The 56th Man

THE 56TH MAN

By J. Clayton Rogers

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2009

ONE

Baghdad, March 27, 2003

The storm receded in the distance, as all
storms did. The boy was protected, even coddled. He did not
comprehend that this storm, like all the others over the last week,
was unseasonal. But he knew few things this thunderous ended
abruptly. They faded off, as though the events themselves were
aware of their majesty and were reluctant to end the proceedings.
Like his father's wrath, which tended to decline into dark
mutterings. There was no specific end to his anger; only when a
tentative smile flickered across his stern face did the boy know
that sweet reason was finally breaking through, however slowly.

But his father was not here now, nor his big
brother. They had both been wearing uniforms when they left,
leaving him and the middle brother and their mother to huddle in
the basement while the storm broke overhead. The biggest storm the
boy had ever experienced, big enough to shudder their bones and
draw low cries of fear from their compressed lips. It would have
been reassuring if his father had been with them. The boy would not
have even minded if his father had cried out with the rest of
them--though such a reaction was unlikely.

But now the storm was receding and the boy
grew fidgety. He tried to pull away from his mother, who kept him
in place with a strong hand.

"
Qasim,
"
she commanded her
middle son.
"
Go up and see.
And be careful!
"

The younger boy fumed as his brother went
upstairs. He was more unwilling than unable to understand why he
should not take charge of his own destiny.

"
Ummi,
"
he complained,
squirming.

His mother’s grip
tightened.
"
B
e still!
"
She hearkened to her middle son‘s footsteps
overhead. Her mind had become a listening post, her dread a
trembling sentry.

The boy hated the cramped basement, so full
of family treasures that there was scarcely room for the three of
them. Was that why his father and eldest brother had left? Because
they would not have been able to squeeze themselves between the
antique vases and statuary that they had moved downstairs
throughout the previous week? And what was in those crates over in
the corner? They had been unloaded from army trucks and carried
here by soldiers who had brushed aside his parents' protests with
curious indifference. Other men in uniform were highly deferential
to the boy's father. But not these. This lack of respect bothered
the youngest son. The soldiers laughed idiotically when he openly
snubbed them. After they left, the boy was threatened with severe
punishment if he went near the crates.

And now they were not ten feet away from
him.

The boy stopped
fidgeting.
"
Ummi, I don’t
hear--
"

The door at the top of the stairs.

"
You can come
up, now,
"
Qasim called to
them.
"
They’re gone, for
now.
"

Still holding his hand, the boy's mother
rose, lifting him to his feet, and led him up.

"
Aoothoo
billahi meen ash-shaytan ar-rajeem,
"
the boy's mother murmured. The boy was startled.
She was asking for Allah's protection against the accursed Satan.
Not typical language in this household.

The boy was intrigued by glass strewn across
the front room. Where had it come from? Ah...the picture window.
Smashed to smithereens! If he had done that...kicked his ball the
wrong way while playing in the yard...he would have feared for his
very life. But there was no one here to punish. It seemed to have
exploded all by itself, on its very own. How could such a thing
happen?

"
That's the
only damage, Subhan Allah,
"
said Qasim.
"
We're very
lucky.
"

"
Lucky!
"
his mother
scoffed.
"
This is punishment.
No one else has a window like this, where everyone can see in.
Lucky!
"
She paused, looking
lost as she stared at the vacant window.
"
It's your father's...he never went
to the mosque...mocked the imam's...he was never a believer...he
never bowed his head... Astaghfirullah. Astaghfirullah.
Astaghfirullah...
"

I ask Allah forgiveness. This was something
you said when you feared going to Jahannam, Hell. And an especially
horrible fate awaited unbelievers, who would not be rescued from
their torments on Judgment Day: Qiyamat.

She seemed to the boy to be saying that, one
way or another, they would all spend eternity eating Zaqqum thorns,
and they had Baba to blame for it. Were things really that bad?
Wanting to judge this gloomy assessment for himself, the boy
strained towards the back door. Certainly, his mother would not
mind if he went out that way, with a high wall and locked gate for
protection. But she held onto him. He considered the practicality
of a tantrum. After all, his father wasn't here.

"
Get your
father on the phone!
"

"
The phones
aren't working,
"
Qasim
reasoned with his mother. The boy watched his brother's Adam's
apple shuttle up and down his throat as he confronted an adversary
far more tenacious than the manmade storms.

"
He has a
radio, doesn't he? Call him!
"

Qasim walked across the broken glass to a
small charger on a side table.

"
The power's
been off. It may not be charged. The enemy is
jamming--
"

"
Find
out!
"

The middle son took the radio out of its
cradle and tested the transmission button. There was a burst of
static, then a smooth electric sound. He pressed the button again
and spoke. He released the button. A moment later a man's voice
came on. It didn't sound like the boy's father, but it was fuzzy.
Hard to say. In her excitement, the boy's mother let go of him and
raced across the room.

"
Careful!
"
Qasim cautioned
his mother.
"
Careful! It's not
a toy!
"

The middle son assumed the authority of an
adult as he explained to his mother how to operate the radio. She
stopped her frantic efforts to grab it out of his hand and listened
with a show of patience, as though heeding a grown man.

The boy skipped out the back door. He was a
man, too. Independent. He hopped down the steps and stopped,
listening.

The walled garden seemed undisturbed by the
storm--except for some unripe fruit that had fallen off the
tamarind tree that spread its shade over the far corner. The boy's
mother would not be pleased by that. He had once clambered up a
ladder and picked some of the fruit too early in the year. His
intent was to be helpful, but his mother had berated him for the
waste. The fruit was useless until it dangled in long, plump
strands.

Beyond the wall pillars of smoke rose in all
directions. The outside world had been churned into noisy chaos.
Shouting, cries of horror, pain and astonishment. The boy thought
he recognized some of the voices. Could these be his neighbors? He
could not say for certain. There was a high pitch in their tone
that carried the voices just beyond familiarity. And there were
screams. Who could be screaming? It was confusing. The fruit had
incontinently fallen, but everything else in the garden was
judiciously serene. The boy felt safe, as though snuggled in a
nest.

He went to the gate and peered through the
bars. People were running back and forth, blindly breaking through
thick feathers of smoke. They were throwing up their hands or
shaking their fists at the sky. Was the sky the enemy? Had the sky
broken the picture window? The boy glanced up. The air directly
above the garden showed only a faint trace of smoke. But the smell
was strong. He looked out again. Further up the street the haze was
impenetrable. A man emerged suddenly out of the smoke, like a genie
popping out of his bottle. He rubbed his eyes, then gazed about
numbly, as if waking from a long nap.

The boy saw nothing aimless about the people
dashing back and forth in the street. They were vibrant, and in his
small lexicon of life vibrancy spelt purpose. Even moaning, like
the woman who stumbled and fell to the curb, was a kind of
decisiveness. She was doing something...even if he could not begin
to understand what it was.

Backing away from the gate, the boy stopped
midway up the path of slate flagstones and surveyed the garden.
Wasn't there something he could do? Some way that he could be
useful?

The opportunity was under his nose. Of
course! He would pick up the fallen tamarind fruit. That would
certainly please his father and mother. Even when ripe, they never
ate it. His father bemoaned the annual mess and the insects the
rotting fruit attracted after it had fallen to the ground. Planted
long ago by the previous owner of the house, the tree was intended
to provide shade, not sustenance. The tamarind fruit the boy's
family ate came from India, in a variety of forms. When his mother
stormed at him last year for picking unripe buds, she must have
been more concerned about the height of the ladder than the loss of
foodstuff.

Dragging a reed basket out of the flowerbed,
he set to work. As he gathered the fruit, he noticed some branches
that had broken loose. Most of them were small, yet still too large
for the basket. How should he deal with them? Pile them next to the
path, perhaps, so that the gardener could scoop them up for
disposal? That seemed an excellent solution. The boy was sure his
father would approve.

But after several minutes spent dragging
branches across the yard the true magnitude of the job revealed
itself to him. There was more here than he had realized. And some
of the branches were much heavier than he'd anticipated. He
abandoned the pile at the base of the patio steps and returned to
his original task. Let the gardener deal with the branches. The
fruit was much smaller and easier to handle.

And yet, after several minutes of bending and
standing, it struck him this chore was just as tiresome as dragging
tree branches. He'd never known the unripened fruit to fall in such
abundance. What could have caused it? He raised his eyes to the
tamarind limbs overhead. The tree looked shaggy, weather-beaten.
Well, that only made sense after a storm. Especially after a storm
that could shatter a picture window into a thousand fragments.

There was something stuck in the lowest fork
of the tree. It looked like string or tape. Walking around to the
other side, between the wall and the tree, he could make out a
knob-like thing, brightly colored. Somebody's toy had been tossed
by the storm from who knew where, until it had fetched up here.
From what he could judge, the knob was about the size of his fist.
The boy glanced about for the gardener's ladder, then paused. The
last time he had dragged the ladder against the tree his mother had
come roaring out like a dragon in a fairytale. It would be best not
to draw attention.

He searched the garden and found a plastic
crate behind the mulch pile. The bottom was latticed. He had seen
the gardener use it to sift out stones and roots before casting
soil and mulch on the flowerbed. It was strong, but light. Carrying
it over to the tree, the boy upended the crate and planted it on
the garden side of the tree. He would catch hold of the tape and
drag the knobby thing down by the tail.

The tape was about six inches long and
flapped temptingly against the tree as the boy stood on the crate
and stretched up.

Just out of reach.

The boy sighed, looked down for a moment,
then raised his head, held out his right arm as far as it would go,
and gave a little jump.

Missed.

Instead of being frustrated, he was egged on
by failure. He even found it amusing to miss, and began to laugh so
hard that it robbed his legs of strength. His jumps failed by an
inch, then several inches. He even fell off the crate once, still
laughing.