(2002. Cafe. Night. Empty but for the kid behind the counter and a man with an accent with Mediterranean ties.)
“Large. Strong. And this cake.”
“The cranberry? That’ll be three eighty.”
“Keep it. What’s your name?”
“Jordan.”
“This is a dangerous neighborhood, Jordan.”
“Really? It’s not so bad.”
“It’s not the safest. Do you carry a gun?”
“Oh, no. No. Definitely not.”
“Maybe you should. I do.” He reaches into the breast of his jacket and pulls back with a silver handgun. He turns it on its side and bounces it in his hand, the barrel trained chest-high and ass-deep. “Does this bother you? Does this make you uncomfortable?”
“Should it?”
He smirks and holsters the weapon.
“No. Hey, relax, you know? These things happen. Look, where I’m from, this happens.”
“Where’s that?”
“Israel. Served thirty-five years. Here, I’ve been two months. That’s what you do — you kill for a long time, and then you come here. You learn what makes a man, what they’re capable of. It’s good stuff. Would you serve the military?”
“What, in Israel?”
“You’re a Jew? Wonderful. Sure, whatever. Israel, this place, wherever you like.”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”
“I made it thirty-five years. Not everybody dies.”
“It’s not even that. Well, it is.”
“I killed men in front of their families. I killed families. You get used to it.”
“I don’t think –”
“You walk down the street and you see piles of dead bodies, and this is something normal, you adjust to it. I started to like it after a while. Dead bodies can’t hurt you.”
“I guess not.”
“And what do they call them, suicidal? The bombers, the fucks on the buses, suicide bombers? The secret is that we’re all like that, every one of us. You have to be at least a little crazy, a little suicidal to fight in that war. That’s what they tell us, the commanders, and that’s what I told my soldiers. It’s not advertised, but we’re ready to be martyrs just like them. When we make it through, we act like we’re happy to be alive, just like they wail and cry when the bullshit they strap to themselves doesn’t go off. You put yourself in the middle of that, and you give up any hope — any desire to get out — and you make the right face if things go differently.”
“You said thirty-five years?”
“It’s a long time. I did terrible things. I did many things. My cousin, he’s a friend, he just moved here too, last year. He was in the army as long as I was, but he was in the Elite Corps. They train the best killers in the world. Kill with their hands. My cousin. He made a lot of money, so he buys himself a nice car when he gets here, some Porsche, a German. And he goes to Jane and Finch.”
“What?”
“You know it, Jane and Finch? Of course you do. Worst in the city, that corner. He hears about it. He thinks everybody in this city is for shit, and he buys the Porsche and, since he lives just east, the guy at the dealership says to be careful. So my cousin, he waits till night, and he goes driving. A brand new Porsche! He takes it around the area, he flashes his lights, honks his horn. Stops at a red light. He tells me, these four niggers come toward him, and he tells me, ‘I wasn’t so happy in months.’ He turns the car off just as they get there, start kicking his tires, and he opens his door.”
“Christ.”
“They didn’t know, right? How could they know? He gets out of the car and hits one in the throat, bam! Just like that. He drops. He sees one go for something in his belt, pulls the knife away, just throws it across the street like it’s nothing. It’s nothing to him. He beats these niggers within inches of their fucked up bullshit lives. Leaves them in the street like dogs. He’s done this before.”
“He was looking for it though, right?”
“He found it, too! We go out sometimes. It’s good to have familiar faces. So this is what I do. What do you do? High school? What do you want to do?”
“Journalism, I think.”
“That’s shit. Journalism? What, you want to write for the newspaper? Shit. Do something important. Be a doctor. Help people. Don’t say your columns help people. You said you’re Jewish?”
“Yeah.”
“So be a doctor, a surgeon. Yeah, we need a writer, that’s what we need. You barely said anything to me in here, and you want to be a reporter. I’m standing here talking to myself.”
“I’m not sure what to say always.”
“Oh ho, nah. This is just chickenshit talk. You just don’t think you can have a proper conversation when someone has a gun. That’s shit. So, what, a lot of Jews in the area?”
“Yeah, all the way up Bathurst, really. Hey, you know what mailmen here call Bathurst Street?”
“What’s that?”
“‘The Gaza Strip.’”
“That’s funny.”
Beat.
“It’s getting late. I’ll get going.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“But you know what I’m going to do now?” He reaches into the same breast of his coat that held the pistol.
“I –”
He pulls out a set of car keys.
“I’m going to go play tennis for three hours.”
“Oh, where?”
“Over by the pool, next to the high school. I’ll see you around.”
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