Open Water

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

  You came here to say there was no blood when, a couple of years ago, your discomfort emerged into a fresh pain. You were coming down a set of marble stairs, running a hand along 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, jokes only for them. Towards the end of the laughter, as it trailed away into the night, as their tyres screeched, engine revving, the joy morphed, returning to its usual form. Joy is not always entirely pleasurable, so it was a bonus when it sidled alongside the usual terror, the tumbling tumult that touches you in such instances.

  This nostalgia is sickly sweet, and it hurts. You’re thinking of springtime, sunshine, clouds clear and the colour of the sky is sweet like a baby’s warbled delight for their mother. You hold your mother tight when you say goodbye to her. Hear her wheeze from a chest made tight from years of work. Never the same after the year it snowed, ’93. Trudging through white ash to stack shelves. Even the protests from her best friend could not prevent her manager from taking sour revenge on her refusal of his advances. He ordered her to work in the freezer until her teeth chattered and she could not feel her fingertips on her own bulbous stomach, heavy with life brewing. You owe a lot to your mother and one day, you will tell that story, but for now, you’re thinking of springtime, sunshine, clouds clear. You hold your mother tight: soft musk, light wheeze, still life. As you walk through the front gate blossom showers, like burst bag of glitter. Overhead. They’re shaving trees bare, in­­decently exposed against the backdrop of springtime, sunshine. You wave at the old woman who waves back at you every morning, seated against the window of her sheltered accommodation. She gives you a ­thumbs-­up. You wonder what, if anything, she is waiting for. Anyway, there’s nothing unusual as you select ­Dilla – ­Donuts – so let’s interrupt your walk to the station:

  A young man, holding his head in muted exasperation. He’s standing by his ­car – it’s his, look at his stance, this is something he’s worked ­for – and considering his options. The young man reaches down, and that’s when you see the traffic cone caught between the wheel and chassis like a tight pinch. They lined the road, an inanimate sentry, protecting newly exposed trees, or no, the other way around, protecting pedestrian and vehicle from fallen arms. His own arms strain as he pulls at the plastic warbled by whatever collision took place here. You approach as his bunched fist swings at the orange cone, not disturbing that which has settled.

  ‘I didn’t see it,’ he says. You don’t remember him lighting a cigarette but it glows between his fingers. He blows air into his cheeks and stubs the small fire. He reaches down. You realize he has given up because he is being presented with no real choice at all. The traffic cone will not budge.

  ‘You on your way to work?’

  ‘Interview,’ he says.

  ‘Train?’

 
‘I’ll be late.’ He checks his watch. ‘Already running late. Shit, man.’ The sigh he gives is tired. There is something here you recognize, knowing it so well yourself.

  ‘Lemme get you an Uber,’ you say, pulling out your phone.

  ‘What? ­No –’

  ‘I got you, man.’

  ‘I couldn’t. It’s fine, I’ll work something out.’

  ‘Just get me back when you can.’

  When you and he see each other next, you’re walking home. He’s going elsewhere. When he catches your gaze, his face splits open with joy.

  ‘How you doing, man?’

  ‘Can’t complain, can’t complain. You?’

  ‘All good. Just on the way home.’ He inhales from his joint and nudges you, a kind offering. You take the small fire from his palm, and puff, puff, your eyes crackling red with each soft gulp. Your pupils wide and black. Tired grin on his face. Headphones spilling sound into the night.

  ‘What you listening to?’

  ‘Dizzee Rascal.’

  ‘Classic.’

  ‘Seminal. No Dizzee, no me.’

  You smile to yourself. A feeling nags at you that you cannot ignore.

  ‘Can I take your photo?’

  He looks surprised. It is one thing to be looked at, and another to be seen. You’re asking to see him. He nods. You pull out the camera from your bag and train the lens on him. His eyes aglow, stealing what light remains in the sky. The slight smile on a kind face. You click on the shutter and his face opens in the moment the camera gasps. An honest meeting between two people. The gaze doesn’t require words.

  Walking on, you recall when you first heard the album, on a coach journey, on the way to Bournemouth. Martial arts was a way of trying to instil discipline in those searching for freedom. You lost the fight at the tournament that day but you felt brave regardless.

  You were so surprised, hearing that big beat. Kick ­kick-­snare, ­kick-­kick, snare. Torn from elsewhere and stitched by hand into the fragment of the sparse garment. Wore the beat like a hat, soft on your head as your neck jerked back and forth with every snare, kick ­kick-­snare, ­kick-­kick, snare. The calls of ­Lon-­don! Staying true to his grammar, to your grammar; brusque and utterly familiar. It was like hearing a friend’s older brother ­telling tall tales you know to be true. The voice was utterly familiar: family friend, maybe, ­cousin – not blood, but no less so. Fix up, look sharp, the voice said. Had to switch it off after that ­track – the protests from the adults and ­parents – but the rush of hearing a forbidden truth, one steeped in your own truth, would not ease.

  Richard, the owner of the cassette, was cool and never looked at you, but you knew he could see you. A pair of heavy gold ­medals swung from his neck. Earlier, you had all watched as he’d pivoted on the ball of his foot, swinging a vicious kick into the chest of his frightened opponent. ­He – the ­opposition – kept glancing towards his coach, wondering when the onslaught would stop. When Richard swept the first contender out of the ring, he stood facing another, four years his senior. Arms raised, Richard’s stance easy, he launched a flurry of precise strikes, battering him with equal ease. You hovered round him, until he reached through his entourage towards you.

  ‘What’s up, little man?’

  ‘Can you make a copy of that for me?’ you asked, the young man towering over you. ‘The tape?’

  ‘You haven’t heard it yet?’

  He was so surprised when you shook your head, he handed you the tape in its case, Dizzee Rascal’s Boy in Da Corner etched on the spine.

  29

  Let’s go further back, to an early memory. 2001. In a living room which isn’t your own, on a carpet worn down by shuffling feet and ashy knees. You’ve been running around ends with friends all day, and still you’re stretching out these moments of carefree like they could be your last.

  Flicking through TV channels, settling on MTV Base. The cackle of ­sped-­up laughter, the question coming: ‘What you laughing at?’ A pair of children playing in wasteland. A flash of light and one transforms into a grown man, complete with bowler hat and round dark spectacles. All Black. They’re all Black.

  The second MC wears a leather durag atop his skull, a soft grin on the edge of his lips as he plays rapper for a few moments. Years later, you’ll see him in a supermarket car park, his child slumped on his shoulder, still struggling to hold the boyish smile from taking over his features.

  Now, forwards. Summer of 2016. You lost yourself in the mosh pit. Five pairs of ­hands – you could feel the purchase of each finger on your ­skin – pulled you back to your feet. Skepta ran out wearing shorts and thick black shades and a presence which filled the stage. That summer you’d been thinking about energy and frequencies, and how something could just feel right. When the DJ reloaded the posse cut for the third time, and five Black bodies moved freely across the stage, you thought, this feels right. This feels right.

  Same summer. You’re in Spain, on a beach where, on a clear day, you can see the shores of Morocco, when Frank Ocean’s album, Blonde, drops from the sky. This is not a drill. You’ve been waiting for something you didn’t know you needed. When it comes, you take a pair of headphones, a folding beach seat, and stumble down the sand, watching the tide roll in and out. You can’t remember knowing a stillness like this, and perhaps it’s now, caught between looking forwards and looking back, you realize you’re looking for it once more.

  The sun rises late in this part of the world, and you watch as stars are replaced by a sheet of pale blue, a hot white dot climbing the sky. You didn’t bring swimwear, so when you have finished listening to the album, you take off your clothes, and run into the water. Submerging, all you can hear is the rush, the roar. The salt of the sea mingling with your tears.

  Forwards, once more. Six months ago. A slim figure, puffed by layers. Head bowed. All the candles have gone out, but he’s illuminated by the darkness. It’s the early hours of the morning. He’s motionless, dancing to the sound of silence. The memorial is fresh. You wonder if the slim figure is also crying, like the moment you slid the key into the door, and broke down, unable to get the image out of your head: a bike lying on its side, the wheels still spinning back and forth, waiting for the rider to return. You wonder if he too is mourning Daniel, the kind man who won’t ever get you back. That man who you shared a spliff with on roads and waxed into the night about Dizzee Rascal and grime and rhythm. That man who, for a moment, you loved like kin.

  That afternoon: black and white uniform, deciding to show face. The station’s just down the road, but you’ll never find them in this place. Not unless something has happened. They go from shop to shop, ­off-­licence, dry cleaner’s, chippy, takeaway. They stop people in the street to ask for information. When they approach you, they stare, and remain silent.

  The Caribbean takeaway doesn’t have any patties, so you keep walking, onto the next one.

  ‘How you doing, darling?’ the woman behind the counter asks. You smile at how something as simple as a familiar inflection could cradle you in this moment.

  Leaving, you hear a ­kick-­kick, snare, ­kick-­kick, snare in your ears. You wonder if Dilla added reverb to the snare, or cut it, clean, straight from a sample.

  The interest in energies and frequencies remains, and you’ve always wanted to make music, always wanted to know whether you, too, could feel just right. Your friend, a drummer, invites you down to the coast and you record a music demo in a studio by the sea. The first take is fluffed, but you dance across the second, shoulders loose, punching words across the ­64-­bar count. You produced the beat yourself, so you know where the breaks lie, where the beat drags, where it slides, you’re not surprised by the silence which you value so.

  You gaze at the reflection of yourself in the glass of the booth, relaxed, unhurried, playing rapper for a few moments. You wonder if this is what freedom looks like.


  You’ve been wondering about your own relationship to open water. You’ve been wondering about the trauma and how it always finds its way to the surface, floating in the ocean. You’ve been wondering about how to protect that trauma from consumption. You’ve been wondering about departing, about being elsewhere.

  You have always thought if you opened your mouth in open water you would drown, but if you didn’t open your mouth you would suffocate. So here you are, drowning.

  You came here to ask for forgiveness. You came here to tell her you are sorry that you wouldn’t let her hold you in this open water. You came here to tell her the truth.

  30

  She says:

  She’s been listening to rain fall at night. This is when she tends to pray, trying to manifest her desires in her own reality. Beside her bed, kneeling, never gazing skywards but into the ground, into the depths, wondering what lies beneath her surface. Her voice has grown loud in the quiet noise of her own thoughts. She’s been thinking about you, and what you gave to each other. She’s been thinking about loving you and what that meant. Your hearts were joined, beating in unison, but then they fractured, blood pooling and spilling in the darkness, and then they broke and that was that really. She still thinks about you a lot. Your lives unstitched themselves, but the loose threads remain where the garment was torn.

  Under what conditions does unconditional love break? She cried for you yesterday. She has decided to submit to her tears rather than understand them. It’s been a year at this point, but she knows she will always cry for you.

  The thing that undid her was the memory of being seen. Do you remember? In the barbershop. She was in the chair. She remembers her presence changing the dynamic in the room; the presence of a woman in this masculine space meant everyone was either on their best behaviour or acting out. But in the moment she’s referring to, quiet fell. You were watching her in the mirror, and she was gazing back at you. The barber cut the power of his clippers, to address you and her, to try to describe what he had seen pass between you, to let you know he saw you both. His excited chatter brought on smiles all round, nods of agreement. What more was there to say?