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

a smooth banister, when it struck like dull lightning to the back. By the time you were at the foot of the stairs, you were folded over. A book creased on its spine. They sat you down and asked where it hurt. You couldn’t discern at first, but homed in on a difficulty whenever you inhaled, exhaled. Left side. This was now an emergency. There was no blood but you were thinking of apoptosis, a process by which the body engineers its own demise by programming the cells to warp and morph towards their eventual death. The body kills itself, slowly. There is no blood. There was no blood.

The paramedic arrived in minutes, like he had been waiting for an emergency. He asked, do you know what is happening to you? No diagnosed conditions, no. He checked your blood pressure and commented on your slow, lumbering heart rate.

Athlete?

Former, you said. Used to play a lot of basketball.

Hmm, he said. And in the gap between what he has said and what he has not, you’re thinking about cell death, how the body kills itself from the inside out, how hurt can manifest in various forms.

Let’s do an ECG, to be safe.

You watched the machine write your story in regular rhythm, the jagged loop constant. The paramedic pointed to a short jut in each of these, and said you had an arrythmia. He said it was hard to tell if this was something you’ve had forever or something you have developed in the past year, or something which had come on that day. You’re not one to worry, or to have others worry for you, and besides the pain had subsided, so it was probably nothing, right? It’s probably nothing, the paramedic confirmed. He recommended painkillers and rest and to take it easy.

The thing lingered, dormant. When it emerged once more, you were in the British Library, listening to a group of readings. Later, at dinner, you shivered with a warm drink in hand and smiled through the discomfort. It was only when you returned home and collapsed onto your sofa that you began to think of cell death once more and how hurt might change how this process occurs.

That year, you had been aching. You lost yourself. You lost your grandma. They killed Rashan and Edson, from the outside in. And like an echo, they pushed you up against the wall and you scraped your hands trying to find somewhere to hold on. Your breath was short, even without their fingers curling on your neck. Things were falling apart from the root. Irregular rhythm. It’s probably nothing. And yet. Take it easy.

You heed the advice and turned off the lights. You turned on a film and cried in the dark.

You cry in darkness. Death is not always physical, and crying is not always an expression of pain. You’ve said a lot, but you came to speak of the stillness of an autumnal evening, trees boughed towards you in the dark of dusk. You held her at arm’s length. You told her not to look at you because when your gazes meet you cannot help but be honest. But remember Baldwin’s words? I just want to be an honest man and a good writer. Hmm. Honest man. You’re being honest, here, now.

You came here to speak of what it means to love your best friend. A direct gaze. An honest man. You’re searching for words, but none will do. Ask: if flexing is being able to say the most in the least amount of words, is there a greater flex than love? The gaze requires no words at all; it is an honest meeting.

You came here to ask if she will look at you, while you tell her this story.

28

This is not an overstatement. You are dying. You young boys are dying. You kill your mothers in the process. The grief makes them tired. The effort makes them tired. This living is precarious. Imagine leaving your house and not knowing if you will return intact. You do not need to imagine. You live precarious. You cool, you real cool, playing it cool. Keeping it real, cool, ­until – Sigh into the darkness. Daily strain makes chest tight. You have been torn and furled, like they ripped the pages out of your book and crumpled them like wastepaper. This is how you die. This is how young boys die. This is how your mothers and partners and sisters and daughters die too. The grief makes them tired. The effort makes them tired. This living is precarious and could make light work of your life at any time. Imagine knowing that your wholeness could be split at any moment, so you live in pieces. You live broken, you live small, lest someone makes you smaller, lest someone break you. You are Black body, container, vessel, property. You are treated as such because property is easy to destroy and plunder. You do not need to imagine a life you already lead. It is precarious to sigh into darkness and say you are real cool because that poem ends with you dying soon. You have been torn and furled and you’re scared you will flutter away in a small breeze. Forever unseen. This is how young boys die. This is how your mothers and partners and ­sisters and daughters die too. The grief makes you tired. The effort makes you tired.

You’re longing for the moment you saw four Black boys in a Beemer. At the traffic lights, they shaved off the hood. Sweet Mary drifted towards your nostrils. They bucked their heads in rhythm like a bobbing buoy. It’s joy, the feeling that bounced about your chest, that these young men could be driving, yellow beams spilling from street lights onto their faces, the light in their eyes the brightest, a life uninhibited, even if it is only brief, it is theirs, this space, in a moving vehicle, an 808 kicking at the body of the car, a childish guffaw,