A Moment of Silence: Midnight III

by Sister Souljah

  It is January 1, 1988; however, I could not pinpoint the exact time. After a mysterious, uncomfortable, and dangerous trip from Rikers that ended in a cliff-hanger on a mountain in upstate Buffalo, NY, as well as a cold copter ride and a trek through the high snow, ice, and arctic cold, I had finally fallen asleep. I woke up once to the sound of my own voice calling the Azan, and in a sleepy haze I fell back asleep.

  Through the attic window I could see that it was still dark outside and I figured I was dreaming or bugging because of exhaustion. I slept for what felt like several more hours, and finally awoke. It was still dark, so I imagined that I had not actually slept for long. It was only much later that I found out that the darkness was due to a storm that made it seem that the sun would not rise at all. So I had actually slept very well, through my normal routine times and prayer times and eating times. It ended up being about ten hours of rest.

  I had fallen asleep with a growling belly while reading the first chapter of Chiasa’s manuscript. Her words ripped off the armor I had layered my mind, body, and soul with for nearly two years. Her words demolished the freeze in my bones and they heated my cold-hardened heart. Her words had ignited my desires, the same deep desires that I had controlled, conquered, and canceled during my caging. Her words forced me into a deep sleep and an erotic dream. I woke up bricker than brick, my joint so solid and swollen, it wouldn’t lay down for an extended amount of time. It would not settle for anything less than her touch, the pushing and plunging and pleasure of her pussy, a tight but warm and moist space where we expressed our mutual love.

  I was fucked up, I knew. I needed to recover my discipline, restraint, and alertness. I needed to collect my composure and restore my warrior stance for the possible approaching threats and realities. After all, I was in an unknown space riddled with unanswered questions. The most severe ones were regarding my legal status. Am I a prisoner? Or am I a fugitive? Is there a warrant for my arrest? Is there a manhunt underway for my capture? As I had laid on my back on a mattress on the floor, dressed with sheets that carried her scent, in her room in a house made of stones, surrounded by nothing but snow and ice and the wilderness, I wondered. Was I rescued? Am I free? Could a daughter’s subtle demand to the father who adored her actually cause a powerful man to deploy his trucks, helicopter, arsenal, and assassins? And if she was the trigger, what would happen next? How far would her father go, and how far had he gone so far, beyond what I could possibly see or know or imagine?

  Before I could decode the past twenty-four hours, I heard the rumblings of a Hummer. I leapt up, then watched through the window. As soon as I confirmed that it was her father, the General, arriving alone in the vehicle, I dropped down from the secluded space where she had her clothes, blanket, and books, her bed, desk, and dresser, and her writings and hardly anything else. I securely closed the lid that sealed it, and removed the ladder, pushing it into a side room. I did not know if her father normally came here, or if he was aware of her manuscript. He was a man who their family was normally very discreet about, never mentioning his name or his title and ranking, or even taking or hanging his photographs.

  But in the side room I saw men’s clothing. Was it his? I didn’t have time to check. I was in the washroom, washing my face and hands and rinsing my mouth. I saw a razor for shaving. My jaw and my chest got tight. I slipped out the blade and cleaned it off. Instinctively, I’d carry it on me. Then he knocked on the door with the heavy hand of the police or the military during a raid.

  Grabbing the snorkel, which had my gloves and wool hat tucked in each coat pocket, I put it on over the black jumper that I had fallen asleep in. I stepped into my boots and headed outside. He had gotten back in the Hummer, and was seated behind the wheel. He lowered his window when he saw me approaching.

  “We have an appointment. Let’s go, son,” was all he said casually, as though he had just chilled with me the day before. But, in reality, he had last seen me two years ago. I climbed in. “Jump in the back and get dressed.” I did, surprised to see the dress clothes hanging in the rear on the hook. I was clean shaven head and face, but my body was not showered.

  His Mickey Thompson Baja Claw tires were crushing everything in their path. Only the hum of his engine could drown out the rumble of my hunger. Fully dressed, I decided to remain seated in the back. Through the rearview mirror he locked eyes with me and said, “You are not naïve, son, are you? You know the rules of war.”

  I stayed still and silent, thinking. “Happy New Year,” was all I said to him. I knew better than to utter one word that could be used as a one-word agreement to any of his ideas, plans, or schemes then, now, or later on.

  * * *

  “So, you are the General’s son. Pleased to meet you,” a well-suited European woman in her thirties introduced as Urschla said as she sipped from her water glass. “I know fathers are demanding and rarely compliment their sons, so I’ll have to say that your performance on the SATs was outstanding, almost perfect. They were above the scores of our average students, which is quite high, and equivalent to the scores of our top three students in a class of one hundred and twenty.”

  “Indeed,” a dark-blue-suited white man who had been introduced as Roy said. “We are excited to have recruited you and are fully prepared for you to enter our academy next week after the holiday break. And because of the preeminence of your father, we have all assembled here on the great holiday. Fortunately for us it’s late afternoon. Otherwise we may have had to disappoint your father after a night of cheers.” They all laughed.

  “You already look like a soldier,” an older white man introduced as Tom, commented. “You are already as silent as an elite global soldier must be.”

  “So true,” the dark-suited Roy said. “Normally such silence is achieved only after our specialized training. The fact that you are already silent has me feeling a little less necessary.” They each laughed. “It’s either that, or he has some ominous secret to hide,” he added.

  “Nonsense,” the European woman said. “Look who his father is. He obviously has been in training for years.” Then she turned towards me and said, “There is no need for you to feel burdened—only the top brass gathered around this table will know your roots. And we won’t tell a soul,” she promised. “We don’t want the other students to feel that you’re getting preferential treatment.”

  “He may be advanced in his training already, which is excellent since he is entering the academy in the second semester of our school year, which is rarely ever allowed. However, he won’t be spared any of the workload that he has missed. Therefore he will have to forfeit his summer leave. He will also need to polish up on his social skills. He had to have suffered from being home-schooled, and studying for his SATs all alone and earning his GED in place of attending full classes with qualified instructors, and bonds of friendship and team spirit, and of course the godforsaken high school prom. Simply trying to get a date to that damn thing is a social experiment,” Tom said, and they laughed.

  “No worries,” Urschla said. “Our school is coed and international, and Switzerland is quite lovely. Our host country is famous for chocolate. And you are a very handsome young lad, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  * * *

  Back in the blacked-out black Hummer plowing through the storm-dark roads, he had his huge hand gripping the shift stick tightly. What I really wanted to ask him was the whereabouts of my wife. I knew that he knew that she is my great love and deep desire, also his only daughter, his ace card and the only reason me and him were together, and that I was riding shotgun with a military man. I knew he would attempt to convert my love and my desire for his daughter into my weakness. So I didn’t mention her. I only asked, “Where are we headed?”

  “You’ll see.”

  We pulled up to a checkpoint, which ended up being the entrance to a military base. The signage said Fort Drum. Each soldier who encountered him saluted, shuffled, kowtowed, and all but bowed down. He was riding from building to
building getting his holiday greetings, salutes, and reports, and showing me without words spoken directly to me that he was in command. I already knew that. Seeing tanks and guns and grenades and stockpiles of ammunition sealed his performance. His last stop on his “power tour” was a dormitory building on the base. He ordered a soldier on post outside to go in and bring out “Private Crusher.”

  The big white boy soldier came running out, then straightened himself as soon as he saw the General seated in the Hummer. He saluted and then approached with permission. He leaned in on the driver’s side and asked what he could do for the General.

  “Take a look at this guy. You think you could take him for a few rounds?” the General asked him.

  He glanced over at me. “That’s why they call me ‘The Crusher,’ ” he said.

  They laughed. I didn’t. Easily I’d fight him. I’m not militarily trained. But these guys weren’t street fighters, didn’t come straight out of Rikers, and probably would never survive if they did.

  “What do you say, son?” the General asked me.

  “Anytime,” I said solemnly.

  “Whoa, let’s go! Let’s ring in the bloody New Year,” the Crusher said.

  “Not tonight,” the General intervened. “He’s got other things to do tonight. I just swung by so you could see your next challenge and get prepared.”

  “I’m the champ that whooped that big boy over in ‘Little Siberia,’ General. I’m already prepared.” This guy was excited, hyped up like he just shot up steroids.

  “You’re dismissed, Private,” the General said. Crusher left in an instant.

  “I grabbed that guy out of the jaws of Little Siberia. You know where that is?” the General asked me as he did a 180 and drove off the base.

  “Nah,” I said.

  “That’s the prison where you were supposed to go last night. Dannemora, maximum security, Clinton Correctional Facility, a place where the worst sons of bitches in the region are housed and conquered, but never corrected.” He was looking straight ahead. So was I. “Just remember that during our negotiation,” he said suddenly.

  “Negotiation,” I repeated, really to myself.

  “The one you and I are about to have,” he said. We rode in silence after those words. My mind was heavy. There were too many X-factors. I needed to line up my thoughts before the negotiation. I began to do so for my own good. His daughter is my wife. I won her hand in marriage from him fair and square. He hadn’t faltered on his debt to me, or on his word, although I always felt his reluctance, his presence, and his attempt to continue to control her from afar. That may have been annoying, but it wasn’t terrible or evil, I told myself. His daughter loves me, I know. She will follow me wherever I go, and whatever choices I make. Even if she disagrees with me, she will yield and give way. Only in an instance where something conflicts with her faith would she fight and resist. I never go against her faith. Her faith is my faith. On the one hand, I have the General by the neck because I have his daughter. But why should our marriage be a problem to him? Is it only her conversion to Islam that he finds so disturbing? And now that it is clear that his daughter will be Muslim whether I’m dead or alive, he had to realize that he can’t get her to roll back to whatever it was they used to believe in or do as a way of life. What does he want from his daughter? What does he want from me?

  In a chess game, both opponents have the comfort of knowing how each piece can and can’t move. Both the black knight and the white knight are limited to the same options. And that goes for the king, queen, rooks, and bishops also. Life, however, isn’t like that. It’s random, hostile, and impulsive. You can’t sleep on any man, because no man is a game piece. The weakest and most frightened man might do the most unexpected, deadliest, and horrific thing.

  He obviously wants me to attend some academy in Switzerland, I thought further. That’s what I had gathered as I sat in complete silence at the dinner table. My objective was only to listen and consume an expensive meal in an expensive restaurant where the prices were not printed on the menu. Was that his method of separating his daughter and me by distance? Or, did he and his sister Aunt Tasha and their whole family believe that if I didn’t start racking up the degrees the way they had, that I needed to be cut out from Chiasa and their family, like a cancer? Or was it worse? Is my Islamic lifestyle so unacceptable to them that they needed to see me humiliated in order to feel comfortable around me, and comfortable around Chiasa? Is this some deep-seated jealousy?

  True, I had knocked out a guy at their family barbeque in the Vineyard. But he deserved it. A friend to Xavier, he had tried to kick it to my first wife, asking her to dance and touching her hand after she said no, to coax her to accept his offer. I dropped him. Had to let them all know that both women belonged to me by marriage and choice, theirs and mine. I love Chiasa, true. She is your relative, true. But still don’t fuck with my first wife, because I love her, true. They thought that I was cocky, even though I had cooperated and showed up to Clementine Moody’s all-male family breakfast very early that same morning, to squash the beef between Marcus and me. I was quiet and humble. I shook hands with Marcus even though he had tried to stab me in the back before and had actually stabbed me in my chest, inches above my heart. But at the late afternoon big blowout barbeque, male and female, family and friends and Vineyard neighbors gathered. Soon as I arrived with my beautiful Umma, covered in her summer-light sparkling fabrics, and my two beautifully modest wives and little sister, I felt all eyes on me. The men watched me, thinking I was too brazen. It felt like my everyday lifestyle and my wives were getting them green with envy and red with fury, while they fronted it off, glancing and gossiping while flashing fake smiles. I remember. Marcus had Chiasa captivated by his fireworks, a suitcase filled with stink bombs, firecrackers, nigger chasers, sparklers, M80s, and other holiday explosives. I was chilling in the shade, sipping a lemonade when I saw the dude looking, then approaching Akemi as she stood watching the dance steps intently, and admiring the art of the gathering.

  They think I’m violent. I think they’re uncivilized. They think they are higher-ups. I think they are spiritual lows. If they could separate me from my women, and infiltrate their minds, they would. But, because my women are loyal, there was absolutely nothing they could do to break it. It was sad and funny to me. Their women of all ages, from very young to senior elders, were at that big barbeque event, most uncovered and nearly naked. Why focus on my wives, covered and true?

  So my standing with my second wife’s family before my lockup was left on shaky grounds.

  But now, I was faced with a larger dilemma. The General might have gotten me freed at his daughter’s demand. But if he got me out and off without me becoming a fugitive on the run, or the “most wanted,” I understood that I owed him . . . something. Even though I did not ask him to do it, could have served out my time and come home in a year and a half. At the same time, if I am free, now, without doing the rest of my time, of course I got to be grateful. My praise goes to Allah, of course, but in the physical world, I paid my debts fair and square as well. What about all the men I left behind at Rikers? What about the ones who were waiting for me to drop a line and let them know my whereabouts? What about the handful of people who would be following up to check on me, like my lawyer and Santiaga, who would wait for news of my release, and Ditch, who was also sent to “Little Siberia”? What about DeQuan at Greenhaven and his newsletter that kept all of us aware and connected, and DeSean at Sing-Sing.

  My second wife had been asked three questions by her father. According to her manuscript, he had asked her, “Do you understand that he murdered a man and how serious a crime that is?” And he asked her, “Why should I go out of my way to bring him home before he serves his time with the other convicted murderers and criminals?”

  Chiasa, clever and swift, had replied softly, “And how many men have you killed, Daddy? Shall we count them? Or, are there too many to count? And doesn’t it matter that he was defending hi
s sister? Or, would it have been better if he was killing for pay? Just obeying orders because it was his occupation, and without any other real consideration or right reason? Daddy, I’ll bet there are bodies buried beneath every medal on your chest. Aren’t there? But if you were somewhere suffering, like I feel my husband is suffering, it would be unbearable to me. Same as I have waited for you my whole life, I can wait for my husband. But the thought of the element that he is in, and the conditions that he’s enduring, is unbearable for me. And of course he is different than almost all of the men he might be locked up with. He is my husband. When I met him, he had already made twenty thousand more prayers than me. Before I met him, I had never made even one. He had already fasted for nine Ramadans. Now, he has fasted for eleven. He is so good and so beautiful. He is better than me. He loves and lives for his family and he loves me a whole heap, maybe more than you do. He would do anything for me, even give up his life. Won’t you do what I ask of you?”

  “He has another wife,” the General had reminded her. As I read, it felt like it was his last desperate attempt to alter her allegiance to me.

  “Yes, she is his wife and she is my wife, too.”

  I doubted that the General had read her manuscript. Now that I think about it, though, perhaps he was aware of its existence. Perhaps she had used it with the accuracy and precision of her knives and hit the bull right in his eye, so to speak. Perhaps she had threatened him with it. After a lifetime of his not being photographed, and under the protection of his family to keep everything concerning him private, he must have wanted to stop the autobiography of the General’s young daughter from being published. Maybe it pushed him to the point that at the threat of losing his daughter’s loyalty, he felt the shame of abandoning Marcus, his son. Maybe I was somehow ruining his “do-over.”

  The off-road vehicle rode rugged off road. We maneuvered over ice and rocks and sticks and even veered around a massive elk. After a bit of a journey, we arrived at a miniature oddly shaped log cabin in the wilderness. There was a Jeep already parked there below the towering trees. Again, I had no idea what was going on. He climbed out of the Hummer. I followed. I observed that the tiny place had a weird chimney. It was just a pipe popping out through its roof. The smoke was pouring upwards and then dispersed by the intensity of the cold air.