AMIR STUFFS A CHERRY Turkish delight into his open mouth. He wipes the white powder off with the back of his right hand then flops down on the sofa and switches on the TV. He flips through the channels but there is nothing on but the news. It’s a hot afternoon, the apartment is sweltering because the electricity has just turned on after being cut off most of the morning. The air conditioner is buzzing as if it might shut down again. Sweat slides down Amir’s stomach. Tilting his head back, he sees his mother rummaging through the front closet until she pulls out a blanket. It’s pale blue and tattered. She calls out, “Yallah, everyone. We’re going to the beach. It’s too damn hot here and I can’t take it anymore.” Lifting himself up on his elbows, Amir peers across the living room and sees his brother Naji race out of his bedroom with his swim shorts already on. “Amir, where are you? We’re going to head out now. Get ready," his mother says.
“I’m not going. I’m not feeling well," Amir calls out, flopping back on the sofa.
His mother now approaches him and bends over, resting her hand on his forehead. “Amir, you don’t have a fever. Does your stomach hurt?”
He doesn’t answer her.
“Amir, are you okay?” she asks gently.
My ass hurts! My ass! Amir wants to shout. You didn’t even ask why I was jamming a knife in your mattress. You didn’t even think to ask! But Amir doesn’t answer her questions of concern, only brushes her hand away and runs into his room, then slams the door shut.
From there, he can hear his father comforting her. “Haifa, it’s all right. He’s a teenager. Almost fifteen! You can’t baby him forever.” Then Amir listens in his room for their fading footsteps. After, he rushes to the balcony and watches them walk together – his mother, father and brother, smiling at each other and almost forgetting about him until his mother turns around and glances up towards the apartment. He ducks out of the way, returns to his room and falls back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. Minutes later, he closes his eyes and falls asleep. He dreams about Walid. He’s thrusting violently inside Amir, breaking every part of his small body. Throughout the whole ordeal, the boy prays silently to God to make it stop but the man keeps jabbing his cock in his rectum, harder, faster. He drools on the sheets, almost chokes on his spit. He prays again. But God doesn’t listen. Maybe he can’t hear Amir over the car bombs and dying people of this beautiful but torn city called Beirut. He’s being raped on his parents’ bed, a place where they consummate their relationship over and over. Even after arguments about money and about their sons they retire to this room and make love. They argue mostly about me, Amir thinks. Because he’s trouble, as his mother continually says. The bedsprings creak. Walid keeps moving. He’s groaning too. And Amir wonders if it’ll ever stop. When he was younger, he remembers hearing these sounds late at night and after the rape he knew what made them. His mother’s and father’s bodies pressed together. His father’s cock inside his mother. Sometimes he’d hear moans escaping his mother’s throat and he’d want to rush inside their bedroom and see if she was okay but he never did. Afraid he’d get in more trouble. He’d imagine her shouting, “Get out of here! You’re trouble and always will be. Get out, kalb.” Dog. He feels like a dirty dog. Like the ones he’s seen wandering the crumbled streets of Beirut. Emaciated. Filthy. Searching for days or weeks for their owners who lie under the ruins of an explosion. At last Walid quakes and falls on Amir’s back, the man’s hot breath on the nape of the boy’s neck. He remembers staring across at the wall and seeing Walid’s shadow on top of his. Now Amir startles and wakes suddenly.
He gets out of bed and walks to the balcony, where he tips against the railing. The sky is clear today; it is not laden with smoke or clouds. Then he leans a bit more until his upper body is so close over the edge that if he wanted to, he could do a somersault and land on the roof of a parked car. Sometimes he has these moments in which death seems the only way for him to escape the nightmares, the thumping sound of the headboard against the bedroom wall, Walid’s cock splitting his rectum until he shuddered and Amir cried like a lamb between a butcher’s hands. Now he closes his eyes and covers his ears; he doesn’t want to hear the sound of slaughter. Seconds later, he opens his eyes, slumps on a plastic chair, lowers his head in his hands and prays that someday he’ll leave this place and all the memories that keep him awake rather than letting him have a night full of sweet dreams and moonlight.