Terrorist

"Friends help each other out," Charlie insists. He reaches over and squeezes the young driver's shoulder, and Ahmad does not entirely like it; it reminds him of Tylenol's bullying grip that time in the high-school hall.

The boy states, with a new-won man's dignity, "One more question, and then I will say nothing until I am spoken to on these matters. Is there a plan developing, with these seeds that are being watered?"

Ahmad knows Charlie's facial expressions so well he does not have to look sideways in the truck to see the man's rubbery lips work around as if exploring the shape of his own teeth, and then heavily exhale in an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. "Like I said, there are always a number of projects under consideration, and how they develop is somewhat hard to predict. What does the Book say, Madman? And the Jews plotted, and God plotted. But of those who plot, God is the best."

"In these plots, will I ever have a part to play?" "You might. Would you like that, kid?" Again, Ahmad feels a juncture being reached, and a gate closing behind him. "I believe I would."

"You believe? You got to do better than that." "As you say, individual events are not easy to predict. But the lines are clear." "The lines?"

"The lines of battle. The armies of Satan versus those of God. As the Book affirms, Idolatry is worse than carnage."

"Right. Right," Charlie agrees, and slaps his thigh as if to wake himself up, there in the passenger's seat. "I like that. Worse than carnage." He is a naturally talkative and humorous man, and it has been hard for him to keep a straight face, talking with Ahmad like two men walking through a cemetery where they may some day lie. "One thing to keep in mind," he adds. "There's an a

Jacob and Teresa have made love and bring the sheets up over their naked bodies. The breeze through her bedroom windows is cool. September is drawing near; single yellow leaves, like isolated sparks, show in the wearying greenery. They both, he reflects after his warm bath in her flesh, could lose a few pounds. Her skin, where it is not freckled, is almost too pale, like that of a plastic doll except that it yields under his thumb, leaving a pink dent slow to erase itself. His shaggy arms and chest pain him with their slack, rumpled look; at home the bathroom mirror shows him the begi

Terry cuddles against him, her snub nose snuggled into his armpit. His love for her stirs widiin him like the start of nausea.

"Jack?" she breathes.

"What?" He sounds ruder than he had intended.

"What makes you so sad?"

"I'm not sad," he says. "I'm fucked. You really do it. I thought my old chassis was ready for the junk heap, but you get those spark plugs firing. You're gorgeous, Terry."

"Cut the malarkey, as my father used to say. You haven't answered my question. Why are you sad?"

"Maybe I was thinking, Labor Day's coming. It's going to be harder to work us in." He has learned to express his difficulties in deceiving his wife without mentioning Beth's name, which Terry hates to hear, for some reason that eludes him. If the truth were known, Beth should be the jealous and indignant one.

Terry smells his very thought. "You're so afraid of Beth's finding out," she spitefully says. "So what if she did? Where can she go? Who would want her, in the shape she's in?"

"Is that the point?"

"No? So what is the point, baby? You tell me."

"Not hurting people?" he suggests.

"You don't think I hurt? You think being fucked and deserted die next minute doesn't hurt?"

Jack sighs. The fight is on, the same old fight. "I'm sorry. I'd like to be with you more." Leaving before he gets bored suits him, actually. Women can be boring. They make everything personal. They're so wrapped up in self-preservation, self-presentation, self-dramatization. With men you don't have to keep maneuvering, you just punch. Dealing with a woman is like jujitsu, looking for the trip.

She senses die threatening run of his thoughts and says, mollifyingly if grumpily, "She probably guesses anyway."

"How would she do that?" Though of course Terry is right.

"Women know," she tells him smugly, bragging up her gender, cuddling closer to him, and toying a

But as Terry says this, she feels an i

"How's Ahmad doing?" he asks her, pseudo-paternally.

He keeps asking her about Ahmad, though as far as she's concerned she wants to move on from mothering to something she's better at. "With me on night duty lately," she says, "and him doing deliveries until after dark many days, we hardly overlap. He's gotten fuller in the face and the rest of him more muscular, what with all this lifting he does- this Charlie he loves so much just comes along for the ride, as far as I can tell. These Lebanese, they get the last pe

"Preoccupied?" Jack says, preoccupied himself-worrying about big Beth, no doubt. Face it: much as she would miss Jack's flattery in bed when they get there, he would be good riddance. Maybe she needs another artist, even if he's like the last, Leo: Leo the un-lion-hearted, utterly stuck on himself, a dripper and scrubber cha

"Secretive," she clarifies. "Maybe he's found a girl. I hope so. Isn't he way overdue?"

Jack says, "Kids today have more to worry about than we did. At least than I did-I shouldn't talk as if we're the same age."

"Oh, go ahead. Help yourself."

"It's not just AIDS and the rest; there's a certain hunger for, I don't know, the absolute, when everything is so relative, and all the economic forces are pushing instant gratification and credit-card debt at them. It's not just the Christian right-Ashcroft and his morning revival meeting down in D.C. You see it in Ahmad. And the Black Muslims. People want to go back to simple-black and white, right and wrong, when things aren't simple."