Samira Sahebi - Collide

 

 

So, when I was 14, I was sent away to the west by myself. My family gave me a parting gift. It was a very fancy gold ring. So, five years later, when I lived in Los Angeles as a pretty well assimilated Westerner, I lived with two roommates. At that time, the only thing Persian about me was my accent and the ring. So, one night, the roommates wanted to go party and I declined. Laura decided to entice me by holding out her acid washed brown leather jacket and she said, “If you come, you get to wear this.” I had this super skimpy tube top that I could never wear on its own. And this just became my motivation to go. I was like, “Okay, I'll go.” 

 

And so, I went to get the jacket, and she pulled it back. She's like, “Wait, you need to really take care of this.” I'm like, “Oh, sure. Of course.” And she's like, “No, no, I mean it. No stains, no forgetting it.” And I said, “I give you, my word.” And so, we all got very 1980s chic and went to 40 miles south to Hermosa beach to some guy's house and we got really drunk. And then, we headed to the strip where we would go from bar to bar. While we were dancing, the ring had come off. 

 

So, as the group got smaller and smaller, people would go back to the house to sleep. There were three people left, and I was desperately looking for the ring and these three people are like, “Yeah, we'll wait for you.” And so, I came out of the last bar and they could just tell that I had not found the ring. I was like on the verge of tears. This guy with an Eddie Van Halen haircut, he's like, “Don't be sad. It's going to be okay. Jump up. I'm going to give you a piggyback ride.” And I was like, “Oh, no.” And he's like, “Come on, come on” and then he backed into me and he just assumed a posture for me to mount him. [audience laughter] 

 

It was so forward that I just felt bad declining. So, I jumped up. [audience laughter] He had been drinking. So, as soon as maybe I was heavier than I looked, he just lost his balance. [audience laughter] I had been drinking also. And so, I just watched the whole thing unfold as the asphalt got closer to my face and then further and closer and I was like, “Fascinating.” And so, what did happen is that he flipped me over his shoulder onto the cold asphalt. This was winner. I know it was LA, but it was still winter for us. 

 

And so, then he lost his own balance and fell and shattered my collarbone. There was this exploding glass sound and I passed out. I woke up in the ER, and Eddie Van Halen had driven, following the ambulance, which I was grateful for because I didn't know anybody. So, the very first thing they want to do in the ER, like the whole staff has gathered behind me, and they're like, “Go, get the shears, the extra-large ones from upstairs. We're going to cut the jacket.” And I was like, “No, not the jacket.” And she's like, “Trust me, sweetie, you want me to cut the jacket.” And I was like, “No, please don't cut the jacket.” 

 

So, then Eddie is standing next to me holding my hand, putting it on his chest, like this devoted husband who's coaching his wife through childbirth. He's like, “You can do this. You can do this.” He's almost crying, he feels so guilty, I'm sobbing. There's makeup everywhere. So, they take this thing off. I felt this cold that was to the bone. I could not stop shaking. So, they're piling warm blanket after me. There's this hierarchy in ER.

 

First of all, I didn't get any drugs and I didn't know why. So, I'm in pain, and they're like, “Yeah, you're low priority.” Like, “People with heart attack get to cut in front of you. And then we also had gunshot wounds tonight, so you just need to be patient.” So, finally at 04:00 in the morning, I see this shadow of a man emerging from the hallway. He's got a limp, he's got an accent, he's like, “I'm going to take your X-ray.” He's walking way too fast for that time of day. He just goes [makes a wooshing sound] down the hallway, gets me to X-ray, closes the door, and he's like, “Are you Persian? I'm Persian.” [audience laughter] And I was like, “Yes.” 

 

And he's like, “I know someone with your last name” and then he recites the name of my father. And I am mortified. And so, I tell him because I was too honest. And then, the mood shifted. He just got very, very quiet. Like, he just went from interested to, “Oh, shit.” And then, he looked at me up and down, and I could see myself through his eyes, through these Muslim eyes, I reeked of vodka, I looked so trashy and he just said, “What happened, child?” And that cut like a knife and then I started shivering again. 

 

And so, he took the X-ray without looking at me. He pushed me down the hallway. And this time, he was not so preppy. He was just pushing me very slowly, weighted down by the tragedy that was me. [audience laughter] The hallway seemed eternal. And in that eternity, I got to feel the weight of the expectation of what a good girl should do, especially a good Muslim girl. He dropped me in the room, he said goodbye without looking at me and he left. I never saw the X-ray man ever again. 

 

But that night, my two fragmented, intentionally separated world collapsed. They just collided. And although I lost a physical representation of my origin, I tapped into a journey of integration where my two polarities started to come together, which has been a journey ever since. And a part of me wants to find that man. I want to thank him for actually genuinely caring, and a part of me wants to look at him and be like, “I turned out okay.” [audience laughter] Thank you.