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Sean and Sammy... |
Cleveland 1985 "Do you really want to know? If you really want to know, I'll tell you." Sammy propped himself up on an elbow and turned to face Sean as they lay on the mattress in Sammy's cramped bedroom sharing a post- fuck Camel along with conversation. White glow from the flickering streetlight outside the room's only window illuminated the strong features of his face, making sharp angles sharper still, the dark eyes more intense, the thick brows even more prominent. A light summer breeze blew in, offering a moment's relief from the room's general stuffiness and causing the sheer curtains to flutter softly as Sammy continued. "I will tell you, but I must tell you this also: You will not like this story." Sean was quickly learning that Sammy had what could best be described as a flair for the dramatic at times, but this seemed different. The look in his eyes was serious, his tone somber. He took a long drag of the Camel before he quietly spoke. "He was a Spaniard. I was almost sixteen, and he was...older. A little older, we will leave it at that, okay?" He used his thumb and forefinger to visualize to Sean how trivial the age difference was, leaving no more than an inch of empty space between the digits. Sean was unconvinced, but said nothing. " I met him in the souk where you could buy anything you wanted. Anything, and I know you are understanding me. Anything one may desire to buy was for sale. It was never discussed of course, never at all, but you knew. You just knew. Many places in the States are like this as well, no?" He didn't wait for a reply. "Of course they are! But I am getting ahead of myself here. Let me go back a bit, not too long before this day, back to the day my father went to sleep for the last time. He was a fisherman, and an unhappy man, Sean. Very unhappy. Even smoking kif could not make him smile anymore. How could that be?" Sammy asked this question in earnest, eyes wide and mouth open in disbelief. His awakening was years away and at this point in time, he was still an unabashed propronent of mood altering substances. He went on slowly, reaching into the stash he kept in the little nightstand next to his bed and pulling out a joint, then sparking it up and inhaling deeply, smiling widely as if to prove his point. But his eyes weren't smiling, Sean noted. "All the yelling! My mother would cry and order us, me and Hasan and my sister Aminah, my little Aminah, my mother would call out to the three of us, "Run to the roof and stay there!". So we would take our pillows and sheets and creep up there quietly so all the neighbors wouldn't see us and tell us to come down, and Sean, I know what happened down there. I know. I saw marks, bruises, bumps. And I hated him. I know that seems wrong, but it is true. I grew to truly hate him. And let me tell you, we were so small when it first began. I was no more than ten or eleven when it started to get really ugly. So ugly. But I could do nothing to stop it. And I had to protect the others, too. Hasan and Aminah were tiny, so little. Bebes almost. Sometimes we couldn't come down for minutes, sometimes hours." He closed his eyes and there the three of them appeared- little brown bodies clad in loose white cotton, three sets of knobby knees and bony elbows, three pairs of dark, frightened eyes. He swore he could almost smell the Mediterranean Sea, feel the salty breeze cooling his skin as they lay huddled together under the vast, starlit African sky. He missed this more than anything else about his homeland- the immense, beautiful clear skies at night. You could almost see heaven, he once told Sean. Heaven. Sometimes he ached to feel hot sand under his bare feet, to sit by the water and lose himself under the inky blackness above. Can we see it together?, Sean had asked at the time. Sammy assured him that yes, of course they would. Some day. One day. "I prayed he would go away, Sean." They were sitting up now, cross- legged and facing one another in the dark. "And then late one night, after a particularly long rooftop visit, he died. His heart gave out, the doctor told us. He went peacefully in his sleep, which, if you ask me, was more than he deserved." He sighed heavily. "No, I don't mean that...perhaps I'm being too harsh." The weed was kicking in, making Sammy's eyelids heavy and hooded in the darkness, softening the sharp edges of his memories. "So, we have a mother still, that is good, no? But there were times when we went hungry. I have felt an empty stomach and it is bad, very bad. So now we are back at the souk. I have no dirhams, nothing. But I am fifteen and I know there are foreigners looking for me. Well, not me, exactly, but you understand what I'm saying, eh?". Sean nodded, transfixed. Horrified. He had done this. He had asked Sammy about his first time on many different occasions but had never gotten a real answer, just some vague responses, sexually charged witticisms, and a lot of skirting around the issue. But Sean Doyle was nothing if not tenacious and refused to let Sammy off the hook so easy. Now he wished he had, because he couldn't bear to hear, or more accurately, wasn't sure he could handle, what he knew was coming next in this tale. "He was a Spaniard. Our countries were so close they could kiss. That is what he told me after we started chatting. "So close they could kiss." He was a businessman from a little village along the Sea, he said. Exporting. Now I will tell you, I knew what he was exporting from the Rif. You know, too." He eyed the joint in his hand and Sean nodded. "Very big business. Lots of profit. So we walk together and soon he asks me, are you hungry? You look hungry. I am not in a position to be too proud, so I tell him, yes I am. And I find myself telling him about my father being gone and my mother and Hasan and little Aminah, as well. I will help, he says. And I can tell he's hungry, too. But he's hungry for something other than food, if you understand what I'm saying." Sammy didn't want to add that he, too, was hungry that day. Not exactly in the same way as this dark stranger from across the Sea, no. He was hungry for a warm touch, affection. Now he was up on his feet, naked and staring out the window. He didn't want to see Sean's face as the words starting pouring out like a water fall. "We shopped and I picked out exactly what we needed: meats and vegetables, sweet dates for Hasan and Aminah. We walked together and I ran upstairs and my mother was so happy and I was proud to be such a good provider, too. I told her I helped a fisherman, that's how all this food came to be. She was very proud of me.The Spaniard waited outside for me and you know, Sean, I didn't have to go back down there. What could he have done, really? He was not acting appropriately. How would he have explained our situation to anyone? A stranger buying food for a young boy, a man from another country hanging around the souks. We know why many of them are there. Not all of them, of course, but enough of them. But I went downstairs, as I had promised him I would, and we walked to his apartment, and it was impressive. Beautifully decorated, plush and expensive. I stayed there that night and he stuffed me full of delicious lamb and later, he asked me to come into his bed, and I did. He just watched me for a long time, looked at me in a way no one had ever looked at me before. Like I was precious, a rare gem. He held me close to him that night, all night. That's all. And I slept like a baby. Crazy, no?" They were silent for a moment before Sammy spoke again, his voice low. "Do you think less of me?" Sean stood behind him now, his arms wrapping tightly around his shoulders. He pictured Sammy at fifteen, small and and scared and hungry, and the aching in his heart was palpable. He remembered the word he heard Sammy murmur softly to him under his breath as they lay side by side the last time they were together, the word he actually went to the library to look up in an Arabic dictionary, that's how curious he was to know its' meaning. He knew Sammy thought he was already sleeping, but he wasn't, and he had felt his fingers lightly stroke his cheek that night, and he'd heard what Sammy had called him. "Habibi...", was all Sean said as he pulled Sammy even closer to him. They stood together, quiet in the darkness of the warm Cleveland night. |