The Picture of Nobody (4 page)

“I don’t keep tabs on them. Where are yours?”

“Friends? None to talk of.”

“And why is that?” His voice matched the coldness in the air.

“Too busy with school and work.” Because he seemed lonely sitting by himself, I added, “I’m working hard, because I’d like to become an engineer.”

He looked away, towards a girl pushing a stroller through the parking lot. “Yeah, that’s nice.”

It seemed he wanted to be alone, so I walked off. A strong breeze was blowing the leaves off
the sidewalk. I hoped the caterpillar man would go into the coffee shop. He had to be freezing.

The next day, I felt I had wasted my concern. Two of caterpillar man’s friends were with him. “Hey, everyone. It’s Terry,” he said. His friends laughed. A short, ugly guy with spiky hair said, “What’s up, Terry?”

“It’s Tommy,” I told them.

“No, I think it’s Terry,” the short guy replied.

“Suit yourself.” As I walked up the steps, I heard them saying “Terry” over and over. As if it was a big joke. While I was cleaning the floor, I saw them glancing at me. I wondered what they were saying. I wished they knew more about me. Like how I was so sad when we moved from Fredericton. How I grew afraid of making new friends after that move. How much I hoped we would never move from Ajax. I pretended the caterpillar man was saying, “Kid wants to be an engineer. Good for him.”

The old men had left early, but their cups and newspapers were still on their table. A copy of the
Star
newspaper lay open. I dusted off the crumbs and flipped through the pages. I froze when I got to page three.

There was a picture of one of the terrorist cell boys. He looked nervous and excited and proud. As if he was about to deliver a long speech in a room filled with strange people. But it was the paragraph under the photograph that caught my eye. It began, “First year engineering student caught in the web.” Cell. Web. Terrorist. Explosion.

As I was about to fold the newspaper, I heard a loud clap. I jumped and turned. “Floor, get clean now! Mop, jump up and dance!” Mr. Chum clapped again. “Tables, get clean fast!” More clapping. “Oh, no, magic not work today. So sad. So sad.”

I quickly got the pail and began mopping. What Mr. Chum had said was funny, but I could not smile. The guy in the newspaper seemed too familiar. Bright, an only son, kept to himself, was polite to his elders, and his parents had come from some other country. He was normal in every way except for his secret meetings.

All at once, I knew why the young men outside had insisted on calling me Terry. It was not a mistake for Tommy. They were calling me Terry because it was short for terrorist.

I should never have mentioned my interest in engineering. Earlier, I had wished they knew more about me. Now I was afraid they knew too much. At the end of my shift, I walked down the steps as fast as I could. I could still hear their mocking voices.
Terry. Terry. Terry.

As I walked home, I remembered an unlucky boy from a long-ago story. This boy had a black cloud floating over his head. It followed him like a dirty, spiteful seagull. I looked up and saw a real black cloud. No, there were about a dozen. They looked like those animals that bit off parts of still-twitching prey. Hyenas or something. I walked faster, and by the time I got to our building, I was almost running.

“How was work today, dear?” Mom asked when I got home.

She asked that each evening, and as before, I told her, “Same as always.”

“You look tired, though.”

“I jogged home. It’s good exercise.”

“Why the change?” Allison didn’t even bother looking up from the computer. I imagined her rolling her eyes and rocking her head. Just as she always did when Mom called me “chubby cheeks.”

“It’s better than changing into a new person every five minutes just to fit in.”

“Whatever.” The computer keys clicked. Maybe she was making fun of me with her Facebook friends.

During dinner, Mom and Dad talked about their usual stuff. I remained quiet, even when Mom said that she was happy I had stuck with my after-school job for so long.

I stayed at the table while everyone else went to watch television in the living room. But I could still see the TV. The announcer was interviewing some woman about the terrorist plot, a woman with curly red hair and an accent that made all her words seem zig-zagging. Even though she lived close to one of the accused boys, she said, she knew nothing of his family. “Quiet people, but who can tell anymore? Kept to themselves, you know...”

Mom said, “There’s the cause, right there.” Dad began talking about Uganda. At the end of the show, Allison hurried to her computer and began typing.

During my first week at Sip and Sup, I had worried that Mom or Dad would show up to check on me. Now I wished they would. Just to show the loafers outside that I had a normal family that didn’t keep to themselves, a family that dressed like everyone else and spoke English better than most.

The next morning, as I was leaving for school, I said, “Hey, Mom, why don’t you drop by the coffee shop today? There are nice muffins and donuts.”

“Oh, that would be perfect for my diet.” She gave me a little smile, but I jerked my head away before she could pinch my cheek.

All day at school, I tried to think of ways to deal with the loafers. Should I be friendly and force them to see that I was different from the cell boys? Or should I report them to Mr. Chum? I knew he did not approve of them hanging around outside his coffee shop. But what would I tell him? That they were calling me Terry? He
would most likely laugh and make one of his jokes.

In the end, I decided I would ignore the loafers. So, as soon as I finished work, I put on my earphones, turned up the volume on my MP3 player, and hurried down the steps. But their voices cut through the music. Caterpillar man: “You wearing a listening device?” Short guy: “Yes, commander. I heard your orders. Over and out.”

I began to hate this caterpillar man. First, because I had tried to be friendly with him once. And second, because he seemed to be the leader. So, when I noticed that the old men got quiet whenever I was cleaning the floor next to their table, I blamed him. I also blamed him when I spotted the old ladies gazing at me with their thin lips pressed into stiff smiles. And I blamed him when a complete stranger yelled something nasty to me from a pickup truck.

I had once liked this little town for its coziness, but now I began to dislike it for the same reason. I could see how easy it would be for rumours to spread. Everyone knew each other. I started to wish that Dad would announce we were leaving for a town far away from Ajax. Maybe if I ganged
up with Allison we might be able to persuade our parents to leave.

When I got home, I saw Mom and Allison in the kitchen. Mom was arranging a head scarf on my sister’s head. As soon as Allison went into her room, I asked Mom, “Why is Allison wearing a head scarf?”

Mom shrugged. “You know your sister. One new style after another.”

“But why now? And why a head scarf? It’s covering all her hair. Even her neck.”

Allison started to yell something from her room. But from the living room, Dad shouted, “Why not? She looks nice in it. And it’s not like she’s joining a cult or anything.”

But that was exactly what I thought. I was sure that the dollar store girl was responsible because she always wore a head scarf herself. I got angry with my sister for always being so easily influenced.

That night when my favourite television show,
The Big Bang Theory
, was on, I could not enjoy it. I kept thinking about how everyone was against me. Dad, for moving every few years. Mom, for still treating me like a child. Allison, for always
trying to slip into a new identity. Even people who didn’t know me were against me. The loafers, for connecting me with the terrorist cell boys. The cell boys, for pretending they were some kind of super-villains. Ajax itself had plotted against me by fooling me with its nice, quiet appearance. And I was to blame, too, for never, ever knowing how to fight back.

I had just one choice: I had to leave my job at Sip and Sup. Yet I knew that doing so would not solve the problem. Ajax was too small, and I could run into the loafers elsewhere. Besides, I had caught complete strangers staring at me.

I got angrier and angrier at the loafers. One day in the library, I got so mad that I couldn’t work. I turned off the computer and looked through the window at the town hall.

Dad often said that, if only the army and the merchants in Uganda had been more patient with each other, his family wouldn’t have had to leave. But what was the use of this patience? To the coffee shop crowd, I looked just like the terrorist cell boys, so I had to be one of them.

How dare they? What gave them a special right to this country? How would they feel if someone accused them of something so horrible?

I was still really mad that evening and I mopped the Sip and Sup floor as if I were the Flash. Mr. Chum said, “Super speed nice for superhero. Bad for mopping floor.”

When I left, I did not wear my earphones. So I heard the caterpillar man clearly when he asked, “Done early, Terry? Going to meet your buddies?”

Words formed in my mind:
No, I prefer to loaf around and waste time.
But I knew that would sound just as childish and silly as one of my arguments with Allison. I didn’t hurry away like I usually did, so I overheard the short guy trying to imitate some foreign language.

The short guy’s noises reminded me of the language two brown boys at school used. One of the boys was in my English class. He was from Afghanistan, and he sat in the back row. Since September, he had been silent. Except for one time, when the teacher asked him a question. He didn’t know the answer. While everyone was waiting for him, he had banged down his book on his desk, got up, and walked out of the classroom.

Like everyone else in the class, I had been annoyed with the boy from Afghanistan. Now I admired him. I was sure the loafers wouldn’t pick on him, because he seemed ready for anything. Maybe his parents had taught him to fight instead of nonsense about politeness and self-control and good grades. Mom believed that the cure for everything was just fitting in. And I can’t even count the times Dad had said, “If you can dream of it, you can get it.” Yeah, sure. What was the use of being a dreamer when everyone else was awake?

This problem preyed on my mind. I thought of it during dinner, while Dad talked about his idol, the Aga Khan, who encouraged charity and all that. I thought of it during school, when I saw one of the boys from Afghanistan smoking behind the gym. And I thought of it each night on my way home from the coffee shop, with the words “Terry, Terry” ringing in my ears.

One evening, I saw the caterpillar man chatting with a woman who seemed about his age, twenty-four or so. I stood on the top step, pretending I was struggling to zip up my coat.

The woman was holding the hand of a little girl. She stood apart, as if she did not want to get too close to the caterpillar man. She pulled the child closer to her and said, “I’ve heard that before, Sid. Too many times.” In a louder voice, she added, “Look at her. She doesn’t recognize you anymore.”

Just then, the caterpillar man — Sid — noticed me staring. “What the fuck are you looking at?”

The woman said, “See, this is what I’m talking about.”

“You don’t know anything.” His voice sounded whiny.

The woman sighed. “I know that Lavinia doesn’t recognize you anymore.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“No one’s, Sid. It’s no one’s fault.” Her voice trailed off as she walked away in the opposite direction from me.

For once, this Sid man had nothing to say. I did not know why the young woman was so mad at him, but I was sure he deserved all of it.