Koolaids

by Rabih Alameddine

  We lived in a big house, in the town of Ba’abda. It was where the president lived. My father did not like him. From the front side of the house, I could see all of Beirut. From the back, I had an unobstructed view of the woods. It was my playpen. On a clear morning, in February of 1978, my father and I had just taken a bath together. We both dried off. The Beatles’ song “Revolution” was playing on the record player. Mom was making breakfast. The music was loud. We were singing right along. I stood on a stool, but I was still much shorter than my dad. I combed my hair. He combed his blond hair back into its usual ponytail. “We all want to change the world . . .” We sang together. He lathered his face and I wanted to do the same thing. He covered my face in lather. I watched him shave. I got to “alright” in the verse, “Don’t you know it’s gonna be . . . alright,” when the shell exploded in the woods. The house shook. The music stopped. The foam on my face was red. A piece of shrapnel had flown through the window and hit my father in the throat. Blood was everywhere. My father sat on the floor holding his throat. Mom rushed screaming into the bathroom. He couldn’t breathe. I kept screaming, “Damn that Yoko,” but he wouldn’t laugh.

  The Syrians killed my father, but I blame Yoko.

  …

  Even diseases have lost their prestige, there aren’t so many of them left. . . . Think it over . . . no more syphilis, no more clap, no more typhoid . . . antibiotics have taken half the tragedy out of medicine.

  The quote is by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, a writing doctor who died in 1961. I found it in a book of his essays edited by that fucker, Buckley, in 1989.

  …

  AP 14 Apr 96 22:02 EDT V0272

  Copyright © 1996 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

  The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

  Israel Spurs Lebanon Exodus

  BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP)—lsraeli aircraft bombarded guerrilla strongholds in Beirut and southern Lebanon on Sunday, doubling the tide of refugees to 400,000 and provoking guerrilla vows to tum northern Israel into a “fiery hell.”

  Undaunted by Israel’s four-day aerial barrage, Hizballah guerrillas hit northern Israel with rockets that came crashing down every 20 minutes for seven hours. One person was wounded and an empty school and other property were damaged.

  Israeli jet fighters knocked out a Beirut power relay station, cutting electricity to many parts of the capital and its suburbs. It was the first deliberate attack on an economic target since Israel launched its offensive against the Iranian-backed Hizballah on Thursday.

  Hizballah’s Al-Manar television station showed about 50 would-be suicide bombers with explosives strapped to their chests—members of a “brigade of martyrdom-lovers” ready to avenge the Israeli attacks.

  About 190,000 panicked Lebanese residents fled the southern port city of Tyre and 41 surrounding villages Sunday after Israel warned it would attack the area at sundown to drive out guerrillas.

  “Whenever Israel and Hizballah are mad at each other, we pay the price,” said Kassem Reda Ali, a 68-year-old farmer fleeing his home for the second time in three years.

  “Why prolong our agony?” he asked. “Just throw us in the sea.”

  Zayneb Duhainy, a Shiite Muslim housewife, hugged her 4-year-old son and blamed the United States for not intervening to stop the Israeli offensive.

  “When Kuwait was invaded, the U.S.A. rushed to its aid,” she said. “Are the Kuwaitis human beings and we’re animals?”

  About 400,000 refugees—more than half of the population of southern Lebanon and about one-tenth of the country’s people—were headed north Sunday for the relative safety of Beirut.

  The mass exodus was reminiscent of the last major Israeli strike against Hizballah, a weeklong offensive in July 1993 that killed 147 Lebanese, wounded about 500, and uprooted half a million people.

  With huge numbers of people on the move Sunday, Israeli aircraft struck again.

  The southern market town of Nabatiyeh and southeastern villages took the brunt of the raids, which destroyed several houses belonging to Hizballah commanders.

  Israeli aircraft also struck near Tyre, hitting a civil defense ambulance and injuring four paramedics. It was Israel’s second helicopter raid on an ambulance in as many days. Saturday’s attack killed six civilians, including three children.

  The recent violence has engulfed not only the long-tense South but the capital, too, for the first time since Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to expel Palestinian guerrillas.

  With elections just six weeks away, Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel has hit hard at Hizballah in an effort colored partly by a desire to prove he will not let peacemaking compromise Israel’s security.

  At a weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday, Peres said Israel’s military campaign was open-ended, but he added: “If the Hizballah ceases its attacks, we will cease ours.”

  Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri called Israel’s attacks in Lebanon unjustified.

  “The Lebanese people are paying the price of Peres’ election and that’s not right,” he said in Paris, where French leaders were planning to send their foreign minister to the Middle East to try to mediate a cease-fire.

  Hizballah issued a statement saying it would continue firing rockets on northern Israeli towns and vowed to turn the area “into a fiery hell.”

  Twenty rockets fell on more than a dozen settlements in less than seven hours, and the guerrillas said they had expanded the range of their attacks to Safed, five miles south of the border.

  Most casualties from the latest round of fighting have been Lebanese civilians. Israel says guerrillas were putting civilians in harm’s way by hiding among them, while Lebanon maintains Israel is deliberately targeting civilians.

  …

  Steve was the epitome of the angry young man. He was one of the founders of ACT UP in San Francisco. I believe it was his anger that kept him alive for so long. He always said he wanted to stay alive long enough to bite Reagan’s nose off. Steve was one of the first to be diagnosed with the disease. The acronym at the time was GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency. He was part of the hepatitis study of the late seventies. The blood they drew from him then turned out to be positive. Yet he went on living, baffling the experts.

  Kurt convinced him he should attend a workshop with Louise Hay. Kurt felt Louise would be able to help him resolve his anger issues. For two days, Kurt and Steve listened to Louise explain about creating one’s own reality. Kurt kept expecting Steve to get upset during the workshop. It did not happen. Steve absorbed it all. Louise explained making things happen in your life. She always found parking spaces, she said, because she created reality. On Sunday afternoon, the last day of the workshop, Louise began talking about the possibility of dying. She said if you were not creating your own reality, and it was time for you to die, you should accept it. Do not fight it, she said.

  At this point, Kurt noticed that Steve stood up. He interrupted Louise. “Excuse me,” Steve said. “Let me see if I have this straight.” He paused, placed one hand on his chin, with one finger pointing up in the universal I-am-pondering pose. “Basically what you are saying is, ‘First you park, then you die.’”

  Kurt burst out laughing. He took his friend’s hand and walked out of the building.

  …

  Scott told the doctor he was better. Tests showed his T-cell counts were improving. He had more energy.

  The doctor said he probably had AIDS dementia, which is why he imagined he was getting better.

  When I found out, I stormed into the congenital idiot’s office looking for trouble. I could not find the good doctor. My noisy entrance warned him. He did not return my phone calls either.

  …

  We all had what some would call a European complex. We wanted
so hard to be European. This manifested itself in a couple of ways. There were those who mimicked everything European. They ate European, dressed European, watched European movies. It was a sign of sophistication if one intermixed difficult English words with the predominant French. Many of these Lebanese—let’s call them Francophiles—had trouble speaking their native language, Arabic. They really had problems speaking to other Lebanese if those others were not like them, if they did not speak French fluently. Most Francophiles were Christians, but not exclusively. They even developed a relationship to America similar to what the Europeans have, an unhealthy fascination mixed with simultaneous disdain.

  Another manifestation was the complete opposite. Many hated Europeans with a passion. Some tried to revive Arabism. Islamic Fundamentalism was on the rise. They kidnapped Westerners.

  One lone person blew up two hundred marines, while another blew up only fifty-seven Frenchies.

  …

  I was reading a book about this man traveling in Lebanon. The man went from one small village to the next. He described how beautiful the villages were, how kind the people were. He came into the mountains where I was born. I was so disappointed. He described the village before my home village and then skipped ahead to the next village. Tears welled up in my eyes. The teacher asked me if I was sick. I told him the writer skipped my home. The teacher explained that writers could not include everything in a story. I understood that. I asked the teacher if there was a book that had my home in it. He did not know. I asked my father when I got home. He asked to see my book. He got really upset. He told me the book was trash. It had nothing to do with Lebanon. I almost started crying again. I liked the book. He said this book was about a Christian Lebanon. Our village was not in it because it was not Christian. All the villages in the book were Christian. I didn’t understand.

  …

  I just can’t stand watching another TV movie about AIDS. Can’t they fucking get a gay man to write one of those, as opposed to the constant crap we have to be subjected to? Jesus Christ. Those writers have no idea.

  I ask you. Did you see An Early Frost? If that doesn’t get your blood boiling, I don’t know what will. In that stupid film, we see how AIDS affects the guy’s mother, father, sister, brother-in-law, and grandmother. There is no consideration given to the fact all this is happening to him, not them. Fuck.

  …

  Mr. Suleiman was driving the car. His wife was sitting next to him. His two sons, sixteen and fourteen, as well as his four-year-old daughter, were in the back. They were driving back home. It was seven o’clock, already dark. There was no one else on the road. The electricity was out as usual. On the road past Damour, they encountered two men in military fatigues, carrying machine guns. They directed the car to the side. A flying checkpoint. They ordered Mr. Suleiman out of his car. They could not have been older than his sons. They asked him to open the trunk. He did. The younger of the two opened fire on Mr. Suleiman. Sixteen bullets killed him. He fell into the trunk. They pushed his legs into the trunk and calmly locked it.

  They walked into the night chatting boisterously. His wife wailed inside the car. His children sat in shock. Another car passed the noisy car. It was spared. The flying checkpoint was moving.

  …

  In one of his short stories, Coover takes the reader into an old village. Slowly, he brings the various characters into view, except they are all the same character. We see a funeral procession. The dead man in the casket looks exactly like the six pallbearers, exactly like the priest and his assistants, and exactly like the mourning women. They take the casket to the cemetery, interring it into its plot. We hear scratching and clawing. The dead man comes out of the ground. We see the people flee. The dead man runs after them. We notice him entering one of the houses in the village. He sees the dress and scarf of one the mourners. He puts it on. He becomes one of the mourners. Another man puts on the priest outfit, and others the pallbearers’ outfits. We have the funeral procession starting again with a new, but the same, dead man. We see the cycle begin all over again.

  I wish I could write short stories like that. I could describe the human condition so eloquently and succinctly.

  …

  December 18th, 1995

  Dear Diary,

  I called Samir today. He sounded strange so I asked him what was wrong. He tried to assure me everything was fine, but I knew. I figured out he was crying. When I asked him what made him cry, he admitted he was cleaning out his phone book. It brought tears to my eyes. What have we done to deserve all this? He said he had to erase out the names of a number of friends who have died. I cried as well. Both for him and me. I have done the same thing so many times. In the eighties, I would go through my phone book every year. So many friends died, so many simply moved away, emigrated. The war took a terrible toll.

  He reminded me that I taught him to write only in pencil in the address book. I told him people move, and you have to keep erasing. They do move. He still has the same black leather address book I gave him when he left here. I bought two of them, one for him and one for me. I still carry mine. We have that in common.

  …

  I met Mohammad through Scott. I had seen him a couple of times before, but did not really meet him until I started dating Scott. Scott and I had been talking, typing to be exact, for a couple of months before we actually met face-to-face. We were both using a computer bulletin board, a BBS, called Queer Bee. I met many people, and made many friends, using that system. Scott’s handle on the BBS was interesting. He called himself Bookworm. Nomenclature on the BBS was always interesting—one extrapolated a significant amount of information based on the choice of handle a person assumed. However, a disparaging or self-deprecating handle was rarely used. In normal situations calling oneself a bookworm may not be pejorative; however, this was a gay BBS, which the majority, if not all, of the men used to cruise for sex. In this case, it was the kiss of death.

  Since I was not cruising for sex, or I should say cruising for sex was not necessarily my primary pursuit, or the foremost reason for conversing with other users, I talked to Scott at various times while on the BBS. I found out he used the handle because he owned a bookstore and it happened to be my favorite bookstore in the city. He, of course, loved books and had read all of my favorite books, but his favorite writers, I was ashamed to admit, I had never read, and some I had never even heard of. We found out we were the same age. When we got to know each other better, and being the type of open person that I am, I explained to him the problem with his handle. He was honestly surprised BBS users might find his handle deprecatory and said he would change it at some point. He never did.

  We decided to meet after we found out we both adored the same film, The Hunger. I loved it because it perfectly described the human condition. The constant search for immortality, life’s prerequisite of feeding on life, the theory of life being repeated patterns, and so on. He loved it for completely different reasons not the least of which was his adoration of Catherine Deneuve. The movie was playing at the Castro the following week, so we set a date.

  That date changed my life.

  …

  The Deer Hunter started a trend in Lebanon. The militia fighters, particularly the Phalange, started playing Russian roulette.

  I lost track of Georges when I left Lebanon in 1975. I kept up with news and gossip about him for a while. Apparently he had gotten to the point of being unable to see a picture of Arafat on TV without spitting on the screen. He cut himself once, requiring sixteen stitches in his arm, trying to punch the screen while watching a news clip with the PLO leader. It sounded like he had become deranged.

  The boy I knew had died when the war started. Georges had become a killing machine.

  The rumors were he became the Phalange’s most ruthless killer. They said he took part in the Karantina massacre. That was in January, 1976, so he couldn’t have been more than eight
een. It took a while to fit the image I had of Georges with what he had become. A neighborhood friend told me in 1978 that if Georges had seen me on the street, he would have shot me. No doubt about it.

  They said Georges died in 1980 while playing Russian roulette. He was twenty-three. I still think it was plain suicide. From what I remember of him, he would not waste time. If he wanted to kill himself, he wouldn’t play Russian roulette. He would just blow his head off. Then again, maybe the drugs he took changed him.

  …

  Ben was a slut. Ben was a delusional slut. His handle on the BBS was Cute Boy, but he was neither cute nor a boy, I assure you. He loved screwing minorities, mostly Asians. He wasn’t exclusively a rice queen, but why quibble?

  After his diagnosis, he had a lot of free time on his hands so he started visiting masseurs. One day, he told me there was this guy who had fallen madly in love with him. Of course, he was bragging. I knew he had an open relationship with his lover, but I gathered this was a little more serious than the casual fucks he indulged in. I asked him who the suitor was. It turned out he was an East Indian masseur. They had been having great sex regularly, and they even started working out together at the gym.

  “Whoa,” I say sarcastically. “Are you sure you are ready for such a commitment? Working out together is a big step.”

  “You don’t understand, Kurt,” he says. “This is real.”

  “What about Alan? What does he think of all of this?”

  “He’s okay with it. He knows I love him, but this is different. This is special.”

  It was so special that Ben started designing the masseur’s ads (let’s call him Corey, which isn’t his real name, but I don’t want to get in trouble for using his real name, which was probably fake anyway), which appeared in the weekly gay paper, the Bay Area Reporter. I started calling his attempts at designing Corey’s ads his pimpish ways. He found that amusing.