Open Water

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

  ‘I know.’

  She twists round and invites you to the sofa, invites herself to lay her head in your lap.

  ‘Don’t let me fall asleep here.’

  Another change of position: she flips her body, so her legs are stretched across your lap, and props her head up on a pillow on the sofa.

  ‘I have to go to bed soon,’ she says.

  And another: she sits up and curls her arms around you, kissing the material over your chest, kissing the exposed skin on your cheek, and you lean in, as does she, but she makes a diversion, and it’s lips grazing cheek once more, and again. You lean closer, brushing her nose, but it’s the same; she mirrors, and somewhere en route, a moment of resistance, or perhaps she is experiencing lucidity in her own mist. You play this game with each other, in which the stakes are far too high, on the sofa, in her kitchen, in her hallway; you wanting to make a journey, she wanting to do the same but making a diversion before the destination.

  ‘Hey. Are you OK?’

  She nods, separating your tangled limbs. ‘I think you should go home.’

  You walk home from Deptford to Bellingham. You spend the hour wondering about how you will both recollect this evening. You think about what it means to desire your best friend in this way. You think about holding onto this feeling for so long, holding it down, holding it in, because sometimes it’s easier to hide in your own darkness than to emerge, naked and vulnerable, blinking in your own light. You think about whether she has been doing the same. You think about spillage, and whether this is something that can be mopped up. You think as you walk through the night, wandering familiar streets with these unfamiliar feelings. At some point, the sun begins to break the horizon, and you find yourself in the park, prone on the ground. The grass cool against the heat of your desire, life still against the pace of your racing heart.

  14

  It’s summer now. You’re working in NikeTown, on Oxford Circus, supplementing your money from photography. It started as a temporary gig, the year before last, meant as a stopgap after graduation. Now, it is a permanent fixture, and you’re clocking in to clock out. You’re clocking in and dreaming your days away. You’re not entirely unhappy here, but herein lies the issue; this job is far too comfortable, and for the most part, considering you and your colleagues are cogs in a giant machine, you’re all treated quite well.

  The air conditioning has broken. The enormous windows have been designed to let as much daylight seep in as possible, giving the illusion that one is shopping outside, rather than in walled confines. You’re daydreaming, thinking of spending your days elsewhere. You want to take a plane somewhere, and walk. The previous summer, you did just this, flying to Seville in August, where the heat clutches your whole being, tighter as the day goes on, relenting its grip only after siesta. You would wake early, and walk down to the restaurant underneath the apartment you were staying in, where, despite a decent grip of the language, you would muddle through a ­bleary-­eyed conversation, ordering a tostada and a black coffee. The morning would be spent exploring the outer edges of the city, before returning to your apartment for a nap. You would wake and perch at the tiny desk in your room, writing by hand in a battered black notebook, opening the doors of your balcony wide and letting stray chatter drift towards you in many languages. You might have a snack, and walk some more, turning towards the heart of the city, going to a bar, later, sitting to eat tapas in a restaurant. From here, you would dangle your legs over the edge of the River Guadalquivir, the bank unprotected, one able to take a dip if one so wished. Many others had the same ­idea – the dangling rather than swimming in the ­river – a line of kicking legs, listening to the quiet swish of water lapping back and forth.

  It’s summer now, and you’re craving a simpler existence. You want to read. You want to write. You want to meet strangers for dinner, and not refuse another drink at another bar. You want to dance. You want to find yourself in a basement, neck loose, bobbing your head as a group of musicians play, not because they should, but because they must. It’s summer now, and you’re looking forward to worrying less. You’re looking forward to longer nights and shorter days. You’re looking forward to gathering in back gardens and watching meat sputter on an open barbecue. You’re looking forward to laughing so hard your chest hurts and you feel ­light-­headed. You’re looking ­forward to the safety in pleasure. You’re looking forward to forgetting, albeit briefly, the existential dread which plagues you, which tightens your chest, which pains your left side. You’re looking forward to forgetting that, leaving the house, you might not return intact. You’re looking forward to freedom, even if it is short, even if it might not last.

  You’re looking forward.

  It’s summer now. You’re working. You catch a glimpse of someone else’s rhythm, and think, I know that song. The timeline ­equates – the academic year is finished, so she must be back in ­London – but it doesn’t make you any less surprised. It is no less surprising when you find yourself taking long strides across the shop floor, moving at pace. Her hair is shorter, the curls tight and cropped, but everything else remains the same, her face full of joyous mischief, eyes alight with the sheen of laughter, her long body moving with a clumsy grace she has made her own. As you take her into your arms, holding tight, pulling tighter, you realize the warmth between you remains.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ you ask.

  ‘Hello to you too.’

  ‘Yes, yes, hello, ­hi – you’re back?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘When, how, what?’

  She’s grinning at you, watching your excitement spill over into nervous babble.

  ‘Come here,’ she says, pulling you into an embrace once more.

  ‘How long has it been? A month?’

  She nods. ‘About that.’ A pause. ‘Too long. Much too long.’

  You separate and she reaches for your face, but doesn’t quite make contact, tracing your outline, giving you form and detail. It’s summer now, and she’s drawn a line towards you, or maybe the line always existed, will always exist. It’s summer now, and language is still flimsy, inadequate, so you stand, silenced by the weight of it all, letting your bodies confess their truths.

  It’s summer now, so you’re all moving slower. DJ Screw, legendary Houston pioneer of chopped and screwed music, would make songs at slower tempos, to feel the music and so you can hear what the rapper is saying. I make my tapes so that everyone can feel them. For Screw, slowing a record down allowed it to breathe.

  There is a pleasurable freedom in this slowness; where the frequencies lower and it is not so much a matter of the head but the chest. You say words with your chest. You feel bass slap thud, like a heartbeat. You say words with your chest and know there is power in your voice. You say words with your chest and trust yourself. You speak and realize that, in slowing down to speak, you can breathe. It’s a strange turn of phrase, you think, being allowed to breathe, having to seek permission for something so natural, the basis of life; in turn, having to seek permission to live.

  It’s summer now, so let’s slow down, and breathe. Let’s say you’re playing basketball on Saturday afternoon in July, and you’re sprawled out on the sideline, taking a breather. You reach into your bag and pull out the bulk of your 35mm film camera, always heavy in the hand. You start to take photos, and later, when you’ve dipped the negatives in chemicals, you see you took one by accident. Your finger depressed the shutter a split second after taking one before. It was sunny, so maybe 1/250 of a second after, and later, once you’ve developed the film, this is what came out:

  The ball has left the shooter’s hand. It’s spinning backwards as it moves through the air. All four players of this game of two on two cease motion to watch a ball rotate through the air at a rate quicker than the eye can acknowledge. The shooter wills the ball towards the hoop. The others have their own intentions, but the shooter, you know, h
e wants the ball to go in. The sky is blue and there’s a dusting of cloud. It’s ­twenty-­six degrees on a Saturday afternoon in July. If the ball goes in, they will pick it up and start a new round from the top. If it does not, one or more of the players will rush towards the ball, and they will continue to play. They do this because they need to, they want to. They do this because they can feel it.

  There’s so much more you wish to say but there aren’t the words.

  It’s summer now and language is flimsy but sometimes it is all you have. You’re sitting in your garden, mouth prised open in this heat. On the small table in front of you, ice shrinks in water, and your notebook is as still as the air, humid and sticky. You’re writing her letters, building her a world you can share. You’re writing about seeing the hanging orb in the sky when one should not; the moon resting there, pale against the daylight, fleshy in the darkness. You’re trying to write slow, so she can hear what you’re saying, but also because there is pleasure in this, where it is not so much a matter of the head but of the chest.

  Speaking of, A Tribe Called Quest is playing. The Low End Theory. You are wondering what led ­Q-­Tip, unspoken bandleader, to carve away everything on the high end of sound, allowing the low end of sound, the bass, to dominate, allowing it to speak as if it was a prayer, a desire for freedom. This isn’t an angry album. Sure, there are a plethora of characters who make an appearance, but they are there for purposes of visibility; the album is about being seen, about being heard; it is about freedom, even if it is brief, even if it is only to be found in a head nod on Phife’s verse for ‘Butter’, even if it is only to be found in the joyful surprise for Busta Rhymes’ ­scene-­stealing verse on ‘Scenario’. Hanif Abdurraqib wrote about this album, wondering how strange a life, to be presented to the world, through your flaws; through blood, swollen face, your bent body. How strange a life you and other Black people lead, forever seen and unseen, forever heard and silenced. And how strange a life it is to have to carve out small freedoms, to have to tell yourself that you can breathe. But how beautiful it is when those freedoms arrive, when you are breathing, when you’re matching Phife word for word, or singing the refrain, We got the jazz, we got the jazz. How beautiful, when you’re in a crowd, and you find your wandering gaze met by another, twenty, thirty metres away, both of you unaware that your shoulders and hips are moving to the bassline, because this is not something you have had to think about for once, this is something you just do, and understanding this, and the circumstances which brought you to this moment, you both raise a small hand of acknowledgement. How wonderful are moments like these, where you don’t have to hide? How wonderful to realize, amidst thrum of a bass drum, that sometimes it is a joy to be alive?

  It’s summer now. You’re outside, wearing shorts and a sleeveless jersey, and still sweat pours from your own pores. Through the solid wall of ­sound – from indoors, you’ve turned The Low End Theory on, ­loud – her voice drifts towards you. Your brother must have let her into the ­house – your parents are away once more, on a holiday back home this time, which makes the equation of you and her easier, without the pressure of an introduction. She comes from the house, into the garden, on the phone, smiling, listening as she does so well. She kisses you on the top of your head, and settles in the seat opposite you, pulling her culottes up past her knees.

  ‘Hot,’ she mouths.

  You head into the kitchen and pour her a glass of water that’s mostly ice. She’s finishing up the phone call when you return.

  ‘Hello, friend.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ you say, setting the glass beside your own.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ She raises her arms. ‘It’s summer now.’

  ‘It is, indeed.’

  It’s summer now, so as you did in Seville before you met her, you spend the afternoon together outside, eating, drinking, before taking refuge in the house.

  ‘I need to nap,’ she says, the heat robbing her of the desire to do anything. The heat making you both slow, so slow you can hear each other, you can hear your prayers.

  Your room has changed slightly since she was last here. You cleared most of the towers of books from your desk, now only a mountain on the left side of what you’ve read most recently, what you hope to read soon. There’s a stack of records on the floor too; you have been trying your hand at sampling from vinyl, listening carefully for snatches of sound you can layer over each other to form new rhythms.

  She sprawls out on your bed, atop the covers, then sits up suddenly to remove the large gold hoops swinging from her ears. You lie beside her, settle into a familiar position. The break since this last happened has made no difference. You fit, like this is an everyday. The only difference here is sunshine filtering through your light curtains. This is a daydream rather than a ­night-­time reverie.

  She pulls your arm close, tucking it towards her chest; you shift your hips closer, your chest pressed against her back. Her breathing quickens.

  ‘You good?’

  ‘I just had a weird moment,’ she says, muffled, ‘where I realized, if you wanted you could kill me in my sleep.’ You cannot help but laugh.

  ‘Not funny,’ her voice trailing away.

  ‘Don’t worry. You’re safe here.’

  It’s summer now, so you can sit on her balcony, drinking wine, sipping slow. You’ve hopped around London all day, going from your house, to the National Theatre on the Southbank, walking along the river as it lapped against its borders. You’re back at her house now, talking into the night. You’re talking about art and expression and suppression, and this is when you bring up the film Moonlight. You saw it first at a free screening in east London, and were struck by how a mood could be expressed through colour, the vivid palette Liberty City offers providing the backdrop for a story you began to increasingly feel in your chest. Blues and pinks and purples. When you left the cinema, you could not speak. When you rode the train home, you could not speak. You walked home, straight to your room. Silent tears fell like soft rainfall. You saw yourself in each version of Chiron. You saw yourself in the muting and erasure of his various expressions through the film. You saw yourself crumpling small to fit. You saw yourself when Juan says to Chiron: Give me your head . . . let your head rest in my hands . . . I got you, I promise you. You feel that right there? You in the middle of the world, man.

  In the ebb and flow of the water, Chiron floats, then thrashes about with the support of his surrogate guardian. When the time comes, Juan lets him go; Chiron, head above the surface, eyes closed, mouth wide with the effort, swims, scooping water with each clumsy stroke. Juan’s eager laughter fills your ears. He’s doing it. Chiron is swimming. You felt bass slap thud, like a heartbeat, where Jidenna’s ‘Classic Man’ is chopped and screwed, the phrases of music slowed, slow, slow, elongated vocals, lower frequencies, in your chest, it’s in your chest. In the final scene, Chiron splits open like fresh fruit, tears running down his flesh.

  Who is you?

  I’m me, man. I ain’t trying to be nothing else.

  You were in your room, after the screening, sobbing silent, soft gasps, not because it pained you but because there was hope yet.

  It’s summer now. As she swirls her wine in her glass, she asks, ‘Can you read to me? It’s been a while since you read to me.’

  The last piece you had read to her was about the previous summer, 2017, when you saw what happened when anger finally finds an escape, like a creeping wave finding form and crashing to shore. You began to write because photos have their own language, and sometimes, the images you make become flimsy in comparison to what you can feel. Sometimes, even this language fails. So you wrote your thoughts down, hoping to structure a narrative around the conflict bubbling inside you. You wish it were as straightforward as a random act of violence, but it was not. It was not that simple.

  Let’s home in for a moment, on the boy, who you glimpsed sitting on the w
all, cuffed, surrounded by police officers. With his beautiful dreaded hair framing his face like open curtains, and how he wanted to be seen and heard, and what led him to want to be seen and heard. What led him here? What led him to outlet his anger into another? That anger which is the result of things unspoken from now and then, of unresolved grief, large and small, of others assuming that he, beautiful Black person in gorgeous Black body, was born violent and dangerous; this assumption, impossible to hide, manifesting in every word and glance and action, and every word and glance and action ingested and internalized, and it’s unfair and unjust, this sort of ­death – being asked to live so constrained is a death of ­sorts – so you don’t blame him for the anger, but why did his anger have to find a home in another who looked just like him?

  Let’s ask: which came first, the violence or the pain? This was more than you could comprehend, so you wrote the question down, inserted it at various points in the text, and hoped others would not ask why the boy with the beautiful dreads wielded sharp blade in dark hand, piercing Black skin; they would not ask why the event happened, but what the root was.

  You read it to her, a few weeks after you met. It wasn’t the first piece you read but it was more honest, it was more you. It was trauma, yes, but it was you and you were OK with her consuming it. You handed her the work and that was sufficient. You didn’t need to explain to her that you felt joy too, that you were angry, you were scared, that walking home in the night worried you sometimes, because you didn’t know which fate would meet you, the one who looked like you or the one who couldn’t see you, or couldn’t see you as you were meant to be seen, or whether you would arrive home without incident, and live to fear another day.

  It’s summer now. You have freedom in her presence and it means you don’t have to hide. When your voice wavers, it is because you’re struggling with the weight of the reality you speak of. Tucked together on her sofa, you read from a work in progress, this passage: