Concentration (141)

Car, car, car—

And then he looked up.

Tree, tree, tree…

He sighed. Banged his head against the windowpane. Brought it back up and then sent it crashing down once more, so hard that he thought his stupid head had busted open. His fingers drove furrows through his hair; his throat thundered; his stomach scrunched up in his ribs. He couldn’t take it anymore. He just couldn’t freaking take it anymore! This was crazy! Madness! This was—

Boredom? Yes…

William Joseph Harding the Second was bored out of his stinking mind.

He turned away from the window, away from the highway and the never-ending stream of cars and tree-lined median strips. He saw Markus staring at him from the window across, but paid no heed as he instead grappled the seatback in front of him with whitened knuckles and called forwards.

“Mo-o-o-o-om…?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Are we there yet?”

A sigh. “Not for another two hours, Billy.”

Another two hours?! He couldn’t live that long. He was dying. Dying! How long ago was it when they got out of the airport? Two months ago? Six? They were never going to get to Atlantic City. Never. He would have to live in this stupid car in the stupid back part with no stupid leg room, and he’ll never get to see the stupid beach and the stupid ocean and the stupid—

“Why don’t you and Markus play a game?”

His mother again.

“We already played Concentration a billion times!” he whined, grabbing his hair again and writhing, craning his neck back in an attempt to reapply it to the windowpane another few hundred times.

“Yeah,” said Markus, grinning at William with his dark eyes alight. “We even had the Ultimate Concentration Championship…with countries!” Then he paused, studying the car ceiling. “I won that, you know.”

William snapped his head up. “You know I totally beat you at that, you little liar!”

“Did not!”

“You thought Hawai’i was a country!”

“I spaced out. So what?”

“So what? You lost.”

“I won! I won because you said that Ni-ni-nica-whatever was a country. And I still bet you that that doesn’t even exist!”

“Yes it does!”

“No it doesn’t!”

“Yes it does! It’s in South America!”

“Mom, is Nica-whatever a country?”

“Nicaragua.”

Markus’s dark-haired mother shot Jackie a furtive glance. “Umm, I’m not too sure, actually…”

“I win!”

“That doesn’t prove anything, jerkwad!”

“You can’t prove that it exists!”

“And you can’t prove that it doesn’t!” Gosh, William couldn’t help it. He tore at his face.

“Ugh!” he screamed to the world, the world that was going on without him while he was trapped in a freaking car on the never-ending highway to nowhere! “You’re such an annoying little piece of—”

Then there it was: a half-growl, half-shout hybrid. Both William and Markus snapped to attention, facing dead center ahead of them where a massive Arab was now glowering at them from behind glasses and a white ghutra. His claws dug into the upholstery. Dark eyes narrowed as he snarled, “Do you two little pissants mind…”—his voice dropped to an intimate whisper, so low, William knew it was only meant for both his and Markus’s ears—“shutting…the fuck…up?”

William sat back in his seat. Folded his arms, smirked, and hooded his eyes. His mouth opened in a twisted sideways D-shape—

“Mo-o-o-o-o-o-o—”

A heavy hand smacked over his mouth, pinched his cheeks together. Abdul’s eyes were bright.

“Not heckling me today,” he whispered, lifting lip and revealing fang. Then he smiled. “Here, why don’t we play a game?”

“What game?” William gasped, after struggling to release himself from Abdul’s tightened palm, which reeked of… Oh, he didn’t know. Ode de Arabia: dates ‘n’ shit.

“A simple one,” the Saudi continued. “Just list a country that begins with the last letter of the country preceding it. That should keep you quiet for a while.” He tapped his head and grinned. “Requires brains.”

“What?!” Markus’s head thrust into the circle of intimacy, head slightly cocked to the side. Abdul scratched at his ghutra as he would his head.

“Well, you know,” he said. “Like, I would say Japan, and then you would say Nicaragua, and so on and so forth…”

William suddenly shot Markus a dirty look. “See?! I told you it was a coun—”

Abdul decked him one.

“I’m in!” Markus cried, throwing his hands into the air. “It’ll be the Ultimate Concentration Championship of Championships…only without any clapping!”

“I’ll start, then,” William said. Then, shooting Abdul and Markus furtive glances, he said:

“The United States of America!! The best country in the world, of course.”

Abdul snorted.

“Uh, Armenia!” shouted Markus.

“Austria,” said the Arab.

William thought for a quick second. “Umm, er… Au…Australia!”

“Afghanistan!”

“The Netherlands.”

“Um, uh, er… The… No, wait. Spain!”

“Nepal!”

“Luxombourg.”

“Germany!”

“Yemen.”

“The uh…uh…Netherlands Antilles!”

“What the crap is that?!” Markus roared.

“I don’t know. I read it in a textbook!”

“Well, then, Saudi Arabia!” And then he gave a proud head nod to Abdul. “Represent!”

“You’re not even Arabian!”

“Al-Maghrib.”

“Huh?” William cried. “That’s not even in English! What country is that, anyway?!”

“I never said it had to be,” Abdul replied, baring teeth in a grin. “And it’s Morocco.”

“Well, then, Bangladesh!”

Markus tripped. “Ummm…Hong Kong!”

“That’s not a country!! It’s in China!”

“So?! It acts like it’s its own country! Only China babysits it! It’s a poseur country! And Abdul never said anything about poseurs!”

“WHAT!”

“Guwadelup,” Abdul proclaimed in Arabic again.

William shook his head. “I hope you guys know that you the biggest bunch of cheaters!”

Markus grinned at him. William pressed a finger to his chin.

“Okay, well then… Uh… Er…”

Abdul stared at him.

“Uh, er…er… Let’s see… Okay, I got it! I choose you, Palestine!!”

Markus whipped out an index finger. “That’s not a country!”

“Yes it is!”

“No it’s not!”

Abdul moaned in agony as his game dissipated into nothing and the fireworks began again.

“It’s a mandate! The British Mandate of Palestine!”

“Nuh-huh! It’s a state.”

“A state doesn’t equal a country.”

“Yes it does!”

“No it doesn’t!”

William turned to an eye-rolling Arab. “Hey, Abdul, do you believe that Palestine is a country?”

“Every true American knows that Palestine isn’t a country! It doesn’t exist. Right, Abdul?”

William regarded him. “Like Israel?” Then he looked at Abdul again. “Hey, Abdul! Do you believe Israel exists?”

“Or should we give it back to the Arabs?”

“Hey, Abdul, do you hate Jews?”

“Abdul, do you believe the Holocaust really happened, or was some kind of hoax concocted by the American government?”

The Arab exploded. “Will you fucking kids leave me alone?!”

William burst into shrill laughter and rolled himself back down into his seat. There needed to be more car games like this.