of people surrounding it. The man inside the truck stepped on both the gas and brake pedal. Dirt to dust. The people were hopping around and filming with their phones.
“These guys are all faggots,” said Ziyad’s classmate. “My cousin, he was like so real, man. He’s in jail for being real. Like he drifted around cop cars and shit, nearly took one out on the highway.”
“What does he do now?”
“He’s a teacher now. Turned a new leaf. Grew a beard and everything."
Back to projector:
The truck was on its head, and in flames. There were limbs all over. One of the people watching was in tears and his knees buckled down on the hot sand. “My kid brother! My kid brother!” he was saying. Ziyad mimicked his crying to the classmate and they both laughed. Ziyad did not want to inquire if the laugh his classmate let out was out of cruelty or, like himself, out of some kind of fear, and the laugh sort of remedied that, but it also made him want to cry, and it wasn’t the time to cry so he laughed harder. He figured his classmate was evil, just like he wanted to be evil.
“What do you think he feels?”
“Well, he’s dead isn’t he?”
“No. I mean the brother.”
“I don’t know, pain I guess.”
Ziyad did a crude drawing of the scene in his notebook. His illustration:
A stick figure, without one arm, and without one leg, with Xs for eyes. A truck upside down with little legs trying to break the windows from inside. Implied by the arrows pointing outwards of the truck. He tried to draw a treble clef to indicate music was playing from the truck. He did not know how to draw a treble clef so he scribbled over it. He made the sun very big, with squiggly lines to indicate heat waves, and straight lines to show the beams coming from such magnitude. He drew a boy on his knees, weeping, lines of tears.
He showed his illustration to his classmate. His classmate smiled. He said he liked the big sun, and the boy crying. He said that it was “real” and that’s what “it is like.” Ziyad really liked that. He liked that the pain was real, and the sun was real, and the death was real. He would’ve also liked the grief to be real but he did not know what that is yet.
At night he saw his parents yell at his brother, his brother seemed unbothered, transfixed on the living room carpet. He thought his brother was caught smoking again, which meant his brother was in for a beating. His father was very religious, full beard, full fat, the whole bit. Last time his brother was beaten he was fourteen and his brother sixteen, and that was the last time he saw him cry. He’d seen him cry many times before and it was often funny for him, but the last time he felt very ashamed. It was shameful that his brother was crying. It was shameful that he got to witness it. To sit in a room with his big brother crying and cussing under his breath felt like hell to him, it was one of the rare times he felt like a brother. Ziyad did not know how to bring it up to his brother but he has made numerous plans where they would take revenge on their father; push a stepladder with him on top of it and watch their father’s head blow up like a coconut, stab him late at night in the kitchen and claim a burglar had done it, or grab the steering wheel off their father’s hand and drive themselves onto a ditch or a post. That last one was his favorite. He knew his brother would not agree to any of them. Ziyad thought his brother’s mind was gone from all the beating; effectively brainwashed. “That’s our father, what the fuck is wrong with you?” was what he would say any time Ziyad complained about him.
“Go out and find me a stick to beat you with.”
Ziyad was in his room. His brother was being beaten with a stick in the room opposite to his. He looked at his brother’s empty, unkempt bed. He waited. His brother opened the door. They shared a look, and then Ziyad pretended to do something else. His BlackBerry buzzed. Message from Z~A~P~P~A:
Hey
Hey
U gave ur number 2 my friend.
Yea
U kno how 2 drive?
Yea
Send location
?
Send it
Ziyad was afraid. He was afraid of staying at home. He was afraid of leaving it. He weighed it in his head and thought he’d rather be kidnapped than be beaten, which he sensed was likely.
Out
He gulped a tumor sized something in his throat. Put on skinny jeans and walked past the living room hoping his father wouldn't say anything.
“Boy.”
He could’ve sworn the bass in his father’s voice made the room tremble.
“Where are you going?”
“Friend.”
“Speak up.”
“I said-”
“This is why no one understands you boy. You don’t talk like a man.”
“I said, I said, I’m gonna see a friend.”
“Nine sharp. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
“Okay.”
Outside, he saw one car parked by the door of his house. The driver seat window was open and there was a hairy, veiny arm half-birthed out of it. A cigarette wedged between its fingers. The presumed person inside did a playful honk. He jabbed the steering wheel with his fist a couple of times. He opened the passenger seat and an artificial fruity scent overwhelmed him. Tears swelled up in the bottom of his eyes. “How old are you, kid?” The voice inside was raspy, like if a slit from a throat could talk. “Fifteen,” said Ziyad. The figure inside patted his lap a couple of times, Ziyad figured what the figure wanted. The passenger seat window rolled up and he stared at himself on the tinted reflection for a bit, exposed his teeth and nailed through something yellow. Citrusy taste. He went around to the driver seat door and found it halfway opened. “What’s your name?” Ziyad asked. “Rothman,” said Rothman, presumably. “Rothman?” Ziyad asked again. “Yeah, like the cigarette brand. They’re discontinued now, so, I am them.” That sounded stupid. “And you, you’re Ziyad, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That don’t suit you. Ugly name for such a face, you know?”
“I guess.”
“Okay, get in… Zeee… Zaiii… Zoooo… Zainab. Like my brother’s wife.”
“Okay.”
Zainab, formerly Ziyad, sat on Rothman’s lap. He adjusted his ass every once and a while, he figured he wanted to make a good impression. He looked at the windshield. The windshield showed: The sky, the street, lamp posts, stop signs, kids tying their shoes on the curb. What wasn’t shown was a robbery concurrently happening inside a gas station they passed. Here are the characters to that story:
Clerk
Robber
Gun
Hunting rifle under the desk
CLERK
I have kid. You know, baby. Girl, woman, wife.
ROBBER
The money, I need for my thing. Really important thing. Thing I need. Fuck.
GUN
Bang.
CLERK falls, thud. Wheezes. Dies.
***
Zainab was still rubbing on Rothman’s crotch. He felt uneasy, he wasn’t sure if it was the speed of the car, or the loud police sirens which he felt moved his bowels. If he were to shit himself right now, that would soil this otherwise great first impression.
“You know who this is?”
A dandruff littered BlackBerry phone screen displayed a photo of a long haired man, thick mustache and soul patch. His mouth was half open and his left hand was twirling on his mustache.
“No.”
“That’s Frank Zappa.”
“Zaba?”
“Yeah, he was like a musician, I think. He looks tragic, you know what I mean? That’s what I am really like.”
“Me too.”
Rothman sniffed, and for a split second Zainab thought he was crying. He felt he understood everything about despair, looking at a speedometer. He knew what horror was and it was clear on Frank Zappa’s face, and on Rothman’s face, and on everything he felt like he loved. It was time for him to say something truly profound:
“If the world had a face, it would be crying.”
Rothman sniffed again.
“Pull the handbrake.”
Rothman let go of the steering wheel, Zainab listened to him. He took his chance on Rothman being a prophet of some kind. He pulled the handbrake slowly, click after click, the wheels winced more and more on the asphalt. They were painting with skid marks on a harsh canvas. Maybe that felt “real” to them. Zainab turned his head around to meet Rothman’s face, who was staring at the courtesy-of-windshield-sky. He was drooling, his eyes red and watery. Zainab grabbed Rothman by his hair and pulled him towards his lips. Their lips met and Zainab tried to pry open Rothman’s mouth with his tongue. Rothman’s teeth were rusty bars, keeping Zainab from discovering something in there that could comfort him, or maybe both of them, or maybe the world. Rothman’s mouth opened and there was his tongue. They danced inside each other. Rothman looked at the windshield from the corner of his eyes. The world was tilting to the right, he closed his eyes before the view evened vertically.
The sound of glass breaking, car alarm blaring, and engine whirring. Zainab still held Rothman’s tongue in his mouth, which tasted like a discount energy drink, and then like iron. Specks of glass showered his face. He detangled his tongue from Rothman’s tongue. He looked at his face, his eyes were closed, bruised shut. His mouth was still open, his tongue now half-torn. Without thinking, Zainab touched Rothman’s tongue with finger and thumb, tong-shaped. He pulled it gently. It felt spongy. He pulled with more force and felt strings of the tongue resisting. He pulled it clean off. Rothman wheezed a little, and then he didn’t, and then he wasn’t.
Zainab climbed out of the car window, cutting parts of his torso in the process. His body limped onto the ground. He felt the warm asphalt, still soaking in the heat from the midday sun. He crawled to the front of the car, the headlights spoke to him in morse code. He didn’t know morse code but he figured he needed to remember whatever this is. He wrote in the dirt: Dash-Dot-Dot Dot-dot Dot. The rest, he forgot.
Zainab stared at the curb, crushed soda cans, cigarette buds, and blotches of water and blood took space in his view. He blinked. There was nothing but the curb. The headlight beams took a brighter, denser, and more circular shape at the curb. Pointy cowboy boots walked into the spotlight. He navigated the body limp for limp. His eyes zigzagged from arm to arm. Then from feet to head. Red pantsuits, a black vest. There was more to see from the slender body towering over him but Zainab chose instead to look at the sky again. He figured this was dying, and he figured although he was afraid, this death would impress some classmates. That this was a chance to not be himself, and not have to go back home at nine sharp. He thought, maybe his classmates would hear about it, maybe they would graffiti his name under some bridge or under someone’s house, and then he’d be “real,” so he reached his arm up against a star, and gripped it fully. It was warm, he felt his nails digging on his palm. He turned his hand around and opened his fist and saw it bleeding from glass shards he pushed further into his skin. It hurt. He was alive.
The body crouched to meet him, its lips gripping a cigarette. Upper lip covered partially by a mustache, downer lip intersected with a soul patch. They locked eyes for a moment. Zainab coughed.
Zainab: Zaba…
Frank Zappa: Kid.
Zainab: I get you. Your eyes. I am like you.
Frank Zappa: Do you love?
Zainab: I did. Just now, but my love is gone. I have his tongue.
Frank Zappa: Dot-Dash-Dot-Dot Dash-Dash-Dash Dot-Dot-Dot-Dash Dot.
Zainab: That’s so loud.
Frank Zappa: It should be.
Zainab: So, what now?
Frank Zappa: When you die, it’ll be better than this. We’ll make sure of it.
The time was 8:12PM. Zainab limped back home.
Thirty Five Kilometers Away
Yasser (latterly Yasmin,) and Ryan (latterly Rummana) were on the better end of a rifle. Through the sights they saw: A snake slithering around a Saluki dog’s legs. The dog looked down and licked the head of the snake, looked up. Yasser threw a pebble in front of the desert dog, he looked at it, at Yasser, then at Ryan. Bang.
“And the snake.”
“Okay.”
Bang.
“Okay, hold on”
Yasser walked across the heavy sand. He thought of astronauts, then of the moon, then of aliens, then of God making aliens, or God being an alien, which would mean God would be our God and he has his God which is maybe alien to him. The end of the snake brushed on the dog’s nose, and its face was buried in the dog’s genitals. It looked funny, Yasser pulled out his camera phone to take a picture. Crouched in front of the carcass, and saw the snake moving again. Yasser stood straight. The snake wrapped itself around his legs like a corkscrew that ended near his crotch. The snake hissed once then bit on his cock through the cloth. It felt good for 1.25 seconds for Yasser, then painful, then really painful. He was screaming and waving his arms around to Ryan.
“Shoot it.”
“Pull it off your cock, or I’ll shoot it too.”
Yasser pulled at the snake, which pulled on his cock. Yasser looked at the sky the exact same moment a kid who survived a car wreck thirty five kilometers away did, but to him he was looking at alien-God. As he was pulling he felt the jaws loosen, then tighten but this time most of the pressure was on the cloth. He slapped the head of the snake over and over. He grabbed the same pebble he threw in front of the dog and began beating the snake with it. It pulled back to hiss.
Bang.
Dead or not, Yasser sprinted back to Ryan. They embraced for a second. Ryan felt Yasser’s erect cock brushing his leg. It was warm, warmer than his own cock ever felt.
Uncle-Uncle was brewing coffee by the fire, he saw the two boys running back. One of them was moaning or crying.
“It got him. On his privates.”
Uncle-Uncle fanned the campfire.
“What did?”
“A snake. Maybe poisonous.”
“Venomous.”
“Yeah, venomous.”
“Boy,” Uncle-Uncle slapped Yasser in the face. “Do you feel okay?”
“It’s bruised, it feels hot and big. I don’t know.”
“What does?”
“My privates.”
“Your cock.”
“My cock.” Saying that out loud made Yasser cry more. It made Ryan look at his crotch.
“Let me take a look.”
Yasser was nervous, “But it was through the cloth. Maybe I didn’t get any of the poison.”
“The venom, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Now show me.”
Uncle-Uncle grabbed Yasser’s ass and pushed his crotch onto his face. He kissed Yasser’s cock through the cloth. It was hard. Ryan sat between them. He saw Yasser’s cock pointing up through his boxers. Uncle-Uncle pulled it down and Yasser’s cock sprang up and hit Uncle-Uncle on the chin.
“Where does it hurt?”
Yasser was still thinking about the sound his cock made hitting Uncle-Uncle’s chin. It was not all too different from the sound his cheek made when he was slapped across the face. One and the same, he thought.
“Here, to the left.”
The left side of his cock was bluish purple. He thought it was convulsing or pulsating. He thought about a snake fetus running through the veins of his cock.
“Alright, boy.”
Uncle-Uncle licked and sucked on the left side of Yasser’s cock. Yasser felt an itch every time his beard lightly scratched his shaft. He wiped the tears off his face with his sleeve. Ryan crawled to the other side of Yasser’s cock.
“It’s like breathing.”
“It is.”
He put his nose up close to Yasser’s cock and sniffed. He thought there was something savory in that scent, and something of rusted metal. He tongued Yasser’s cock, not as fervently as Uncle-Uncle had done. He felt timid, but he also felt like he was saving a life. He wasn’t sure if it was the scent, or the concept of saving his friend’s life, but he was teary-eyed, and this, by account of all the three of them, was beautiful.
Yasser had one hand on Uncle-Uncle’s head, and the other was on Ryan’s. He gripped and pulled Ryan’s hair. It felt oily. He gripped Uncle-Uncle’s scalp with his nails, his fingertips met with little hairs in the back of his head.
“Uncle,”
“Yes, boy.”
“I think the poison is coming out.”
“The venom.”
“Get back, Ryan.”
Uncle-Uncle pushed Ryan back. He adjusted himself to meet with the head of Yasser’s cock. He stroked it quickly, and opened his mouth as wide as he could. Ryan saw Uncle-Uncle gripping Yasser’s cock with both hands, saw his tongue, the gaps on his gums, the cavity ridden darkness in his mouth. He thought of bats sleeping in a cave, where their eyes seem to be the only source of light. Like stars in the night sky, he thought. Whatever is in that mouth is in every impossible darkness. The dark cave, or the night sky, cannot exist until illuminated. So he sat between them, and waited for light.
Yasser ejaculated into Uncle-Uncle’s mouth, on his lips, the gray parts of his beard. He stood up, dusted himself off, wiped the cum off his face and swallowed the rest. Yasser was panting heavily. Ryan felt like he could cry.
“Uncle.”
“Yes, boy.”
“Aren’t you going to be sick?”
“Why?”
“You swallowed it.”
“No, boy. It’s uhh… Sterile now.”
“Sterile?”
“Yeah.”
“What does that mean?”
“Boy, you need to forget about that. I gave you life. You are saved. If I die from sucking your cock then that is an honorable death. I’ve lived enough, you’ve yet to. You choose life every chance you get, understand me, boy?”
“Yes.”
“Now go on, keep playing with that rifle.”
It was almost dawn. Yasser was staring down the sights of the rifle. Ryan was fidgeting with a Swiss army knife.
“What did it feel like?”
Yasser looked away from the gun.
“The snake bite?”
“No, when Uncle-Uncle had it in his mouth.”
“My-”
“Your cock.”
It was cold in the desert. It was dark, and they were alone. They both felt older.
“When the poison came out, I felt my knees give out. It was like… It was like being born.”
“It was all white and stuff. A bit yellowy too. Like the sun.”
“Yeah, that was strange.”
“Does it still hurt?”
“A bit, but I put ice on it for a little. I think it just stings kinda.’’
“Maybe there’s a bit of poison left.”
“You think so?”
“Let me do it this time.”
They both lay down on the cold sand. Facing each other’s crotches. Ryan gently touched Yasser’s cock.
“Does that hurt?”
“A bit, but it feels good too.”
“Can you do it to me?”
The words that came out of Ryan’s mouth made his heart beat faster. Yasser hesitated at first, but began softly kissing the tip of Ryan’s cock.
“I get what you mean.”
“About what?”
“About being born.”
Every movement felt heavy for Yasser, he thought of the moon again, and of God’s residence, and his God, and that God’s God, and how it all goes back to the one God. The one the snake injected into his cock. He knew that it did not make sense but he felt so much conviction, and faith to him was about believing in nonsense.
“It’s coming out.”
“I think for me too, just do it a bit quicker.”
Ryan looked far. The sun was born out of nothing. The cold dark sand was now golden. ‘This happens every day,’ he thought. Ryan came and he saw his cum almost glowing on every surface it touched, the sand, Yasser’s tongue and lips. This was a miracle.
“It must have bitten you too.”
“Maybe it bit all of us.”
The heat was radiating across every particle of sand. Yasser and Ryan buried their faces in each other’s crotches. The smell, the heat, the light, the smell, the heat, the light…
Five years after five years ago
“I’m a little pimp with my hair gassed back
Pair of khaki pants with my shoe shined black”
Zainab was inside an olive oil green Ford Crown Victoria. He was watching footage of a Frank Zappa concert on his phone. It was the first time he had ever listened to his music, or at least had heard his music. Frank Zappa had a neutral expression on his face as the camera zoomed in on his fingers, fretting and sliding across the fretboard. His hand was hairy and vascular. Zainab wondered if he liked that, then wondered in what kind of way he liked that. The camera moved back to Zappa’s face, still neutral. Zainab took a moment to drink his face in. Zainab’s hair was as long as Zappa’s hair was in that footage, he couldn’t quite get that thick mustache and goatee combination however, which made him feel less of a person. He put a cigarette in his mouth and looked at the vanity mirror to feel like more of a person again. Zappa broke into a guitar solo. He rewound the video a bit before that and timed his lighting of the cigarette at the exact moment Zappa’s solo began. He looked at his reflection, which seemed as neutral as Zappa’s. He cracked a smile, slid shut the shutter on the vanity mirror, and slammed the sun visor shut.
Pause. Contacts. Rummana (Ryan). Dialing.
Beep
“Hello?”
“Hey. You know where that boy lives?”
“Which boy?”
“Yasmin’s boy. Let him know we are taking him.”
“He doesn’t love him anymore.”
“Then make him love him.”
Beep
“Hello?”
It was Rummana’s turn.
Contacts. My Marlboro Red ♥️. Dialing.
Beep
“Yup?”
“Hey where does the boy live?”
“Fuck him.”
“Yeah, I know. Zainab got something planned.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell him to come get me and I’ll spill.”
“Alright.”
Beep.
Yasmin went through his father’s cabinet, found a cologne with a drawing of a cactus on it, and took a few sprays. He opened his mouth wide open and thought for a second, but his finger acted before he had direct orders and sprayed his mouth with cologne. Bitter. He rolled his tongue around. He thought about if this bottle of cologne could get him drunk before it could kill him, then thought that he has never been drunk before, “I should at some point,” he said out loud. His phone vibrated in his back pocket. He felt his way to the power button and squeezed through his jeans with his thumb. He looked through his window.
His window showed:
The main gate, a green door with its lock broken. He remembered breaking it, why he was forced to break it. Sad memory, next. There was a shirtless child pissing down a manhole, he must have opened it. Funny. A Ford Crown Victoria with one of its wheels resting on the curb. Unbalanced.
Zainab got out of the car and left the door open, he tried to sit on the hood of the car but it was piping hot and it burned his ass, so he slid down and just rested his back on the bumper. He crossed his arms and looked up at Yasmin’s window. The green door made a loud squeaking sound as it was opened. “Hey,” said Yasmin, “what do you want with the boy?” Zainab walked back to the car door, “Get in.” he said as he got inside. Yasmin followed. He sat on the backseat. Rummana was watching a video on his phone which had footage of Saddam Hussein set to “Many Men” by 50 Cent. “Saddam was cold.” He laughed. “You know,” Yasmin said, “I was almost named Saddam.” Silence. The car engine started, “You say the boy doesn’t love you, well we will show him something he’ll love,” said Zainab. He opened the glove compartment. A box of .45 rounds and an engraved M1911 almost plopped out of it. Rummana felt like the glove compartment pressured the air out of the car. He took a deep breath then choked on his spit and coughed until his eyes watered. Dead silence if not for the air conditioning unit whirring to a setpoint then whispering again. Raise in temperature, chase, saturation, etc.
“People who live for something die for nothing,” said Zainab.
“That’s hard, man. Who said that?” Yasmin replied.
Zainab was proud of himself. To his knowledge, he came up with that. He tried to think about what he meant for a second, if he believed it, if he understood it and if he did not understand it, did he at least know the weight of the notion. He was proud of himself for having such complex thoughts. He did not answer Yasmin.
“What’s with the piece?” asked Rummana.
“Look,” Zainab made a weird frown that he saw a young Marlon Brando do once, “we are taking what we want. Sometimes you gotta do it like that.” Zainab turned to face Rummana “We are owed love man. The only person I ever loved died and it fucks me up still.” Rummana looked at the backseat, “Yeah it’s fucked up. I get it.” All three, trapped inside the stuffy Crown Victoria, wanted to believe everything that was happening. It was real but the vague discomfort of it all being a put-on, a play, made their bowels twist and bite inside them.
Outside Ibn Hayyan Middle school, a boy was about to cross the street. He looked both ways, and put his right foot down.
Ford Crown Victoria: *Eeeek*
He hopped back to the curb. He felt his heart racing, and an electric shock through his toes.
The driver seat window rolled down. Quite literally, as it was an old model. Zainab wished it wasn’t. He held the gun firmly in his hand. It was cold.
“Get in.”
“What do you want?”
“I’m here to do the devil’s… The devil’s bidding.” Zainab felt embarrassed. He should have been quicker, he thought.
“Alright, I’ll get in. You’re a fucking creep.”
The boy opened the backseat door. Yasmin smiled. Brownish, yellow-y teeth. “Ayman. Aymoonka, my love.” Yasmin patted his lap a few times. Ayman sighed a little dramatically and acquiesced.
“Was that it? Your idea?” asked Rummana.
“No, retard. I just thought the boy should see it.”
“Are you going to kill me?” asked the boy.
“Zai, we are not killing Aymoonka.” Yasmin was using two fingers to pinch the boy's cock and was gingerly, almost pathetically stroking it from the tip. He wondered if the boy’s cock was bigger than his cock was at his age, which made him think again on killing him. He landed on “no” still.
“Yeah but he’s gonna see us killing people.”
“Just some nobodies?”
“I mean, I guess.”
“I mean it’s like cool, but like… Shouldn’t we kill like real people?”
“Alright, wait hold on.” Zainab firmly squeezed on the steering wheel. “Ayman, who do you hate?” The boy thought for a second. “There’s this other kid at school. They all talk about how great his ass is or whatever. I just think my ass is better.”
“Is he still inside the school?”
“Uh, no I think he’s probably at that convenience store in the gas station.”
Throughout the conversation, Yasmin was grinding his cock on the boy’s ass, he had him by the waist, and rocked him like a cradle. He thought of a specific rhythm. Something about the sea, tides, etc. He was about to cum and the image that met his cortex was that of the ocean glistening, shining, surface tension making diamonds with rays directly from the sun. The boy felt moisture around his ass which felt euphoric to him for some reason.
As they were headed to the gas station, Rummana looked at the clouds morphing and mutating, from something to something else, which did not mean anything to him, but given the circumstances, he tried his best to forge meaning. He edited through his short term memory of the clouds, their shapes were now of concepts, objects and their antonyms, thesis to antithesis, love to hate, life to death. But that did not make sense either. How can a cloud look like love, or any of the other vague concepts? He scrambled for something else. He looked around: windshield, street, sun, nothing. He had to settle for the cloud bullshit. He followed through. Now for the message: Ending a life is just as good as saving a life, surely. Lackluster, but time was running out.
The following scene takes place at a familiar gas station, here are the characters to this story:
CROWN VICTORIA
LYING CHILD
ZAINAB
ZAINAB’S PHONE
YASMIN
RUMMANA
M1911
THE BOY
CLERK
HUNTING RIFLE UNDER THE DESK
ASS-BOY
CROWN VICTORIA
Vroom.
LYING CHILD
My dad has a gold coated Bugatti, it is just in like...Germany right now.
CROWN VICTORIA swerves around the gas pumps, sharply turns to the left and crashes sideways onto the convenience store’s glass doors.
LYING CHILD starts screaming.
CROWN VICTORIA
Dingdingdingdingdingdingding
ZAINAB takes his phone out of his pocket, he looks around. Sees: RUMMANA coughing blood. YASMIN holding THE BOY in his arms.
ZAINAB
Alright let’s do this.
ZAINAB types “HOT RATS FRANL ZAPA” on his phone.
ZAINAB’S PHONE
Did you mean “HOT RATS FRANK ZAPPA”?
ZAINAB fidgets with ZAINAB’S PHONE a little.
ZAINAB’S PHONE
(Royalty-free hip-hop beat)
Can’t wait for your package? Subscribe to premium and enjoy express shipp-
ZAINAB taps the skip button.
ZAINAB’S PHONE
Got a little lady, walk that street
tellin’ all the boys that she can’t be beat
ZAINAB drags the scroll back to the beginning. He exits the vehicle.
ZAINAB
Leave the door open, I want to hear the music.
YASMIN
What about Rummana?
RUMMANA
(Coughs.)
ZAINAB
Fuck him, he’s dead.
YASMIN looks at RUMMANA. Pensive. He grabs THE BOY by the neck and pulls him onto his lips. THE BOY pulls back.
THE BOY
Get off me, faggot.
ZAINAB enters the store, gun in hand. Turban wrapped around his face.
LYING CHILD
Is that real?
ZAINAB’s eyes swell with tears.
M1911
Bang.
LYING CHILD is lying on the floor. M1911 falls from ZAINAB’s hand.
CLERK
Shit.
CLERK reaches for HUNTING RIFLE UNDER THE DESK.
HUNTING RIFLE UNDER THE DESK
Bang.
ZAINAB holds his abdomen. Falls on his knees. YASMIN enters the store. Sees M1911 on the marble floor. He runs towards it.
HUNTING RIFLE UNDER THE DESK
Click.
CLERK
Fuck.
M1911
Click. Bang.
YASMIN admired the smoke and the light coming out of the gun. It reminded him of everything to have ever happened.
CLERK falls. Thud. Wheezes. Dies.
YASMIN looks around for ASS-BOY.
ZAINAB
Is this… Real … Is this… Real?
YASMIN exits the store. He walks to the car door.
YASMIN
Do you see him anywhere?
THE BOY
No.
YASMIN massages his eyebrows.
YASMIN
Do you love me now?
THE BOY
I don’t know.
YASMIN
Would you have loved me if I killed him?
THE BOY giggles. YASMIN enters the CROWN VICTORIA.
THE BOY
Is Zainab dead?
YASMIN
It looks like it.
RUMMANA gently runs his fingertips on the window.
ZAINAB’S PHONE
Hot meat, hot rats, hot ca-
Finish the following survey and enter to win a new Mercedes Benz…
YASMIN, THE BOY, RUMMANA, and CROWN VICTORIA exit the scene.
***
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Zainab was weeping. He felt lame. They all saw how lame he was. He felt immense pain, felt his squishy, lumpy insides on his hand. He squeezed them, which made him gasp violently for air. He vomited all over himself.
“What’s wrong, kid?”
“Zaba?”
“You got yourself killed?”
“Yeah.”
The fluorescent light bars at the convenience store got dizzyingly bright, then the sound of a miniature explosion. Darkness. The lights began to flicker in a specific pattern. Zainab had no way of memorizing the pattern, so he looked at Frank Zappa for guidance.
“You did all of that for love.”
“Yeah.”
“You died for it.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s real.”
“It is.”
Zainab glanced through the shattered glass door. Saw nothing worth anything. He heard a siren coming from a distance. It was loud.
-- M.B Ghul works with high voltage machinery and writes on the weekends. His other short story "goatfucker" can be found on Misery Tourism. He is a native Arabic speaker but mainly writes in English.