Cyrus wondered about how much of his living he owed to other people’s assumptions of his us-ness. The middle school teacher who surreptitiously offered him a racial slur, like a juicy orange they might peel together and share. Even his name could pass as white. Cyrus Shams. Weird, probably ethnic, but kind of inscrutably so. Cyrus felt like Blade, the Wesley Snipes hero, half human, half vampire, with all the superpowers of each species, super strong but also capable of walking around in sunlight. Like Blade, Cyrus was a day-walker, American when it suited him and Iranian when it didn’t.
