THE MAN ON THE JETTY

by Murat Isik

Bijlmer

Some call us Amsterdam’s deplorables. Others claim there are only junkies and dealers left in the Bijlmer, our neighborhood. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, though it’s true that we live in a godforsaken part of town mainly inhabited by those who can’t find anywhere else to settle. It’s also true that the storage rooms in the Bijlmer’s apartment buildings’ basements have devolved into the exclusive domain of the city’s addicts.

Saleem and I knew we had to watch out, not just for the junkies, but especially for those lost souls who might loom up from out of nowhere and surround us. So we were on our guard the moment we set foot in the stairwells, and we stayed alert as we slipped through the narrow streets after dark. And ever since a guy whipped out his dick in the elevator and scared the shit out of me, I knew I had to get out of the Bijlmer, the sooner the better.

* * *

One day, Saleem and I were on our way home. His uncle was visiting, and he’d brought with him a wrestling video featuring our hero, the Ultimate Warrior. As we chattered excitedly about the mythical man with the painted face who’d stolen our hearts, I spotted something in the distance I’d never seen before: an object shimmering like mercury streaked along the bike path, like Marvel’s Silver Surfer cruising from planet to planet on his cosmic surfboard. When I looked more closely, I realized to my disappointment that it was just an ordinary mortal on a racing bike. He approached us at dizzying speed, and—with his mirrored sunglasses, Spandex shirt and shorts, and futuristic bicycle—he was the closest thing to a professional cyclist the Bijlmer had ever seen. When he was thirty yards off, he began to slow down. He braked to a stop beside us and looked us up and down inquisitively. “Hey, boys,” he said, his tone friendly. “I saw you walking and thought, I bet those kids can help me.”

He removed his shades, and I stiffened at the sight of his eyes. Those steel-blue eyes. It was him! This was the same guy who, a few months earlier, breathing heavily and staring at me full of sick desire, had pulled his prick from his pants in the elevator. Did he recognize me too? I looked around, trying to decide which way we should run.

“I think I’m lost,” he said, smiling.

You are definitely lost, I thought. I elbowed Saleem, telling him without words to keep walking, but he just stood there, not taking the hint.

“Where you trying to get, mister?” asked Saleem politely.

The man eyed us, grinning. Anyone who saw him would have taken his expression as sympathetic, filled with warmth and humanity. But I knew the dark desires that hid behind it.

“I’m looking for the Hoogoord Apartments, but these buildings all look the same.” He began rubbing his upper thigh. And then I saw it: he had a huge boner, though he was totally casual about it, like it was built into his bike clothes and he always pedaled around the city that way. We had to get out of there. We had to get out of there right away! I poked Saleem again, harder. Pretty soon the guy would recognize me, and then he’d grab for me or . . .

“Hoogoord?” asked Saleem.

The man nodded patiently, and his grin broadened as my friend spoke.

“It’s in the Bullewijk,” said Saleem.

“Is that far from here?” the man asked sweetly, but I could tell he was faking, just waiting for the right moment to pounce. His hand slid to the inside of his leg, as if he wanted to call our attention to his wiener.

But Saleem was oblivious. “Not so far, not with a bike like that.”

I shoved him so hard he almost fell down.

“What’s your problem?” he demanded. “Why are you pushing me?”

I fought to keep my voice from trembling. “We have to go,” I said, loudly and clearly. “Your uncle . . . he’s waiting for us.”

The man looked right at me now, and it was as if an icy hand crept under my shirt and slid up my back.

“Metin, would you let me tell the man how to get to Hoogoord, please?” said Saleem, his voice overly articulate, as if to prove he wasn’t just some street rat. “My uncle can wait an extra minute.”

I pulled him close, put my mouth to his ear, and whispered, “He’s the guy I told you about, from the elevator!”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded, and said through clenched teeth, “Look at his shorts, dammit!”

And Saleem’s gaze finally dropped to the guy’s woody, still big as ever, probably stimulated by our innocence. Saleem’s breath quickened. “Shit,” he muttered, “we gotta get out of here.”

“I’ll go first,” I whispered. “You follow me.”

The man looked like he was about to dismount from his bike. “Something wrong, boys?”

“No,” I said flatly. “We have to go.”

“Yeah, we have to go,” repeated Saleem, his voice shaking. “And you”—for a second I worried my friend was about to panic—“you want to go that way.” He pointed back in the direction from which we’d come.

“That way?” the man asked.

I was sick with tension.

“Yeah, yeah,” Saleem stammered. He leaned into me and whispered, “Should we run?”

“Wait,” I said, though I didn’t know what we were waiting for. Maybe I didn’t want to throw the situation off balance. Maybe I was afraid the guy would lunge for us if we freaked out. “Just take it slow,” I said, barely audibly, and started off for Saleem’s building. “Come on,” I said, loudly now, “your uncle’s waiting for us.”

Saleem eyed the man nervously. “Sorry, mister, we gotta go.” But he stayed where he was, as if he needed the man’s permission to give up his role of helpful guide to the Bijlmer.

“Hey, fellas, what’s your problem?” The man suddenly grinned again. “You never seen a cock before?” He picked it up with his free hand, like he wanted to show us it was in good working order. “It’s a penis. Your daddy’s got one just like it. There’s nothing wrong with a penis, is there?”

Saleem took off, running like I’d never seen him run before. I set off after him, yet I could barely keep up.

“Hey, wait!” the man called after us. “You’re not upset, are you?” Next thing I knew, he was biking alongside me, totally relaxed, like he was cheering on a marathoner. “Boys, why are you running away?”

“Leave us alone!” Saleem shouted. “Leave us alone, you pervert!”

“What did I do wrong?” the man said. “I was just asking for directions.”

I sprinted as fast as I could go, but he stayed right beside me on his bike. “Hey, you look familiar, kid.” He stared at me intently. “Didn’t we share a pleasant moment in the elevator?” I tried to go faster. “Yeah, you’re the kid from the elevator!” His breathing suddenly grew heavier. “And now you’re running away.” He raised a hand. “Come on, kid, can’t we just talk for a minute? I’ve got a Nintendo at home with like a hundred games.”

I rocketed after Saleem, caught up to him, and passed him. I ran like a horde of hungry, hungry hippos were at my heels. I ran for my life. After maybe ten seconds, never slackening my pace, I risked a glance behind me, just at the moment the man gave up the chase. He braked to a stop and set off in the opposite direction, as if he’d decided at last to follow Saleem’s instructions.

I stopped running and bent over, gasping, my hands on my knees.

“What are you stopping for?” Saleem demanded.

“Gone . . . he’s gone.”

We walked on quickly, hearts pounding, looking back every couple of steps.

“We have to call the cops,” I said.

“First let’s tell my uncle,” said Saleem decisively.

Soon we arrived at Saleem’s building.

“I’ll call up and ask him to meet us when we get off the elevator.”

I wasn’t used to Saleem taking the lead—I was always the one who made the decisions in our friendship—but the role suited him surprisingly well. Saleem thumbed the intercom button longer than usual, then shouted that Uncle Imran should wait for us upstairs at the elevator door.

As we stepped into the car, I worried that the man might rush in behind us and pick up where he’d left off.

“Were you afraid?” asked Saleem, as the elevator finally jerked upward.

“No,” I lied.

The car came to a stop, and the door was ripped open. A giant with his head shaved bald stared in at us.

“Uncle Imran,” Saleem cried, “I am so happy to see you!”

His bulk filled the entire doorway, and his broad shoulders and huge forearms were those of a man who had been blessed with extraordinary strength. If I hadn’t known he was Saleem’s uncle, I would have shrunk back against the elevator wall.

“What has happened, Saleem?” His voice was youthful and soft, in contrast with his intimidating appearance. “Did someone hit you?”

“No, not that.”

“Then what?”

“There was a man . . . he showed us . . .”

“Showed you what? Just say it, Saleem!”

“He showed us his thing.”

“His thing?”

Saleem nodded.

“What else did he do?”

“He . . .” Saleem fell silent for a moment, and I wondered if I should take over the telling of the tale. Maybe Saleem didn’t dare bring up this sort of thing in front of his uncle. “He was touching it. And when we ran away, he followed us.”

“Where? Where is the bastard now?” There was rage in Imran’s voice. Rage and a determination to take revenge.

“He rode off on his bike.”

“Where to?”

“Toward Hoogoord,” said Saleem. “He was lost.”

The elevator car shuddered when Imran stepped inside. “We’ll find him.”

Imran must have been at least six foot three, and with his apelike hands he looked like a laborer who spent his working hours hauling blocks of granite. Saleem had told me he worked in a garage. He played cricket like every Pakistani man, but he also boxed, and he was a star in both sports. One day he’d knocked out his sparring partner even though the other man was wearing a helmet. Since then, no one would spar with him anymore.

“Take me to the place where you last saw him,” he said. “I’ll teach him a lesson.”

Saleem looked at me gleefully, but for some reason I felt uncomfortable. What would happen to the man if Imran found him? He wouldn’t just politely ask the guy to give up his dubious hobby. No, he’d probably feed him a knuckle sandwich.

“Which way?” asked Imran when we got out of the elevator. Saleem led the way, walking quickly. We passed a group of black boys who stared at us in awe. “What you looking at?” snarled Imran, and they immediately turned away.

We approached the path where Saleem and I had sprinted at least three hundred yards. “He followed us on his bike all this way,” said Saleem.

Imran laid a hand on my friend’s shoulder. “Listen, you point him out to me the second you see him. Don’t be afraid, he can’t hurt you now.”

But strangely enough, I wasn’t worried about the man on the bicycle anymore. I was worried about Imran, about what he would do to the man. I summoned all my courage and asked, “Uh, what are you going to do when you find him?”

Imran snorted. “Like I said, teach him a lesson.”

The way he pronounced the word lesson, his dark eyes flashing with determination, I knew it had to mean something painful, something accompanied by screams and desperate pleas. I flashed back to the gangster movies I’d seen, where things never ended well for people who were taught a lesson.

“But,” I said hesitantly, “shouldn’t we just call the cops?”

“The cops?” Imran guffawed. “No, we definitely should not call the cops.”

Encouraged by his laughter, I dared to ask: “Why not?”

He shook his head and spoke to Saleem in Urdu. From his tone, I gathered that his words meant something along the lines of: What are you doing mixed up with a sissy like this?

Imran gave me a penetrating look. “Listen, boy, the police don’t do anything but write reports. That’s all they’re good for.” He tugged at his beard as if he wasn’t completely satisfied with his explanation. “In Pakistan, the cops would beat the shit out of a bastard like this guy. Then he’d never do such a thing again.” He pounded his palm with his massive fist to emphasize the thoroughness of the Pakistani police. “But the Dutch cops will sit the guy down, give him a cup of coffee and a slice of cake, and talk the situation over with him, ask him why he did it, explain the rules, tell him little boys are fragile creatures, that sort of bullshit. And then the dirty pervert gives them an understanding nod, and they offer him a ride home. But I’m telling you: you don’t solve a sickness like this with polite conversation.” He snorted, probably with revulsion and not just because he had something stuck between his throat and his nose. “If I’ve learned anything these last years in Holland, it’s that you don’t trust family matters to the cops. Let them write their traffic tickets and sit behind their desks scratching their fat asses until it’s time to clock out for the day.”

“Uncle Imran,” Saleem said suddenly, “the same man frightened Metin in the elevator.”

“The same man? In your building? The goddamn shitbag!”

“He asked Metin if he’d ever seen a grown-up’s penis,” said Saleem, suddenly without shame. “And then he showed it to him.”

“The bastard!” snarled Imran. “And next time it’ll be you in the elevator with him, or your little brother.” A new sort of rage welled up in him. “Fucking hell, man! This is too much, this bloody pedophile has gone too far!”

As we walked on, Imran appeared more determined than ever. He was terrifying me.

After a while, Saleem said, “Here! This is where he talked to us.”

Imran examined the place as if there might still be traces of the man to be found. He scouted the area like a detective investigating a case. Then he crouched down and pulled a loose brick from the pavement. “Let’s go on,” he said, the brick clutched in his hand.

Two hundred yards farther, I almost choked with shock. The man we were looking for was sitting on a bench on a jetty overgrown with weeds, gazing out at the canal. His racing bike was leaning against the bench. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What was he still doing here? Why wasn’t he long gone? Why would he take such a risk?

One leg crossed casually over the other, he sipped from a clear plastic bottle. And as he sat there drinking peacefully, looking out at the water, apparently enjoying the afternoon sun, for a moment I couldn’t imagine there was anything really evil lurking within him. He was probably nothing more than an ordinary pencil pusher.

Saleem was a few yards out in front, and he hadn’t noticed the man through the high weeds. And though Imran was looking around alertly, he hadn’t yet seen him either.

What should I do? What else could I do but announce that I had spotted the guy we were searching for? Imran would make sure he never bothered us again. There’d be no reason for us to be afraid in our own neighborhood anymore. But what exactly would he do to the man? He’d said he would teach him a lesson, but did that mean just put the fear of God in him, or would he go further and work the guy over with his fists, like the Pakistani cops he had praised?

I hesitated and glanced at Imran, at the brick in his hand and the muscled arms that stretched the fabric of his tight black polo shirt. He walked clumsily for a boxer. He stomped his feet and looked more like a wrestler about to go on the attack.

What should I do? Saleem and his uncle had already gone past him. The man unfolded a paper sack and took out a piece of bread. He broke off a bit and tossed it into the canal. As the bread hit the water, a raft of ducks surrounded it with a great flapping of wings, but just before they got to it, a covert of greedy coots chased them off, their eyes red, their beaks sharp. The man was clearly enjoying the show, since he went on tossing bits of bread into the canal. Soon, a colony of seagulls joined the battle. The squawking and splashing got louder, swelled to a cacophony of sound. Saleem turned around to look, and his eyes slowly widened.

“That’s him!” he shouted. “Uncle Imran, there he is!”

Not asking if he was sure, Imran stepped from the pavement onto the strip of grass that bordered the canal. He marched heavily toward the jetty, began to run, like a warrior who’s suddenly recognized his enemy in the distance. He must have stepped on a pool of bird shit, because his legs flew out from under him and he lost his grip on his brick, which arced into the weeds. Imran’s huge body landed with such a loud thud that it attracted the attention of not only the man but also the coots and ducks and gulls. He hauled himself upright, roaring with anger. He brushed off his jeans, now spotted with greenish-brown stains, and, cursing, wiped the bird shit from his hands onto his pants. And then he set off again at top speed, aiming for the bicyclist. Like a gladiator confidently entering the arena for his final battle, he leaped onto the jetty, which creaked and wobbled beneath his weight, and flung himself at the man, who by now, shocked by Imran’s approach, had gotten to his feet and instinctively raised his hands.

Imran quickly grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and yanked him close. No one who might have witnessed such a scene would have expected the giant bald man to speak before punching his insignificant opponent’s lights out, yet that’s exactly what he did. Imran gestured wildly toward the two of us and demanded, “Why were you bothering these boys?” The question didn’t match his wrathful appearance. It was as if the gladiator had stopped himself at the last moment to make sure the figure who’d appeared out of the dust clouds of the Colosseum was in fact another gladiator and not some innocent deliveryman who’d accidentally stepped through an open doorway into the arena.

“Who, me?” the man mumbled.

“My nephew says you’ve been waving your dick in his and his friend’s faces.”

The man stared at us, astonished. “What? No! I—I only asked them for directions.”

Imran pulled him closer, and the man’s heels left the ground. He dangled on his tiptoes, like a doll. “Are you sure?” It wasn’t a question. It was a warning that threatened impending disaster, as if that hadn’t already been announced.

“I was lost! I swear, I was lost, I only asked the boys for help!”

Imran shook him violently. “Don’t lie to me, you bastard!”

“Let me go,” the man whined. “You’re hurting me. Let me go, I didn’t do anything!”

“You showed two little boys your fucking cock!” barked Imran. “And then you followed them, you pervert.”

The man tried to worm out of Imran’s grip, swatting ineffectually at the hand that held him tight. When that had no effect, he jerked away, screeching. His fluorescent bike shirt tore, and he fell backward, leaving Imran holding nothing but a scrap of fabric, glaring at it in confusion like he was doing an impression of King Kong. The man scrabbled away, trying to escape.

“You’re not going anywhere,” growled Imran. “I’m not finished with you.” He crouched down and grabbed the ripped shirt, but the man kept crab-walking backward, and the shirt tore off completely, leaving him naked from the waist up, flopping around on the jetty like a fish out of water, about to be gutted and fileted. Imran took hold of his wrist and hauled him to his feet as if he was weightless. The man struggled to get loose, pulling and hitting the hand that held him captive.

“Stop it!” Imran ordered, and he hit the man on the ear. “Stay still!”

But the man failed to obey, went on shrieking that Imran had to let him go.

Imran dealt a second blow to the bicyclist’s mouth with the back of his hand. The man cowered in Imran’s grip, his hands clapped over his lips, and then he seemed to go insane. He unleashed a fearsome cry, then sank his teeth into the hand that still held him and shook his head wildly, like a hungry caiman ripping the flesh of its prey in the brown waters of the Amazon.

It was weird to hear our mighty protector yelling like a wounded beast. His voice tormented, he snarled, “You’ll pay for that!” He balled his right hand into a fist and smashed it into the man’s left eye. There was the sound of bone cracking, and a hellish scream.

“My eye!” the man wailed. “My eye!”

At that moment, I felt an intense sense of pity for the man. I turned to Saleem, filled with concern, but he was hopping up and down, swinging his arms like a charged-up Roman citizen who’d spent the whole week looking forward to this battle and was now enjoying it to the max.

The man staggered, and only remained on his feet because Imran was holding him up. Suddenly Imran noticed that his hand was bleeding. He stared at it, unbelieving, his massive chest heaving. Then he returned his disgusted attention to the bicyclist and spat, “If you gave me AIDS, you fuck, I’ll kill you!”

Imran swiveled his torso and hip and let loose another right-handed wallop. This one caught the man full in the nose, and there came again the crunch of bone. The man sank to his knees.

We had to do something before Imran really did kill him. We had to stop the slaughter. I yelled at Saleem, but he didn’t react, just stood there transfixed by his uncle’s merciless attack. Maybe he was reminded of the many times we’d watched our hero, the Ultimate Warrior, on the mat. But this was no theatrical wrestling match: a human being was actually being torn apart, and all we could do was watch.

As Imran kicked the man in the ribs, I grabbed Saleem’s arm. “We have to stop him! He’s gonna kill the guy!”

Only then did Saleem face me, the color drained from his face. “Yeah,” he muttered, “but . . . what can we do?”

“Pull him off,” I said. I dragged Saleem onto the jetty. As we came up behind Imran, he kicked the guy again, then a third time. It sounded like all the air was leaking out of the man. I shoved Saleem forward and said, “Do something!” But he just stood there, watching his uncle go to town. So I pushed him aside and approached Imran myself.

“Stop,” I shouted, “you’re killing him!” But Imran seemed not to hear me.

And right then I heard a shout from the apartment building on the far side of the canal.

“Hey, stop it!” a voice called. “Leave the man be!”

That gave me the encouragement I needed. “Please,” I said, “stop, before you kill him. Have mercy!”

Imran whirled around, his expression furious, and when his eyes met first mine and then Saleem’s, it was as if the gladiator’s mask slipped from his face and he morphed back into a concerned uncle. Imran was still holding the bicyclist by a limp wrist. He glanced down at his victim one last time, then let him go. The man collapsed onto the jetty. His thin body convulsed.

Imran took a step toward us. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, “I—I lost control.” He looked at his bloody hand and wiped it on his shirt. “He shouldn’t have bitten me. I was only going to rough him up a little.”

The man dragged himself to a sitting position, looked around in a daze, and dropped his head to his knees. He sat there defeated, folded almost in half to protect his battered rib cage from further damage, his spine so slender it seemed it might snap in two at any moment. Again I felt pity wash over me.

Imran fetched his water bottle from the bench and held it out to him. “Drink.”

Without looking up, the man took the bottle. As he drank, blood dripped from his nose down his chin and onto his naked chest. I figured his nose must be broken. As if he’d only now noticed it, he waved at a fanny pack lying on the bench. I picked it up, unzipped it, and found a ring of keys, three foil-wrapped rubbers, lip balm, and a pack of tissues.

Groaning, the man got to his feet. He seemed only barely conscious, with nothing left to lose. One eye was puffed shut, his nose was unnaturally bent and continued to bleed. Not saying a word, he held out his hand to me, palm up. I hardly dared to look at him, but as I gave him the pack of tissues, I couldn’t avoid the sight of his chest all covered with blood. With a trembling hand, he pulled a tissue from the pack and pressed it to his nose. The white paper immediately reddened.

“You’ll never see me again,” he said. He dropped the bloody tissue to the jetty. “As far as I’m concerned, this never happened.”

Imran nodded. “None of it happened.”

The man picked up his water bottle, staggered to the bench for his fanny pack, and strapped it to his waist with some difficulty. Then, breathing heavily, he righted his bicycle and pushed it through the weeds to the path. Moaning, holding onto the handlebars with one hand, pressing the other to his ribs, he pulled himself onto his saddle.

Without looking back, he pedaled away.