by Snuniyeh
I pushed the cart that was almost my height. Two miles of pushing in mostly uphill area was not such a tedious task. I have been accustomed to taking care of such chores while my eldest brother, Khalil was at work and the other older one, Khaled was playing at the soccer field. My other sisters would not handle such tasks, but I was always willing to. I stood at the bus stop and waited for my mother to get off the bus and dump those 30 kilos of rice on the cart and I was ready to push again, but in the direction of our home.
As soon as she got home, she prepared all the small barrels that we had and filled them with that precious rice that constituted a major part of our meals. I was too exhausted to work with her, but my other sisters were too busy chatting. My mother who was always grumpy did not waste the chance and gave them a load of it.
I did not understand what the difference was and why they were so obsessed with themselves. I was always their fetch boy who was given the ok to go shopping for them while they stayed at home and polished their nails and straightened their hair. I was also the unofficial brother of Khaled and was made to pay for his actions. I was sent once to buy notebooks for my sisters and myself. On the way, a boy who lived on that path stood there and dared me to attempt to pass. I stood there thinking of a solution since the other path was longer and would have taken more time. How will I explain to my mother why it took me so long to buy the notebooks and come back? If I tell her what Yunes did to me, will she believe me? While I stood there thinking, Yunes said that he would let me pass if I agreed to curse Khaled and call him a donkey. I tried to ignore him and pass, but he stood in my way and attempted to chase me away and he did succeed in his attempt. I had to run all the way to the other path and to the store that was a half a mile away. I never shared what happened with mother or my brother who made me pay for his actions.
I was told that I was supposed to do whatever my older sisters asked me to. Once, my sister Salma asked me to go and buy her ice-cream. I was seven then and I wished that I got the chance to eat the kind of ice-cream that she ate. Being unable to save enough money for an ice-cream, I was left with the option of only eating popsicles. I bought my sister her ice-cream and headed back home. On the way, I was tempted to taste that ice-cream that I always watched her eat and never got a taste of. So, I opened it and dipped my pinky in it and got a tiny taste. A few minutes later the urge came back and I got another small taste. I really don’t remember how it tasted. The ordeal I went through for a few hours afterwards made me forget that I ever had a tongue for talking let alone tasting. When I got home, my sister declared that I got her the wrong ice-cream and that I should return it to the store and bring the kind that she asked for. I walked back to the store and told the owner that my sister wanted the other kind. He opened it and noticed that it was half melted. He refused to take it back because its design changed when it half melted. I walked back home thinking of a way out and hoped that my sister would take the damn ice-cream and eat it. She stood in front of me and said that maybe my father should get involved in this matter and this time he would drive to the store and take me with him and force the store owner to take back his already melted ice-cream. The store owner insisted on refusing to take it back and said that there was no way for us to prove that part of the ice-cream had not been eaten. My father started yelling and accusing him of being a jerk since all he needed to do was to put it back in the damned refrigerator and it would go back to its original design.
On the way back home, my father interrogated me and wanted to know if I ate from the ice-cream. I was too scared to say anything. My tongue took a leave of absence and my father got furious and cursed me all the way home for making a fool out of himself when he believed me. At home, my sister heard the whole story from my father and then turned towards me and asked me to tell her whether I ate from the ice-cream or not. I was about to cry and then she noticed a chocolate stain on my shirt and said, “Is this from the ice-cream?” I still could not talk, but she said that I should not worry anymore. She put the ice-cream in the refrigerator and waited for it to get solid and then ate it. Why the hell did I have to go through this when she could have eaten the damn thing in the first place?
My father gave me dirty looks for about a week afterwards and I was treated like a liar and criminal by everyone in the family. I was no longer the good fetch boy that everyone praised his speed and shopping skills. I never wanted to shop for anyone anymore, but my mother kept sending me on errands because Khaled was still playing soccer with his friends and my father was too lazy to drive his damn car and get her what she wanted. Khalil worked in another city and was unable to shop for anything during the day, but was able to do that in the morning before going to work. A few years later, he was asked by my mother to buy her the family’s one-month load of chicken. Of course he did not have time to bring it home and the good fetch boy was supposed to wait for him at the bus stop to pick up the six big chickens and bring them home. I was ten then. I waited in the cold at the bus stop equipped with a cardigan and a hat that my mother made me. I was cold, but I had to wait. The bus finally arrived and my brother descended to the last step on the bus and handed me the ten kilos of chickens and went back on the bus. It took me more than half an hour to walk back home with my load that I kept shifting from one hand to the other.
I was the fetch boy of the family. I was the unofficial younger brother to the two older ones. I was the one without the privileges that a penis awarded my brothers and yet, with the responsibilities that their penises did not want to take charge of. I was my sisters’ fool whom they used when they treated me like their brother and yet mocked me because I was different from them. I was my mother’s little son who was supposed to be the strong fetch boy and yet feminine enough to attract the attention of young men when my breasts started showing and I had my first period. My father considered me nothing since he hoped that I would be a boy. I was his disfigured boy who came to the world lacking what would have earned me his love and compassion. He named me “enough” and hoped that I would be the last episode of sadness and shame that his glorious bloodline would suffer from.
