Bedtime Eyes

by Amy Yamada

  "I love everything that has anything to do with you. I want to know everything there is about you. Since you've met this guy, you never come around anymore. I don't care if you leave me in a corner and forget all about me; just let me watch you. I can't bear being shut out like this. Do you know how hard it's been because I couldn't tell you how I felt?"

  "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

  "If I had, you would have dumped me. You're always like that. If something starts to demand your attention, you end up hating everything about it."

  B E D T I M E E Y E S 5 5

  She was probably right, I would have ended up hating her. Especially if I'd met Spoon after hearing that.

  "Besides, if I had told you, I wouldn't have been able to stop myself.

  I would have eaten you alive, even your bones."

  I realized then that her love for me was the same as my love for Spoon.

  I often felt the violent urge to sink my teeth into him down to the bone.

  "I wanted to satisfy my hunger with this man. I can still smell you on his penis."

  I was lost for words, but Maria continued. "I'm going to just forget all about today. I'm never putting myself in this position again. And I never want to go through the embarrassment of telling someone I love them again. Next time I fall in love it will be with someone who doesn't need to be told."

  Maria put her hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs. To love and to cry were equally humiliating for her. I was suddenly grateful to myself for my total lack of patience.

  "Maria, Spoon doesn't belong to me. But I probably belong to him."

  "What could make you say that? He's just a man, that's all. He's got nothing. Just a man. How could you?"

  "He's my man."

  She put her head in her hands and sighed. "Well, is that so important?"

  "Don't forget, I don't have anything, either. I'm just a woman."

  "Get out. Please, just go now."

  I left them there in the room together, and left with my head spinning, full of thoughts about how we all fall crazily in love, but each in our own way.

  When I got back to my place, a pang of hunger reminded me that I had n't eaten for two whole days. I was exhausted, far too tired to cook, so I just sat down with a bowl of cereal and milk. The cornflakes got stuck in my throat.

  Squatting down behind the door, I strained to hear what was going on outside. A car door slammed, and I wondered if it was Spoon coming home. The sound of a drunk kicking a garbage can. Spoon often did that, making a terrible mess all over the street. It must be him. Finally I heard the sound of the student next door rummaging in his bag for his key. He would never have guessed that a girl sat behind a door less than a meter away from where he stood, a glass gripped tightly in her nervous little hand.

  A miserable feeling began to well up in the pit of my stomach, like Alka-Seltzer bubbles. I had no idea what I would say to him when I saw his face, but I knew that however much I cursed him, it wouldn't have any effect on the stupid jerk. Dirty words were just everyday language to Spoon.

  I was numb with exhaustion. The next thing I heard was the sound of the key in the lock, the sound that used to frighten me so much every day. The door opened just a crack and Spoons shameless black face came peeping through. I didn't even have the energy to stand up. 1 just sat there and looked at him. Spoon picked me up in his arms and kissed me, bringing in a rush of cold air from outside.

  1 0 4 A M Y Y A M A D A

  "Oh my god! Are you okay?"

  He pinched my cheeks and my lips with his fingertips, playing with my face like I was a baby. I tried to explain my feelings but I couldn't find the words.

  "What's wrong? Forgot how to speak English, huh?"

  I tried to give him a brash smile like one I'd seen in a Jeanne Moreau movie, but I was too young to pull it off.

  "Do you love me?" I asked.

  Spoon didn't answer. The word "love" had no real meaning for either of us, and he usually tried to brush questions like that aside with a quick, "You know I do."

  But now I could sense that the meaning of the word "love" was changing for us. It was no longer something trivial, but something dark and heavy, a word that we no longer dared use so lightly. I looked down, and removing one of my earrings, I dropped it into the glass of gin I was holding in my hand. I held the glass out to Spoon and he stared at it, a puzzled expression on his face. I pushed the glass up to the white ivories that were his teeth. It made a litte clinking sound.

  "Cheers!"

  I forced the glass between his teeth and poured in the clear, strong liquid. The gin and the earring flowed down into his stomach. It must have burned his throat along the way.

  "I hope that diamond stays inside your body forever."

  Ever since then, I only wear the other earring in my left ear, all by itself.

  "You know, you're my Linus blanket."

  Spoon didn't apologize. He must have thought it was special enough that he finally knew how much he needed me, like a blanket, taking it everywhere, sucking on it for comfort, unable to sleep without it. And he must have thought that him needing me made me lucky. I just didn't B E D T I M E E Y E S 4 5

  have the heart to argue with the dopey bastard. He was probably right anyway.

  Spoon was under my skin. We talked. We must have fucked hundreds and hundreds of times, but now for the first time we communicated with each other using words, not just our bodies. I told him how much I wanted him when he wasn't there. And I explained to him how it got so bad that I would have been happy just to catch a glimpse of one of his turds left floating in the toilet bowl. Once, I even turned the trash can upside down so I could line up his empty Michelob bottles on the table.

  "Spoon, I wanted to eat your penis, to scoop it out with your spoon like I was eating a banana."

  I just kept on talking. My senses were alive with sexual excitement.

  Spoon looked up, clicking his tongue like he was irritated.

  "Shit... I feel like I'm only here for you to play with. It's like your skin. When I press it with my finger, it gives. And when I take my finger away, it goes right back to the way it was."

  He knew his kisses would have a much more dramatic effect on me than his fists. He had learned how to read my emotions so well that he even knew how to turn a painful bite into a deliciously pleasurable experience.

  "Oh, Spoon, right now I feel like butter on hot toast."

  Spoon had wanted a cat more than anything when he was a young boy.

  But his whole family hated cats, and no one would listen to him. He used to think about cats all the time, even at school, and he'd tell his mother about how cuddly and soft and cute they were, but she just told him that what he was describing sounded more like a girl than a cat, and 4 6 A M Y Y A M A D A

  that in four or five years he should try finding himself a girlfriend t0

  look after instead.

  Then one day, on his way home from a friend's house, Spoon found an abandoned cat with a bad leg. He was overjoyed and took the cat home on his bicycle. But his brothers were allergic to cats and were angry with him when they couldn't stop sneezing. In the end, Spoon decided that he would take care of the cat secretly in his bed. But it always had gunk oozing out of its eyes; it must have had some kind of disease.

  Spoon's family was poor and they couldn't afford to buy extra food for the cat, so Spoon fed it his own leftovers. No one liked the cat. It was a scrawny, pathetic-looking creature, but Spoon loved it.

  One morning when Spoon woke up, he found the cat had thrown up yellow puke and died; it was lying underneath him. Spoon hated the cat for dying on him without warning. He wrapped it in a plastic bag and threw it down a back alley, and as he did, he heard the echo of his mother's voice telling him, "Cats and girls—there's very little difference."

  He was only a child, but he was convinced it was true.

  My body made juice.

  "Dissolve your sugar in me, Spoon."

  If
his dick had been an icicle, I would have melted it with the heat from my body.

  "Crush me like you did the cat!"

  Like that poor cat, I would remain alive in Spoon's heart and wreak my lifelong revenge. His mother was right about cats and girls.

  When we made love, something about the smell would suddenly remind me of oysters, and Spoon's skin would become like hot tar and envelop my whole body. The room was pitch black. No lights. No music.

  Only the aroma remained. My sense of smell made me feel like a police B E D T I M E E Y E S 4 7

  dog, and I was sure I would be able to sniff Spoon out, no matter where he went.

  He trapped me with his elbows and slowly opened his eyes to look down at his prey. He ground his teeth together. I felt like if anyone was grinding their teeth it should be me.

  "I can't stand it!"

  "Why?"

  "You're on top of me, in control as always, and I'm trapped here underneath you, feeling like this."

  "Feeling like what?"

  "Like I'm gonna pass out and die."

  "Open your eyes for me."

  Spoon grabbed my jaw with his hand and pulled my face toward his to stop me from fainting. I wished he'd just let me pass out. That would have been a lot easier.

  "I want you to watch me and feel me here on top of you right to the very end."

  I started to cry. I just couldn't help myself. Now at last I understood that pleasure and pain were one and the same thing. Loving Spoon was such a painful experience. I wondered if maybe I should just wait for it to turn into pleasure. Or if one day I would just get used to it and accept the mixture of pleasure and pain.

  "Look at me!"

  I looked. There was no escape. I was possessed. Nothing else mattered. Everything I cared about lay between the sheets on that bed.

  And maybe Spoon knew. I'm sure we would have dived into bed together, writhing passionately like worms, even if somebody had told us that today were the end of the world.

  "The end of the world? Who cares?"

  Not us.

  A M Y Y A M A D A

  I couldn't find the ashtray in the darkness, so I flicked my cigarette i a champagne glass I found lying under the bed. Then I realized that me and Spoon had never drunk champagne together. Somehow it made more sense for us to spoil a fancy glass like that than to use it the right way. And besides, we were far too lazy to make enough money to buy '

  anything as expensive as champagne.

  Savoring the taste of the cigarette smoke, I decided that Spoon knew me better than I knew myself, as though his body would be better qual-ified to fill out my medical reports than a doctor.

  "Whenever I'm with you, Spoon, my heart pounds and my legs turn to jelly. Sometimes I'm scared you'll find out how I really feel about you."

  "I feel like three stars came up on the slot machine," Spoon answered. "The bells just keep on ringing inside me."

  You try to scoop up the quarters in your hands as the machine spits them out at you, but they pour out so fast you can never keep up. You feel both excited and surprised at the same time, and so happy when you ex-change your quarters for a fistful of dollar bills. I thought it was a perfect way to describe our relationship.

  For the first time in my life I felt lucky, like I was a winner. I felt like I could do anything, and optimistic dreams welled up inside me. I felt so good that I'm sure I would have been happy even if I were some kid going to school on a Monday morning in the middle of a rainstorm. And of course, at that moment the old gambler's saying, "Easy come, easy go," had never been farther from my mind.

  I sat in a corner of the room where the afternoon sun came pouring in, and peeled a hard-boiled egg. A pinch of salt and a sprinkle of I freshly ground black pepper and I was in heaven. Spoon and Osbourne were both sprawled out on the floor dozing, their heads resting on the magazine Spoon had been reading.

  I ran my hand over the stubble on Spoon's chin with the back of my hand. He frowned a little but showed no sign of waking. He was like a big, black cat, sleeping there without a care in the world, and he looked so peaceful that it was all I could do to stop myself from saying out loud, Please, Spoon, won't you f u c k me?

  But I held back and just kept gazing at his face. I could feel a sad sense of security in my heart. I had loved Spoon so madly for the past few months, but when I thought about it, I knew absolutely nothing about my lover boy. But it didn't matter. I realized I could love no one else but Spoon, and I could only love what I knew, so I really didn't care about his background or his past. Only one thing bothered me: the file of papers he always carried around so carefully. I knew they were some kind of plans; I'd seen them that time I'd thrown them across the room at him. Then, when he hit me, I thought about getting I 6 A M Y Y A M A D A

  revenge by drawing all over them with colored pencils. Poor litti me . . . I just couldn't stand it when Spoon was interested in anythin else but me. What would I do if he ever left me? What if he just stopped being there? Even if he was alive and well, if he wasn't with me it would be the same as if he were dead. I'm not like some girls who say they'll be happy as long as their old boyfriends are having a good time somewhere (not that I really believe them). I needed Spoon to be by my side, to laugh with and to be angry at; and I needed him to be close enough to make love at a moment's notice. If I couldn't have that, it made no difference to me whether he was alive or dead. I could only love something if it was right there in front of me. And if it wasn't right there, I never wanted to see it again—for me it did not exist.

  I tried to fight it, but I had a feeling that Spoon might leave me. I wondered if the idea had come to me so I could be ready in case it really happened.

  "Please don't..."

  The words came so naturally. I tried to think whether I had ever really asked anyone for something before or not. If I had, it was for something so trivial I couldn't remember it.

  I made some tea and lit a cigarette. The smell of the tea woke Spoon.

  The steam must have made my face look hazy to him.

  "What would I do if you left me?"

  "What makes you think I'll leave you?"

  "I'd probably cry."

  He stroked my hair. "Poor baby," he said.

  "Wouldn't you cry?"

  "I've never cried."

  I wondered if I'd have to teach him how to cry, too. He didn't seem to be able to do anything without my help.

  "I've gotta make a phone call."

  B E D T I M E E Y E S 5 J

  "Who to?"

  Spoon didn't answer. He just kept dialing. In my mind I told him, I'm worried. I love you.

  But outwardly I pretended not to care. Spoon was right there in front of me. He was close enough for me to reach around from behind and unzip his jeans, then reach inside and turn him on. I calmed down.

  It would have been easier to love him if I lost my sight and my hearing and was only left with my sense of smell.

  UA stands for " u n a u t h o r i z e d absence" in navy lingo. In a disco full of sailors, if you were told that one of them was UA it meant that you should steer clear of h i m unless you had plenty of money and were thinking of keeping h i m as a pet. It was rare for a girl to know that a guy was UA and still fall in love the way I had. If they were caught, deserters usually had to pay enormous fines. And of course a lot of those guys, w h o had joined the navy because they couldn't get a job in the first place, couldn't pay, and they ended up in military jail. Even guys with minor offenses had their ID cards taken away so they couldn't leave the base. They were birds in a cage.

  And if they were t h r o w n out of the navy, they just went back to hus-tling on the streets.

  I was frightened. Not because he sold drugs, or by the telephone calls he made to some embassy, or even by the file of papers he carried around with him. The thing that frightened me was that Spoon could be taken far away from me for what he had done. If there was anything he was guilty of, it was that he had given me memories. I had never had t
o deal with memories before. I had always hated them and I had none prior to meeting Spoon. But now I did have memories—memories of him—and I no longer had confidence that I would be able to erase them when he walked out the door. I wondered why I was thinking about this now. It hadn't worried me a bit when all he had been to me was a helpless jerk.

  I had just accepted him for what he was.

  a m y y a m a d a

  One afternoon I got a strange phone call.

  "Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you. Is this an office or a company some sort?"

  "Who is this?"

  "This is the Metropolitan Police."

  "Are you putting me on? I get this kind of prank call all the tirfl Look, what do you want?"

  It was no lie; every now and then some joker would phone and it really irritated me. Once it was one of Spoon's idiot friends.

  "Hello, this is the navy police."

  I'd started shaking, and then when I realized it was a joke I really let him have it. Poor Willie! He hadn't meant any harm.

  "Okay then, give me your number—if you can—and I'll call you back. That way I'll know whether or not you really are from the police."

  I dialed the number he gave me, and it was answered by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. I spoke to the guy again, and he just asked me my name and occupation and then hung up.

  I didn't understand why he had called, but at least I didn't need to worry that it had anything to do with Spoon—this guy was from the Japanese police. What did worry me was that the police might have been investigating prostitution at the club where I worked. Sometimes I got some of the hostesses to work the odd trick here and there on the side: the Taiwanese and Southeast Asian students were such amazingly hard workers, it was incredible.

  I paced around the room, irritated, then poured myself half a glass of whiskey and downed it in one gulp. What would I do if the club got closed down ? With my singing as bad as it was, it was difficult to imagine that any other club would take me on. I wondered if I could sell B E D T I M E E Y E S 5 5

  drugs with Spoon. But I was too gutless for that. I slumped down on the couch, muttering to myself.