Chapter 1
The Weight of ''A'' Name
Early on, I came to see how much more weight a name may carry than a body.
Love is used when pronouncing some names.
Some with dignity. Mine was delivered as a warning. People's voices changed little when they said it,
as though they were encouraging themselves to remain cautious. At first, I did not understand why.
I only knew that silence came after my name entered a room.
I came from a family where blood took precedence over breath.
Where history was not written in books but rather carried in looks, scars, and unsaid conventions.
No one ever stopped me to tell me who we were. I was supposed to sense it.
To assimilate it like skin absorbs heat.
My first recollections are not of comfort or laughter. It is standing quite motionless.
Perhaps I was six or seven. I recall feeling chilly on the bare feet against the floor.
The room was quiet except for my breathing, which sounded too loud to me.
As the adults conversed, I stood right against the wall.
Maybe they just passed me or decided not to see me. Their voices were dark and deep.
Words like duty, family, and consequence floated slowly and heavily in the air.
Though I knew they were vital, I was unsure of their significance. Important enough that not one person smiled.
That was the day I learned listening was preferable to speaking.
More rules were added as I got older. A few were spoken. Most were not.
I learned here when to look under.
I learned when to keep silent.
I picked up fast face-reading abilities like other children learning to read books.
At school, teachers called my name. Some said it was normal. Still others considered just a bit.
The second stuck with me. It hunted me down. It followed me to sleep.
I inquired what my name could suggest. Before I was even born, whichstory had it been linked with?
At home, questions were not acceptable. People considered curiosity to be a sin.
She stared at me for a long time once, when I wondered aloud why everyone seemed so wary about us.
Her eyes were sharp but tired.
She observed, Since this family endures. There is a cost to survival as well.
She offered not much explanation. She was not obliged to.
Her attitude shut the door.
A more restrained man was my father. People noticed when he spoke, although he did not say much. As he stood, the room appeared to change around him.
Back up. She is still here. Eyes that
slowed down.
He never shared with me his vision for what he hoped I would become. He showed me others.
He demonstrated this by declining to pull back at any point. Never twice.
Refusing to explain his motivations. Seeing him evoked two opposing emotions in me immediately:
security and fear. I did not know those two feelings might coexist.
I wondered who I was supposed to be and stayed up late at night when the house finally became quiet.
I considered what I was supposed to do.
I considered the unseen line I could sense but not see.
Sometimes I unwittingly crossed it. A misdirected inquiry. A faulty tenor. A look that took too long.
The punishment was never deafening. It was consistently managed. An examination.
Silence. Distance. That was worse than yelling. They taught me to correct myself before anyone else had to.
Discipline dwelt inside me by the time I was a teenager.
I told myself things were not desired. Desiring was hazardous. Wanting caused disillusionment, and disillusionment led to weakness. My life did not include weakness.
But just because you refuse to call it does not mean that desire vanishes.
At first, I sensed it in small situations. A brief look at a life that seemed to have more freedom than mine.
Laughing did not come out forced.
The notion that somewhere, people picked their own paths free from bloodshed.
I kept these ideas to myself and did not voice them. I hardly let them into my own thoughts.
They still developed.
I came to see that as I got older, my life was already set up. Not particularly in depth, but in direction.
Paths I was allowed to travel and paths I was not allowed to.
The outlawed pathways were never detailed. They did not need to be.
Everyone knew where they were.
I sat alone in my room one evening holding an aged picture. It was clear-cut; the corners were worn.
A guy stood in the center, his countenance unreadable. He possessed my eyes. The same keen jaw line.
The same calm.
I knew his name, though I had never met him. It was regretted sometimes and said respectfully.
One of the reasons my name had weight was him.
For a long time, I gazed at the photograph.
I tried to see what he wanted. Not his work. Not the
things he gave up. Still, what he desired.
The concept seemed risky.
That was the first time I understood something crucial: nobody had ever asked me what I wanted.
Worse still, I had never questioned myself.
The planet swung about outside my window. Cars passed. People spent whole lifetimes unaware that mine existed. I pondered how it would feel to enter that world unfettered by history.
Staying worried me less than the notion did.
Blood grants you individuality. It gives you safety. It provides you with membership. It also ties you, though. Limited. Silent. Continent.
Desire, however, whispers. It offers warmth. It promises variety. It does not ensure safety.
I realized that evening that my life would be a compromise between these two forces.
I knew it clearly then, but I lacked the language for it.
Stay, blood was calling me.
Desire was prompting me to relocate.
And I was right in the middle, holding a name that never belonged only to me.
There was an evening. Among the others, I recall most vividly.
Not because of some noise incident. Not because blood was spilled. Still, I felt it when something inside me broke gently.
Fifteen years old, I was.
That evening, the house was packed. Too loaded. Like smoke, voices flew through the corridors thick and agitated. Men were close together, talking in half-sentences.
Women hung around the walls, listening without seeming to listen.
Stay in your room; I had been instructed. That in and of itself indicated something was amiss.
It was never for my safety that my family urged me to stay away.
They were shaping me, and some things were supposed to be learned later, when they thought I was ready to bear them.
Still, curiosity has the power of its own.
I opened my door only enough to view the hallway. Unorganized lines of light seeped over the floor.
I slipped out gently, barefoot, my pulse too rapid for the sluggish pace I drove onto my body.
Then I saw him.
Standing almost at the end of the corridor, he leaned against the wall as though he did not fit in the surrounding commotion.
Perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties, he was older than I.
Tall. Lean.
Still. Not his face or his stature captured my attention. His eyes were his best feature.
They remained steady in a place where there was no calm.
He saw me right away. I could tell because his eyes flicked, rapid and piercing, and fell on me like they had been waiting.
He did not seem shocked. He did not instruct me to go.
He merely observed.
We both stopped for a minute.
Then he opened his mouth. Gently. Almost lovingly.
You do not belong here.
His voice was low and constant. Not at all threatening. Not mad at all. Simply truth.
I remarked, "I know."
My voice fell shorter than I desired.
He concentrated on me for one more second. He seemed to be evaluating my consciousness rather
than my age or height or something else within me.
"You are his son," he retorted.
There was no uncertainty.
Yes.
His attitude changed something. No regard here. Not dread. Recognition.
He apologized and moved aside so I could get by.
That threw me even more out of whack than anything else could.
My shoulder brushed the wall as I passed him. The air changed as I went further within the house.
Like the space itself knew what was being said, it got heavier.
Hidden behind a door frame, I stopped close to the edge of the main room.
That was the time I heard my father's voice.
He stayed cool. Too quiet. The sort of peace that only results after choices have already been made.
"This ends tonight," he said.
Someone answered, louder, more emotionally. Though I heard terror in them, I struggled to make out the words.
I heard begs.
My father refrained from yelling.
He said, "It ought to have finished years ago.""Already paid was blood."
Blood.
The phrase dropped heavily on my chest.
I wanted to take a step back. I desired to depart. My body, however, was disregarded. I remained here.
That was the moment I realized something I had shunned until then: my family did not traffic in threats.
They specialized in conclusions.
I was ill. Not because I was surprised. Deep down, though, I knew this world was waiting for me.
Whether I liked it or not, it had always been a part of my future.
A hand contacted my shoulder.
I nearly leapt from my skin.
It was.
Hallway man.
He said softly, "You have seen enough."
I said, "I want to understand."
He gave me a close examination, then shook his head.
"Understanding does not come from watching," he stated. It comes from surviving.
He steered me toward the corridor once again. His hand was steady but not rough. It was under control.
Discipline.
I realized something else about him as we were walking. He moved like a person who knew where danger lay.
His strides were airy. His focus is broad.
"What is your name?" I inquired.
He stopped for a moment.
More than the response, that uncertainty revealed to me.
People refer to me as Kareem, he answered.
I never questioned his real name.
He stopped at my door. He stared at me, this time really staring.
"You think you want this life," he said."Since it is the only one you know."
I avoided replying.
"But there will come a day," he went on, "when you will want something else.
And that desire will hurt
more than anything else you witness tonight.
"Why do you let me know this?" I inquired.
He grinned, but it was not joyous.
"Since nobody told me."
He then turned away and faded back into the cacophony.
With my back against the door, I sank to the floor and closed it. My palms were trembling.
I squeezed them together until they stopped.
I stayed awake that evening.
I repeatedly heard my father's voice. I kept seeing Kareem's eyes. Unperturbed. Knowing. Weary.
The following morning, the residence was clean. Too pure.
The sort of clean aiming to obliterate memories.
Nobody discussed the incident. Nobody had to.
But something had shifted.
Kareem turned into a silent fixture in my life following that evening. He was never intrusive; he was always close.
He occasionally worked out with the others. Occasionally, he sat by himself, observing.
We hardly talked. But his words stayed with me after we did.
He taught me stuff without being a teacher.
He taught me that strength did not need noise.
That anxiety may be managed but not eliminated.
That devotion might seem like a cage.
Once, weeks later, I asked a question I had never posed to anybody.
"Do you sometimes wish you had decided differently?"
He gazed at me for a while.
"Every day," he stated. "And every day I live with what I picked instead."
That was the point at which I realized survival was not the same as freedom.
And those decisions taken well before I was born already permeated the path awaiting me.
That evening helped me to see that sometimes silence is more powerful than violence.
Nothing spectacular came afterward. None. Not any penalty. None evident.
The house kept breathing like it always did. But I felt like I was walking through it with a different body, one that no longer fit the space it lived in.
People talked to me like they always did, but I heard them differently. Instructions now rang anything but neutral.
Counsel sounded cold and indifferent now. Everything seemed like a work in progress.
Getting ready for a life I had not decided to live.
I observed my father's frequent viewing of me today. Not overtly. Not in a manner that encouraged dialogue.
This was the type of viewing that counts time, measures strength, and weight.
I felt like something was incomplete. He was waiting to finish.
My mother became worried about a more subdued shape. She wanted to know whether I slept sufficiently.
Should I eat right now?
Her hands rested on my shoulder longer than they had before. In this family, love was conveyed by concern rather than words.
And me—I was transforming in ways I did not yet totally understand.
I started to see my ideas. Not only what I believed, but also how often I stopped myself from believing specific things.
I had doubts that surfaced in my mind but died before I could articulate them. It took effort to keep them underground.
But work produces pressure. And tension begs release.
One late afternoon, the house was particularly empty, and I wandered outside without informing
anyone.
My feet carried me toward the edge of the property, where the ground dropped a little, and the walls felt less strong.
There, the air was chilly. Clearer. It felt untouched by regulations.
I stayed still and concentrated on my own breathing.
I let myself pose the question I had dodged for years for the first time.
What do I need?
Not immediately came the answer. That terrified me. Having lived so long without yearning for anything, the concept of wanting seemed odd, even terrible.
Slowly, painstakingly, something started to take shape.
I desired a selection.
Not strength. Not evade. Not vengeance. Only the capacity to choose, free of anxiety, what sort of man I should grow into.
That need's simplicity added weight to it.
Knowing how impossible it was helped me.
A branch broke behind me.
Turned, I did.
Hands resting on his sides, Kareem stood a few feet away. He appeared to have always been there, as though the earth itself had molded around him.
"You walk like someone who is lost," he remarked.
"I am aware precisely where I am," I answered.
With a little nod, he replied.
People tend to run into difficulties during that time.
We were quiet for a moment.
Our distance seemed deliberate, calculated. He was near enough to
Protect me, far enough to let me be alone if I request.
"Do you ever stop feeling it?" I abruptly questioned.
"Feeling what?"
I remarked, "The pull. The sensation that your life is already set."
He did not immediately respond.
His gaze turned to the horizon, as though he were looking for
something that used to be present.
At last, he answered, "No. You only learn how to carry it."
I noted, "That is not equivalent. "
"No," he concurred. It is not.
I faced him.
"Then why does everyone pretend it is?"
That query crossed a boundary.
The instant I talked, I knew. Like a knot at last realizing it existed, something within me tightened then loosened.
Kareem's visage turned somber. Not in rage. Acknowledged.
He added, "because admitting the truth would mean admitting loss.""And this family finds no value in loss. Just sacrifice.
I said, "And what is the difference?"
He shot me a hard gaze.
"Sacrifice is selected," he stated."Loss results from your lack of choice."
The words came to me gradually, painfully.
"Did you select?" I questioned.
He looked at me.
"Yes," he responded. "And that is what torments me."
We strolled back toward the house together, but something had changed.
Now, not in location but in understanding, the distance between us felt less.
I could not get to sleep that night.
I rested on my back, gazing up at the ceiling and listening to the faint sounds of the house's activity.
Every noise seemed heightened. One door is shutting. Footfalls. Somewhere far away, a voice whispers.
I thought of my life as a straight line going forward, already drawn and inked. Step by step, I pictured myself walking it, never doubting the course.
The picture caused my chest to shrink.
Then I thought about stepping off the line.
The apprehension was instant. Intense.
Is it tangible?
But something else was lying beneath it.
Relieve.
More than anything else, that knowledge scared me.
I then came to see that my longing was not theoretical anymore.
It was no longer about invention or inquiry. It had become connected to my future. It had started to form.
Furthermore, once formed, desire cannot be disregarded.
My father summoned me into his study the following morning.
The room smelled of control and ancient paper. He was sitting behind his desk with his hands folded, and his posture was perfect. He did not request me to sit. He was not required to.
"You are getting bigger," he remarked.
"Yes," I answered.
He went on, "It is time you learn more about who we are."Regarding what you are meant to do.
I waited.
He added, "There will be times when you will want something else. When you believe there is more to see in the outside world than inside these walls.
He kept his eyes on me.
"You have to learn to kill that feeling before it grows," he advised. It will make you weak.
Inside me, something went very still.
"Yes," I responded.
The term emerged naturally, too quickly.
I knew something permanent had changed as I exited the room.
Not because I had given a false statement.
But I had come to understand I could.
Once more, I stood alone that evening, gazing at the sunset behind the walls that raised me.
I experienced aging beyond my years, sharper. Not quite innocent anymore.
Blood had provided me with direction.
Desire had made me aware.
And knowledge is the first step in rebellion.
I did not arrange an invasion. I did not dream about a flight. I just embraced a truth I could no longer reject:
I will pick myself one day.
That decision still has not been made.
But it was waiting.
And it would demand blood.