It's a Free Country After All

TWELVE O’CLOCK in the afternoon. The sun washed over the empty parked cars along the street. We were walking to the nearest McDonalds, my blazer in hand. Alongside me, Omar to my left, Hakim to my right. The growl of a car picking up speed behind us. Hakim suddenly turned to me, “Watch what I’m going to do,” he said with a wink. He walked ahead of me to the edge of the pavement, picking up an orange safety cone, and placed it in the middle of the road.
I handed Omar the drink in my hand, and let my eyes skip past the cone: the blocked Vauxhall, the young female Indian driver, and the elderly Indian woman sitting in the passenger seat. Probably her mother. I stood there, staring at the helpless expression on the elderly woman. Blocking the reasonable shouts of her daughter, “You stupid kids!” Somehow I felt responsible for my friends’ action.
I rushed to the cone and removed it from the road, watching the daughter mouth to me, thank you as she drove off, then feeling the nagging prick on my shoulder. “Why did you do that for?” Omar asked. I did it because it was the right thing to do. I tried to remember what my mother had told me once, when I was questioned by my Principle, as I had witnessed a fight take place involving a number of my friends. If your friends are doing something wrong, never follow them. Be your own man.
I had learned to be my own man.
“You don’t know how to have fun anymore,” Hakim said.
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Why didn’t you let the lady in the car move the cone?”
I didn’t need to hear this anymore. I had done the right thing and that’s all that mattered. I started to ask him how he would have felt if someone had done the same to his mother, or sister. He cut me off before I could finish. “Did you hear what she called us, she said ‘You stupid kids’”
“She said it for a good reason. That was embarrassing what you did.”
“Let’s ask Omar if it was embarrassing”
I looked at Omar, waiting for an answer. He thought for a moment, wanting to sound sincere and fair. “It was kind of funny in the beginning, but it turned out to be embarrassing. I’m just being honest.”
I suddenly felt that Omar was learning to be his own man. I was surprised by his reply, in the past he would have just found it funny without thinking about the consequences. Instead of thanking him, I laughed at Hakim, who now felt self-conscious of his action. “Hakim, next time you want to pull a stunt like that, let us know before you do it.”
We continued walking, and I finished my drink. The silence was weird, and I suddenly felt very angry. I turned to my side, to stare at the open window of a semi detached house. Upstairs, I could see a muscular Indian man, his head sticking out of the window. “You fucking Somalis!” he shouted at once. “I saw what you did over there,” he added, the muscles on his arms bulging. “Do that again, and just watch.”
Did I hear right? Was he trying to threaten us? This is what I had feared, the consequences of Hakim’s actions. I looked back and saw Omar and Hakim whispering to each other. Finally they both grabbed me and told me that we should just go and leave, no point of arguing with a racist. I told them no, we would stay and talk peacefully with him. It’s a free country after all.
“What’s going to happen if I do it again,” I asked.
“Stay there,” he said. “And I’ll show you.” He studied me from his window. “You look fifteen. If I was you, I wouldn’t be talking like that.”
“So what your saying is you pick on fifteen year olds. Go pick on someone your own again, you dickhead.”
The mans shoulders slumped, and he closed the window with a sigh of anger. “That’s it. You just stay there.”
It made Hakim and Omar Laugh. I was surprised at myself; I was doing the opposite of what I had advised my friends to do. I suppose, I was just doing the right thing. My father had advised me, if I ever got into a brawl that I should just let it go and walk away.
So why couldn’t I just walk away?
“Look,” Hakim had said, pointing at the door knob. He turned to me. “Let’s run.”
Hakim was not conscious of his actions, but to run was a good idea. I needed to do one more thing. I was still angry that the man had called us fucking Somalis. I wanted to make him pay. I went to the side, and picked up a brick, smashing the front mirror of the mans Mini Cooper. I somehow felt obliged to explain.
“He deserved it,” I said. “Now is the time to run.”
Hakim laughed, but Omar didn’t. Hakim said, “You’re the man.”
The expression caught me by surprise. It’s a free country after all.