hidden (8 page)

“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.

“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? He 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?

S
he 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.”

“T
he 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 thing. 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.

“I rolled the garage door. It was half closed when … I saw yellow. The color was another painful reminded. The yellow something I saw was our tandem bike.
Our
bike. Father and son.

“I stood there, peering into the dark garage, and remembered last summer. Midnight. He woke me. ‘Ahmed! Get up! We’re leaving.’

“I took my time. I thought we were moving—again. We moved a lot. I was too tired to ask, ‘What’s the rush? Why are we moving in the middle of the night?’ I dressed and met him outside. I felt drunk. Or, how I imagined being drunk. Groggy, I guess. I’ve never been drunk. When I saw him standing next to the two seater, I thought I was dreaming. He looked so …
proud.
He had this smile on his face. I thought, finally, he’s lost his mind. Totally.