by Joel Deutsch
What Daniel knows about criminal law is slight,mostly remembered from first year law school, and his understanding of police procedure, such as it is, comes by way of TV shows like NYPD Blue or The Wire, same as anyone. Regardless, listening to the kid describe what happened to him the night before while scarfing down a couple of Irina’s scrumptious Russian pastries, it’s easy for him to understand that Sasha could have been in some very serious trouble.
“Probably the police treat you as honored guest?” offers grandpa Zalman, kiddingly. “More tea, my dear Aleksandr Dmitrievich? Your chair is not too uncomfortable, we are sincerely hoping?”
“Not exactly, dedushka,” says Sasha, unable to suppress an appreciative chuckle at this allusion to old-fashioned Russian formality, where a respected guest would be addressed by his proper first name and his patronymic.,. “The chair was pretty hard, actually. And when they asked me did I want anything to drink I said tea, for real, but all they had was either coffee or Coke or diet 7-Up.
“To go with the Fritos and the Snickers bars? cracks Daniel, getting into the spirit. “the Diet 7-Up, I mean?” But nobody laughs. Maybe you had to know something about the nutritionally dreadful crap that was said to be stocked in the vending machines of institutions like police stations, he thinks in the embarrassing beat of silence that follows his remark. Maybe you had to know about the recent studies that showed drinkers of artificially sweetened beverages to be more overweight than average, possibly because they tend to gobble up even more fattening junk food than other people do and wash it all down with diet soda.
“I guess,” Sasha finally says, indifferently, then takes a long drink of his tea, just long enough to let Daniel’s failed attempt at jocularity fall completely flat, and goes on with his story. “oh, well,” Daniel sighs to himself. At least he tried.
The cops had put Sasha in a windowless room with a one-way mirror, Sasha was certain it was. There was a long gray steel conference table, a few chairs, and a bar along one wall that he guessed must be used for shackling a prisoner to. Sasha wasn’t handcuffed anymore. He didn’t think he was under arrest, either, though on this point, he was confused.
The two detectives, the one named Harry and the one called Maldonado, had double-teamed him, playing against type in the good cop/bad cop game, the gruff, cynical old veteran Harry in the role of understanding, indulgent father figure and the suave, articulate Maldonado as the vaguely menacing one who didn’t appear to believe a word Sasha told them, or at least did a good job of pretending not to.
Above the door was a large institutional clock, its black hands lurching around a white face. 11, 11:30, 11:45, midnight. Sometimes the two detectives sat directly across the table from Sasha. Sometimes they pulled their chairs around to either side of him so that the three of them were sitting thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder, as if they were wedged together in the cramped back seat of his mother’s old Nissan Sentra.
Every so often, Harry or Maldonado would leave the room for a few minutes saying something about having to take a leak or grab a smoke or talk to someone, abandoning Sasha to the machinations of the other one. It went on and on. One A.M., two, three. Sasha wanted desperately to go home but, sleepless and intimidated, lost the will even to ask for another Coke, let alone demand to be told whether or not they were placing him under arrest, because then, he knew, he would have certain rights. A phone call. The right not to answer questions, he thought he remembered from somewhere. And the right to be represented by an attorney. Although what attorneys did he know?
“I realized I didn’t have any idea what kind of lawyer you are,” says Sasha.
“Personal injury, mostly,” Daniel says, sounding a little more apologetic to himself than he intended.
“Okay,” says Sasha. So that leaves Mr. Nudelman, the immigration lawyer I worked for all summer. Who wouldn’t be much help in a situation like that, either, I guess.” Right?”
“probably not,” agrees Daniel, feeling a pathetic bond of uselessness with this colleague he’s never even met, as if they were two disabled twins separated at birth. He’s aware that he’s struggling to make a comeback from his failed ironic quip about diet soda, yearning not only to recover his dignity but to show himself as being useful and capable, somehow. To Sasha, to Irina, to Irina’s father. Like a male chimpanzee vying for at least a little status, a function within the group. All those years living with a psychologist, he has to admit, have at least educated him to be able to think of such things.
“But what is it these detectives are questioning you about?” Irina demands to know. She’s not so naïve as to imagine that her smart, complicated teenage son is an untroubled angel who could never misbehave in some way or other . But police interrogation? Why on earth?
“They wanted to know stuff like how long had I known these two guys Manny and Marv they picked me up with at Canter’s. Which was since about 9 O’clock that night, I told them. Which they didn’t believe and kept asking me about over and over, like they were sure we were old friends or something. The way they asked it would keep changing, but it was really the same question.
“Then there were all these, you know, attitude questions. First they asked if I was Jewish, and of course I said yes. No problem. This is America, right?
Grandpa Zalman raises a questioning eyebrow and presses his lips together to make a skeptical humming sound.
Sasha ignores this and continues. “Then they asked things like, for instance, how did I feel about Israel. And how did I feel about the Palestinians and about the Arabs in general. That kind of thing.”
“We have cousins now in Israel,” explains Grandpa Zalman to Daniel. Some of them live in Northern Israel, little towns. Some of them live in a settlement, on the West Bank.”
“But they didn’t know that,” says Sasha. “They didn’t really know shit about me. Sorry, Mom. They didn’t know anything.” Irina smiles, nods. Apparently, thinks Daniel, they have some sort of boundary agreement about language, an agreement that the son has violated in his exuberance at recounting such a manly and harrowing adventure.
“So what did you tell them?” Daniel asks.
“That I was glad there’s an Israel so Jews have somewhere to go that they can call home if that’s where they want to go, but that I’m a loyal American myself. And I told them I don’t think very much about the Palestinian issue, which is the truth. But which they didn’t seem to believe, either. And then they started asking me some really strange other questions. I mean extremely strange.”
“Strange?” asked Zalman.
“Like for instance had I ever taken any weapons training. Like did I know anything about how to build a pipe bomb or make a bomb out of nitrogen fertilizer. And did I know how to set off explosive devices remotely using a cell phone. I told them no, of course. I told them I’d just graduated Fairfax high in June with honors, but I didn’t learn anything like that.”
Sasha grins at the memory of his clever comeback, but Irina is obviously horrified and Grandpa Zalman looks more than a little perturbed, himself.
“Bombs? Explosives?” Irina’s voice rises in disbelief and indignation. “They think you’re a terrorist? This is crazy. Arabs are the terrorists. Muslims. Not the Jewish people. Everybody knows that.
“I guess so,” says Sasha. “Except these guys didn’t seem to. It didn’t make any sense to me, either.”
“I know how we can get to the bottom of this,” says Daniel. “Is there a Sunday L. A. Times around?”
“My last two years of high school,” says Sasha, “we took the Times. Daily and Sunday. I was the only one who really read it, though. Mom’s not that much into current events and my grandpa subscribes to one of the local Russian weeklies. He also watches CNN a lot plus this Russian channel, too. Mom stopped taking the Times a couple of months ago but that was okay because I was reading Mr. Nudelman’s copy that he gets delivered to his office. Now I mostly go online for news and everything else. Daniel hadn’t read the paper yet, himself. After Irina had woken him up and asked him to drive her to the police station, he had brought it inside, dropped it onto his couch where it still sat, unmolested, and gone back into his bedroom to get dressed.
“Okay,” said Daniel. “okay. So let’s see. Didn’t I notice a computer out in the living room when I came in?”
To be continued…