The punishment cells had not yet been constructed when we arrived, but we heard them being built with the supplies we’d passed on the way in. There were three of them, basically lockers for human beings with cinder-block walls and tall black steel doors. When I was locked inside the first thing I noticed was the cold; it was freezing in there. It was also completely dark, the only light that crept in was through a peephole drilled in the door and the cracks in the wall. To maximize suffering and discomfort, a cinder block was cemented directly in the middle of the floor, making it impossible to stretch out when sitting down. I was only in there for a minute and that was long enough by far. Luckily for me, Yassine was present on this bathroom run and by now had total authority over punks like Abu Ali and Crop Top; he ordered them to let me out, and after a little arguing they did as they were told. When I emerged, Yassine gave me a pat on the shoulder and led me back to the cell.
Hunger was another form of torture at the villa, and outside our barred windows we could hear the jihadis swimming in the pool and laughing as we starved. Usually we were given a breakfast of halawa and bread around 1 PM, but sometimes breakfast never came and we had to wait until dinner, which was brought late in the evening, to eat at all. On those days, some of the longest of my life, we were quiet except for our stomachs, which never stopped talking. No one had the energy to do anything but wait to be fed.
We dined in groups. Theo refused to eat with Abdelatif due to the brush with death he’d had after eating off the wrong side of the bowl back at the hospital, so he decided to sit with the brass. The brass, however, were disgusted by Theo’s presence because of the open sores that had formed on every inch of his body except his face from scratching his bedbug bites. The men in his group approached me, pointing at him and then scratching their arms and pretending to eat, to show me how unsanitary it was to dine with him, so before every meal I began calling Theo over to the window to wash up as best he could. I remember feeling pity as he held his hands through the bars while I poured water over them from a soda bottle. He was like a child, completely incapable of taking care of himself. After he was done, I would rinse my own hands and join my group.
As time went on, the Moroccan’s attitude toward Theo and me grew more and more hostile. Unlike Theo I refused to take his shit for even one second, which led to frequent arguments, and twice these arguments turned physical. The first time this happened I resorted to a tactic I’d used once before, when we got into an altercation over the Koran back at the hospital. It was three days after I’d converted, and Abdelatif was angry that I hadn’t yet memorized any of the prayers in Arabic, so he confiscated my Koran until I lived up to his expectations. When I grabbed it back he lunged at me in a rage, so I just rolled onto his broken leg and that ended it, with the book back in my hands. When I did the same thing during our brawl at the villa he shrieked in pain and the men quickly broke it up. That’s how our first fight ended, but I honestly don’t remember how it started.
Our second fight, however, I remember vividly. It began late at night, when everyone was sleeping except for me, Abdelatif, Rabir, Ayman, and Fadaar.
“Hey, Nassir,” the Moroccan said, grabbing the thick part of his forearm to illustrate how well-endowed he was. “When we get out of here I’m going to give it to your sister.”
Now this was a kind of disrespect I could not stand for, especially with others listening, so I gave it back as good as I got it and made a similar remark about his sister.
“What?” he yelled, struggling to his feet. “You can’t say that about my sister! She wears a veil!”
“Well, if you don’t like it, don’t talk shit about my sister.”
“It’s not the same thing!” he said, and his open hand connected with the side of my face.
The slap turned my head but it snapped right back into place, followed by an open hand of my own, which landed with a smack across Abdelatif’s jaw. Within seconds, every man in the room was awake and Rabir and Ayman were holding me back as another group did the same with the Moroccan, who was going absolutely ballistic.
“I’m a Muslim!” he screamed. “He can’t say that about my sister! Just wait! Wait until the guards come!”
“Go ahead!” I bellowed back.
Usually when our arguments escalated like this they deescalated just as fast. “Jumu’ah!” the Senator would yell,
