Dearborn, p.1
Dearborn, page 1
DEARBORN
Stories
GHASSAN
ZEINEDDINE
For
my love, Rana, and our daughters, Alma and Mira,
my mother, Wafaa, and sister, Jana, and in
memory of my father, Ragheb,
and for Cleo Cacoulidis
CONTENTS
The Actors of Dearborn
Speedoman
Money Chickens
Marseille
I Have Reason to Believe My Neighbor Is a Terrorist
Zizou’s Voice
In Memoriam
Hiyam, LLC
Yusra
Rabbit Stew
Acknowledgments
The Actors of Dearborn
Before arriving at Uncle Sam’s house on the corner of Gould and Coleman Streets, Youssef Bazzi had been canvassing the neighborhoods in East Dearborn, Michigan, for over a month, knocking on doors throughout the day and late into the night, despite the heat or rain. His new job as census taker afforded him flexible hours, and at this point in his life, he preferred to be outdoors. He was thirty-one, and although tall and slim, he had grown a small belly since he had started canvassing in early August. He blamed his extra weight on the neighborhoods.
East Dearborn was predominately Arab, and among the Lebanese population, the Bazzi family was one of the biggest. Youssef was born and raised in the area and knew most of the people on each block, at least by face. Whenever a resident, quite often a fellow Bazzi, saw Youssef standing on their porch with his ID badge dangling from a lanyard around his neck, a census-issued laptop in his hand, and his census-issued briefcase hanging from his shoulder, they quickly invited him inside, sat him down in the living room, and brought him a glass of soda or lemonade mixed with orange blossom water, followed by a salty snack or perhaps a dessert and a cup of Turkish coffee. If it was around lunchtime or dinner, he was fed, and fed well. If Youssef had refused the food he would have offended his fellow Dearbornites.
After dusk, when the men and women sat on their porches or in their open garages to smoke a hookah, sip tea, and crack pumpkin seeds between their teeth amid the fireflies flickering in the air, Youssef was urged to take a seat and enjoy a puff from the hookah. The wind carried the scent of apple-flavored tobacco. Children ran across the lawns and rode their bicycles down the sidewalk in the streetlight filtering between the trees. Every so often, a car blaring Arabic pop music thundered past. The modest brick houses were built so close to one another that Youssef could simply cross a driveway and step onto the next person’s property.
“I thought you were working for Ford,” many folks told Youssef.
“I don’t need Ford,” he said, feeling emboldened. He had previously worked in the communications department at the Ford Motor Company, where he had languished for years in a cubicle until he was laid off in the latest round of cuts.
Youssef’s new job was to verify addresses and update residents’ information in preparation for the 2020 census, but he often went off script.
“Are you happy in life?” he’d ask. “Have you become what you’ve always wanted to be?”
“I didn’t know the census was so personal,” one resident said.
“I’m here to listen,” Youssef said.
When Youssef came across his former high school classmates, they all greeted him as “Broadway Joe.” Uncle Sam had given him this Americanized nickname back when Youssef was a teenager and dreamed of acting in Broadway plays. Youssef had starred in all the plays staged at Fordson High, sometimes even performing female roles. According to Mr. Emerson, his English teacher and theater director, his most memorable performance was as Abigail Williams from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
“I don’t understand this acting business,” Youssef’s father had told him after the opening night of The Crucible. Youssef’s parents had sat in the first row, horrified at seeing their son dressed as a witch. “You’re a man, Youssef. A man! Be like your brother.”
At the time, Youssef’s older brother was the starting fullback on the varsity football team and known as the “Lebanese Express” for his ability to plow through defensive linemen. But Youssef had no interest in sports and had never tried out for any of the teams. The head football coach could hardly believe that Youssef and his brother were related. “Guess there’s only one express train in the family,” the coach had said. All Youssef cared about was the stage, the spotlight hot on his skin, the wooden floorboards squeaking beneath his feet. The Arab boys in his class and in the neighborhood distanced themselves from him following his performance in The Crucible. They thought he was too girly.
Even now, Youssef missed wearing costumes and having the makeup artist highlight his face. But he had a new role, one that came with props and a revolving stage. He kept a makeup kit in his briefcase, and every now and then, before stepping out of his car, he powdered his cheeks and forehead and put on eyeliner.
That early afternoon in mid-September when Youssef arrived at the front door of Uncle Sam’s house, leaves were starting to change color and fall. An American flag fluttered from a pole in the front yard. Banners sporting the logos of the Detroit Lions, the Detroit Tigers, the Detroit Red Wings, and the Detroit Pistons hung from the railing of the front porch, and there was even a banner for the Great Lakes Loons, a minor-league baseball team based in Midland, Michigan. After the attacks of 9/11, Uncle Sam had begun decorating his house with patriotic and athletic symbols even though he didn’t care for baseball or football. He only knew that Americans were obsessed with their sports teams. He’d also changed his name from Samir to Sam.
The house was a one-story, and as he stood outside it, Youssef realized that all the window blinds—or at least all the blinds he could see from the porch—were closed. When he knocked on the door, Uncle Sam opened it and stuck his head out while looking side to side. He quickly ushered Youssef in and bolted the door behind him. He wore a gray Detroit Lions sweatshirt and matching gray sweatpants. His curly silver hair sat atop his head like a stormy sea. A short, pudgy man, his eyes were red and swollen. He and Youssef’s father had grown up together in Bint Jbeil, a village in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border, where as boys they’d been inseparable, riding around town on the back of a donkey, taking turns with the reins. They’d even immigrated to the US together after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, landing jobs at the Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn. After several years of standing on the assembly line and having to yell over the sound of churning machines, Uncle Sam had used all his savings to purchase a gas station on Schaefer Road. His business had prospered, allowing him to buy a house and start a family.
However, when his patriotic fervor blossomed following 9/11 and he began calling his wife, Hanan, “Hannah” and his sons, Abdullah and Nasser, “Abraham” and “Nicholas,” and bought them all a Detroit Lions wardrobe; when he suspected that their landline was being tapped and that white men in suits walking in their neighborhood were either FBI or Homeland Security agents; when he nearly lost his mind, chewed his nails until they bled, could hardly sleep anymore, and spent every waking hour terrified that the government would accuse him of supporting terrorist organizations and then revoke his family’s American citizenship and send them all back to Lebanon—or worse, to a black hole—his wife lost her hair from the stress he had put her under and asked for a separation. Uncle Sam ended up moving out and renting the house he now lived in. Since arriving in America close to forty years ago, he had always felt that the government had its eyes on him and his fellow Arabs. Back in the eighties he’d feared being mistaken for a hijacker. And then 9/11 had happened and his anxiety had skyrocketed.
Last night, Youssef had read on the City of Dearborn Facebook page that ICE had paid a visit to Uncle Sam’s gas station. Two agents had burst through the door and demanded that Uncle Sam sign a document and hand over all his employees’ paperwork. He refused, trembling behind the register. They yelled at him and threatened him with deportation. He didn’t budge. He knew his rights. The agents left empty-handed.
Uncle Sam led Youssef into the dimly lit living room. Youssef sat on a couch in front of the fireplace, which had a wide-screen TV hoisted above it. A large family portrait hung from the wall. In the picture, Uncle Sam sat next to his wife with their sons on either side of them. They all wore matching Detroit Pistons jerseys.
Youssef opened his laptop.
“Your father told me about your new job,” Uncle Sam said.
“It ends in October.”
“Go ahead, ask me the question.”
“Which question, Uncle?”
“You know which one, and you already know the answer.”
“I’m here to confirm a few details for the census.”
“Ask me the question!”
“Are you an American citizen?”
“Yes. And so are my wife and sons. Did you see them on your route?”
“Not yet,” Youssef lied.
“If you do, can you tell my wife that I miss her? That I still love her. I hope she’s watching her weight; she’s got high cholesterol.”
Youssef nodded. He had confirmed their information earlier in the week. It had been four years since Uncle Sam had moved out, and Hanan was now working as an office assistant at a local doctor’s office. When Youssef had seen her, she’d looked happy, her black hair in a perm. She had been dressed in a tight-fitting yoga outfit when she answered the door. Abdullah and Nasser were both married and had long since moved out of the house.
Uncle Sam pulled out his smartphone and looked at the screen. His eyes widened. “Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim. Look what the president just tweeted.” He got up from his chair and flashed the screen at Youssef.
We’ve got illegal immigrants in our country that have got to go! It’s our duty as Americans to deport these rapist animals back to the hellholes they came from!
“Ignore his tweets, Uncle.”
“But he’s our president, and ICE is going to do what he tells them. They’ve been terrorizing us for over a year now.”
“I heard about their visit to your gas station.”
Uncle Sam bit his lower lip. “I think they were after Rocky. His tourist visa expired.”
Rocky, Uncle Sam’s nephew from Lebanon, had been living with him for the past three years. He worked at the gas station. Youssef had seen him a few times when he filled up his tank.
“Is he here?” Youssef asked.
“He’s in his room, talking to his girlfriend from the internet.” Uncle Sam shook his head. “I’ve never done anything illegal before. I was left with no choice.”
Rocky, Uncle Sam’s sister’s youngest son, had arrived in 2016 at the age of seventeen, having flunked out of high school in Bint Jbeil. “Please try to save him, because Allah knows that my husband and I have tried our best and failed,” Uncle Sam’s sister had told him. At that point, Uncle Sam was living alone in his rented house. He had boxed up all his American flags and sports banners in the basement, thinking there was no need to showcase his Americanness when he had lost his family. But when he began to cook for Rocky, buy him clothes, and support his daily needs, which included making protein shakes for his weight training, he brought out the boxes and redecorated his house. He changed his nephew’s name from Mohammed to Rocky.
“An informant must be working for ICE,” Uncle Sam said. “I bet Iyaad Baydoun over at the Shell Station told them about Rocky. He’s my fiercest competitor. The fucking rat.”
Youssef checked the time on his watch. He still had a few more houses to visit before he could head home.
“I haven’t offered you anything to drink or eat,” Uncle Sam said. “How rude of me.”
Before Youssef could respond, Uncle Sam went to the kitchen and began opening and closing drawers.
“I’m just having a bad day, baby girl,” Youssef heard someone say in accented English from down the hallway. It must have been Rocky, who was now twenty. “You know I’m so hard for you. I mean, how to say in English . . .”
Uncle Sam returned with a tray bearing a glass of Pepsi and a bowl of mixed nuts and placed it on the coffee table next to Youssef. He peeked between the blinds before sitting down. He peered intently at Youssef.
“Are you wearing makeup?”
“No,” Youssef said, blushing.
“What do you plan to do once your job ends?”
Youssef hadn’t thought that far ahead. He had enough savings to last a few months. He still lived at home with his parents and helped them pay the bills. In Dearborn, a single Arab man or woman left home only when they married. That’s what Youssef’s brother, the former Lebanese Express, had done. The one time that Youssef had attempted to live alone—when, after graduating from university, he took a Greyhound bus out to New York City to make it as an actor on Broadway—he’d returned from the Big Apple demoralized and with his heart in pieces. It was then that he’d applied for the communications position at Ford.
Youssef sipped his Pepsi, not bothering to respond.
“Have you met anyone?” Uncle Sam asked.
Youssef shook his head. He had gone on dates, including those that his mother had fixed through her matchmaking network, but nothing had materialized.
“You’re stuck in the clouds—storm clouds,” one date had told him, “and I’m not about to pull you down.”
Since returning from New York and spending all those years in a cubicle, Youssef felt like he was living someone else’s life, one that had been programmed for him. At least now, as a census taker, he experienced more spontaneity.
“Rocky’s girlfriend lives out in LA,” Uncle Sam said. “He hasn’t even met her in person, but he says they’re in love. I could never meet someone online. Not that I’d ever want to. Maybe my wife will come back to me. I know my sons won’t; they hate me.” He checked his phone and covered his mouth. “Look,” he said, showing Youssef the president’s most recent tweet.
The child-eating illegals are robbing our homes and spreading drugs and diseases into our American neighborhoods! The other day I saw one drinking the blood of bats! Report them!
Uncle Sam pulled at his hair. There was a knock at the door.
“Rocky, they’re here!” Uncle Sam said.
Rocky sprung out of his room. “The pizza?”
The knocking turned to pounding.
“ICE!”
Rocky ran down the stairs to the basement.
Youssef stood up, his heart in his throat. He felt like a criminal, the same feeling he had experienced as an eighth grader in the fall of 2001, when he had gone on a school field trip to a farming town two hours north of Dearborn, and at a rest stop, a middle-aged white man with a crew cut had walked up to him, pointed at him, and said, “You’re going to pay for what you did.” The man started yelling at Youssef, his spittle landing on Youssef’s face. “I was born here,” Youssef wanted to say, but didn’t dare speak. After this incident, Youssef no longer considered himself white, even though the census classified those of Middle Eastern descent as such.
Uncle Sam tiptoed to the door and looked through the peephole. “Praise be to Allah,” he cried. He opened the door and paid a pizza deliveryman. Rocky had ordered three large pizzas.
YOUSSEF JOINED UNCLE SAM and Rocky at the dining room table. He took a slice of pizza. After the false scare, both uncle and nephew were too anxious to eat. Uncle Sam, Youssef learned, had barred Rocky from leaving the house after ICE had visited the gas station.
“I’m under house arrest, bro,” Rocky told Youssef.
He had arrived in Dearborn as a scrawny teen. But Uncle Sam put him on a diet of Rambo and Rocky films. Together, the two of them would stay up into the early hours watching either Sylvester Stallone machine-gunning down enemies or knocking out boxers in a ring. Rocky (then Mohammed) began lifting weights at the local gym. He rewatched the Rambo and Rocky films, memorizing lines, improving his English. A year later, he had a major growth spurt. He now stood well over six feet tall, his muscles bulging in his Detroit Tigers sweatshirt. His neck had widened into a block. When he spoke English, he tried to sound like Stallone. “How you doin’?” he greeted people on the streets.
“ICE is out there,” Uncle Sam said. “Do you want to be sent back to Bint Jbeil?”
“Send me to Hollywood.”
Youssef looked up from his plate.
“Hollywood?” Uncle Sam said. “You want to meet your internet girlfriend?”
“Her name is Lorrie,” Rocky said. “And she believes in me. Says I’ve got the looks and talent to make it as an action hero in Hollywood.”
Rocky reached for his phone on the table, swiped his thumb against the screen, and handed it to Youssef. “Check out my YouTube channel,” he said.
Youssef cleaned his greasy fingers with a napkin and pressed play. In the video, Rocky stood bare-chested in the backyard. A red bandanna held up his black hair. He wore blue jeans over cowboy boots. His skin was glistening. He pulled out a pack of Marlboros and lit up, squinting in the sunshine. The camera zoomed in on his chest to capture his flexing pectoral muscles.
“I rubbed my body down with olive oil for that shot,” Rocky said. “Check out the next video.”
Youssef pressed on another clip. In this one, Rocky, still bare-chested, sat on the floor against the door in his room, his head in his hands. He was sobbing, which sounded like cats mating.
“The tears are real,” Rocky said. “I thought of how much I miss Mama while I cried. Lorrie says I’ve got acting range.”
“Let me see those videos,” Uncle Sam said.
Youssef passed him the phone.
“What do you think?” Rocky asked Youssef. “These are my first films.”
“They’re not exactly films,” Youssef said.
