Chapter 2

QUERESH

17th of Sha’baan 1417

(December 28, 1996)

Queresh agreed with himself that consuming alcohol on a regular basis did not constitute a moral failure. He had been introduced to alcohol several years ago, as some of his closest associates in the garment industry drank at every conceivable opportunity. He liked drinking. He admitted that one or two drinks after work with his American friends did not break any moral code. He would casually sit at the bar and order a light beer. The beer relaxed him at first, but after three or four he felt more than loose, and in that period when relaxation gives way to a light inebriation, he knew he should stop, but he did not. Instead he kept going and found himself drunk at the end of the night.

Usually he drank to escape, to access that core of the brain which usually remains dormant during times of sobriety. He frequented a bar near his apartment called the Penbrooke Pub. The walls of this pub were made of shellacked oak. He relished in sitting down at the bar after a tremendously long day and ordering that first beer. A colorful jukebox stood towards the rear, and Queresh had a penchant for old rock and roll tunes from the sixties and seventies. These tunes were popular in Jeddah, although most of the lyrics were censored.

Alcohol, when accompanied by music, can lead to a brief window of euphoria inaccessible to the sober mind. He knew he should indulge instead in simple pleasures, such as the sunshine, running his eyes over a beautiful blonde, or taking in a film, but these simple pleasures seemed so routine and mundane that he returned to the drink time and again. Within the drink he found truth, believe it or not. The truth of how America worked. The system demanded a confidence in the self, and without confidence success is impossible. At one time Queresh possessed this confidence, but after the miscarriage, his confidence slipped completely. Although short-lived, the drink buoyed his ailing confidence. The drink permitted a departure from reality but at the same time a woeful perspective. On occasion he would go to the bar with associates, but after his associates departed, he would stay and drink by himself.

Queresh was not a sorrowful man. He had wealth and close friends. But as his wife’s mental health failed, as the recent miscarriage sat like a welt upon his brain, he found a substitute within the alcohol. In all his drinking he tried to enjoy life, and liquor made him enjoy it more. A typical evening would run like this: He would call his wife from the office at five in the evening. He would say he was stuck in a meeting. He would give his love to his wife, and once he determined all was well, he would hop in a taxi and head straight for the pub. He would sit close to the bar, on a warped wooden stool, and drink for a couple of hours before returning home. He usually had a friend accompany him, but recently he entered the bar alone. He left the same way.

The drinker shares a special bond with his drink. When that bubbling glass of cold and crisp brew is placed before the drinker, he knows intuitively that the drink provides an ultimate companionship. The glass doesn’t speak in monotonous tones. The glass of beer doesn’t talk back or offer criticism. Rather, as the drinker sips slowly, allowing it to drown his tongue and loosen his body, the beer itself shares the man’s experience. Quite arguably, the alcohol never takes away, only gives. He begins to relax. The drink pauses the treacherous grind, and when this sublime relaxation sets in, the man finds a kernel of truth within the mountains of desperate lies. At this point precisely a special relationship is formed with that particular glass of beer. Ah, the texture of it. Cold and penetrating, so penetrating that the man glances into his own soul and discovers through the joy of inebriation the purity of it. With each sip, leading to voracious gulps, the alcohol removes the man from the hard reality. Does this mean the man is some scoundrel, some blemish needing a removal by the hypocrites who follow some established good? Certainly not. A departure from reality through that bountiful elixir only conveys, to anyone in a position to observe, the highest respect for that reality. The drinker manifests such a reality, a collection of forces interacting, an unbearable history penetrating the present, a routine of rising at dawn and sleeping at dusk. Call the drinker reckless, irresponsible, and weak. But the drinker who feels that numbness also understands that reality is a much stronger opponent, and only through his inebriation may he size it up and wish for things with intentions more pure. Notice how the drinker talks of some distant plan that would conquer reality once and for all. Notice how the drinker’s fantasies interact with his imprisoning reality. With that cold brew he is grappling with reality, this same reality which can never be beaten. Deep in his brain, the solitary drinker knows reality will never be overcome. But when those dreams, those visions, those fantasies battle the accepted reality, therein lies the ultimate self-respect for the man, because his nobility within these mottled intentions transcend the accepted reality. And through the drink the man conquers it, at least for a short time.