Coconut

I entered a draft of this for the 2008 Writing Contest. This is the latest draft. Constructive comments, positive or negative, are welcome.

Coconut

Rain paints the road, the streetlights and the pedestrians in between into a shivering watercolour streaked back into oil clarity by dark plastic arms. Kam adjusts the rearview, in which Mosh’s alternately blurred, clear form recedes to enter the building.

Ringing trills in Kam’s headset as he pulls onto the main road. A police car draws near, siren wailing banshee calls. Into Kam’s car splashes topaz light. It flickers across the passenger seat and casts the rucksack holding the box as a square ghost in the corner of the windscreen. He reaches over, zips the bag shut. Just in case.

As the police car passes to wink blue on the moonlit horizon, the siren twines trills into an electric chorus that drones a crescendo. Stops. Eddy’s words replace it: “Hi, leave a message and I’ll give you a shout.”

“It’s Kamal. I’m on my way.” He glances at the bag. Something that mustn’t become regret clutches his chest. Something that mustn’t become remorse lowers his voice. “Should have enough to settle it.” He ends the call. Changes gears. The bag slides off the seat, hits the floor and jangles like orphans’ bones.

Or shrapnel dissecting them.

He tries to exhale his thoughts, but his breath feeds the blaze in his heart. He can’t forget.


You just walked in. Like it was nothing. Shouldered your rucksack, strolled through the double doors, down the corridor, and entered the prayer room. A pious student come early for Isha. As if you were honest. As if you belonged.

The place was empty save for the man reading his Qur’an in the far corner. He didn’t look up. You were sure. You played it safe. You waited maybe two, three minutes. Seconds. He didn’t look up.

You placed your shoes in the rack. At its end, on the floor, were the two wooden boxes. You knew what they contained. You just lied to yourself that you had to read their labels first. So, your back to the man in the corner, you crouched beside the boxes. One of them held donations to the Islamic Society.

The other was... some appeal. War relief? Aid for victims of a natural disaster? You might have paid more attention if you hadn’t kept looking at the man over your shoulder. He didn’t look back.

You turned to the boxes, ignored whatever that feeling balled in your chest was, and slipped the backpack to the floor. Because you could only fit a single box into the rucksack, you weighed both in your hands and bagged the heavier one. You didn’t read the label.

You stood, and now the man was looking. Staring. And that ball in your chest sucked the air from your throat. You couldn’t move. You couldn’t look away. You couldn’t stop the heat draining from your face.

And when he smiled, you couldn’t return it. When he looked back at his Qur’an, all you could do was retrieve your shoes and head for the entrance, footsteps in time with your pulse.

But you couldn’t leave. In the doorway stood Mosh.


Ahead, a nebula of electric light flashes blue and yellow against the pavement. Vehicles queue before Kam’s, their drivers waiting to gain access onto the side street.

Kam unclenches his jaw and breathes. A police officer walks among the vehicles to tap on their windows and talk to their drivers. The first car in line turns left onto the side street. The van behind it follows like the next pendulum in a Newton’s Cradle.

Kam’s phone beeps text onto its screen.

COME BACK. WE’LL SORT IT OUT.

- MOSH

Kam closes his eyes, palms his forehead. He can’t decide if the ache it hides is a cause or an effect of his burning chest. He looks down at the bag, which silently yells children’s screams, adults’ wails. Mosh’s words.

Horns herald a knock on the window. Kam faces the police officer.

“Sir, there’s been an accident. Please detour on the left.”

As Kam does so, he sees the cordoned-off wreckage, all shards and mangled metal, until his car draws onto the side street and the wreck becomes a memory hidden by the building behind him and to the right.

Ahead and to the left, cars trickle onto the street from the main road and join the ranks taking the turn at Kam’s right. Maybe some will loop around the accident so they’ll end up a mile or two away, near Eddy’s place. Behind and to the right.

He looks to the main road in front. Just a simple matter of reaching it, turning left and heading back for Mosh.

Kam shakes his head. Crossroads are no problem, regardless of his drummer-pulse or the pleading tinkle of the charity box. He won’t be crushed by a choice between left and right. He won’t let it become a choice of right and wrong. It’s a matter of honour. Of respect. Of life. So he doesn’t question himself as he turns right.

Much.


You didn’t want anything to do with Mosh. All the laughs, all the chats, all the rapport and the fun were worth less than a clear escape route and no questions asked. And the worst thing? You probably didn’t hide it very well. Yeah, you tried to smile or joke, but inside you felt that pain nobody should feel. That obvious, rotten side effect from looking into the eyes of a friend and lying.

Mosh stared at you. He must have seen that pain. He definitely saw the box in your bag. But he just looked — disappointed.

That made the pain worse. So you lashed out. “Move.” You thought uttering it was more polite. And the fact you couldn’t focus on anything but the floor made speaking up difficult.

“Don’t do this.” Mosh grasped your arm.

“Got no choice.” Your eyes wouldn’t lower any further. Your voice would. “Move. Please.”

“Look, we’ll tell the police —”

You laughed humourlessly. That old chestnut. “All I have to do is pay him back.” You closed your eyes. “So let me go.”

“I’ll get the others to help. That’s what friends are for.”

You yanked your arm out of his grip. “Friends?” Suddenly you could look him in the eye. If only because you wanted to pluck it out. You were pretty loud too - the man in the corner noticed. Didn’t bother you. “Friends don’t mutter behind your back.”

Mosh looked confused.

Your jaw tightened. “Football last week? I heard them. Called me a coconut? Brown outside, white inside? Ring any bells?”

It did, but Mosh played dumb like he always does when he thinks he’s helping you out.

“Moshin, you know this isn’t an act. I’m making things right.” You wanted to sound earnest but it came out an angry whisper.

Now Mosh couldn’t look you in the eye. “They were just — it meant nothing.”

“Nothing?” You wanted to beat him until he bled. “Know what some of them call you? Some of those white people the others hate so much?” You tugged his beard and he recoiled. “I defend you, Mosh.”

His face showed what you were looking for - that hint of irritation, that tweaked lip of offended embarrassment. For a second, you’d made him feel as rotten as you. But he cooled. “Give me something to defend.”

If not for the man in the corner, you might have discarded all those years of friendship and broken Mosh’s neck. Because as much as his words stung and nipped and gnawed, you knew they were right. Stealing charity money to settle gambling debts with a shark? Sinful and pathetic whichever way you looked at it. Naturally, venom infected your voice. “Get out of the way.”

Mosh set his jaw. “It’s not worth Hell.”

“If I don’t pay him off, he’ll send me there anyway.”

He held your shoulder. It felt like he wanted to slip the bag off it. So you shoved him away. You would have hit him had your other hand not been intercepted.

The man from the corner now stood glaring behind you, Qur’an in one hand, your fist in the other.


Kam’s fingers drum the dashboard. The beat outpaces that of his heart, but cannot clear the clouds his pulse spreads across his mind. He pulls onto the roadside. Breathes deep.

Rain blurs the exterior into a sludgy sea swum through by a school of orange streetlights. The windscreen wipers perform a token cleansing pivot, and he stares through his arc of clarity at the tower block on the road’s far end. Eddy’s place.

Kam pulls the bag onto the passenger seat. No screams or rattling bullets - just the shifting jangle of hefty coinage.

He flicks through his mobile’s contact list. Highlights Mosh’s name. There’s still time. One button press can fix everything.

The phone rings and flashes Eddy’s name onscreen. Kam swallows. Answers.

“Hey, Kammy boy.” Eddy’s tone betrays his sneer. “Ain’t got all night, mate. Chop, chop.”

Kam forces a laugh. “Just around the corner.” He hangs up. Looks ahead. Starts the engine.


You would have started a fight, psyched on guilt and adrenaline, free hand ready to strike the man till he let go of your other fist. You’d have sent the guy reeling into his corner for daring to play referee between you and Mosh.

Then Mosh — that infuriatingly reliable saviour — solved your problem. “It’s all right,” he told the man. “Just had a bit of an accident.”

The man looked from you to Mosh. “He was going to hit you.”

Calm, smooth, soothing. “We’re just messing around.” His palms clasped the man’s hand, which gradually loosened its grip on yours. “It’s all right.”

You couldn’t face Mosh. You could only stare at your backpack, feel the box shift as you adjusted the strap. Relief turned to gratitude and gratitude to shame, because you could have ended it there.

But the only thing you left was the room.


The road unrolls beneath him, a rain-soaked conveyer belt drawing the tower closer. The charity box is silent. So is the phone. No last-minute interventions from Mosh to talk him down.

He reaches the driveway, which tapers into the car park. On the far end, at the base of the tower, stands Eddy with a friend.


You rushed up the corridor. No words, no looking back. You pushed open the exit door and felt a hand on your shoulder.

You turned to face Mosh. You should have thanked him for protecting you, shook his hand. All you could muster was a nod. He didn’t say much. Five little words and he’d let you on your way.

But before you ran through the rain to your car, before you’d seen him watching you leave, he’d asked a question your heart absorbed to brand into your future:

“Is this who you are?”


Kam processes the question even as he draws nearer to Eddy and his accomplice, the hood of the former slick with rain, the cricket bat of the latter barely concealed behind his back.

Kam turns the question this way and that, hardly noticing Eddy's barked greeting. And even as he sees Eddy’s grin and hears the accomplice slapping his bat into his palm, Kam’s heart answers the question.

It answers by rushing blood to the muscles of the foot on the gas; by turning his face from Eddy’s scowl as the car passes; by focusing his eyes on the road despite the crack they glimpse webbing across the rear window from the accomplice’s bat.

As the car bursts back onto the road, Kam’s mind provides its own answer. It pays little heed to the van Eddy and his brute jump into. Kam could live for minutes or years, but he will die knowing what he is not: a pretender, a thief, a hypocrite.

And the blaze in his heart ignites his mind; and both scorch the meat in which they sit, and that which sits in them; and his body spurs the vehicle it steers until soul and flesh and car together flee from pain and disgrace. Yet-

Neither mind nor heart can say what he will become. A hero returning that which he stole? A coward submitting to his pursuers? A casualty crushed in a hulk of mangled metal?

Come what may, he is, in this moment, simply who he is. Honest. Determined.

Muslim.