Chapter Two

Hi everyone,

Here is chapter two of the novel (if you haven't read chapter one, I posted that a few weeks ago), which I have tentatively titled, "Blind Justice".  I know I've lost some readers in my attempts to branch out, perhaps because people read this blog for the autobiographical entries, or perhaps because I haven't proactively marketed the recent entries out of the awareness that (1) they are unlike my previous stuff, (2) they are frackin' long, and (3) they could probably use some significant editing (these are all fresh out of my brain, for what that's worth).  But I will keep posting chapters, as long as I feel comfortable doing so.

Also this goes without saying (then why say it?), but the "Jonah" character is fictional :) (though for those of you repeat customers, you may see some similarities).  And also it goes without saying that the "opinions" of the characters are not necessarily those of the author :)

Anyway I hope you enjoy it.  I've tried to work in some humor among the intense subject-matter too, both for all of you and for my own sanity.

-JKH

PS My next story will be a return to old form.  I need a break from the novel format, which I find significantly more taxing than the personal stories...maybe because I'm just so much more comfortable talking about myself than other (fictional) people...

************

“Hey Jonah, I gotta go, I’m running really late!”  

Jonah learned quickly after they first met that Peter always ran at least thirty minutes late, and that was on a good day. For Jonah, cleanliness was next to godliness was next to punctuality, and so this relatively small flaw almost ended their relationship in the beginning.

“You embarrassed me tonight,” Jonah scolded Peter, after he showed up an hour late to a law school function, their fourth date. “You showed no respect for me whatsoever.” Having just begun law school, Jonah of course used the biggest words possible at all times. If a word had less than three syllables, it wasn’t worth saying.

Jonah’s tone would have been enough to make any reasonable homosexual run for the door – and indeed, it had made many a reasonable homosexual do so in the past. But instead of running, Peter simply reminded Jonah that he had just spent three hours listening to a lecture on habeas corpus (which he repeatedly pronounced “corpses”), while he tried to wash the red wine out of his shirt. During dinner, an overly eager professor, all brains and all thumbs, had spilled his drink all over Peter’s favorite shirt.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Peter said, smiling graciously. “It’s just an old shirt.”

Slowly, Jonah and Peter came to an understanding, as couples do when they have no other choice. Jonah learned that, indeed, the world would not stop if he missed the opening credits of a movie, while Peter learned that time existed independently of his schedule. And when they moved in together, Jonah pushed all the clocks in the apartment forward a half-hour, which often resulted in Jonah being half an hour early for work. It was a small price to pay, though, for a man who would donate his favorite shirt for habeas corpses.

Peter ran down the stairs, past their new beagle Daisy (who he gave a quick kiss), past Jonah (who he gave a quick kiss), and out the front door, into the darkling Washington, D.C. evening. Realizing that Peter was already gone before he could say good-bye, Jonah shot up instantly from behind his laptop. Before he met Peter, Jonah never shot up instantly for anyone, anything, ever. It was rare enough for him to come out from behind his laptop at all. But that was before.

“Peter!” Jonah shouted after him, as he ran down the front stairs. Peter stopped and looked up towards Jonah, shivering under the thin cloth of his waiter’s uniform.

“Don’t go to work tonight,” Jonah said, picking up Daisy and shoving her face in his, floppy ears and all. “Daisy misses you.”

“I miss you too, Daisy,” he said, flicking Daisy’s floppy ears, then flicking Jonah’s. “I won’t be late. It’s a Senate function, they never last long. Now, put a bunch of House members in a room together, and you might as well call the paddy wagon right now.”

Peter loved using words like “paddy wagon,” “bee’s knees,” and “gasser” in everyday language. 

“Oldies but goodies,” he’d say to Jonah, with a silly grin. “Just like you.”

“I’ll be back around eleven.” And then he kissed Jonah, and he kissed Daisy, and he bounced down the stairs, happy to be going out, happy to be coming home.

Of course, he never came home. Twenty minutes later, the world was on fire. And by eleven that night, that long, eternal night that ended only by necessity and not by demand, Jonah and Daisy were standing in line at the morgue, behind dozens of others, in front of dozens more, waiting to identify the body of the man who finally got Jonah out from behind his laptop.

****************

Jonah woke up to the sounds of Monday morning in New York City, which were essentially the sounds of New Year’s Eve anywhere else.

“Yo dude, I’m so fuckin’ wasted!” shouted one joyful reveler from the street below, who was coming out of the aptly named Ship of Fools Bar and Tavern, conveniently located on the first floor of Jonah's building.

Unable to trek to the city on less than a week’s notice to find an apartment before moving there, Jonah relied on his sister to search for him, a favor that he would have to repay for years to come. She found a comparatively expensive, relatively nice, completely liveable space five floors above Second Avenue, with high ceilings, lovely loft space, and a kitchen apparently built for dwarves.

“I know the kitchen is small,” Laura said, when Jonah got his first look at the apartment. “But check out the exposed brick walls! You’re so lucky!”

Jonah figured that he was paying about eighty bucks per brick for his wonderful luck. But he kept that little observation to himself; he was grateful for Laura’s help, as he had always been since the day their father had threatened to drive them up a tree on the way to Cape Cod, and Laura had shielded him from the onslaught in the backseat. Growing up in a constant state of war, Laura acted as a human shield, even when she was not personally in the crossfire. And now that Laura had devoted her life to social work – a noble cause, but an uneconomical one – Jonah was constantly vigilant to make sure that he did not flaunt his choice of career – potentially ignoble, but not necessarily in a financial sense.

“It’s great, Laur,” Jonah said, somewhat sincerely, though simultaneously terrified at the price tag, which would have been eminently manageable in his previous job but now came perilously close to extravagance. After graduating law school, Jonah stuck around DC for a few years, having decided to take the road most traveled and joining a prominent, once white-shoe, now raging liberal law firm steps from the White House. He spent three years in document review hell, stuffing his checking account full of cash as fast as he could, only pausing every once in a while to walk Daisy, or visit the cemetery (usually with Daisy in tow). But he wasn’t there only for the money. After eighteen hours reviewing random e-mails and business prospectus, he rarely had the time or energy to devote to mourning. He might not be able to stop the dreams, but conscious memories were no match for a corporate merger.

A few months earlier, though, Jonah’s dreams started creeping back into his waking life, and suddenly, the eighteen-hour days were replaced by eighteen-hour nightmares. Eventually, Jonah couldn’t separate the reality from the fantasy, and his priorities shifted, until the camel’s back had no choice but to break.

“Jonah, we need you to fly to Cleveland this weekend,” a partner instructed him during their weekly, here’s-how-we’re-going-to-screw-you-over-this-week meeting. Apparently a large pharmaceutical manufacturer was purchasing a small cereal manufacturer. But it was Jonah’s four-year anniversary that weekend – Jonah had planned something special this time, and Peter would be upset if he missed it. So he told the powers-that-be that he could not go to Cleveland that weekend, that the client would have to find someone else to write a memo about the legality of lacing frosted flakes with anti-depressants.

Because law firms are the passive aggressive sharks of the corporate world, Jonah was not fired. Instead, his reviews steadily declined over the next few months, until he was told, in completely uncertain terms, that his reclining office chair would look much better in his next-door neighbor’s office.

Jonah thought briefly about bringing in a folding chair and just sticking it out until they changed the locks on his office door, but it never came to that. A few days later, he received a call from an unexpected prospective employer.

“Hello, may I speak to Jonah Haslap, please? This is Judge Campbell P. Mentrose.” Fortunately, the voice was deep and gruff and unfamiliar – otherwise, Jonah might have thought it was one of his friends playing a prank. They weren’t above crank phone calls, either. Jonah once spent ten minutes searching the firm’s internal directory for I.P. Freely before slamming the phone down to hysterical laughter on the other end of the line.

“Yes, this is Jonah Haslap.” A million questions ran through his head at the same time. Should he have said, “Yes, Your Honor?” Or “Yes, Judge”? Would the judge be offended by his answer? 

Maybe he should have followed up with, “what can I do for you?” Or would that be presumptuous, as if little Jonah Haslap could do anything for such a big important person as Judge Campbell P. Mentrose?

And most importantly – why the hell was he calling?

“Mr. Haslap, I’m looking for a fourth clerk for my chambers here in Manhattan,” he replied, clearing his throat for the third time during their thirty-second conversation. Jonah had the sense that Judge Mentrose had seen his share of battle, courtroom and otherwise. “Would you be interested?”

At that moment, Jonah’s next-door neighbor passed by slowly in front of his door, looking seductively at Jonah’s office chair.

“Definitely.”

“Excellent.” There was some rustling in the background. “You live in DC now, right? Well, the federal government is not as generous as law firms, so you’ll have to pay your own moving expenses, but I promise to take you out for a drink at Forlini’s when you get here.”
Forlini’s? Drink? Moving expenses??

“Um, Your Honor,” Jonah stammered, glad he didn’t forget his judicial etiquette this time. 

“Don’t you want to interview me first?”

“You come highly recommended,” the judge replied, unphased but clearly unwilling to pursue the issue any further. “And please none of that Your Honor crap. My wife heard someone call me Your Honor outside of the courtroom once and basically slapped me back to the Stone Age. She keeps me in line.” Jonah knew what it was like to have someone around to keep you in line, and how easy it was to fall out of line when they were gone.

“So, Mr. Haslap, will I see you Monday?” Also known as, six days from now.
Jonah looked around at his office. There was nothing in it, except useless documents from useless mergers between useless corporations. He didn’t even have a picture of Peter anywhere. He didn’t want anyone at work to ask him about Peter, or any facet of his personal life for that matter, and moreover, he didn’t want Peter to see what had become of his life – pushing papers around a desk eighteen hours a day so that someone in a Park Avenue penthouse could move to a larger penthouse on a higher floor.

Not that working eighteen hours a day made much of a dent in his social life. Most of Jonah’s friends moved away after graduation, while a fresh crop of eager idealists flooded into the city for the ritual sacrifice that measured life in terms of dollar signs. When Jonah was not at work – a rare occasion – his days generally revolved around walking the dog, cleaning the apartment, and when he was feeling especially adventurous, venturing out to the Mall to watch happy couples and patriotic children try to guess the height of the Washington Monument.

Washington, DC was a life once well lived, but now outlived.

“Yes, Your Hon…I mean, sir. You will.”

Jonah was already composing his farewell email to the firm in his head, a tradition that each departing associate engaged in before leaving for greener pastures. Most of the emails consisted of empty gratitude and emptier platitudes, with an occasional undercurrent of recrimination. Jonah was planning to thank his assistant, while working in polite words for “crapfest” and “fascist death trap.”

“Judge,” Jonah paused, uncertain whether he should continue to question this odd and amazing bit of good fortune. But his inquisitiveness got the better of him. “How did you get my resume?”

“Jonah,” the Judge replied, clearing his throat one last time. “The legal world is small. At least, the one that everyone wants to be a part of. Just be happy that you, dear boy, are a part of it.”

It was a complete evasion, but there wasn’t much Jonah could do about it. When God closes a door, he opens a ventilating shaft.

And that was that. It had to be the easiest clerkship application process in the history of time. Most people spend weeks preparing their applications, agonizing over whether their resume looked better in eleven or eleven-point-five size font. Jonah didn’t even have to pay for the cost of a stamp.

After a quick meeting with his supervising partner, Jonah went back to his office, poured a large cup of hot coffee on his treasured office chair, thereby ruining it for eternity, and took the rest of the day off. He’d have to spend most of the next few days packing up his office and his life – there was a good deal of overlap between the two – but this afternoon was for the past, not the future.

************

“I have some news,” Jonah said, softly, picking at some grass under his feet. He was still wearing his suit. Sitting on the grass would probably leave some stains on his pants, but he didn’t care. It was the kind of thing he used to care about, but not anymore.

“It’s a great opportunity.” Jonah felt like he was letting him down, even though he knew that was impossible. He could never let him down. Not then, and especially not now.

“I think Daisy will love it too.” He cleared a little brush off of the front of the stone, frustrated that the caretakers were so lax in their duties lately. Although Jonah imagined that the job was relatively thankless – the residents were notoriously tightlipped – someone had to do it, and if you decided that person should be you, then you should do the job well. The residents might not know the difference, but the visitors do.

After the attacks, the responsibility fell to Jonah to make all the necessary “arrangements,” as if organizing a funeral was a simple business transaction. Of course, Peter had not made any arrangements himself – even if he had lived till an age when arrangements were the norm and not the exception, Peter wouldn’t have done so – and Peter’s parents were too distraught to be much help. So for several days after the attacks, while the rest of the world was glued to their television sets, consoling themselves with empty words of ignorant politicians, Jonah was scoping out cemeteries in the DC-metropolitan area. He finally settled on one a few miles outside of DC in Northern Virginia, within walking distance to the Metro (Peter would not have wanted to be very far from the city, nor would he have wanted to spend eternity in Maryland), but remote enough so that neighborhood vandals wouldn’t be tempted to declare their love for each other on the tombstones.

The casket and stone decision was slightly more difficult. Peter was both simple and extravagant at the same time, the only difference being his attention span for a certain type of product. He would buy an inordinately expensive talking garbage can, but at the same time he only owned two pairs of shoes, because, for some reason Jonah was never able to get out of him, he hated having his feet measured at shoe stores. Jonah finally settled on a mid-level casket and top-of-the-line tombstone. It made sense, really. Only a handful of people would ever see the casket, but the stone was a long-term investment.

Peter’s parents flew in for a few days, and made life as difficult for Jonah as they possibly could. They didn’t intend to, of course; they had always liked Jonah, and Jonah had liked them. But they had just lost their only son, and even when they were fully functional they were barely able to keep themselves together. Jonah wondered how they had managed to raise three children without a plan, a steady paycheck, or a clue. Somehow, though, it worked, even if it meant that they could barely afford the plane tickets to their son’s funeral.

But in any event, Jonah didn’t mind handling – and paying for – everything himself. When all the arrangements were done, there was nothing let to do but mourn, and there would be plenty of time for that in the days and years to come. Some people procrastinate on projects and deadlines, but the smart ones procrastinate on pain.

“Your mother called me last week.” She called at least once a week, just to check in. And unlike Jonah’s own mother – for whom “checking in” meant more questions like, “have you paid back your law school loans yet” and “when are you getting married? Yes, I know you’re gay, but gay people get married too, in some countries at least” – Peter’s mother really was just checking in. They wouldn’t talk about anything too serious, the weather, movies they had recently seen, how home-made vodka was actually superior to store-bought – but the subtext was always there. Peter was always there. Jonah suspected that if Peter’s mother didn’t check in once in a while, she might check out altogether.

As usual, though, Peter didn’t want to talk about his parents. It was too hard, and there was too much silence to fill. So Jonah moved on.

“My father threw his back out.” That happened at least twice a month. “And my mother’s colitis is acting up again.” That happened at least three times a month. “Oh, you should have seen the birthday gift she sent to Daisy, I swear, it had to be more expensive than the one she bought for me last year. I think she might be giving up on grandkids at this point, so I guess all that extra money has to go somewhere.”

An elderly woman walked by, dressed in black, leaning on a wooden cane. She nodded in Jonah’s direction, and hobbled on. Jonah wondered for a moment who she was mourning, or considering her advanced age, who she wasn’t mourning.

“I know Peter wasn’t a particularly religious person,” the minister had said during the graveside eulogy. Of course, the minister didn’t know anything of the kind – he had asked Jonah some questions before the ceremony a few minutes before the ceremony, to “get a fuller picture of who Peter was,” while he sipped a steaming coffee and surveyed the crowd.

“Did he believe in Jesus?”

“No,” Jonah replied, but quickly corrected himself. “At least, I don’t think he did.”

“I see,” the minister replied, blowing his nose into a used napkin. “But he believed in God?”

“I don’t know.” It was true. Peter didn’t like to talk about those kinds of things. Too serious, too uncertain, too irrelevant.

The tenor of the conversation with the minister (who was chosen simply on account of his availability) left Jonah uncomfortable. Would the minister make inappropriate comments, or would he refuse to deliver a proper eulogy, because Peter did not accept the body and blood of Jesus Christ? Jonah had simply trusted in the professionalism of clergymen, but blind faith is often undermined by cold reality.

“But whatever he believed, it doesn’t matter anymore.” Why, Jonah wondered. Because he’s in hell right now? Because he was a soulless, godless, homosexual sinner? Because half of his body is still fifty feet under the Potomac, where it belongs?

“Because he is at peace.”

Jonah would have given the minister an extra tip, if he thought that kind of thing was proper.

A tree next to Peter’s tombstone was beginning to sprout a few leaves. It was only late February, but the past week had been unseasonably warm, so the tree was fooled into thinking it was already Spring. Soon enough, the weather would turn back, and the tree would suffer for its optimism. But for a brief moment, it would flourish, and be reborn.

Jonah glanced at the stones next to Peter’s, both of which were marked by large marble crosses. The woman to Peter’s left had lived until seventy-eight. The man to Peter’s right had lived till ninety-three. Peter brought the median age of the neighborhood down considerably. Jonah pictured the three of them sharing a cocktail and a cigarette, six feet under. If anyone could make decomposition fun, it was Peter.

“I’ll visit as often as I can.” Jonah had spoiled Peter with attention over the previous four years. He spent all major holidays, and most minor ones, sitting in that spot, along with at least two or three Sundays a month. In the beginning, he would bring a friend or two to help pass the time, but Jonah quickly realized that he didn’t need, or want, anyone else there. Except sometimes he brought Daisy, which Peter really enjoyed, even though he had only known her for a few days while he was alive. Jonah would have brought her to visit more often, but dogs aren’t allowed on the Metro, and he was certain one of these times the Metro police would realize that Daisy was not actually a guide dog for the blind.

And anyway, even having Daisy around got in the way of his visits. Most of the time, Jonah spent the visit recounting his day, picking a weed or two that had grown over the stone, always cognizant of the fact that he was, in reality, talking to the emptiness between the blades of grass. But once in a while, Jonah lost himself there among the blades, and he briefly occupied a world that was more than just sore backs and colitis, eighteen-hour days and jealous colleagues. It was a world he had only known for a moment, at least in the grand scheme of things, but in that moment he had lived with both eyes open, instead of one always on the clock. 

Jonah’s cell phone rang, jostling him back into the present tense. It was his supervising partner, probably wondering where he ran off to after their meeting. Jonah stood up and brushed some dirt off his pants, ready once again to keep one eye on the clock. Before leaving, he placed a few rocks on the tombstone, adding to the pile that he had left during previous visits. He was the only one who ever added to the pile. They never seemed to blow away, even in a storm, even the pebbles.

Jonah leaned down, and ran his finger up and down Peter’s name. Beloved son, grandson, brother, and friend. Beloved protector. How many people had Peter tried to save on his subway car, before the smoke became too thick to breathe?

“I just think it’s something I should do.”

I love you.

“It’s something I need to do.”

But I’m not ready to join you.

*******

And so, six days later – six conflicted, “am I making the right choice?” and “what if X, what if Y” days later – Jonah found himself lying in his fifth-floor walk-up with exposed brick walls looming above him, and drunk frat boys looming below. The dream left him unnerved, as usual. Just one time he wanted Peter to stay home that December evening. Just once he didn’t want to be helpless. Then he could give up the dream. Then he’d never need to dream again.
Jonah got out of bed and opened his shades. He looked into the street, onto an increasingly familiar dialogue.

“Hey bro, wanna hit an after-hours party?”

“I can’t dude, I got work in an hour.” The diligent working frat boy then promptly puked into a well-placed pile of trash in front of Jonah’s building.

Jonah pulled the shades closed again, determined not to allow the inebriated, yet vaguely attractive, frat boys distract him from following his new morning routine. In fact, his new morning routine wasn’t much different from his old morning routine, except he didn’t spend twenty minutes standing in front of a mirror, trying to screw up enough courage to face another day of meaningless responsibilities. For now, at least, dread had been replaced by something else. Not excitement, exactly – a true lawyer is rarely excited about work, thought they often lie and say they are – but nervous anticipation.

After dressing, shaving, and combing his hair for the sixteenth time, Jonah realized he was running thirty minutes early. It was a habit he had never quite kicked, and one he didn’t particularly want to lose. So by the time Laura arrived at his apartment – they decided to institute a morning coffee tradition – Jonah was already on his third cup.

“You look so professional.” It was quite possible that Jonah’s sister had never actually seen him in a formal suit before. Or at least, not since his Bar Mitzvah fifteen years earlier, and Jonah imagined he didn’t look very professional in that. Cute, maybe, but not professional.

In the two hours since he woke up, the drunk frat boys and winos had handed Second Avenue over to the suit and tie set (though there was some overlap between the groups). The local Starbucks – as in, the closest Starbucks in a two-block radius – was filled with men and women rushing to work, none of whom had time to hold the door open, say excuse me, or indeed, obey any laws of etiquette. Jonah had to throw a few elbows just to get a Mochafrappucino. Only the first in many elbows that must be thrown on a typical Manhattan day.

“Did you talk to mom yesterday?”

“Four times,” Jonah replied, in between sips of his excessively hot beverage. Everything in New York has to be excessively something. “Eleven, two, six-thirty, and ten o’clock.” Ever since Jonah’s mom had gotten a cell phone the calls had increased exponentially. Apparently, there was a downside to unlimited nights and weekends.

“Yeah, she’s been hounding me too. She basically threatened to commit suicide unless we go out there for dinner this weekend.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

Jonah watched the customers hurry into the store and back out to the street at a dizzying pace, as if their lives depended on making the 8:32AM subway, instead of the 8:33. He noticed a stray string hanging from his jacket sleeve. He pulled on it, which of course only made it worse. The more he pulled at it, the longer it grew.

“Do you have any scissors?”

Laura handed him a pair of cuticle scissors, which he immediately put to good use, and deposited the extraneous string in his empty coffee cup.

“Hey, what was the name of that judge you’re working for again?”

“Mentrose. Campbell Mentrose.”

Jonah noticed more than a few attractive yuppie types rushing by outside the window. He hadn’t dated since Peter died, and didn’t have any plans to start now. But the brain and the body often receive conflicting signals, and occasionally the latter wins out.

“I thought so,” Laura said, taking a newspaper out of her bag. “Your judge has been assigned to the Salaam case.”

Laura handed Jonah a copy of the Daily News. The front page of the paper featured a large split-frame picture; on the left side was a notorious basketball coach who had driven the beloved Knicks into the ground, and on the right side was Salaam. Under the split-frame was the caption, “Who Do You Hate More? New Yorkers React To Pure Evil.”

The story, continued on the following page, recounted the procedural history of the case (in layperson’s terms, of course – this was the Daily News), including a brief recap of Judge Glassman’s murder the previous week (still unsolved, but widely attributed to Salaam’s followers), and the salacious facts surrounding the previous judge’s recusal.

“Is the Salaam case cursed?” the article wondered aloud. “New Yorkers – and, indeed, the world – now waits with baited breath to see whether a similar fate befalls Judge Mentrose.” As if Jonah’s new employer was already a marked man.

There was also a short editorial bemoaning the selection of Judge Mentrose as the presiding judge in the case.

“Of course, the selection of federal judges is done by a lottery system, but the terrorists couldn’t have asked for a better outcome in this case,” the editor wrote, spittle almost jumping off the page. “Judge Mentrose, a Clinton appointee, is a notorious proponent of criminal rights,” hard-liners often use the words “criminal” and “defendant” interchangeably, “and you can almost hear the wheels of justice grinding to a halt at the court today, only inches from where so many lives ground to a halt six years ago.”

In the flurry of activity, Jonah had completely missed the news. It was a rare lapse, and Jonah was now paying for it through an intense tightening of his bowels.

“Wow,” Laura said, putting the paper back in her bag and gathering her things. “That’s great. Though a little scary, you know? After what happened to the last guy?”

Needless worrying, Jonah thought. But he didn’t say it. Maybe he didn’t believe it himself.

“Honey, do you want to lose that finger?”

Jonah looked down at his hand, and realized that he had been tying the piece of string that he come off his jacket around his finger for the past several minutes. The finger was beginning to show signs of trauma. Jonah immediately unraveled the string and put it back in his coffee cup.

Laura and Jonah parted ways at the 86th Street subway station. She was going further uptown, to help people who had recently been released from prison, while Jonah was going downtown, to help put them there.

Jonah squeezed himself onto the next excessively crowded subway, inhaling deeply and contorting his body in circus-freak like positions so that his face came within half an inch of the metal bar hanging down over his head. The woman sitting in front of him gave an annoyed grunt when he inadvertently but necessarily jammed his bag into her chest, and a baby carriage behind him was violently jostled when the man next to Jonah realized he almost missed his stop and bolted for the closing doors. It’s every man, woman, and infant for himself in the urban jungle, Jonah thought. No one forces you to live here. There’s plenty of room to breathe in West Virginia.

It seemed that everyone around Jonah had a copy of the Daily News, with Salaam’s face (and the face of the disgruntled basketball star) staring through him as they hurtled downtown at a seemingly dangerous speed. His bowels still had not unclenched since the coffee shop, though it was unclear at this point whether the continued tightness was due to the news, or to the inhumane conditions of the subway car. Either way, he’d be glad when the trip was over. One down, only several hundred to go.

About half the subway exited at Grand Central Station, along with half of the staring Salaams. Jonah relaxed a bit, and was even able to find a few inches of space to sit toward the end of the car. But then he noticed a man sitting across from him, and the anxiety flooded back. The man was dressed in a baggy sweatshirt and jeans, and he was carrying a small backpack. He sat quietly staring into space, no different from the dozens of other passengers surrounding him. There was nothing threatening about the man, except the color of his skin. Not dark enough to be black, not light enough to be white. And he wasn’t Latino, or Asian, or a Pacific Islander. No, Jonah knew well enough where this man was from, because men who looked just like him had been captured on Afghani battlefields, or in Iraqi safehouses, or Miami condominiums. Men who looked just like him had been featured on cable news networks, in tabloids and during emergency announcements from the White House. Men who looked just like him had strapped bombs to their bodies and blasted themselves into pieces. Men who looked just like him had murdered Peter, on his way to a boring Senate function, minding his own business, not planning for the rest of his life and not knowing his life was about to end.

And now, the fate of one particular man who looked just like him was, at least partially, in Jonah’s hands.

Of course, the man sitting across from Jonah did not look just like Salaam, any more than Jonah looked just like any other white guy on the number four train.  Even as Jonah silently indicted an innocent man for an imaginable crime, his ACLU membership card burned in his pocket.  And for a moment, he tried to look at the man without preconceptions, without the past, with fresh eyes.  But the eyes looking back at him were only Salaam's.

Jonah moved nervously in his seat, while the man fidgeted with something inside his backpack. Probably on his way to work, Jonah thought. Maybe his family was still back home, and he was sending them weekly checks to ensure his children’s future. Or maybe he grew up in this country, and could trace his roots back far further than Jonah could trace his own. And maybe this man, like Peter, would have struggled to his last breath to save as many people as he could.

Or maybe the bag had a bomb, and any second this man would press a button strategically located underneath his sweatshirt, and Jonah and all his fellow passengers would be buried in half a casket. 

Jonah got off at the next stop, for reasons no one would ever know but him.  Besides, the next subway would be along soon enough, and better safe than sorry.