AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Pause.
“Yes, I did. But that’s not what I wanted to discuss,” he says.
I keep talking anyway.
“Listen, Dad. I know I shouldn’t have been there,” I say, a little louder than I need to.
He holds the palm of his hand up, as if to say,Calm down. I’ll do the talking.
“You understand, Ali, that you were seriously wrong to be there. You’re aware of that. So there’s no point in carrying on about it. I’ll only ask of you one thing: Please don’t do something irresponsible and dangerous like that ever again.”
I guess a better kid would admit that I’d already done something “irresponsible and dangerous” for a second time, or try to explain why I was at the projects in the first place. But, damn, I’m just not that better kid. Maybe someday I’d own up to it, but this wasn’t the day.
Now, Dad moves on to the meat of the discussion.
“Here’s what I really want to talk about. I want to hear what you think about the shooting itself, about that young man who was almost killed.”
I don’t know why, but his question—serious, very somber—shakes me up a little. When in doubt, tell the truth. And that’s what I do. Besides, I want him to know a little of what I’ve been going through.
“I’m not sure what I think. I mean, this ‘young man’ was part of a gang. He was part of the break-in. This is a bad person.”
“Yes. He was certainly no model citizen. But what if the boy had been shot dead?” Dad asks.
“But he wasn’t,” I say.
“But he could have been.”
I pause for a moment. Dad raises his eyebrows.
Then he speaks.
“It’s a big problem. A very confusing problem. And it’s particularly confusing for those kids who have folks in police work, Ali.”
Then I say exactly what I’m thinking.
“Yeah, I oughta know. I’m one of those kids.”
“And I’m sure it’s tough on you,” he says. “Fortunately, you’re smart enough, and even man enough, to understand the—let’s say—dimensionsof the problem.”
Man enough.Dimensions. I guess he thinks I have the brains and the guts to deal with this. But maybe I don’t; should I tell him that?
He finishes drinking his milk. (The ice cube doesn’t look any smaller than when I brought the glass to him.)
It turns out that he’s not quite finished with me—even though I’m not sure what else to say. He puts down the glass and talks.
“You’ve met my friend Chris, the deputy officer for off-duty conduct. You may remember that Chris is from Denmark. He spent ten years on the police force over there in Copenhagen. Anyway, Chris once said to me that the biggest difference between the way folks from America think, compared to the way folks from Europe think, is this: in Europe people try to accept the way things happen, the way things are, the things that probably cannot change.
“But in America, well, Americans always think that bad things can change, that if you think hard enough, if you try hard enough, you absolutely can come up with a solution.”
He pauses. I think he’s waiting for his words to make their way through my mind. But my mind is feeling pretty mixed up.
Then he says, “What do you think about Chris’s opinion on the difference between America and Europe and changing things around?”
I look down at the floor. I shuffle my feet. I’m not sure how to answer, so to buy some time I say, “No, Dad. You go first. What doyouthink?”
“What do I think?” he asks. Then he laughs and says, “I’m an American. So, now it’s your turn. Tell me. What do you think?”
The truth is, I don’t knowwhatI think. It’s not that simple. Sure, there’s plenty of bad stuff in the world you just have to accept. But a lot of other bad stuff, I think,canbe changed. I think ithasto be. Does that make me American or European? I’m not sure. I can’t figure out an answer to this any more than I can figure out an answer to the police dilemma, and right now, it’s definitely making me fed up.
