Open Water, Caleb Nelson [best summer books txt] 📗

glass raining to the ground. The chaos is immediate. Every man is on his feet. You take stock: a figure, black ­T-­shirt, scrambling across the floor. You recognize this man, you’ve seen him bopping around ends; no, you know this man, you have shared space and time with him. But there’s no time to tell this story. Right now, you’re concerned with what lies on the other side of the shopfront: five men demanding access to the young man who fell through the glass. They’re shouting and pointing and the glint of light from something in one of their hands clenches your body, twists your spirit. You can hear Leon telling everybody to calm down. You can hear the young man panting. You can hear the men in the shop shouting too, protective. You can hear fear. You can hear sirens in the distance. You can hear panic. Those outside the shop are unrelenting, but refuse to cross the threshold of this shrine, the barbershop. I don’t know you, man, you’ve got the wrong guy, you hear the young man say. His name comes to you: Daniel. You can hear Daniel’s fear. The sirens grow closer. All those present grow more fearful in the presence of the siren because when they, the police, are close, you lose your names and you have all done wrong. Those outside the shop are unrelenting, they want Daniel, they are shouting at him to come out, come out before they come in. But the sirens are growing closer, and they want their liberty more than they want Daniel. Three of them start to shift. One remains with the glint in his hand. It must be his grievance. The others insist it’s not worth it and tug at him to come, let’s go, let’s go, they say. He gives in, his face contorted, unrelenting. This is the face of a man who will try again another day. They scramble and scarper. The room takes a collective breath as you wait for the police to arrive.

When they do, the chaos is immediate. They’re shouting and pointing and the glint of dark light from guns in all of their hands clenches your body, twists your spirit. You can hear Leon telling everybody to calm down. You can hear Daniel panting. You can hear the men in the shop shouting too, protective. You can hear fear. You can hear bodies being crumpled. A knee on a crooked back, a book folded in on its spine. We haven’t done anything, we haven’t done anything, you hear Daniel say. They do not listen. You are heavy and scared. They pat you down and riffle through pockets and ask what it is you’re hiding. You want to say the ache, but you don’t think they’d understand. Not when they are complicit. This goes on until they grow tired, they grow bored, they lose focus, there is a call somewhere else. Just doing our jobs, they say. You’re free to go now, they say.

‘Are we ever?’ Leon asks.

There’s an anger you have. It is cool and blue and unshifting. You wish it was red so it would explode from your very being, explode and be done with, but you are too used to cooling this anger, so it remains. And what are you supposed to do with this anger? What are you supposed to do with this feeling? Some of you like to forget. Most of you live daily in a state of delusion because how else is one meant to live? In fear? Some days, this anger creates an ache so bad you struggle to move. Some days, the anger makes you feel ugly and undeserving of love and deserving of all that comes to you. You know the image is false, but it’s all you can see of yourself, this ugliness, and so you hide your whole self away because you haven’t worked out how to emerge from your own anger, how to dip into your own peace. You hide your whole self away because sometimes you forget you haven’t done anything wrong. Sometimes you forget there’s nothing in your pockets. Sometimes you forget that to be you is to be unseen and unheard, or it is to be seen and heard in ways you did not ask for. Sometimes you forget to be you is to be a Black body, and not much else.

A few hours later, you’re walking up the road to grab a patty from the Caribbean takeaway. You’re hungry for the sweet yellow pastry, filled with spicy meat. You’re hungry for comfort. So you’re walking, a route you take every day, along the main road of Bellingham, when you see Daniel, cycling towards you. He dismounts as he reaches the Morley’s, and he daps you with a wide smile on his face, his hips moving in time to whatever spills from his headphones. It is like all has been forgotten. It is like you can let go of that anger for a moment. His pleasant rhythm is infectious and you two step around each other, before laughing and splitting away, he heading into the chicken shop, you a few doors down. Inside the Caribbean takeaway, a dub bassline rocks the windows. You spy the cook tying up his dreads in the kitchen before emerging into the main area, crooning, ‘I’m still in love with you,’ interpolating the classic. It makes you think of her, of playing this song, holding her neat waist, pulling her close, closer, feeling her smile as she lets the back of her neck settle into your chest.

‘What can I get for you, brother?’ he asks. You decide, on impulse, to treat yourself to a serving of mac and cheese. You watch as he packs some wings into a box as an extra, and when you try to pay for them, he shakes his head.

‘I can tell you need some good food,’ he says. You pound fists, and depart.

As you emerge, you are greeted with