A Moment of Silence: Midnight III

by Sister Souljah

  We rode in silence for about twenty-eight minutes. Oddly, as the truck rolled to a stop, someone up front turned on a radio that blasted out bad-sounding music. I could no longer hear if anyone was talking, if doors were opening or shutting, or nothing. After six minutes, much longer than the wait for a traffic light, yield or stop sign, we were rolling again, but very slowly. The truck would stop here and there. Now we were moving in a straight line, not turning left or right or reversing. The music was still a loud distraction up until the final point where it could no longer conceal or compete with the thunderous sound of a helicopter that had to be approaching us or was either already dangerously close. The back door of the truck was unbolted and then opened. It felt like a tornado was sucking us out of the truck. The ramp lowered and the two guards signaled us to come out. We followed them. I could see that we were on an airstrip. The iced wind came in waves, slapping our faces from all sides. The natural current and the force of what the propeller was propelling was powerful. We each rushed to hood up our snorkels. The Iroquois copter looked wicked in the night sky. The guard behind me, and the two beside me, broke into a slow trot. Of course I kept pace with them, believing that our destination must be the copter. The door opened. Without conversation, communication, or consideration, they signaled me and assisted me to board. As soon as I got in, the three guards fell back. The copter door shut. The pilot handed me a headset and motioned me to fasten my seat belt. I did. The vehicle rose up into the sky. Unsettling, it felt like I was being shaken up like one of several popcorn kernels in a close-lidded pot, right before the oil and heat caused it to burst open. But there was no oil or heat. The intense pressure was in fact the unknown. Am I being flown to a nearby prison? Whatever the case, I was dry without water, which I was accustomed to being without, from lights-out until early morning breakfast. But I was also without sleep. At the same time, I was experiencing the rush of adrenaline that comes when being reduced to cuffs and chains and then faced with the uncertainty of correctional officers with M16s. Unarmed COs with shields and sticks, mace and an unlimited range of authority, was more than enough.

  The headset I wore dulled the deafening sound of the copter, which was speeding at 150 miles per hour, but it did not eliminate it. Above the trees and tallest towers, between the few red lights that assisted the pilots’ navigation, and way below heaven, my thoughts were suspended by my amazement. Of course I had flown on many commercial airlines, jumbo jets like 747s. I had traveled several thousand miles away and all around the globe. However, the helicopter was completely different. It was raw, like flying through the sky naked with only a jet pack strapped to my back. Feeling the force of the wind current and unprotected by the weight, size, and design of the aircrafts that frequent flyers are afforded.

  In less than half an hour I saw that we were hovering over a particular area. The pilot was communicating with someone briefly and immediately after he began lowering the Iroquois, the craft swinging all the way down. We landed in snow-covered flatlands that were surrounded by the wilderness. He released my seat belt, then handed me a backpack. The copter door opened and he used his hand to nudge me out.

  I high-stepped a distance to separate myself from the power of the helicopter as it took off, rising back up into the night sky. Once it was way above me and I was left below, I noticed the intense beauty of the starlit sky. The intense beauty of the whitest snow that made the ground glisten like sunlight. The cold whipped me into action. I opened the backpack. Inside and right on top of several items was a map. I pushed it to the side to examine the other contents. Each of them, I knew, would be my only clues, tools and means of survival, other than the mercy of Allah.

  I pulled out a bottle of water. There was only one. I found a flashlight and immediately powered it on to see inside the pack and take inventory. I cracked the seal opening the water and drank half of it. It felt like my brain could immediately function better because of it. I pulled out beef jerky, then threw it back and snatched out a trail-mix power bar, opened it up, and consumed it. With the map open and the spotlight on the route it highlighted, I was relieved that the distance between myself and the building marked out as my destination was only a mile and a half away. Alhamdulillah, the copter had most likely landed as close to the place as possible. If I had a parachute, I could’ve been dropped right on target. That would’ve been crazy because I had never parachuted before and I had never been to the place where I presently stood, nor did I have any idea where it was, other than my hypothesis that I was up North, close to Canada. Raising my knees up high to take my first few steps in the two feet of snow, I thought, a mile and a half is nothing on a warm or hot spring or summer day. It’s a trek in a below-freezing night. Holding the compass, I was headed in a northeastern direction. Shining the light on the snow, I checked for tracks of vehicles or even footprints. There were none. I wanted to run the short distance but I knew better. I paced myself so the temperature would not defeat me.

  Half an hour in, I felt I had not gone anywhere, even though I had been trekking. However, the place was now within sight. I became charged with determination. After getting pumped up, I cautioned myself about becoming foolishly excited. Would my arrival at the place, where the authorities refused to face the winter conditions and come out to retrieve me, put me in a better circumstance, or worse? And what kind of fool had they caused me to become to be struggling to incarcerate myself? I looked back. It reinforced my need to forge ahead. The security of being indoors had to be better than what was behind me. Either way, indoors or outdoors, it would be dealing with wildlife, grizzlies and wolves and mountain lions, the four-legged or the two-legged ones.

  It was a stone house, not a compound, complex, or single intake building. Fifty feet away, concealed behind a considerable pile of firewood that was beside a shed, I checked it out. Either there were people inside who had not come out of the place since their storm happened, or the cabin was empty. There were no tracks in the snow, which was hardened at the top. There were no lights on inside. It had to be almost four, four-thirty in the predawn morning. So of course the lights being off would be considered normal, I told myself. There was no smoke pouring out of the chimney, either. Still, I needed to announce myself rather than barge in like an intruder and end up getting clapped up, which would’ve been justified for whoever was either living there or stationed there. What if it was a military outpost?

  I reached into the backpack and pulled back the one and only red apple that I had seen in there. I hurled it like Roger Clemens. It crashed into the front door before smashing open. I wanted the loud and sudden thud to draw someone, anyone, everyone, out.

  Nothing happened, not even a hand separating the blinds or pulling back a curtain. Not even a barking dog or crowing rooster, or a howling wolf. I waited some minutes. I advanced to the shed and looked in. There was a snowmobile, a few shovels, an ice pick, an ax, a fifty-pound bag of salt, a toolbox, some flares, a horn—more than enough. I grabbed an ax. Then I began my approach. As I pushed down on the latch, the front door opened. I looked in before entering. There was no movement.

  I stomped my feet to shake the snow off my boots. I brushed the snow off my clothes as well. I reached in, running my gloved hand along the wall, searching for a light switch. I found it, clicked, and a dim light illuminated a living room with an unlit fireplace. I walked along the perimeter, checking each room—two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room and a kitchen. I was only looking for humans, before examining any of the details.

  A loud noise, swiftly I turned. The front door had slammed shut from the force of the winter wind. A pile of snow had been blown inside. If the loud bang of that heavy door didn’t wake up any sleepers, there are no sleepers in here, I thought. Or maybe that is what someone wanted me to think, I cautioned myself. The first floor is clear. I approached the staircase leading up. Removing my backpack, I pulled out a triple-A battery and threw it upstairs to provoke a sound, reaction, or any kind of movement from any living t
hing. No sound or movement, there couldn’t be anyone here unless it was a calm and cool well-trained enemy, laying in the cut for a sneak attack.

  Pressing one foot down on the first step, I checked to see if it would creak. It didn’t. There was a rug runner lining each stair. I headed up. On the second floor landing, I walked right into a network of spider webs that spread across my face and somehow got in my mouth. I wiped it away. Now I was sure that there was absolutely no one here. Furthermore, that no one had been here for at least a few days. Why was I dropped here by helicopter? What type of set up is this now?

  There was a master bedroom and two smaller bedrooms on either side, as well as a full bathroom. Hadn’t seen a private bathroom and walk-in shower in a long time. Couldn’t even imagine it. Heard COs voice in my ear giving me only three minutes to clean my entire body.

  A ladder laid against the wall in one of the side bedrooms piqued my attention. I walked in, saw it was situated beneath an uncovered entrance on the ceiling, a third level. But there was no staircase that led up to a third floor. I dropped my backpack and removed my snorkel and hat and used the ladder to climb up, my hands still gloved.

  Dark, but the moonlight and gleam from the white snow coming through the window gave it some visibility. It was a furnished bedroom, a loft style with slanted ceilings. Looked lived in but abandoned. I flipped the switch.

  A mirage, that’s what I thought it was.

  When I was six years young, traveling through the desert with my father, I learned the meaning of that word. My father, who owned all of the finest luxury vehicles, had no qualms about leaving them parked on our estate undriven for days, and even up to a week. He is a walker. At times he walked long distances, because he is also the son of a walker.

  My southern Sudanese grandfather would not ride in any vehicle. He believed that if there was a place that his legs could not get him to, he didn’t need to be there. Southern Grandfather also believed that when a man does not constantly use his God given limbs, he is setting himself up for a downfall. So, things that other people saw as progress and advancement, like cars, trains, and planes, my grandfather saw as problematic. “Riding in cars, sitting in planes and trains, your legs are not moving,” he would say. “Those foreigners with all of their inventions will die young,” Southern Grandfather predicted. “But I will live on beyond a hundred years. Watch, you will see,” he told the children of the village.

  My father was Grandfather’s nineteenth child. He loved science, technology, innovation, and inventions. The only thing he loved more than that was his father. So he found ways to please his father while pursuing his studies. In fact, pleasing his father while pleasing himself caused my father to become a skillful thinker and negotiator. An expert in the art of compromise. Ever since my father was young, he planned to leave the village and become part of the global movement towards progress. Before he left to travel to Khartoum to study at the university, he gifted his father an imported European race bike that the whole village admired. He said to Southern Grandfather, “Now you will ride, but your legs will be moving.”

  Southern Grandfather gave my father a warm smile and a great embrace. Then he gifted my father a pair of handmade shoes that he crafted himself. Southern Grandfather told father that if these shoes did not bring him back to the place where he started, he is lost, and in the wrong place.

  Even though my father had his own mind and made his own miracles and achieved and built his own businesses and properties, every now and then, he would do as his father did. Not because his father ordered him to do so, but because he saw his father do it. So he did it. As a consequence, every few months or so, I would see my father preparing to walk and walk and walk. Because he is my father, I walked also. He didn’t order me to join him. I followed because I saw him do it. He walked, so I walked. One time on a long journey through the desert, at six years young, I felt like we had walked a million kilometers. I tried to keep up with him, but I was way behind, could see him and our camel, but couldn’t seem to catch up. I wondered why he did not turn around to see that I was far behind. Or why he had not invited me to ride the camel. But he also was not riding the camel, so I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to say that I couldn’t keep up any longer. I didn’t want to complain that this time the walk was too long or ask him to stop and wait or even take a break for a while. Thirsty, tired, and with an intense growing hunger, I remained silent and kept walking. When my mouth became so dry I couldn’t taste my own saliva, I endured.

  Alhamdulillah, I heard myself saying when I saw the river up ahead. I wanted to wash, swim, cool off. I dismissed my tiredness and ran until I caught up with my father and even passed him by. When I did, my father didn’t order me to stop. He didn’t say one word. I ran until my body just collapsed. With the side of my little face pressed into the heated sand, I could see my father, tall, calm, and cool, just strolling his long strides.

  When my father reached where I was laid out unable to move, he squatted down to the earth and began laughing. His teeth were whiter than ivory. His white thobe glistening in the desert sun. “Son, why were you running so fast?” he asked me. “The river,” I said, coughing a dry cough. “Water,” I murmured and pointed. He laughed again. My father squeezed the canteen and water splashed all over my face before I took a drink.

  “It was a mirage, you were only seeing what your eyes and your heart wanted to see. But son the river is not there. It never was.” I sat up refreshed from the water he gave me. All I saw then was desert, no river, or trees, or shade from the power of the Sudan sun.

  “Your father is not a mirage. I am right here. Trust your father. If you are tired, speak up and say so. If you are hungry or thirsty, say so. Don’t allow your desire to please your father or your desire for anything at all cause you to rush into a place that is not safe. That is not real and cannot help you. Allah has given you a father as a guide and a protection until you are the age of man. Once you become a man, you will know then to always be prepared because anything can happen. And, you will know the difference between what is simply a deep desire, what is false and what is real.”

  In the attic loft I saw a cot on the floor with neat and clean white sheets, a folded neat pile of winter blankets, and there was a dresser drawer, a desk, and a chair. On the desk there was a typewriter and a lamp, a high stack of organized papers, and an opened Holy Quran on a carved wooden stand. I saw books lining the perimeter of the wall, no bookcase, shelf, or stand. I didn’t see her. But I could feel her. Or was it a mirage? A deep desire? Something my eyes and heart wanted and even craved to see and believe. I felt guilty. I have so many loved ones. Is she my deepest desire? The one I wanted to see more than anyone else? A craving so deep that my mind was playing tricks on me?

  I went to the closet and slid open the door. I began smelling the clothes that were hanging there. They were winter clothes. When I last saw her, it was summer. All of her clothes were summer wear. Coconut, traces of her scent in a thick beautifully woven sweater. I got excited.

  Expect nothing, I reminded myself. You are a prisoner. Think only of the past, powerful pleasant memories. For the next year and a half there is no future. I am not entitled to yearn. I reminded myself. But then, there it was. I saw her blue phone. I stood staring at it.

  I had to go grab it to be sure that it was real. I picked up the receiver. There was a dial tone. Impulsively I hung it up. Thoughts began racing. Should I phone home, our Queens house? Nah, that would be creating a trace. Maybe someone wanted me to do just that, someone other than her, perhaps an open enemy. I paused, couldn’t get my mind right for some reason.

  “My Shahada.” I was staring now at the top sheet of paper on the neat high stack. “Written by Chiasa Hiyoku Brown.” I pulled the top page to the side. There was a table of contents. One hundred and fourteen chapters. The same amount of suras in the Holy Quran, I said to myself. I pulled out the last page, page 2,777. My mind swiftly began doing the math. She had written at least five pages for
every single day that I was away from her. My cold heart began cracking. I flipped to the first page of her first chapter. Of course her long life story about her young life began with her father. The chapter was titled, “The General’s Daughter.”

  My eyes began reading her opening sentence.

  “What to do, Daddy? Even if you kill my husband, I will still be a Muslim woman. No honest person receives an understanding and a feeling in their soul and then turns back from it.” I could hear her soft-spoken voice, her powerful words expressed so sweetly. And then there was her sharp threat to him. “Bring him home to me. Daddy, that is the only thing that you can do for me, and if you will not do that, I don’t want anything more from you forever, not even words.”

  Then, I knew.

  32. THE NEGOTIATION

  Seated at the table, arranged as a feast in an Alaskan steak and seafood house, I am well rested and my mind is clear and sharp. This scene, however, reminded me of the time when I was seated in the back room of an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn with the “good” detective, a deceitful and filthy man who was up to no good and who wanted to enslave me to his agenda. Just like back then on that night, I am starved and concealing a ferocious hunger with a straight face.

  Unlike that night, I am not arrested, cuffed, and beaten or bruised. However, I am surrounded by suited strangers, with the exception of one man. He is much wiser and slicker, more powerful and deadly than the good detective. He has a greater stature, and stronger stance and stamina, and he is a thousand times more passionate about his cause, for deeper, blood-related reasons. Most importantly, he is fully capable of carrying out and following up on his threats. He has the full authority of the United States military, and sees no reason to limit his actions when he is going after what he wants. He is my second wife’s father.