Pete Hamill - Tabloid City

He hears faint groans and creaks from the black empty building above him. He has learned that such sounds are normal on nights of hard rain or stiff wind. Still, this night is different. He waits with the door shut behind him, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. In a corner, a pile of discarded shovels resembles a small monument of iron tombstones. He closes his eyes and remembers the chant recited each night by him and Jamal and Atub. They took turns with the first name, then all three repeated it, heads bowed in submission, barefoot, kneeling on the floor of whatever place they were in.

Khalid al-Mihdhar.

Khalid al-Mihdhar.

Majed Moqed.

Majed Moqed.

Nawaf al-Hazmi.

Nawaf al-Hazmi.

Salem al-Hazmi.

Salem al-Hazmi.

Hani Hanjour.

Hani Hanjour.

Satam al-Suqami.

Satam al-Suqami.

Waleed al-Shehri.

Waleed al-Shehri.

Wail al-Shehri.

Wail al-Shehri.

Abdulaziz al-Omari.

Abdulaziz al-Omari.

Marwan al-Shehhi.

Marwan al-Shehhi.

Fayez Banihammad.

Fayez Banihammad.

Ahmed al-Ghamdi.

Ahmed al-Ghamdi.

Hamza al-Ghamdi.

Hamza al-Ghamdi.

Mohand al-Shehri.

Mohand al-Shehri.

Mohamed Atta.

Mohamed Atta…

A prayer.

Our prayer.

A prayer for our martyrs.

All waiting for us in Paradise.

Allahu akbar!

Now Malik can see, if only the large shapes of ceilings and walls, as he peers up the stairs to the first landing. He starts up. Somewhere up there, a door creaks open on rusting hinges. There is nobody visible, no sounds of breathing, no crackheads grunting, no pigs with badges from Homeland Security or the FBfuckingI. No New York cops. Like my father. Just the wind and the rain. On the landings, puddles are spreading from apartments without windows. The writhing unreadable graffiti on the walls hasn’t changed. On the second flight of stairs, the entire banister is gone, used for firewood in the iron barrels of the empty lots, and Malik hugs the walls. A damp rotting smell is everywhere in the vertical cave of the stairwell. Water leaks from another doorway without a door. He listens as if he were a cat. He hears the distant hum of the expressway. The beep of a horn. Silence, except for the rain. Thinking: I’m coming, baby. I got money, gorgeous. Like I promised. Tomorrow you see a doctor. Tomorrow you go to a warm place.

On the top landing he goes to what was the front door and inserts the key in the lock he installed himself, bought from a locksmith up on Fifth Avenue. The same key can open the bedroom door, with its separate cylinder. Nine hours earlier, Malik locked Glorious in the bedroom, with its tiny closet of a room holding a toilet and nothing else. Afraid that she would go wandering and trip or fall and hurt herself. He lets himself in through the front door, and quickly locks the door again, using his free hand to smother the sound of clacking steel.

Sleep, my Glorious.

Be there soon.

Sleep.

Some clothes hang from a steel rack outside the hall bathroom, a flannel shirt, fresh jeans, socks looped over the bar. Sleep, Glorious, Malik thinks. We have things to do tomorrow. To get you to a hospital at last. To a doctor. He slips into the narrow bathroom, and begins to undress in the dark. He urinates, hoping the sound of water puncturing water does not escape the room. He is very cold. From a plastic milk crate on the tiled floor, he removes a flashlight and a pair of scissors. He tests the flashlight, then shuts it off. On the chipped sink, he lays out some things from the Korean store: a razor, a small can of shaving cream. He hopes he can remember how to do this, after so many years. And there’s no hot water. The rusted boiler in the ruined basement holds no water. Somehow the pressure still moves cold water to the top floor. Malik holds the bag from the store under his chin and begins to chop away his thick beard. The hair is wet and wiry and tough. His body shakes from the cold. After a while, he runs a hand over his chin, feels a kind of bumpy fuzz, then switches on the flashlight. He doesn’t know the face in the cracked mirror. He covers his jaws and chin with cream and begins to shave. He nicks himself in three places, wipes the blood with the back of a hand. My father’s blood. Her blood. Soon it will be the boy’s blood. The blood of Glorious too. Our blood. Allah’s blood. Then he feels the smooth cheeks, makes a square cut for sideburns, and shuts off the light.

He shudders again from the cold, lays down the razor and the bag of hair, and steps into the shower. He doesn’t want to do this. He’d rather fight someone in the lot with bare hands. Not this. But he must. He must wash away the filth of infidels. This water will not hurt him. Inshallah. He reaches around for the shrinking bar of Dove, lying on its metal tray fastened to the water pipe. He turns the tap. His body feels a small death. He tells himself: Paradise is a garden with a stream running through it. Hell is another place, which Allah suggests to us through our living. And must be full of ice. Malik starts to pray as the water courses slowly down his body.

Khalid al-Mihdhar.

Majed Moqed.

Nawaf al-Hazmi…

He lectures himself: When we conquered Spain, we taught the infidels how to wash. And there was no steam heat in Andalusia or boilers in the basement. I would remind Mama when I was twelve or thirteen or fourteen that Islam civilized the world. Taught the filthy Christians to wash, Mama, taught them to read, taught them numbers, Mama, and architecture and music. Taught them for eight hundred years. And Mama would laugh, and say, If the Muslims were so damned civilized, why did they circumcise little girls? And why did they round up your ancestors in Africa and sell them to white folks? How is that civilized? And young Malik would say, Allah knows. Allah was testing all of us. And she would laugh. And say: Allah should get a life.

Bitch.

Now he soaps his hands over and over again, digging his nails into the Dove, soaps his hair, soaps his armpits, his ass, and his balls, grunting silently, using motion to warm him. The trickling water falls upon his shoulders and he splashes it roughly, feeling cleansed, purged, ready again for the mission, ready again to go forth as a member of the brotherhood. Ready for one final purge. Ready to die.

He turns off the shower, steps onto the cold tiled floor, and grabs a towel, the only towel, one that smells of Glorious. He feels his cock getting thicker, harder, and now wants the warmth of Glorious, Allah’s gift; wants to lie behind her, to kiss her neck, to hold her swollen tits, to feel her ass grinding against his groin, to plunge his cock into her wet cave. He takes the key from his trousers, pulls on dry socks for warmth, wraps the damp towel around his shoulders, lifts the flashlight, and pads down the hall to the bedroom. Thinking: She’ll be shocked. She has never seen me without my beard. I must be silent. I must be gentle. Above all, I must not scare her. She’s my woman. She’s carrying my son.

He unlocks the door and steps into the darkness. The room is full of a black wind. The cold is bitter. The cold is unforgiving. He switches on the flashlight. There is nobody in the bed. The covers are wild and rumpled and stained with something dark that he knows must be blood. A pillow lies on the floor. He moves the light and sees that the window is open.

No.

— Baby? You here someplace?

No answer.

He walks to the open window, the towel falling. No. He stops a foot from the window. His feet are suddenly sticky. No, please. No… The rain has ended but the wind blows harder. But now he does not shudder. He feels that his body is made of ice. No.