Graceful Abaddon

Everything is Fine in St. Louis

"This is some serious shit. You know that don't you?"

Engle swishes coffee round his mouth. The taste is bitter. Too familiar. "Serious shit indeed," he says. "See that's why I called you, Woodley. You're a fuckin' genius".

He swallows. Frowns. The computer clock reads 12:37am. He looks like he has been here days. More like fifteen hours, but he has not been outside for twelve; confined through necessity to this narrow, soundproofed warren of the Midtown St. Louis Police Department - its dusty filing cabinets, its leaning stacks of manila folders, its stale studio smell that somehow reminds Woodley of his father's Chicago study in the eighties.

Engle has finished two packs of Fortuna Menthol cigarettes. Five weeks Lenten abstinence from beer, from certain daughter's friends on Instagram and more than five smokes a day; he was clinging to that last one. So much for that ...

"It's all about image," he says to himself.

Woodley looks up from his iPhone. "You've already said that".

"Well I'm saying it again". Engle downs his coffee. Chucks it out. The dustbin sits beside his desk. A multicoloured mess of cups and butts and paper piled up. "Look at her," he fingers a smoke. "She's playing them the whole damn time". He taps the monitor. "Watch this shit".

The screen depicts a lecture room. A young woman – ("though you wouldn't know, with all that headgear") – stands behind the podium. The image is frozen. Static flickering. In thin-typed font at the bottom-right corner, SALTA Theatre - 16B - 15:21 is faintly discernible. The location has made headlines since 5:00pm two days ago.

A female student killed by police at a college in Academy District. 

Age: twenty-four. Double major. Scholarship exchange from Karachi, Pakistan. Good girl, high achiever. MSNBC showed puffy, tear-shined, emollient faces: "she was so generous, you know.  Like she cared so much about social justice. I just can't believe this can happen in America. It's twenty-nineteen". Her friends from the Islamic Student League – usually they gave out flyers that made padding in the depths of handbags – will be organising a vigil Sunday night in Heman Park.

"It isn't just the burqa," Engle explains. "But damned if she ain't wearing it for good reason. Like when someone deformed sits beside you on the train. Ever shared your seat with a mongoloid Woodley? You pretend not to notice ... except you know that everyone knows it's the one thing you've noticed. It's about the only goddamned thing you can think about".

Engle shifts in his seat. His fingers dive between his legs, fast and delicate. He pinches his groin, plucking his pants out. "Know what I mean? You're supposed to be distracted by the burqa. It's a signal. This girl has half the audience already something heated that she's wearing one at all. The rest also notice, but they're feeling guilty cause she's different. But whatever their feelings are - if they're bigots or some pansy Liberal shills - whatever their feelings are, they've noticed the burqa. And she," says Engle, "has them just where she wants".

He flicks his lighter. Small lick of flame. Lights the fag.

"They know she's not one of them," he says. "And that fucking terrifies them".

He taps his finger on the girl's head. Her hijab wraithlike. "It's all in the image. The burqa, its physical appearance, it's ... what's the word? Implication. Its connotation. The concept of it being worn. Everyone is looking at the burqa, and the rest plays perfectly into her hands".

Engle taps the space-bar on the grease-stained keyboard. The video plays. There is no sound.

The Muslim girl flicks her head up to the screen behind her. She extends one arm towards her laptop. A hint of tawny skin shows as her wrist appears from draped black cloth. Her movements: slow and careful. Precise. Deliberate. Almost – certainly in retrospect, Woodley thinks – suggestive of there being something heavy in her abaya. Something obstructive. Something deadly.