I look back upon that time as if it were a long time ago, and I think to myself, ah, yes, those years in Bushwick. That had been the era of the golden boy. Before I met the golden boy, in New York, the kind of thing that would happen to me would be that I would be having an affair with some guy, and we would go get a hotel somewhere on some night. We would forget to eat dinner. I would try to give this guy a blow job and he would just turn out to be way too big, horrifyingly too much. I would just not finish, my eyes tearing, and slobber and sticky liquids everywhere. The sheets would have been hotel starched, and then they would have been soaked through. He would spank me, and the sting would float from my skin and hover in the air for a cool and glorious second. I would wait for the beat of silence, before I felt his hand. I would wait for that slappy sound. Even though he was just some guy, we might fall asleep curled together on the dry side of the bed, holding hands. And the next morning, we would go for a quick swim in the hotel pool, and the pool boy setting up poolside for the day would kind of look familiar and then I would realize with a dawning shock that he was one of my former interns. I would wade and waver in the water, tilting my face away from him. I would swim five laps, hoping not to have a confrontation with the pool boy. I would hold my breath.
In my room early in the mornings, I would look in the mirror. There might be a bruise on my left butt cheek. Later, before heading out, I would poke a curious finger at another bruise, high up my leg at the inside of my thigh, prod the burgeoning bluing of pale, fatty flesh. I had to take two trains to work. My right knee had a bruise on it, and then I noticed a smaller one adjacent to the one in the center. By the second train, the two had combined to form one large purple reddish bruise, covering the entirety of my kneecap. I had on some cutoff denim shorts and waited for someone on the subway to notice my bruised knee, to ask what happened, so that I could say, oh, that’s just from having sex on my knees. But nobody said a thing, if anyone was glancing at my legs, they were probably first noticing the mosquito bite scars on my shins. This was the kind of thing that would happen to me, in New York. Before the era of the golden boy.
The golden boy held me in his mouth. Hanging between slackened jaws, was it a holding position of protection or of hunger, appetite, consumption? I had a long neck. The drawing teacher at the community college in L.A. told me so, when I used to model for life drawing classes at night. I wore a wool miniskirt, and a button-down collared shirt with French cuffs. It’s not really necessary to even own a wool skirt in Los Angeles, wool anything barely. There had been years in my life in the southland, when I had bought clothing for future, other selves. In preparation of a newly-emerged self, that was waiting somewhere on down the road. I couldn’t ever catch up.
I was taking my time. I stretched my long neck to see over people’s heads. I wanted all or nothing. Once, when I came home, the golden boy had hung my curtains up in my room. He had installed the curtain rod attachments, and placed the curtain rod in its place, and threaded the curtains onto the rod. The curtains billowed in like storybook sails. They were relentless. I called him to ask him about the curtains. I thought it would be a nice gesture, he said. I said thank you, and asked him what he thought about the word, gesture. Really, I was just trying to see if, like me, he saw something futile in the word gesture. Gestures were usually faint shadows of real things, the small thing you did, or showed, or gave, because you were unable to do, or show, or give, the actual, real, big, important thing. Instead of calling me ungrateful, which I had already done, to myself, in my head, he was quiet. Your roommate let me in, he said. Your roommate let me in—a strange man, with paint on his face, holding an electric drill. You’re not a strange man, I said, and thought I would accompany this statement with a laugh, but found that in the saying of it, it had transformed in my head, from something humorous, to something sobering and painful.
We soon moved into a new apartment together. I would stand in the doorway of the bedroom which was right off the kitchen, watching him cook lunch, which would go into small glass containers that he settled into the bottom of his backpack. Other things in the backpack included a notebook, a book, pen, sometimes some articles of clothing or accessories, sometimes a power drill, or measuring tape, an extra pair of pants or long underwear, a six pack of cold beers. He might be cooking rice and beans, in a camping pot. He had gotten it in his head that for the sake of potential apocalypse, or just for camping, to build up a thorough camping equipment setup, for every new household item we needed, he would buy the camping version. Always be ready to live off of survival-mode-type accoutrements. Instead of a bed, why not buy a sleeping bag? Instead of a room, why not just have tents, I had asked, trying to be very precisely one-half funny, one-half error-of-your-ways serious. Very quickly, all of our kitchen equipment became the camping version of things. All of our lamps were hand-wound flashlights. We kept a tub of sand by the kitchen sink, and scrubbed our camping pots and pans and tin mugs with a handful of sand and a sponge.
Sex in a sleeping bag was still sex. Maybe it was even more—sex contained, in a bag. (We were like a ship in a bottle, the golden boy and me. How did we get here, after that disaster of our first go-around the previous year? Impossible ship, in an impossible bottle.) Sometimes, when it was hot, on top of the sleeping bag. For two bodies to be helplessly, violently, thrusting and butting at each other, thwacking and clapping at each other. Hopeless urgency. I was obsessed with body parts of sense, touching body parts of sense. Mouth to ear. Nose to eye.
There in that apartment I shared with the golden boy, sometimes, watching him naked, in one of the tiny rooms, I was struck with a sense of wonder. We would be fighting over a towel, as per usual, because, as per usual, he would be trying to go take a shower using my still-damp towel, and I would be trying to get him to take a clean, or at least, dry towel. And I would be struck that this was somehow my life, that he was in it, that I had him for the moment. It was something, all right. Maybe the only thing.
When we moved in together, I’d had to tell my parents about him. What does he do? they asked. By then, the golden boy was in grad school at Teachers College up at Columbia. Did you know that Georgia O’Keeffe studied there? And Dr. Ruth? Wow, they marveled, impressed. Who is Dr. Ruth? they asked. What’s he going to do after school? they asked. He’s in the counseling and clinical psychology department, I said, instead of offering the more specific information that within that department, the golden boy was at the new Spirituality Mind Body Institute. He was studying ancient healing practices with a cohort of aspiring “mind-body healers” and “spiritual activists,” promoting self-actualization and “inner work for outer change.” So he’s your boyfriend? my parents asked. If you’re living together, that means he’s really important to you, huh? I mean, I guess he’s a pretty important part of my life, I said.
I could not bring myself to say that he was important to me directly. His body to my body. The best I could do was say he was a pretty important part of my life, as if my life was an object separate from me, something that had maybe just fallen out of my pocket, something that could just be lying around. What is his family like, they asked. I was silent. Where is he from? they asked. Nebraska, I said. Is he white? they asked. Mm hmm, I said. What was he doing before school? they asked. He was an art handler, and he also had his own company, I said, he and his best friend from college started up a nonprofit kombucha brand that got pretty big, I said. They sell it everywhere, they sell it at Whole Foods. He sounds great, my parents said. Even better than the other ones before, they said. You know, we always liked a lot of those guys from before. You were always with good guys. They’re all married now, but they could have married you. You know, you should make sure he knows that you’re serious. You want to start a family, you’re getting older. What is your five-year plan?
I don’t say anything. I stare straight ahead at the blank white wall, waiting for something to appear. I want to scream at them. I want to say, that
I’m serious? Am I serious? Do you want me to be serious the way you guys were serious? So serious that you remain in a marriage that for so many years has just been wearing you down, destroying you quietly, shrinking your hearts to nothing?
*
My parents are playing Simon & Garfunkel. I pretend to be asleep. It is quiet up in the front of the car, aside from the low-volume music. My dad is driving, my mom is staring straight ahead. There is a distinct column of empty space between them; both of their forearms are resting on the center console, but not touching. Squinting does not bring them any closer to touching. I have a distinct memory of being on airplanes, as a kid, on family vacations, and my mom insisting we sleep, or even if we couldn’t fall asleep, just rest, and pretend to sleep. I would close my eyes while she was turned around in her seat in front of me, making sure that my eyes were closed, and then once she turned back around, I would open my eyes the slightest crack, and try to watch the movie that was playing on the big screen in the front. Usually it was a thriller. It gave me thrills just thinking about that word, as a kid. Thriller. Sometimes, my mom would turn back around to make sure I was sleeping, and I wasn’t ever sure, if she could tell if my eyes were slightly open, or if she could somehow just sense that I had sneaky intentions.
While I was staring at the space between my parents’ bodies, I realized that I would be thinking about that last scene with the golden boy for a long time. Forever. Upon reaching this realization, and looking at it, like an object in my hands, I wondered if it was as unwitting, as out-of-my-hands, as a realization, or if it was a decision. Conscious. A vow, a promise, a choice. Do not ever forget that moment. Don’t you fucking dare ever forget that moment, when you looked up, from your cigarette, from your lap, from your friend’s face, from your conversation, and multiple tiny things happened. You looked up. You saw someone walk up with a bike, lock up a bike, you knew it was him, in not even one full second of seeing him, the shape of him, backlit, his head, literally, backlit, like some fucking joke, the streetlight a halo behind his head, and you knew it, could feel it, there was no question that it was him, and he was facing you, but even more than that, you could sense that he was also seeing you, recognizing you, and you tilted or ducked your head slightly and squinted, to try to see better, you tried to change your line of vision so that he was not so perfectly backlit, so that you could see the evidence. You tilted your head, and you couldn’t really see any better, but you knew it was him, and he knew it was you, so what did it matter?
I imagined a look of resignation, a half laugh, half sigh. Of course, this would happen, of course, this was how it would be. I imagined the feeling that he might take flight. He might do something like this, stop his bike, see me, and decide against it. That tenuous as things were, he had it in him, to steel himself against me, to say no, to back away. He had it in him, whereas I did not have it in me.
Finally, though, he had sat down next to me. I looked at his profile, the left side. This was what I was confronted with. But for a few seconds at a time, as we talked, he would turn to face me, and then I felt like I saw him, to see both of those light eyes, the long lazy lashes. His mouth, lips pursing, as he nodded at the noncommittal words we were releasing into the air. A woman walked by. We talked about the surface-most things, that had happened, that were happening, in our lives. Work. And yet, in all this, I couldn’t shake the notion that in all this surface talk, we were both keenly aware of everything that lay beneath, that lay behind. As if for every superficial word of small talk, there was an equal and opposite reaction, or shadow, that was there below, or behind, adding weight, and we could both see that we both saw it, we wordlessly acknowledged it every second of the way, and it was somehow unbridgeable, this gap, between what we said and what we did in our regular public lives.
Later, on the walk back to the train station, the beginning part of it, I felt like a wild person. Half wild person, half numb robot. I was doing a sort of wary walking, looking all around me, as if now that this thing has happened, who the fuck knew what else might happen. Suddenly the world seemed very unstable. Suddenly, I did not know the world at all.
There was one last time, and one last guy, that I think about, that happened after that last scene with the golden boy, and before I left New York. At the top of the subway entrance stairs, before following this other guy down, I took a breath. Even then, I tricked myself into believing that the night still could end in a multitude of ways. I still believed that perhaps, I would decide not to have sex with him. I took in his apartment. I took in the hallways, the placemats. The posters on the wall, the lights strung up, these were all his roommate’s. I sat on a stool while he made tacos. He was not from anywhere where anyone ate tacos, or made good tacos. I could tell that his tacos were going to be subpar, but I appreciated this unassuming guy making tacos for me, in the middle of the night. I looked at his movies. Wow, I said, you have a lot of romantic dramas. Yeeah, he said. He took me to his room. He led me by the hand. I did not like that he did this, or did not like the feeling of this. I wished it were someone else, leading me by the hand. He kissed me. He was very tall, had very wavy hair. His lips were dry and thin, and I put an end to the kiss. He took his glasses off, and looked very earnest. I shook my head at him, I made a noise of drunken frustration. I am so turned on by you, he whispered, while his cock was deep inside of me. Or, his cock was wearing a condom, and then wearing me. I hung on, by a thread. I hung on, by my very fingertips. I was left hanging, like an empty coat, on a coat-rack hook. On the coat-rack hook of his penis. I tried to make it funny, so that I could put off berating myself. He was exceedingly nice. I got my period on my trip to the bathroom, a surprise, one day early. He pulled my tampon out, put it on a napkin, lay a towel down on the bed. Soft hair, he said, mouth breathing lightly over my hair. Soft cheeks, he said, mouth on my cheek. Soft lips, he said, mouth on my mouth. I had never in my life done this thing, where I stayed over solely because I was too tired, where I stayed over even though the concept of it made me feel sick. But I did it then. I tried to remind myself to be calm, to step back, take a step back, be more casual, be less intense. Think, feel, react less intensely. This was what, maybe, I had wanted, or needed, to do, all my life. Be, and then be less. They advise this strategy when packing for travels: pack, and then take out half of what you’ve packed. That should prove sufficient. That shall lighten your load.
Strawberry fields whizzing by outside. My parents were talking now about the California condor. I was trying to fall asleep. This could be 1987 again, I am thinking, dreaming, sitting in the backseat of my parents’ car, a lot of concerned talk about the condor. My dad tells me he heard that my reckless-driving ex-boyfriend from ten years ago has recently moved to London. Does that mean anything to me? No. Have it mean nothing. I tell myself these things: I am nothing. I am nothing, anyway, in the grand scheme of things, but here, now, I should just remind myself, that I am nothing, to the golden boy. Or, okay, not nothing, but not really anything exceptional. Or. Or, how about, I am, it was, as good as a seasonal fling. That is to say, as good as nothing. That is to say, nothing. That is to say, be a good, humble, Chinese person: round yourself down to nothing.
Once, in New York, I was crossing the street in a crowd of people, and brushed by an old man, who turned and yelled at me. Suzie Wong, he yelled. Go home, Suzie Wong. Somehow I knew he was calling me a prostitute. I’m not sure how I knew, but I went home and went on the computer to look it up, and confirmed what I knew: that Suzie Wong was a prostitute. It was a small thing that I felt—that she was a prostitute from a film—but still I knew it, felt it, in my bones. I looked it up: The World of Suzie Wong was the name of a 1957 novel by a British writer, and also a 1960 American romantic drama film, based on that novel, starring William Holden. The character Suzie Wong was a stereotypical hooker with a heart of gold; hypersexual, exotic, subservient. I’m not sure why or how I knew who she was. Even after reading about it online, I had no
recollection of ever having read, learned, or heard about her before. But it was ingrained in me. Suzie Wong. That was who—what—I was, to that old man.
I wasn’t sure where he wanted me to go. Maybe just away from him, maybe just away from that busy, chaotic, too-crowded crosswalk.
*
I began working in two restaurants, both in Newport Beach, one as a hostess, one as a pastry chef; both afforded me ample opportunity to stay out of my parents’ house, and bond with coworkers who worked late hours, and liked to drink. A lot. The sous chef at one of the restaurants—who was perpetually sweating, and who had a pierced penis—and I went out drinking, a lot, and often. And then I would drive home. Wave to the security guard, wonder at the wet look of the asphalt.
Once, I was Skyping with my parents and the golden boy had just left our apartment, but he came back in because he’d forgotten his wallet or phone. Is that him?? my mom asked, peering out of the screen. Will you invite him to come to the Santa Barbara trip? My whole family, and my sister’s in-laws, everyone was going for a week to Santa Barbara. No, I don’t think so, I said. That’s not him? Who is that? my mom asked suspiciously. Before I could tell her I’d been responding to her second question, she went on. Is that your gay friend Simon? You know, if you have so many guys hanging out all the time, he might feel like you’re not serious. Don’t you want to get married? Don’t you have that dream?
I hate this. There is a sudden metallic taste in my mouth, from the way she says that word, dream, my saliva abruptly going sour and foul. I am having trouble swallowing, and somehow I can’t hold it down anymore, No, I say forcefully. I do not have that dream. Why would I dream of that, I say angrily, looking at them, my mouth still, jaws stiff, throat tight. I clench my teeth not to stop from talking, but to hold onto something, to feel something solid, to close in on something hard. I don’t fucking have that dream, or any other dream. I can’t see it, I say. I can’t see anything.
All Roads Lead to Blood Page 16
