Chicken shop. Kentish Town.
Double burger. That’s my usual.
I like the garish lights. The food pics above the counter. The chunky chairs bolted to the floor. The tables either clean or filthy, nothing in between. Some find it gross, the salty glare of chicken. Sitting sad and warm on its rack. But I’m here for my usual. Routine. In. Control.
Not too busy. Woman leaving with a bag of chips, nothing more, cheap as. Employee spraying that pink stuff on a counter, cleans by corrosion probably. He puts the spray down, waits for my order. Hi, I’m… Rehan, says his name tag.
And what’s this? There’s someone else sitting in the corner, meal long finished, looking, looking around. Don’t like that, the way he’s looking: who sits in a chicken shop and just looks? He’s making me nervous, this guy, making my heart pick up, MAKING IT BEAT IN CAPS–that’s how I sometimes describe my panic attacks. He has white stubble like needles, like he’d inject you with something if he leaned in. His face is red and battered, like his body’s been trying for years to shed its skin but can’t, and his eyes–those eyes–wearied by a life of knowing just what he thinks. He’s making me real nervous now, this guy, and my heart picks up AGAIN–so easily spooked I am–and I know the deal before he speaks, I know it by the look on his face, hell, I know it by the look on Rehan’s face, sullen and resigned behind his counter.
“Where were you born?” the guy in the corner demands, and for a moment the question seems fine, normal chat, but no it’s not, it’s a loaded pistol, and I’m trying to look at the menu: laminated, bright, indeterminately sticky, but I can’t concentrate on food and my stomach is all wet nausea now anyway, and I can’t look at Rehan because it would be a knowing one, a little act of solidarity, and that will enrage this guy, right?
“London,” I say, thinking that’s gotta be the right answer, the capital of this great nation no less (unless London’s a foreign country to him now, some kind of modern day Gomorrah?), and I’m so aware of my hooked nose (even though just as many Gentiles have it, but he won’t think that), a Roman nose my mum calls it, and thinking of my mum was a bad idea because now my mind goes to places you wouldn’t believe, like her getting a phone call and someone saying I’ve been attacked, a sanitised word that, concealing its violence, making her almost think I’m ok until she sees my twisted body and knows by some primal intuition that her little boy could not have survived that…
The guy nods (maybe satisfied, I can’t tell) and then says, “All the mongrel bitches and bastards…” and I don’t know what comes next because panic plugs my ears, and I wonder if I’ve fooled him (passing as Gentile as they call it, pretty sure my great uncle did it). I’m white, after all, what’s being Jewish? A blemish on an otherwise perfect record, I want to say, to make it a joke, but what am I thinking? Does this guy look like he’s in the mood for a joke? Does Rehan for that matter?
And I could leave, to hell with you in big proud strides (ready to break into a run if need be) but instead I place my order, a little dizzy, and Rehan looks relieved, at least, to have something to do, and meanwhile the guy in the corner is mid-diatribe, sitting down although his words give the impression of rising up, all white hot rage, incoherent yet somehow seamless, one sentence flowing right into another and…
…no I can’t do it, have to leave, my heart’s drumrolling through me, so I give Rehan a rueful look and I know his face will stay with me, sweat on his forehead, a single lock of slick black hair pasted down and the heat of the kitchen licking at him, and the guy in the corner peering over chicken bones like he’s guarding a kill.
The door creaks and I’m out. A bleeping road; car fumes hitching the wind; a pavement slung with spit–the city offers its other poisons and at least I’m free to choose, and I’m calming down, and my heart slows, slows.
I should phone someone: my mate, my sister. Tell them I just had a panic attack. Because it’s good practice not to hide it. But I can’t stop thinking of Rehan behind his counter. And why did I feel trapped? London is all I said to the guy in the corner. London. A word big enough to hide behind, to shield me from him–and from Rehan.
Now I’m around the corner. I can see my flat, home turf. I’m almost back in my routine. Back in control.
Breathe in. And out. I’m calm. Heart’s not speaking in tongues anymore. Now I’m full of hypothetical courage: I don’t care what that guy thinks–he can stay in his corner. But what does Rehan think, I wonder? He can’t pass off, can’t pass through his counter. Fire from both sides: from the deep fat fryer, from that guy’s breath. Me running out of a burning building.
And him there. Trapped.
Breathing in the smoke.
Adam Slavny is an Associate Professor at the University of Warwick. He has published widely on issues of moral and legal philosophy, and his first academic book is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. More recently he has started writing fiction, and his first stories are forthcoming in Aggregate, Silver Blade, Whigmaleeries and Wives’ Tales, and Utopia Science Fiction.
