To shut Dhakir up, he tried to read the Qur’an at the library. Naturally, they didn’t have it in Arabic, so it wasn’t really the Qur’an. It got to him, he had to admit, when he checked out the fatihah. He’d repeated it whenever anything scary happened as a kid. You only do we worship, and You only do we beseech for help. Shit, he’d said it in the hold. And more than once. In the Name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful. Jumping in, making that last long cold swim he needed to make. Guide us in the straight path. Or when his dad beat the crap out of him. The All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful. Or his brother, when he made it like Ghazi stole stuff, when he didn’t. Other than that of the ones against whom You are angered, nor the erring. Of course, he was stealing stuff, but he never got caught for the stuff he stole. The Possessor of the Day of Doom. He always got the punishment for his brother’s thefts. Shithead was a master snitch. Shithead stole, pinned it on Ghazi, and guess who got the fatherly ass-kicking.

We believe in the unseen, he read in the next sura. That was good. But he couldn’t keep his mind on most of it. Deceive and believe; so many times he read those words. Righteousness, pious, all-embracing, ever-knowing, beholding, therefrom, inordinance, errancy—where did they get these words? And once in a while, there was something like in their hearts is a sickness.

But why did Allah need so much worshiping? He had it all, was it all, knew it all. Never made sense to him as a kid and still didn’t. So he read by starting an ayat, and if it didn’t interest him by, say, the fifth word, he went to the next one. One great ayat was:

Thereafter your hearts hardened even after that; so they were as stones, or (even) strictly harder. And surely there are stones, from which rivers erupt forth, and surely there are (some) that cleave, so that water goes out of them, and surely there are (still others) that crash down in the apprehension of Allah. And really Allah is in no way heedless of whatsoever you do.

You had to know Dhakir never read that.

Did He not find you an orphan and give you refuge? Did He not find you lost and guide you? Did he not find you poor and make you self-sufficient?

That, Ghazi had to say, was good.

Aziz could not believe he was walking down Brooks Street. He felt liberated, so awake. A few things had changed—new chain-link fence at the body shop across the street, a nice-looking motorcycle bolted to a porch railing, and a new doorbell and new peephole on their old door, which had been repainted blue.