Rah Rah

by Rashid Raza

 

A week ago I phoned my father. He fumed over my accepting a present for Christmas.  It’s not the same as practicing Christianity, I told him. I’m bonding with my American friends.  It's just a ticket to a football game, I said.  He told me I should stay close to the other Pakistani students. I told him I’m being international. There are far worse Western customs than exchanging gifts. Should I be more adventurous in my vices? That left an uncomfortable silence at his end of the line, and a change of subject.

*    *    *

Neither the cloudy skies, about the same shade of gray as the stadium itself, nor the Tornader’s dismal record could dampen the feeling of good cheer prevalent throughout the groups of tailgate parties.  A hovering smell of beer, hot dogs, barbecued pork ribs, and countless other types of food being prepared in all sorts of ways tempted and revolted me. Somewhere in the distance boomed a hip-hop version of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”

Today was an opportunity to watch the pageant of tribalism first hand. I walked up to a group of men drinking beer waiting for their steak to finish cooking. They said some very nasty things about Arabs. If I had come from an Arabian country, I might have flipped the idiots off. Or ask them why, if they didn’t like Arabs, did they drive a gas guzzling Hummer?

My friends at UC Berkeley chipped in to buy me a San Leandro Tornaders ticket for Christmas. In all of professional football, Tornaders fans look the most exotic. It’s why I’ve been a fan even before I left Islamabad. Thanks primarily to the Internet, I’ve watched the subculture known as “TornaderNation” redefine itself a little each year. It may be what led me to major in cultural anthropology.

After some talk about a tailgate party, my friends and I agreed not to. One or another of us always shows up late. Rather than have to wait for whoever came last, and have everyone else miss part of the game, we decided to arrive on our own, and meet up at our seats.

 I thought briefly about wearing face paint in the team’s colors, blue and white, just to see what it’s like, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Perhaps I could live up to my nickname and cheer a little.

After the optional tailgate party, tribe members waited in line to be searched by a security guard. In front of me, stood three men in blue and white camouflage pants naked from the waste up except for the reindeer antlers on their heads. Face and body paint, also in the team colors, covered their exposed areas. Given the 40 degree weather, the paint must have hidden blue skin.

Behind me a couple talked to each other. The man had a blue and white Mohawk, and wore biker leathers including small metal spikes sticking out of his belt, and, like me, stood no taller than 5’10. His statuesque girlfriend, over 6 feet, also wore leather and spikes. She dyed her hair in a blue and white swirl, moussed up in the funnel shape of a tornado, adding perhaps 8 inches to her already formidable height. On TV, they might have appeared fierce, but up close they seemed like a playful couple maybe only a year or so out high school.

“Are you going to get us lost this time? “ said the tornado-haired woman pushing her boyfriend.

“No, you are,” he said leaning into her.

Tornado Woman lost her balance, and fell into me. At the same time I inhaled her rose scented perfume, I heard a tear on the right side of my jacket.

“Excuse me,” said the woman, pushing off of my shoulders, “I lost my balance.” She had surprisingly minty fresh breath for a leather clad Tornader fan.

“Spoor, be careful - I’m wearing heels,” she said to her boyfriend, laughing and pushing him. She noticed my fingering the tiny rip in my Tornaders jacket. “Oh, that’s an old jacket. It’s a collector’s item and I’ve ruined it.”

“It’s not that big of a tear. It can be fixed.” I took a second look at her belt. She’ll never get in with spikes that sharp.

She offered to pay for the repairs, but that would mean exchanging contact information, and I was rapidly loosing interest in Tornader fans.

The security guard lightly patted down most people. In my case, it felt like the guy had three hands. While I was being searched, a man wearing a blue and white Santa hat bumped into me.

Just out of curiosity, I didn’t go in directly, but waited to see if the guard would let Tornado Woman and her spiked belt in the game. He seemed embarrassed to have to search her. She opened her jacket, but the guard never laid a hand on her, or even looked at her closely.

Before I headed to my seat, the aroma of hot cheese lured me to a snack bar selling nachos.  The line took forever.  When I finally got to the front and tried to pay, I discovered my wallet was gone.  Maybe I did get patted down by three hands, the third being that of a pickpocket.  As I left, I got a lot of angry stares from some very fierce looking people. The ones with face paint looked like malevolent robots. 

Everything was going wrong.  I thought about calling security, but I couldn't even describe the current owner of my wallet, and I’d spend more time with the guards than with my friends watching the game. Right away I pulled out my cell and contacted my credit card company to cancel. I'm not a violent man, but while on hold, I couldn't resist having a fantasy involving the pick pocket and my hands around his neck. 

I shoved the phone in my pocket a little too hard. It hit a pencil that tore a hole in the lining of my pocket. Auf! Another tear in my collector’s item!  I did still have my ticket, and sitting down with my friends to let off some steam yelling at football players sounded like a great idea. I was learning English from the inside. I knew more deeply than ever “letting off steam.”

A man in a blue and white Santa hat knocked into me. The same guy who bumped into me while I was searched--when I lost my wallet! By the time I related these two events, Santa had mixed in with the crowd, and was almost invisible, except for his hat which served as a signal flag. It floated into the bathroom, and I followed. He stood in the corner, and threw a billfold into the trash receptacle. I looked in the bin, and saw my wallet, as well some others. The pickpocket stared back at me wide-eyed, quickly turned around, and took off running. I should’ve stayed calm, taken my wallet, and walked away. Instead I ran after the thief. He turned the corner and I lost sight of his body, but a blue and white Santa hat ducked inside a nearby luxury box.

I ran up the stairs full speed, ready to kill until a security guard’s outstretched hand stopped me cold.  She just about knocked the steam out of me. 

“Where do you think you’re going?”  She was big, not tall, but wide and solid. She wore blue jeans, a yellow wind breaker completely buttoned up and a blue hat that said “security” in yellow lettering.

 “My wallet was stolen,” I said catching my breath, “and the thief came in here.”

“I don’t let lowlifes into this booth.”

“I’m telling you the truth.  Maybe he had a ticket.”

“Right.  I let a lowlife with a ticket into the booth.”

“He’s a thief.  He probably stole it.”

“I know a thief when I see one.”

I didn’t like the way she looked at me.

“Let me see your ticket, chief.”

I showed it to her.

“This is way up in the third level. You buy a ticket for the cheap seats and then try to sneak into a luxury box.  What kind of moron are you?  Let’s see some ID.”

“I just told you my wallet was stolen.”

“See that wall behind you?”

I looked backwards, saw the wall, turned my head back toward the security guard, and nodded.

“Face it.”

I turned around.

“Put your hands against it.  No, up higher like they do on the cop shows.  Any weapons or needles?” 

“No.”   I was really getting tired of being searched.  She was even more thorough than the guy at the front of the stadium.  She jammed her hand in the left pocket of my Tornader jacket.

“Ouch!”

Whatever happened, it served her right.

“What are you doing with this weapon?”  I was as surprised as she.  I started to turn around, and she pushed me back against the wall.  Keeping her left hand between my shoulder blades, she angrily waved a pencil with her free hand in front of my face.  “What are you doing with this?”

I couldn’t believe it.

“Look how sharp it is; I poked myself!"  Her middle finger tip showed a small puncture and a residue of graphite in the skin. "What were you going to do, stab her in the jugular?”

“Who?”

“Don’t give me that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Is that why you have no ID and you’re carrying a weapon?”

She tied my hands behind my back with plastic handcuffs that looked like twist-ties for garbage bags. She cinched them so tightly I could feel the pressure at the rims of the plastic bands. Only the rims though. The thin wide middle part of the cuff must have been there to add size, but not strength to the band. Doubtless this was a cheap but effective construction. After all, how could I cut through the plastic rims with my hands tied behind my back?  Or twist my way out with the added width of the thin part? Once again I find myself learning the small things about American culture that I could not have learned without coming here.

She talked into a radio clipped to her shoulder and asked for backup.  When help finally came, it included two male security guards dressed the same as she, and another person, who must’ve been some sort of supervisor.  At first, I thought he was the owner of the team, Chuck Campion, except he looked thirty years younger.  He wore white sweats with a blue-and-white Tornader logo, blue framed glasses with a lanyard attached. Just like Chuck he had slicked back hair, a long pointy nose and narrow beady eyes that made him look like an angry rat.  It has often been said that the team was made in Chuck’s image. He was the first employee I saw that actually looked like him.

“Good job. Does he know who’s in there?” The supervisor looked over at me with a combination of fear and arrogance.

“He says he doesn’t.”  The security guard tried to sound calm.  “He ran at me like a crazy man.  Carrying a weapon.”  Her eyes opened wide as she held up the pencil.  She couldn’t stop looking at it.

The supervisor's face tightened as if trying to hold back a smile, then caught himself, and relaxed his face into a serious expression before she returned her attention back up to him.  He took the pencil from her and tapped his finger on the point, and said, “That’s sharp.  He could have put somebody’s eye out with it.”

“Or puncture our VIP’s throat,” said the security guard.

“Absolutely.”  The supervisor nodded with astonishing seriousness. “How’s your Uncle Chuck?”

“Oh, he’s fine, sitting up in the owner’s booth, while I’m down here in the trenches.”

“You’re learning the business, and doing a great job.”

She smiled back at him, and stood up straighter.  “Look at this guy!” 

I tried to appear as the most innocent Pakistani to have ever worn handcuffs.

“He wanted to kill her.  If I didn’t have my training he would have killed me,” said the guard.

“Absolutely.” The supervisor smiled back at her.

He looked over to the two male security guards and said, “Now let’s take this guy to the Tank.”

“How about the Black Hole?” she said with a malicious grin.

“Absolutely.” The supervisor fought back a look of alarm.

I wished I were at the student lounge.  At the Bear’s Lair people knew me.  They knew I wasn’t a crazed terrorist with a sharp pencil and an assassination plot trying to kill my way into heaven.  I didn’t need an ID.  Granted they may not have known my real name, Rashid Raza, but they knew my nickname, Rah Rah.

As the supervisor turned his back and headed toward the corridor, the two guards who came with him each grabbed one of my arms, firmly pushing me forward, just behind their boss.  As I headed away from the scene of the crime, I heard the woman security guard say, "And don’t worry about the name black hole, it’s just a cell for the most violent drunks, you'll get out.  Maybe in one piece”

I couldn’t resist looking back at her, halfway expecting to see an evil laugh, but the leering smile was bad enough.

On the way down, the players' names were being announced.  People started to leave the concession stands in order to get to their seats. I may have been the only Pakistani in the entire stadium. Being tied up and escorted by three security guards left me open to many hostile stares. What if this crowd thought I tried to blow up the stadium? I’d be torn to shreds. Somehow I had to trust that the guards would not let that happen. I had to feel they would protect me.

The corridor was becoming packed. Fans bumped into me from all directions. The crowd got thicker and foot traffic slowed down. 

Behind me, I heard the familiar banter of the couple I saw in line.

“You got us lost again,” said the woman.

“No, you did”

“Spo-o-or--

I smelt a rose, a moment before she fell on top of me. Tornado Woman knocked me over, and caused a bowling pin effect, between her, me, the guards, the supervisor, and some nearby fans. Before I knew it, I lay at the bottom of a tangle of arms, legs, and bodies. If I didn’t recognize her voice, or her perfume, her spikes made a painful reintroduction to my wrists. I twisted around, but couldn’t avoid being stabbed. The spikes even punctured the thin wide part of the cuffs.

“Keep rubbing,” she said softly.

Initially, I didn’t understand. Then I realized her spikes might cut through my plastic ties. Each time I rubbed the tie across the spike, I had to raise it a little further to get the same resistance. Once it cut through one rim, the weaker middle part practically tore itself. Then I had to work on the other rim. People were disentangling themselves from each other and I didn’t know much more time I had to free myself.

“Torry, are you alright?” Spoor sounded worried. “Why doesn’t she get up?”

“Just a minute,” said Tornado Woman.

With the satisfying snap of disposable chopsticks, the final rim of my cuffs broke.

“Merry Christmas,” she whispered, just before she pushed off.

As I got up, I ignored the urge to rub the pain out my wrists and shoulders and kept my arms behind me, letting the security guards think I was still handcuffed. The guards paid more attention to the fans caught in the pile-up, making sure the fans weren’t seriously injured and trying to calm them down. 

"Look!  It's Chuck Campion!” I shouted.

This just added more chaos. Everyone confused the supervisor with the owner of the team. The fans nearest him tried to shake hands and pat him on the back. As more people pushed up from all sides, I slipped away.