Night of Power, page 10
Music beat at him from all sides as he walked. It had been everywhere since he had first emerged from Grand Central—personal headphones were not big on 42nd Street; they were more snatchable than necklaces—but he had not paid much attention, preoccupied by people and sights. Now it seemed that the whole world was music, that every fourth person had a ghetto blaster on his wrist or belt, each playing a different tape. First ten seconds of King Sunny Ade’s ju-ju music, then Mingus’s Jazz Fusion, then a flank attack by some anonymous processor group, then Carmen Lundy, then a cello solo by Abdul Wadud, then early Beatles—it was like being trapped inside the speaker of some monstrous radio programmed for constant-search. Russell’s head spun; when he reached Bryant Park he had to sit down. He found an unoccupied bench and put his head between his legs, holding his hands against his ears to shut out the music, managing only to mute the treble. Distantly he realized he was in shock.
Will that soldier die? If other people die in that riot, will they ever know what started it, what they died for? Do any of these people around me know or care that people may be dying a few blocks away right now? He was being shipped out to die in a far land, and he wanted a nice sendoff and was willing to pay for it. Now he has a hole in him. Pooh Bear, I think this is the wrong kind of gash. Oh God.
A fresh-orange-juice vendor was pushing his cart by. Russell had the vague idea that fluids were good for shock; he bought a large cup and gulped it down. Suddenly the temperature seemed to rise ten Celsius degrees. He turned and put his head over the back of the bench; his stomach twisted and gave up its contents. Dogs came running to see the fun.
When it was over he felt a little better and his head was clear, but he was not ready to get up and go home. His back hurt now where he had been hit, and his legs felt wobbly. He wanted to read something—anything. He took the Muslim pamphlet from his case and began to read that.
He got hopelessly confused until he realized that the pages were numbered back to front. Even then a good deal of the text was incomprehensible, heavily interspersed with blocks of Arabic script with accompanying translation. This was, apparently, the month of Ramadaan in the Muslim year 1416, a time of great significance requiring much fasting and prayer. Russell learned that “Ramadaan” came from the root “Ramda,” meaning “burning.” He ran across the phrase “The Night of Power,” and remembered the words of the Muslim who had given him the pamphlet. The Night of Power, it seemed, had been the night, in the month of Ramadaan twelve years before the Great Hegira, on which the first suwrah of the Qur’aan had been revealed to the prophet Mustafa Muhammad Al Amin. The term was also used in reference to something called the Battle of Badr. Two years after the Hegira from Makkah to Medina which marked the beginning of the Muslim calendar, a group of three hundred Muslims had made a stand at Badr, and with the assistance of “Angels” sent down by ALLAHU SUBHAANAHU WA TA’ALA had held off a charge by three thousand “idol worshippers.”
Characteristically, Russell noticed the numbers. The Muslims at the Battle of Badr had been outnumbered by a ratio of ten to one. There were roughly 250 million people in the United States, and 25 million black people. You couldn’t ask for a Badr Battle than that, Russell thought, with a momentary vision of avenging black Angels stooping down from the skies on the idol worshippers.
Reading on he found more numbers. Apparently there was something mystically significant about the conjunction of the numbers 19 and 96. The first suwrah revealed to the Prophet on the Night of Power had ended up as Chapter 96 of the revised Qur’aan. Further, the first five verses of Suwrah 96 contained 19 words each, and Chapter 96 consisted of 19 verses, and Suwrah 96 was the 19th chapter from the end of the Qur’aan, and so forth. “This chapter,” the pamphlet stated, “holds the key to the identification of the 19th night of the month of Ramadaan as the Night of Power…”
It was therefore suggested that this year’s Night of Power would be an especially holy and portentous one. Russell did not get the connection, since by Muslim calendar this was not 1996 A.D. but 1416 A.H.—but he thumbed idly to the calendar-translation section and worked out the Gregorian date for the Night of Power.
It was tonight.
He snorted and read on. The balance of the booklet’s English text was fasting rules and regulations, with occasional photos of groups of small black children practicing karate and such. Russell decided he was strong enough to go home now, and stuffed the pamphlet back into his briefcase. He rinsed his mouth at a leaking fountain, dodged a junkie who wanted spare change, and went back to Grand Central Station. There was still a long list of places he wanted to visit while he was in New York, but they would still be there tomorrow.
Yes, he heard himself saying to a friend when he got back to Halifax, I was in New York for almost two weeks before I saw my first knifing…
It was after five when he got back to the apartment. As he unlocked the second Medeco lock he saw José eyeballing him through the fisheye, and by the time he had the door open Jennifer was exploding out at him. “Daddy, you’re late, we were just going to send the bloodhounds out for you but we couldn’t find anything of yours they’d agree to sniff, when is supper I’m starving, Mom called she’ll be home late, I beat José four straight games of Glory Road and I called Sophie but I didn’t talk too long, let’s eat!”
He disentangled himself from the hug and they went inside. Jennifer had the TV turned to ASN, which made Russell grin to himself. (Back home she made a fetish of ignoring Canadian TV and watching only the American channels. Now that she was in New York, she faithfully watched Halifax programming, made José sit through shows that she would not have been caught dead watching at home. NAMSAT East had made it possible for one to travel thousands of miles without changing one’s viewing habits—and Jennifer changed them anyway!) “I know I am, soon, that’s too bad, congratulations, that’s good, let’s.” He went to the big crockpot and checked his Perpetual Stew. It was maturing nicely. “Another week and this’ll be fit to serve company. José, you’re not company, you’re family—will you stay for dinner? To make up for your humiliating defeat at Glory Road?”
José flashed his quick grin. “Thanks, Russell. A man’s gotta keep up his strength to run with this one here. I’ll set the table.”
“Cripes,” Jennifer exclaimed. “Daddy won’t let me cook, you won’t let me set table—how am I supposed to learn the skills necessary to nail boys?”
“You can do the dishes,” Russell said at once.
She tried to frown ferociously, but could not suppress the grin. “Walked into that one. I’ll never learn to keep my mouth shut.”
“That’s another good one,” José agreed solemnly, and she threw a plate at him. Naturally he caught it. She had formed the habit of throwing objects at him without warning, and he always caught them. Two days before he had genuinely annoyed her, and she had let fly with an uncooked egg; when he caught it without breaking it, admiration had overcome her anger and she had given up her grudge. Dena wasn’t crazy about the game, but it tickled Russell.
Over dinner Jennifer asked him why he was late. “Breakdown on the subway. Power was out for almost an hour and a half.”
“Daddy, really? You were down there in the dark for that long?”
“There wasn’t much choice. No real trouble—a couple of Guardian Angels and a transit cop took care of the claustrophobes, kind of kept order. Nobody seemed especially surprised.”
“Nah, man,” José said. “You’ll be in one of those every couple weeks, wait an’ see. Those Guardian Angels are really something, hah? I got to hand it to them. This town was a complete shithole ’til they got started, my father told me.”
“They were good. They talked down one old fellow who was mad as hell, wanted to leave the train and wander through the tunnel looking for a manhole, big appointment he had to keep.”
“How’d they talk him out of it?” Jennifer asked.
“Opened a window and let him listen to the rats scurrying outside. They showed him one with a flashlight. He reconsidered.”
“Yuck,” Jennifer said in a complaining tone of voice. “Big rats. Like the ones Oscar meets in the Tower of the Egg in Glory Road.”
“You and your Glory Road,” José mocked. “Honest to God, Russell—pass the pepper, please—I thought I was pretty good at games, but she’s a demon.”
“That she is. You know, I’m astonished at the number of video arcades in this town. There seems to be one on every block, and they all have the new programmable games with full keyboard. There was one in the Grand Central complex, the biggest I ever saw, with incredible graphics.”
“Yeah, they’re everywhere. Especially popular with black people. The game ain’t rigged, you know? Don’t you people have arcades up there in Halifax?”
“Sure, a dozen or so, but nothing like this. Another funny thing: I just noticed today that half, better than half of the customers are adults.”
“They have more quarters,” Jennifer said.
“Yeah, it’s funny,” José agreed. “You’ll see, like, a dude in a three-piece, and a kid in mylar with his face tattooed, and a big spade in shades, all side by side, paying no attention to each other at all. You know another funny thing? Once in a while I’ll be watchin’ a game, you know, and it’ll seem like I saw the same exact game a week ago, the same moves and score and everything. Weird, huh?”
Russell chuckled and poured more apple juice. “I know what you mean. It’s the ones wearing those red sunglasses I can’t understand. Are the new screens supposed to be dangerous to your eyes, or what?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me none, but I ain’t heard it said yet. Some people just never take off their shades, I guess. Them red ones look sharp. I want to get a pair, but I can’t seem to find any. This is good stew.”
“‘Things are in a Perpetual Stew at the Grant household,’” Jennifer and Russell chorused. “If you think this is good,” he went on, “come back in a week or so when it’s ripe.”
“Daddy?”
From the tone of voice alone, Russell knew he was about to be taken to the cleaners. But of course, foreknowledge was no help. “Yes, kitten?”
“I told you I beat José four games?”
“That’s right.”
“So you know I did double homework?”
Russell and Jennifer had both figured out early on that she was a genius, and decided it was best kept their secret. Since that time her education had had very little connection with her schooling. She carefully maintained a respectable B-plus average and a recorded I.Q. of 117, because Russell did not want her to be singled out and skipped ahead the way he had been as a boy—but she was doing college-level work in math and history, and he had privately measured her true I.Q. at 141. They still debated when to drop the masquerade; Jennifer wanted to do so on her College Boards, but Russell argued that she should get her teenage years over before taking on freak celebrity status. As one of his self-designed teaching aids, he had programmed the family computer not to unlock the game mode for Jennifer until she had put in an hour of skullsweat, most recently in math; even then it would only play two games before locking up again. There was a bypass code for himself and Dena, of course, and Russell privately suspected that Jennifer had somehow managed to either learn or deduce it. But he preferred not to find out, since an affirmative answer would have placed him in the position of being forced to punish ingenuity. “Yes,” he lied.
“Well you’re wrong, I did triple, and I still only played four games, so you owe me, right?”
“I concede no such thing. Assuming the situation is as you describe—”
“Daddy! You can check the—”
“—I said I assumed it. That being so, you owe you two games of Glory Road or agreed equivalent reward. All I owe you is your allowance—which, I admit, you have more than earned lately.”
Jennifer pounced. “All right then, I’ll make you a deal: I’ll waive my allowance for this week, and throw in two games’ worth of credit, for a favour.”
“Mmmm.” From the price offered, this would be a largish favour. And he didn’t like that part about waiving her allowance—it suggested that she had alternate sources of income he knew nothing about. “Name the favour.”
“I want to go to Madison Square Garden and see The Juice.”
Even Russell, who hated flash music, knew about The Juice. They were a popular processor group—in the same sense that the Beatles had been a not-unsuccessful rock band. There was no chance that The Juice would ever play Halifax; there was no venue big enough. The favour was so enormous that he could not not grant it. But he did not much like the idea of Jennifer at Madison Square Garden late at night. “What night is the concert?”
“Tonight.”
Reprieve. “Oh hell, princess, you’ll never get tickets, they must have sold out before we left Hal—”
“I’ve got two.”
He blinked. José was earnestly studying his stew.
“I wrote Grandpa before we left home, and he came into the city to get them for me.”
“Sweetheart, I’m tired, and your mother won’t be home until late—”
“Mama said it’s okay with her if it’s okay with you,” Jennifer said at once, springing the trap.
“She did,” José confirmed. “I’ll take her if you don’t want to go, Russell.”
Russell thought of some of the drug-crazed defectives who went to flash concerts. Then he thought of José’s knife, quivering in the center of the tree.
“Please, Daddy. The TV said Mark and H are going to be using the new Spangler Fives.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind, José? You’ve been stuck with her all day.”
“Well…I have a favour of my own I was gonna ask.”
“Why do I get the feeling I’m going to leave this table dressed in a barrel? Let’s hear it.”
“See, I can’t stay at my spot tonight. I’m havin’ the roaches steamcleaned, so they’ll be more presentable. It looks like a nice night, I thought maybe I could put a cot in the garden or something, if you don’t mind.”
“The living room couch folds out. Dena and I will probably be asleep when you get in—what, around midnight?”
Suddenly his lap was full of Jennifer. “Oh Daddy thank you thank you thank you!”
He hugged her back, reflecting that gratitude took years off her apparent age, and pushed her off his lap. “Finish your dinner. And you stick close to José tonight, you hear me?”
“Thanks a lot, Russell,” José said, and threw a buttered roll at Jennifer’s face. She caught it at almost arm’s length—and gaped at it, surprised at herself. Then she smiled.
“I been workin’ out with her a little,” José said. “She’ll be okay.”
After they had left, Russell took a thermos of chilled Bushmill’s out to the garden and set up a recliner so that he could watch the square of sky overhead. The day had been comparatively mild for New York summer, with some cloud cover and every third breeze a cool one. Perversely, the evening was becoming a hot one, muggy and oppressive. The few stars bright enough to be seen seemed to dance liquidly in the air.
Russell had long maintained that alcoholism was what happened when good booze got into the hands of amateurs; he drank seldom but well. He had never understood, for instance, how others could drink without looking at their watch—how could you measure dosage by wholly subjective parameters, when the point was to distort your subjective parameters? And why did they always add ice? Ice cubes diluted the taste, further confused the dosage—and were in addition about the least energy-efficient way to chill a drink he could think of. (One of the reasons he did not smoke grass was the impossibility of accurately quantifying strength, dosage or flavour. Old Bushmill’s, on the other hand, had been a known quantity for almost four centuries. He kept a bottle in the fridge.) Russell could reliably achieve and maintain any of the five plateaus of intoxication, could change from one level to the next in as little as seven minutes or as much as an hour, and never had hangovers.
So he had no trouble staying at Level One, Buzzed, for the first hour, and when that proved unsatisfactory he modulated easily to Elevated. This is the stage at which one notices a small but marked increase in one’s powers, a slight augmentation of everything from intelligence to peripheral vision. The problems of man in the universe are clarified; their solutions are just within sight and just out of reach. One feels kinship with all things living, and one’s tongue has not yet begun to thicken appreciably.
But even this level failed to soothe him. Even from halfway up Olympus he could not integrate a universe in which a young man could be goaded to his death for the crime of having submitted to the draft. On all sides Russell heard babies crying, spouses bellowing, teenagers mocking each other, TVs and stereos adding subliminal undercurrents to the general uproar.
Dimly he knew that what he really wanted was to discuss the incident with Dena. She paid no more attention to politics than he did, American politics least of all, and their combined knowledge of the African war and its rights and wrongs was negligible—you could never judge a war until the data came in, fifteen years after it ended. But she was a black person that he lived with, and he wanted to know what she thought.
But Dena was still not home. There was no telling when she would be home, and he was not allowed to call the studio for anything less than a full-bore emergency. And so, secretly beginning to resent her for not being there, he gave the mental equivalent of a shrug and went to Level Three. If that did not work, he would taper off again, take two aspirin and go to sleep.
