24 Restless Hours

"Fine," said Ahmad Hossien.
"No," Mahmud said, "Foot of the wall."
The street was getting quiet. Several shops across from us had closed. To start out the game, each of us threw a rial from the edge
of the gutter to the foot of the wall. The coins were still laying there when Ahmad Hossien yelled, "Cops!"
The cop, billy club in hand, was two or three steps away from us. Ahmad Hossien, the blind guy and I started running. Mahmud
and Zivar's son were right behind us. Qasem was about to gather the money from the foot of the wall when the cop reached him.
The cop whacked him with the billy club, but he got away. "Gambling bums!" the cop shouted after him. "Don't you have a home
and family? Don't you have a mother and father?" He bent over to gather the rials and then went on.
After I passed the intersection, I was left alone. The rice and kabab shop on the other side of the street was closed. I was late.
When the rice and kabab apprentice pulled the iron door down halfway, it was time to get hack to my father. I hurried through
the streets saying to myself, "By now, father has surely fallen asleep. I wish he would sit and wait for me… By now he's fallen
asleep. And what about the toy store? It's closed by now too. Who buys toys at this time of night? …Of course they've crammed
my camel into the store, locked the door, and gone away…I wish I could talk with my camel. I'm afraid she'll forget what we
planned last night. If she doesn't come? …No. She'll come for sure. She herself said she'd come tonight and carry me off for a
ride around Tehran. Camel riding is fun too, ah! . . ."
Suddenly a brake screeched, and I was flung into the air so hard that I thought I was being thrown into the next world. When I
fell to the ground, I realized I'd been struck by a car in the middle of the street, but miraculously I wasn't hurt. I was rubbing my
wrist when a woman stuck her head out of the car and shouted, "Well, get out of the way of the car! …You're not a statue after
all."
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