Ishmael
by Albert Russo
Ishmael has the face of an
angel like you see in them old paintings fulla
love and shmooz, so that nobody believes he is
fifteen, even though he is so tall. Apparently
when he first knocked at the door of the refuge
he was pathetically thin, sweating and with his
hair in a mess. He was crying like there was no
tomorrow, the poor chappie. Actually, that expreshun
is right in this case, coz he didn’t know
what his life was going to be, since he fled from
his Arab town in the center of Israel.
Ishmael is the baby of a
family of three children, and his two sisters
loved him so much, they acted like he was their
doll. He was also his parents’ favorite. He
was very good at school and dreamed of becoming
an electronic engineer so that he could have his
own start-up business.
His widowed uncle Rashid
lived with his family. That uncle too loved
Ishmael to bits - you’ll see later how many
of them there were - , telling him how clever he
was and how handsome he would grow, having all
the girls at his feet. What kinda miss-o-jean-ist
was he to treat us like we are just rugs!
Jeezette almighty.
That rake of a Rashid went
every night to the boy’s room to complain
that since his wifey died, he felt so lonely, and
that to see his darlin’ lil nephew before
going to sleep made him feel better. He even
cried a few times, so that Ishmael took pity on
him and let the devil kiss him. First it was on
the cheek, then on the mouth. But when the uncle,
the carbuncle, started fiddling with Ishmael’s
tummy, opening his pajama, and slipping his
fingers down under, the ladder told him to please
stop it and if he could leave his room. And do
you know what Rash-o-shmuck answered?
“After all the affection and love I gave you,
that is the way you are repaying me? How
ungrateful of you!”
The next day, his father,
usually so sweet, said to him in the voice of an
ogre:
“Come to my room and
lock the door behind you.”
That is when hell’s
bells started ringing in mega decibels. Ishmael
never saw his father so furious and so
frightening. He thought that the ladder’s
eyes were going to pop out of their socks and
splash against the wall any second.
But before he could open
his mouth, his father slapped him so hard that
the boy fell to the floor.
“I won’t allow a
homosexual to live in this house. Tomorrow I
shall send you to a correctional institution
where they will teach you to become a normal
human being.”
Ishmael coudn’t sleep
that night, and before dawn, crying and hardly
believing what was happening to him, he packed
some clothes in his sport’s duffel bag and
left the home where he grew up and spent such
wonderful moments.
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