It was a warm June Sunday afternoon , the air in the living room blasted but the heat of my mother's anger bounced off the walls like a bullet on a beam.
My mind kept going blank , constantly cutting off whenever I thought I had the courage to speak.
My mother yelled," Answer me Nas ! " snapping me out of my quick sand of a mind that suffocated all of my thoughts, But I couldn't say anything , the only thing I could do was reminisce back to how blind she was just a few hours ago and ask myself why was all of this happening ?
As the quietness drowned the room she asked the same question again. She spoke in a frustrated tone considering I had yet to give her a straight forward answer.
" Nasir are you gay ? "
I hesitated but answered ," Yes."
After answering I got to look her in her eyes and all I seen was hatred. She reached for her phone and put it to her ear , she began speaking to my father telling him to rush over here and how important it was.
I didn't think it was important because I no longer had to hide in these invisible doors. My mask was stripped away, my illusion was no more, I was free.
When my father arrived , my mother wasted no time telling him the news of my sexuality. She kept repeating ," he has to go." And " get the fuck out of my house." My dad looked me in my eyes , I rolled my eyes and then , he charged.
He lifted me up off the couch where I had been nonchalantly sitting and threw me to the floor. He starting punching me in my arms and face repeating the same thing over and over,
" You wanna be a faggot Motherfucker ? "
I couldn't answer because the pain and his fists continued to block my words. In the midst of this my mother screamed trying to get him off of me , but he continued to push her back. He lifted me again and threw me to the floor again until I spat blood on the floor because it had filled my mouth and the taste was horrible.
He lifted me again and pinned me on the wall , and started punching me in the face. Between the pauses of him punching I still found time to imagine if this was a scene in a movie how the camera would film the wall shaking and get shots of my baby pictures while my mother screamed in the distance.
That's when I snapped , my body reacted naturally. I grabbed my fathers throat and dug my nails in it. And with the other arm started jabbing my father in the face with my fist. I watched as blood flowed from his nose but his eyes remained serious and dark.
My mother grabbed his arms , and tried to get him off of me , my jabbing didn't stop. My 18 year old teenage strength couldn't compare to his 45 year old man strength but it was doing damage.
My fingers were stiff like concrete in his neck , and I had no control and couldn't dig them out his skin. My eyes trailed to my mother and I seen the sorrow in her eyes and then the concrete softened. I released his neck and he dropped me releasing me from his grasp also.
When I got to the floor my eyes looked around the room and I could only see my father's work boots and my mother's flip-flops and then I blacked out not knowing if I'd wake up considering my parents anger with me. In my conscience I kept saying," they could kill me."
********
I awoke to the ringing of the house phone , Stunned to hear my mothers voice. I knew my father had left because in the middle of the fight I noticed he dropped his keys on the floor and now they were gone. I got on my hands and knees and looked her at her face I could see something was troubling her because she always did this thing with her eyebrows when something was wrong, Not to mention the redness of her face.
Tears began to stream her face and then she began to sob something terrible had happen but who was the bearer of bad news ? and Who was she sobbing for ?
