Man of the Hour [antikvár]

Prologue THE STUDENTS WITHDREW FROM THE CLASS-room like a tide pulling away from the shore, leaving just one boy stranded in a chair at the back. He looked at the clock, glanced at the floor, stared out the window at the ruins of Dreamland Amusement Park over by the Coney Island boardwalk. Anything to avoid the watchful eye of his teacher, Mr. Fitzgerald, who sat at his desk, studying him. "Do you know why I asked you to stay, Nasser?" he asked the boy. The boy shrugged, refusing to look at him. He was eighteen and already expert in a certain kind of resistance. "I read the journal you gave me," the teacher said, holding up a sheet covered on both sides with an emphatic red scrawl. "Then okay," the boy mumbled. His accent turned the th sound into a buzzing z. "Thirty-five times you wrote, 'I hate America.' " The boy started to smile and then stopped himself. "You know, there's only one m in America." The teacher came over with the page and sat beside the boy.