Jonathan Kellerman - Therapy

Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people.

Larsen spoke fluently with minimal inflection, smiling wryly as he noted the “profound historical irony” of Jews, the victims of oppression, becoming the world’s greatest extant oppressors.

“How odd, how sad,” intoned Larsen, “that the victims of the Nazis have adopted Nazi tactics.”

Murmurs of assent from the audience. Milo’s face was expressionless. His eyes shifted from Larsen to the audience and back.

Larsen’s manner stayed low-key but his rhetoric poured out hot and vindictive. Each time he uttered the word “Zionism” his eyes fluttered. The audience began warming to the topic, nodding harder.

Except for the burly guy in the pea coat. His hands had dropped to his knees and he was rocking very slightly in his front-center seat. Head canted away from the lectern. I caught a clear view of his profile. Tight jaw, clenched eyes.

Milo studied him some more, and his own mandible tensed.

Larsen went on a while longer, finally indicated George Issa Qumdis with an expansive wave, took out a sheet of paper, and offered morsels from the professor’s academic résumé. When he finished, Issa Qumdis walked to the podium. Just as he began to speak, footsteps behind Milo and me made both of us turn.

A man had entered our aisle. Midthirties, black, well groomed, very tall, wearing a well-cut gray suit over a charcoal shirt buttoned to the neck. He saw us, smiled apologetically, retreated.

Milo watched him edge away and hook a quick right turn. The black man never reappeared and Milo’s hands began to flex.

Why all the tension? This was a lecture at a bookstore. Maybe too much work with too little outcome. Or his instincts were sharper than mine.

Professor George Issa Qumdis unbuttoned his jacket, smoothed back his hair, smiled at the crowd, cracked a joke about being accustomed to lecturing at Harvard, where the audience hadn’t reached puberty. A few chuckles from the audience. The guy in the pea coat began rocking again. One of his hands reached behind his head and scratched vigorously.

Issa Qumdis said, “The truth- the inalienable truth- is that Zionism is the most repugnant doctrine of all, in a world rife with malignant dogma. Think of Zionism as the pernicious anemia of modern civilization.”

One of the pierced-and-brandeds snickered into his girlfriend’s ear.

Issa Qumdis warmed to his topic, branding Jews who moved to Israel “nothing less than war criminals. Each and every one is deserving of death.” Pause. “I would shoot them myself.”

Silence.

Even for this audience that was strong stuff.

Issa Qumdis smiled and smoothed his lapel, and said, “Have I offended someone? I certainly hope so. Complacence is the enemy of truth and as a scholar, truth is my catechism. Yes, I’m talking about jihad. An American jihad, where-”

He stopped, openmouthed.

The guy in the pea coat had shot to his feet, and shouted, “Fuck you, Nazi!” as he fooled with the buttons of his coat.

Milo was already moving toward him as Pea Coat whipped out a gun, a big black gun, and fired straight at Issa Qumdis’s chest.

Issa Qumdis’s snowy white shirt turned to crimson. He stood there, wide-eyed. Reached down and touched himself and came away with a red, sticky thumb.

“You pathetic fascist,” he burbled.

Still on his feet. Breathing fast, but breathing. No loss of balance. No death pallor.

Red rivulets wormed down his shirtfront and filthied the edges of his jacket.

Besmirched, but alive and healthy.

The man in the pea coat fired again, and Issa Qumdis’s face became a crimson mask. Issa Qumdis cried out, wiped frantically at his face. Albin Larsen sat in his chair, amazed, immobile.

“Oh my God,” someone said.

“That’s pig’s blood!” yelled the man in the pea coat. “You Arab pig -fucker!” He charged toward Issa Qumdis, tripped, fell, righted himself.

Issa Qumdis, blinded by blood, kept swiping at his eyes.

Pea Coat raised his weapon. Black plastic paint gun. Shrieking, “Fascist!” a woman in the second row, one of the gray-hairs, shot to her feet and grabbed for the weapon. Pea Coat tried to shake her off. She clawed and scratched and got hold of his sleeve and hung on.

Milo hurried to the front, zigzagging through the makeshift aisles, dodging chairs, as the woman’s companion, a bald, weak-chinned man wearing granny glasses and a red CCCP sweatshirt jumped up and began rabbit-punching the back of Pea Coat’s neck. Pea Coat struck back at him, caught him on the shoulder, and the man fell back on his rear.

Issa Qumdis had cleared his eyes, now, was staring at the melee. Albin Larsen stood behind him, stunned, as he handed Issa Qumdis a handkerchief and led him toward the back of the store.

By the time Milo reached the fracas, another gray-hair had joined in and Pea Coat had been pounded to the ground. The woman who’d fought for the paint gun had finally gotten hold of it. She aimed downward, shot a torrent of blood at Pea Coat but he kicked her and her aim shifted and she hit her companion instead, reddening his jeans.

“Shit!” he cried out. A flush captured his face. He began kicking viciously at Pea Coat’s prone body.

Milo yanked him away. Pea Coat struggled to his feet, took a roundhouse swing at Granny Glasses, missed, and lost his balance again. Issa Qumdis and Larsen had slipped into the unisex bathroom.

The woman aimed the paint gun again, but Milo pressed down on her arm and the weapon dribbled onto the floor.

“Who’re you?” she exclaimed.

A couple of pierced-and-brandeds stood.

I rushed over just as someone shouted, “Get the fascist!” and the crowd erupted into shouts and curses.

Milo grabbed Pea Coat’s sleeve and dragged him toward the back door.

The young men marched forward and got within arm’s length of Milo. Milo stopped the bigger one with a quick, hard squeeze of bare biceps. The man’s eyes fluttered.

Milo said, “It’s under control, compadres . Go away.”

No badge-flash. His tone froze them.

I got the rear door open, and Milo shoved Pea Coat out into the briny, night air.

As the door swung shut slowly, I looked back. Most of the onlookers had remained in their seats.

A few feet behind the folding chairs, half-concealed by bookshelves- tucked in his own vantage point- stood the tall, thin black man in the good gray suit and the charcoal shirt.

Behind the store was a service alley, blackened by night. Milo propelled Pea Coat westward, walking fast, shoving the man when he faltered. Pea Coat began cursing and struggling, and Milo did something to his shoulder blade that made him squeal.

“Let go of me, you commie bastard!”

“Shut up,” said Milo.

“You-”

“I’m the police, idiot.”

Pea Coat tried to stop short. Milo kicked at his heel, and the man jerked forward involuntarily.

“Police… state, ” he said. His voice was thick and raspy, words punching out between shallow breaths. “So you’re a fascist, not a commie.”

“Another moron heard from.” Milo spotted a parked car a few yards up, shoved Pea Coat to it, pushed him up against the trunk. Jerking one of the man’s arms behind his back, he got his cuffs free, snapped them around the man’s wrist, twisted the other arm, and completed the task.

Since Pea Coat had aimed his paint gun till now, no more than five minutes had passed.

The man said, “Antisemitic-”

“Keep your mouth shut and your head down.”

Milo frisked him thoroughly, came up with a wallet and a key ring.

The man said, “I know exactly how much is in there, so if you’re-”

Milo’s finger landed atop Pea Coat’s shoulder blade. The memory of the first touch made the man break off midsentence.