Last War (23 page)

    
“So, on what date did Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, and in turn the United States declared war on Germany and Italy?” Mrs. Mulforson asked. “Dany.” She called.

    
Dany who sat across the classroom put his stubby left arm down before answering, “December 11, 1941.”

    
“Very good.” She flipped through her paperwork. “OK. And, as part of 'Operation Thunderclap' on February 13-15 1945, the RAF and US Airforce fire bombed a major German city into non-existence. Which was it?” The classroom was silent as she scanned the classroom for hands. Dragging the word out she said, “Alriiightt.” She pointed. “Dany, again.”

    
“It was Dresden. Dresden had been left virtually untouched by allied bombing because of its lack of strategic targets. The preferred range of estimates of the number of people killed—which was mainly civilian—has narrowed in the 21st century to 25,000 to 30,000.”

    
“Awesome.” She said before shutting her book.

    
“Suck up.” Czyra coughed.

    
“Shut up, fag.” Dany barked back across the room.

     “Excuse me!” Mrs. Mulforson hollered. “That gross inflammatory word is not allowed in this classroom. Very unacceptable. Dany, I’m writing you up.”

     As she swiftly walked to her desk, Czyra responded.

    
“I rather be a fag than to be the sack of room temperature butter-bag that you are.”

    
Dany glared towards Czyra while the class laughed.

    
“Hey, that’s enough!” Mulforson scolded. As she wrote out the write-up slip, she spoke in a much more calm tone. “Look, kiddos. I know it’s only the beginning of the school year, but we’ve gotta get those brains clicking on all cylinders. We’re not going to start this year off like this. The Summer is over. Time to think now. Dany, you’ve come prepared for school, but you will not be using words like that in my classroom. Got it?”

    
Mulforson’s desk phone rang.

    
“One moment.” She walked over to the phone on the wall and answered. “Mrs. Mulforson’s class.”

    
Mrs. Mulforson stayed quiet; something she barely did on that classroom phone when it rang. Her face calcified into stone. “Denise.” She called out to one of the girls in the class. “Your mother is here to get you early.”

     “What?” Denise asked
.

    
“There’s an emergency. Just pack up your stuff. Your mother is here.”

    
Denise quickly scurried to gather her things. She seemed confused as to if she should be grateful to be out, or worried about why.

    
Attempting to keep the phone on her ear while scrambling to her desk, Mrs. Mulforson stretched the phone cord to its limit. Sliding her desk drawer out, she grabbed the TV remote. With a flick of the wrist, she clicked the classroom TV on.

     Czyra didn’t know what he was looking at, to begin. A tall building was smoking from the top. H
e knew it was something serious by Mrs. Mulforson’s reaction to the broadcast.

    
“Oh my god!” Mrs. Mulforson tearfully screamed out. “That’s that bastard, Osama bin Laden. I know it!” She slammed her text book onto her desk. “I know it’s him. That freak.”

     Even with her, seemingly, extreme reaction, she appeared to be
attempting to hold her anger in.

    
“Class, in 1993, when you all were about 7 or 8-years-old, a Saudi-native, freak-terrorist, tried to take down our towers in NYC—Oh, my god—And I’m telling you this is him, again.” She spoke into the phone, “I’m OK. I gotta go.” She banged the phone on the hook. She spoke inaudible words through her hand covering her mouth. Her statue stance lasted minutes while she looked at the at the news telecast.

     Each classmate
moved their eyes from the TV back towards the teacher who stood in silence.

    
“You see,” she said quietly, “there’s a group of extremist Muslims that hate Americans. They claim to want us off their soil, but as we’ve learned in previous lessons over the years, this is very reminiscent of the Christian/Muslims battles in the past. This group, they’re called al-Qaeda. They’re not true Muslims – they’re terrorists.”

     At the time,
what Mrs. Mulforson was saying went clear over Czyra’s head. But, it was fascinating to him that there was a group that hated American’s so much that they wanted to kill him.

     “Look!” Mrs. Mulforson screeched
, “There’s another plane, there’s another plane.” She said with her high-pitched squeal morphing into sorrow. “Oh, no.” She cried out.

     After t
he explosion fire-balled out of the side of the building, Mrs. Mulforson lost strength in her legs. Grabbing onto the desk, she began sobbing. Czyra and Dany immediately jumped out of their desks, to help Mrs. Mulforson.

      The fireball billowed into
a smoldering cloud of smoke enveloping the Manhattan skyline.

      Czyra and Dany helped
Mrs. Mulforson up. She sat on the edge of her desk. Tears flowed from her eyes. She was quiet, but steaming mad all at the same time. “Someone better protect the White House.” She said as if she had any authority.

     N
one of the kids knew exactly what they needed to be afraid of—and it made the day that much more still.

     A dull buzz chimed through the classroom speaker next to the clock. “Attention all teachers and students: due to the nature of today’s events, the administration has deci
ded that we’re going to call an emergency early dismissal, effective immediately. All parents have been notified, and extra buses will be provided.”

    
The kids gathered up their things, and prepared to head back to home class.

    
On the way out of the door, Czyra heard Mrs. Mulforson cry out in pain. She now had broken into a full-out sob. Czyra looked up at the TV. What he saw looked like it was directly out of a motion picture. The entire tower was collapsing on itself.

     Froz
en, he watched as his teacher crippled to the floor sobbing with her hands over her mouth. Her back slid down the concrete cinderblock wall until her butt hit the floor.

    
“Mrs. Mulforson, are you alright?”

    
She nodded rapidly while waving him out.

    
Hesitantly, he turned and headed for home class.

    
Once Czyra was home, he sat restlessly in his room watching TV.



     “I felt hopeless as I watched the nation in panic. With all of my restless energy, I logged onto the internet to see what I could find about the first WTC attack in ’93. It all confused me, though. I didn’t, really, understand a lot.”

    
“What didn’t you understand?” Jason asked.

    
“There were a lot of things.”

    
“So what did you do?”

    
“I sought help.”

    
Dany interjected, “That’s me!”

    
“What did you guys come up with?”

    
Dany promptly took over the conversation. “The way the buildings collapsed was most interesting to me. My father is in demolition, and I happen to know that to rig a building to fall in its own footprints takes a lot of skill and experience. Three of them fell in their own footprints at random on 9/11. That, to me, didn’t smell right.”

    
“So what are you suggesting?” Jason asked.

     
“I don’t know what I’m suggesting. I’m hoping you have some answers being so close to the situation.”

    
“So, you think that’s how it works?” Jason said to the two boys. “A couple 21-year-old kids attempt to kidnap a government official and ask for a whole lot of complicated and probably sensitive questions that may endanger the nation’s safety?” Jason tossed another bite of French fries into his mouth.  “How about you tell me about some of the things you’ve said and done, so that I can know why they’re after you. You’ve certainly struck a nerve with them. So, I’ll give you that.”

    
“OK, truth is,” Czyra said, “I—we think 9/11 was an inside job.”

    
Jason scoffed under a slight chuckle. “You’re one of those, huh? Enlighten me.”

    
“No, listen. I realize that not all those high up in the government or even in the president’s direct administration know all the details—sometimes the president doesn’t even know -- I just don’t get it. I guess not everyone can agree with all the operations, but they can still be used to execute them. Hell, the Kennedy administration attempted to forge plans without him. They couldn’t get him to agree with them on several war waging issues. I’m not just some punk kid, I’ve done my research.”

    
Chatter in the food court bustled around their silent chewing.

    
“Well, that’s it? Is that all you said? Continue.”

    
“We’ve talked to a scientist close to the situation, we’ve talked to a doctor, we’ve talked to a few men who made it out of the building after it collapsed. We’ve seen the videos on the internet. There are a lot of unconnected dots.”

     “There
are
, indeed, a lot of unconnected dots. You’re right. I’m after answers myself, kid.”

     “So, what are
we gonna do?”

     “
We? No ‘we’, kid.
I’m
going to continue to search. But, I’m also going to look for a safe place to drop you and your friend off. There’s nothing you can do with what we may be up against.”

     “This is whack, yo.” Czyra said slamming his back into the back rest of his chair. Jason finished his fries and brushed the salt off of his greasy hands. “Finish up. We’ve gotta move. They’ve probably g
ot UAVs all over the place here -- don’t want to be spotted.”

     Amidst the silence
that had fallen over their table as the boys finished their food, a conversation by a group of men at the next table was hard to ignore. They were discussing the New York City auto show. Czyra had taken light interest in their conversation. “Hey kid.” Jason called out. “You’re gonna be OK. Just take a break. I promise I’ve got this.”

    
Czyra was disappointed, but he had no intention of staying out of this battle. After he finished the last of his burger, he asked, “So, what was your main job there besides the day-to-day activities in the DHS?”

     “I studied social science.
Neurology. Psychology.”

     “What did you do with that?”

     “I people watch, basically. My job was to monitor the stark contrast between people’s everyday lives and how they viewed the government.”

     “What do you mean? How would you do that?”

     Jason overheard the autoshow conversation turn into complaints. “Listen over there. What are they talking about?”

     “It seems they’re
complaining about the car companies only being in the show for money and not really much for the showcase or the spectacle.”

     “Right. Listen to that
main guy. He’s going on about the value of a car going down when so many people sit in it. You hear him?”

     They listened to man grumble for a minute.
“They wouldn’t let me sit in there,” The man said. “and I felt like saying ‘stop being cheap!’ They’re only there for the sponsors and not so much the potential buyers. They know most of us are there cause we can’t buy those fricken cars.”

     Czyra looked back at Jason. “So?” he asked.

     “So, you can learn a lot from listening to someone’s view and developing a question for them. Watch this.” Jason said. “Excuse me, sir.” He called out to the man. The guy stopped mid-sentence. “My boy and I, here, were having a discussion. Can I get your honest opinion?”

     “Sure, why not? Shoot.”

     “The government just released a documentary the other day on domestic drone usage. Have you seen that?”

     “Yeah, I have.”

     “What did you think?”

     “Very fascinating! I think it’s the way of the future.”

     “Well, we were having a debate. My son thinks that it was solely educational since we’re moving forward. I think it’s propaganda to convince us that it’s  good for us since so many people are concerned with the idea of privacy.”

     “Well, there is a concern of privacy, I guess. But, I wouldn’t get too paranoid. May be a little of both. An education to teach us that we have little to worry about.”

     Jason nodded. “Thanks for your thoughts, sir.”

     Jason looked back at Czy
ra. “Now what did you learn?” He asked the boys while packing up to head out to the car.