Streets of Beirut

The entire country had been completely shut down for two days. Almost everything --- the roads, stores, and businesses --- was closed except for the small shops people in the neighborhoods used as meet-up places.  Sam was working in a coffee shop at that time, but he was staying home. Mostly everybody preferred to stay home when the country was like this. Sam's dad was an exception.  He walked to his shop in the morning and just sat there. 

That day his mother woke him up at ten o’clock and they drank coffee. Afterwards Sam called a friend who used to work with him at the coffee shop and asked him to pick him up.  His friend arrived 15 minutes later. A group of opposition militiamen was stationed on the sideway, just at the entrance of the old building Sam lived at, but they were not armed.  He knew most of them. This had been his neighborhood from more than 15 years. A Druze had no difficulties growing up among Shiites. After all, Sam's mother was a Shiite. So was the friend who was waiting for him.  He waved at the militiamen and they returned his greeting.  He sat behind his friend on the small Vespa and they drove off.

Motorcycles were the only mean of transportation.  They drove around Beirut for some time.  Streets were blocked by big garbage containers and burning tires. Groups of militiamen of various political affiliations were standing at almost every street corner and in every neighborhood.  They drove around in the neighborhoods. Since his friend was a Shiite and Sam was a Druze, they could go anywhere they wanted. They returned to Sam's neighborhood an hour later and walked into a small grocery store to buy cigarettes. There was a small television inside with breaking news that Hasan Nasrallah would be delivering a live speech at 14:00.

They smoked a cigarette and then Sam called home and told his mother that he would be listening to the speech over at some friends. His mother is worrisome by nature; she is always worried about something, always telling him to watch out and take care, always staying up until he get home no matter how late it is.

“But how do you know there won’t be any trouble?” She said.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ve been driving around everywhere all day and nobody gave us any trouble.”

“Well,” she said. “Just be careful. And don’t do anything foolish. And come back home as soon as you can.”

Hasan Nasrallah is the drug of the Shiites; their Crystal Meth, Speed, or Cocaine. There is something strange but seductive between him and his supporters.  Ten minutes before the speech, the streets were flooded with Hizballah supporters. Some were just shouting, cheering, or whistling but most were celebrating with fireworks or even machineguns.  The crowd was in a hypnotic trance in anticipation of his speech.  At exactly 14:00, everyone was in front of the television, freakishly silent.  Nasrallah looked so furious and serious.  He started talking about the private Hizballah-owned telecommunication network.  Then he was suddenly haranguing, sweating, and threatening everyone.  He concluded by asking the government to reverse its decision regarding the telecommunication network or suffer the consequences.  Adrenaline rushed through crowd, intensifying the celebration of his "strong" attitude.

Sam's friend dropped him off at home at 15:30.  Sam's dad was sitting in the living room and his mom was in the kitchen setting the table for lunch.  The father looked very angry.  Being a Druze war veteran, who fought for 15 years, the old man had some extreme political views.  While they were having lunch, the pro-government Future Television announced there would be a statement by Sa'd al-Hariri, the Sunni majority leader in Lebanon.  They finished lunch and waited for the statement.  Twenty minutes later, Hariri began his speech.  Sunnis tried to imitate the enthusiasm of the Shiite celebrations but came nowhere close.  He talked for twenty minutes, concluding that the government would stand fast on its word and its decision and that no one could intimidate the free people of Lebanon.  Sam's cousin Fouad called him and talked him into staying with him and a couple of other friends in the Druze area three blocks away from Sam's house.  He thought about it and it made sense, so Sam told his parents that he was going to stay at Fouad's place.

“No!” his mother shouted, covering her face with her hands. “You can’t go! It’s too dangerous!”

“You really ought to stay home,” his father said gravely but turned back to the television with a tense expression on his face.

Back on the street, Sam discovered that the group of militiamen was no longer stationed under his house.  As He walked towards Karakol al-Druze, the area where his cousin was, he started to sense that something wasn’t right.  The streets were deserted but he still felt something was going to happen.  When Sam walked past a small intersection, he saw a large group of heavily armed men.  He walked faster.  When he reached the next intersection where he was supposed to meet Fouad, Sam looked back and saw that his neighborhood was flooded with armed men.

Fouad was sitting on his Harley Davidson waiting for him.  Sam swung on back behind him and he drove off to the next intersection, which was the main street in Karakol al-Druze.  The area was named after a prison where the French used to lock up Druze fighters.  The Druze liberated it later and have lived in the area ever since. To Sam's surprise, he saw a handful of armed Druze. As a Druze himself, he recognized all of them. 

"What's going on Fouad?  Has war broken out?" Sam asked.

"This is Karakol al-Druze! No one will be allowed to come into this area and assault the people and the houses." He said emphatically.

Fouad was 20 years old, a large framed guy with both armed full of tattoos.  His parents had given up hope on him a long time ago.  He quit school when he was 14 and has spent the intervening time either on streets or in prison. They only started hanging out together about a year ago.

There were eight armed men standing there.  Sam knew their leader very well. They used to call him Cobra but his real name was Rami.

"Hi Rami," Sam said.

"Hi. What are you doing here?" He asked.

"Fouad and I came here and we thought you could use some more people.  Anyway, that’s not the point. Dozens of Hizballah fighters are moving this way; all armed to the teeth."

"You saw them?  About how many?"

"Maybe a 100. I don’t know exactly."

"Okay.  It's good you told me."

Rami walked around, talking on his the walky-talky, positioning his men in various places.  Fouad and Sam stayed together, waiting for Rami to tell them what to do. Everybody ignored them and after a while, they went to Rami and asked about machine guns. 

"There are no machine guns left. Don't you have any weapons at home?" He asked.

"No," Sam said.

"Maybe I do. Let me call my dad and ask him," Fouad snapped. He called his father and told him that they needed guns, but the father refused to let them use any of the weapons he kept at home. Fouad was furious after he hung up.  He drove his Harley to his place two blocks away and returned with an axe and two pistols with some ammo.  After parking his motorcycle somewhere safe, he gave Sam one of the pistols and about thirty rounds of ammo.  The two young men took up positions on the same corner, one on each side.

Fighting broke out at around 1800 and they could hear gunfire. The group was separated from the Hizballah fighters by one intersection.  The main street was completely empty.  They couldn’t see any fighters anywhere. That was the thing about street warfare. There was never any direct contact, the streets were always empty, you never saw anybody yet bullets were flying from everywhere.  But each side knew what was going on in its particular area. During the first hour of fighting, Fouad and Sam constantly jumped from one corner to another, firing off a couple of shots every now and then.  Rami fired an RPG round every 20 or 30 minutes.  The rest of the men were at their positions, trying to keep all the small roads leading into Karakol al-Druze covered. The fighting grew fiercer and both sides were randomly firing shots and tossing grenades like throwing candy in a parade.  At one point, the two men were crossing the street to take up another position when an RPG exploded against a shop sign few meters above their heads.  The board broke into splinters wounding Fouad's arm.

"Fouad! Are you okay?" Sam shouted.

"I’m fine. It’s just a scratch.  Hurry, let’s get inside that building."

They ran into an old building and stood in the entranceway.

"Come on,” Sam said. “Let’s go. I don't feel like getting killed for a bunch of people who won’t even give me a decent gun to fight with!"

"We’re not fighting for anyone; we’re doing this because we want to."

"Okay,” he said.  “I don’t want to anymore. So let’s go."

"We can't leave. It’s raining bullets. There are at least two snipers that will shoot anyone they see with a gun."

They heard footsteps coming down the stairs. They looked at each other, their eyes blazing with fear, and they pointed their guns at the bottom of the stairs. A young fellow about their age finally appeared.  He was disconcerted to see two guns pointing at him but he offered them refuge in his house. It was a good thing at a bad time so they lowered the guns and followed him.  The apartment was small and furnished with only the basics.  An old lady with a veil welcomed them and offered them water.  She had a Kurdish accent.  They drank the water, washed their hands and sat in the small room.

"May God be with you my sons," she muttered.  "And my God defeat them!"

Her son was a fit, trim guy with a bright, angelic face.  He told them that his father had died a couple of years ago and that they do maintenance in the building in return for living in the small apartment. Several times he swore that he wanted to fight with them but he didn’t have any weapons. The two men spent half an hour with them but the sound of the fighting outside only grew fiercer. They decided to leave and stay somewhere safe.  They could still hear the supplications of the old woman when they were out on the street.  It was getting dark so fast, so they went to the nearest concrete wall and ducked behind it. The neighborhood, especially the main street, was in shambles. All the shop fronts were destroyed, signboards were gone, and the first floor of every building was riddled with bullet holes.

Suddenly, one of the men to their left fled his position and drove off in his car.  They realized then that the men were leaving one after the other.  Fouad called his father and told him that they were stuck two blocks away.  It took his father about 15 minutes to reach them.  The father was two meters tall and weighed almost 170 kg.  They used to call him "The Aerostat" when they were kids. 

"We need to cross the street and run down the next decline to the right to get home," Fouad's father said quickly. "Crossing the street is our only problem; we’ll have to zigzag to avoid the sniper. Shoot anyone who tries to stop you while running home!"

Fouad ran first and made it to the other side. Sam's heart was pounding fast and loud. He went completely blank for a moment knowing that it was his turn to run.  He crossed the street safely and stood next to Fouad.  As soon as Fouad's dad took two steps, he fell down. They screamed, thinking the sniper had got him, but he crawled over to their side with skinned knees and palms.  Running down to their house was the best part.  As soon as they crossed the first block, it seemed they were in a different world.  Nothing was wrecked, no masked fighters, no random fires, and the people who lived there --- the Druze --- were celebrating, showering them with rice from their balconies.  Sam felt happy, being treated like a hero, even if he hadn’t really done anything; the fact that he stood on the street risking his life was sufficient. 

The building where Fouad lived was half-owned by his father.  They had moved into the 11th floor and the rooftop and had made a huge duplex out of them.  His mother, sister, and younger brother were waiting for them at the door.  They washed their hands and faces and went into Fouad's room.  He gave Sam one of his shirts and they changed their cloths.  Few minutes later, Fouad's mother set the dinner table for them.  They were starving.  Fear brings hunger. They ate until they could barely breathe.  It was almost 22:00 when everyone started going to bed.  Fouad opened a drawer next to his bed and gave Sam a big piece of hashish and rolling papers.

"The perfect way to end a hectic day," Sam said.

They found a movie and watched it as they smoked.  By the time it was 24:00 they were barely able to speak.  They fell asleep on the couches with their clothes and shoes on.

They woke up to loud noises and voices coming from inside the apartment.  It was 04:00 in the morning.  When Sam went to the door, a group of masked men burst into the room.  They pushed him back inside and kicked Fouad off the couch. 

"Hands up!  Raise your hands now!" One of them shouted.  "Up against the wall! Hurry, you donkeys!"

The men were powerfully built. They wore black masks, black sweaters, green or beige pants, and green military vests that held a pistol and a knife as well as several hand grenades and extra clips of ammunition.  They were carrying brand new M15 and M16 rifles. They had locked Fouad's family inside a room on the 11th floor. One of them ordered the other four to search the house.  He stayed in the room with them.  It took them almost 20 minutes to search the house while the two young men stood with their faces against the wall the entire time.  The men came back with two Kalashnikovs and a hunting rifle.

"YOU WERE SHOOTING AT US?  YOU WANTED TO KILL US?" The leader shouted and slapped Fouad on the neck.  "Check their ID's!"

One of the men stepped forward.  Sam tried to steal a look at him from the corner of his eye but he was slapped on the cheek.  The man shouted at them to give him their IDs and mobiles. They took their cell phones, IDs, and wallets.

"Fouad and Sam," the armed men said as he examined their IDs.  "You are both Druze, correct?"

Fouad was about to answer but they did not wait for confirmation, launching instead into a violent spree of slaps, punches, and kicks that lasted a good ten minutes. The two men did not resist.  There would be no resistance this night. Sam was thinking to himself they were just trying to intimidate them, that they wanted to show them who was boss, and that it would soon be over. The three men including the leader dragged Fouad to the adjacent room and two other men stayed with Sam.  He was on the floor with his nose and lip bleeding.

"Stand up!" One of them shouted and walked toward him as he stood up.

"You live in Mar Elias?"

"Yes," he answered.

"Well, we'll take you home when we're done"! he said and kicked him in the balls.

Sam fell to the floor again and the two men kept on kicking him and shouting about the righteousness of Hizballah.  He could hear noises and Fouad's shouts coming from the other room.  Three minutes later, the other men and Fouad came back.  Blood was gushing from of his face.

"Okay! Bring them and let’s go!" The leader said.

All what they've been through felt like a joke when they heard the leader saying so.  It was not a show of power.  It was real and it was dangerous. 

Two men led them out of the apartment.  As they were waiting for the elevator, Sam suddenly flipped a switch and turned on the lights in the hallway. The armed men's eyes, which were the only thing the masks revealed, blazed angrily and they immediately shoved the guys toward the stairs.  They were so angry they forced them down the 12-story building on foot.  The young men reached the entry way and saw that the door had been forced open. An unmasked armed man was sitting in a white plastic chair, guarding the entrance.

They could hear noises outside the building but it wasn't until they went out that they realized how bad the situation was.  The narrow street in front of the building was jammed with people, masked, unmasked, armed, unarmed, young, and old.  As soon as they took one step outside the building, the masked man behind Sam kicked him on the back as if he were offering him to the crowd. 

"They were shooting at us from up there!" He shouted and kicked Fouad the same way, in the back, into the crowd. They started beating them again, only more intensely.   

Everyone in the street converged on them. As Sam sat on the ground, he tried to wrap his hands around his head for protection as much as possible.  Slaps, punches, kicks, wood sticks, and shoes of all sizes were falling on them. There was no such thing as pain anymore. It had gone beyond pain and was now just a matter of endurance.  A couple of minutes later the beating stopped.  Some fighters used the two men's shirts to blindfold them and took them to the opposite side of the street.  They were forced to sit on their knees facing a wall.  Blood was the only thing Sam could smell or taste.  Black was the only color he could see. His limbs were numb.  His heart was beating louder than the voices of the crowd behind him.

Daylight was starting to break slowly and with it came rain.  Most of the people left the street after the beating was over.  A couple of men stayed with they and every five or ten minutes, someone would come up and slap one of them.

Suddenly the voices behind them fell silent.  The few moments of silence were terrifying and felt like ions.  Then the sounds of weapons being loaded broke the silence.  Sam could feel his knees shaking.  There was no time for anything.  Only here and now was real. The only thing he was thinking of was that moment and that 'this was it;' that everything would end here and now at age twenty-one.

“No. Don’t shoot them," one of them said, relieving Sam's agony. "I promised the mother when we went in to bring them back alive," he continued.  "Let them go. They’ve learned their lesson."

Two armed men led they guys back to the entranceway and left. They took the shirts off covering their faces and rode the elevator up.  They examined their faces in the elevator mirror, gingerly dabbing at the wounds and cleaning the blood with their shirts. They unlocked the family and everyone in it was crying. It was 7:00 in the morning. Fouad asked his mother to make some coffee while they went to wash the blood from their faces and wounds.

The entire family was gathered in the kitchen.  Fouad's mother and sister were examining the guy's wounds, his father trying to make sense of what had happened, and his brother was crying. Fouad and Sam drank their coffee in silence like two corpses and went into Fouad's room as soon as they finished.

"Are you okay?" Fouad asked Sam.

"We are still alive, able to walk, talk, see, and hear.  There is something missing inside though. It’s as okay as it gets.”

“I’m really sorry I dragged you into all this.”

“Well, it’s what we wanted to do,” Sam said.  “You have any hashish left?”

He gave him the remaining piece and fell asleep. Sam rolled a joint and smoked, staring out of the window of the 12th floor, and then he fell asleep, again.



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