Chapter 6

RAGE

19th of Sha’baan 1417

(December 30, 1996)

Queresh returned to the Penbrooke Pub in the afternoon just as his hangover from the previous night wore off. He ordered a beer and was lucky to have a different bartender. He planted himself on his usual wooden stool after forcing a dollar into the jukebox. A younger patron in the corner was lost in his own world. Above the bar hung a painting, and with each swallow of the cold brew Queresh stared into it, getting lost in it. It depicted a gentle ocean, lapping against weathered rocks.

He imagined the shoreline and how it rapidly engulfs the rocks, the small birds pecking at the tiny pebbles. He would swim in this ocean one day, he thought. He would swim far away, enduring its swell and its calm luxury when the fish bite, or its maddening rush. The ocean calms him. The steady breeze captivates his hair. The warmth of the beneficent sun, the wind gusts, and the ocean’s swell remain so silent. The ocean would always endure, astounding science and forcing the poets to dream. Ah! To touch the ocean and to hear its silent mystery, not clockwork, but a pervading mystery, and to watch the sandpiper searching the small pebbles of its shore, the seagull suspended in the air and fighting the wind, and the music of that silent ocean, undulating and hiding what lurks below its surface.

He dives into that steady swell of silence, that patient ocean of vast history, that unencumbered melody, and he fights the undertow, never letting this majesty take him alive. He moves his arms, keeping afloat, never time to rest, his arms pumping like the steels of industry, his breath moist and damp, his heart thudding with exuberance, his lungs panting, and his head slapping the cold of that water, and suddenly, for lack of air, he gasps for breath, his muscles give, but with every last bone, with every muscle aflame with work, he fights the ocean, departing far from land, so much that he can see nothing, do nothing, but grind his heavy arms into the current. He has little fear, and he is determined to survive, because he carries the weight of memories, a longing to be free, from our darker selves, free from cacophony, away from addictions and swimming towards these unearthed freedoms, not escape, because the arms will lag and the soul will drown, but moving into the horizon, his legs kicking, his torso twisting, his vision nothing but the back of his eyes, and moving steadily towards the pool of endless seas, alone and unafraid. He swims for greater purposes, neither to seek and destroy nor to win or to lose, only pumping and grinding his body upon the surface of this vast, naked, disciplined, yet childlike sea.

He said scotch, and the bartender filled his glass. With each slow sip his head grew weightless. He looked around the oak-paneled room. The young solitary drinker at the end of the bar disappeared. He spotted a newspaper at the end of the long bar. He read about Protestants and Catholics feuding in Northern Ireland, an epidemic in Sudan, a beautiful young Israeli woman arrested for depicting Muhammad as a pig. And how beautiful this woman looked in the paper. Dark hair, lightly frizzed and flowing to her chest. He could not deny her beauty, a woman who actually thinks amidst chaos, a woman willing to die for what she believes, and yet this preposterous beauty would never find him, for if they walked upon the same pavement on any street in the world they would find themselves staunch enemies. And he would never speak with her, never touch her or kiss her.

For what seemed like hours he stared at her photograph. His sips turned into frantic gulps just staring at her, regardless of her radical opinions or her hatred of Muslims, no matter the emblem of fist and Star of David tattooed on her breast, but oh her breathtaking beauty.

He gulped his scotch until he tongued bitter, melting ice. He was on the verge of destroying that newspaper as it represented madness; forty dead here and fifty dead there, the face of this radical Jew, her beauty, and her inexorable animosity. The cold ice melted in his mouth. Arms pumping against the endless sea, head in the water, gasping for breath, moving slowly towards a shore he would never reach.

“Bartender, another scotch!” he yelled into the air.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough, sir?” asked the young barkeep.

“It’s only my first one, but yes I’ve had enough,” as he brought the newspaper to the bartender’s nose. “Now be a good lad and pour me another drink.”

His legs slackened. His eyes became heavy and bloodshot. His breath fumed.

“A killing here and a killing there, smart people up, dumb people down, blacks on one side, whites on another, hatred and fear: heads, love and goodwill: tales. Now good man, another drink.”

“Sir ... Sir,” said the barkeep. “Are you alright?” after pouring him another.

“You look like a decent young man,” said Queresh. “Are you in school, have you ever gone to school my young man?”

“I have my degree.”

“And in all those years of schooling, my kind and gentle fellow, what has it taught you?”

“Why, I suppose it taught me to look ahead.”

“And where will you be when you get ahead? And by the way, another drink.”

“Sir, I can’t serve you anymore.”

“Why not damn you?”

“I’m just looking ahead,” said the barkeep.

Queresh rubbed his fingers along the hardness of his skull.

“Stop,” he whispered to himself. “Stop this. Just stop.”

“It’s a question of attitude, sir. You can do it,” chimed the young barkeep.

His stomach turned, and a hot, reckless flash accompanied the weightlessness. A curdling like sour milk pushed into his throat. He ran at full speed to the toilet. He flipped open the white lid. His eyes teared and closed, his face contorted, and the day’s food and drink gushed from his mouth and nose.

He readied himself in front of a cracked mirror. He had not seen his reflection for some time. He had lost weight, his eyes of brown so tired and dull. His mustache dripped with perspiration. He splashed water on his face. The wetness dribbled down his neck and chest. In the mirror he saw a man who hardly looked like himself. The face scared him and yet appealed to him, as his days were shoelaces-tied and hair-combed-neatly. He checked the slits of his eyes. He asked himself: