I cleaned myself up as best I could. I was aching all over, bleeding, cut. My hostel mates looked at me with fear, but none of them asked me a thing. I went to class that next day. No one was going to keep me down, I decided. I limped into class and stared my professor in the face as he lectured about mathematics. He acted like he was just my professor and I was just his student. He pretended that he was not one of the Red Shark members who’d tried to kill me the night before. Adebayo and I went to the Cholera Joint together for lunch. He, too, acted like nothing happened. He said nothing about my limping, but he did slow his walk for me.

Night fell. It had rained during the day, so it was cooler. My skin was itchy from mosquito bites and from scabbing skin. I felt inflamed all over. Again, I nearly ran. I wanted to jump in my Jeep and just drive. But . . . I don’t know. I stayed. What could be worse than last night? I thought. I wasn’t going to run from anybody.

They came at three A.M. They didn’t blindfold me or tie my hands. I knew where the place was, anyway. And I hadn’t run, so to them I had resigned myself to my fate. I wasn’t afraid. They brought me to the haunted bush where everyone was waiting for me. More than ten guys this time. Probably closer to thirty. All in red and black.

They introduced me to “the family” from Capo to me; my new name was Yung C. Then Capo asked me to step up. When I did, Capo grabbed my shoulders. I immediately tensed up, a thousand different flares of still-raw pain went through me. But I stayed calm. Some guys came up behind and beside me and held my arms.

One of the members stepped up beside Capo with something in his hand. Another member shined a flashlight on my other hand. Those guys holding me began to push me down. “Don’t fight,” one of them said, straining as I resisted. Another guy joined them, and they eventually wrestled me to the ground and . . . and Capo brought these clamps out of his pocket. They were holding me down, and two more guys came and held my head down. One of them squeezed my cheeks hard and said, “Open! Open your mouth!” After a while, the pain was so much that I did.

Capo knelt over me with those clamps, and I understood exactly what was about to happen. I started bucking and trying to free myself. But there were so many guys, I was trapped.

“One of a Red Shark’s teeth must be taken to signify he is one with the Sharks.”

“You bite him and we kill you,” the one squeezing my mouth open growled. The guy was serious. And he looked like he was hoping to have to do it.