If I don’t save these things, I have lost something. It’s not just that objects release memories, it’s also that they keep them in check. As long as I have Emily’s plastic band, I know the actual diameter of her wrist, not the one I’ve come to imagine. Which doesn’t matter, except that somehow it does. If I just have this one life—if I made all these mistakes in it, felt all this joy and all this pain—I want to know what it was. I want to know what it really meant.
THE LIGHT HAS SHIFTED NOW.
It is no longer streaming into the kitchen. I pull out a box, label it “Precious,” and begin again: opening cupboards, looking at walls, deciding what the box should hold.
Upstairs, the gun still gleams in the drawer, silent, unmoved, waiting for me to get to it. Me and my boxes and my choices. What is precious. What isn’t needed. What is simply the next phase of this life.
What do they say—if you weren’t crying, you’d laugh? Or is it, if you weren’t laughing, you’d cry?
20
Bashkim
TODAY I AM HELPING
Baba and Nene at a baseball tournament. Tirana is sleeping in the backseat, so one of my jobs is to listen for her. Nene is afraid that Tirana will get out of the truck by herself, and something will happen to her before she walks back to us. Since Nene has said this, I am nervous about it too. I am also trying to pay attention to the game, though we are parked behind a tree, and it is hard to see what is happening. I am going to tell Luis about the baseball games. I might not say I am on a team, since he already knows about being on soccer, but I might say that I used to play baseball. I know some of the boys on the teams, and even one girl, because it is a tournament for eight- to twelve-year-olds, and that is how old I am.
What I like about baseball uniforms is you know exactly what sport the person is playing. I would like to hold one of the bats and wear a glove, but I don’t think I can. My baba, who doesn’t know anything about baseball, found a baseball hat in the park last fall, and he is wearing it. It is dark blue, with an orange letter. The letter is so fancy that I am not sure if it is a
B
or a
D,
and Baba doesn’t know either, so when people make comments about his hat, he is kind of careful how he answers.
Baba and Nene have been mad all morning. They have been arguing about money for two weeks, and something happened yesterday that Baba is really worried about. We have to pay the power bill, not just rent, and last month it was too high. Baba said Nene was not being careful enough. Plus Tirana got sick, and Nene took her to a clinic, and she had to pay for a medicine too, and Baba says that we can’t afford that. He says Tirana would get well by herself, and that it is healthier to get well by yourself, but I know he was worried about Tirana too. She didn’t even want to get out of bed when I came home from school, and usually she is jumping all over me and trying to give me baby kisses when I come home. Tirana is really happy to see me every day. Since she is so little, she doesn’t know about not hugging people at school, so if she and Nene come and get me there, it is embarrassing.
Baba and Nene are trying not to argue while we are working, because they both know that people don’t like to buy ice cream when they do that, but Baba is so mad, he cannot control himself. He thinks that if he speaks in Albanian, people won’t know he’s mad. Actually, it’s worse in Albanian. Baba doesn’t know about how Albanian sounds in America.
When Baba is like this, I get very nervous. I am listening for Tirana, and trying to see what the kids are doing in the game, and watching my nene too. Everything about Nene is different when Baba is mad. She keeps her elbows right next to her body, and she moves her fingers together, in and out. I hate it when she does that with her fingers. She is really quiet too, except with the customers, but her voice doesn’t even sound right with them. I want to help her, but it’s hard to do anything right. And the truck is crowded with three people and all the ice-cream freezers, so we keep bumping into each other. I can tell that everyone wants to be far apart.
Nene sends me out of the truck. She says she will listen for Tirana, and that she and Baba can handle it. I walk over to the baseball field and stand by the fence, a little away from where the moms and dads sit. The sun is bright, even though it is February, and it smells good here. I think I would like playing baseball. Some of the players who are waiting for the ball to be hit to them are looking right at the sun, and they have their hats pulled down low so that they can block it.
“Okay, Ryan. One more. Right down the center. You can do it.”
“Eye on the ball, Jake. Eye on the ball.”
The boys who are waiting to bat are lined up inside the cage where they sit, and everyone is watching Jake try to hit the ball. On the other side, I can hear people yelling at the boy who is throwing the ball to Jake, and the coach keeps touching his hand to his arm and chest. I think that baseball might be sort of complicated, and I am not sure I should write about it to Luis. I am also thinking that I would not want to be the batter or the thrower, because everyone is staring at them. I think I would get pretty nervous.
But it looks fun to be in the cage. Boys are laughing, and they say things like “Batter uuuuup,” and one kid keeps crawling partway up the fence, he is so excited. I wonder if everybody has to hit with the bat in baseball.
“Hey, Bashkim!”
It is Derek, a kid who was in my class last year. I sort of nod at him, because he is in the cage, and I feel funny watching them.
“What are you doing here? Do you play baseball?”
I shake my head no.
“Well, okay. Maybe I’ll see you after the game.”
I say okay, and I feel pretty good that Derek wants to see me later. Then I think about Derek seeing me in the ice-cream truck, and about Baba being mad, and I get worried, so I stop watching that game and walk over to watch a different one. There are four games at the same time, and the fields are arranged in a circle, with the food and stuff at the center. It’s nicer than the soccer fields, because there you have to walk really far to see another game, and it’s hard to park our truck where everyone will come by it. At baseball, everyone goes to the center, so as long as Nene gets a license to park there, we sell a lot of ice cream.
I can see Baba and Nene in the truck from here. Baba is shaking his head at a little kid, and I can see that Nene does not like it. The kid is handing his ice cream back to Baba. It doesn’t look open, but Baba is shaking his head about taking it back. I can’t hear what he says, but I see Nene come over and reach her hand out to take the ice cream. Baba gives her his worst look, and even though I can’t see anything from this far, I know Nene is clenching her shoulders the way she does. I really don’t want Derek to come to our ice-cream truck, but I don’t know what I am going to do about it.
I don’t feel like watching any more baseball, so I start walking away from the games and the food and the people. There are some trees at the edge of the park, and there is a dry wash over there, which sometimes even has water in it, and I think that I will hang out there for a while. Nene will get worried if I am gone too long, but I don’t want to go back there right now. I don’t know how I can help Nene anyway.
It is quiet and peaceful in the wash. There isn’t any water today, but I see two lizards, and a chipmunk, and a whole bunch of quail. They get so nervous when I come that they run right at me. Quail are not very smart. I am not supposed to play with chipmunks, because Mrs. Jimenez says they carry a disease. I am pretty sure I couldn’t catch a chipmunk, but it would be fun to have one for a pet.
I have to be careful where I walk because a lot of bushes look soft, but they have thorns. I am wearing jeans, so it will only hurt if they scratch my face or neck, but sometimes I have gotten a lot of pricklies in my jeans and scratched myself when I took them off at night. I find a big rock, and I sit down there to think for a while.
It is quiet, but I can hear things. I can hear the people cheering at the baseball game, far away, and I can hear those quails rustling around in the bushes. There is a bird making
sqwaaack
sounds too. The sun is on my face, and I close my eyes. It feels so warm.
Sometimes at night, before I go to bed, my nene and I watch TV. My nene likes
Jeopardy!
, even though she doesn’t know very many answers, and I watch it with her just because she likes me to be there. When she tries to answer the questions, she gets all mixed up about the question words. She says, “Why is Abraham Lincoln?” and “How is a thermometer?” I like my nene’s questions better than the right ones, and I sit on the couch next to her, not really watching, but listening to her funny question words. It feels sort of like I feel right now, all warm and peaceful. Sometimes my nene is trying to win, and she sits straight up, watching. Other times she sits back like me, and then she touches my head and my face real soft. My nene has long fingers, and she can make circles on my head and face that are softer than soft. I almost can’t feel her fingers, they are so soft, but I know they are there barely touching me. I think I might be too big for her to do this now, but I really like it. I wish
Jeopardy!
would last longer when she is doing it.
I almost fall asleep there, and then I remember how worried Nene will be if I don’t come back to the truck. I walk back fast. Derek’s game is over, and I don’t see anyone wearing his uniform, so I think I probably don’t have to worry about him coming to the truck.
“Where were you?” Nene asks, kind of mad and kind of relieved.
“I was in the wash, and I forgot how long I was gone, Nene. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Bashkim, but I couldn’t see you and I couldn’t leave the truck. I have been watching and watching.”
I feel bad because I know how nervous Nene gets, and I am also worried that Baba is going to punish me. But Baba is really busy. One of the ice-cream freezers isn’t keeping everything cold, and he is trying to figure out what the problem is. Plus, Tirana is up, and she wants someone to pay attention to her, so I don’t really get in trouble because nobody has time to do it. I right away tell Tirana that I will play Mouses with her, so I know that helps Nene too.
I think we have had a pretty good afternoon at the baseball field by the time we leave, but Baba is upset about the freezer compartment. He says that fixing it will take all our profits for the day, and we still have to pay the power bill and the doctor bill. I think we are eating too much too. All of the baseball kids are pretty much gone, and we are cleaning up the truck to leave, when Baba and Nene finally start yelling. I think that they almost made it until we got home, but at least nobody I know is still here.
“Arjeta, you throw away this ice cream? You think I am such a rich man that you can throw away perfectly good ice cream?”
“It is half melted, Sadik. We can’t sell melted ice cream. You know that we can lose our license for that.”
“What difference does it make if we lose our license if we are already out on the street? Hmm! What difference does it make if we lose our license if I can’t pay the rent this month? Foolish woman! Do you see an inspector here?”
My nene is quiet, and I know that she does not want the argument to get worse, but then, she can’t stop herself. Very softly, she starts to say the worst thing.
“For love of Allah, Sadik, just kill me and my—”
Arrrgghh!
Like that, my baba is shoving my nene into the side of the truck. Nene’s head kind of thunks against it, and both Tirana and I scream. That makes Baba furious.
“Shut up! You children. Shut up! You have no idea what she is doing to us. Do you want to starve?”
I get quiet real fast, and even Tirana sort of gulps and stops crying. I can’t believe she is big enough to figure out that she has to be quiet right now, but I guess she is getting more mature too.
Nene has moved away from the side of the truck, and she hisses at Baba.
“Stop it. Do you want someone to see us? Do you want someone to call the police? We are in a park.”
This makes Baba stop, because he is afraid of police and because he knows Nene is right. He slams down the sliding panel that closes the counter on the truck, and I help Tirana get in the seat and buckle her belt. My heart is beating so loud that I am afraid Baba will hear it and get mad, so I try to take big breaths to stop it, but those are sort of loud too. I put my arm around Tirana, because it will really help if she can stay quiet. Baba and Nene get in the front seat, and we start to drive away. I notice that Baba and Nene don’t buckle their seat belts, and this worries me, but it is not a good time to mention it. Nobody is saying anything in the truck, but it feels loud anyway, like someone is screaming, and I am just hoping that we can get home, and that they won’t start yelling now, because I am afraid of my baba’s driving when he is yelling, and I am not sure that I can keep Tirana quiet. I think about the dry wash and how peaceful it felt in there, and I feel so sad that I almost start to cry in the car. But I don’t. That could set everybody off.
21
Bashkim
NOBODY TALKS ON THE
ride home. Baba makes noises with his mouth, like he does when he is mad, but Nene does not react. I know she is afraid of what he will do, and I am glad that she is being really quiet, because I am afraid too. I keep one arm around Tirana, hoping she will stay quiet and figuring that nobody can see me doing this anyway. Tirana is such a baby that she starts to fall asleep right away. I wonder if she just forgot about being afraid a minute ago or if going to sleep is how a baby deals with it. I deal with it by counting my breaths: one, two, three, four. Our PE teacher has us lie on the mats and count our breaths sometimes, and now I do it on days like today. It sort of helps, except I am so nervous that I can’t even count to four. I keep forgetting where I am and having to start over.
I don’t recognize the sound at first. Baba curses, very loud, and Nene makes a kind of
aye
sound, and then I hear the whoop of a police siren, right behind us. I know this means Baba is supposed to stop, but he doesn’t right away. He keeps driving, and I see Nene look at him, and she is about to say something, and then he swings the wheel right, very fast, and the seat belt catches me hard at my waist as my head knocks into the window, and Baba stops.
Nene is praying. Baba tells her to shut up. But she doesn’t. She keeps praying. I think about that a lot later. How Nene was praying. She was praying, so where was God?
The police officer raps on Baba’s window. Baba rolls it down, but it takes him a minute, because he is shaking and the handle for the window is kind of hard to roll down anyway, and the police officer raps a second time, like he is already mad.
“Sir, I need your driver’s license. And your registration and insurance, please.”
The police officer doesn’t sound mad, really, just sort of stern. Like Mrs. Monaghan.
Baba doesn’t react right.
“I’m American citizen,” he says. “I’m American.”
“I just need your license and your registration, sir.”
“You can’t stop me for nothing,” Baba says. “You have to have a reason.”
The police officer steps slightly away from Baba’s window. Stands up straight. He waits a second before he speaks. I can hear Nene breathing. I try to take a breath, because for some reason, I can’t tell if I am breathing too much or not at all.
“Sir, I am going to ask you to step out of the vehicle. Your brake light is out. And I want you to get out of the vehicle.
Now
.”
Baba starts to protest, and I am just begging him with my mind to get out of the truck. Nene doesn’t say anything, and Tirana is still asleep, which is amazing. I notice again that Baba and Nene don’t have their seat belts on, and I wonder if they can get a ticket for this too. Baba’s back is shaking, so I think that he is afraid, because of the prison and the police officer in Albania, but in America, the police officer will not understand that, and I am just about to speak, to tell the police officer to wait a minute, but he says, “Sir, you have children in the backseat. I don’t want this to get ugly. Now please get out of your vehicle.”
He sounds real firm but not as mad as before, and that is enough for Baba. He fumbles with the door, and then he sort of stumbles out. The police officer tells him to face the truck, to spread his legs, and to place his palms on the door frame. Baba does, but he is still shaking, and this makes the truck shake, so that Nene and I can feel it. It is almost like having Baba’s heart beat in my chest.
“Ma’am,” says the police officer. “Could you please open your glove compartment and hand me your insurance and registration?”
Nene should just do this right away. Even I know that. Every kid in Mrs. Monaghan’s class knows that. But Nene doesn’t do it right away. Instead, she says, “We can’t pay a ticket. We don’t have any money. We can’t get a ticket. Do you see my children? We have to feed these children.”
Nene’s voice is high and squeaky, and it wakes Tirana up. She starts to cry, but in a sleepy way. The police officer is getting annoyed.
“Ma’am, hand me your registration and insurance now.”
I shush Tirana and make a fish face to try to get her to stop crying. Nene opens up the glove box and starts pulling out all the stuff that is in there. I think the police officer is probably getting more annoyed, but he is smart enough not to talk to Nene for a minute. Unfortunately, Baba does talk to Nene, even though he is standing against the door frame, and any kid would know he should probably be quiet right then.
“This is your fault, Arjeta. I can’t pay everything. All the bills you get. Doctor. Medicine. Gas bill. I can’t pay it. You are killing me.”
Nene stops looking for the registration and says something to Baba in Albanian, which I don’t catch, and then the police officer says, “Shut up. Stop talking. Ma’am, you have fifteen seconds.”
I don’t know what is going to happen in fifteen seconds. My heart is pounding, and my head is banging, and I am starting to see funny in the backseat. But Nene finds the papers. She can’t hand them to the police officer through the window because Baba is standing against that door, so she gets out, and she walks them to him. Tirana holds out her arms and says, “Nene, Nene.” I put my fingers in my ears and try to get Tirana to look at me. I should smile at Tirana when I do this, but I am having a hard time controlling my face. Nene walks toward the police officer with the registration.
“Stay back, ma’am.”
Nene is surprised.
“Step back to the other side of the vehicle, ma’am.”
That’s when I see there is another police officer. He must have been in the car waiting, but now he is standing a little bit away from all of us. He is staring at Nene, and his look scares me. I don’t think, I just open the door and slip out. I want to run to Nene, but I hesitate, and I stand next to the truck for a minute. Nobody seems to notice that I have gotten out. Nene walks away from the police officer, closer to me, but she still hasn’t noticed that I am out of the truck.
“Sir, this registration expired three weeks ago. Do you have your new registration?”
Baba starts yelling.
“It’s not my fault. I did not have the money. She takes all the money. She and these kids, and I did not have any money to pay this registration!”
Baba’s voice is screechy, and his English is getting confused, and I am not even sure that the police officer knows he is speaking English because it sounds a lot like Albanian.
Then Nene starts. She is yelling at Baba and the police officer at the same time, all mixed up.
“You want that I should let our baby die of fever? What are we supposed to eat? Ice-cream cones? We cannot get a ticket. We have no money for a ticket. Would you put us in the street? What do you want me to do? Not feed our children?”
Nene’s English is fine, but she is getting louder, and she is very upset. She loves me and Tirana so much, and she is afraid of Baba and afraid of the police, and even I know that she sounds crazy to these Americans.
And I want to tell them that she is not crazy, and that if they would just stop talking a minute, if they would just wait a minute, then Baba and Nene will be able to calm down. I am trying to figure out a way to tell the police officers this, and I don’t know how, so I just run out and grab hold of my nene at the waist. I am crying, though I am trying not to, and the police officer says, “Stop. You cannot get out of the vehicle. Tell your son to get back in the vehicle, ma’am.”
And maybe Nene is trying to push me back to the truck, and maybe I am clinging to her. I don’t remember. I don’t remember all of that. But I see the second police officer move his feet apart, and I see him reach for his gun. He is behind the first police officer. I don’t think the first police officer even knows he is there yet, and my nene, she sees the second police officer too. She starts wailing, in Albanian. I think it was Albanian, but maybe it was just wailing. And Nene’s cries make Baba start wailing. They are both so loud, and they don’t know how Albanian sounds in America, and I don’t know what to do. I keep staring at the second police officer because he has a gun, and he is staring at us.
I pull at Nene. I try to get her to come back to the truck with me. I can hear Tirana crying. But Nene is pushing me away. She pulls her ice-cream scoop out of her jacket, and she waves it, and says, “For the love of Allah, just kill me and my children!”
And like that, the second police officer, the one behind, I see him lift his gun, and he aims it at my nene, and I am trying to yell, but nothing comes out of my throat, and then I see his finger move, and I think, “He is going to shoot my nene!” And then his finger is done moving, and I didn’t hear anything, so I think that he did not shoot her, that it is not a real gun, but then I feel Nene jerk, and sort of slump, and her breath comes out like a puff. She isn’t yelling anymore.
“What the hell!” The first police officer is yelling at the second.
“What the hell are you doing? Put that weapon away. What the hell did you do?”
And the second police officer is just sort of standing there, like he doesn’t know where he is, and he says, “She has a knife. She was going to kill her kid.”
And the first police officer says, “What knife?”
And then Baba looks at me, and at Nene, and maybe he realizes, just then, that the gun has been fired. I didn’t even hear it, but Baba looks at us, and he realizes, and he lets out this scream, and he just screams and screams.
And then the second police officer is handcuffing Baba, and the first police officer is looking at me and Nene, and I am holding on to Nene, and she has this funny look on her face, but she is standing, and I am thinking “Was she shot?” and I think that the first police officer is trying to figure this out too, and then Nene just makes this funny sound, and sort of sinks, right out of my arms, and sits on the curb, with her head down.
“Ma’am,” says the police officer. “Ma’am, are you okay?”
And the second police officer yells something at Baba, and I hear Baba get banged against the truck, and then the first police officer says, “Nate, put him in the squad car. Go easy. I don’t know what’s happening over here.”
And he comes over to me and to Nene, and he lifts Nene’s face, and I see his face, and the way his cheeks suck in, and I scream, and I hold Nene, and I hear him on his radio, calling for an ambulance.