Speak No Evil

by Uzodinma Iweala

  I struggle for breath. My head hurts in the spot where my father bashed my head against the wall. I want to run, but Bishop Okereke’s imposing form and his fleshy outstretched palm blocks my path to the door. It feels like they expect people to run. I look around the chamber; there are no whips or shackles, just five other bodies also laboring to breathe in this mix of stale air and body salt. Bishop Okereke’s palm pushes my forehead with an otherworldly strength that forces me down. Immediately the man and two women cover my head with their own palms, blocking my view of anything but the cement floor. I feel them vibrating as they warm up with silent murmurs that grow louder as their words give way to unintelligible phrases. I struggle to stand, but someone places a firm hand on my shoulder and holds me down. Their voices grow louder, resonating against the cinder block, in my ears, crashing into my thoughts. I stop trying to stand and instead will my heart to a steady beat. We pray that the evil demonic spirit that seeks to harm this boy’s life should leave him and return to the pit of hellfire where it came, Bishop Okereke shouts. Clear out from that place in Jesus’s name, another voice says. We ask you to banish the spirit of homosexuality and perversity from this young man, bind it and cast it out in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, Amen. Father almighty destroy each and every unclean thought, untoward desire and abominable notion in the corners of this young mind and heart, refill him with the love of your Word and reverence for your teachings. Fill him Lord Father in the name of Jesus. Father God, reorient this your child to the pure teachings of our Savior Jesus. Unlock in his mind and heart that place where you will reside to protect him from every unclean thing, Bishop Okereke shouts. Protect him Lord, protect him, the prayer warriors echo. Return your child to the spirit of obedience to his parents so that he may hear their direction and heed their advice, the Bishop shouts.

  I feel their strength grow the longer they pray. I feel anger expand in my chest, then shame, and then the anger again, now in my stomach. I pray for anything to free me from this room and these hands holding me down, dripping their sweat on me as they try to cleanse me. But also, I want to be clean. I want to be rid of everything that brought me here. I want more than anything to be normal, for my father to say my name with the pride he reserves for OJ’s, for him to look at me without disgust, for me to look at him without fear.

  Lord as you carry this child back to America, give him the wisdom to see wickedness and the strength to prevail against its many temptations, Bishop Okereke thunders. I feel his words cut into me and I think if only I had seen what Meredith was doing to me. If I only had the strength not to listen to her words. Not that Meredith is a bad person, but she is a bad influence. She put the app on my phone; she pressured me to go on the date. She was the cause of all this confusion. Bishop Okereke says, take him in your power as his fleshy fingers press my forehead, take him completely in your power Lord and give him control. Give him strength. Give him the power of your everlasting glory. He pushes forward with his hand and throws me back onto the concrete. The light above is blinding and blazes away all the solid figures in the room for a moment while I try to blink my vision clear. As the brightness turns to shapes and the shapes into features, I see shoes and then legs, and then a hand stretching towards mine. My father’s face materializes. His cheeks shine with tears. I grasp his hand. He says, come on, get up, let’s go home.

  6

  Washington is different in the spring. Warmer weather draws color from the depths and suddenly there are cherry blossoms. There are other flowers too, daffodils in the brown mulch beds all around the stone buildings, azaleas and roses in the Bishop’s Garden. Dandelions spring up in the meadow so the groundskeepers ring the lawn with yellow rope to keep us off while they spray herbicide. My classmates trade chinos for shorts and pasty, hairy legs. They wear loafers with ankle socks or brand-new loosely laced tennis shoes. The girls wear short skirts and short shorts that test the limits of the dress code. Even Ms. McConnell’s skirts stop above the knee, so when we walk across the Cathedral to class my classmates talk about fucking her and laugh. I laugh and talk about fucking her too because that is what Reverend Olumide says I should do—except the actual fucking. He says it’s okay to be a man and to have the desires that young men have. They are God-given and natural, he says, desire is why babies are made and growing up is God’s way of teaching us how to harness desire in the service of his command to go forth and multiply, one man, one woman at a time. He says that I’m scared to grow up so I suppress my desire until it comes out in unhealthy, ungodly ways. Don’t be afraid to be a man he says, and to do manly things, but he doesn’t say what those are. So I listen to my classmates when they talk about deep throating and donkey punches and I linger on the lawn in front of the Cathedral after class and check out the girls’ legs and their asses. Sometimes I feel like something stirs and I think Reverend Olumide is right, but mostly they are just legs and they are just asses, and the words cum slut just don’t turn me on. Nothing turns me on and that is just fine for now. I have no need for desire and every need for calm.

  The house is calm and has been since we came back from Nigeria. My father doesn’t say much beyond questions that require single word answers. Are you hungry? Yes. Have you eaten? No. Did your mother cook? Yes. Will you eat? No. Your homework nko? Done. It is as if he considers it his duty to make sure that all my vital functions are under control, but beyond that for now is too much. My mother continues to hover though she tries to be discreet. She is in the kitchen in the mornings, waiting for me with her cup of tea in both hands and eyes that say talk to me, are you okay, why are you punishing me?

  You shouldn’t eat so fast, she says when I stand by the toaster to wolf down toasted bread smeared with butter. It’s not good for your system. She doesn’t say anything when I leave my plate on the counter surrounded by a ring of crumbs. Sometimes before I start my car, I hear the sink running. Penance takes different forms, Reverend Olumide says, and I want my mother to feel sorry. You could have prevented this I want to shout at her but instead I let her wash the dishes because I know she doesn’t like to.

  Those are the good days when I can feel myself fully present and I remember my books for class and I can bullshit through the reading I haven’t done, riffing off of classmates by starting my sentences with I feel like or I agree with while Ms. McConnell exclaims, yes. For her my Africanness means I am an authority on all nonwhite things. I watch Meredith roll her eyes at me from across the room. She hasn’t been herself recently because college acceptance letters are coming and she is concerned about the rest of her life. We haven’t spoken as much because I don’t linger after class so I can walk back across the Cathedral lawn with the other boys to discuss manly things. We don’t stare into the halogen lights anymore at our spot because Reverend Olumide says I should avoid all triggers.

  On good days, I can feel myself growing faster during our speed workouts. Try as they might the other boys can’t catch me and I’m a star. I feel the sun warm my skin. I feel my chest burn and expand as if I can inhale the world and exhale my future which I try to catch with each step forward. On good days, Mr. Erickson yells positive things when I tilt out of the curves and unleash down the straightaways. Get ’em son. You got ’em. Ease into it. Relax into it. Everything will work out fine, he says.

  But there are also bad days when Ms. McConnell asks me if everything is okay and I have to bite my lips to keep them from quivering. Class participation is part of your grade, she says to me after class. She gives me extra time to hand in the assignment I didn’t do because my father took me to Nigeria. I’m supposed to read A House for Mr. Biswas and then I’m supposed to write about home. This should be easy for you, she says and I nod because nodding is easier for her to understand. My classmates joke about Ms. McConnell keeping me after class because she wants some of that big black cock. I laugh because Reverend Olumide says it’s okay to behave like a man.

  On the bad days, there is no color. I know there are colors. I can see the color
s, but the world looks gray. The sounds are muffled by a crackling web of static that sits behind my eyes and buzzes in my ears. Bad days at track make me feel like I’m running through spiderwebs and Coach Erickson tells me to lift my knees and pick my feet up. Do you want it son? It doesn’t look like you want it. Show me that you want it. I don’t think you want it, son. My chest won’t expand and the air I inhale feels like knives cutting me with little swipes from the inside. I feel dizzy as the other boys pass me. This lasts until I get home, where I can fling myself on my bed and wait until everything that is my life—the posters I have tacked to the wall, the paintings of African market scenes my parents have meticulously hung, the over-sweet smell of frying plantain and the one-sided frustration of my mother arguing into the phone in Igbo—stop spinning. Reverend Olumide says I should ask God to be my center so I fall to my knees and beg God. Nothing. My mother hovers. I can see her shadow spread across the landing carpet.

  I’m not doing drugs, I tell my mother one morning before I place wheat bread in the toaster. I don’t have a gun. Why would you even say such a thing, she says, like she’s surprised, but she is not a good liar. It’s why she doesn’t like working with kids who have cancer. Because someone has been going through my drawers, I say. She doesn’t know what to say and instead fills the electric kettle. I take a box of Earl Grey tea from the cupboard over the burner and place it beside her empty mug. No one says anything to me in this house, she says as she pours water over her tea bag. No one tells me things. Reverend Olumide says men are about doing, not talking. We do, it’s what we do, he says. Mommy, I’m not doing drugs, I repeat. I’m going to be late for school.

  Everyone at school is unsettled. Those of us who got into college early have known our fates for months now, but the rest who valued choice over certainty or didn’t fare so well in the early admissions bounce around with nervous excitement. There are rumors that rejection letters come first, even if only by a millisecond. There are stories of computer glitches that sent acceptance letters to a whole swath of unworthies and lawsuits from parents that allege irreparable psychological harm. I like the term unworthies as it gets tossed about. It makes me feel like I am somebody. It makes this one day in April feel almost religious, if only once in your life.

  Ms. McConnell knows there will be no learning today. She says her classroom is open to those interested in free reading and conversation. She says she is here for support. There is a large bowl of silver Hershey’s Nuggets on her desk. My classmates help themselves before exiting to walk and talk their anticipation off in front of the Cathedral. Ms. McConnell sighs because wealth does not equate to good manners. All the desks are empty but Meredith’s seems more so than the others because her sloppy posture makes her body fill more space than it should, because she has a feeling about almost everything we read and discuss, and because she is loud about those feelings. Without her, life is quiet. With her it is often unbearably loud. Niru, you’re welcome to stay if you want, Ms. McConnell says to me without looking up from her desk. Without students in her classroom she is much smaller and more feminine. I stare at her legs visible beneath her desk and at the way her blond hair falls about her face as she reads the New Yorker. Porn makes it look so easy, so casual, so routine. Older women are supposed to crave fresh young meat, to lick their pen tops absentmindedly while thinking about us, to squeeze their legs together in a good faith effort to keep from corrupting the younger generations. And I am supposed to stumble forward both confused and uncontrolled, pulled by my relentless desire like light towards a black hole. Except I am unmoved. I imagine Ms. McConnell naked, perched at the edge of her desk, legs crossed waiting for me to cross the room and give her what she needs. That’s how they always say it, that they will take what they want, get what they need, that hardcore sex is good punishment for bad behavior. I wonder if it would set the record straight for me.

  It’s nice outside, Ms. McConnell says, you should enjoy the day. Her stare makes me feel like she can read my thoughts and I am suddenly embarrassed. Or maybe she simply wants a moment to do what teachers do when they are alone, pick her nose, scratch that itch that couldn’t be scratched discreetly while standing in front of fourteen irreverent, entitled souls. Either way I quickly gather my belongings and leave. She offers me chocolate on the way out but I say no thank you.

  The Cathedral grounds are quiet between the waves of tourists. I wander aimlessly along the paths between the knolled lawn and large oak trees, taking care to avoid stepping on the cracks between large slabs of white concrete. I sit on a bench given in memory of some loving but now dead couple. I watch squirrels chase each other around mulch beds and in spirals up tree trunks. The grounds crew has sprayed the brown edges of the lawn with green fertilizer where they meet the path. From high above it must look like unparalleled perfection, but from a few feet away it’s clear that you can’t paint over your blemishes. The fertilizer is too green for the actual grass.

  Meredith is not at the buttress. I slide down against the limestone, pull the cheap Nokia phone my mother gave me from my pocket and dial her number. The architecture amplifies each beep from my phone and each ring from hers. When she doesn’t answer, I figure she wants to be alone with her thoughts. It’s a cruel trick of fate to have admissions letters sent on the day of our first track meet. It makes you feel like God sometimes just wants to fuck with people, or like admissions officers and track coaches want to test your faith in God. Meredith has held faith for the last five months that Harvard will have faith in her—even after the initial early deferral. They have to. She is smart and her parents are important. I wait for a few moments to see if she’ll call me back. When she doesn’t, I brush off my pants and head to the locker room. Reverend Olumide says that I should spend more time around people. He says activity helps to keep untoward thoughts at bay.

  The locker room is already full when I arrive and someone’s phone blasts trap music through speakers stolen from the computer lab. The sound bounces off the cream-colored cinder blocks and vibrates against metal locker doors. There are so many bodies in this tight space that I can feel the temperature rise as soon as I step inside, or maybe it’s the steam from the showers, or maybe it’s just me. I have been in locker rooms before and I have been in this locker room before with these same people, but of course now it’s different, just as everything has been different since the blizzard. You cannot unsee what has been seen once the veil is lifted, Reverend Olumide says in church. We cannot return to the garden of Eden. When I meet with him he says I need to confront my fears, that the devil torments us with that which scares us most. So, I cross the line between the blue hallway tiles and the white locker-room floor and navigate my way through a series of fist bumps and handshakes to locker number thirty-two. It’s the top half of a standing pair usually reserved for the underclassmen fast enough, lucky enough or brave enough to snatch a spot of seniority on the team. I should have a full locker but my indecision at the beginning of the season as to whether I would brave the bodies has cost me dearly. The locker is in the corner by the grated frosted window and there are so many bodies to navigate if I want to get out. The music is loud in this space and distorted as it ricochets against the corner walls—the team playlist, “Jumpman” for the high jumpers, followed by “I’m on a New Level” because Adam, our captain, is a high jumper. Four skinny, pasty sophomores practice dabbing shirtless in the showers. There is an economy sized tub of protein powder perched precariously on one of the benches before them. I have always been jealous of people who are comfortable being naked. I undo my tie and slip off my shirt.

  Hey Harvard, Adam shouts. He has called me that ever since early admissions were announced in December. I can’t see with my shirt halfway over my head but I can tell he is somewhere behind me. Where’s your girlfriend going to college, he says. I swallow hard and feel the fact that I haven’t eaten breakfast or lunch deep in my stomach. For the first time today I’m dizzy. Caught in the whiteness of my undershirt, I feel lik
e I’m about to fall. I touch my hand to the wall for support. It slips against the condensation from the showers. Someone shouts that he has to take a shit. The mixtape blasts “Fuck Up Some Commas” because the white boys find the thought of black people rapping about grammar funny. I slip my shirt over my head and spin around. Adam wears only spandex. He is tall and muscular but his face is still very young. He knows he has nice abs and he has worked to build his calves and thighs. He smiles mischievously. You know, Meredith, he says. I stare at him without blinking. My mouth won’t work. I need to take a shit. The one who you’re too afraid to fuck, he says. He’s not afraid, he just likes it in the butt, Rowan says. The room is silent because the mixtape stops and the only words to echo belong to the person who has made my existence uncomfortable since the first day we met. I can’t look at him because he feeds off discomfort. He is the shark that senses blood in the water, the growling dog that knows you’ve stopped dead in your tracks. I want to punch him, but I have seen these fights play out multiple times and have no desire to end up grappling in the showers while the rest of the team eggs us on as they record everything with their phones. There was a scandal last year that involved a lacrosse team brawl posted on World Star Hip Hop. The Headmaster was livid. Students were suspended. He called an assembly to remind us that we just don’t do that here. I want to look at Rowan to confirm he still has his small hate-filled blue eyes and his permanent I’m-out-of-fucks-to-give smirk. He’s going to be an alcoholic, I tell myself. He’s going to divorce his third wife and need a liver transplant. He will go bald prematurely and get an STD from a meth-addicted prostitute. The toilet flushes. I say, shut the fuck up. OJ says you can only feel your skin at your best and worst moments so right now I can feel all of my skin, on my fingers, on my face, full of itch and fire. Rowan barks a vicious laugh that always makes Ms. McConnell clench her fists and breathe deeply. He says, that’s not what Meredith would say. My chest collapses. I can only see white.