Brian Freeman - Marathon

When she was done, Dawn checked her phone. Her smile was wide in the photograph — she always had a good smile — but her eyes were half-closed, and the house was partly cut off below the roof by the angle of the photo. She extended the selfie stick to try again.

“Hey!” a voice called.

Dawn turned around. The Somali man came down off the porch and marched down the house’s front walk toward her. Her security guards edged closer, ready to step between them.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” the man called to her.

“I’m exercising my free-speech rights, young man.”

He pointed at the camera. “You can’t take pictures here.”

“Oh, but I can,” she replied with a sunny smile. “Maybe in your country, you could stop me, but this is the United States of America, and I will take pictures of whatever I want, and there is nothing you or your terrorist friends can do about it.”

The man shouted over his shoulder. “Call Haq!”

Dawn returned her attention to her selfie stick. She propped it higher, but with the camera five feet away from her face, she couldn’t see well enough to figure out whether she was using a better angle. “Mark, I’m totally blind here,” she told the red-haired guard. “Can you see if this looks right?”

He ducked behind her shoulder. “You’re only getting the second floor.”

“How about now?” she said, nudging the stick downward.

“Better.”

Dawn squeezed the button again, but her hand jiggled as she tried to keep the stick steady, and the photo was blurry. She shook her head. “No, that’s no good. I’m so bad at this.”

“Hey!” she heard again.

Three more young men joined the Somali youth on the front lawn of the small house. Two looked Arabic. One looked Southeast Asian. The taller Arabic man, who had thick dark hair, a large nose, and black-as-coal eyebrows, folded his arms across his chest.

“You’re Dawn Basch, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“You’re a racist, you know that? You call all Muslims terrorists.”

“You’re right, that’s what I do, and I’m proud of it.”

“What gives you the right?” he demanded.

“It’s a little document called the Constitution, sir. If I want to get on my knees and draw a chalk painting of Muhammad taking a dump on the sidewalk right here, well, I can do that, too. I don’t care if it offends you.”

“You are a disgusting human being.”

“No, the Muslims who blow up bombs and throw people off buildings and cut off heads are disgusting human beings,” Dawn replied.

The Somali youth took an angry step toward her, and one of her guards swiftly intervened and pulled aside the flap of his jacket to reveal a handgun in a holster. The Somali man stopped and backed up.

“This is our property! Get off our property!”

“No, actually, the sidewalk is not your property; it’s public property. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to figure out this silly selfie stick.”

“Would you like me to just take the picture for you, ma’am?” the redheaded guard asked.

Dawn laughed. “Well, Mark, that is why I keep you around. You’re so much smarter than me. Here I am wasting my time with this thing, and there you are to save me all the trouble.”

She turned her back on the men on the lawn and disconnected her selfie stick. As she slid the device back into her purse, she spotted another man running toward them at a sprinter’s pace from the UMD campus. She knew him, and he knew her. They’d tangled repeatedly ever since Dawn arrived in Duluth.

“Mr. Al-Masri,” Dawn said as the man skidded to a stop on the lawn of the house, prompting her guards to tense like dogs with their hackles raised. “Are you here to harass me again? It’s nice to know that the Council on American-Islamic Relations has its priorities in order after yet another Muslim bombing.”

“Ms. Basch,” Haq replied. “What are you doing here?”

“Right now, I’m trying and failing to take a decent picture, but I think Mark should be able to handle it for me.”

She handed her phone to the guard, who lined her up in the frame.

“Make sure you can see the whole house in the background,” Dawn told him. “The whole house. We don’t want to miss anything.”

“Why are you taking a picture of this house?” Haq asked her. “This is the Muslim Student Center building.”

Dawn smiled. Click .

“Oh, take a few more, won’t you, Mark? I want to make sure we have a good one, and you know me, I always wind up with a funny expression.”

“Ms. Basch?” Haq asked. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Hang on, Mr. Al-Masri.”

The guard took several more pictures. Click. Click. Click . He handed the phone back to Dawn, who scrolled through them.

“Wonderful! These are much better. Thank you, Mark. You’re a lifesaver. We can move on to the next spot now.”

“Ms. Basch, would you mind telling me why you’re taking these pictures?” Haq asked again.

“I’m taking my Twitter followers on a little photo tour of Duluth,” she said.

“What kind of tour?”

“Oh, I’m just showing them places I think they should know about.”

Haq’s face turned dark. “And why would your followers want to know the location of the Muslim Student Center building?”

“It’s a cute little house. I like it. Everyone who comes to Duluth takes pictures of the lift bridge or the Enger Tower or Split Rock Lighthouse. I’m more interested in urban minutiae. It’s a hobby of mine.”

“I know exactly what you’re doing. You’re encouraging vigilantes to harass the Muslim community in this city. You’re putting innocent people at risk by deliberately inciting violence.”

Dawn laughed. “A Muslim complaining about inciting violence? I’m sorry, Mr. Al-Masri. That’s rich. You’re a funny man.”

She opened up her phone and fiddled with the screen. She selected the best photo from the pictures that Mark had taken, and then she found the Twitter app and typed a quick message. She flicked her thumb on the blue button.

“There, all done. Tweet-tweet. Sorry to interrupt our conversation, Mr. Al-Masri, but I have more places that I need to go.”

“What did you post?” Haq asked.

“You can look it up yourself. You follow me, don’t you? I’m sure you do. Always know your enemy, right?”

“We don’t have to be enemies, Ms. Basch,” Haq said.

“You’re wrong about that,” Dawn replied. She gestured at the guards. “Come on, boys. We don’t have all day.”

“Where are you going next?” Haq asked.

“There’s a little bakery I want to check out. I think the name of it is Angels of London. Because it’s on London Road — that’s pretty cute, don’t you think? Do you know it?”

Haq stared at her with a fierce expression. “Angels of London is a Muslim-owned bakery.”

“Is it?” Dawn replied. “What a coincidence. Well, I’m sure they’ll like the publicity. Maybe I can drum up some new customers for them.”

@dawnbasch tweeted a photo:

Greetings from #radicalduluth.

#islamismurder

#noexceptions

Travis Baker let himself into the garage at Wade’s farmhouse on Five Corners Road. The house and land doubled as the headquarters for Ralston Extermination. A big sign near the dirt road advertised THE BUG ZAPPERS. For Travis and Shelly, this was their home away from home. She did the accounting and scheduling out of an office in Wade’s basement. Travis and Wade were in and out of the garage for supplies during the workdays. Joni was the eye candy of the business. Wade liked showing her off. She appeared in all Wade’s newspaper ads, with her blond hair and her tight body suits. She was like a tattooed supermodel waging war against cockroaches.