Shattered (14 page)

That was exactly what Mac had said to me. As long as you didn't see something you didn't have to deal with it.

“By the way, what day is it today?”

“Thursday.”

“Sometimes I lose track of the days, but I thought it looked too busy, too much traffic, to be a weekend,” he
said. Then he turned to me and slowed down a bit. “If it's Thursday what are you doing here instead of at school?”

“I guess I should be in school,” I said reluctantly.

“Be careful,” he said as he started to cross the street.

We dodged cars as we crossed. He cut across the parking lot of a donut shop. There was a long line of cars waiting at the drive-through window.

“Here it is. Best bagels around,” Jack said.

I could see through the front window that a lot of people agreed with him because there was an equally long line at the counter inside. I grabbed the front door, holding it open for Jack and—

“Not that way. Come,” he said, motioning for me to follow.

We circled around the side. Was there another entrance? The back of the building certainly wasn't as fancy as the front. There were boarded-up windows and a big brown door with a mass of graffiti marking the territory, some garbage cans and a big green dumpster.

“Let's see what they're serving for breakfast,” Jack said. He took the lid of the dumpster and swung it up.

I stopped dead in my tracks, stunned.

“Hold this for me.”

“What?” I asked in shock.

“Hold the lid, so I can look inside.”

“You're not serious, are you? You're not going to eat from the dumpster.”

“Why not?”

“I have money,” I said, digging into my pocket. “I was going to buy us breakfast … inside … we don't have to eat from the garbage.”

“I can't take your money. Besides, it's not just me. I'm hoping I can bring back something for everybody. Take the lid so I can search.”

I stumbled forward, putting the money back in my pocket and grabbing the big plastic lid, holding it up. Jack shuffled around cardboard boxes, and papers and—

“Here it is!” he said, holding up a large, clear plastic bag. It was filled with donuts and muffins and bagels. There had to be three or four dozen. As he started to look in the bag I lowered the lid. I looked around, trying to see if anybody had noticed what we'd done.

“What do you want?” he asked as he sat down on the curb and started to undo the bag.

“Should you be doing that here?” I asked. “What if somebody came out of the donut store?”

“Then I'd say thank you.”

“But wouldn't they get mad at you?”

He shook his head. “They know what I'm doing. How did you think I knew to look? A couple of the people who work here, they told me to look, told me there'd be something there most days.”

“Why would they do that?” I asked.

“It isn't like they can sell them. These are two days old.

The fresh ones they sell. The day-olds they put in a bag and sell at half price. These are the ones they couldn't sell at half price so they toss them. So what do you want?”

“I don't know … Maybe I shouldn't have anything … just to make sure there's enough for everybody else,” I said, trying to provide a legitimate excuse to avoid eating from a dumpster without offending him.

“You suit yourself, but you don't have to worry, they're fine. They might have been in a dumpster but they were inside a sealed plastic bag. Besides, a couple of days old isn't bad. Your parents buy a bag of bagels at the grocery store. It hangs around for three, four, maybe five days before the last one is eaten. Try one,” he said, holding the bag out.

I didn't have much choice. If I turned it down I'd run the risk of offending him. Gingerly, reluctantly, hesitantly, I reached into the bag and removed a bagel. There were little bits of what I hoped were blueberries poking through the surface. I pressed a finger against it. It didn't feel stale. I took a small bite. It tasted okay. It tasted good. Sweet.

“Montreal bagel. Reminds me of home.”

“You're from Montreal?” I asked.

“I've lived everywhere, but my family is originally from Montreal if you go back far enough. Come, let's get back.” He started walking. “You asked why those people put these out for us,” Jack said. “You want to know the reason?”

I nodded my head.

“I read a lot. Magazines, newspapers, books. You'd be amazed how many things are thrown out.”

I pictured him dumpster-diving for books as well as bagels.

“So I'm reading this science magazine about these researchers who were mapping the genetic codes of different animals, including man. And they found that there wasn't that much difference between animals that they'd always thought were completely different. Bees and birds, horses and hyenas, humans and chimpanzees.”
What did any of this have to do with why people gave him two-day-old donuts and bagels?

“Humans and chimpanzees share over ninety-eight percent of the same genetic material. The things that make one a chimp and the other a man constitute less than two percent. Isn't that amazing?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, still not understanding what point he was trying to make.

“So if you and a monkey share so much, just imagine how much you and I must share, or how much we both share with a man in China. We're all basically the same. Think how little difference there is between any of us.”

“That makes sense. The difference must be small. Way, way less than one percent, way less.”

“Way less. So me and those people who work in the donut store, we're basically the same. Them doing something nice for me is just like them helping a member of their family. We're all in this together. We're all part of the same family. And that's what makes Rwanda so hard for me to believe.”

“What do you mean?”

“The people in Rwanda, the three tribal groups—” “Three? I thought there were just two … the Tutsi and the Hu … the Hu—”

“The Hutus,” he said. “You did look things up, didn't you?”

I nodded my head.

“The Hutus make up the majority of the people, close to eighty percent. The Tutsi make up around fifteen percent and then there's a third group, the Twa.”

“I didn't know about them.”

“Small, only a percent. And all around, in neighbouring countries, are Tutsi who were displaced, living in other countries—Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda, Zaire, the Congo. But these groups of people, living side by side together in the Garden of Eden since the dawn of time, how different could any of them be from each other? How much difference could there be between a Hutu and a Tutsi?”

“Nothing, I guess,” I said.

“But that nothing was enough.” He shook his head.

“Have you ever seen a dead person?”

“On TV, on the news.” I'd never even been to a funeral. “I'd seen bodies before. I've lived a long time. I've served in the military in places around the world, places where death isn't sanitized and hidden away like it is in this country. Death is a part of life.”

We crossed the street. The traffic was a little lighter as morning rush hour was starting to wind down.

“But seeing death before didn't prepare me for what I saw there. Nothing
could
prepare me—or anybody else. I'd never seen so much death, death happening in so many ways.”

“Like with a machete?” I asked, thinking back to what he'd said to me the first time we had met.

He nodded. “Yes, with a machete, and knives, guns and rockets and grenades. Do you believe in Heaven?” he asked suddenly.

“Heaven … do you mean like clouds and pearly gates and harps?”

“I'm not sure what it will look like but I know it exists,” he said. “Do you know why I'm so sure?”
I shook my head.

“I know there must be a Heaven because I've seen Hell. Sometimes it was so hot it almost burned my lungs when I inhaled. Other times it was so cold that my blood nearly froze. I've seen Hell. I've
been
in Hell … here and in Rwanda. And because of that, because I
know
there is a Hell, I'm positive there must be a Heaven.”

All the time he'd been talking he'd been looking straight ahead, no hint of expression on his face.

He stopped in the middle of the small wooden bridge spanning a creek that cut through the park. “Do you know what I think of every time I cross over this bridge?”

Of course I didn't know, but I didn't think he expected an answer.

“I think of bodies. A river full of bloated human bodies, dumped in a river, so thick that they formed a blockage across the river where it went under a bridge. And people had to haul those bodies out, drag them up onto the shore and dump them back into the river on the other side of the bridge to stop that log-jam of human beings from causing a flood. And each time they pulled out a body, another drifted down the river to take its place.”

I stared down at the creek. There was a grocery cart embedded in the mud of the bank, and a white plastic bag, caught in the current, twisted and turned as it floated along with the current and then disappeared under our feet. But as Jack stood there, staring down, I knew he hadn't seen the plastic bag. He was seeing those bodies floating by … He was seeing Hell.

Twelve

I'D TAKEN A BUS
, a commuter train, and then finally a taxi to get back to school by noon. I wanted to get there in time for civics—the class before lunch. I signed in at the office—told them I'd had an appointment, and then headed off for class. I got there late but still got there. I quietly slipped in the door. Mrs. Watkins was writing on the board. She looked over and gave me a disdainful glare. She continued writing and talking. The only open seats were—of course—in the front row. Was this going to be my new seat?

“Nice of you to join us, Mr. Blackburn,” Mrs. Watkins said as she turned away from the board.

“Sorry I'm late. I was finishing up my interview … the one you wanted me to do.”

“With the soldier?”

“Retired soldier … special operations.”

“Excellent! So please, tell us what he said, give us an oral report.”

I was taken aback. I hadn't seen that coming. I thought I could write something up and hand it in. Slowly I got to my feet as Mrs. Watkins took a seat at her desk in the corner. What was I going to say, where was I going to start?

“I interviewed a gentleman who was a sergeant in the armed forces. His name is Jack. He said he was stationed at bases around the country but that he was also part of missions around the world.” I reached down and grabbed my notebook. I'd used the train ride to finish transcribing my notes into it. “He was in the military for twenty-four years. It was sort of like the family business. His father was in the military and his grandfather. Jack said that he felt like he was doing the right thing, defending our country and trying to help people. He was part of United Nations peacekeeping missions in different countries, countries like Haiti and Bosnia and the Middle East and Rwanda.”

“Rwanda?” Mrs. Watkins said. “I didn't know there were any Canadians in Rwanda.”

“There were eventually over forty countries that sent soldiers. There weren't many Canadians, but some. The commander was a Canadian during the genocide.”

“The genocide,” Mrs. Watkins said softly as she stood up. “Does anybody know what a genocide is?”

“Isn't that when a lot of people get killed?” a girl answered.

“In most armed conflicts people get killed. We consider it an acceptable part of war when those who are killed are the combatants, the soldiers. We consider it far less acceptable when innocents, civilians, are killed. The term used today is collateral casualties. That basically means that they were killed because they were in the wrong place and were killed as one set of soldiers attempted to kill soldiers on the opposing side. With a genocide, the death of civilians is not accidental. The
civilians
are
the targets. Genocide is a methodical, deliberate attempt to kill civilians, especially those who are of a particular or specific ethnic, religious, or racial group.”

“Like the Holocaust,” somebody said.

We'd studied the Holocaust in grade eight and I didn't think there was anybody who didn't know at least something about that. I'd even read a couple of books—sort of historical fiction about kids who were in the Holocaust.

“The Holocaust was one act of genocide,” Mrs. Watkins agreed. “In World War II the Nazi party under the direction of its leader, Adolf Hitler, decided to kill all persons who were Jewish. Men, women, small children, old people, babes in arms, were subject to a systematic attempt to annihilate an entire group of people. While there are some debates concerning the exact number, it is without question a fact that at least six million Jews were killed. They were shot, electrocuted, killed with explosives, and in the best-known example, slaughtered by the use of gas in the concentration camps.”

“It's so hard to believe,” another girl said. “What made them do that … act like that? What made them so full of hate?”

“If it was just the Nazis it would be one thing,” Mrs. Watkins said. “The Holocaust is the largest and best-known genocide of the twentieth century but it was not the only, or the first, or the last.” Mrs. Watkins took a sip from her cup. “In a period between 1915 and 1923 there were over 1.5 million Armenians killed. The entire land mass of Asia Minor was expunged of all Armenians. They were either killed or forced to leave, and many of those forced to leave died of disease and starvation.”

“Who killed them?” somebody asked.

“Turks. It was a genocide against Armenian Christians by Turkish Muslims.”

“But how could that take place? Didn't somebody try to stop them?” Jeremy asked.