Free The Terrorist’s Son by Zak Ebrahim

makes me explode.
    Not at Ahmed, but at my mother.
    â€œSee!” I shout at her. “This is exactly why I didn’t want you to tell him! Because he’s just going to blame me—like he always does.” I stop for a second. I’m full of indignation, and I feel the need to say just one thing more. “Because he’s an asshole !”
    I take the space heater from the floor, and hurl it at a wall. The cord throws off a few sparks as it’s ripped from the socket, and the bars of the heater rattle and make a loud thong.
    I walk out of their bedroom and go down to the kitchen, crying and screaming. I’m out of control in a way that scares even me. I’m punching the kitchen door over and over again when I hear Ahmed storming down the hall after me. I know what’s coming. The moment he enters the kitchen, I drop to the floor and curl into a ball as he begins to pummel me with his fists. I’m just going to take it like I always do.
    Suddenly, my mother rushes into the room. She screams for Ahmed to stop. He’s so shocked that she’s come to my defense that she manages to push him away. She helps me to my feet. She smoothes my hair, and the three of us just stand there in the kitchen, panting.
    My mother whispers, “I’m so sorry, Z.”
    Ahmed can’t believe what he’s hearing.
    â€œOh, she’s so sorry!” he says, disgusted. “I am only doing what Nosair would do—what you are too weak to do yourself!”
    My hands are on my knees—I’m wearing my bedclothes, a long gown called a jalabiyah —and I’m trying to catch my breath when Ahmed punches me again. An uppercut, perfected in the gym. My mother steps between us. But Ahmed just won’t stop. He jabs to the left and right of her head. He couldn’t care less if he hits her, which enrages me, so I do something that shocks the hell out of Ahmed, my mother, and me: I punch him back.
    It’s a wild swing. I don’t even hit him. Still, for half a second, Ahmed’s eyes pop wide with fear. He stalks outof the kitchen, never to touch me again. It’s a victory, but a short-lived one. He just starts beating my younger brother even more.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    After New Year’s, I accept a collect call from my father, who’s now at a “supermax”—short for super-maximum security—prison in California. I rarely talk to him anymore, and I can tell by his voice that he’s surprised when he’s put through. I remember the time my mother let him have it on the phone, and I want to have some catharsis of my own. I want to tell him how crappy our lives have become since he decided that other people’s deaths were more important than his own family’s lives. I want to scream into the phone. I want to lose control for once because he should know the price we’re paying for his crimes. I’m never going to see him again anyway. He’s in prison. For life. He has no control over me. He can’t hurt me—and he certainly can’t help me.
    But, as always, I can’t get the anger out. I just sob into the phone. My father pretends not to notice. He asks me blandly if I’m making my prayers and being good to my mother.

10
July 1999
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    By the time I’m sixteen, I’ve spent quite some time hiding behind the surname Ebrahim. It’s been like an invisibility cloak, and, lately at least, it’s been working: None of my new friends know that I was born a Nosair. My family’s Egyptian experiment has failed. We’ve moved back to the States. And—I don’t know if it’s because I’ve pulled further away from my father, or because I no longer live in fear of my stepfather’s violence—I’m starting to feel hopeful and buoyant for the first time since my mother woke me up to tell me there’d been an “accident.” I decide to