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Maple’s bad night left him shaken, struggling to grasp how the strings of his life put him on an interstate overpass, firing RPGs at unsuspecting victims. He wrestled with whether he was feeling guilt or simply wanted to rid himself of the night’s gross images. The maturing cornfields of Indiana rolled by pleasantly, but failed to blot out his dark thoughts and dreadful flashbacks. Stickman offered no distracting conversation, sipping a large coffee as he searched his smartphone.
“These reports say the coppers threw up tons of checkpoints last night. That explains why we haven’t seen more activity this morning. Meanwhile, we got a good night’s sleep.”
Maple wasn’t about to reveal his horror show, but needed to talk about more than the news of the day, even if it was about them.
“How you feeling today, Mr. Stick?” he ventured. “Feel like we accomplished anything?”
“Time will tell. What I do know is that things need to change in this country.”
“We haven’t had that talk in a long time, not really. Maybe not since the al-Qaeda training camp.”
Stickman said nothing.
“When I think back I’m not really sure why I got there.”
Stickman took a deep sip of the cooling coffee. “I’m surprised. I remember a kid who was very angry at the IRS for screwing over his father and almost as pissed at the lawyers who took pop’s money with no intention of helping. There were some other things, too, but I think the worst was how everyone turned on Muslim friends after 9/11. Islamophobia reigned.”
“You’re right. I was angry, and feeling frustrated and worthless that I couldn’t go to college. I felt like my life was stuck on the sidelines. Everything seemed irrelevant. I remember raging how churches were preaching salvation instead of helping kids deal with getting laid, or not.”
“That’s not what churches do, unfortunately, then or now. Unless you’re a priest with a hard-on. I never asked for the asshole to move on me, but I still felt humiliated.”
They went silent as the miles slipped by and with them some of Maple’s tension. He started to feel better, remembering those earlier years, even if the memories were a mixed bag. His anger as a young man may have been immature, an excuse for not shaking off failures and disappointments. But the anger and disappointment were real. So was his gratitude for the help given by Muslim friends. After the discrimination he had witnessed in the U.S., and keenly felt as a neophyte to Islam, hooking up with their relatives in London was welcome. Sampling a different culture fed a hunger he didn’t know he had. He eagerly grabbed the chance to visit Afghanistan.
Stickman must have been entertaining similar memories. “I was angry, too. Angry over my favorite uncle getting screwed by the military. Angry at the cop who rang my bell. Worse than being put down for months was the cops’ stonewalling, not giving me any satisfaction. But none of that was near as ugly as what I saw the U.S. do in Afghanistan. The so-called collateral damage from our air raids and the rapes by our troops and contractors and people shot without justification. That wasn’t collateral at all. And hardly anyone got arrested.”
Stickman talked faster and faster, agitation growing as his perception of his country’s sins rolled out. Maple could hear, he was almost certain, an echo of their whispered talks in the al-Qaeda training camp.
“ ... what made it worse,” Stickman rushed on, “was that the wonderful U.S. was there for the most cynical reasons. Protecting our precious living standard by grabbing oil, whatever. Propping up tin-horn regimes. Justifying our grabs by piously insisting we spread democracy. Never mind most people in this sorry world don’t have time to give a shit about democracy when they’re trying to feed their starving kids. We are fucking Grade A bully! Bully!”
He took a deep breath and Maple gave thanks. Please God, don’t let there be a roadblock right now, Maple thought with surprising seriousness. He searched for a way to reclaim the conversation.
Stickman saved him the trouble. “You asked me if we accomplished anything,” he said, voice still hard. ”I don’t know. I just know things are getting worse in this country. This government has to go. Destroy people’s sense of security and it will happen.”
He hit the radio’s power button, sharper than necessary. The commanding voice of a talk-radio host filled the cab.
Al-Qaeda? Islamic State? Homegrown terrorists? Who knows. These killers no doubt have their reasons, reasons that have their total commitment. There could be a huge number of reasons, and you can bet they are mixed with a huge dollop of moral outrage. But make the serving size as big as you can imagine, that still won’t change my bottom line: These horrible attacks are senseless. Slaughtering helpless commuters and before that, shoppers enjoying themselves at an iconic mall. I’m here to tell you the people carrying out this mayhem don’t know how sick their reasons are or how sick they are.