Warring Faiths We walked down the main street in our neighborhood, past a small gas station. "Can we go in and get cookies?" I asked my mother. "OK." She said, and we headed inside it. The gas station sold baked goods in the back storeroom every other day, and they were usually delicious, the product of an out-of-state kosher bakery. Today, as we stepped into the brightly lit up food mart, the owner, a Pakistani man, nodded his greeting. We came by often, and he knew us by sight. As my mother and I stepped up to the counter to ask about the cookies, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a heavy set man walking in. The bell jingled, and I looked up as the door closed. The man walked around the food shelves. He appeared to be browsing for something that he was in the mood of eating. I knew the feeling, and I dismissed him from my mind as my mother and I followed the owner into the back room. The swinging door shut behind us, and I caught a last glimpse of the heavy-set man, who was already waiting to be checked-out at the cash register. My mother and I picked out some cookies, and tried the little sample that the owner allowed us to taste. As usual, it was wonderful. My mouth watered as I thought about the treats to come, when we would dig into the cookies next Shabbat. We stepped back into the gas station, just in time to see my father come in! "What a surprise!" He laughed. "Great minds think alike!" I remember thinking that he was probably going to surprise us with cookies. The man who had been waiting by the cash register was getting impatient from the long delay. "Come on!" He snapped. "I don’t have all day!" The owner hurried over to the cash register and took the money that the man shoved at him. I remember that it was a bag of chips, bar-b-q chips, that this man bought. As soon as the cash register clanged open, the man stepped behind the counter and stuck his hand in his jacket. I remember wondering why he was wearing a jacket, since it was so warm out. I soon got my answer. "Hand over all the money in there!" He said calmly, but his voice was full of malice. "You don’t have enough money from the oil in your country? You have to come here and take my hard-earned, American money from me?!" The owner began to frantically sweep together all of the money in the cash register, and I, who was closest to the heavy-set man, stood frozen in my tracks. This is not something that happens to me on a regular basis! "Let’s go!" He barked. "Faster!" Evidently, the owner was not fast enough for the man, and he raised his voice in a hysterical scream. "Hand over all the money!" He shrieked. His voice was high, and had a panicked edge to it, as if he had finally realized what he was doing and what he was getting himself into. "Now!" He screamed it out at the top of his lungs. I remember that he sounded like an animal, completely out of control, when he whirled around to check on what was happening behind him. To this day, I can not imagine what he expected to see - but surely, it was not my dad, taking out the gun that he always carried with him for protection in our ‘lovely’ neighborhood. The man’s hand flew out from his pocket and a gleaming silver gun appeared in the palm of his hand. In the following few moments of tumultuous action, the gas station owner managed to call the police, by pushing a little red button hidden underneath the counter by the cash register. It had been installed for just this purpose. I noticed the strangest things in the last few moments before my hand exploded into a searing wave of pain. I remember how red the Coca Cola sign appeared to be, right before I looked down at my hand and saw the same color. I recall how shiny the man’s fingernail was, the one attached to his hand, the hand that held that frightening, shiny silver gun. And my final memory was of how fast that finger moved, and the gray blur that shot out of it. I stared down at my hand in disbelief. Why me? I remember wondering. What do I have to do with any of this? My hand felt as though it was being held to a flame. Fiery, hot, the image came into my mind of the chips on the counter, and I almost laughed at the absurdity of a thought like that at such a time. When I had time to think all this, I do not know. After the bullet hit my hand, the man grabbed me and looped one arm under each of my armpits. He held me tightly against his chest and it was an added discomfort, it was added on to the pain in my hand. "Don’t move!" He said, in a raspy voice. "Don’t move an inch!" No one was moving an inch, but I felt cold metal being pressed to my thigh. He shoved it into my leg, and it hurt! He said, even louder, "Just don’t move!", as if he was getting himself in control over the situation. "Just give me the money!" He breathed, his eyes darting in every direction, like a trapped animal. He seemed to be begging for it - but he had seemed so powerful just an instant before. The owner of the gas station had the money ready, and I could see the cogs turn in the man’s head - which hand would he take it with? The one that was holding me hostage, protecting him from getting shot - for how could a father shoot his own daughter to protect the livelihood of another man? Or the hand that was holding his gun, ensuring that my father would not try to shoot him? After a long, weighty consideration, which must have taken all of about two seconds, but seemed to take years, he pinned me against him with his elbow and grabbed the money with his hand. He then stood with one leg on the ground and the other crossed over my knees, still crushing me to him, as he stuffed the wad of bills into his pants pocket. He began to back away, towards the door, with me still in front of him, acting as his human shield. I was terrified. He was taking me with him! I needed to get away, and fast. The floor appeared ever so white as I gazed down at it. Why I was looking at the floor and contemplating its color at a time like that, I will never know, but it was moments before the floor was stained to be an entirely different color. I made eye contact with my father, through blurry haze of tears that my blinding pain and desperate fear were causing, and I wrenched away from the man just moments before my father pulled his trigger. The strange thing is, I only heard one gun blast. There were two shots - the one that hit the heavy set man in his chest, and the one that hit me in my calf. The two triggers must have been pulled at the exact same second! I collapsed to the ever-darkening floor, with my uninjured hand clasped over my bleeding calf. I could see the hole that the bullet had made in my leg- and I could see the bullet itself, stuck inside my leg! The last thing I remember before my world turned dark was the faint voice of the heavy set man, who was only a few inches away from me on the floor, murmuring, "A Jew, helping an Arab hurt an American Christian!" in a bemused sort of way. I can not remember when the police arrived, when the ambulance arrived, or when they strapped me onto the stretcher, because I was not there. I was in a world of my own, filled with stars and stripes, and Arabs in long, red, flowing head-dresses shooting at Jews with small black caps on their heads, while official-looking Christians in black suits looked on in contempt. But as I was lifted into the ambulance, my eyes must have been opened, because I saw the lights flashing their red and white, red and white, and the faces of each warring faith fused into the faces of the many people who were staring at me. They formed a ring around me, policemen in blue uniform keeping them back, while yellow tape crisscrossed in front of the gas station. I was aware that I was laying flat on my back, and I seemed to be floating in the air. My eyes must have closed then, because I remember nothing else except the excruciating pain that throbbed through my hand and calf, and the fleeting thought of ‘why me?’ that chased itself in never ending circles around my head. There could be no answer to such a question, and I relaxed on the stretcher and let a comforting blackness fill my head.
Copyright © 2002 Ami |