"Yusuf, you were born in Toronto, you're not really Somali," said Imam Abdirahman Ali. The tall, dark-skinned and taciturn, sixty-something Somali Muslim preacher looked at Yusuf Ahmed and shook his head. The mockery that the older man oozed irked Yusuf, to say the very least. Well, the Imam doesn't much care for Yusuf. The young Somali Canadian Muslim man harbored many delusions about what life was like in Somalia. The old preacher despised these naïve brothers and sisters who thought merely being born to Somali parents made them Somali. Someone had to disabuse them of this notion...
"I am Somali, you foolish old man," Yusuf Ahmed replied. The irate young man got in the preacher's face. This was a no-no in Islamic circles, folks. To challenge the preacher is unheard of. Yusuf done crossed the damn line. Imam Abdirahman Ali slapped the young man hard across the face. Yusuf blinked and was about to hit the old preacher back when two young Muslim men, Nassim and Mustafa, stopped him. inside the Islamic Cultural Center of Etobicoke, things were suddenly very silent. Yusuf disentangled himself from Nassim and Mustafa. The two young Muslims watched Yusuf until he exited the center. This hot-headed was a troublemaker wherever he went.
"I'll get you for this, old man," Yusuf mumbled as he touched his face. The brother got into his car and drove back to his Stanton Street apartment, located within walking distance of the residential Carthage area of metropolitan Etobicoke, Ontario. The young man took a shower, ate and then took his dog Harrison for a walk. The chihuahua and terrier mutt was happy to get outside. The Tremblay Park was one of Harrison's favorite spots. After walking the dog for half an hour, Yusuf returned home. He fed Harrison some beef jerky and leftover chicken, and the dog happily wolfed it down. Still irked about the incident with the preacher, Yusuf watched TV.
"Good stuff," Yusuf said to himself as he watched Sam Reid dazzle everyone in the second season of Interview With The Vampire. Sam Reid kind of reminded Yusuf of Luther Rosenthal, a young Jewish man he met at an interfaith event at the University of Toronto. Luther, tall, green-eyed and brown-haired, was dating a young Ethiopian woman named Mariam Berhanu at the time. From the moment Yusuf met Luther, he knew that the cool, laidback Jewish dude wasn't straight. Luther had to be at least bisexual. A smile creased Yusuf's face as he remembered the fun he and Luther had, back in the day.
"I love black women, but I also notice certain black men," Luther said to Yusuf one time. The two young men ran into each other at Grisham's, a chic restaurant that also had a mini-library for some reason. Yusuf spotted Luther as the latter was picking up the novel Invisible Life by E. Lynn Harris. Everyone knows about the E. Lynn Harris novels. They glorified the lifestyle of bisexual black men, portraying them as professional football players and successful lawyers, the kind of guys that both women and men want. In real life, the average bisexual black man's existence wasn't that glamorous.
