by Zak Ebrahim
9
December 1998
Alexandria, Egypt
I’m fifteen the last time Ahmed lays a hand on me. We’ve moved to Egypt because it’s cheaper and because my stepfather has family who can help my mother with us kids. There are six of us living in a two-bedroom apartment in a massive concrete building in a neighborhood called Smouha. The place is dingy and in disrepair. It’s also freezing cold now that it’s the winter, because the concrete doesn’t retain heat. Still, there’s a mall nearby and a supermarket under construction. It’s not the worst place we’ve ever lived.
One Saturday, a friend from the neighborhood and I are just messing around in the street, sword fighting with sticks, when Ahmed’s son and a bunch of other kids rush over because they think we’re really fighting. Some of the kids start throwing rocks at us. Not hard, really—they’re just playing. But they get more and more aggressive, so I shout, “Stop!” I’m the oldest one there, and the biggest. Everybody stops. Except for Ahmed’s son. He just has to throw one more rock—right at my face. It breaks my glasses and cuts my nose. Everybody panics and scatters.
At home, my mother asks what happened.
“Before I tell you,” I say, “you have to swear that you won’t tell Ahmed.”
I know that there’s no way he’ll believe me over his son, and that second prize will be a beating. My mother promises she won’t say a word. So I tell her everything, and she sends Ahmed’s son to his room as punishment. I’m ecstatic. It’s a tiny bit of justice after two and a half years of abuse. That night, while I’m in bed, I hear Ahmed come home from the masjid. I hear the tinkle of glass as he drops his keys into a bowl by his bedside. I hear the chiming of hangers as he hangs up his shirt and pants. I hear him do his nightly push-ups—complete with a series of unnecessarily loud grunts. And then I hear my mother do something that breaks my heart: she tells him everything.
Ahmed calls me into their bedroom. He doesn’t say a word about what his son has done, though he must see that my glasses have been clumsily taped together and that there’s dried blood on the bridge of my nose. What he says is: “Why were you playing with sticks?”
And that question just makes me explode.
Not at Ahmed, but at my mother.
“See!” I shout at her. “This is exactly why I didn’t want you to tell him! Because he’s just going to blame me—like he always does.” I stop for a second. I’m full of indignation, and I feel the need to say just one thing more. “Because he’s an asshole!”
I take the space heater from the floor, and hurl it at a wall. The cord throws off a few sparks as it’s ripped from the socket, and the bars of the heater rattle and make a loud thong.
I walk out of their bedroom and go down to the kitchen, crying and screaming. I’m out of control in a way that scares even me. I’m punching the kitchen door over and over again when I hear Ahmed storming down the hall after me. I know what’s coming. The moment he enters the kitchen, I drop to the floor and curl into a ball as he begins to pummel me with his fists. I’m just going to take it like I always do.
Suddenly, my mother rushes into the room. She screams for Ahmed to stop. He’s so shocked that she’s come to my defense that she manages to push him away. She helps me to my feet. She smoothes my hair, and the three of us just stand there in the kitchen, panting.
My mother whispers, “I’m so sorry, Z.”
Ahmed can’t believe what he’s hearing.
“Oh, she’s so sorry!” he says, disgusted. “I am only doing what Nosair would do—what you are too weak to do yourself!”
My hands are on my knees—I’m wearing my bedclothes, a long gown called a jalabiyah—and I’m trying to catch my breath when Ahmed punches me again. An uppercut, perfected in the gym. My mother steps between us. But Ahmed just won’t stop. He jabs to the left and right of her head. He couldn’t care less if he hits her, which enrages me, so I do something that shocks the hell out of Ahmed, my mother, and me: I punch him back.
It’s a wild swing. I don’t even hit him. Still, for half a second, Ahmed’s eyes pop wide with fear. He stalks out of the kitchen, never to touch me again. It’s a victory, but a short-lived one. He just starts beating my younger brother even more.
• • •
After New Year’s, I accept a collect call from my father, who’s now at a “supermax”—short for super-maximum security—prison in California. I rarely talk to him anymore, and I can tell by his voice that he’s surprised when he’s put through. I remember the time my mother let him have it on the phone, and I want to have some catharsis of my own. I want to tell him how crappy our lives have become since he decided that other people’s deaths were more important than his own family’s lives. I want to scream into the phone. I want to lose control for once because he should know the price we’re paying for his crimes. I’m never going to see him again anyway. He’s in prison. For life. He has no control over me. He can’t hurt me—and he certainly can’t help me.
But, as always, I can’t get the anger out. I just sob into the phone. My father pretends not to notice. He asks me blandly if I’m making my prayers and being good to my mother.
10
July 1999
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
By the time I’m sixteen, I’ve spent quite some time hiding behind the surname Ebrahim. It’s been like an invisibility cloak, and, lately at least, it’s been working: None of my new friends know that I was born a Nosair. My family’s Egyptian experiment has failed. We’ve moved back to the States. And—I don’t know if it’s because I’ve pulled further away from my father, or because I no longer live in fear of my stepfather’s violence—I’m starting to feel hopeful and buoyant for the first time since my mother woke me up to tell me there’d been an “accident.” I decide to take a leap of faith and tell my two best friends who I really am. I tell them I’m the son of El-Sayyid Nosair.
I confess to my friend Orlando first. We’re on a class trip, sitting on a bench in the courtyard of a museum. The name Nosair means nothing to him, so I take a deep breath and explain. I tell him that my father murdered a rabbi named Meir Kahane and helped orchestrate the attack on the World Trade Center. Orlando looks incredulous. He’s so shocked by the horror of it all that all he can do is laugh. He laughs so hard that he falls off the bench. He does not judge me.
The second person I tell is my friend Suboh. We work together at a supermarket in a bad neighborhood and, since he’s old enough to drive, he drops me off at home when we’re done for the day. Suboh is Palestinian. He knows the name El-Sayyid Nosair and the dark things it stands for. I tell him that Orlando is the only other person in the world whom I’ve told about my father—or that I plan to tell. We’re sitting in Suboh’s car outside my house. He looks at me and nods. I’m afraid of his reaction. The windows rattle as trucks go by. When Suboh finally speaks, he does in fact rebuke me, though not in the way I’d feared: “You told Orlando before you told me?” I feel a rush of relief. If my friends don’t blame me for my father’s sins, then maybe, slowly, I can stop blaming myself. I feel as if I’ve been carrying something enormous and heavy, and finally put it down.
• • •
In 2001, we pick up and move yet again. My sister has married and moved away. The rest of us head to Tampa, where Ahmed thinks he can find work. Yes, Ahmed is still around—he’s like mold in the walls we can never get rid of. But it’s becoming clear that he can’t tell me what to think any more than my father can. His reign of terror is getting pathetic, and it ends the day he insists my brother and I get summer jobs.
We’re thrilled at the thought of having some money, even if Ahmed will take half of it to pay bills. It’s hiring season at Busch Gardens, so we troop down to the theme park and fill out applications and sit for interviews with a mass of other sunburned teens. We expect nothing. Miraculously, we both get hired. I’m going to be a Rhino Rally guide, which is beyond awesome: Plunge into the deepest heart of Africa! On our guided tour, you’l
l experience all the excitement of a safari and come face-to-face with some of the planet’s most majestic animals. Come on! Let’s aim for adventure! My brother will be working Congo River Rapids, which he insists is even more beyond awesome: Get ready for the wildest river ride ever! Once you’ve climbed aboard a giant Busch Gardens raft, you’ll shoot perilous rapids, pass under pounding waterfalls, and investigate the strangest of water caves. What are you waiting for? Let’s get wet!
Some teenagers might yawn at the thought of working at a theme park, but my brother and I are elated. We are babbling, high-fiving idiots in Pittsburgh Penguins T-shirts. In Tampa, there’s sunshine, there’s water everywhere, there’s salt in the air. The world is opening up to us at last. For years, we’ve been on the run from our father’s legacy, outcasts, terrified. For years, Ahmed has beaten us and watched us in such a creepy way that we’ve never felt safe. But now, my brother and I will lead safaris and river rides. We will go somewhere that Ahmed can’t follow. The only way to get into Busch Gardens is to work there or buy a ticket. If he wants to spy on us now, it’s going to cost him fifty bucks.
And this is how I finally, finally, finally get the chance to discover life on my own terms: my father is locked in, and my stepfather is locked out.
• • •
I’m eighteen now, and over the summer in Tampa, all the teenage rites of passage line up before me. I go to parties for the first time. I get drunk for the first time. I pretend I’m going to buy a soda and actually just smoke a cigarette in the 7-Eleven parking lot. I buy a car. A car. The quintessential symbol of freedom! I mean, it’s a terrible, terrible car—an old Ford Taurus with stickers and decals that won’t come off. Still, I worship it so much that I lie in bed at night thinking about it, like it’s my girlfriend or something. Truthfully, my bad-boy experiments are all timid and short-lived. My real rebellion is that I’m starting to question everything my father stands for. From the moment I put on my Rhino Rally safari suit, I meet tourists and coworkers of every description, which is so liberating that I can hardly put the feeling into words. I’m taking every fundamentalist lie I was ever told about people—about nations and wars and religions—and holding it up to the light.
When I was a kid, I never questioned what I heard at home or at school or at the mosque. Bigotry just slipped into my system along with everything else: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Pi equals 3.14. All Jews are evil, and homosexuality is an abomination. Paris is the capital of France. They all sounded like facts. Who was I to differentiate? I was made to fear people who were different and kept away from them as much as possible for my own “protection.” Bigotry is such a maddeningly perfect circle—I never got close enough to find out if I should fear them in the first place.
Because my father was obsessed with the Middle East, I was constantly reminded that Jews were villains, end of discussion. And gays? When I was fifteen, three Afghan men were found guilty of sodomy, and the Taliban decreed that they were going to bury them under a pile of rocks and then use a tank to push a wall down on top of them. The Taliban’s version of mercy was that if the men were still alive after thirty minutes, their lives would be spared.
This was the sort of dogma that had been seeping into my brain since I was born, and it was only being reinforced by the strains of anti-Semitism and homophobia in American culture. Lately, though, there’d been an unlikely new voice chipping away at the lies: Jon Stewart.
I always loved The Daily Show with Craig Kilborn, and when they announced that Stewart was taking over, I was indignant in the way only a teenager can be: Who is this guy? Bring back Kilborn! But, in Tampa, I watch Stewart obsessively and insist my mother sit on the couch alongside me. Stewart’s humor is like a gateway drug. He makes it seem cool to probe and to question and to care—about the antiwar movement, about gay rights, about everything. The man hates dogma. I’ve gulped down so much so-called wisdom in my life that Stewart is a revelation. Frankly, he’s as close to a reasoning and humane father figure as I’ll ever get. I stay up late just waiting for him to decipher the world for me, and he helps adjust a lot of the faulty wiring in my brain. It seems only fitting that my new role model is Jewish.
• • •
The Rhino Rally job is phenomenal. A total blast. It turns out that, buried beneath my self-doubt, I’m a bit of a ham. This becomes clear when I put on the headset microphone and get behind the wheel of the Land Rover. All guides follow the same basic script, but we can improvise as much as we like, as long as nobody breaks an arm or files a complaint. For each tour, I pick a “navigator” to sit beside me. If anybody wants to do it too badly—there’s always some kid whose hand rockets into the air before I’m even done explaining the job—I never pick them. I want people who are friendly and unsure of themselves and who look as if they can take some teasing. It never occurs to me to care what God they pray to—although, to be honest, if they’re wearing a Philadelphia Flyers jersey, forget it. I’m not perfect.
One day in August, I load eighteen tourists into the Rover and announce that my regular navigator has unfortunately been eaten by a crocodile (“We may actually see part of him in the pond a little later”) and ask if anyone would like to volunteer. The usual hands start waving. Everybody else starts poking around in their backpacks and handbags to avoid eye contact. One man, a slightly tubby, fiftysomething dad with a fanny pack is actively blushing. So I step up, hand him a headset, and say, “Please?” Dread passes over his face, but his children start chanting, “Do it, Abba! Do it!” and I know I’ve got him. He takes the headset and the tour group roars its approval, which causes him to blush even more deeply. Once he’s settled into the navigator’s seat, I ask him some questions for the crowd’s benefit.
“Hello, sir. What’s your name?”
“Tomer.”
“Excellent. You can call me Z. Where are you from?”
“Israel.”
“Very good. Tell me, Tomer, do you have any experience warding off lions, binding leg wounds, or making soup from tree bark?”
“No, I really don’t.”
“None at all?”
“It, uh—it hasn’t come up.”
“Okay, hopefully we can work around it. We’re going to pass over a pretty rickety bridge, though. How long can you hold your breath under water?”
“I don’t know how to swim.”
“Weird. Those were actually my regular navigator’s last words.”
“Seriously?”
“No, his last words were actually, ‘Help me, Z! Why are you driving away?!’ But you get the idea. Tomer, I don’t mean to be rude, but you seem really unqualified to be a navigator. I’m kinda surprised you volunteered.”
“My watch has a compass on it.”
“You know what? That’s good enough for me. Let’s hear it for Tomer, everybody!”
The crowd laughs and claps, Tomer’s kids louder than anyone, and we’re off.
• • •
Some version of that scene plays out every day at Rhino Rally, with every conceivable kind of person sitting in the navigator’s seat. It’s amazing how much you can learn about somebody when you survive the rain forest and the savannah together, when the bridge you’re crossing suddenly splits apart and your vehicle falls into the river and floats away on a raft of miraculous lifesaving logs. The flood of people, people, and people into my life is intoxicating. I walk around Busch Gardens with my head literally held higher because I know people who are not like me. I’ve got incontrovertible proof that my father raised me on lies. Bigotry is stupid. It only works if you never walk out your door.
During my breaks from Rhino Rally, I start hanging out at Busch Gardens’s Middle Eastern rock show, Moroccan Roll. (I’ve always loved the idea of being onstage. I got a part in a high school production of Bye Bye Birdie once, though Ahmed wouldn’t let me take it.) I go to the show so often, in fact, that I make friends with a Muslim trumpet player named Yamin. Through him I meet two dancers, Marc and Sean, w
ho are gay. I’m reticent around them at first. I have no experience with gay men and, I’m ashamed to admit it, I judge them. Because of what I’ve been taught, it’s like there’s a sign over their heads flashing the words BAD INFLUENCE! BAD INFLUENCE! Maybe they don’t notice that I’m standoffish. Maybe they pity me for my small-mindedness. Or maybe they’re just giving me a free pass because I’m friends with Yamin. In any case, they are nothing but genuine and nonjudgmental with me. They let me babble about Rhino Rally, they don’t laugh when I say I secretly love to sing, they try (and fail) to teach me a few dance moves. Their sheer niceness breaks me down. I’ve been bullied for so long that I’m a sucker for kindness.
It’s around this time that I come home in my Rhino Rally outfit one night and tell my mother that, despite all of my father’s and Ahmed’s proclamations, I’m going to try trusting the world. My mother has never made ugly comments about people, but she’s been subject to even more dogma than I have over the years. It’s now that she says those six words that I will build the rest of my life around: “I’m so sick of hating people.”
• • •
Then suddenly, amazingly, we are free of Ahmed. Even my mother is free. She doesn’t leave Ahmed in a fit of rage—she doesn’t tell him that he’s a hateful human being and that there’s no Muslim paradise waiting for him. She’s too weary, too beaten down for that. Still, leaving him at all is a triumph in my book. She packs up and returns to Pittsburgh to care for her own mother, who has had a series of brain aneurysms.