Out of Nowhere (21 page)

I got how an invasion of white supremacist skinheads was probably a bigger deal and should have taken up more space in my mental hard drive. But for me, Ramadan and calendars and the chances that I could convince the guys to break the fast, at least for the day we played Maquoit, had become my new obsession.

Mike said no way.

“Tom, these are
serious
Muslims.” We were in the car, driving. We had had the early practice that day, and afterward Mike asked if I could take him to Harmon, the neighboring town. He wanted to catch the end of Ellen’s cross-country race, which was being held there.

We’d been hanging out more, me and Mike. Partly because we had soccer, partly because I had AP calculus with Ellen Fitzgerald and Mike was in love. Neither of them had ever dated anyone before (which, when you’re a senior, makes it even
more
awkward, because everyone expects you to have had
some
knowledge of the opposite sex), and somehow I had ended up as their personal romantic go-between. Not literally passing messages back and forth. But Mike would grill me for info about her, and wait for me after calc in order to pretend to walk with me to our next class (he’d actually be looking for an opening to speak with
her
). Ellen had suddenly become fascinated with every detail surrounding Chamberlain soccer and would slyly ask me questions about Mike’s stats and whether he had scored.

I was tempted to tell her he’d probably score if she came to more of our games, but that was the type of double-entendre asshole comment Myla would have hated, so I kept it to myself. Anyway, between Mike and Myla and four AP classes and a hundred
hours of community service, I hadn’t seen much of Donnie. I mean, this usually happened during soccer season, but this year it really felt like he’d dropped off my radar. Sometimes there would be days I wouldn’t even bump into him at lunch, and I wondered if he was skipping school.

Here’s the thing about cross-country: there’s really nothing to see until the end. Everyone runs off into the woods, you wait for them at the finish line, and about twenty minutes later they all start running out. Mike kept glancing at his watch as I broke the speed limit through school zones.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you there,” I told him. “And when are Muslims
un
serious, by the way?”

He laughed.

“When they’re cafeteria Catholics,” he said. “Picking and choosing what you want to do instead of letting the pope decide it all for you.”

“Watch it; I resemble that remark.”

“Then you know what I mean. You miss mass once in a while, or eat that chocolate you were going to give up for Lent, and it’s like, hey, whatever. Not like I’m going to hell for a Hershey’s bar. But Double M and the guys? They are serious. I was sitting next to them on the bench yesterday, and they were arguing over whether they can brush their teeth during Ramadan. And I’m like, ‘What, is toothpaste food?’ and they said, ‘No, it’s because you can’t drink during the day, and what if you swallow some water?’ And I was, like, ‘Dude. Allah will understand if a drop slips down your throat.’ And they all gave me this look, like, Allah will most certainly
not
understand. I mean, a
drop
, Tom. That’s what they’re worried about.”

“You know your problem, Mike? You’re a freakin’ infidel. How would you know what Allah thinks?”

“Exactly. What do I know? So don’t you get into micro-managing Ramadan for them, Tom. They won’t appreciate it.”

He had a point. I sure don’t want anyone who’s not Catholic telling me how to practice my religion. But just like the dates for Ramadan move, the ways you do Ramadan aren’t set in stone. At least, according to Myla.

We had been talking about it the night before, on the phone.

She thought Mike was full of shit.

“Give me a break,” she said when I told her about the toothpaste. “I know plenty of Muslim kids who brush their teeth during Ramadan without worrying about swallowing a little water.”

She also has this friend, Jackie, who lives in her dorm. She’s a black woman from Pittsburgh, born and raised in this country, and she’s Muslim. She wears makeup and jewelry and you can see her hair. She doesn’t cover up with long skirts and a
hijab;
she dates and goes to parties and plays sports. But alcohol doesn’t touch her lips. She doesn’t get on the floor and face Mecca, but she does make a point to pray quietly five times a day. And during Ramadan, she doesn’t eat or drink during daylight hours.

Unless she has a soccer game. See, she plays midfield for Mumford.

“Jackie says a lot of this stuff that some Muslims say is part of the religion is actually just cultural and not in the Koran,” Myla said. “Like, when she’s introduced to a man, she’ll shake his hand. Not like a lot of our Somali girls, who won’t touch a man who is not an immediate relative, and if they
have
to shake a man’s hand—like, say, the principal handing them their diploma at
graduation—they’ll cover their hand with the
hijab
so they don’t touch skin.”

“Seriously? Samira wouldn’t shake my hand?”

“We should ask her. I’m curious. Samira’s … unpredictable.” Myla’s voice trailed off. “I think there’s a lot she’s still trying to sort out.”

“So where are you now?” I asked.

“Lying on my bed,” she replied. “Supposedly reading for my anthro class tomorrow. But then this
guy
called …”

“Hey, we’re talking about Muslim cultural and religious practices. Sounds like anthropology to me.”

She laughed.

“Do you have your flamingos on?”

“Of course,” she said. “I wish you were here to appreciate them with me.”

“Somehow I don’t think
any
anthro would be happening if we were appreciating the flamingos together right now,” I said. “That’s very true, Cap.”

The flamingos are these small pink party lights, shaped like the long-legged birds, that Myla has strung along the walls of her dorm room. The overhead light in her room is this bright fluorescent thing, which she hates, so she bought herself a floor lamp that uses an energy-saving bulb, and these strings of flamingos.

The flamingos create some pretty intense atmosphere. I gave them two enthusiastic thumbs up the other night.

“But listen,” she said, pulling me away from some pleasant, flamingo-lit memories. “What you’ve got to realize is that while American Muslims like Jackie might feel comfortable breaking the fast for a college soccer game, guys like Saeed might not. Somali
people are pretty conservative, and refugees a lot of times get even stricter about religion when they leave home. They’ve already lost so much, you know? Religion is one of the few things they’ve got left.”

I sighed.

“So basically you’re telling me there’s no chance I’m gonna convince these guys that the team needs them to be in top form when we play Maquoit and please won’t they eat and drink
something
before the game?”

“I’m saying you can
try
, but don’t get your hopes up.”

As Mike and I pulled into the parking lot of the middle school, we heard a gun going off in the direction of the fields, followed by cheers. He glanced at his watch.

“I can’t remember if the girls run first or second. If we hurry, maybe I can catch her on the second turn.”

A cross-country race is like organized chaos. First you’ve got these runners all packed together along the start line. A gun fires, they take off, and it’s like a cartoon mob of flying feet and pumping arms and you’re just sure someone is going to trip and get trampled. But no one does, and within ten seconds or so they fall into an order of sorts, with a third going out strong, a third pacing themselves in the middle, and a third settling into a jog because they’re clearly not concerned about their times and just hope to finish the race.

They run along a route that only makes sense to them (all the teams walk the course beforehand to make sure no one accidentally cuts corners or gets lost in the woods), and as they circle and loop round, disappear behind the trees and then reemerge, the line thins as gaps form between the fast runners and the kids
falling behind. At various points along the course, clusters of fans gather, screaming encouragement, urging them forward, faster. Everyone is spread out for miles—you can work up a sweat just jogging between various points along the course to cheer—and it’s only at the end that it gets truly crazy and intense, as the runners, who pretty much all look like they want to die, put on a last, final burst for the finish line. Everyone screams for everyone, and the biggest applause comes for the kid who crosses
last
. This is usually the most out-of-shape kid on the team, possibly in the whole school, but you’ve gotta hand it to him: he just ran a 5K and lived to tell about it.

When Mike and I reached the field, a pack of guys ran past. Two wore Chamberlain jerseys.

“Yes!” he said. “The girls must be running second. C’mon, let’s go watch!” We took off at a slow run to a hill where we could pretty much see the whole race play out around us.

The runners were like different-colored jewels scattered on a green, green cloth. Mike and I positioned ourselves at the crest of a long, open part of the trail that the runners ascended slowly. It was probably the two-mile mark, the telling point, where you knew whether you still had something left or whether you’d gone out a little too fast and burned yourself up. A lot of people gathered here, cheering for their schools.

In the distance, I saw a black boy in Harmon’s colors slowly approach. His breathing was labored; his legs moved almost in slow motion. Over and over, runners approached him from behind and passed him. He didn’t acknowledge them, his gaze was fixed ahead, but as each runner passed, I noticed, they spoke to him.

When he got near me and Mike, fans began speaking to him
as well. Every fan, from every school. They clapped and shouted encouragement as he made his way up the hill.

“Good job, Ali! Attaboy! Don’t give up!” His opponents, the kids from the other schools, cheered him as well. Some patted him on the back as they ran by.

“Nice job; good going. Keep it up, Ali!”

When he got close to us, I saw that he was bathed in sweat. He looked agonized; he didn’t appear to notice the shouts of the people around him.

“Go, Ali! You can do it!” Mike yelled.

I stared at him.

“You know that guy?”

Mike looked surprised.

“You don’t? That’s Ali Suleman. He’s Harmon’s number one runner. Probably number one in the state. He’s awesome.” He’d passed us now, and I watched as he disappeared around a clump of trees.

“Number one has about twenty-five guys ahead of him,” I commented. “He didn’t look too happy.” Mike shrugged.

“No, but he was looking good for someone who hasn’t eaten or had anything to drink since dawn,” he said. “C’mon, let’s head to the finish.”

We got there as the first runners crossed the line. At that point, it didn’t matter which school anyone was pulling for: every runner was cheered. Some of them put on this superhuman burst of energy as soon as they drew close to the crowds at the end, which got a lot of applause for effort. When Ali approached, the crowd noise intensified several decibels.

His teeth were pulled back in a grimace and perspiration flew
off him. The Harmon team, in a pack, chanted his name as he approached the finish line, and when he crossed they mobbed him. He staggered; they practically knocked him over. Mike and I were only a few feet away, so I heard what he said. It was almost a gasp, but I could hear him.

“Ramadan is pushing me, but I push back! I push back!”

The other finishers, once they walked it off and their heart rates settled, poured themselves paper cones of icy water from the big plastic coolers the organizers had set out. Ali took nothing. Hands on hips he walked slowly, shaking his legs out, stretching, loosening the lactic acid out of his muscles. The expression on his face was tired and relieved and … triumphant. Like he’d just won something big.

That’s when I knew I wasn’t going to ask Saeed and the other guys to break their fast the next week.

The boosters decided to spring for a fan bus to the Maquoit-Chamberlain game.

Granted, it was a school bus. But this was still the regular season, the first half of October, and the boosters usually only hired fan buses for the postseason. That is, if we were lucky enough to make it to the postseason and could convince enough people to travel all the way to Bangor to watch us get our butts kicked.

But this was the brave new world of Chamberlain soccer, and we were the team to watch (at least according to John LaVallee, sports columnist for the
City Cryer
). And a game between the Team to Watch and the Team to Beat, aka Maquoit, warranted a fan bus. Signups to reserve a seat started at 7:30 a.m.; by first period, at 8:00 a.m., the bus was filled and there was a waiting list two pages long.

Saeed came bounding into school the morning of the game. He had already been up for hours, doing his pre-dawn prayers and stuffing himself with as much food and water as he could before
sunrise. On game day he’d planned to go to the mosque instead of just praying at home. So as I stood in the school hall, wishing I’d had time for a second cup of coffee that morning, for him it was like noon already.

“Tom! Big day!” he enthused, clapping me on the back. I was drifting with the herd toward homeroom when he came up behind me. We were both wearing button-down shirts and ties, standard issue for varsity game days.

“Big day, man,” I agreed.

“Yeah! Everybody coming!” He gestured to the table in the lobby where kids had signed up for the bus.

“Even my parents are getting off work early to see the game,” I told him.

“Me too. My family, too! Myla is driving.” I nodded. That I knew. Myla’s minivan service.

“Hey, Tom Bouchard.” Silky voice to my right. Lila Boutin. Cherisse’s BFF.

Saeed punched me lightly on the arm and disappeared in the crowded hallway. I fell into step with Lila, who’s in my homeroom, a room full of B’s: Bouchard, Boutin … “So what were you up to this weekend? We missed you at Carrie’s. Epic
ray-jah
. At least one girl I can think of was pretty disappointed you didn’t show.”