Sins of Two Fathers by Denis Hamill

Author:Denis Hamill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2003-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Three

When they stepped into the street, Fuad slammed the automatic-locking door behind him. He padlocked the gate, handed Julie the keys, bowed his head, and made a sharp left into his vestibule. He said nothing.

Julie pulled on a pair of sunglasses, turned, and said, “Holy shit.”

“Literally.”

Tobin fell back against the gate as he stared out at a hushed crowd of several thousand on Coney Island Avenue. Horn-honking traffic was at a stand-still. Uniformed cops negotiated with several young, hard-looking Arab men to break up the show of force. Every set of eyes was on Tobin and Julie.

Tobin said, “This is not good.”

“Fuad musta told the kid who you were, and he spread the news.”

One young man, wearing a hand-knitted skullcap, jeans and sneakers, muscles rippling in his nut-brown arms, walked toward Tobin. “Your son bombs our mosque and you have the audacity to come here?” he said, fists balling. “To further desecrate us?”

“My son is innocent,” Tobin said.

“Our—”

“Shut up, Julie.” She recoiled, amazed Tobin would talk to her like that.

“Your son’s a swine,” the Arab said. “Which means he’s a son of a swine.”

The Arab’s words hurt, the way he knew his words had hurt so many people over the years. “My son is not a swine,” Tobin said. “He wouldn’t do something like that.”

Tobin pointed at the charred mosque, another symbol of the crazed new century.

An angry murmur shivered through the crowd. “You come to write more of your garbage, to make more money off our suffering?” asked the young Arab, moving closer to Tobin. “A woman suffers in a burn unit, and you dare to come here, to where she lived and prayed and dreamed? Where we live with ashes?”

“A poet,” Julie mumbled.

“What did you say, lady?” asked the Arab. “That woman in the hospital happens to be my sister. You addressing me?”

“No, I am,” Tobin said, glaring at Julie. “I’m sorry about your sister. But my kid is innocent. He’s no red-neck racist. Like me, he was born in Brooklyn.”

“So was I,” said the Arab. “So was my sister. So let’s settle this Brooklyn style!”

The Arab’s punch landed high on Tobin’s head. Tobin thought he heard his brains slosh. Tiny sparkles spun before his eyes. Tobin counter-punched, a right hand flush on the Arab’s cheekbone. He staggered ten feet backward and fell into the arms of friends. A unified warble rose from the crowd. Five men moved toward Tobin. Julie pulled out her 9mm in a single motion, squatted into an NYPD-trained shooting stance.

“Don’t,” she said.

A dozen uniformed cops, led by Vinny Hunt, rushed to the sidewalk. Photographers snapped photos. A news crew rolled tape. The ululating crowd grew frenzied, people thrusting hands in the air, warbling, shouting, chanting, and stamping feet. Vinny Hunt lifted the young Arab off the ground then pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

Tobin said, “Don’t, Vinny, please….”

“Don’t?” Vinny said, incredulous. “This fuck hit you first. I saw it. Assault, Discon, Inciting to riot…”

Tobin said, “It was a misunderstanding.”

A disappointed Vinny Hunt shoved the young Arab into the crowd like a man pushing open a hollow door.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.