Inside Threat by Jason Elam, Steve Yohn Page A

boys.
    â€œHey, raghead, you must be cheering the guys on those planes,” one boy said, giving the young Alavi a push.
    â€œWe don’t even know who flew those planes,” Alavi shot back. “It could have been anyone!”
    â€œYeah right. Everyone knows it was some camel jockey, just like you,” another said, also giving a push. “Look around you. Everyone else is all crying and stuff, and you’re here playing ball like nothing happened.”
    â€œNo, like he knew it was going to happen,” a third said from behind, giving young Majid’s head a hard push forward.
    â€œKnock it off,” Alavi’s buddy said, trying to elbow his way into the circle. But he was yanked backward by a couple of onlookers and shoved to the rear of the growing crowd.
    â€œSo, come on, raghead,” the first boy taunted. “How’d it feel to see your cousins crashing those planes? Huh? How does it feel to know your family killed all those people?”
    Alavi knew he was in trouble but couldn’t find a way out. Panic welled up inside him as words continued to be said and he continued to be pushed. Then came the first punch. After that, it was a free-for-all. By the time a recess aide got there, Alavi was on the ground, a bloody mess.
    But I didn’t cry! No matter what they threw at me, I didn’t cry, he remembered with pride, even this many years later.
    The boys were suspended for three days, but Alavi never went back to that school. Not that he didn’t want to. But the principal of the school was concerned for his safety, so she recommended he study at home.
    Then, a week after the attack, Alavi’s dad was unexpectedly laid off from his job as manager of a clothing retailer. The higher-ups had cited a history of poor store performance, but Mr. Alavi knew that sales had actually been up that year. The rumor around corporate was that there had been customer complaints about having a man with an Arabic name running the store, and some had vowed not to return.
    After scrambling for employment for a month—there weren’t a lot of “Muslim Wanted: Apply Within” signs around the Mishawaka area at that time—Mr. Alavi found a job through his sister at a factory in Michigan. So the whole Alavi family—Dad, Mom, Majid, and his little brother, Hatim—packed up and moved to Dearborn.
    The positive side of the move was that Dearborn was thick with people just like themselves—Arab background, moderate Muslim. The negative side was that a junior assembler in a factory didn’t make near the same kind of money as a manager of a clothing store. Typically, the Alavi family spent the final few days of each month eating rice and curds until the paycheck came and they could start the cycle again.
    America! The great melting pot where everyone is welcome—as long as you have white skin and are a Christian, Alavi thought, letting his tongue dance in the gap where one of his upper left bicuspids had been until that morning on the playground.
    America! Where they stick their noses into everyone else’s business, then cry when that nose gets hit! America! The great imperialist that commands smaller nations by feeding them foreign aid, then forcing them to do their bidding like a pimp running a crack whore! America! Who, like an old plantation owner, is too fat and lazy to do any work on their own, so instead they exploit the slave nations of the world to do their work for them! They import everything, and the only thing they export is the moral filth of their culture!
    Alavi stood and moved across the warehouse to where his cot was, one of eight in the small area belonging to the squadron he would command. He sat down and began dismantling his Glock 21 .45 for a cleaning, carefully laying out each piece on an olive green blanket. Well, we are the wake-up call! We are retribution! We are the Vandals to this modern-day empire! And before they know what