Theo didn’t respond. He just lay in his usual position with his shirt over his eyes to block out the sun. I repeated myself, louder.
“Okay,” he said, without moving.
“All right!”
All day I did laps and psyched myself up. When Theo finally woke, it was night.
“Yo, you ready to go?” I asked enthusiastically.
“No, I’m not following you anymore,” he snapped. “You don’t have the athletic ability or physical strength to pull it off.”
“But you said this morning you would go!”
“I just said that so you’d shut up and let me sleep.”
I was livid. I’d spent all day mentally preparing myself to risk death and this pussy says he lied to me so he could sleep!
“Okay, fuck you, you can stay here then,” I said, heading into the bathroom.
When I came out I had the laundry bucket in my hands so I could use it instead of Theo as my stepping stool.
“You do it and I’m going to knock on the door,” he said.
“What? You’re gonna tell al-Qaeda on me? What kind of an American are you? What are you gonna tell people when we get home?”
“I’ll tell my side.”
“Which is what?”
“You’re endangering my life.”
“I’m trying to save your life!” I said, exasperated. “You know what? Fuck you, go ahead, knock!”
And as I made a move to step toward the window, he did just that. I couldn’t believe how easily he did it, how swiftly and loudly he banged on that door. The sound echoed up the stairs where we could hear the jihadis and they could definitely hear us. The look on Theo’s face was one of pure confidence, the look of a man who has people on his side. My heart sank as he looked me straight in the eye with his chest out, without an ounce of regret. He really was going to rat me out to the terrorists holding us.
After a few seconds passed and there were no feet on the stairs I lunged at him, ready to smash the bucket over his head and do what I should have done a long time ago—beat him within an inch of his life, or maybe even a few inches past it, but at the last moment I stopped and fought to compose myself. If I smashed that bucket in his smug fucking face I knew he would never agree to try again. I had to calm down and win him over. First I appealed to his love for his mother.
“Come on, Theo, don’t you wanna go home to your mother? Don’t you wanna spare her from seeing her only son get his head chopped off online?”
But my words had absolutely no effect on him, so the second tactic I employed was trying to exploit his terrorist-sympathizing tendencies.
“Come on, Theo! 9/11 didn’t work out the first time! It took two attempts!”
Again I got nowhere, so as a last-ditch effort, I even tried Eminem.
“Theo, if you had one shot—one opportunity to seize everything you’ve ever wanted in one moment would you capture it, or just let it slip?”
Let it slip, was basically his answer. After this it didn’t take me long to realize what had to be done: I had to make him so fucking miserable that he would rather die than spend another second in that room with me . . .
. . . It took about three hours.
To start, I confiscated the Koran, which he loved to read almost as much as he loved sleeping.
“Give it to me or I’m going to tell Abu Ali!” he cried. “He wants me to read it!”
“No, I’m sorry,” I said coldly. “That’s not gonna happen.”
This got Theo about as mad as I’d seen him, and before I knew it he was standing above me and I rose to meet his aggressive stare.
“You’re going to give me that Koran!” he yelled.
“No, I’m not,” I said, calmly.
He grabbed me by my wrists and shoved me into the wall with the scariest face he could muster, his nose inches from mine.
“Get off of me,” I said.
“I can kick your ass!”
“I said get off me,” I repeated, still calm, but slightly louder.
“I can kick your—”
I didn’t let him finish the sentence. When my forehead collided with his it made a sound like the crack of one pool ball hitting another, loud enough that it could probably be heard on the other side of the door. The head butt sent him staggering backward and busted him open like a grape. Blood flowed into his eye; on his forehead was a large round gash about the size of a bullet hole.
“Give me the Koran!” he yelled, coming at me again.
“You want more?”
I took him down on top of the prayer rug, but didn’t hit him again, just grabbed his wrists and pinned him. He struggled, thrashing around like a child having a tantrum.
“Theo, calm down! Stop it!” I yelled.
“I want that Koran!”
No matter how hard I tried to calm him he would not stop fighting, so I threw him into a headlock and got comfortable on the prayer rug.
“Theo, I can sit like this all night,” I said, applying some pressure.
“Okay,” he said after a few seconds, and tapped out.
A second after I got to my feet so did Theo. The blood was still streaming from the wound on his forehead, but he ignored it.
“Give me the Koran,” he said.
And he came at me again, but this time I didn’t humor him—I threw up my fists, charging him like a bull. He backed up until he was against the wall, crouched over and holding his hands in front of his face to block the punches he thought were coming. Instead I tapped his face again and again with my fingertips.
“You see, Theo! These could be punches! You see? Now stop it! You’re not getting that Koran!”
I left him and took a seat on my bed. Then I started to laugh. An American Jew pretending to be a German-American Christian pretending to be a
