Black Enough

by Ibi Zoboi

  “Flashlight reveries caught in the headlights of a truck

  Eeeeeating seeeeeeds as a pastime activity

  The toxicity of our city, of our city”

  Desirée, playing absently, stares in wonder at him, then smiles.

  Together, they sing,

  “You!

  What do you own the world

  How do you own disorder, disorder

  Now!

  Somewhere between the sacred silence

  Sacred silence and sleep . . .”

  Both of them, mouths nearly touching the microphone, mouths nearly touching each other.

  “YOU! WHAT DO YOU OWN THE WORLD

  HOW DO YOU OWN DISORRDEERRRRR”

  They’re louder now, shouting the chorus, but still singing, until they both get to that long, drawn-out scream at the end, and the music stops, and they’re both suddenly so tired. But they can’t stop looking at each other.

  Desirée smiles at him, and when he lies in bed later that night, he has System playing on his iPod well after the lights in the house have been turned off.

  At dinner the next day, Sobechi’s head is swimming with images. After their first duet, Sobechi had downloaded every song off Toxicity. All night, he had listened, and the whole of it had taken Sobechi to a place he’d never been before, and the lyrics about dropping bombs on children in faraway countries and the failure of America’s drug policies wouldn’t let him go. At the end of the album was a hidden track, a haunting melody with a flute and different drums. There were no words, only humming and moans. Well after he should have been asleep, he’d looked the band up on the internet. They were all Armenian and they were descendants of survivors of the Armenian Genocide. People called them political. “Antiwar because they knew it in their bones,” he read on one site. By the time he’d gone to sleep, the sky had started to lighten.

  So Sobechi looks straight at his mum and asks, “Mummy, could you tell me about the Biafran War?” He’d heard about the civil war that had cut through Nigeria in the late sixties; he knew it was part of his mother’s country’s history. But nothing beyond that.

  The look on Mum’s face tells Sobechi that this is literally the last thing she’s expected to talk about. Her eyes turn into saucers. Her ball of fufu, greased with pepper soup from her bowl, nearly slips from her fingers.

  “You were a child then, right? Younger than me, even,” Sobechi continues.

  Daddy stirs in his chair but says nothing.

  Mummy gets a hurt look in her eyes, as though Sobechi has wounded her.

  “You lived through the Nigerian Civil War, right? I . . . I know nothing about it and I just wanted to—”

  “Enough!” Her hands slam down on the table. “Enough of this. Sobechi”—she points her finger straight into his face—“if you ask me one more time about Biafra.” Then a string of Igbo words he doesn’t know, but the meaning of which he understands, darts from her lips. Ask her about Biafra again and she will break his legs.

  “But, Mummy, I—”

  “Sobechi!”

  Fury Sobechi has never known takes hold of him. Suddenly, he’s up on his feet and stomps away without washing his hands, stomps all the way upstairs, then does something he never thought he would ever do. He slams the door to his room. Loudly.

  Why won’t Mummy talk about her own history? Shouldn’t she be encouraging him to learn about his country? He’s too angry to think. So he plugs in his earbuds and turns the volume too high on the August Burns Red album Desirée downloaded for him earlier that day. He wants to scream but knows he can’t, so he lets their singer scream for him.

  During the ride to school the next morning, Sobechi doesn’t say a word.

  It’s the first weekend of debate practice once again, and already, things feel like they’re going back to the way they were. Sobechi can feel himself fighting it. He’s somewhere new, somewhere freer, more colorful.

  Daddy pulls up in front of the school. “Do well, Sobechi,” Daddy says, smiling.

  “Yes, Daddy.” Sobechi’s voice is so raspy it surprises him. And he coughs, but when he says, “Yes, Daddy” again, it’s the same. He can barely whisper.

  Daddy frowns at him. “Are you sick, Sobechi?”

  Hand to throat, Sobechi says, “No, Daddy. I’m fine.” Then he’s off before Daddy can make him say more words. He doesn’t even look back to see Daddy drive away.

  Everyone is happy to see him again—Coach, Angelica, Grayson, all the others on the practice squad—until he opens his mouth to greet Coach, and everyone goes silent.

  “What happened to your voice, man?” Grayson looks like someone just broke wind. “You sound way different.”

  Sobechi can’t get it back. His fingers tremble, his heart races. A glance at Coach. A glance at Angelica. He closes his eyes, tries to will it back, then opens his mouth and . . . nothing. Just that harsh gasp that scrapes against the inside of his throat.

  It’s gone. His voice is gone.

  He can’t even pick his feet up when he walks. So when Daddy opens the front door, Sobechi merely shuffles through, holding his backpack in one hand. He stubs his toe on the leg of a chair and yelps, and it just seems like one more thing gone wrong. After he tried to practice introductory remarks—and couldn’t raise his voice above a whisper!—Grayson went up and improvised his way through it all, pretending to know what he was talking about, because boys like him at school don’t even really study. And he made a mockery of the text, butchered it, and every misplaced sentence and every point Grayson doubled back on and every mispronounced word—it’s DEH-monstrate, not de-MOAN-strate!—made Sobechi cringe until he could barely stand to stay in the room. Angelica seemed to be the only one to improve over the break. It felt good to see her do well, but something was definitely out of whack when Sobechi wasn’t the one being praised by Coach.

  He’s so in his own head that it isn’t until he’s all the way down the upstairs hallway that he notices Mummy in his room. She brandishes his iPod like a weapon. She just might hit him with it.

  “Sobechi!” Her voice is an arrow cutting right through the fog in his brain. Too many thoughts fall over themselves in his head, but he knows he’s supposed to be scared. She has that look in her eyes that she gets right before she twists his ear. “Sobechi, what is this?”

  “Mummy, it’s . . .”

  “What is this DEVIL-WORSHIPPER MUSIC?! Where did you get this?” She shakes it at him, and the headphone lines flail just like he feels he’s doing.

  “Mummy, I can explain.”

  “Where did you get this? Is this what has been possessing you of late? Is this why you can barely speak? Where did you get this!”

  His head slumps. “Desirée,” he murmurs.

  “Who? I cannot hear you! Speak up!”

  “Desirée,” he says louder. Still meek. Defeated. It hurts to say her name. Tears spring to his eyes. Whatever beautiful, loud journey he set off on with her, it’s done now. He knows this is the end.

  “The neighbor!” Mummy can’t believe it. “I knew as soon as I saw how he let that young girl dress that she was trouble. Eh-HEH! Look at the company you are keeping. Sobechi, if I see you again with that girl”—then a string of menacing Igbo words—“If I catch you with that girl, you will taste fire. I will introduce you myself to the devil. Then you can scream all the wahalla you want. Chineke mbere!” She throws her hands into the air, and her voice breaks, and it’s almost as if she’s ready to join Sobechi in crying. But she stomps past him, muttering to herself and leaving Sobechi to stew in a silence so heavy, so unnatural, that he doesn’t fall asleep for hours.

  Slowly, it comes back. In a week, his voice returns to normal. In the week after that one, his confidence is completely restored. It hums in his chest, radiates warmth into his shoulders. He has it back. All of it. The morning he feels ready, he practices speaking in front of the bathroom mirror. The steam from the shower seems to help. And by the time it is his turn in their after-school pract
ice session, he finds he can do all his regular tricks. He can modulate his voice. When he pauses, it’s no longer to clear his throat or to get rid of an itch, it’s to hammer home a point. If anything, his voice, when he speaks, sounds richer. Feels richer. The speech he gives that day, a short excerpt from John F. Kennedy’s “Moon” speech, stuns the room into silence. Then everyone’s on their feet and clapping, and they don’t stop clapping until Coach’s fifth try to get them to calm down. But he’s smiling so hard.

  On the way out, everyone claps Sobechi on the shoulder or shakes his hand or grins their thanks right at him. He can’t believe how happy he’s made them. After everyone leaves, Coach slips a hand over Sobechi’s shoulder. “Wherever you went . . . ,” he says quietly, “it’s good to have you back.”

  Suddenly, Sobechi doesn’t know why he fought this for so long. Why he resisted. Everything feels right again. All the congratulations, the praise. People needing him again. This is where he’s supposed to be.

  These are his thoughts as he makes his way down the hall. But he stops short when he hears noise, muffled voices and what sounds like cymbals. Then he hears it, a guitar riff.

  The door swings open to the auditorium. Sobechi sees them onstage. It looks like they’re an entire world away, the stage is that far. But he recognizes them instantly. Desirée, strumming out a few licks, then directing the rest of the band through the next couple of measures; then Dominique, toying with the cymbals and kick drums while she listens; and there’s someone else, someone Sobechi doesn’t recognize, on bass who has a microphone in front of her too. They all seem comfortable around each other, but tired, like they’ve been at it for too long.

  As soon as the doors swing shut behind Sobechi, the music stops, midbar, and everyone stares. Sobechi can see the emotions working across Desirée’s face. The confusion, the hurt, the joy, all of it out in the open. Then a mask falls over it all, and she’s saying something quietly to the girls before taking off her guitar and putting it back into its stand. She hops off the stage with practiced nonchalance and meets Sobechi halfway.

  For a while, they don’t say anything, Desirée clearly waiting for his explanation. And there’s so much he wants to say, but he needs to say it right, needs to organize his thoughts just like in debate. However, what comes out of his mouth is simply, stupidly, “I was unaware that you practiced here.”

  Desirée jerks her head toward the stage. “Yeah, Dayna’s in the school band, and she’s got the hookup. Lets us practice here to get a better feel for our live gigs.”

  “Live gigs?”

  “Yeah.” Desirée shrugs. “Debate practice?”

  “Um, yeah.” He looks at his shoes. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I disappeared.”

  “Yeah, no reason, no talk, no nothing. For two weeks. Nothing from you.”

  Sobechi winces. “It’s my mother. She . . . she doesn’t like the music. I dunno, she’s old-school, and maybe it’s just too loud or not like what she’s used to. But she doesn’t want me listening to it anymore. Says it’s devil-worshipping music.”

  Desirée barks out a chuckle, but Sobechi can hear the hurt in it.

  “And the singing was starting to affect my voice.”

  “Ah, I see. And why does this mean we can’t hang out?”

  Sobechi wants to tell her that debate practice is going to take up more of his time, that it’s where he needs to be, or that he needs to really focus on his studies, or any of the usual excuses he gives people when they ask him to be social—but he knows it’s because if he and Desirée spend any more time together, he will start singing again. He loves it, he realizes. And he will scream his voice into oblivion. He knows that’s what’s going to happen, so he can’t let himself get close to it again. That’s his argument, his position, but he can’t bring himself to breathe a syllable to Desirée.

  “So that’s it then? We’re never gonna see each other again?”

  “I didn’t say that! I just—”

  Desirée brushes him off. “Nah, it’s all good. Don’t worry about it. I gotta get back to practice. The girls are waiting.” She storms off and doesn’t say a word about what just happened to either Dom or Dayna. Just starts playing a song from the first Periphery album, all angry chugs and riffs and screaming, where the notes from the guitar become as percussive as the drums, furious beats that have replaced any semblance of conversation whatsoever.

  Even though winning Nationals his junior year was supposed to be the culmination of almost an entire life’s worth of effort, it still feels hollow. Everyone cheers for longer than usual. His teammates all beam at him, genuinely, basking in the glow. Angelica knocked it out the park, as they say. And Grayson knew that this was the time to buckle down. Though Sobechi was, as usual, the brightest star, his team could be said to be the best team in the nation. Future debate teams will hear of Sobechi’s talent, his mesmerizing speeches, how he carried the school on his back like Atlas from Greek mythology class holding up the sky. This was what he wanted. But . . .

  Even after the celebratory dinner where Mum cooks for Coach and the team, and they all finally taste that magical jollof rice, Sobechi can only pretend to be happy.

  Then, it’s over and everyone filters out and Sobechi is still at his seat while Daddy washes dishes and Mummy texts her friends in Nigeria using WhatsApp.

  “Mummy?” Sobechi has finally looked up from his hands.

  “Yes, my son.” She sounds so joyful and so pleased. He’s going to ruin this.

  “Can you . . .” He sighs. Squares his shoulders. “Tell me about Biafra.”

  A cloud covers her face. Her fingers stop, and a glower sets into her eyes.

  “Mummy, I know what happened. I’ve read about it online. I even checked books out from the library on it. I know it’s part of Nigeria’s history. It’s part of our history. I . . . I want to know about you.” He’s thinking of Serj and Daron and all the other members of System of a Down and how they used their parents’ tragedy to make their art. He’s thinking of their political messaging and their antiwar stands, and he’s thinking about what it means to stand for something in the world. And he hopes maybe there’s some of that for him here too. “Mummy, it’s not to hurt you. I . . . I want to be a good son.” He can feel himself start to break down. “I really do, and I’m sorry. I just . . .” He can’t go any further. He sniffles, then regains control.

  But when he looks up, his mother’s staring at the tablecloth, utterly still. “I was in kindergarten when the war began,” she says quietly. “When my family and I were in hiding, we spent time in the forests, eating what we could find. When we came home, soldiers were sleeping in our house. My uncle begged and begged and begged for us to be let back in. The way they made him beg . . . . That night, we all slept in one room. There were twelve of us.” Her shoulders start to shake, and Sobechi realizes it’s the first time he’s seen her cry. All of a sudden, she’s no longer just a force of nature, a powerful typhoon or an overwhelming burst of sunlight. She’s human.

  Daddy joins them at the table. And Mummy talks well into the night. There’s music in her voice. The more she speaks, the more it sounds like song.

  It’s late spring. And the sun is still shining brightly by the time Sobechi gets back from school.

  As they pull into the driveway, he notices Desirée on her front porch. Then he pretends to drop something under his seat.

  Mum looks over. “Eh, what is it now?”

  “I dropped something. I think it was my USB drive.” It’s a convincing enough excuse, because Mummy eventually gets out and leaves her key on the driver’s seat.

  “Remember to lock the car when you get out.”

  Desirée has been watching them the whole time, silently.

  Sobechi stops his fruitless search, snatches the keys, then hops out and makes a beeline for her. She makes to head back inside her home, but Sobechi catches her just before the screen door closes behind her.

  “Your mom’s gonna kill you when she
sees us like this.”

  Sobechi manages a half smile. “I want to invite you and your uncle over for dinner.”

  “Wait, what? I thought I was a devil worshipper or something. Your mom change her mind?”

  “She’s being Americanized.” And they both chuckle. When they settle down, he looks at her, really looks at her, to the point where she’s starting to get nervous.

  “What?”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  For giving me the gift of metal, Sobechi wants to say. For getting me to scream for the first time. For giving me a place where I could truly be angry or sad or have fun. For giving me music to live my life to, music that gave me the courage to unlock something in my mummy. Music that’s helping me become a better son. But he hasn’t quite figured out how to put that all into argument form. Instead, he smiles and says, “I’m working on a song.” He kicks at a stone on the porch. “It’s political.”

  Her face lights up when she realizes what he’s saying, and he knows she can see it too. Both of them onstage, singing into microphones, screaming into them. Faces covered in sweat. Bodies weak from the effort of performing but held up by the bass drums that rock their sternums. Dez launching into a Mark Tremonti–style solo, and Sobechi watching her with what he now realizes is love. And both of them, at the end, wishing the crowd a good night in their best rock-star voices.

  “I guess we’re gonna have to change the band name, then.”

  Stop Playing

  Liara Tamani

  The whole naked selfie situation started on the first day of Higher Ground’s Teen Beach Retreat, during the closing prayer of the opening assembly. I was sitting among the seven hundred teens in the grand ballroom of the hotel—eyes wide open, head unbowed, looking for Lucas. He hadn’t seen me yet. And I needed him to see me so he could get overwhelmed by all my cuteness and take me back.

  I was wearing Lucas’s favorite light-pink dress over his favorite swimsuit and I’d pulled my hair up into two big Afro puffs. Lucas liked it pressed best, but salt water and sand didn’t play with flat-ironed hair. Plus I hadn’t worn my puffs since before I started dating Lucas. They used to be my favorite.