Matthew Mohamed

Following

I sit on a bench across the street from the Planned Parenthood building, watching

children frolic with their grandparents at a park in the next lot. They are laughing and

chasing each other on a recycled-plastic play structure, oblivious to my observances.

There is a sandwich at my right hand that has been sitting untouched for six hours, the

very thought of what I was doing here killing my appetite and making my guts writhe like

worms in a wet field.

The park scene reminded me of the way my grandparents used to take me out

when I was younger, the way I put a smile on their faces and the way my parents would

always hug me harder than usual when I returned from periods of absence like that. What

I remember best and most fondly are the birthdays, the way both families—even with the

flaring religious tension between them—came together because of me.

There were times in the past six hours on the bench when I prayed to God, Allah,

Yahweh—anyone who would answer, so that she would not come. Not because of her

getting up late, or deciding to go somewhere else, but because she honestly wouldn’t go

through with it. My father and late mother have been rejoicing for the whole of my

twenty-six years because they were granted a son through the beneficence (some like her

might call it “mistake”) of another couple.

A group of teenagers approached, some wearing “Atlantis Students for Life” t-

shirts, others picketing, still others saying their solemn chants with Bibles and other

paraphernalia. I stared at them for about fifteen minutes, got bored, and motioned for one

of them to come over. It was the tallest one, possibly the leader, who came over—her

footsteps proud and righteous, her hands balled tightly into pious little fists.
 “Hello,” I said, noticing she was cautious with my addressing the group, “what

are you guys here for?” When she saw I was just being friendly and wasn’t some

antagonistic prick harassing their picket line, she abruptly let down her guard.

“We are the Atlantis Students for Life group. We are protesting Planned

Parenthood and its treatment of unborn children! Would you like a flyer?” Her

enthusiasm was charming; it made her green eyes sparkle in the afternoon sun, a

compliment to the orchid-print sundress and flower in her hair. Rings of hemp wove

around her ankles and wrists—obviously a nature child, but her posture declared a

commendable severity of conservative purpose.

“No, thank you. I’m just here waiting for someone.”

“Do you think they would like a flyer?” The hopefulness in her voice was both

sad and precious.

“Knowing her, she will try to avoid all contact with you and your friends before

going inside. There is only one public entrance, right?”

“Yes, they do that on purpose! You know, they get a lot of heat from people

because of… what they do.” She leaned in closer, and I wasn’t sure why since the closest

possible eavesdropper was one of her friends, many feet away. She whispered loudly,

“Easier for security purposes!”

I nodded serenely, but found myself uncomfortable. Why had I drawn attention to

myself? “You had better get back to your post. Those babies need you!”

She shook her smiling head vigorously, and waved back to me as she ran off to

her group. Bored once more, I took in my surroundings for what had to be the hundredth

time that day. The picketers, all forty of them, were idling on the half-block of public

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sidewalk that guaranteed they wouldn’t be tazed and dragged off the premises for

trespassing. The area was residential, with pretty, two-story brick estates lining the long

streets. A police station two blocks down kept me awake with a blaze of sirens every

hour as people decided the “Children at Play: 15mph” signs for the park meant “10 Points

for Hits Over 50mph”. Other than reckless automotive piloting and the feline cries of the

picketers that could have made beagles howl, the streets were deathly quiet. It was a

serene, respectable architecture that dominated the buildings—not unlike my old

hometown of Atlantis a good haul east (except for fake Corinthian balustrades); these

kids had come a long way just to protest, and I had to admire their spirit of non-violent

assertiveness.

It was only two in the afternoon, and the melodious God-fearing chanting from

the pro-life picketers was an ensemble the likes of which I never thought I’d have the

displeasure of witnessing. The roar of my digestive tract was loud enough to break my

concentration on the students, and I was forced to swallow two bites of the sandwich to

just shut it up.

I was determined, but damn I was tired—but not as tired as I was of the way she

and I always fought over our families. Hers was the rags-to-riches story—parents had her

out of wedlock, right at high school graduation in Atlantis. The father, a genius physicist

and engineer, had sweated his way the last twenty-two years into secret government

projects with a Ph.D. in one hand and a family to feed in the other. She often lamented

the food stamps she grew up on, even though now her family lived in a New York

skyscraper condo (she didn’t like heights) complete with Mexicana maid (she was against

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welfare) and a Maserati (she didn’t like the metallic blue). She believed she wasn’t

spoiled because of how she was raised, but when she found out my military pension was

barely enough to send me to college and that my dad sold guns in small-town Atlantis,

she wasn’t pleased that I couldn’t take her to dinner every weekend. At twenty-six,

having a twenty-two year old, intelligent, hardworking, med-student hottie definitely had

its hidden downsides.

Once we got over the superficial speed bumps, I had thought things were

working. Then the “I’m better than you” side came out, and suddenly I was never good

enough or right. The first big fight was on pregnancy, mainly because we had started

getting physical; she was pro-choice, I was pro-life, and there was no compromise

between us. One year later, our fight was the same, but now for a wholly different

reason—she actually was pregnant, fourteen weeks, and she was afraid mommy and

daddy would drop her from the inheritance if they found out. I didn’t give a shit about the

money. I had my BMW motorcycle and my Spartan military lifestyle thanks to my

father’s staunch all-things-in-temperance mindset. That same upbringing, however,

demanded familial loyalty and fierce protectiveness—and as far as I was concerned the

unborn was at least half-mine.

One of the elderly men at the park came ambling over, narrowly missing an Audi

on the crosswalk—and then had to jump away from the pursuing patrol car. Making his

way to me, he asked me why I had been sitting so long.

“I’m here to meet a lady friend of mine!” I raised my voice a little, in the off

chance that he might be hearing-impaired.

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 “Oh, that’s nice. She must be terrible at punctuality, I’ve been here with my

grandchildren all day and you’ve been here longer than I! Why are you meeting her?” He

had a normal tone, so I figured I’d try my regular volume.

“Just me waiting and wishing. She’s pretty anal about the time, though.”

The elder looked like I had just booted his new puppy. “What! That’s terrible!”

Looking around, he leaned in and said raspily, “Although I suppose with kinky practices

like that you wouldn’t need a place like this, huh?” He winked as he jabbed a gnarled

thumb at the building. “Smart man! Damn teenagers, they’re the reason we have places

like this!” Chuckling and shaking his head as he turned away, I could only stare as he

went back across the street. I sat in awe of his response for a moment before I realized I

had been distracted too long and quickly scanned the area for any sign of her. Nothing.

This was getting old, and I took a few more bites of the sandwich to break the monotony.

I saw the flower girl run at me, grinning from ear to ear.

“Did the geezer ask about us?”

“Um—”

“Did he want a flyer?”

“I really don’t know… he was just seeing if I was okay.”

The anguish on her face was overwhelming. Her head drooped, the whole of her

demeanor changing to one of forlorn despair. Overtaken by the sheer change in attitude, I

asked her to sit down. She immediately perked up and sat awkwardly close, smiling

profusely. “We come here every Tuesday to pray for the unborn… well, most of us.” She

pointed a long finger with rose polish at a kid sitting on the sidewalk away from the

chanting group, posed Indian-style and head held high. “He does this manta thing…”

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 “Mantra?”

“Yeah, that’s it! Manta… I don’t know, he’s not a believer, so it’s cool but weird

at the same time.”

“Why?”

“He’s not religious, so he really doesn’t do it for the same reasons I do. He does it

just because he honestly thinks its right.” She looked at him suspiciously, cocking her

head to the side as if in thought.

“Don’t you?”

“Well yeah, but…” Ah.

She got up, and outstretched her hand. “Well, I’m Amber, so maybe when

your…lady friend, was it? When she gets here we can talk to her!”

“I’m Samad. And honestly, I don’t plan on staying long once my ex gets here. I

don’t even know if I can talk her out of this.” There was a knowing look in her eyes.

With a slow, sad nod, she backed away and headed to her friends. Shrugging, I caught in

the corner of my eye some movement. I looked over, and behind the building in the

parking lot there was a car matching the one belonging to my ex. I got out of the bench

and hurried over the front door to intercept her.

My mind was a boiling vat of oil, looking at her like this. She stood in front of

me, five-feet five of blonde determination, her blue eyes aflame and ready for war. The

fact that she was still wearing my leather jacket made me want to smile and cry at the

same time.

“I need to talk to you, Chloe.”

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 “You need to get out of my way, Samad. You already know you can’t talk me out

of this, you’ve tried to for three months now. I’ve made my decision. I’m still in college

and it’s not worth being disowned.”

“ ‘It’ should have a name in six months, Chloe. Come over to the bench and at

least talk to me. Come on. Please? Just talk.”

A year’s worth of my honest effort at a loving relationship stared me in the face, a

growl emanating from her very core. “Fine. We’ll talk, since I’m early as usual. How did

you know I was coming today? Have you been here all day?” I told her nothing, a silent

and uncomfortable walk all the way to the bench, the squeak of my shoes a raucous battle

hymn. The flower girl tried to approach all smiles, but Chloe glared her away. One year

ago, I would have never imagined having to walk a lover across the street in the hopes of

denying her an abortion. All her studying had made her, the self-declared queen of

timeliness, completely forget to take her birth control.

Sitting down, I lounged while she sat stark upright, seeming to try desperately to

keep herself in a position of strength. I knew her well enough to see the torment inside,

but also the indomitable will that would guarantee the execution of my child-to-be.

“Chloe… do you remember how I was raised?”

She looked at me with eyes of snow, a deep but soft penetrating frost that sent

chills down my back. “You were raised by a father who threw everything at you. Paid for

it all.”

I reminded her that it was more than economic, that there were traditional Arab

loyalties to family, to hospitality, to the service of the weak. She reminds me that they are

a backward society that makes their women walk covered. I tell her that I cannot let her

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kill my child. She tells me it is her body, her legal right. I ask her to consider my parents

and hers; mine for adopting me, hers for keeping her while understanding it would affect

their future. She asks me to consider that it’s the woman’s right to do with her body what

she will—and as a pre-med student she can say that, biologically, a fetus is no more than

a parasite.

I listen to her scoff, get up, claim that she doesn’t have any time for me, that she

just wants to get it over with. I smell the perfume as she walks away; odd that she wears

her favorite on an occasion such as this. I feel my breathing become erratic and shallow

as I realize that there is no fate for the unborn just yet, that there is still time. I can still

taste the last kiss I gave her—so long ago, yet as if it was only moments—as I stand and

shout her name, walk to her as she stops and turns, telling her that if she goes she will

regret it later on. She says she regrets meeting me in the first place, and turns to walk to

the building. I stumble back to the bench, heartsick, ignoring the concerned stare coming

from the flower girl, Amber. All the suppressed terrors of mortality come to the surface. I

can’t push away the daydream that has haunted me for years: I am lying feebly in a white

hospital bed, tubes in my nose and mouth, the dripping of my intravenous bag of fluids

and my heartbeat throbbing against my dulled hearing. There is family not yet known to

me surrounding the bed, children and elders alike. There is a younger man holding my

hand, solemn and respectful, possibly my grandson. My skin is puffy, crinkly; there is too

much dermal oxygen and the doctors don’t know why. I begin to wonder if dying is a gift

that only the living may experience.

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 “You did what you could, son.” The voice from right above my shoulder had me

falling out of the bench and onto the cold, damp ground. I twist and look up into the eyes

of my father, and in the noonday sun he looks like a Greek god with his beige business

suit and open collar. “Some people don’t share the morality of others. You forget you

must respect that.”

I am beyond furious. “You’ve been following me!”

“No, you told me a year ago not to, and so I didn’t. But when my friends in the

police here called me and told me you had come back, and that you had been sitting on

this bench like a homeless bum all day, it made me wonder if there was trouble; I’ve

never known you to be able to sit still like this.” His laugh was full, hearty, shaking his

whole body even though he had his right hand on the bench for support. “You know

damn well,” he said, eyes twinkling but a fierce expression on his features, “that she isn’t

right for you. People get along better when they have similar values.” He stood straight,

looking in his familiar hardened way at the Planned Parenthood. It didn’t need to be said,

and I hoped he wouldn’t. I knew how much it hurt him that Mom had wanted to leave

when she found out he was running weapons into Mexico. She hadn’t believed he was

doing it for the U.S. government, mainly because she had trouble enough with his love of

firearms; they scared her, and it terrified her that I was around them. As if we don’t have

enough bigotry against us, she had said, you have to own a gun store. My father would

reply that he would let his Jewish friends at Goldman Sachs know how she felt, and the

look of scorn she would cast on him every time he said it made me want to go and watch

TV on full volume to escape.

“She still left because of me, Dad.”

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 “She stayed because of you, Samad. When you left, there was no reason for her to

be there, and she went to her mother’s. You remember Grandma—she’s the one who

asked when my assassination fatwa would be announced for marrying her daughter. You

would have known the truth about our separation if you had let me talk to you. You never

knew it took everything I had not to turn one of those guns onto myself. A man breathes

for his family, and when you, and then she, left… there was nothing left for me in life. I

was utterly lost.” He was not a crier, never had been in all of my memory, and it was a

shock to see those salty beads of hidden truths well up in his eyes. He reached down,

grabbed my arm and pulled me up into a bear-hug. “I want you to come home, son. But I

understand if you want to wait for your wench.” We both laughed hard at this, the hug

bringing back memories of things I had sorely missed. He let go, putting on his beige

wide-brim fedora.

“No. The “wench”, Dad, made her decision. Now I have to make mine.” I looked

over to the building, the sadness in my heart dwindling. Legally, she was right. Morally,

all I could know for sure was that we saw things differently.

His face was emblazoned with bliss. “It would be good to have you back, son.

There’s always work to be done in the family—store.” He gave a nod with a wink, and

walked back to his car. I watched him as he drove away, wondering if he was lying about

keeping tabs on me. I probably would never know. But I did know that with the

possibility of a child gone, there was no necessary tie to Chloe. Looking over at the Pro-

Life group, I hurried to my motorcycle. The roar of the engine as I throttled shook any

notion of regret from my shoulders. I thundered over to where the protesters were

huddled, packing their stuff up to leave. The bright face of flower-girl beamed when she

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saw me. She rushed over, offered me a flyer, and I took it. I watched her walk back with

her friends, and then studied the flyer. Her name and number were at the bottom, in

perfect Arabic calligraphy, with “Find me in Atlantis!” in English right above it. Stunned,

I looked up, but the group was herding over to their cars, and she was nowhere in sight.

Smiling to myself, I put my helmet on and found comforting warmth in knowing there

was somewhere I could find myself wanted.

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