Terrorist by John Updike

phone number on Ahmad's school records, I got a recording saying it had been disconnected."
    "We had to, after Nine-Eleven," she explains, still a little breathless. "We were getting hate calls. Anti-Muslim. I had the number changed and unlisted, even if it does cost a couple dollars a month more. It's worth it, I tell you."
    "I'm sorry to hear that, Mrs.—Ms.—Mulloy," the guidance counselor says, and he does seem sorry, above and beyond his usual sad look.
    "There were just one or two calls," Ahmad interposes. "No big deal. Most people were cool. I mean, I was only fifteen when it happened. Who could blame me?"
    His mother, with that infuriating way she has of making something of nothing, says, "It was more than one or two, I can tell you, Mr. Levine."
    "Levy." He still wants to explain why he has shown up. "I could have called Ahmad to my office at the school, but it was you I wanted to speak to, Ms. Mulloy."
    "Teresa, please."
    "Teresa." He comes to the table and looks over Ahmad's shoulder. "At it already, I see. Studying for the CDL. As you realize, I'm sure, until you're twenty-one you can't get better than a 'C rating. No tractor trailers, no hazardous materials."
    "Yeah, I know," Ahmad says, pointedly looking down at the page he was trying to study. "But it's interesting, it turns out. I wanted to learn it all, while I'm at it."
    "Good for you, my friend. For a young man as bright as you are, it should all be pretty simple."
    Ahmad isn't afraid of arguing with Mr. Levy. He tells him, "There's more to it than you'd tbink. There's a lot of strict rules, and then there's all tbe parts of the truck and what you should do for maintenance. You don't want your truck to break down, it can be dangerous."
    "O.K., you keep at it, son. Don't let it get in the way of your schoolwork, though; there's still a month to go, with a lot of exams. You want to graduate, don't you?"
    "Yes, I do." He doesn't want to argue over everything, though in truth he resents the hint of a threat. They're dying to graduate him, get rid of him. And graduate into what? An imperialist economic system rigged in favor of rich Christians.
    Mr. Levy, hearing his surly tone, asks, "Do you mind if I talk a minute with your mother?"
    "No. Why would I? And what if I did?"
    "You want to see me?" the woman affirms, to cover up her son's rudeness.
    "Very briefly. Again, Mrs.—Ms.—whatever: Teresa!—I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm the kind of guy, when something is bothering me, my mind won't let me rest until I take action."
    "Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr.—?"
    "Jack. My mother called me Jacob, but people call me Jack." He looks at her face, with its flush and freckles and protuberant, overeager eyes. She seems anxious to please. School personnel don't get the respect from parents they used to, and with some of the parents you're an enemy like the police, only laughable because you don't have a gun. But this woman, though of a generation younger than his, is old enough, he guesses, to have had a parochial education and learned respect from the nuns. "No thanks," he tells her. "I'm a lousy sleeper anyway."
    "I can do decaf," she promises, too eagerly. "Can you stand instant?" Her eyes are a pale green, like the glass bottles Coke used to come in.
    "I'm tempted," he allows. "If it can be quick. Where can we go, to stop bothering Ahmad here? The kitchen?"
    "It's too messy. I haven't cleared the dishes yet. I'd hoped to get to my painting while I still had some energy left. Let's go into my studio. I have a hot plate."
    "Studio?"
    "I call it that. It's also the room I sleep in. Ignore the bed. I have to multi-task, so Ahmad has his privacy in his room. We shared a room for years, maybe too long. These cheap apartments, the walls are like paper."
    She opens the door she came out of, ten minutes ago. "Wow!" Jack Levy says, entering. "I guess Ahmad told me you painted, but—"
    "I'm trying to work bigger, and brighter. Life's so short, I suddenly figured,