All the Young Warriors

THREE

Waves of super-heated air rising from the tarmac. Adem squinted his eyes, shielded them, too hot to see, it felt like. Jibriil shoved him from behind, off the last step of the plane. He'd been at it the whole trip, calling Adem pussy this and pussy that because he whined half the way back to Minneapolis about how the cops would get them, and how Jibriil should turn himself in, and the gun, the fucking gun, why did Jibriil bring a motherfucking gun with him to New Pheasant Run?

"Cause you never know. And now you do."

"We were supposed to disappear. You don't disappear when you kill police! We won't be able to come back. Just…just…"

Unspoken between them: As an eyewitness, now Adem couldn't go home again. He would never rat out Jibriil. But there it was, the reason they couldn't split up. The reason Jibriil wouldn't let them.

They ditched the rental outside of Redwood Falls, found another car. People on the farms left keys in, stuck in the visors or under the wheel wells. Took five tries. The weather made it feel like more. Their plane didn't leave until six thirty-five a.m., so they could afford to take their time. The car was a Pontiac Grand Am, red. Thousands and thousands of them on the road. The police couldn't stop all of them, could they? And the owner probably wouldn't realize until morning.

Adem had finally stopped complaining when he feared Jibriil might lose his temper. His friend had gone stone silent, hand so tight on the wheel it kept squeaking. The pinch in his stomach went tighter. Couldn't ask Jibriil to stop the car, not anymore. Had to hold it in until the plane.

This wasn't supposed to be about killing anyone yet. That would come later. Righteous killings. God's work. Not small town cops doing their jobs. Didn't matter if they were jerks and almost certainly stopping Adem and Jibriil because they were DWB-Driving While Black. There was no reason to kill them. So what if they were harassed for a while, ended up talking to that Dutch cop all the Somalis in town knew? So what? They would've missed their plane. It was all kind of a joke anyway. Adem never expected it to get this far.

This far being Somalia. K-50 Airport. Two more spoiled Americans about to join the good fight, redeem themselves before Allah.

They flew from Minneapolis to New York and from New York to London and from London to Nairobi and from Nairobi, finally, mercifully, a small plane took them to this airport south of Mogadishu. Adem was amazed at how Jibriil had pulled it off. Navigated the myriad flights perfectly. Not once were they ever stopped and questioned. Jibriil had the whole act down-forged passports, documents, US cash, a few credit cards that couldn't have been Jibriil's, no way. But they slipped through every time. Only once did Adem ask where the money had come from. Jibriil cut him off, said not to worry about it. They were being looked after.

On the ground, a constipated and dry-mouthed Adem fought to keep sand out of his eyes. "What's next?"

Jibriil pointed. "He's holding a sign. By that truck. That's him."

Adem squinted and made out a tall man, maybe not even thirty, in a military uniform, rank unknown, holding a sign with Somali, some form of Arabic, and English on it. All three languages, the same word: Americans.

Jibriil pulled at Adem's shirt. "Come on."

"What about our bags?"

"What about your carry-on?"

Adem lifted the backpack he'd brought along. "This isn't my clothes."

Jibriil pointed towards the back of the plane. “You mean those?”

Adem looked-more teenagers with guns grabbing bags, opening and going through them before tossing the scattered remains onto an ever-widening pile. Like a party more than a job. His shouts were drowned out by the prop engine winding down.

"You forget why we're here. It's not a vacation."

Like he could forget that. Adem knew exactly why he was here. Because Jibriil had wanted it more than anything now that he studied at the feet of some freaky Imam in the Cities. He sold it to Adem like an adventure. Like Fifty Cent on the streets of L.A. but with bigger stakes and God on their side.

"I need underwear."

Jibriil smiled. "Go commando."

Adem gave up and walked behind Jibriil to the man with the sign. His truck was plenty old, ramshackle. The sand had blasted it shiny in spots, holes beginning to show.

The truckbed was full of boys. Maybe the oldest was fifteen. Faces wrapped with scarves, covering all but their eyes or framing their faces. Every one of them had guns, and a few had rocket launchers. Real fucking rocket launchers. They chattered so fast that Adem couldn't make out the accents at first-the language a blend of Arabic and Somali. He'd gotten used to English at the college, not like at home. But then it clicked and he understood they were dissing him. Laughing at him, pointing. He pretended not to notice.

Jibriil stumbled over whatever phrase he was supposed to tell the man. More laughter from the kids. He had a tougher time with Somali than Adem, whose family had come from the northern coast and were well-versed in English even before they left the homeland. He spoke up, saved Jibriil from further ridicule.

"We have come from the snow to fight in the desert."

The man spat on the ground beside him. "Are you sure you're in the right place? Would you like a nice Coca-Cola?"

The boys in the back: "With lots of ice." "Look at them. Rich boys." "They'll die quickly and we can take their shoes."

Jibriil laughed along with them. It was the right move. The man put the sign into the truck and greeted them each with a big hug. The boys in the back applauded. They reached out their hands to help Adem and Jibriil get in. They slung their backpacks over their shoulders and climbed aboard. The man got into the cab and cranked up.

The other boys handed them AK-47s. Adem only knew what they were because Jibriil told him. Adem sat with the gun straight up between his knees, one hand wrapped tight with the strap of his backpack, now in his lap. Eyes on him like they were waiting for something.

He said, "Where are we going?"

A boy near him, middle-school aged, leaned over and said, "Initiation. Football."

"Football?"

A wide smile. "Yes, football."

Adem turned back to Jibriil. "We're going to play football?"

"Aw, yeah. Righteous."

"I didn't think we would be playing football."

Shrugged. He checked over his rifle like a pro, pulling back on the slide and slamming a bullet into the chamber. "Got to have something to do in-between killings."

*

The ride to Mogidishu was dusty, crowded. Painful. Adem had thought the planes were uncomfortable, but they were bliss compared to this hard-bucking truck, the smell of unwashed soldier boys, death and gases, all of it getting to him. One of the boys offered him a sweaty bandana. Adem covered his nose and mouth with it. Still better than the actual air.

They passed another truck, slow-going with people in the bed and hanging onto the sides, growing like a giant tumor as it made its way into town. Many more people walking, no guns or rocket launchers. Just staffs or bags of food or bottles of water. At one point, the truck stopped and a couple of boys demanded the food and water from some women, vividly dressed and carrying the goods on their shoulders, only the most essential parts of their faces visible. The boys showed no respect. Instead, they were pissed that the women were angry for the soldiers taking the food from their children's mouths.

One boy said to them, "We're you're children! We are, too!" And then he took away the second bottle of water he was going to leave with them and poured it out on the road.

One of the boys told Adem and Jabriil that the woman was actually in business, trying to sell food and khat. Adem kind of knew what khat was. His dad and uncles had talked about it with smiles on their faces.

Adem wondered what they were fighting for, or against, if this was all it took to rile them up. Shoving. Pointing guns. A mother and daughter and two young sons, much younger than those in the truck. The sons made guns with their fingers, danced around. The boys in the truck laughed, urged them on. Adem turned to Jibriil, found him grinning. Adem coughed.

The boys climbed back into the truck, their stolen bread and lamb and water passed around like a prize. They'd also taken some khat. Raw leaves. Many of the boys grabbed at those and chewed. Adem lifted his bandana, took a sip of the tart, lukewarm water, and wished it was Mountain Dew.

*

In the city limits, the truck rattled along past piles of rubble and burned-out buildings. How some of them were still standing seemed physically impossible. Everything was broken. Most of the people the truck passed had guns. A handful were shooting blindly down streets. Everyone else ignored them. Some of the boys in the truck shouted to friends on the street. Smaller children in dusty clothes played soccer, and even some of them had laid their rifles to the side for a while.

What surprised Adem the most was the normalcy. People here were used to this. Guns and rocket launchers were a way of life. They still had to buy, sell, work, and play. They had to laugh, or what the hell else would they do but cry? And they cried a lot. Adem heard wails from blocks away. One growing louder as they passed the aftermath of a mortar attack. Blood seeping into the dust. Bodies barely covered by the fallen tarp. Sandaled dead feet peeking out.

Street vendors. Shelled businesses struggling to keep storefronts open. A lot of smoke and noise. Rifle-fire echoing from all over. And singing. Raw, tone-deaf singing. Adem was surprised. He knew the tune. The words were different, foreign. Still, something familiar finally, after thinking he was more of a stranger here, the homeland, than he was in America. Someone in the truck started singing along. Adem looked up. It was Jibriil. They'd sung together in the high school chorale group, Adem never really on key. But Jibriil had it down pat. A natural. Adem hadn't heard him sing in a couple of years. But he knew this song. Could hardly speak a couple of sentences in Somali without making a mistake, but he knew this song? When had he learned this song?

They twisted through the streets, avoiding rubble from the stone buildings, and crisp, still smoking debris from trucks, military jeeps and vehicles, and small cars. And then they were there. A massive stadium, rising from the ruins. It looked like a ruin itself-battered, cracked, and forgotten. The truck kept on through one of the tunnels, dark and cool for a blessed few moments, before bouncing hard and fast into the field. Adem ground his teeth together to keep from shouting. The stands were empty and sun-blasted. The field itself was dry but filled with desert scrub brush and trees. Like the Earth was reclaiming the space while hell burned all around outside the walls. There were men and boys and other trucks scattered inside the ring of growth. Maybe several hundred people. Babbling. Looking serious. No one was playing football.

The truck came to a stop and the boys jumped off. Adem stood and stretched. He'd been sitting with all his muscles tensed without realizing. The release was painful, but worth it. A full lungful of dry air made him cough. Jibriil shook his head and hopped onto the ground as if he was a veteran already.

Amongst the voices, Adem still getting used to the speed and rhythms after another full semester of American Midwestern accents, one was higher in pitch, reciting poetry. No, wait, she was praying. A woman.

Adem looked around. All male.

Then a voice over a bullhorn: "Come on over. It's time to begin. Come on."

A large group of the men had already gathered near one end of the stadium. The truck driver stepped over to Adem and Jibriil, urged them on.

"What's going on?"

The driver urged more, hands on their shoulders. "Justice."

Close and closer. A couple of men had shovels. The closer to the center of the circle, the younger the men, most carrying stones as large as their hands.

Adem's stomach sank like he was falling. He pressed his lips hard together, not wanting to throw up. Then, someone handed both of the newcomers stones. Adem rubbed the top of his with his thumb. Jagged.

At the center of the crowd, a clear area. Several feet around the main attraction: a middle-aged man and a teenage girl, both buried up to their waists. The girl was in a hijab, her head covered except for her face, praying calmly. Another man went over and crouched, told her to be quiet. The man was begging. Crying.

He said, "It was a demon. Momentary weakness. Please. It was not my fault."

Adem turned to the driver. "What…why? What did they do?"

The driver crossed his arms, leaned down and spoke low. "The girl, she accuses this man of raping her. He is a friend of her father. But the court says she allowed the situation to occur. She was alone with him in a car."

"How is that possible? She caused her own rape? Was she not dressed?"

That got Adem the stink eye from the driver. "Does not matter."

"Sure, it matters. How can it not matter?"

Jibriil nudged Adem. "It's just how it is. That's the law."

The driver nodded. "The law."

The driver pointed to a young man in the crowd. Grim-looking. Hard grip on a stone. "That is one of her brothers. Her father is here too."

Adem was about to say more, but Jibriil nudged him again, eyebrows knotted. Like, what are you doing? Stop asking questions.

The driver said, "God's law. We can't question it. We just have to fulfill it."

Another man on the edge of the crowd stood out. Wearing a white koofiyad on his head, with dark sunglasses, and a shawl over the shoulders of his western suit. Gray. White button-up shirt, no tie. Men stared at him with outright love. Crowded close. The man had a peaceful look on his face.

The driver nodded in his direction. Wouldn't point. Told Adem, "The Imam. He was the judge who ruled on this case."

His hands together, fingers clasped. He wouldn't get them dirty with a stone. That wasn't his place. But everything happened on his schedule, his word. The man with the bullhorn was paying close attention to the soft-spoken man, whose voice was lost in the rustling.

Adem looked at the girl in the ground. She was looking right at him. He blinked. Looked away. Then back. Still staring. Lips tight. No signs of tears, wet or dried. No fear at all. Anger, more like it. Adem thought he could read her mind: This? My life for you, Allah, and I'm being killed for this? What he did to me?

What could he say? Anything? He mouthed I'm sorry. Then felt foolish. Couldn't dare look at her anymore. He hoped no one saw what he'd done.

When it began, Adem was surprised. He wasn't standing in a blood-thirsty mob. These weren't hooligans flinging stones for fun. They took it seriously. They aimed. The man's screams, then the girl's, finally breaking down as the stones rained. Dull thuds. Stone on bone. Adem wondered if he could drop his and no one would notice. But there was the driver behind him, shoving him on the shoulder. "Go on! Now!"

More and more stones. Where were they all coming from? Arcing from the back of the crowd or fastballing in from closer. Larger than Adem's. Huge, jagged white things the size of footballs. Adem wrenched his arm back. The man. Aiming for the man. That made it better. The man was a rapist. He deserved it. Deserved to die. Horribly. Back in the States, they'd send him to prison. Back in the States the girl would be a victim, not a conspirator. Shit. What would his ethics professor think of him right about now?

Ready to let loose.

All for the cause, remember. Like Jibriil had said-if we don't win, then our homeland descends further into hell. It needs peace. It needs justice. It needs God.

Adem flung the rock. It sailed past the man and kept going. A good toss in baseball, a terrible one for a stoning.

Someone handed him another stone. They were pressing tight from all around. He flung that one, too, and missed again. The noise in the crowd was bubbling up. Each rock that connected unleashed another howl from the damned until they had no strength left in their lungs. Bloody. Bruised. Arms broken, fingers gnarled, heads starting to swell, shiny welts as the skin tightened. Adem watched the crowd instead. Barely noticed Jibriil had already thrown a few. He told Adem, "Watch how I do it." Much closer than when they had started. The girl, a rag doll. Jibriil lifted the stone over his head and brought it down, cracking her shoulder.

Adem closed his eyes before impact, but the sound. Louder than he had expected. Then he blinked, adjusted to the blinding sun, and saw that the man must have already been dead, as he was slumped over with half his skull caved in, thin blood spilling onto the ground below like a leaky faucet. Eyes still open.

The rain of stones ceased. Adem squinted, found the Imam. He had held up his hands. He ordered a couple of men to check the bodies. They wore stethoscopes. Doctors? Really? They did their duty, kneeling and checking the obviously dead man's vital signs, pulse, even a breath test with a small mirror. The doctors stood and nodded. On to the girl. They knelt, placed the stethoscope on her back. One shook his head.

"She's still alive."

Adem thought, so, does that mean she can go free? Or at least a little jail time? Did they even have prisons for women? Take her to the hospital?

He got his answer when the doctors backed out of the way and several of the boys in red scarves around their heads crowded closer. Adem grabbed Jibriil by the collar, got him to meet his eyes. Unsaid: This is wrong. As loudly as Adem could say it through his eyes alone.

Jibriil adjusted his neck, reached for Adem's hand and plucked it off his shirt like a bug. A hard look, lips on the verge of curling. Adem pushed away, forced his way through the maze of solider boys, so many of them tall and thin, towering over him like trees, to the back of the crowd. Broke free into the pitch. Open air. Hands on his hips, taking deep breaths like he'd run a marathon. What he hadn't counted on was how much louder the stones sounded back here, echoing across the empty stadium time and time again like the worst deja vu. He wanted to cover his ears. He couldn't do that in front of this crowd. The men with shovels were still on standby. Adem didn't want to be next.