IA: Initiate (2 page)

NAZ

One
such young man, a thirteen-year-old, living in Marshal Park, Section 31, on the corner of Wessen and Smith, is stirring as our story begins. He has actually been awake for a while now, drifting and rolling with each familiar and unfamiliar sound as a fighter would roll with each punch. He couldn’t recall ever boxing before but remembered someone giving him this advice. "Just roll with the punches and you’ll be OK, kid." He figured he had been at least that, OK.

He turned a bit to see the streetlights in the smoky distance through his open window. He slept off and on throughout the night. Between the colloquial rhythms, the mixture of smells, and the light coming in from the outside that kept his room dimly lit, it was no wonder why. It was either that or close the window and suffer the still, stagnant heat of the ninety-degree night. In his view he simply chose the lesser of two evils, but the next night that could change.

He heard footsteps then turned his head slightly to the door to see his mother’s hand, and then arm slide through the barely opened door and flip up the light switch. This caused his eyes to shut immediately. He wasn’t sure if it was the light or his anticipation of the light that caused him to close his eyes. A split second later he heard a calm, but authoritative, voice say, “Wake up, baby.”

He instinctively sat up, rubbed his closed eyes, and dreaded opening them. He only now appreciated his drifting and rolling. “I’m up, Ma,” he replied and waited for the customary “
get up now
” from her, which usually followed. It was a verbal morning dance that had become commonplace, but the response never came.

Something was unusual this morning—a bit off. Maybe he was sick. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe he didn’t get enough sleep. It was, the first day of school, but he had had first days of school before. But this was the first day at a new school.
Yes,
he thought,
that’s it,
and he opened his eyes.
She doesn’t wanna put too much pressure on me. How nice of Momma
, he thought.

He was amazed at the difference the light caused in his room compared to the light that had shone through the night. His mind wondered about all the different shades in the world between dark and light, black and white, and wrong and right
. Could it be like that with all things?
he wondered. He heard somewhere that the world was full of different shades of gray. But he also heard the exact opposite—that there were no shades, only black and white, especially when it came to wrong and right.
It’s all so confusing … which makes it good to be a kid and not have to worry about those things
, he thought. “But I am worrying about it,” he said aloud, shaking his head as if to come to his senses.

Eyes adjusted to the light, he jumped up from his bed since he didn’t want to take advantage of his mother’s kindness or incur her wrath. Just before he walked out of his bedroom, he noticed how empty and plain his room was and then he turned off his light. It wasn’t always that way, but now there was nothing on his nightstand, save a Bible. There was nothing on his dresser. And with the exception of a certificate from the Department of Health Vital Records, there was nothing on his walls, no plaques, no posters, not even a picture or painting. But he knew it had to be that way because of his problem.

That’s what they call it … a problem.
It isn’t a problem for me
, he thought.
I never hurt myself or anyone else when I was sleepwalking. I may have broken a few things, but they were my things.
“That’s right, my things,” he said, feeling a little irritable.
They were things that I earned, won, or traded-up for at school or in the Exclave,
he thought. “My things,” he said again out loud, and even louder this time as if to sound off to someone who might be listening. But there was no one.

There was a strange silence—an awkward silence that punctuated this strange Tuesday morning.

If he kept this up, he realized he would call into play another problem, so he tried to calm himself. He entered the bathroom and flipped on the light. Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about his empty room with no chess set on his dresser, no dart game or calendar on his wall, no guitar leaning against his closet door, not even an alarm clock on his nightstand.
What teenager doesn’t have a clock on their nightstand?
he thought.
Why would Momma do this? I guess it makes sense
.
She must have her reasons. Momma never does anything unless she figures she has a good reason. A good reason is more important to Momma than right or wrong.

He stood in front of the sink, turned on the water, and looked into the mirror with a blank stare. He noticed that three hairs had begun to grow on his chin, and he smiled. He never thought much of himself. He didn’t see himself as special in any way. He saw himself as an average kid. He wasn’t too dark or too light, but right in the middle, brown-skinned he liked to say. He was average height, average weight, average everything, and he liked it that way. He felt that if he didn’t stand out, then he couldn’t get into much trouble, and he would be left alone. That was fine with him.

He did like his hair though, and he hated every time he had to get it cut. He vowed that when he got old enough he would never get it cut again, and in his mind that time had come. He was a teenager now, and the next time he was told that he had to get a haircut, he would stand his ground.

It had been a while since his last haircut, and his hair had grown at least an inch long. He liked the way it felt in his fingers, and so he twisted the tufts around them all day long—even when he wasn’t thinking about it. For this reason no matter how often he picked or combed his hair, it was always twisted and lumpy. In the Exclave when the other boys played at insults, his hair was often the target. But he didn’t mind because he liked his hair.

In Sunday school, the story that stuck most in his mind was the one about Samson and Delilah. He thought no story was better. He liked to call himself Naz because he read in the Bible that Samson was a Nazarite, and part of being a Nazarite meant never cutting one’s hair. This made him love his hair all the more and in his mind gave him a logical reason for not wanting it cut.

He figured when haircut time came again—and it was fast approaching—he would tell a lie. He was no good at lying, so he worked it out in his mind ahead of time. He would tell of an angel or some spirit that had come to him in a dream and forbidden him from ever cutting it again, or terrible things would happen—not just to him, but to his family too. He shuddered to think how wrong such a lie must be. Lying was a part of living in the Exclave.
You have to lie to survive, you know,
he reasoned,
but not this kind of lying, not about angels and spirits.
He didn’t care. That’s how much he liked his hair.

He never admitted to anyone that what fascinated him even more was how much Samson loved Delilah, so much so that it cost him his life. But he would never cut his hair, he resolved,
not even for the likes … or love of a Delilah.

Hating his given name, he would sometimes tell people he met that his name was Sam, as Naz didn’t always seem quite appropriate, especially with the grown-ups and Market Merchants.

Now, standing in the mirror, he studied himself as he picked up his toothbrush with one hand and the tube of toothpaste with the other. As he fumbled with the toothpaste, he looked down and noticed that there were more things on the bathroom sink than there were on his bedroom nightstand, and his temper flared again.

“They were my things,” he said, once more looking at the bathroom door. “My things!” Then he let it go at that.

He put some toothpaste on his toothbrush and began to brush his teeth. Yes, there was something different today. As he brushed his teeth and studied his reflection in the mirror staring back at him, he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that the tube of toothpaste he had put down was rising again in his reflection, but this time on its own. What was even stranger was that the toothpaste, which he saw hovering in midair next to his face, did not seem all that odd to him.

In the back of his mind he could hear his mother saying something, but between brushing his teeth, the water running, and the suspended toothpaste, her words stayed right there—in the back of his mind.

Again in the mirror, he noticed on the other side of his head that a bar of soap was mimicking the toothpaste, and it began to amuse him. He smiled and began to twist his hair with his free hand. He decided to step back and take it all in, when he noticed that he could not feel the floor, or at least he wasn’t standing on it anymore. He, along with the soap and toothpaste, was suspended in midair. And if things weren’t interesting enough, he noticed a bottle of mouthwash floating by on its side, and in the mirror a towel sailing just over his head.

He became concerned when he heard a rumbling sound growing steadily in the distance and making his mother’s words through the closed bathroom door even more indistinct. It finally dawned on him,
it’s an earthquake
, and fear began to overtake him for the first time.
An earthquake? No, never in the Exclave … a tornado
, he thought,
which would explain that rumbling sound getting louder
. He had heard about tornados before but never experienced one.
Is this what it’s like … slow motion and things floating all around you?
Momma must’ve been trying to warn me, direct me to safety. Is it too late for me to take cover
? he wondered
.

He began to panic, and his mind raced, but all about him was in slow motion. He quickly reached for the door, or so he thought, but it was as if his mind and body were separate, and when he looked at his hand, it seemed like minutes went by as it traveled to reach the doorknob. When his hand finally reached the doorknob, he turned it and kept on turning it round and round. It spun around as if broken. He decided just to pull the knob, but the door wouldn’t open. He tried a second time and then a third. He tried to pull it with all his might, but the door still would not budge. It wasn’t locked, but he figured,
somehow with all that was going on, it must’ve gotten jammed.

He began to yell, “
Ma … Ma … Ma!
” But he couldn’t hear the sound of his own voice, even though the rumbling sound that now resembled that of a train didn’t seem loud enough to drown it out. He continued to yell, “
Ma … Ma … Ma!
” and wondered if she had given up on him.
She wouldn’t have left me here, would she
? he thought.
She wouldn’t have left me here to … to … unless she had good reason … a really good reason.

After wrestling with the door for what seemed like an eternity, he let go of the doorknob and noticed the floor coming apart beneath him. Feeling gravity return and take him down with, and through the floor, he tried to grab the doorknob once more, but it was too late. As he plummeted below, he noticed seven distinct shadowy figures. He closed his eyes and braced for impact. Like his mother’s response earlier, it never came, and he knew as he sat up in his bed, it was all a dream,
a stupid dream,
he thought. He liked dreams, though. They were one of his favorite things, next to his hair.

CHAPTER THREE

MISS TRACEY

Naz
was wide-awake now and something was wrong. He had done something, and he could sense it as he heard the sound of someone’s footsteps approaching his bedroom.

“It’s time to get up; you’re already late,” a woman said coldly.

It was a voice he hardly recognized. It was not his mother. His mother wasn’t there. And this time he wasn’t dreaming. He was sure of it.

“I’m up,” he replied, knowing he had done something wrong.
If I’m going to be late it’s not going to be my fault,
he thought. He wasn’t even allowed to use his alarm clock anymore. A clock he had gotten as a gift was now on a shelf in his closet for fear it would be knocked off his nightstand and broken during an episode of sleepwalking.

“You got up again last night, and you made a mess in the bathroom,” said the woman on the other side of the door.

Uh-oh
, he thought.

“That therapy isn’t doing you a bit of good,” she continued.

“You’ve only been here two months, and that makes the third time. Maybe we should put a lock on your door.”

A lock … that would be kinda cool,
he thought.
Then I could have more privacy.
Maybe I could start putting things back up in my room, and nobody would know.
“Teenagers should have a little privacy,” he said under his breath, and then louder he offered, “I’m sorry, ma’am,” in the most apologetic tone he could muster. He was trying to butter her up so she would seriously consider putting that lock on his door.