LUCKY MAN
At the end of the lecture as Stephanie was stuffing her notes back into her briefcase, Reina Nordstrom, one of her graduate students, came up, leading a thin boy with bad skin and oily black hair that hung in lank bangs over his face.
“Dr. Parrish, this is Tommy, the friend I told you about.”
Stephanie looked up. “Hi, Tommy.” He looked about as you’d expect, she thought. “Reina told you what I need?”
He didn’t meet her eyes but flipped his hair with a practiced jerk and nodded while focusing somewhere just over her right shoulder.
“Just need a picture.”
“It needs to look real,” Stephanie said.
“It will be real. My friend works for the DMV. It’ll look exactly like any other license.” There was a ring of professional pride in his voice. “When you take the picture, go to Kinko’s or something and get a passport photo on white background. I can change the background color but it looks bad if you don’t start clean.”
“Okay, I’ll get it to Reina tomorrow. How much is this going to cost?”
“Five hundred.” He was looking down at her feet, the hair once more flopped over his eyes. She was sure he wasn’t charging the high school kids that. She wondered how many people had died in car accidents caused by alcohol his work had made available. She nodded.
“All right. I’ll give her the cash, as well.” He seemed to inflate as she accepted the price. “Thank you, Tommy. Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, no problem.” A final bang flip and he turned for the door. Reina gave Stephanie an apologetic smile over her shoulder. Stephanie shook her head and smiled back. No more than she expected.
* * *
It was like being buried alive. It was impossible to move. His shoulders were turned and his hips were pressed against the back of the crate. He was breathing shallowly through his mouth because when he breathed through his nose the smell made him gag. Air was getting in—if it wasn’t they all would have been dead already—but the thick smell of sweat and the rotting teeth of his coffin mates was unbearable. Jordan tried to take his mind away. He’d taken a couple meditation classes at the Y a lifetime ago, and while he’d decided it was all a little too flaky for him, he did remember the sense of timelessness the practice had given him. He could feel his heart beating and he concentrated on slowing and controlling its rhythm.
The two men at the far end of the crate were murmuring quietly. Jordan couldn’t tell if they were talking to each other or praying, though he suspected the latter as there seemed to be none of the natural give and take of dialogue. Suddenly the crate lurched. Jordan’s head slammed against the wood before he could brace with his arms. They were moving. The truck must be heading for the ferry. The murmur from his left paused for just a second and recommenced. There was a regular side-to-side sway as the truck drove. Turning was worse. At first Jordan tried to lean back against it, instinctively fighting to keep the crate from falling over, but soon he saw the futility in that effort and surrendered to the buffeting forces.
Then, with a lurch, the truck stopped. There was a muffled sound from outside and then a sharp crack and a shard of light as a crowbar burst in just above Jordan’s head. With a few quick pulls the side of the crate was ripped open and Jordan was blinded by four or five flashlights. He turned his head and raised one arm to protect his face. Someone grabbed his bad hand, making him cry out in pain. He was pulled roughly out of the box. His legs were unable to support him at first and he stumbled but several hands grabbed him and pulled him to his feet. He looked back at the crate and saw the four men inside yelling in confusion as several figures he couldn’t make out shone lights in their faces and pushed them back in. Within seconds the side was back up and nailed into place. Jordan still heard the muffled voices of the men inside.
There wasn’t time to think. He was pulled roughly out of the truck and watched it drive away as he was hustled into the back of a rusted-out black Citroën. The driver was a man in his midthirties, full beard and intense, glowering eyes that constantly flashed to the rearview mirror to look at his passenger. He snarled something in Pashto and drove on, headlights catching the trees, dangerously close on either side of the unpaved single-lane road. Jordan was pretty sure he was going to be killed. He would give them one hell of a fight, though. He wasn’t afraid. Which was funny; he realized now he’d always been afraid. Afraid of losing something or missing something, but now, probably as close to death as he’d ever been, he felt nothing, no fear at all, just a mild impatience, a desire to get on with it.
With a skid of tires on gravel the car stopped in a little pullout. Several men came out of the woods and surrounded it, scanning the area. The lights switched off. The door opened and Jordan heard Feda’s voice with a mixture of confusion and relief.
“Come quickly, Mr. Jordan, change of plans.” Jordan climbed awkwardly out of the backseat. Feda was there and took his hand.
“Quickly.”
He led him through the trees to another dirt road. There was a small tan Renault idling on the shoulder with an older white woman in a green sweater and little round glasses standing next to it. She smiled at him. “Ça va, Monsieur Jordan?”
French, looked like someone’s granny, but she had a jaw like a bulldog. She offered a hand and he took it with his uninjured left. Thin skin, prominent veins but a firm grip and calloused palms.
“This is Maman,” Feda said. “That’s what everyone calls her. She is going to take you through the tunnel. There is a train. The man who was killed, Azir, one of his brothers was in the crate with you. They were going to kill you. A man was bragging about it and my father heard about it. No one will find out you are not in that crate until they open it in Dover.” He smiled, seeming to relish the image.
“You can trust Maman.”
Maman opened the trunk of her car and pulled up the carpet to reveal a hidden compartment cut into the backseat. Jordan looked at the tight faces of the men and nodded. He gingerly squeezed his body into the space. He was lying on his right side with his knees pulled halfway to his chest. The compartment was padded with old blankets and seemed comfortable enough. He craned his head around and found Feda’s eyes.
“Thank you,” he said.
“I think you are a very lucky man, Mr. Jordan,” the boy said. Then the carpet was pulled over him and it was dark.
A moment later he heard the car start and saw that there was a slit along the side of the seat back right at his eye level. He caught a glimpse of Maman in the rearview mirror before the interior light went out. Her mouth was set. He strained but all he could see was the odd flash of white as a tree caught the headlights and the green glow from the speedometer.
After a few minutes the ride became smoother as the car turned onto a paved road.
Streetlights swept the car’s faded interior. Jordan blinked to focus. Maman switched on the radio, syrupy strings and a French crooner. She smiled and her eyes twinkled with some happy, distant memory.