“People said stuff?” Marci says. Is she deaf?
“Uh, yeah.”
“A lot? Or, just sometimes.”
“All the time.”
“How’d they know?”
I give her my “You’ve got to be kidding” look.
“I don’t know. People, they just knew. And I knew they knew coz when they called me ‘faggot’ everyday, they weren’t kidding.”
“Yeah, but how’d they know? Did you …”
“Did I what? Open my mouth? Yeah, and when I did, people knew. Most of the time I was quiet. You know how people are. Like on cop shows. The special light they shine on murder scenes.”
“Yeah.” She nods. “It lets them see blood.”
“Right.” I gesture. There I go, “talking” with my hands. I’d point out, another giveaway, but decide to skip it. “With the special light and glasses. These days, all the kids have that special light and glasses. They can just tell. Fag. It started and I didn’t know what it meant. I was like, ‘Fag? What’s that?’ It’s, it’s—”
Her face remains blank. I’m frustrated.
“You’ve never heard this? How kids label you? Like that movie, The Breakfast Club. Except, now it’s the nerd, the joke, the sosh, the freak and the … fag.”
Her silence asks, How did they know? I realize, she wants me to repeat it. Say it twice. Prove I’m not lying.
“Okay, gay people, it’s not like they’re all secret. They’re everywhere. On TV. I guess, I filled the slot. Yeah. I was the school’s designated faggot.”
“After the dildo …”
“The dildo. Yeah, so it fell out, I ran from the hallway to my bike. I jumped on it and left. Cranked my music, hit the road and rode to this cafe. In the gay neighborhood. Gayborhood. Hah. That’s a stretch. One block and half a street corner.
“The cafe was empty. I sat down at the end of the bar and coached myself. ‘Don’t let them see what you’re feeling. Ever.’ Told myself, I’m developing inner strength. I imagined high school was my baby mama moment. If I could get through—”
“What?” she asks.
“High school. Anyway, I looked up and right. At the old cigarette machine. A naked lady was painted on the side. She was something, too. Wore a see-through nightie. Pink. You couldn’t miss the pink. She winked, and held a pinkie finger to her bow-tie-shaped mouth. Naughty. She dared me. ‘Write it.’ What did I have to lose except … everything? I remembered the blue notebook. I pulled it out my backpack and wrote, ‘I might be queer.’
“She dared you?”
“Yeah, I knew, I knew—the way you know—when I wrote those words, I was daring my parents. Which is kinda why, I think, I wrote them down. I knew there’d be hell to pay if they read those words. I wanted to get caught and I wanted to tell them.”
“They were really that ignorant?” says Little Miss Contrarian. Or, the Straight Devil’s Advocate. “I’m sure they watch TV. On TV, practically the whole world’s gay.”
“Plus, gay porn,” I joke. “Gay porn drove my father crazy. Gay people are fine so long as they’re not your son. And you don’t know what they do. Gay porn made it way worse. It was always popping up on his computer. All that gay, what do you call it? Visibility? It’s great. But if you’re a teenager, the TV and Internet can’t save you from your parents if they’re homophobic. You know, most people are. It’s a straight world. I didn’t have anyone watching my back. And I knew all that because I knew my U.S. history.”
“Wait.” Marci touches my arm. I flinch. It’s gonna take a while to get used to her touching me. “What does U.S. history have to do with you coming out?”
“Us—kids—anyone under eighteen? Basically, we have the rights of slaves. As in, no rights. Parents can do whatever they want with us. You parents’ rights rule.”
“Dependency relationships,” she says. “Go on.”
I don’t know dependency relationships from Depend diapers, but I continue, “I felt this urge—to leave. I waved good-bye to Miss Pinkie. I stood up, walked to the cash register, pulled out my wallet and … oh, wow! The guy at the cash register was so cute. How’d I miss him? His name tag read ‘Stuart.’ Stuart smiled—at me! And he got even cuter!
“I handed him the money but I couldn’t look him in the eye. He held out my change. I took it and turned to leave. ‘Hey there,’ he said. ‘Wait up a sec.’ I felt it! The beat that my heart skipped. Stuart said, ‘I see you in here all the time and …’ He flashed me this friendly-flirty smile. I was sure he was about to ask me to be his boyfriend. I would have said, ‘Sure,’ because I never say ‘yes,’ only, ‘sure.’ I said, ‘What are you smiling at?’ He looked at me and said, ‘Are you queer?’
“I was so embarrassed. I didn’t know what to say. People didn’t ask. Ever since fifth grade …” My voice trails off. I’m getting tired of proving I’m not pink enemy number one.
“Fifth grade,” Marci says. “What was so special about that?”
“The first day of fifth grade, I dressed up. I looked so smart. Madras shorts, button-up Oxford cloth dress shirt. It was like everyone’s head turned, took one look. ‘Ah, no. He didn’t.’ My fashion tipped them off. I landed splat on the Fag Fashion No Fly List. I was naive. I didn’t know. I’d never get off. Coz Fashion = Fag. Social Fail. My bad. I could have faked it.”
“How so?”
“If I just didn’t open my mouth, for one. Tip off number one. I mean, look at me: I had facial hair … at eleven! I could have worked it. Hidden myself under another look: Natural Born Terrorist. Maybe, it was more simple. If I’d just worn … less pink. After a while, I just said, ‘Fuck it.’ I wasn’t about to walk around looking … drab. Wearing gray. Or, beige. That’s how I ended up leaving school, in that cafe, writing in the blue notebook. Looking back? I should have surrendered. Just worn the straight dude’s headscarf, the baseball cap.”
I shut my mouth. I’m done. I don’t ever want to think about being called a fag. Or, the color pink. I close my eyes. The fashion flashback’s destroyed me. My nap’s short. Her finger jabs my shoulder.
“What’d you say?” Marci asks. “To Stuart?”
“I thought he was some emo guy who worked in a coffee shop. He knew nothing about me. I paid cash so—”
Thump! Something hits the van. I jump. Like I’ve been shocked. My left eye twitches. The muscle starts pulling, crazily yanking under the skin. The fast tug-tug-tug prolly makes me look like I’m squinting really fast. My body knows. I’m gonna get caught and returned to Serenity Ridge. I reach over her and try to get out. “Move! Let me out!” Marci turns her body. She’s not in my way. I feel trapped but … I’m not. I can leave.
“Pine cone. Then what?”
“Oh.” I look down at my journal for words that (still) aren’t there. I close my eyes. Remember. Where I left off. The German headrest is soft as a rock. Deep breath. In my mind’s eye, I step back, into the cafe, back to that moment.
Chapter 14
“I didn’t think. I said, ‘Yeah.’ Right away, I wanted to bolt. Leave my change. But I didn’t. I stayed. Stuart was too damn cute. Funny thing was, nothing happened. He didn’t laugh. Nothing. Then he goes, ‘I get off at five. You want to go for a walk?’ I wait, we rode our bikes to the park and walked across this bridge. I remember we stood in the middle of it. I looked down at rush hour traffic. The lights glittered like a moving Christmas tree. The sunset was so romantic. I waited for him to lean over and kiss me.
“He didn’t. I couldn’t figure out why he was so timid. I gave him a hint it was okay to make a move. I told him, ‘I want to have sex so bad—’ He grabbed my arm and said, ‘Don’t ever just have sex. Make love.’ I didn’t know what he was talking about. I just wanted him to kiss me. I had a boner. I leaned against the bridge and tried to hide it.
“He reached over and messed up my hair. I got the message. ‘THIS IS NOT A DATE.’ He was treating me like his younger gay brother. We weren’t in hook-up territory. Maybe he liked blonds? H
e didn’t seem like the child molester type—even though I was fourteen, I wasn’t a little kid, but some people might say I was. He goes, ‘I know this group. You can meet other queer kids.’ I said, ‘I’m not a kid.’ He laughed. ‘Until you turn thirty, people think you’re a kid.’ I guess I had a lot to learn. I thought the age of consent was eighteen. ‘Are you interested?’
“‘Why,’ I asked, ‘would I want some group when I can chat with people online?’ He said, ‘But have you ever actually met those people? Face-to-face? Gone on a date?’ I admitted, no, I hadn’t. I told him, ‘I’ll go to one of your meetings.’ I wasn’t sure when, but I would. He said, ‘Whenever you want.’
“That kinda confused me. I always had it in my head—I guess from what my parents told me—or, looking at gay Web sites, gay people were always trying to, like, get you to join them. Or, hit it, you know, get with them. They were only ten percent of the population. They needed to recruit people and build the numbers. I thought about it. One night, a week later, I went to that group and when I got home, I—”
“Wait,” says Marci.
Wait, I wonder, for what? Another pine cone?
Chapter 15
She flips the tape. The red Record light pops back on. I feel like I’m testifying in court. But I’m not proving my innocence so much as my existence. “Continue.” The way she talks makes me feel like I’m on TV. Or, on trial.
“I crawled through my bedroom window. Who knew. My parents were waitin’ in the hallway. My father knocked on the door. ‘We need to talk.’ The moment I heard his voice, I froze. Their bedtime was between seven and eight p.m. So I knew something was wrong. I stood next to the door. I heard this big OOMPHHH! This sound. I jumped. My stepmother yelled, ‘OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR RIGHT NOW!’ She kept screaming, the same thing, over and over. ‘Open the door right now!’ I don’t know what purpose that’d serve. Except to give them the opportunity to kill me. Douse me in gasoline, toss a match and light me on fire. I’d heard about other Arab parents doing that to their kids. I think, my real mom’s white. I’m only half towel head. Can I choose what part they burn?
“Finally she stopped. I could still hear them. Standing there, on the other side. I guess my stepmother was out of breath. Or, they needed to go pray. Maybe they could convince Allah to throw a lightning bolt and strike me down. I felt sad. All we were separated by was a door. Thin plywood. Close yet far apart. I couldn’t face them. And I felt sadder by the second.
“My father spoke. ‘Are you there?’ I didn’t answer. Was I ‘there’? I felt less ‘there’ by the second. I was melting on the spot. Somehow, I’d become the Wicked Witch and their words were water.
“‘Come out,’ he said. ‘We know.’ I wondered if he felt like he had to say this. Or, did someone coach him? In case, I hadn’t figured it out on my own, were they there to tell me? Either way, I suspected my parents didn’t think I was all that bright.
“His, ‘We know,’ set off my stepmother. The words were a cattle prod. ‘OPEN THE DOOR!’ she screamed, pounding on the door. She was possessed. ‘Help,’ I think, ‘somebody please call an exorcist.’ Sharing her knowledge of ‘family values’—the gay hating ones—StepMonster ran through the dictionary. She spewed every nasty, angry, bad word for faggot. F, F & F.
“She switched gears. I guess she’d been saving up. She started asking me questions. ‘Where were you tonight?’ I told her, ‘Work.’ She said, ‘You left early.’ How could she know this? ‘I did?’ ‘Yes, ’ she said, certain, the way you choose a diamond or pick your mugger out of a lineup. ‘We called. Last night and the night before. Where were you tonight?’
“I couldn’t answer her questions. Not truthfully. I couldn’t. So I ended up feeling like a liar. That was my first mistake: thinking they were telling the truth. I thought, I don’t have a choice. I wanted to tell the truth. I knew if I did, StepMonster’s head would explode. Messy. I said, ‘Can we talk about this tomorrow morning?’ My question set off another round of verbal gunfire. ‘You’ve been lying to us!’ I leaned against the door. Right then, I knew, I knew …”
I look away and out the window. I remember the moment, the exact second. I was back, in my bedroom. Then, I stood outside the house: I saw us. Me, my father, StepMonster. Some light goes out. Ahmed dies.
“Knew what?” Marci prompts.
“Everything,” I say. I hear my voice. I sound empty. Hollow as I feel. Or, dead, same as what I saw. “I knew it was over. I had done something horrible. In their eyes, unforgivable.
“It was one thing to be gay, entirely another to admit being gay. Couldn’t take it back. Any of it. When I wrote those words, I thought I’d voiced my desires. I hadn’t counted on a giant—gay—gap would open up between us. We were survivors. Natural disaster. The fault line in our family was always there. I just refused to see it. Now, the Earthquake. My words—I caused it. They were swept away. I’d done it. All on my own. Four words. Made myself an orphan.”
Marci touches my arm. Again, I flinch. I’m not scared. More surprised. I forget someone’s there, listening.
“When what was over?”
I look away. How can I explain these facts to this American girl? Who will never understand? Actually, I know nothing about her, but I’m certain of one fact. How I was raised, in my culture, there was—is—no possibility of my being gay. TV shows can’t protect me, celebrities can’t protect me—this girl definitely can’t protect me. Safety was adulthood and, even then, only in a fake marriage.
Writing those words proved … nothing. Except, I was—am—a fool. I’d gambled and lost. My entire family. I’d never fit. Maybe I was insane. In my heart, believing if I wrote those words, I cast a spell. A dare but also a hope—a wish—I could change them. I think, everything changed, American Girl, because I wasn’t just an outsider, I was an outsider among outsiders. Alone.
I look at her. Arabs are direct. Even if I’m only half. They cannot rob my directness. I will explain. I’ll use force. The truth.
“Our relationship, my childhood. There was me before. And there was me after. It was like we’d all been in a car accident. Afterward, my family walked one way and I walked the other.”
I stop. This is hard. Harder than I’d imagined. This part—the part where I tell the truth—is not writing or thinking the truth. Speaking the truth about my family hurts. Is painful. The truth that my family hates me. Even after Serenity Ridge, after everything they’ve done to prove their hatred, some tiny part of me won’t or refuses to believe. I struggle to find the words she can hear.
“I-I mean, today, you’d think parents … they’d just be cool about it. Glad, even. Coz, figure one in ten. A gay kid’s like winning the lotto. You’ve won someone rare and special. Yeah!!! You’d think they’d celebrate. We won! But that’s not how they saw it. They read those words, looked at me and saw their worse nightmare come true.”
I look at Marci. Or, I should say, in Marci’s direction. Right now, I couldn’t look anyone in the eye. Even a sympathetic eye. My mouth wobbles, my face quivers. Tears. I hope I’ve said enough. I can’t go on. I can’t see her face. Even so. I can tell. We’re not going anywhere. Not until I finish this.
“That night, I couldn’t sleep. I knew, if I did, I might not wake up.”
“What do you mean, ‘Not wake up’?”
“Die. Might not wake up because I’d be dead.”
“Killed?”
“Yes.”
Chapter 16
“The next morning, I found a stack of presents at the bottom of my bed. I forgot it was my birthday. Fourteen! Two years and I could drive. I picked up the first present I saw and unwrapped it. Orange tennies from my grandmother. I put them on, left my room and walked into the house. It was empty. In the vestibule—”
“That church thing?” she asks.
I’m surprised she didn’t ask, “That mosque thing?” I bite my tongue, don’t say, “I didn’t grow up in the projects.”
“Um, no. It’s a hallway thin
g. To the front door. The mail slot opened. I picked up the envelopes. I never looked at the mail. But for some reason, that day I did. I saw … my name? Yes. The envelope was nothing special. Plain, white, business sized. I turned it over: no return address. I went to my bedroom. I needed to open it before the StepMonster walked in and found me.
“I shut the door. Ripped it. There was a hundred dollar bill folded up inside a piece of blank stationery. The top was embossed with dark blue letters—M.G.—outlined in gold. M? Mary’s my birth mother’s name.”
“She sent it.”
“Yes,” I say. “She must have known. Been counting the days. Known I’d need money. She was right, coz—”
“Was there anything else?”
I shake my head, No. I leave out the picture paper-clipped to the bill. Maybe I’m worried she’ll tell me to hand over the snapshot. I could see her taking it and burning it.
I continue, “I touched the bill and thought, ‘I should run away.’ But as much as I was afraid of living there, I had school. I went outside. My bike was trashed. The wheels were removed. My father had done it. They must have suspected I’d try to escape. Maybe they felt it. How I was free. Because, after exposing my secret? What else could they do? Fine, I thought, I’ll climb on my bike, ride away and never look back. I’ll disappear into the land of missing children.
“I remembered another bike. An old one without gears. I lifted the garage door. It was shoved in between my father’s lathe and band saw. The garage smelled of wood shavings. As I backed the bike out, I remembered how we spent every Saturday morning together last year. He was into woodworking. We made toy planes and cars. I was still a little boy. Everything was simple and he loved me and I loved him. That, actually …”
I look away. Wobbly faced. I’m about to cry. I don’t wanna cry. That moment, of all the horrible moments—the ones before and after—was the worst. If not the worst, in the top ten. A You’re-Not-Going-Back moment. I take a breath, continue.
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