Peter McFeely

Tonight, Jonathan rapped the skins of the drums with extra vigour. The sticks rose a little higher as they rebounded and the veins in his forearms pulsed with agitation. He could feel the tension in his neck and had to make an effort to unclench his jaws. The beat came effortlessly to him, arms and legs moving in tandem, following a pre-ordained path while his mind wandered elsewhere. Marcus had told them between songs there had been a fight and Jonathan had seen what he presumed was the victim, standing outside the toilet, face swollen and watery bloodstains ringing his face. Throughout their performance, he had thought about what he would say to the men at the end of the show. Now he imagined crunching his fists into their faces. Leaving them bruised and bloodied like the poor guy by the toilet. Who knows what he had done to get a beating like that. Maybe he deserved it, maybe he didn’t, but these guys definitely would. He had overheard them while he was setting up.
“Whole world is fucked – ragheads are going to kill us all.”
“Yeah, you’re not safe anywhere – likes it not just bombs anymore, they’re going round stabbing people in the pub and stuff.”
“Fucking musos.”
“I mean it could happen here. Tonight. You’re not safe anywhere anymore.”
“Bunch of camel fuckers.”
“Check out the drummer – he looks like bad news. Reckon he’s some kind of undercover terrorist?”
“Well he can try whatever he wants – we’ll fucking sort him out!”
The men descended into laughter and moved onto the afternoon’s football results. To them it was just another trivial exchange. In a perverse way, Jonathan thought, it was good that they were taking some interest in world affairs but it would just be so much better if they were somewhat informed rather than making unconnected leaps from one country to another, successfully conjoining all problems, races and religions into one homogenous mass which existed outside their narrow, closed view on life, which extended no more than 100 miles radially from the epicentre of the bar. As a non-practising Christian of Indian ethnicity, born and raised, like in his father, in this country, Jonathan was as likely to be fleeing to the desert to take up arms with radical Islamists as any of those cretins. But that wasn’t the issue, it was the freedom with which the xenophobic slurs were tossed around and the ease with which the conversation segued into truly mundane discussion.
Jonathan was properly pissed off.

When Jonathan and his family first arrived in the town he wasn’t old enough to realise the names were offensive. He thought they were normal given the abandonment with which they were used. Casually tossed around like one of the balls in the playground, his friends who were also too young to understand the meaning of their words used the them to call his attention. He heard teachers, shop assistants, workmen use them to identify him. Most of the time, he didn’t detect any venom. It was just how he was described; like how his fat friend Freddie was called ‘Fat Freddie’. It was only when he saw his father lose his temper, once, at the car wash, did he question the acceptability of the words. As he grew older he began to realise the family were outsiders in the town and that the names, whether intentionally used to cause harm or not, were the other residents’ way of creating a delineation; clearly denoting the difference between them and the newcomers.

He and his family were not made to feel unwelcome – indeed it seemed to be a sign of status or pride for several of the townsfolk to embrace the family and identify themselves as their friends – but there was an underlying current, if one plunged their foot wholly into the waters, that saw them as different. For instance, when Harold, Jonathan’s big brother, did well in school, he heard murmurs of supposed wisdom: Indians work harder, their education system is different, they’re naturally good with numbers. When Jonathan showed off some musical talent, the murmurs were of surprise; where had he learnt to play the drums? Was music a part of his culture? That Jonathan’s father had been born on the other side of the country, not the world, didn’t seem to enter the equation. Nor did the fact that he had grown up with music in his house and an instrument in his hands from day one. He didn’t bother with action figures, instead moving from the rattle to the tabla. His dad had carved out a career as a respected session musician, with drumbeats pressed on more albums than he could recall – including Jimmy Meehan’s. It was after meeting Jimmy that he decided to settle his family in the town, though few people knew this and they presumed not to ask how they had wound up here.

Over the course of the decade and some in which Jonathan’s skills were sharpened, some awareness also seeped into the moral conscious of the town. More ‘outsiders’ arrived, but fewer names were used. The world was changing and the town was no different. All the residents had skills to be utilised and needs to be met, regardless of their religious or cultural persuasion. They were no longer a novelty. Invited to play in numerous bands, to participate in ceremonies and to compete across the nation, Jonathan met fewer instances of surprise when strangers saw the face which matched the name they had read and beats they had heard. On the occasion a stranger paused, due to a deeply-ingrained subconsciously subdued prejudice, upon the assertion he was who he said he was, they at least had the decency to mask their ignorance and move quickly on. Jonathan became known for his talent, not his colour. But recently, he had sensed the town’s collective psyche going through another shift.

Normally Jonathan would have ignored the comments. Tonight, for some reason, was different. In the past few months he had felt the suspicious looks; he had noticed the refusal of the only empty seat on the bus as it meant sitting next to him. But hearing the words opened old wounds, ones he thought the town had moved past cutting. As he started to play he had resolved that he would speak to the men – not aggressively, but forcefully. Make sure they understood what they said was wrong. About him and about everything. But as the evening wore on he became angrier and angrier. Some people just don’t change and they need to get what they deserve. Now, he decided, he would confront them. If they thought he was a savage, why not prove them right?

With that, he crashed his sticks down and stretched his back.
Bubbles of tension exploded in loud cracks as he strained the joints.