Category: Autobiography

Life writing. Autobiography. OU assignment. 1500 words short story

‘If a man does away with his traditional way of living and throws away his good customs, he had better first make certain that he has something of value to replace them’, by Robert Ruark.

The adult males of Damascus during the nineties followed a ritual that had endured the shifts and the schisms of the ancient world for millennia. They woke up, shaved their beards, curled up their handlebar moustaches, drank the cardamom-enriched black coffee that the females in their lives meticulously made for them every day, then shat before leaving their domestic environs enforcing their hairy wills, that they inherited from their forefathers and their despots, on the rest of us.

As a first son, I was never seen as a teenager. I was the person who would inherit the will of the family, the will of the Mahassen. So when I finally had my first wet dream, I was deemed ready for the title of a man. But to be rewarded with such an honour, I had to take care of a fluffy sheep for a month before slaughtering it with the same hands that fed it, celebrating the humble festivities of Ramadan.

Thus, by the time I became a man, I had corroborated and assimilated the wills of my despots, shedding away layers of myself into the corners of the dejected and the artists, earning me a stigma that still accompanies me to this day.

It was in seventh grade when I first discovered them: the physical symptoms of manhood: a creeping wisp of hair on top of my upper lip and a voice like a radio searching for its identity, moving from one channel to another, oscillating between a shriek and a bass in confusion. Being the tallest in the class had earned me the honour of sitting at the very back seat usually reserved for the unwilling and the nasty. I sat alone in desks stacked with four and a class hoarded with sixty kids. The classes were mixed. I mean, the classrooms were allowed to have both boys and girls, as was befitting of a liberal Christian private school. We didn’t sit at the same desks, of course. The class was split into three lanes, two of which were crowded with boys.

The day I broke free was the day our Islamic studies teacher discussed with us a taboo, a forbidden and shameful topic that was excluded from our curriculum.

‘Want is human’, I remember her preaching, ‘what we do with it is what distinguishes us from animals. Soon, something will wake up in you, some sort of a rage. It is alright to feel enraged, of course, but it is uncivilised to hit other people.’ Her statement was met with utter silence that she interpreted as confusion.

‘Listen, soon you will start having happy dreams about the other gender. When that happens, you are no longer a child.’ She paused again, trying to read the room. But having experienced that already, I stood up and spouted blatantly with a confident bass:

‘It happened to me last week!’

The room, of course, exploded with laughter.

1996 was the year of a very successful debut: an advent that took hold of the ancient dry canvas of the Middle Eastern youth, burning it to cinders, dragging American culture forcibly into our dilapidated schools. 1996 was the year of the Backstreet Boys:

Clean-shaven boys who lithely swayed and twisted, satisfying the beats of the drums in response to what seemed to me to be their rage.

With their advent, I decided it was time to become my own person. I shaved my moustache, got a Walkman, and did the daringest thing I have ever done: I bought some gel and other hair products. Then I went to the barber and asked him to give me a Spiky haircut. He looked at me and said:

‘Spy what?’

‘Zero on the sides and the back. Two in the middle. Three at the front.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Never been surer.’

‘Did you ask your father?’

‘Don’t worry about that.’

‘Just trying to be thoughtful.’

‘I know. Thanks.’

And so, I spent the winter break of 1996 figuring my new self out. And figure it I did. Oh, how glorious. My younger brother, owe struck, was proud of the person I became: a modern, supple, western-looking, rebelling youth of the ancient city. But as the barber foretold it, my father sneered at me. He expressed his refusal and his indifference to the worldly subject of looks by lowering his reading glasses for a second before going back to reading his veritable books about the Crusades, Machiavelli, the Italian Renaissance, Islamic decadence, or the Baath Party influence, or a book that talked about all of that at the same time. With my despot out of the picture, all was set for my revival.

My body still vividly reverberates with the memory of the first day of the new me.

I wake up early, as usual, but instead of dragging myself out of bed, I jump to the bathroom and start working on my hair. I finish my rituals and leave my house at 06:30 AM. It is still dark. It was snowing during the night. I put on my school uniform: a kaki-coloured military suit possibly borrowed from the Red Army, but I skip the beret.

I notice several pigeons huddled on the fence next to the bus stop. I approach them. They ruffle a little at first, but as I get closer, they become more violent. A couple flies away, but two flaps still hysterically before falling on the asphalt. Frostbite. Their stiff claws got frozen on the fence during the night. They might live, but they will lose a leg or two. I don’t have time to pick them up because the bus has just arrived and I am unwilling to miss it.

I am the eldest, so the back seat is reserved for me. I notice the elementary-level kids looking at me and my hair. I puff up and take my time walking down towards my seat. One hour and a half later, I reach school. I know it is very far, but that is the price my parents were willing for me to pay to get a private education. 

At the main gate, I am greeted by the gatekeeper, Mansour.

‘Hey, you,’ He snarls at me. 

‘Good morning, Mr. Mansour,’ I reply, heading inside.

‘Stop!’ He announces, blocking my path.

‘Who? Me?’

‘Yes, you. You are not allowed to enter.’

‘Not allowed to enter!’ I repeat, laughing, trying to twirl around him and step inside. But to my surprise, he snaps his fist at my coat, twisting the collar firmly with his thick, anvil-looking grip. 

‘Let go of me.’

‘Where do you think you are?’

‘What is this all about, Mansour?’

‘You are not allowed to get inside looking like that!’

‘It is not up to you to decide.’

‘I am here to protect the school.’

‘From what, you brute? It seems that I need protection from you. Let go of me before I get you into trouble.’

At that moment, the deputy dean, a government-assigned official whose contribution to the school was so marginal and unnecessary that his name eludes me to this day, hears us.

‘What seems to be the problem?’ Asks the unnamed official.

‘This kid. Look at him!’

The deputy languidly looks at me with soggy eyes and waves his chubby little fingers. ‘This is not the look of a comrade. It seems your parents failed. You look like a wimp. Go back home.’

Emboldened by the mention of my parents, I retort, ‘Me? A wimp? Wait till my father hears of this. I will leave now, but you better be prepared for what will come.’

‘Wait,’ lashes the official. ‘Pray. Dear, what does your father do?’

Having felt his change in tone and reluctance, I raise my voice and spell my syllables one by one: ‘non-of-your-damn-buz-ness.’

Confrontations and shouting attract people like a moth. And huge gatherings attract the eyes of predators.

‘Assaad, come here, boy,’ a booming voice echoes through the corridor, splitting the crowds and clearing the path between me and the school’s real dean, Fouad Y.

Let me tell you a little bit about Fouad. Education and pedagogical qualifications were not enough barriers to hinder his career. His will and connections allowed him to secure the vote of the Patriarch of the Roman Orthodox church in Damascus, eliminating all competition and securing him the seat of the dean for one of the most prestigious schools. However, to compensate for his lack of educational background in running the business, he wore a white lab coat, hiding his lack of academic understanding. His manufactured liberal persona gave him room for some aesthetic divergence: His slick hair was drenched with castor oil and filled the school with a petroleum smell.

‘My name is Refaat, sir.’

‘I know, Assaad. Come here, boy.’

‘Ok, sir,’ I say, approaching him, ‘but my name…’ My sentence is interrupted by a sharp whistle that lands on my frozen ears.

‘Don’t talk back to me, boy.’

As the heat of the slap spreads into my cheeks, I feel his hand gripping the back side of my collar and dragging me towards the school’s playground. I try to resist, but both Mansour and the official help restrain my movement.

‘Take him to the sink!’ Fouad snorts.

In the middle of the schoolyard, right in the open, on a frozen morning in January, on the day I decided to become a man, my divergent persona got washed away by despots.

Next year, I dyed my hair blue.