“What You Leave Behind”
Kareem Williams was devastated. Never in his life had he felt so pained, and willing to evaporate right there on the spot. Mixed in with these desperate feelings was the distant hope that he had misheard, and should ask again. After all, he did remember taking those funny eardrops when he was little. He shuddered at the remembrance of how cold they had felt in his ear, shook it off, and turned back to Allison Moore, who was looking nervous.
“W-what did you say?” Kareem asked reaching for that distant optimism that lurked somewhere in the back of his mind. “I don’t think I quite heard you.”
Now,
Allison looked more nervous than ever, and was inching away carefully in such a
way that suggested she was afraid Kareem was about to harm her. Quite the
contrary, Kareem was one of the gentlest and caring kids in all of
“I ... I said no,” Allison said trying to fill herself with some amount of courage. “I ... don’t want to go to the dance with you.”
Kareem smiled in an effort to hide his own disappointment, and to calm Allison down a bit. Neither the former nor the latter succeeded. It became even more futile after what happened next.
“Well ... why?” Kareem asked innocently shoving his hands into the pockets of his black Levi’s.
Sometimes its funny how things start, and how one small event can set off a chain of momentous events that can lead one to a place completely unlike the place where one started. If he were still able to, Kareem would look back on this day and wish that he hadn’t started off this particular chain of events that all began with the three letter curse known as “why.” Unfortunately, he can’t.
Presently, however, Allison was staring right into the brown eyes of her suitor, Kareem, who was a tall muscular figure with short black hair, and the hint of what would one day become a glorious full beard. She didn’t see that Kareem liked listening to metal music just as she did, or that he loved watching the sun set beyond the horizon on a pleasantly cool day like this late-November afternoon. All she saw was that there was a big muscular black kid trying to ask her out to the November Couples Dance that was taking place in six days time.
“It’s just the way I was raised,” she said shakily, because she couldn’t think up a good lie at the time. “Didn’t your parents teach you the same Moja?”
Kareem
flinched at bit at these words; the result of several simultaneous
realizations. The first thing Kareem took note of was that she had just called
him Moja, and he hated that name. Ironically enough, it was his real name, and
the name that every legal document pertaining to him would read. Not Kareem
Williams, the name that he referred to himself as, but Moja Chui, which meant
“One Leopard” in Swahili. For obvious reasons, he had come to the realization
that he could not walk around
The second, more important, realization came when Kareem bypassed the first reason and took the time to dissect what the beautiful blue-eyed blonde girl that he had had a crush on for nearly six months now had just told him. She didn’t want to date him because he was black, and the scary thing was that Allison had been fairly friendly with Kareem until she tried to elevate their relationship to a less innocent level. Had she been pretending to be his friend all this time in hopes that he’d leave it at that? Furthermore, how could she possibly consider her response attributed with any hint of validity whatsoever? It was absurd!
When Kareem got home that day from school, he was still pretty upset about what had happened at school, and wasn’t in the mood for what met him at the door.
“Ugh!” he groaned pinching his nose, and looked around. The entire living room was dimly lit and encompassed in thick scented smoke. He grumbled knowing at once it was Grandma Emma’s doing, and dropped his backpack and shoes off at the foot of the stairs so that he could sneak upstairs into his room without having to greet his mother and Grandma Emma who was the only person Kareem had ever met who had such a fascination with inscents. Normal people used potpourri, didn’t they?
Regardless of the answer, Kareem was still gazing out of his window into the sky as the world made its daily shift from daylight to a seemingly endless night. He had Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata playing in the background as he reflected on things. He was tired, and not in the way of exhaustion but tired of the skin that covered his body. This ebony blanket that had him stuck in a world that he didn’t want to be in. Long ago, he had come to the realization that things wouldn’t be easy for him because of the color of his skin, and didn’t believe it. However, as he grew up over the years, he felt the problem that had seemed like a faraway and isolated fairy tail start to affect him more and more. There had been the time he went shopping for some new jeans at the clothing store downtown and was followed around by an old looking security guard who watched his every move with an upturned face until finally he left the store for the sake of comfort, or the time someone had gotten their purse stolen and they immediately thought that he, the only black student in the class, had taken it; even the aged Mrs. Soran who threatened him with a visit to the principal’s office if he didn’t confess. In addition, he remembered not being able to get a taxi cab on cold December nights alongside his mother, or being looked at funny by the goth sales clerk when he bought “Frozen Flames,” a new album by his favorite metal band, Luminescence.
Now, he was stuck without a date with just under a week to go before the Couples Dance. His undesired destinies had caught up with him at last, and it was the last straw. He had envisioned himself with Allison Moore so many times in so many situations, and now all of those dreams along with his heart were shattered into a googolplex of irreparable shards. He was tired of all the inscents, and his ridiculous name. He was tired of his ridiculous sounding name and celebrating holidays that nobody else had ever heard of. He just wanted it all to go away, and he wanted to have an opportunity to have a simpler life like Allison, or even the sales clerk and the music store, or Mrs. Soran. It just wasn’t fair; why did he have to live this lifelong burden due to circumstances completely out of his control while others got to live perfectly normal lives?
His head began to hurt because of the sheer amount of complex thought and anger running through his mind, and so he let himself become immersed in the Moonlight Sonata and the sunset. The only thing he liked about his shabby home was that his room was located on the eastside giving him perfect views of dusk each day, and he’d never missed a single one. Something about the mixture of reds, blues, and violets in the day's end assimilated his brain. If he looked at it with just the right music playing and was in just the right mood he almost felt as if he were up there too, mixing and swirling with all the colors up in the sky like some slow beautiful dance. Tonight, however, he was looking at something else.
It was a star. Not some normal kind of star, but a giant red star high in the sky blinking brightly in the middle of dusk. It was way too early for stars to start appearing, the sun had just started to set. Kareem pressed his nose against the cool glass of his moderately-sized window and found this sun encompassing his brain rather than the sunset for some reason. It wasn’t a plane, though Kareem looked at it a few seconds longer expecting it to move or something, but it didn’t. It reminded him of some kind of aperture or rift for some reason, though it had no characteristics of a gap.
Why hello there Kareem, said the star somehow without words. Nice to meet you.
Kareem blinked somehow not surprised at the star’s speaking capabilities, and spoke back to it in the same mystic way; with thought instead of speech.
Who are you? he asked with more curiosity than fear. What are you?
The star laughed.
What am I? it said, restating the query. A chance Kareem. I’m a chance at the life that you’ve been looking for. The pain and confusion you’ve been feeling? I can make it all go away. All you have to do is ask ...
And at these words, no further explanation or verification of sincerity was needed. He closed his eyes, knowing that what he was about to ask his new inexplicable friend was a complete disregard for the fate and destiny that he had been assigned long ago before the first seconds of the world passed.
I ... I wish that I were white, he said, and then, suddenly everything, everywhere, went black.
Kareem woke up the next day in his bed, the blankets up over his head. He didn’t remember closing his eyes to go to sleep, or opening them again to awake. In addition, he didn’t really feel as if he had gotten any sleep at all. For the moment, the only thing he remembered was a funny dream in which he had his face pressed outside of the window of his room looking at a scarlet song while the Moonlight Sonata played in the background. The strange thing about the dream was that he remembered somehow talking to the star ... and then he woke up.
He was so sleepy that he wasn’t really paying attention to himself as he got dressed, and snuck past the room of his sleeping relatives out the front door, and dragged his feet as he walked down the street feeling very strange for some reason. Kareem shrugged it off simply attributing this funny feeling to the fact he felt like he had been up all night. People were staring at him curiously (mostly people from the neighborhood who he knew,) and some old black woman look at him with unmistakable fury. At first he thought it was because of his most certainly mismatched outfit that he had thrown on before leaving the house, but then she revealed why everyone in this predominantly African-American neighborhood had been looking at him as he made his way to the bus stop.
“Made a wrong turn I bet, fishbelly,” she said without shame with especial emphasis on the last tidbit. “Wha’ ‘chu wearin’ anyway? Don’t those be lil’ Moja’s clothes? Wha’ you do, beat ‘im up ‘n steal ‘is clothes? You from that crack’r school he be goin’ to?” And when the woman looked as if she was going to chase him down, he turned tail and ran, noting that he was going a bit slower than usual, and got tired sooner than he usually did.
“What,” he panted a block away now considerably closer to the bus stop. “Is -- going -- on?”
And with that he began coughing horribly and keeled over at the corner banging his head into the door of a parked car there. That’s when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and gasped. He was white! A considerably cute white kid with blonde hair and blue eyes, he was, at that!
“Oh -- my -- God!” he said hacking up phlegm. “It -- wasn’t -- a -- dream ...”
“Excuse me,” came a quiet feminine voice from behind him. “Um ... are you all right?”
Kareem looked up and saw Allison Moore, looking prettier than ever, gazing worriedly down at him with an outstretched hand. Kareem took it and stood back up, mostly under his own power wondering why she was being so nice to him.
“Allison Moore,” she said in an introductory voice. “I’m sorry, but have we met before?”
Kareem blinked unsure as to what he had just heard. Was she trying to pretend that nothing had happened just the day before?
No ... Kareem thought curiously. It’s the new ‘suit.’ I think she’s fallen in love with it...
The bus came and went, and soon
Kareem found himself at school and very close to Allison as the day persisted.
He must have been completely indistinguishable in his new body, and although he
felt strangely uncomfortable and attentive, he was reaping all the benefits he
expected. Nobody stared at him funnily when he listened to a Luminescence CD at lunch on his boom
box. Allison even joined him in a formal headbang to “Endgame Theorem,” and
whenever a teacher asked who he was and why he wasn’t on the roll sheets, he
told them that his name was Kevin Smailliw and that he was an exchange student
from New Eden, a country allegedly off the coast of
The best part was that when he walked through the front door right into Grandma Emma, she was so old and perpetually bemused that she accepted “Kevin’s” story that he was Kareem without issue. He also found out that his mother was doing overtime for the whole week so he wouldn’t run into her until he could figure something out. Things were going great, and “Kevin,” and as he viewed the sunset, as he always did, the thought of asking Allison to the dance fluttered across his mind.
The next morning, he woke up again without going to sleep again and now felt the effects of having two days without sleep seeping in his brain. Regardless, he waited for his mother to leave for work (she was so busy in the morning trying to get across town to her job that she didn’t seek out Kareem,) and then he got dressed in some black cargo pants and a wifebeater that his friend, Max, had left after a sleepover one time years ago. Feeling strangely more comfortable in this attire, he made his way to the bus stop talking more with Allison, and then to school once again.
It
was the same story. He was making new friends, and the teachers seemed to like
him more now that he was white. He found himself writing in different
calligraphy, and now was more resigned to being identified as Kevin Smalliw
from New Eden, off the coast of
On the third day, Kevin “woke up” again feeling sleepier than ever. He nonchalantly thought as if he had forgotten to do something the day before but shrugged it off. He promised to get some sleep in History class, even though Kareem would have never missed a word of Mr. Warren’s lectures. Sure enough, he found himself snoring like the rest of the class.
“You know,” Mr. Warren grumbled at dismissal. “I’m beginning to think that you all snoring scared away my best student. You shouldn’t be conforming to the rest of the crowd either Mr. Smalliw!” Kevin briefly thought of the name “Kareem,” almost as if he had forgotten something very dear to him, but as he shook his head he remembered that Mr. Warren had been referring to him after all. Kevin began talking about his life in New Eden, and found himself citing more from memory than imagination. He and Allison made plans for renting a limousine to the dance.
Then on the fourth day, Kevin woke up to find that his hair had grown suddenly down to his shoulders, and he began using words like “Dude,” and “Excellent.” Whatever rap CDs he used to pack for school were forgotten as Kevin loaded CDs he had borrowed from friends by groups known as NeverZero, The Absolute, and The Raindrops. After getting home and discussing what he and Allison were going to wear to the dance, he got home and had the sudden urge to clean his room. He tore down the posters on his wall that had The Academix, and Ebony Enumeration, down off his wall vaguely remembering some kid he used to know who loved these artists. Had he borrowed this nonsense from him? A new Luminescence poster went up along with one a new group he had begun to like: Atheist Accord. He heard that they were made up of neo Nazis, but didn’t care.
On the fifth day, the day before the dance, Kevin woke with a start. He felt tired and confused, and felt as if something wasn’t right. Opening his drawer, he got dressed in clothes that he felt weren’t his, and opened a door that he had never seen before to find himself in a fairly large Tudor home. He thought dully that his window hadn’t been that big last night, and was grateful that his room and had to shield his eyes from the sun which was rising in the west. On his way downstairs he saw his mother sitting on the couch in her nurse uniform. Kevin felt a lump rise in his throat for some reason.
“Mom,” asked the boy scratching his head. “Did you dye your hair or something? You look different.”
She laughed.
“Aw sweetie,” she said looking at him with her big blue eyes. “My hair has been blonde since high school, now eat your breakfast and go to school. Chew before you swallow snuckums, you need to get more muscle on those bones.”
Shrugging, feeling lost somehow, Kevin obliged and got lost on his way to school wondering if the routes had changed overnight. Finally getting to school, he found that some kid named Kareem Williams had been reported missing and that his grandmother and mother were sick with grief.
Damned black kids, Kevin thought with a sigh as he sat down for lunch. Probably dead in some drug war or something.
On the sixth day, Kevin barely made it through school without becoming comatose from boredom. As he got dressed in his new silk shirt, tie, and sports jacket, he saw his mother watching the television shaking her head as more stories of the Kareem kid flooded the airways.
“I dunt know wha’ happened,” said an old woman being interviewed by the new station. “I mean, he was getting kinda’ pale and I noticed he was hang’n up ‘des new dec’reations ‘round da house, but I dun know who’d take my baby boy.”
And then the anchor woman said that the boy’s mother was unavailable for comment and knew nothing about her child’s behavior over the past few days because she was working all day long apparently trying to get her son a new suit that she would’ve otherwise been unable to afford so that he could look decent at some dance over at Lincoln High.
“Kevin?” she asked quizzically. “Isn’t that the dance that you’re going to tonight?”
“Yeah mom,” Kevin said absent-mindedly as he tried to tie his tie. He wished his father was around, but he, a politician, was trying to pass legislation to tear down the Southside Ghetto where all the black families lived saying that it was a feeding ground for gangs and drugs. “That kid goes to my school. Sat right where I sit now before we came over from New Eden.”
“Ah
well, now that you father has secured his job here in
Kevin
shrugged. He didn’t really care. Half an hour later he was in the gym of
“You
know he asked me out once,” Allison said as they began slow dancing. “It was
actually the day before you came to
“Hmmm?” went Kevin. “What’d you say?”
Allison laughed.
“I said no of course,” she said. “My mother would kill me for hanging out with riffraff like that, and he lived in that awful Southside Ghetto too. I hope they tear that place down.”
Kevin felt very strange all of a sudden, but the weirdness was gone as soon as it had passed. He was dancing with the most beautiful girl in the school, and that’s all that mattered. Suddenly, a beautiful piano piece began to play and the black kids in the corner began crying more than ever.
“The Moonlight Sonata,” Kevin said on impulse. “Beethoven, you know?”
“I didn’t know you listened to classical junk,” she said in disgust. “They need to put on some more Luminescence. I think it’s a tribute to that kid Kareem. They say it was his favorite song.”
“Hmmm,” Kevin hummed thoughtfully. “Sounds really familiar to me ... I just can’t remember where I heard it from.”
And they danced and danced. They had gotten early dismissal from their school that day so at one point it was about five o’clock and Allison, who had sat down to drink some punch with Kevin (they both were tired from dancing,) talked to him.
“Wanna go outside?” she asked. “The sun is setting ... its so beautiful and romantic. They say there’s some weird red star out there too, fading fast.”
Something inside Kevin’s mind was very attracted to these last words, and something, almost like another person’s voice, was screaming at him to go outside to see that crimson star. Kevin however shrugged as one of Luminescence’s new songs began to play. It was called What You Leave Behind.
“Nah,” Kevin said shrugging. “I really don’t like sunsets, they’re too moody. Besides, I really want to check out this new song.”
And so, they danced and danced the night away.