Koolaids (6 page)

…

I am back in Beirut with my cousin. It is 1974, but we are the same age we are now. We decide to go see our families. I worry whether I will be able to see myself, meet myself when I was fourteen. The science fiction writers are wrong. It is possible to go back in time and meet yourself. Our family does not recognize us, but they do welcome us into the fold. My cousin is happy. This is where he wants to be. He no longer has any responsibilities. He can drink and be merry. He even gives his fourteen-year-old self a sip of his beer.

I meet myself. I am proud of my younger self. I am mature, studious, and precocious. I realize I have a couple of options. I can stay in Beirut and teach my fourteen-year-old self everything I know. I can guide myself. On the other hand, I could go to San Francisco and try to stop the AIDS epidemic. Probably nobody will believe me, but I can try. My cousin, already tipsy and having a grand old time, asks me to stay. My parents, good people that they are, tell me I am welcome to stay in their house. I decide to go to San Francisco and take myself with me. I can teach myself to be human in San Francisco. It would be an educational experience.

…

If we are suffering illness, poverty, or misfortune, we think we shall be satisfied on the day it ceases. But there too, we know it is false; so soon as one has got used to not suffering one wants something else.

Simone Weil told me that. Simone, darling, get yourself some Prozac. Enough is enough. That's what I said to her. Do you realize if antidepressants were available fifty years ago, the existentialists could have been happy? We would have been spared reading so many dull books.

…

March 26th, 1994

Dear Diary,

My daughter surprised me tonight. She had a costume party to go to and dressed up as a Pink Panther, a member of the militia, not the cartoon character. Some years ago, one of the myriad of militias which sprang up in Beirut decided to differentiate itself by wearing a unique uniform. I have no idea who their fashion coordinator was. The uniform was the regular camouflage pattern except the colors were of the bright pink variety, topping it off with a pink beret. It would have been hilarious if the militia was not one of the more violent ones. We started calling them the Pink Panthers even though they preferred
Die Rosenkavaliers.

Whoever decided on those uniforms was obviously not a woman. It isn't simply the idea that pink is not a color one associates with terror. Any woman would tell you pink fades really fast when washed. I doubt the militiamen had ever heard of a warm wash, cold rinse cycle. Within a month, the uniforms looked like regular camouflage uniforms washed with a red shirt which bled, from Pepto-Bismol to mud in less than two washing cycles.

My daughter said she paid one dollar for the whole uniform, the pants, jacket, and beret, at a discount store. One dollar. That's all that is left of that militia. They came into our world suddenly, killed tons of people, and disappeared just as suddenly as they appeared. I still have no idea who they were, what party they belonged to, or what they were fighting for. It's probably better that way.

…

I wake to the most beautiful music in the world. I hear her voice softly singing in the dark. It is always dark now. The violin is playing. Is it two violins? I know this music. I know I know this music. I can't place it. I can't think straight anymore.

That voice is heavenly. I would stay alive for that voice. I would live for that lovely voice. It is divine. I know this music. I can't understand why my mind is disappearing. I love this music.

The violin repeats the melody. The second violin repeats after the first. Or is it a viola? It must be Bach. So many times He has saved me.

I remember the short film
RSVP.
A man who died of AIDS leaves a request at a classical radio station. His friends and parents listen to the song and cry. I can't remember the song. Was it Berlioz? I do remember it was Jessye Norman singing. It was a lovely song, but not divine. This is divine. It must be Bach.

It must be Bach.

“James?” I ask.

“I'm here,” James replies softly. He takes my hand.

“Who is singing?”

“Kathleen Battle. It's from
The Bach Album
with Itzhak Perlman. You used to have it on all the time while painting.”

“Bete Aber Auch Dabei.”

“I am sorry, Mo. I didn't understand that.”

“My German is awful. That was the name of the song which just finished. Please play it again.”

“Sure thing.”

“Do you know what she is singing?” I ask.

“It's a mass of some sort.”

“It's a prayer:

‘Yet pray, even while

in the midst of keeping watch!

In thy great guilt

beg the Judge for patience,

and He shall free thee from sin

and make thee cleansed.' “

The violins come back again.

I went to a couple of Catholic churches when I found out I was positive. I wanted confession. The truth was I wanted absolution. I talked to a priest and asked him what the procedure was for confessing. He asked if I was a Catholic. I told him I was a Muslim. He looked at me funny. He said I could not get absolution if I were a Muslim.

The voice comes back again. It is divine. She is talking directly to God.

“James?”

“I'm here,” James replies softly. He takes my hand.

“I want to die.”

“Okay.”

…

Ox sat. I bet you don't know what ox sat is.

Oxygen saturation. That's what it is. There is a new language we use these days. I mean, who knew what a T cell was ten years ago? Now it's in common use. Ten years from now, when everybody is having trouble breathing from PCP or CMV in their lungs, ox sat will be in common use too.

I bet you don't know what a picc line is.

…

July 4th, 1967

Dear Diary,

This is without a doubt the worst day of my life. It looks like we have to go back to Beirut. My husband can't take it here in Washington anymore. The head of the department at Georgetown insulted him. He called him a camel jockey. I would assume an educated man would know there are no camels in Lebanon. The worst thing was our neighbor called me names today. Cele­brating their independence by insulting the foreigner. They have such bad manners over here.

I guess it is a good thing we are leaving. They fight a war over there, but it brings out the bad sides of people over here. I still can't believe Walter Cronkite. Jerusalem is liberated. “Jerusalem is liberated,” he kept repeating. It was as if he or his family were leading the way. Liberated from whom? Arabs have lived in Jerusalem for as long as Jerusalem existed. Liberated? They keep treating us as if we are barbarians. Jews or Christians, these Europeans come occupy our lands and then they have the gall to say they are liberating Jerusalem.

It's a good thing we are leaving. Beirut is a much better place to raise the kids.

…

Picasso used to say that at twelve years old he was able to draw like Raphael, but it took years of hard work and dedication to train himself to draw like a child. As usual, with that lovable son of a bitch, he was lying. Lies, lies, lies. He never drew like Raphael, not at twelve, sixteen, twenty-one, forty, or sixty. He was a damn good draftsman, but he was never a Raphael. I love him.

On the other hand, when I was twelve I could draw better than Picasso. I always wished I could have met him to tell him that. The day he died, I was thirteen.

Like most children I was drawing at an early age. I was definitely a prodigy. By the age of four, I was able to draw anything I saw, realistically. By the age of six, I was copying drawings of the masters.

My mother was always proud. My father considered art to be nothing more than a pleasant hobby. He kept suggesting I attempt a more masculine hobby. I was never effeminate, but I definitely was not masculine enough for my father. In his mind, any intellectual pursuit, let alone an intuitive pursuit like drawing, was effeminate. It is no wonder none of my four older brothers went beyond a few years of college.

I was seven when my father decided to do his fatherly thing. He asked me to show him my drawings. I was nervous as I showed him my work. He looked at my copies of the masters and said, “This is good, but how come you always draw the men? I think you should draw some of the women as well. Come back and show me when you have drawn some women.”

I ran into my room knowing exactly what to draw. I had seen a copy of Goya's
Nude Maja.
I drew a damn good copy of the woman lying down on the sofa. I was not able to get a good face since the reproduction was so small. I decided to improvise. I did a very good drawing of my mother's face into Goya's
Nude Maja.
I ran out of the room and showed it to my father.

I never saw his hand coming. He had turned beating his children into an art form. He slapped my face only once. That was probably because I ended up on the other side of the room by force of the blow. My mother came running into the room, and he threw the drawing in her face. He left the room saying, “Your son is a pervert.”

It is true. I am a pervert. A pervert who sold a 60 by 80 called
My Mother as the Nude Maja
for $300,000 in the mid-eighties at Franklin Gallery on Fifty-seventh Street. Where was that son of a bitch then?

I was seven then. I didn' t know any better. I never showed my drawings again for a very long time.

…

My mother and I are in the back seat of a huge black limousine. The driver is a bald, husky man. It is nighttime. I start kissing my mother. I begin to make love to her. I lift her evening dress and penetrate her. The driver is watching the sex through his rearview mirror. “Don't I get any?” he asks. I realize he turns me on. I leave my mother and get into the front seat while the limousine is still moving. I unbutton his fly and start sucking him. He is gratified while my mother sits in the back of the limousine, unsatisfied.

…

I woke up to the sound of my sister. She was on the phone. She was crying. I gathered she was talking to my mother. My father must have been out of the house.

The feeling of guilt is overpowering at times. I have caused such pam.

She still refused to talk to me. He still ran her life.

Well, fuck her.

…

I remember his eyes the most. There was nothing like them. Nothing. I am not sure what it was. I kept thinking maybe God was trying to punish me. His eyes were unforgettable. I was thirteen when I first met him, 1973. It seemed everything which had happened to me before then had been in preparation for that meeting. His eyes were the first thing I noticed about him.

I had wanted to meet him for about a year before it actually happened. After all, he was a legend at my school. The only boy who was ever expelled from our school for nonacademic reasons. I guess if he was better academically, they would have found a way not to expel him. Then again, maybe not. Although he was three years older than I, he was only one class ahead. His exploits were celebrated. It is said he once hung Mr. Murphy, the English teacher from New Zealand, on a coat rack. Luckily, I never had to take Murphy, who had a reputation of being a complete creep, but had Johnson, an American from Iowa.

I met him on a small street, two blocks north of Hamra Street. I was with my friend, Jamal, and he was with his friend, Shaddy, who happened to be Jamal's cousin. They were sitting outside Shaddy's building, with a cassette player blaring. He was accompanying the music, or I should say he was playing lead guitar on his acoustic guitar, which may have had something to do with what the cassette player was playing.

The music playing was Chicago's third album. It was a cassette, but I was surprised to hear it. I had all their albums, but I had to get them from the States. No CBS or RCA records were allowed legally in Beirut. It was not such a big deal since few artists I liked were on those labels. The biggest star on CBS was Bob Dylan, but his nasal voice was a big turnoff in Lebanon. Still, I heard one could get those records from some stores for only a little extra. Since my uncle still lived in the States, I usually got whatever I wanted.

We were introduced. I have to say I fell head over heels in love. He was gorgeous. His eyes were blue. That is not altogether rare in Lebanon, but I had never seen anybody that handsome with eyes that color before. I got so nervous, I did not know what to say. He ignored Jamal and me, and asked Shaddy if he liked the music. Shaddy said it was okay, but not great. I don't know what came over me. If I didn't say anything, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

“It is great music. Not as great as their live album, or some of the later ones, but it is a great album.”

“You've heard the live album?” he asked me.

Ecstasy. Exhilaration. Euphoria. I said exactly the right thing. I was practically panting, but had to sound nonchalant.

“Live at Carnegie Hall?
Sure. I have that album. I have all of Chicago's albums.”

“Wow. That's great. Can I borrow them?”

It was just him and me. He was talking only to me.

“I guess so. I don't usually lend my albums out, but if you promise to take care of them, I can let you have them for a while.”

“Great. When can I come over to get them?”

Come over. He was going to come over.

“I should be home by six.”

“Where do you live?”

“Ras Beirut. I live in the building next to Marroush. Fourth floor.”

“Okay. I'll be there at around seven. I can have a look at what albums you have.”

My head was spinning.

“It's been great talking to you, Karim,” I said. “I have heard so much about you.”

“I'll see you later this evening, Samir.” He beamed.

That is how it all started.

…

Death comes in many shapes and sizes, but it always comes. No one escapes the little tag on the big toe.