He ran as fast as he could, legs shaking, heart beating with an excavating thud. Down the escalator, three steps at a time. He saw a train about to leave and jumped for the carriage. The doors were shutting and he jammed them, with his torso partially through, and then pried them open with his free hands. He squeezed through, with the help of another passenger pulling him in. As the train left the station the passenger asked him if he was ok but he could only hear a drowned warble of speech. His running had produced a clogging sweat that reached up to the middle of his ears. Ishaq’s drained lips mumbled something appeasing and he felt the travellers’ presence retreat as they took fright.
The driver’s voice announced that Whitechapel had closed, so Ishaq came off a stop early. At the station gates his Oyster card refused to work. He swiped it multiple times, scraping the card reader, getting frustrated at the ‘Seek Assistance’ message that displayed on each swat. His pleading face turned to a guard, who dismissed him without even a cursory look, instead waving a silencing hand as he talked to another customer. Ishaq looked at the closed gates and then listened, as the underground employee explained some Odyssean route. Ishaq vaulted the gates, both hands apart. As he rocked through the air he ignored the timid plea and delayed grasp of the guard. People hesitated and looked at him but if there was a shout behind him Ishaq refused to hear.
He started running again and, as he ran, he tried Shams’ mobile. His call was blocked; the cell towers here must have overloaded. He shoved his own phone back into a pocket and slowed, as he saw the golden dome of the great mosque. The protest had picked one of the most civic-minded Muslim institutions in the country. A great achievement of the local Bangladeshi community, it had taken great strides in developing links with greater society, even sheltering a tiny synagogue. Seven thousand people could attend prayers in the cluster of buildings that had started out, a hundred years ago, as a rented room. Over a century it had been supplemented by the donations of cloth-factory workers. Layer upon layer of immigration was the sediment that had firmed into foundations and had produced the latest inhabitants of the area.
Coming near to Whitechapel Road, Ishaq heard a mighty crescendo, and as he turned a corner he saw crowds, thousands of people, blocking the wide thoroughfare. Finding Shams would be impossible and he almost turned back, defeated, but then gathered his determination and went towards the throngs. Eyeing a lamppost he scrambled up on a bin beside it, and shimmied up the pole. Nearing the top he saw such heaving crowds they almost looked like celebration. Riots of colour, accompanied by shouts that erupted into the air. A tapestry of people extended to the horizon. Ishaq could see pigmented layers that blended into the skyline. First there was a motley mix of all sorts of browns, then an empty expanse of grey concrete road, and then a further band of pinky-mass, before all the colours hit the now-violet sky, as evening descended on all.
Enforcing the grey no-go zone were bands of black-armour-clad police, holding riot-shields and wearing visored helmets. They were sandwiched between the two battle lines. Two serried ranks of foot-soldiers agitating for their just cause, pawns, in someone else’s game, who gladly gave their lives to the swell. Even over the clamouring, from his side, Ishaq heard savage, discordant cries coming from the white side, modulating between insults and taunts. Vicious calumnies and screeds were catapulted across the divide at a stinging pace. The two sides were feeding off each other, goading and amplifying each other’s hate and righteousness. Each side stood behind their line trying to incite the other to do something to break their own, to do something outside of their normal boundaries.
Ishaq could make no sense of it. He closed his eyes and all he could hear was one mass-harmonised scream. Shrieks by people of scripture, ritual, or tribe, frozen out by streamlined industrial society. Those who felt so cast-aside that all they could do was throw their bodies on the tracks and try to break the whole damn thing. People who, on normal days of monotony, would shop, work, and go to school. Different, yet distinct. One thousand points of contact held the rift together. Friction holding them united, yet retaining a power so monstrous that, when unleashed, it was out of anyone’s control. An earthquake that could shatter societies.
Ishaq slipped. He clung on, desperate to avoid a crash to the ground, overcoming the sudden shock of pain in his right arm. He fell only half-a-foot yet his eyes caught Shams’ cap weaving a path. It was taking a crooked but driven direction to the front of the Muslims, to the first black row of police. Ishaq, taking a mental marker of Shams’ flight path, slid down and started pushing his own way forward.
As he navigated his way the crowd became denser. Thickets of bodies had to be nudged aside as he gently advanced. He reached where the road met the start of the mosque complex, spreading eastwards. An old man, wearing a fluorescent helper-bib, had made an impromptu platform from plastic boxes. He was urging the men from his own side to go home, but his frail voice failed him and was usurped by more virile shouts. His white beard dripped worry, his face ashen. A voice from the crowd told him it was too late, that now was the time to make a stand or never. That once you allowed these animals to march past they would do so forever-more, without compunction. The aged man made entreaties, asking them what example they were setting for the youth. He implored them to step back and think, but was besieged. Defiant voices that said it was better to die a shaheed, a martyr, today, than live a whole life as a coward. The old man was pulled down and bundled away, and a more triumphant, rallying howl took his place.
Ishaq came to a stop, unable to push further past. He could not see any gaps to his side and those behind had closed tight. Through the bow of someones arm he could see the nationalist lines. Revelling in their bigotry like pigs in mud, enjoying their big fuck-you to the world, that looked to them as strength. He could make out red puffed cheeks as they made their taunts, arms outstretched, grasping for a fight. Bodies swaddled him, and the sounds became muted. A message passed through the crowd, trouble was starting around the city and they were being kettled until police could get a handle on the situation. People with radios tuned into the news as looters used the day’s events as an opportunity to go shopping. The police were responding to incidents all over the city and were stretched.
Ishaq waited. He tried his phone but still there was no signal. He asked others but they had the same problem. He could feel a panic set in as a wave of claustrophobia washed over him, a spread of nausea that was made worse as he tried to take in more air. Ishaq asked for more space and pushed at the huddle around him but they were all in the same position. There was no one to hear Ishaq’s plea.
Time dragged on and day turned into the fullness of night. Over the course of hours his personal space receded until his arms were pinned by his side, his head nearly resting on someone’s shoulder. Ishaq felt pressure on his chest but this time he managed to suppress his anxiety and keep some calm. Others, however, started to push and complain. He heard a grand roar from the other side as they tried to push through the police line. An older man fainted and water was passed from beyond to the man’s aid. A whop-whopping sound was heard as helicopters passed over-head, reminding the crowd that their penned-in plight was known, yet nothing was being done. Ishaq thought about Shams and was satisfied that, once freed, he could go home. Shams would have had time to calm down. The biggest problem for Ishaq would be what story to make up, for his parents.
The night was at the height of its blackness, everything still and unchanging. The local shops had been boarded-up, so no light escaped their frontages. Street lamps cast their jaundiced light over the quieted crowds, stilling the scene, fossilizing them in amber. Yellowed skin and eyes of ivory-white accompanied a silence that gave the occasion the quality of the unreal. The calm occasionally broke when the police made sorties at the edges and snatched a body. They took their guidance from security service spotters, up on the high, overlooking roofs, who watched through binoculars for people of interest.
For a moment Ishaq viewed the scene out-of-body, as if seeing an ossified diorama. People started to use their mobiles as flashlights and were joined by the flashing of police cameras taking shots. The constant adjustment of eyes to differing sources of light made his head ache. Whispers went through the crowd, colliding and contradicting, about how long they would be here, and what the police were saying. Someone said that the police were not sure themselves what the next step would be.
Ishaq heard another roar from the other side. They were hurling abuse at the police and pushing forward. What looked like a brick flew through the air and hit a policeman on Ishaq’s side. Despite the man’s visor it caused a bloody-cut and he was led away by a colleague. Ishaq started to feel more space around him. First, the rubbing of shoulders subsided and then he could actually move his feet without stepping on another’s. A rippled message came through that a gap had been forced in the other crowd, and they didn’t have enough heads to keep both sides contained. As if they detected a coming moment, people started wrapping scarves around their heads, leaving a slit only for their eyes.
From opposing lines, rocks, then stones, then hewn slabs of paving, hailed their way onto the police’s heads. Someone shouted push and everyone pushed against them. Ishaq saw a boy, just into his teens, break some paving and throw a concrete fragment. The police broke their cordon, creating a Roman shield wall, lines merging behind to get the culprit. The testudo, moving at tortoise pace, gave-up and came back as it took battering hits from all angles.
The slow boil of the kettle came to a sudden steam. Against the darkening sky molotov projectiles flew through the air, searing their fiery trails into the night, most bursting in no-man’s land, but they pierced the gloom, and provided a background to the shouts that broke the previous hours of peace. Ishaq felt the space enlarge around him so that he could take more steps, but still no-one was sure what was happening. Flares were lit that gave out a vermillion aura. They pierced the gloom and their burning smoke reached Ishaq’s nostrils, bringing the rotting smell of sulphur. Fires were started elsewhere and smoke billowed through the crowds. A gap opened that let a couple of EDL badged supporters cross the forbidden concrete. They ran the distance between the two lines and slammed with a thud into the next line of riot shields and visors, who turned their backs to pin them to the floor. That enabled a few, then many, Muslims to get through. The police struggled to stop both sides pushing-through to start fighting. The lines broke, and two phalanxes met in the no-man’s land. The Children of Adam collided. Cruelty burst through, violence won the day, it was the language of the street writ large. A syntax of brutality, a cycle of reaction.
Policemen dropped their batons and tried to flee, caught in a vice, two jaws of society’s inflamed animal-spirits chomping down on them. Ishaq saw the frame of a woman through her police armour, and watched her drop to the ground as an EDL member punched her in the gap under her visor. Her body folded and lay prostrate, like discarded cardboard. The authorities’ abandoned weapons were picked-up, their own truncheons used to batter them. Ishaq tried to make a path away from the trouble but was buffeted, pushed back, by the rush of people choosing to run towards the danger. Ishaq could not tell by whom, but canisters of tear gas were released. He took breaths of fire that incinerated his innards. He inhaled a stinging pain as black smoke spread. His eyes streamed as the fog reflected light, producing a strobing effect.
Out of the gloaming a pale-grey horse charged, snorting blackened smoke and making a squeal, its visored rider wielding a baton like a sword, dipping his head to take a swipe. Ishaq dived out the way to avoid being trampled by panicked hooves. He looked back as the horseman was grappled by a masked assailant. The steed reared and shook-off its doubled load. Unburdened, the beast galloped away, the smog reclaiming it.
Ishaq heaved for breath and wiped his eyes, he drove himself upright and staggered away from the main crowd, hoping to find sanctuary. He moved between pockets of clear air and woollen smoke, holding his nose and mouth, coughing on sooty particulates, trying to stem the phlegm. He smelt the putrid decay of sewers and the burning of rubber. With the lines completely broken a surge of white men came through. Pissed-up, and angry, they initially exulted in the fight, as if this was their wildest dream come true. Shouting ‘English ’til I die’, ‘Britain first’, they had the chance to have their grievances answered with fists. Their cries gave way to panic as it was clear they were out numbered. Small packs and individuals were isolated as Muslim youth rained-in on them with whirling arms, punches, and armaments. The men started running, first back, and then in all directions, chased by the revengeful.
Ishaq saw a large gap and tried to run through, but stumbled. He looked around. He had tripped over a fallen policeman, eyes vacant. As he tried to rise his hair was grabbed, his head thrust into the tarmac. Shocked, he managed to spin round. A white man grabbed him by the neck and punched him, but only made a glancing contact. Lips bleeding from the brush of the man’s signet, Ishaq struggled as the man tried to strangle him. Legs pinned down he reached for the man’s neck, and gave faint hits to tattoo-sleeved arms. The man was wide-eyed and joyous. Ishaq closed his eyes as he drifted in pain. He opened them and saw an image of Frankie, red hair aflame, sweaty hands wilfully embracing his neck while smiling in gleeful friendship. Manic fingers crawled his throat and pressed inwards. Maybe a due retribution, a vengeance formed from failure that now had its time. He let his eyes close as he lost consciousness but then heard a sickening crack. The pressure on his neck alleviated and Ishaq gasped for breath, his lungs wanting to explode out of his chest. As his eyes cleared he saw a defiant-looking Asian man in a pristine butchers apron, holding a discarded nightstick. His absurd smile targeted Ishaq and was joined by a thumbs up. Enraptured, the man ran on and threw himself back into the delirious fray. The white man was at Ishaq’s feet, face downwards giving testament to the earth, hair black like soot, skull cracked, a trickle of blood moving down the side, unmoving, probably a corpse.
A couple of shots rang out unseen, an incentive to move further away. Touching the walls, and walking in a crouch, he got to the edge of the crowds and then navigated a mazy warren. He could see scuffles at every junction and street, with no police to be seen. Somehow he ended up on Commercial Road. Ishaq knew the river wasn’t that far, south, and that he was nearly in the clear. Men ran around him; Ishaq braced himself on a couple of occasions for a strike, and then started a shuffled jog down a long, straight road. Outside of the confusion he started to feel pain, on his arm, and around his neck and mouth, and somehow on a knee. He was constantly overtaken by other people fleeing as he hobbled along, his tongue tasting salty blood.
One chunky white man overtook him, his cheeks puffing in and out like a bellows, eyes panicked. Ishaq took a look at the man’s stumpy legs and, out of some still-intact ego, tried to raise his pace to match but failed. The man was followed, chased, by a stocky Asian wearing a hat like Shams’. Ishaq jogged a couple of steps and then his head shot up, ‘SHAMS’, but the second man paid no heed.
Ishaq heard a thunderous roar, a clash of steel, and vibrations of air. He looked up and saw a train on an overpass, fulminating sparks floating downwards. He had reached Cable Street. Under the bridge he saw Shams tackle the fat man to the ground and launch a fist into his head. The man, now dazed and on the floor, lay still as Shams stood and landed a hefty kick to the ribs. The man welped and covered the back of his head with his hands, while curling into a ball. Ishaq started running, pushing through his pain, struggling with his breathing. He saw Shams launch a punch into the man’s head and force the man to look at him. Shams paused and then brought out his knife. The man looked terrified.
Shams raised the knife in two hands with his back to Ishaq, who jumped, launching into his friend, rugby tackling him down. Both now on the floor, Ishaq saw the white man cautiously getting up and in a firm imperative shouted, ‘GO.’
Shams had lost the blade but saw it on the ground and crawled to pick it up. Ishaq grabbed one of Shams’ feet, who pulled his leg back and then launched it into Ishaq’s face. His nose stinging, and having bitten his tongue, Ishaq still held on.
Shams said, ‘Let me be, Ishaq. They deserve it.’
Shams swiped Ishaq with the back of his fist, but it was too tame to knock him off. Shams managed to get one hand on the knife, but Ishaq managed to get a hand on Shams. They struggled, bodies twisting and merging and then apart, grappling on the floor facing each other. Ishaq gripped Shams’ strained hands and tried to prise the fingers away from the handle, one by one. Ishaq rolled on top of Shams to try and pin him down. The knife turned inwards, pointing towards Ishaq’s stomach. Shams felt the weight of Ishaq’s body on top of him, felt the knife push through and heard Ishaq let out a shout. In fright Shams’ grip loosened on the knife, and Ishaq pulled away. Shams pushed himself away as he saw Ishaq reel backwards on the floor, his eyes widening as he saw the knife, pierced into Ishaq.
‘I’m sorry…I didn’t mean…’
Breathing laboured, Ishaq slowly pulled himself off the floor.
‘It’s alright…it’s alright…everything’s going to be fine…’
He took a moment to wheeze, as he kneeled on one leg as if genuflecting in prayer. The knife held steady in his right hand as he pulled it out. Ishaq pushed-off from his knee to stand. He used two fingers, wiggling them like bunny ears, to explore the newly created hole in his clothing. ‘Haha. It went through the side of my jacket…’
Ishaq smiled and laughed, at odds with the frown of fresh blood on his face. He stood slightly over Shams, collecting gulps of breath. He held the knife aloft, high and out of Shams’ reach, displaying it to reassure that no harm had been done. Ishaq extended his other hand, reaching out to help Shams up.
‘…haha, look. Nothing…no blood…let’s get…’
Ishaq was lying on the floor, looking up at the throbbing bridge above. He had been knocked back as he heard a crack like lightning, his ears now thundering. Ishaq looked at Shams, whose skin looked milky and was staring somewhere past him. He felt a numb pain that became a burning sensation in his chest where he had felt the knock. Looking down in detached fascination he saw an inky-blot sprout from his jacket, and then flower, in youthful bloom. Ishaq didn’t understand and looked at Shams again. Shams’ eyes were tearing. Ishaq felt fear. He felt scared. A fear so acute that it was as if the sky would be rent asunder and judgement had come. His vision turning into a dark mist, he looked towards the direction of sound, and Shams’ gaze, but first caught sight of the knife on the floor in front of them, still manifesting danger.
Ishaq started to stand but felt a crackling pain in his ribs and had the sense of nearly passing out, seeing an insoluble blackness. He collapsed to a kneeling position and reached out for the blade. As his eyes rose, a young man came into hazy perception. He seemed to be wearing a police uniform and, wide-eyed, with legs bowed, was shaking and pointing at him with an implement of metal. Ishaq shook his head, trying to clear his eclipsed vision and disperse the fog of his mind. And then. He saw stars. Falling stars against a cloak of midnight. Wonderful speckles of light that scored his sight and drew prodigious fading arcs that made Ishaq smile. With all his summoned might, he raised his head. With all his strength, he urged his eyes to see. Ishaq met the rosy-cheeked boy’s gaze and heard one final thunderous clap.