Not Recognizing the invisibility of the Real

After finishing his doctorate my father accepted a six month position with the United Nations Development Program in New York City – a decision that routed us to Flushing, Queens instead of back to Pakistan. In the middle of a dozen or so 20 story apartment buildings was a playing area where the boys’ hierarchy was acted out. At the top was Donald, the son of an airline pilot, whose hero was General George Armstrong Custer. Surprisingly, I was not at the bottom, at least not immediately. That position was occupied by A, who, while being many inches taller and many pounds heavier than me, had been branded a coward prior to my arrival on Kessena Boulevard. The rest of the boys – Polish, Czech, Italian – mocked A for suffering his position below me. When one day the older boys outside our group realized this disorder in rank, they placed A in an impossible situation. Either he would have to fight me or endure their beating. I seemed to have no say in this, carried as I was by flows that seemed to me as incomprehensible as they were inevitable. As I struggled inside another circle, the fight itself was again inconclusive. Then A stepped back five feet and spit in my direction bellowing, "Anyway, you are nothing but a filthy Pakistani." My symmetrical response required no thought whatsoever, "Oh yeah, and you are nothing but a filthy American." And then came what I have come to see as a kind of Mobius twist. With rising posture he gloated, "Damn right I am an American, and proud of it." Laughter and snickering from the boys, silence from me. I stood there, befuddled. I had fought to a draw, the circle had not closed in on me, and still I had lost. Badly. Decades later I still want to account for his effortless comeback and for my frozen speechlessness.