Said Sayrafiezadeh - Brief Encounters with the Enemy

Then I heard my name being called. “Dean!” I heard. “Goddamn, Dean!”

When I looked back at the three guys, I saw that they were smiling and that I knew them, two of them; we had played together on the football team in high school. And here they came from underneath the Arby’s hat, laughing, yelling, their bags of roast-beef sandwiches in one hand, their cigarettes in the other. “Goddamn, Dean,” they said. “How long’s it been?” There was some initial awkwardness as we tried to coordinate the hand slapping and the hugging and the sandwiches and the cigarettes, but eventually we managed to greet one another properly.

I introduced myself to the one I didn’t know.

“What’s up, my man?” he said. He looked skeptical.

“We thought you were the police,” Quincy said.

This made everyone laugh. The man I didn’t know laughed bitterly, and I laughed out of relief at this fortunate turn of events. Troy blew smoke out of his nose, and Quincy blew it out of his mouth, and I wanted to ask for a cigarette, because I was eager to fortify our bond and because I only smoke when I can smoke for free. The man I didn’t know removed a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Then he took out his sandwich and bit into it, and I could smell the roast beef, which in the heat made me queasy.

“What are you doing all the way out here, Dean?” Quincy wanted to know. “This here is no-man’s-land.”

“I’m waiting for the bus,” I said. “I’m on my way to see Robbie.”

“Robbie?”

“Robbie Díaz?”

“Spanish Robbie?”

“Goddamn, man!”

“How’s Robbie?”

“He broke his nose.”

“That ain’t cool.”

“Tell him I said what’s up.”

“Bus?” said the man I didn’t know. “There ain’t no bus here.”

I pointed to the sign above my head.

“There ain’t no bus here,” he repeated. He was the kind of person who offered the minimum amount of information possible.

“Bus stop is over there,” Quincy said. He pointed up the street to an abandoned building with broken windows and a sign that said TEXTILES Something-or-other, INC. The words had eroded.

“Hey, Troy,” I said. “How about letting me have one of those cigarettes?”

Troy aimed his pack in my direction, and out popped a cigarette halfway. A surge of nostalgia and tenderness coursed through me for our old football games. I put the cigarette to my lips with great anticipation, but Troy’s matches were moist or stale, and each time I struck one, it would flare up for a second and then fizzle out. After the third miss, I asked the man I didn’t know if I could use his lighter. He handed it to me grudgingly. It had a picture of an American flag on it. When I flicked the lighter, the flag fluttered as if waving in the wind.

“Let me see that,” Quincy said, and we passed the lighter around, flicking it on and off, marveling at the trick, until the man I didn’t know said not to waste any more fluid.

“I was just thinking about getting me a tattoo like that,” Troy announced. “Right here.” He pulled up his shirt to reveal a saggy and swollen stomach. “Here to here.” He outlined the image like a teacher standing at a chalkboard. “Here’s where the flagpole goes.” He indicated his belly button.

“That would look good,” I said, but I didn’t think it would look good. I was dismayed by what had become of his body. He was round and spongy, as if he had rolled in a pan of chocolate dough. So was Quincy. The man I didn’t know was the opposite, tall and stringy, with ropy muscles and long fingers and protruding knuckles. He was thin but sweating the most. Sweat streamed down from under his baseball cap, and he dabbed at it with his handkerchief. He was oddly genteel about this. Then he cracked his knuckles loudly, aggressively, and it made a sound like tree branches snapping. Troy pulled his shirt back down, and I had a vivid recollection of him standing in front of the locker-room mirror after one of our games, completely naked except for his socks, flexing and preening. At fifteen, he already had a man’s body — shoulders, chest, and cock. He’d scored three touchdowns that game and knocked the opposing team’s star player unconscious. Coach Slippo had given him the game ball. He had five game balls. “I’ve got some cuts in here for you,” Troy had told the equipment manager, running his fingers through the creases of his stomach muscles and down to the edge of his pelvis. Everyone had laughed. The equipment manager had blushed. Troy thought he was going to make the NFL. All of the guys thought they were going to make the NFL. They didn’t even make college.

I sucked the smoke in and blew it out, and as I did, it felt like my mouth was a furnace door that I was opening. The smoke was hotter than the air, and it made my face fiery and my eyes water. I felt light-headed, and the smell of the roast beef was sickening. There was a thrumming in my eardrums. I feared I might puke on the sidewalk.

“You okay, Dean?” I heard Troy say. “You good?” His voice was far away. I wasn’t sure if he was asking whether my life in general was good.

“It’s hot out here,” I said. It was all I could do to maintain my balance.

“This ain’t hot,” said the man I didn’t know. “If you think this is hot, wait till August.”

I was happy to engage in weather talk. “It’s probably going to be a hundred degrees in August,” I offered.

“A hundred degrees?” The man I didn’t know was incredulous. “A hundred degrees?” He was outraged. He looked at me hard. “If it’s ninety degrees in May, how’s it going to be a hundred degrees in August? I’m telling you, my man, it’s going to be hundred and twenty-five degrees in August.”

Against my better judgment, I took another drag off the cigarette, and it had a surprising calming effect. The smoke came out white and round and hovered around my head in the still, heavy air.

“Hey, Dean,” Quincy said suddenly, “you looking for a job?”

Troy said, “Dean don’t need no job.”

“They’re hiring,” Quincy said. He nodded to the textiles building down the street.

“Who’s hiring?” I said.

“Mainframes, man,” Quincy said.

“Chemicals and whatnot,” Troy said.

“I don’t ask no questions about what they make,” said the man I didn’t know.

“You watch,” Quincy said. “Once the war starts, they’ll be opening factories all up and down this street. There’s going to be an industrial revolution right here in the ghetto.” This broke them up. They slapped one another’s hands, stinging slaps. I smiled but I didn’t slap.

“Where you working at now, Dean?” Troy said.

I told him.

“Damn.”

“Damn.”

“That’s a good job.”

“How’d you get that?”

“That’s the kind of gig I want.”

“Damn.”

“That’s what I’m going to get me,” said the man I didn’t know. He said this more to himself. Then he said to the rest of us, “I’m going to get one of those essential jobs, so that when the draft comes, they pass me up.”

“There’s not going to be any draft,” I said. It was my turn to state something as fact.

The man looked at me in astonishment. He cocked his head. Then he guffawed and wiped his handkerchief over his entire face in one swift motion. “How’d you figure that one out, my man?”

“It’s going to be a quick war,” I said. “Marines are going to take the peninsula first thing.” I drew in the air as if I was standing in front of a map. “Here’s the bay … here’s the peninsula … you’ll see.”

The guys got quiet as they pondered this.

“Anyway,” I said cheerfully, “even if it’s a long war, there’ll still be plenty of people willing to join up.”