Read Online Man of the Hour by Peter Blauner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Peter Blauner
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Seniqua, wrestling with Amal for a clicker. “It all just seems so … white .”
Ah, the old racial correctness bugaboo. David tried to swiftly parry her thrust. “Well, the Egyptians and the Sumerians, they’re not exactly the Osmond Family, are they?” Immediately, he realized he’d slipped and fallen behind the popular culture curve again.
“Yeeeeeahhh, whatevah!” Seniqua dismissed him with a flat-handed homegirl swipe. “I’m just tired, that’s all. I wanna go home!”
“Word!” Stray voices and clickers backed her up. What was wrong here? David wondered. It wasn’t just him being hungover and worrying about Renee and Arthur. The whole rhythm of the day kept falling on the off beat. He looked around and noticed that more than a third of the class was absent—even Elizabeth Hamdy, who usually helped focus the group in her quiet way. Et tu, Elizabeth? Maybe that was the problem. Classes developed their own kind of chemistry over the course of a term. If you removed just one crucial element, the whole thing could collapse or combust.
“Anyway, we’re running kind of late, so we ought to get going,” he said, rubbing his temples and checking his watch. The hammering outside and the stray clicking in class seemed to italicize his headache. “Are there any other questions?”
“Yeah.” Seniqua Rollins glared back at him. “What were y’all doing in the bathroom for so long?”
Trust in God and think like a gun.
Nasser kept repeating the words to himself as he drew closer to the school and the sound of the carpenters’ hammering grew louder.
The sun was at his back and the book bag holding the hadduta was in his left hand. He wasn’t sure if he could do this. He was sure he could do this. His attitude changed from second to second.
He was some one hundred yards from the school now, the weight of the bag and his own caution making him list to the left a little as he walked.
Up ahead, he saw students starting to come down the front steps of the school, ready to disperse to the various hot dog stands and clam houses along the boardwalk for a late lunch, rejecting the cafeteria food. He remembered this part of the routine from when he was a student here four years back. There’d been times when he’d wished they would ask him to join them. But then again, he was sure he would say no if they did.
Boom. He flashed on the image of them falling under the avalanche of bricks. The boys crushed and bloody. The girls crying inconsolably. Sirens screaming everywhere. Yes, this would be horrifying, but he wouldn’t allow himself to feel anything about it. He’d seen many things just as horrifying back in Bethlehem. The rain of stones. The burning tires and the tear gas. The soldiers firing rubber bullets. The children lying in the streets and the mothers crying. They were inconsolable too.
He was within thirty yards. He could see the carpenters working on the stage raising their hammers and slamming them down, but the sound took a second to reach his ears. A flock of boys came flying past him, and one of them, an abbed, a black one in a yellow Polo Sport shirt and street-sweeper jeans, made a point of plowing into him, shoulder first.
Caught off guard, Nasser stumbled, twisted an ankle, and started to fall over onto his book bag. The hadduta. He reeled back and just barely managed to steady himself as the abbed kept walking, smirking over his shoulder. With no idea of how close he’d come to blowing both of them up. The black ones. They were supposed to be brothers, Nasser thought. But he’d always been a little afraid of them at school.
He straightened up and began walking faster, knowing he had little more than eight minutes to leave the hadduta . The rhythm of the hammering seemed to quicken. There were red-white-and-blue banners hanging from the scaffolding over the school entrance. More and more students surged past him on the front steps; it was like a dam breaking. So free and easy with the
Ah, the old racial correctness bugaboo. David tried to swiftly parry her thrust. “Well, the Egyptians and the Sumerians, they’re not exactly the Osmond Family, are they?” Immediately, he realized he’d slipped and fallen behind the popular culture curve again.
“Yeeeeeahhh, whatevah!” Seniqua dismissed him with a flat-handed homegirl swipe. “I’m just tired, that’s all. I wanna go home!”
“Word!” Stray voices and clickers backed her up. What was wrong here? David wondered. It wasn’t just him being hungover and worrying about Renee and Arthur. The whole rhythm of the day kept falling on the off beat. He looked around and noticed that more than a third of the class was absent—even Elizabeth Hamdy, who usually helped focus the group in her quiet way. Et tu, Elizabeth? Maybe that was the problem. Classes developed their own kind of chemistry over the course of a term. If you removed just one crucial element, the whole thing could collapse or combust.
“Anyway, we’re running kind of late, so we ought to get going,” he said, rubbing his temples and checking his watch. The hammering outside and the stray clicking in class seemed to italicize his headache. “Are there any other questions?”
“Yeah.” Seniqua Rollins glared back at him. “What were y’all doing in the bathroom for so long?”
Trust in God and think like a gun.
Nasser kept repeating the words to himself as he drew closer to the school and the sound of the carpenters’ hammering grew louder.
The sun was at his back and the book bag holding the hadduta was in his left hand. He wasn’t sure if he could do this. He was sure he could do this. His attitude changed from second to second.
He was some one hundred yards from the school now, the weight of the bag and his own caution making him list to the left a little as he walked.
Up ahead, he saw students starting to come down the front steps of the school, ready to disperse to the various hot dog stands and clam houses along the boardwalk for a late lunch, rejecting the cafeteria food. He remembered this part of the routine from when he was a student here four years back. There’d been times when he’d wished they would ask him to join them. But then again, he was sure he would say no if they did.
Boom. He flashed on the image of them falling under the avalanche of bricks. The boys crushed and bloody. The girls crying inconsolably. Sirens screaming everywhere. Yes, this would be horrifying, but he wouldn’t allow himself to feel anything about it. He’d seen many things just as horrifying back in Bethlehem. The rain of stones. The burning tires and the tear gas. The soldiers firing rubber bullets. The children lying in the streets and the mothers crying. They were inconsolable too.
He was within thirty yards. He could see the carpenters working on the stage raising their hammers and slamming them down, but the sound took a second to reach his ears. A flock of boys came flying past him, and one of them, an abbed, a black one in a yellow Polo Sport shirt and street-sweeper jeans, made a point of plowing into him, shoulder first.
Caught off guard, Nasser stumbled, twisted an ankle, and started to fall over onto his book bag. The hadduta. He reeled back and just barely managed to steady himself as the abbed kept walking, smirking over his shoulder. With no idea of how close he’d come to blowing both of them up. The black ones. They were supposed to be brothers, Nasser thought. But he’d always been a little afraid of them at school.
He straightened up and began walking faster, knowing he had little more than eight minutes to leave the hadduta . The rhythm of the hammering seemed to quicken. There were red-white-and-blue banners hanging from the scaffolding over the school entrance. More and more students surged past him on the front steps; it was like a dam breaking. So free and easy with the
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