Fatal Convictions

54

According to the neuropsychologist, it was Khalid’s job to help Ghaniyah return to the normal routines of life. She was still having a little trouble with short-term memory and with what the doctor called “executive functioning.” The doctor had encouraged Ghaniyah to write down anything that came to her mind throughout the day that she needed to do. The lists would help her remember.

On Tuesday night, Khalid took it upon himself to make a list of all the things they needed at the grocery store and then went shopping with Ghaniyah. He drove to the local Harris Teeter and walked the aisles with his wife, checking off items as they put them in the cart.

Things went smoothly in the store until the Mobassars stepped into the long checkout line with their cart full of groceries. A moment later a few young men stepped into line behind them wearing cutoff jeans, work boots, tank tops, and frayed ball caps. Khalid could smell alcohol on their breath.

They were talking in the loud and obnoxious fashion of men who had downed one too many beers and therefore overestimated their own wittiness. The language was vulgar, and Khalid did his best to ignore it. He didn’t want any trouble. He just wanted to check out and get home with his groceries.

Things started escalating when one of the men apparently recognized Khalid. “Hey, ain’t that the towelhead who ordered those women beheaded?”

Khalid flinched but stared straight ahead. He could read the tension in Ghaniyah’s features. Her temper had always been more explosive than his.

“That boy right there oughta be in jail,” one of the men said. “The other prisoners would teach him a thang or two about submission.”

The men laughed; Khalid pretended not to hear.

“I’d have my wife wear one of those head coverings too if she looked like that.”

Khalid felt his face redden with rage, his muscles tensing. It took every ounce of self-control not to react. Others around him glanced nervously at Khalid and the men behind him.

“If the man had any guts, he’d turn around and say somethin’.” Khalid felt the speaker literally breathing down his neck. The man was taller than Khalid by a couple of inches.

Khalid wanted to turn around and nail the guy-make sure the first punch was a good one. But this evening, his focus was on Ghaniyah. Stress like this wouldn’t help her recover.

He took her by the elbow. “Let’s go,” he whispered, then began walking with her to the front of the store, leaving the full grocery cart in the line.

“Come on back, big man!” one of the men called out. “You want a piece of this?”

Ghaniyah didn’t say a word as Khalid led her to the car. He could tell she was irate. He thought about calling the cops, but that might end up as a black mark against his probationary status.

He started the car and turned to back out of the space. To his surprise, one of the men had followed him and was standing directly behind Khalid’s vehicle with his arms crossed.

“Wait here,” Khalid said to Ghaniyah.

He put the car in park and stepped out of the vehicle. “I’d appreciate it if you’d get out of my way,” he said. “I don’t want any trouble.”

The man laughed. “You already found trouble.” He moved toward Khalid as one of his buddies appeared from a different direction.

Khalid considered his options. There was a car parked directly in front of his. Within seconds, a pickup driven by the third man came screeching around the parking lot and stopped sideways behind Khalid’s vehicle, pinning him in.

“Call 9-1-1,” he said to Ghaniyah. “And lock the doors.”

He kicked his door shut and took a step toward the first man in front of him. “This is the part where you walk away quietly before the police get here,” Khalid said.

“No, this is the part where I kick your butt,” the man said. He was about six-two and easily weighed more than two hundred pounds. He waited while the third man climbed out of the truck and joined the first two.

“Why don’t you just go back to Afghanistan with the other towelheads?”

The man on Khalid’s right took a jab step at him, and Khalid jumped back. All three of Khalid’s tormentors laughed and spread out around him, forming a semicircle. Other customers in the parking lot watched but kept their distance.

“We ought to put him in Abu Ghraib so a female guard can strip him down and lead him around on a leash like the other dogs,” one of the men said.

Hearing no sirens, Khalid decided he had no choice. As the men taunted him, Khalid planned his move. He would go after the man on his right first-the smallest of the three. A quick blow to the crotch, and then whirl around toward the big guy in the middle.

“Yeah, get down on your knees and bark,” the guy on Khalid’s left said.

Khalid pivoted quickly and kicked the man on his right, bringing him to his knees. He spun toward the attacker in the middle, but the man was quicker than Khalid had expected. He caught Khalid with a hard right that cracked against Khalid’s cheekbone just as the third man came in with a flying tackle that drove Khalid to the pavement. Instantly all three men were on him, slamming their fists into his face and body. Khalid tried to curl into a fetal position for protection, but one man knelt over him and pounded Khalid while the others kicked the imam. He tasted blood and felt himself losing consciousness.

“What the-?” His attacker’s words were lost in a squeal of tires and the crash of metal. Khalid looked up. Ghaniyah had backed their car into the men’s truck.

“Are you crazy?” one of them yelled. The guy on top of Khalid jumped up just as Ghaniyah slammed the car into drive, pulled forward a few feet, then slammed it into reverse and floored it again. She crashed into the truck a second time, bending more metal and breaking more glass. The truck bounced back.

She had the full attention of Khalid’s attackers now. The driver of the truck scrambled toward it. “You freakin’ idiot!” he yelled.

Before he could get there to move it, Ghaniyah slammed into the truck a third time, pushing it out of the way. She jumped out of the car and started cursing at the men like a possessed woman. They gaped at her, astonished by her brazenness.

“Look what you’ve done!” she screamed, pointing to Khalid. “May your souls burn in hell forever!”

None of the men seemed to know what to do with a woman who was certifiably nuts.

“Get out of here!” she shreiked, taking a menacing step at one of the men. He held his ground but didn’t argue. The look in her eyes said Ghaniyah was ready to kill. She had always been intense before the accident, but Khalid hadn’t seen her show this much emotion since.

Khalid struggled to his feet and moved next to Ghaniyah. “C’mon,” he said. “They’re not worth it.”

Khalid could hear the sirens coming in the distance. “Look at my truck!” the biggest man yelled. “I’ll sue you for every dime.”

Only in America, thought Khalid, can you get beat up by someone who then threatens to sue you.

One of the attackers picked up his hat, dusted it off, and put it back on. “You’re quite the man,” he said to Khalid. “Had to have the old lady bail you out.”

The sirens were getting closer. The men glanced around and yelled at the people in the parking lot who had stopped to stare. “Show’s over, people! Get back to your pitiful lives!”

All three climbed into the truck. The man on the passenger side leaned out the window and promised Khalid that he had not seen the last of them. Then the driver squealed the tires, and the truck pulled away.

As the adrenaline began to fade, Khalid started feeling the intense pain in his face and ribs. “You’re going to the hospital,” Ghaniyah said.

He didn’t even try to argue.