Koolaids by Alameddine Rabih Read Free Book Online Page A

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.
    â€¦
    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.
    â€¦
    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.
    â€¦
    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.
    â€œJames?” I ask.
    â€œI’m here,” James replies softly. He takes my hand.
    â€œWho is singing?”
    â€œKathleen Battle. It’s from The Bach Album with Itzhak Perlman. You used to have it on all the time while