Free The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu

second, but Nur walked right by him and into their bedroom and Fadi fell asleep on the floor in the kitchen, his head resting on Nur’s coat that he pulled from the coat hanger by the door, by the door, the closed door, that door that is closed—
    When I woke up the next morning, I was tired, but less.
    The ride to the checkpoint was usually all the torture that is inherent in movement. Breaths and moans and the webs of sleepy eyes of all of us jumbled. I was yanked from slumber and immediately boarded the bulletproof green van, with its miniature barred windows and thick metal skin. My head bobbed and smashed and hurt as the van glided along the territories we occupied. When the movement halted, all I arrived at was men, a line of men, all these men, waiting for me, raging through stillness.
    The ride the morning in which I was less tired, the morning after I first thought of Fadi, was almost just a regular nice ride, though. Almost, I swear.

    I SAID no again when Yaniv asked me to do cars for a bit, and then he told me a dick is like a boomerang.
    “A dick is like a boomerang,” he said. He was chewing gum like a dumb cow, but he was a boy. “You understand?”
    “No,” I said. “I don’t understand.”
    “You know what it means to throw a dick at someone?” Yaniv asked. “It means that you are showing you don’t care about them.”
    I had never heard this expression before. There were so many expressions I never heard before I joined the transitions unit. Hyperbolic, Moroccan, so many inane forms of speech.
    “Well, I actually don’t care about you,” I said.
    It was true. I hated him, and on mornings like that one when I was not so tired, I hated him even more than I hated myself. I hated the way he chewed gum as he high-fived the people he knew in the cars. I hated the way he would kiss all the girls who would let him on both cheeks. I hated his cologne and that he plucked his eyebrows. I hated that he wore a giant golden Star of David around his neck and that he sang Mizrahi music to himself and always talked jokingly about how much he hated our officers and his blue beret and of how he guessed that this must be his messed-up destiny. I hated that he smiled and that despite his whining I would sometimes catch him enjoying it—he loved bending down and sticking his neck inside windows and chatting up the drivers, and he did not understand the difference between horror and honor or he did understand but didn’t care. He lugged his neck as if it were light.
    “Well, that’s why the whole point is that a dick is like a boomerang. You throw it at someone, and it comes right back at you,” Yaniv said.
    When I saw him smiling and sticking his neck down a window later that day, I thought about telling. I knew everyone would hate me for it, but I actually thought about telling my officer, who was walking between the cement barricades and the cars and must have seen Yaniv sticking his neck in cars, chatting and kissing babies and taking figs and olive oil bottled in used Coca-Cola bottles. The officer saw everything, but if I told, he would have to do something; he would haveto. If I were an officer, I would never let one of my soldiers violate regulations like that. The regulations we learned in boot camp said that we must always place our guns between our bodies and the open windows of the Palestinians passing through checkpoints. That the Palestinians had to put their IDs and papers on the hood of the car and then close the window as the soldier approached to look through them. No one followed that, but at least they didn’t kiss babies, and they didn’t lie about their bad backs and—
    I truly might have told on him except Fadi was back. I saw him nearing the head of the line and I knew that he was hoping I wouldn’t be the one who would call him to approach the barricade. I watched him lower his stare and scratch his nose and kick the sand and hope for someone other than me. But I was also watching