The setting of one of my most vivid childhood memories is my local mosque’s Red Room, a very large and windowless multipurpose space named after its rough red carpet. Throughout the year, the room was used as a Qur’an reading room in the daytime, a meeting space in the afternoon, and a makeshift dining area in the evening. It also served as an overflow room for the main prayer hall.

During Ramadan, the Red Room became “the babysitter”. It was referred to just like that, and children wanted both to be there and to escape. Total mayhem. Even at such a young age, I knew not to envy the babysitters hired to keep this enormous playpen under control.

Every night, as parents ushered their way towards the main prayer hall for nightly taraweeh and qiyam prayers, they made a quick detour to the Red Room to drop off their children. One by one, the kids filed through the wooden doors and into the containment room. Either you embraced the mayhem and joined in, or you stood terrified at the door until pickup time.

Sitting by the doors were the babysitters themselves, usually two but sometimes one, and on rare occasions, three or four, always women, and always suspicious. They cycled frequently; very few seemed to last more than a week. I’m not sure what the pay was, but it was an exhausting job with little to no appreciation or reward.

I spent many nights in this room. I faithfully embraced the chaos and viewed the babysitters as guards, my natural adversaries. I joined the gangs of children that made it a nightly mission to test their guardianship.

Sometimes all it took was brute force. If enough children charged at the unsuspecting women, their chairs might tumble, they may lose their grip on the doorknobs, and a few of us might be able to break out. Other efforts were more sophisticated: stage a chaotic wrestling match in a back corner and slink out through the now-unattended doors. Sometimes they referred to us as demon children.

One evening, before that night’s planned escape attempt, my friend walked towards me and revealed a plastic bag of sour gummy straws, chocolate bars, and an assortment of chips which, in that era, were only twenty-five cents per bag. He called me to the back wall, far enough from wandering eyes and listening ears, and shared his plan. He knew how to gauge supply and demand.

I peered into his bag as he quickly laid out the prices. This was for a dollar. That was for fifty cents. Two of those went for a quarter.

I followed him closely as he made his way around the Red Room, quietly emptying his bag and pocketing his profits.

I’m not sure how he snuck in an even bigger bag the next evening but he did, and he again managed to sell out. The babysitters had not yet caught on to his small business, and that was thrilling.

After a few days of this, I managed to meet with him outside of the Red Room. Our families had just arrived to the masjid and asked us to deliver ourselves to the containment room. But instead, like the rebel he was and the rebel I wanted to be, he whisked me away to the small grocery shop adjacent to the mosque.

Using a fraction of his earnings, he purchased candy and chips, sang the storeowner his praises as well as a nine-year-old can, and tucked the contraband under his sweater. We walked back to the masjid, through the main entrance, made a left, knocked on the Red Room doors, and casually walked in, careful not to draw attention to the rustling plastic bag beneath his clothing.

I would be working with him tonight. He carefully handed me share of the candy, offered me a quick pricing summary, and sent me off. I was not nearly as business-forward as him, but I still made my first dollar that day.

Sadly, the operation had grown too popular and was shut down the very next day. One particularly observant babysitter caught him dealing a Twix. This must have been their revenge. But no matter — I was up a dollar or so that night.

The Red Room no longer exists as it once did. The carpet is gone. The room is still a multipurpose space, but no longer is it used for babysitting. Like lost hieroglyphs, the wall markings — smudges and scratches, sticky fingerprints, and maybe even some pencil graffiti reflecting the chaos of its time — are painted over and sealed up. Children now follow their parents to the prayer hall. The room is reserved for more formal processes.

I look very fondly upon my time in the Red Room. It was a free space — perhaps too free — and although we were collectively very, very poorly behaved, it was a safe space that allowed children like myself to establish a personal connection to the mosque and to build relationships with other Muslim children growing up in America.