CHAPTER THREE

“I DON’T KNOW WHY they think this is some MLK Day march-oh,” Haji said as he prepared to enter the room for his midday prayers. He was looking at a group of black kids putting up posters on the column the administration had set aside for student organizations. Kollie saw one of them advertised an upcoming die-in to protest a police shooting. “What they need to do is clear out and get over it. Allah got no time for such lazy men-oh. No wonder they can’t graduate, and white man got no job for them.” Kollie and Tetee cracked up and patted Haji on the back. Although he was Liberian, he was also Muslim and floated between the Somalis and Liberians, no problem.

The prayer room itself, however, was a problem.

It was a makeshift space, set up on the second floor beside the school’s new atrium. The principal had brought in movable walls to be placed around a small set of prayer rugs, at the request of Somali students, so that they could complete their salat during the school day. There had, of course, been “concerns from the community” about the partitions spoiling the new atrium, and certain parents grumbled about “special treatment.” A white father even spent a morning in the atrium to “see for himself” what was going on. And one afternoon, everyone found an “Ugly Truths about Sharia” flyer on the windshield of their car. But none of it had escalated. And this was before some Somali parents made contact with the ACLU, just in case.

The real tension was with the black kids, anyway. They had previously used the space now occupied by the prayer room as an informal lounge. “It was our place. Our one space where we could chill and be us in this whole raggedy school,” the black student union president said in an editorial in the school paper. “So, of course, you had to take it away from us.” Some of them would still loiter around the prayer room, trading the dozens, laughing loudly, or even talking about how the space was really theirs. The Somali students mostly ignored them, although lately, nerves had been frayed on both sides.

Haji saluted good-bye to his friends and then walked toward the prayer room. He smiled easily at the black guys in front of him and nodded. They did not respond, except to grimace. Kollie watched, his stomach beginning to churn, as they crossed their arms and blocked Haji’s way. Their faces were covered in disgust, and when they pushed Haji, Kollie couldn’t say he was surprised. He felt a scalding fury bubble up, and before he knew it, he was rushing toward them. It was Abraham who came out of nowhere and saved him, who grabbed his shoulders and turned him around. “It’s not worth it,” he hissed in Kollie’s ear. “They’re not worth our futures-oh.” Kollie could not stop himself from lunging in their direction again, but this time, Haji lodged his small frame between them.

“Eh-menh,” he said, so that only the three of them could hear, “listen to your brother, Kollie. Don’t let this be the thing that ruins your life in America.”

The black guys were looking at them perplexed, wondering what was going on. Abraham had caught Kollie before he could make his move, so it just looked like he had stumbled toward them, his true intent still unknown.

Kollie would still have grabbed for them, but Abraham, Tetee, and Haji were holding him back.

The bubble of fury found a way to burst. “Motherfuckers! Don’t think this is over! You goddamn motherfuckers!” Kollie shrieked. “Motherfuckers!” echoed through the atrium silencing all other conversations in the adjacent hallways.

“We’re counting on it, jungle nigger,” a black guy threw back at him. “Best watch your back.”

Before he even had time to think, Abraham, Tetee, and Haji moved him around the corner, out of their sight line. “Get off me, man,” Kollie told his friends, and shrugged off their hands.

Tetee held up his palms. “Easy. Easy, Comrade.”

Kollie scowled. Then he put his hands on his head and kicked the nearest wall.