Towelhead (21 page)

“Well,” he said, “I'm not in a fighting unit.”

“Then what do you do?”

“You know,” he said, “more humanitarian-type stuff. Passing out food or whatever.”

“What about the gas?” I asked.

“What about it?”

“Saddam says he's going to gas all of the troops.”

Mr. Vuoso shrugged. “I'll use my gas mask.”

“What if it doesn't work?”

“It'll work.”

“Daddy says it won't,” I told him. “He says the gas is too powerful.”

“Well,” Mr. Vuoso said, “I guess I would expect that from someone who loves Saddam.”

“Daddy doesn't love Saddam.”

“Whatever you say.”

“If you say he does,” I said, “you're making an assumption about him based on his nationality. That's racist. Like when you used to call us towelheads.”

Mr. Vuoso leaned forward and pressed the Stop button on the tape recorder. “Look,” he said. “I didn't know you were going to ask me this stuff. It makes me look bad.”

“You can't do that,” I said, and I leaned forward and pushed Play and Record again.

Mr. Vuoso just sat there.

“Daddy doesn't like Saddam,” I said into the microphone.

I put it in front of Mr. Vuoso's face and he said, “Fine. He doesn't like Saddam.”

“He probably wants Saddam dead even more than you do.”

“Fine,” Mr. Vuoso said again.

I wasn't sure why I was defending Daddy so much. Mostly I just liked bossing Mr. Vuoso around, since he couldn't do anything back to me. “Are you ready for my next question?” I asked.

Mr. Vuoso nodded. “Yes. Please.”

“Okay,” I said. “Why did you pack rubbers in your duffel bag if you're married?”

Mr. Vuoso grabbed the microphone from me. He leaned forward and pushed Stop on the tape recorder. “How the hell did you know about that?”

“I looked in your duffel bag.”

“Who said you could do that? Go through my personal things?”

I didn't answer him.

“Jesus,” he said. He leaned back on the couch and rubbed his face with his hands.

“Why did you pack them?” I asked, even though the tape recorder was still off.

“Why do you think I packed them?”

I looked at him. He was still holding the microphone.

“Look,” he said, “you can either ask me decent questions, or we can forget the whole thing.”

“Okay,” I said. I took the microphone back and started the tape recorder again. I asked him only decent questions from then on, about what it was like to live each day wondering if you were going to get called up, about who would run his copy shop if he did get called up, about who would raise and lower his flag. When I didn't have any more questions, I turned the tape recorder off. “Should I go change into my uniform now?” Mr. Vuoso asked.

“Sure,” I said.

He paused for a second, then said, “Do you want to come?”

“Why?”

“I don't know,” he said. “Never mind.” He got up off the couch and went upstairs.

While he was gone, I thought about how he was in his room at that very second, taking his clothes off. I wondered what we would've done if I'd gone up there with him; if we would've used his rubbers before he even got to Iraq. I knew from movies that before men went away to war, the women they liked were supposed to have sex with them. You were supposed to do this because the men might never come back, and it would be a nice thing for them to think about before they got killed. On the other hand, Mr. Vuoso had said himself that he wasn't in a fighting unit.

I unplugged the tape recorder and packed it up, then picked up the camera. It was a 35 millimeter, which I had never used before. There was a light meter inside, and if you saw a red blinking dot, you were supposed to use a flash.

Mr. Vuoso came down while I was loading the film, all dressed up in his green uniform. The same one that had hung in the closet in the guest room above the
Playboy
magazines. “How do I look?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said, snapping the back of the camera shut.

“Fine,” he said. “Wow.” He laughed a little.

“Ready to go outside?”

He nodded. “Let's go.”

When we walked out onto the front steps, Melina was sitting on Mr. Vuoso's front lawn, her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. She had moved up a little from where we'd last seen her on the sidewalk. “Hey,” she said. “How'd the interview go?”

“Oh,” I said, because she had surprised me a little, being there. “Good.”

Mr. Vuoso didn't say anything, just looked at her for a second, then made his way over to the flag. It was on the opposite part of the lawn from where Melina sat.

“Now I have to take Mr. Vuoso's picture,” I said.

“Oh right,” Melina said.

“Here, Jasira?” Mr. Vuoso asked. He had positioned himself directly in front of the flagpole.

“Sure,” I said. “That looks good.”

“Nice camera,” Melina said.

“The school loaned it to me.”

She nodded. “Cool.”

I moved out into the street then, just off the curb, so I would be back far enough to get both the flag and Mr. Vuoso. “On the count of three,” I said, then I counted, and Mr. Vuoso looked exactly the same on
one
as he did on
three
: arms straight at his side, mouth set, legs together. I took a few more shots, then walked back onto the lawn and said, “Okay, I'm done.”

Mr. Vuoso relaxed a little then, and I wished I had a picture of that. “Thanks,” he said, and he turned to go inside.

“See you, Travis,” Melina said. She was still sitting on his front lawn.

Mr. Vuoso stopped and looked down at her. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“I'm waiting for Jasira,” Melina said.

“I'll be right out,” I told her. “I just need to get my tape recorder.”

“Take your time,” she said. “I can't get up without help anyway.”

Mr. Vuoso headed for the front door and I followed him. When we got inside, he turned to me, angry. “What's her fucking problem?” he said. “Did you tell her something?”

“No.”

“Then why is she fucking harassing me?”

“I don't know.”

“You better not have told her anything.”

“Stop yelling at me.”

He went quiet.

“I didn't tell her anything,” I said. “I didn't tell anyone. I could've, but I didn't. You can't yell at me.”

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Okay,” he said. “Sorry.”

“I'm going home,” I said, putting the camera back in my bag.

“That bitch ruined everything.”

“She's not a bitch,” I said.

“Yes, she is.”

“I like her. She's my friend.”

“I hardly get to spend any time alone with you,” he said. “Then I get this one chance, and she has to ruin it.”

I looked at him. “Why do you want to be alone with me?”

“Oh Jesus,” he said. “I don't know.”

“So you can hurt me again?”

“No. Of course not.”

I got the good feeling then. The feeling of how wrong he knew he had been. It made me want to be nice to him, and I said, “Daddy is going to Cape Canaveral in March.”

“Oh yeah?”

I nodded.

“You going to babysit yourself?” he asked.

“I guess so.”

“Well,” he said, “you'll be all grown up then.”

“I'm already all grown up.”

He didn't say anything.

“Remember?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “A thousand times, yes.”

“I have to go,” I said, picking up my bag. “Thank you for the interview.”

We looked at each other for a long time. It was like a staring contest. Finally he took his hat off and held it in his hand. “I hope I don't get called up before March,” he said.

“I hope you don't either,” I said, and I turned and walked out.

Melina was waiting for me on the front lawn, just like I knew she would be. “See?” I said. “I told you I'd just be a minute.”

“Help me up,” she said, and I set my bag on the lawn so I could take both of her hands. As I pulled her, there was a moment when it felt like she was going to pull me back down, but instead we just kind of hung there, like a teeter-totter in balance. I put in some extra strength then, or maybe she did, and she came up all the way. “Thanks,” she said, dusting off her butt.

“You're welcome.”

“I was sitting there for a long time,” she said.

“It wasn't that long.”

“Felt like it was.”

“Well,” I said, “I have to go. I have a friend coming over.”

“Thomas?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Denise.”

“Nice,” she said. “A girl.”

“Well,” I said, “bye,” and I turned and headed home.

“What garbage did he tell you?” Daddy demanded when I first came in. He was sitting in his chair with his TV table and nuts.

“I don't know,” I said. “I just asked him the questions and he answered.”

“Give me the tape,” Daddy said. “I want to listen to it.”

“What?”

“I want to hear what kind of crap he told you.”

“No,” I said, “you can't.”

“What do you mean I can't?”

“You can't,” I said. “It's private.”

“Private?” he said. “Nothing you have is private.”

“It's confidential,” I said. “That's what I meant. Because I'm a journalist.”

Daddy laughed. “You're not a journalist. You're a kid. Now give it to me.”

I looked down at my bag. I couldn't imagine playing him the tape. It wasn't just the words I was afraid of his hearing. It was the way I talked to Mr. Vuoso. Like I was the boss.

“Bring it,” Daddy said, pushing his nuts aside on the tray table. “There's a plug right here.”

When I didn't move, he pushed the tray table to one side and started to get up. I took a step back, and just then the doorbell rang.

“I'll get it,” I said, taking my bag with me to the door.

It was Denise. “Hi,” she said. “I hope you don't mind that I'm early. My mother had some errands to run, so she just dropped me off.”

“No,” I said, “that's fine.” She was standing there on the front steps with a small duffel bag. I liked how she always wore makeup: blush, lipstick, and cream-colored eye shadow. When she put on her eyeliner, she always left a tiny sliver of space between the blue pencil and the very edge of her eyelid. It seemed like it was something she did on purpose, though I had no idea why. “C'mon in,” I said, stepping aside.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Daddy,” I said, closing the front door, “this is Denise.”

“Hi!” she said, and she made a small wave.

He was still standing there in the middle of the living room, waiting to take my bag. “Very nice to meet you,” he said. Then he smiled in a way that I had never really seen before. Like he was trying to seem as cheerful as Denise.

“May I have a glass of water?” she asked, turning to me. “I went jogging before I got here, and I'm still really thirsty.”

I was about to say sure, but then Daddy said, “Of course,” and he went into the kitchen. When he came back with the water, Denise drank it down in one gulp. She had cream-colored fingernail polish on her hands.

“Thank you,” she said, handing Daddy back the glass.

“Are you on the track team?” he asked her.

“No!” she said, like it was the craziest question she had ever heard. I worried that Daddy would get mad since he didn't like people acting like he was crazy, but instead he just looked a little embarrassed and said, “Oh, sorry.”

“I'm just trying to lose weight,” Denise said. “You know.”

“Ah,” Daddy said, nodding. “Well, you look very nice to me.”

She giggled. “Thanks.” Then she looked around the house and said, “This is a nice place.”

“Give Denise a tour, Jasira,” Daddy said.

I held on to my bag while we walked around the house, Denise sticking her head in different places. We finished up in my room, which Denise said was really boring. “You need to decorate this place,” she said. “Hang some posters.”