You Changed My Life

by Abdel Sellou

  Early on, I stopped going with my parents on their Sunday outings to the Tuileries, the Jardin des Plantes, or the Vincennes zoo. On Sunday afternoon, I’d doze in front of Starsky & Hutch until Yacine or Nordine or Brahim came by to pick me up. We went down to the slab, sort of looked for something to do—a new idea to put into practice.

  The shopping center was closed on the Lord’s Day. Not convenient for purchases. Then again . . . what was stopping us from going in? That metal door there, it leads into the store, doesn’t it? After all, what do we risk?

  Nothing.

  I could prove it.

  In the Go Sport store, next to the dressing rooms, there’s a door with a little sign over it. It says “Emergency Exit” in white letters on a green background. When a seller has to go and get something that isn’t on the shelf, he goes through that door and comes back with the piece of clothing in question. I figured out two things from seeing this: first, that behind that door was all of the stock, and second, that the stockroom offered an exit onto the street. Even that idiot Inspector Gadget could have figured this out by himself.

  So the issue here is right in front of us: it’s a metal door like the ones I’ve seen at the movie theater exits. Perfectly smooth on the inside, with no visible handle because it has no lock, it’s opened from the inside by pushing down on a large, horizontal metal bar. This way, in case of fire, even if dozens of people rush toward it at the same time, they just need to push for it to give way. Go, go, Gadget, chisel: I unblock the opening and wedge my foot in the crack, Yacine pulls hard on the door, and we slip into Ali Baba’s cavern.

  But wait a minute, what kind of door did we just come through? I’ve never seen one like this. Whatever, we’re not here to see the sights. I tuck the chisel into my jacket pocket, and we start checking out what’s available. Most of it is still folded and wrapped up in plastic, which makes it hard to tell if we like it and if it’s the right size. Yacine gets lucky.

  “Abdel! Check out these pants! Super cool!”

  I raise my eyes toward my friend standing in front of me. The jeans do look cool. The German shepherd baring its teeth right behind him, not so much. My eyes move up the length of its leash, hanging from a wrist almost as hairy as the dog. I keep going and reach a square head topped with a cap. SECURITY. So there’s no doubt.

  The guard grabs Yacine by the collar.

  “This way, both of you.”

  “But sir, we didn’t do anything!”

  “Shut up!”

  He leads us out of the storeroom by a little door on the shopping center side this time, and locks us in the employee bathroom. Click, clack—it’s locked from the outside! I laugh hysterically.

  “Yacine, did you see that? They’re way smart! They planned to use the toilets as a holding cell for thieves caught in the act. Is that space optimization or what?!”

  “Stop laughing, we’re really screwed.”

  “No we aren’t, and why? We didn’t take anything!”

  “Because we didn’t have time. And we still broke in.”

  “Who broke in? You? Did you bust that door, Yacine? Of course not, and neither did I! The door was open, and we just walked in!”

  With these words, I lift the toilet lid and drop in the chisel.

  A few minutes later, the guard comes back with two cops. We give them our version of the story. Not stupid, but unable to prove anything whatsoever, the guard lets the cops go and takes us back out the way we came in.

  “FYI, guys, this door is an alarm. When you walk through it, it triggers a red light in the surveillance room.”

  I pretend to be awestruck in the presence of this new miracle of technology.

  “Wow, that’s great. That thing must be very useful.”

  “Very.”

  The metal door slams behind us. We go back and find the others on the slab, dying laughing.

  My biggest job, in terms of volume, was before I was ten. I swiped a go-kart at the Train Bleu toy store in the Beaugrenelle shopping center. A real electric car—you could even sit in it! I can still see myself, balancing that bad boy on my head, racing down the steps with the manager on my heels.

  “Stop, thief, stop!”

  The thing was worth a fortune.

  A lot of us tried it out on the slab afterward. It didn’t run very smoothly. Honestly, it wasn’t worth the money.

  6

  The die was cast. I couldn’t change now. At twelve, there wasn’t the slightest chance of me suddenly becoming the model citizen that society was hoping for. All the other boys from the project, without exception, had taken the same road as me and weren’t turning back. You’d have had to take away our freedom, everything we had, take us away from each other, maybe, and still . . . nothing would have worked. You would have had to totally reprogram us, like when you erase the hard drive on a computer and reinstall the operating system. But we aren’t machines and nobody would have used the same weapon we used—strength, no laws, no limits.

  Early on, we understood how things worked. In Paris, in the Villiers-le-Bel suburb, or in Saint-Troufignon-de-la-Creuse, it was the same combat: wherever we lived, we were the wild animals against the civilized people of France. We didn’t even have to fight to keep our privileges because, in the eyes of the law, we were like children, no matter what we did. Here a child is considered irresponsible by definition. We find any and every excuse for him. Overprotected, not protected enough, too spoiled, poor . . . As for me, I claim “trauma by abandonment.”

  Now in seventh grade at Guillaume Apollinaire junior high in the XVth district, I had my first visit to the psychologist. The school psychologist, obviously. He wanted to meet me in person, having been alerted by a transcript already full of suspension notices and unflattering evaluations from teachers.

  “Abdel, you don’t live with your real parents, correct?”

  “I live with my uncle and aunt. But they’re my parents now.”

  “They’ve been your parents since your real parents abandoned you, correct?”

  “They didn’t abandon me.”

  “Abdel, when parents stop caring for their child, they abandon him, correct?”

  He better stop with the “correct” . . .

  “I’m telling you they didn’t abandon me. They gave me to other parents, that’s all.”

  “That’s called abandonment.”

  “Not where I come from. Where I come from, it’s normal.”

  A sigh from the psychologist in response to my stubbornness. I soften up a bit so he’ll let me go.

  “Mr. Psychologist, don’t worry about me. Everything’s fine. I’m not traumatized.”

  “But yes, Abdel, you are, you obviously are!”

  “If you say so . . .”

  What’s for sure is that we all live recklessly, we kids from the projects. There was never any sign strong enough to let us know we were headed down the wrong path. The parents didn’t say anything because they didn’t know what to say, because even if they didn’t approve of our attitude, they were incapable of straightening us out. Most North African and African children experience things as they come, no matter how dangerous they might be. That’s the way it is.

  The lessons were only heard, not learned.

  “You’re heading down a dangerous road, young man!” warned the teacher, the store manager, the police officer who caught us for the third time in two weeks.

  What did they all expect? That we’d cry out in fear, Oh God, I’ve done a bad thing, what came over me, I’m ruining my future! The future was a foreign concept, impossible to imagine. We didn’t think about time, or plan for the things we’d do and those we’d try to avoid. We were indifferent to everything.

  “Abdel Yamine, Abdel Ghany, boys, come and see. You’ve got a letter from Algeria.”

  We didn’t even bother to tell Amina that we didn’t care. The letter sat on the radiator in the hallway until Belkacem found it and decided to open it. He gave us a meek summary.

  “I
t’s your mother. She asks how you are and if school is going well, if you have friends.”

  I burst out laughing.

  “If I have friends? Papa, what do you think about that?”

  We were obliged to go to junior high, so we went occasionally. We got there late, talked loudly in class, helped ourselves to jackets, pencil cases, book bags. We did it for fun. Everything was for laughs. The fear we saw in the others’ faces excited us just like a gazelle’s taking off excites a lion. Chasing an easy target wasn’t fun. To see them hesitate, though, to see the signs that they’d realized the danger, to listen to them try to get away, to let them think we meant well before attacking . . . we were merciless.

  I got a hamster. A girl at school, where I was now in eighth grade, gave it to me (against her better judgment, but nobody else wanted it). Poor thing, she’d spent all her pocket money to buy herself a friend, and when she started to take it home, she was suddenly afraid of getting in trouble . . .

  “I shouldn’t have bought it. My dad has always said he doesn’t want animals in the apartment . . .”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll find him a new home.”

  This little rat’s funny. It nibbles on its cookie without complaining, it drinks, it sleeps, and it pees. My math notebook is soaked with it. For several days, I carry it around in my backpack. In class, it behaves better than me and when it decides to make noise, my friends cover for it: they squeak really well, too. The teacher is surprised.

  “Yacine, did you get your hand stuck in the zipper of your pencil case?”

  “Sorry, ma’am, it’s not my hand, and it really hurts!”

  Explosive laughter in the classroom. Even the little rich kids from the XVth appreciate our stunts. Everybody knows the real source of the strange noises coming from my bag, but nobody tells. Vanessa—that girl again—is a softie and worries about the hamster. She comes to see me at recess.

  “Abdel, give it to me. I’ll take good care of it.”

  “Honey, an animal like this costs money.”

  Extorting funds didn’t work out for me the first time, so I’m looking to get my revenge.

  “Too bad. Keep your hamster then.”

  Crap, she didn’t bite, that bitch! I come up with a devilish idea: to sell her the animal—in pieces.

  “Hey, Vanessa, I’m thinking of cutting off one of its paws tonight at the slab, to see if it can run afterward. Want to come see?”

  Her blue eyes roll around in their sockets like my underwear does in the washing machine.

  “Are you nuts? You’re not really going to do that?”

  “It’s mine. It’s my business.”

  Okay. I’ll buy it for ten francs. I’ll bring them tomorrow. Don’t hurt it, okay?

  “Sounds good.”

  The next day, Vanessa is holding the little round coin in the palm of her hand.

  “Abdel, I’ll give it to you but I want to see the hamster first.”

  I open my backpack, she hands me the money.

  “Okay, give it to me.”

  “Oh no, Vanessa! The ten francs is just for the first paw. If you want another, that’ll be ten more!”

  She brings the money to my building that evening.

  “Give me the hamster now. That’s enough!”

  “Hey sweets, my hamster has four paws . . . But I’ll give you the last two for fifteen, you’re getting a deal . . .”

  “Abdel, you’re a real bastard! Fine, give me the hamster and I’ll pay you at school on Thursday.”

  “Vanessa, I’m not sure I can trust you . . .”

  She’s crimson with anger. So am I, from laughing. I hand her the stinky little furball and watch her walk away. I never would have harmed a hair on that hamster. It died a few weeks later in its five-star cage at her house. She didn’t even know how to take good care of it.

  From junior high, I was transferred to a vocational school in the XIIIth district, the general mechanics branch. It’s called Lycée Chennevière-Malézieux. On the first day, the associate principal gives us a history lesson, and at the same time, a nice little life lesson.

  “André Chennevière and Louis Malézieux were two ardent defenders of France at the time of the German occupation during the Second World War. You are lucky to live in a prosperous and peaceful country. You’ll only need to fight to shape your future. I encourage you to use the same courage as Chennevière and Malézieux in learning your trade.”

  Got it. Like those two dudes, I’m going to join the Resistance. I never had any intention of getting my hands dirty. I’m fourteen, no goals to attain, just my freedom to preserve. Two more years to go and they’ll have to let me go. After sixteen, school is no longer mandatory in France. But I know that even before then, they will cut us loose.

  I have nothing in common with the herd they want me to graze with. What was that story already that the French teacher told us last year? The sheep of Panurge—that’s it! The guy throws one into the sea, and the rest follow. In this pathetic herd, all the students look like sheep. You have to see it. The empty stare, three vocabulary words at most, one idea per year. They’ve repeated once, twice, sometimes three times. They convinced someone that they were hanging on, eyeing graduation, university, and all the other bullshit. They have basic instincts: to eat and to fuck—there’s no other word for it because it’s the one they say to each other all day.

  Three pitiful girls have ended up here, in this class of degenerates. At least one of them will find herself in the position, more than once, and under more than just one of them . . . I have my faults, but that kind of violence isn’t one of them. Thanks, guys, but no thanks. I play elsewhere, and at other games.

  7

  We were restless at Beaugrenelle towers. The stores were starting to get seriously equipped in anticipation of our visits: motion detectors, more sophisticated antitheft devices, security cameras, personnel trained to be on the lookout for certain kinds of customers . . . In less than two years, the security had increased so much in stores that we could no longer steal from the source. We either had to give up on the hooded sweatshirts that suited us so well or else go get them somewhere else . . . directly from the wearers, the kids from the rich neighborhoods. The reasoning doesn’t lack logic or cynicism, I can admit it now. At the time, I didn’t register anything. Once again, I was absolutely incapable of putting myself in another person’s shoes. I didn’t try; that didn’t even occur to me. If anyone had asked me about the suffering of the adolescent who just got mugged, I would have just laughed. Because nothing was serious to me and nothing was serious to the others, especially not the white kids born with silver spoons in their mouths.

  Starting in junior high, parents stopped walking their children to the school entrance. As soon as they left their apartment door, the kids became easy prey. We’d see one, all decked out, and we’d be on him in twos or threes, surrounding him on the sidewalk and walking in the same direction as though we were going to school together, as friends. Other people passed us and didn’t notice anything strange. I think they even must have thought they were witness to something remarkable: So this little communicant is friendly with two Arabs! This boy from a good family has the strength of heart not to reject these boys hardened by a life that’s obviously very unstable . . . They didn’t hear the conversation going on between us.

  “Your shoes, what number?”

  “You mean what size? Why do you want to know?”

  “Answer!”

  “Size forty.”

  “Forty, perfect! Exactly what I need. Give them to me.”

  “Well, no, I’m not going to go to school in socks, for God’s sake!”

  “I have a cutter in my pocket. You wouldn’t want to stain your nice blue sweater with nasty little red drops, would you? Sit down here!”

  I’d point to a bench, a step, the entrance to a store not yet open.

  “Go on, undo the laces, and make it fast!”

  I’d slide the Nikes into my bag and leave wit
h Yacine, who, wearing a size 42, had a harder time dressing himself by way of the little junior high schoolers.

  Sometimes we did use the cutter. But on the jacket, just on the surface, never on skin. We sometimes had to hit. With our fists and feet. That’s when the guy didn’t give up easy. We thought that was a really stupid reaction. For a pair of shoes, seriously . . . I got caught a few times. Spent an hour or two down at the station and went home just like nothing had happened. The police in France are far from being as terrible as they are in the movies. I never got the yellow pages thrown in my face, not even a tiny slap. They don’t hit kids in France; it just isn’t done. There was no hitting at Belkacem and Amina’s, either. I remember the screams from certain neighbors: those of the son howling from pain when the father whipped his back, of the mother screaming for her son’s torture session to be over. I remember Mouloud, Kofi, Sékou, they got their fair share. You couldn’t slap them too hard on the shoulder for days after and you definitely couldn’t bring it up, couldn’t say that you’d heard and understood what went on. Nothing happened. By the way, nothing ever changed. Life before the whip was just like life after the whip. Mouloud, Kofi, and Sékou still kept their spots down at the entrance or on the slab, and they still ran as fast.

  I take precautions. I get far away from the XVth. Line 10 to Charles-Michel, change at Odéon, and then get off at Châtelet-Les-Halles. It’s a melting pot here. Blacks and Arabs, mostly. Some of them think they’re American. They stuff themselves with hamburgers to have the same build as breakdancers. You can hear them coming a mile away, ghetto blasters booming on their shoulders. A baseball cap slapped on their head, but turned backward, and they wear pants as big as they can find. They set down the blaster, turn the volume up, and start to move. They put on their show and the volume covers the sound of negotiations.