Said Sayrafiezadeh - Brief Encounters with the Enemy

“Let’s go get a DVD,” I said.

Outside, the cobbler was closing up for the night. He was trying to pull the grate down over the shopwindow but was having trouble because he was old and fat. Roberto ran to his aid as if rescuing a child from the water’s edge. “Wait! Wait! Stop! Stop!” He reached up with wide forearms, and in an instant the gate came crashing down onto the boiling sidewalk.

“Ah, you good man,” the cobbler said.

At the video store we browsed the titles. We agreed, finally, on one of those funny buddy road movies. Then Roberto picked a porno that he said he was going to watch alone. And then he picked his favorite gangster movie with Tyler McCoy.

I paid for all three.

Back at the apartment, there were about forty flies walking over everything, including the dishes.

“Maybe you should close the window,” I suggested.

He complied, trapping the heat and trapping the flies. Then he went to the refrigerator and took out some bread and cheese and tuna fish and put them on the counter where the flies were. He took out a jar of mayonnaise, and while his back was turned, the flies landed on the bread and cheese and tuna fish. When he was done making the sandwiches, he put one on a plate where the flies had been and handed it to me. He sat down on the sofa bed and pressed play. The trailers ran and the sofa sagged. After that, the movie with Tyler McCoy began. I pressed pause.

“I thought we were going to watch the other one,” I said. “The buddy one.”

“Let’s watch this one first.”

“I’ve seen it three times,” I said.

“So what,” he said, “I’ve seen it three hundred times.” This was no exaggeration.

He pressed play, and so began Tyler McCoy’s rags-to-riches story through violent and immoral means. When the characters spoke, Roberto spoke, every word, soundlessly mouthing in perfect unison.

He pressed pause. “Why aren’t you eating your sandwich?” he asked.

“I think I saw a fly land on it,” I admitted.

With irritation he said, “You are opulent ,” and he took the sandwich from me and bit into it, a huge, obvious bite so that I could see the food in his mouth. “And I am indigent .”

Which was true. I’d had a DVD player for ten years.

On the Fourth of July, Roberto and I drove downtown to see the parade. There was nowhere to park, and we had to walk twenty minutes up a hill in 105-degree heat. The turnout was extraordinary. The largest ever, people were saying. Other people were saying that each year the turnout should be the largest ever and that people shouldn’t wait for a war to become patriots. “I keep my flag out year-round,” one man said. “And you can pass by my house anytime to see if I’m telling the truth.” The fountain was going, though we were supposed to be conserving water, and the parks people had somehow managed to get it to rise and fall in alternating colors of red, white, and blue. Up and down it went, hypnotically. Roberto and I stood shoulder to shoulder, transfixed by the spectacle. Children played along the edge, and parents screamed at them not to drink the water because it was poisonous.

The sun was straight overhead, but the heat felt as if it were coming from down below, from the asphalt, emanating up through my shoes and legs and out through my scalp. I had brought along a container of sunblock, SPF 45, which I kept applying to my face and neck every few minutes. Roberto looked at me in fascination and amusement. His nose was almost healed except for a small red mark that ran along the bridge and which he kept rubbing because he was self-conscious.

“Does my nose look big?” he asked.

“Not at all,” I lied.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the emcee said, and a band started up, all trumpets and drums and tubas playing “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.” People swayed and sang, and Roberto used the heartfelt moment as an opportunity to make his first payment. “To the best friend,” he announced, holding a pile of crumpled bills. “To the greatest friend in the whole world.” He handed over the fistful of dollars like he was pouring gold coins into my hands. “Count,” he said.

I counted twenty dollars.

He displayed the sheet of paper with the Dr. Scholl’s logo and his now updated balance sheet. He had crossed out “I O Dean $200.00” and replaced it with “I O Dean $180.00, RD,” dated “July 4th.”

I used some of the money to treat us to two foot-longs, and I was about to treat us to two more when an altercation broke out near the fountain. People pushed to get to the action, and Roberto and I pushed too, and the emcee said not to push. The crowd surged forward, and when the wall of people opened, I could see parade-goers shouting and pointing at a small ragtag group of protesters holding signs that said WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER and things of that nature.

We jeered at them, and they jeered back. “You’re all fools,” they screamed.

“It’s the Fourth of July, for crying out loud,” a woman next to me yelled back. Her face was pink, possibly burning, and she looked close to tears. “Isn’t anything sacred to you people?”

Roberto cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “Faggots!”

People laughed.

“Hey,” I hissed at Roberto. “That word’s not called for!”

Some of the parade-goers began splashing the protesters with blue water from the fountain, and soon the police arrived to separate everyone and escort the protesters to a special section at the other end of the park. The band struck up the national anthem. We put our hands over our hearts as veterans from previous wars began marching past, starting with World War II. There were only a few of these, and they ambled by slowly, looking confused and displaced, their uniforms baggy like diapers and draped with medals that glinted in the sun. Their children and grandchildren and maybe great-grandchildren helped them along and did the waving for them. People applauded, but the applause seemed to disorient the veterans. “Thank you,” Roberto called, “thank you for all you’ve done!”

As the wars progressed, the soldiers got younger, until we arrived at the youngest, the new recruits. By the time they appeared, I was exhausted from the heat and the clapping. I felt like I was being immersed in boiling water, and I was sure I had a terrible burn on the back of my neck. Still, I mustered the energy and pounded my hands harder than I had up to that point. This was bon voyage for the new recruits — they were marching from the parade straight to the train depot. “Last stop, the peninsula,” the emcee said. The crowd went wild. Roberto and I clapped harder yet. The soldiers came marching down in lines of twenty. Line after line. Ten minutes of lines. A mass of bodies larger than the crowd watching. They were decked out in the latest gear, everything streamlined and advanced: goggles and helmets, tool belts and boots, lights and antennas. They resembled astronauts with automatic weapons.

“To the moon!” I yelled. It had a nice ring to it.

“To the moon!” Roberto yelled.

And then I saw a familiar face. I couldn’t place the face, but I knew that I knew it. I knew it vaguely. The man was tall and frail, and the helmet looked too large for his head, more like a bonnet than a helmet, and with each step it bobbled and appeared in danger of slipping off. He fumbled with the strap, trying to tighten it and keep pace at the same time. Sweat poured down his face as if he’d just climbed out of a swimming pool. He seemed on the verge of collapse.

“I know that man,” I said.

“Thank you,” Roberto shouted.

The man reached into one of the many pockets on his jacket and withdrew a handkerchief. In one clean motion, he brought the handkerchief down across his dripping face. Then he turned and looked at me. The man I didn’t know .