by Kavich, AC
Hiroki jogged up to Billy, trying not to look too excited. “It’s you,” he said.
“I know you?” Billy asked, eyeing Hiroki suspiciously.
“Yes, you know me. I mean, no. Not really,” Hiroki chuckled nervously. “I was at the race. I know you.”
“Did you know that men don’t use umbrellas?” said Billy with a sneer. He eyed Hiroki for a long beat, looking him up and down. “You look like an idiot under that thing.”
“And you look like you’re about to get wet. It’s a long walk back to… where are you from, anyway? Hudson?” asked Hiroki.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Billy demanded.
“Nothing! Just… wait here.”
“Wait here why?”
“Two minutes! Just wait,” said Hiroki. He bounded across the parking lot and disappeared inside the medical clinic.
Hiroki dripped rainwater all over the lobby carpet as he made his way to the counter. Jackie gave him a quick wave, then disappeared in back to fetch his mother. When Reiko emerged, she looked weary. But when her eyes landed on her son and the bag he had set on the counter, her weariness quickly faded. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she beamed.
“I got pastrami,” said Hiroki. “They didn’t have pimento loaf.”
“Pastrami’s fine,” Reiko laughed. Her eyes drifted past Hiroki to the lobby window where she could see Billy shivering under the awning.
Hiroki followed her eyes. “I’m going to give him a ride.”
“You know that boy?” Reiko asked, a hint of concern in her voice.
Hiroki thought about the question a beat too long. “Sure, I know him. He’s a… a friend.”
Reiko crossed her arms, not quite satisfied. “Don’t get home too late, Hiro.”
***
Hiroki drove a huge four-door Buick. It was not even close to a cool car, but it was his first car and his pride and joy. The day he turned sixteen, his grandfather handed him an envelope that was bulging strangely. Hiroki pretended he had no idea there were keys inside until they slid onto his palm.
Billy sat in the passenger seat. “So glad I get to meet you and your whole damn family all on the same night. What a treat for me.” He had rolled his window down despite the rain and was catching raindrops. He wagged his thumb toward the elderly gentleman sitting in the back seat. “Does this guy ever talk?”
It was Hiroki’s grandfather Hideo. He was over eighty, but he had a full head of blazing white hair and a mouth full of original teeth. He sat very still with his spotted hands folded in his lap, but there was sharpness in his eyes that belied the deep wrinkles around them.
“He doesn’t speak English.” Hiroki waved at his grandfather in the rearview mirror and spoke to him briefly in Japanese. Hideo nodded silently and looked out the rain-streaked window contentedly. “He just likes to get out of the house.”
“I’m assuming this is his car,” said Billy. “It’s the crappiest car I’ve seen in… forever.”
Hiroki rolled his eyes. “Do you have a car? Do you even have a license?”
Billy yawned. “I’m fifteen, bro.”
“When you’re sixteen and you’ve got a better car, then you can take shots at mine,” Hiroki said defensively.
“So what’s the scoop, dude? Why give me the great honor of riding in your crappy car? If you and Grandpa Creepy are taking me to some dirty abandoned warehouse to chop me up, can we swing by a fast food joint first? I deserve a last meal.”
“I don’t know why I’m giving you the honor of… Anyway, everybody at school is going to be talking about that fight. They’re only going to hear Aidan’s side of it, but I want to know what really—”
“That’s the asshole’s name? Aidan?” Billy started laughing, which made him wince. “I should have guessed. It was gonna be Aidan or Jayden or Cayden.”
“Why did you even come to the race? To cheer for runners from your school? Where were your friends? Why didn’t somebody help you when you were getting beat up?”
Billy waved his hand dismissively.
“Why did Aidan attack you?” asked Hiroki.
Billy rolled up his window, laced his fingers behind his head and closed his eyes. “Because I hooked up with his girlfriend.”
“No you didn’t,” Hiroki protested a little too forcefully. “You and Eva didn’t hook up. And besides, that was after.”
Billy opened one eye to study Hiroki, smirking. “When you cross the river, take a right on Lisbon. Toward Sunset View Park.” Billy closed his eye again. “Did I mention that your mom is hot?”
Hiroki’s jaw dropped.
“You must have noticed she’s hot. And I dig that accent of hers.”
“Don’t talk about my mother,” said Hiroki, his voice cracking.
“It’s a compliment. If I had to choose between that Hispanic girl from the track and the exotic Nurse Reiko, I honestly don’t know who I’d choose. Who would you choose? Forget she’s your mom for a minute and answer honest.”
Hiroki slammed on the brakes. “Get out.”
Still smirking, Billy glanced back at Hiroki’s grandfather to see if the old man might come to his defense. But Hideo merely waved goodbye. Billy flung open the passenger door. “It’s cool. I live in this neighborhood anyway.” He stepped out of the Buick but kept one hand on the open door and leaned down to smirk at Hiroki. “One last thing, before I forget… I like your girl jeans.”
Hiroki stepped on the gas and peeled out. The passenger door hung open for a moment, then swung closed on its own.
***
Later that night, Eva leaned against her bedroom door with her full weight. Her sisters had joined forces on the other side. “Stop pushing! You’ll break the door!”
“Yeah right!” said Anita. “Let us in!”
“Yeah, let us in!” echoed Myra.
“We just want to borrow some clothes!”
“Yeah, that’s all!”
“Just a couple of tops!”
“Yeah, and a couple of skirts!”
“And a few pairs of jeans!”
“Yeah, and some shoes!”
“And some makeup!”
“Right, makeup!”
Eva was so focused on holding the door shut she didn’t have enough breath in her lungs to yell back. Besides, her mother Rosa would somehow manage to only hear Eva and blame her for the noise pollution. When it came to avoiding punishment, the twins’ identical “who me” smiles got them off the hook every time.
Anita snuck her foot between the door and the frame. Eva drew a deep breath, stomped on the foot, and slammed the door shut. She ignored her sister’s melodramatic howl and spun the lock. There were a few shrill protests from the hall but her sisters padded away giggling.
Eva flopped back on her bed and returned her nose to her history textbook. She was three sentences into a paragraph when a sudden tapping on her window startled her so badly she went tumbling off the bed. She rose to her knees and glared at Hiroki as he slid the unlocked window up, folded his dripping umbrella and climbed into the room.
“You get scared every time,” he said with a smile. “It’s always me.”
“What can I say, Hiro? You’re pretty scary,” Eva said sarcastically. She flung one of her textbooks at him.
Hiroki caught the book with one hand and tossed it back on her bed. He kicked off his wet shoes, sat down on Eva’s bed and propped up her pillows behind his back.
Eva chuckled. “Make yourself at home. Please.” She wandered over to her window and peered out. “Is that your grandpa sitting in the car? Hiro, how can you just leave the sweet old guy out there in the rain?!”
“Trust me, he’s happier sitting in the car than sitting in his room at home. Especially when it’s raining. It’s a meditative thing for him, I think.” Hiroki wiggled to get comfortable, a coy smile on his face. “One of these days I’ll show up outside your window and Aidan will be the one looking out at me. Will he drag me inside and murder me here, or will
he mind the carpet and just throw me off the roof?”
Eva covered her mouth to muffle a laugh. “He’s not that bad. My mom and sisters adore him. Every time he speaks they just gaze at him, like every word that comes out of his mouth is poetry.” She flopped backwards on the floor and swung her arms and legs to make a carpet angel.
“I’m sure them adoring him has got nothing to do with his rich father and the fact he looks like a catalog model,” Hiroki rolled his eyes even while he spoke, but made sure to force a smile too. “Give me one good reason why you’re wasting your time with that jerk.”
Eva draped her hair across her face. “He does have a rich father. And he does look like a catalog model.”
“Come on, be serious. You’re not impressed with any of that,” said Hiroki.
Eva uncovered her face and sighed. “I don’t know why I’m with him. It’s just… something to do. I guess he hasn’t given me a good enough reason to break up with him yet.”
“Yeah, that’s true. It’s not like he ever kicked the crap out of somebody in front of you.” Without taking the camera off his neck, Hiroki started clicking through his photos.
“Get any good shots today?” asked Eva with a nervous smile.
“You’re not in all of them,” said Hiroki, anticipating her complaint. “Only like half.”
“I don’t want to be in any pictures! I look terrible all sweaty and making weird running faces. If you have to photograph the race—”
Hiroki scoffed. “Then you better stop almost winning races, because the almost winner is always going to be in the photo.”
Eva popped up and leaned over the edge of the bed, resting her chin on her arms. “All right, show me… me.” She jumped up on the bed and took up position beside Hiroki, leaning over his arm to look at the display window on his digital camera.
They flipped through the photos in silence for a few moments. Eva cringed when she started seeing her own face in photo after photo, but was also pleased with how imposing she looked as she closed the gap on the lead runner. Hiroki cringed when he got to the photos that featured nothing but Eva’s legs.
“My camera slipped,” he said.
Before long, Hiroki advanced all the way to the end of the photo series and arrived at pictures he took at the finish line. There were Aidan and his goons, leaning over a broad-shouldered teen who seemed to be smiling even while he got punched repeatedly.
“Oh my god, that’s him, huh?” asked Eva. She leaned in to get a closer look. “All I remember is the blood.”
The next photo in the series elicited a gasp from Eva. It was a close-up, perfectly framed, of Billy holding Eva close for a kiss. Without context, it seemed to depict two people who were passionately in love.
Eva leaned back, blushing a bright red.
“He was right. You two did hook up,” said Hiroki with a sigh.
“What do you mean, ‘he was right’?”
Hiroki cursed under his breath and dropped the camera to his chest. “I saw him later, at my mom’s clinic. I gave him a ride home.”
Eva almost gasped, but managed to keep her voice calm. “What’s his name?”
“Billy Rasmussen. From Hudson, obviously.”
Eva reached for Hiroki’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I want to meet him.”
***
The place where Hiroki kicked him out of the car had not actually been Billy’s neighborhood. He was still a couple of miles away from home, and it was pouring rain. Nothing he could do about that now. So he jammed his hands in his pockets again and started jogging.
It was almost 10pm when he saw his trailer at the end of the row. It was blue once, but the cheap paint had cracked and flaked for so many years that there wasn’t much color left. A green cloth awning extended over what passed for the trailer’s porch, and the space beneath it was dimly illuminated – through the open door – by light from inside.
Billy slowed to a walk as he approached his home. Even in the dim light, he could see his father sitting on a folding chair. Even from a distance, he could see the can of beer in his hand.
“How’s the weather out there?” asked William Rasmussen with a boozy drawl. He leaned forward in his chair to get a better look at the son who shared his name. Like Billy, his shoulders were broad and thick. His hair may have been blond as well, but it was buzzed so short that its color wasn’t apparent. “You look like a drowned alley cat.”
“Can I go inside, sir?”
William Rasmussen downed the rest of his beer then took his time opening another can. He had half that can down his throat before he answered Billy’s question. “Of course you can go inside.”
Billy took a shivering step toward the open door.
“But not yet,” said William as he rose from his rickety lawn chair and polished off the beer in one gulp. “Not until you earn it.”
Billy stood in the rain and stared at his father, hoping for some sign that he was joking. But William had positioned himself between Billy and the door to the trailer, and his thick frame was an obstacle Billy knew better than to challenge.
“You’re not good, Billy,” he rumbled. “You get in fights. Fights you can’t win. Think that’s okay? Getting in fights? You know the rules, but you don’t follow the rules… Thought I wouldn’t find out you got yourself suspended? Thought the school wouldn’t call me and tell me that my son got suspended again?”
“The suspension is for sleeping in class, sir. The fight happened later—”
William shook his head, indifferent to the specifics. “It’s a week this time Billy. And next time it’s an expulsion.”
“I’m sorry I disappoint you, sir,” said Billy with a hint of defiance in his voice.
“You disappoint yourself,” said William with enough rolling thunder to snuff out Billy’s defiance. “What kind of father would I be if I just let it happen? What kind of father would I be if I didn’t try to teach you better? How to be a man.”
“I’m trying to learn, sir,” said Billy, struggling to keep his voice steady.
William studied his son for a long beat, his thick arms folded across his chest. His jaw was jutting out, his teeth grinding. “You know the drill. Full regimen.”
“Yes sir,” said Billy.
Billy looked for a patch of dry ground, but the trailer was at a low point in the RV park and the grass was saturated with rainwater. He lowered himself to the wet ground, dug his fists into the mud and extended his legs behind him. He had done many push-ups under his father’s watchful eye.
“I want thirty good ones, or you start over.”
“Yes sir,” answered Billy with a grunt.
The rain seemed to fall harder each time he lowered his body to the muck, brown drops of fluid landing on his lip and running inside his mouth. But Billy kept pumping, kept pushing.
He knew the drill.
CHAPTER THREE
After school the next day, Eva squealed with disgust as she sat in the passenger seat of Hiroki’s car. It was still soaked from the previous night, so she had to sit on her jacket to keep her pants dry.
“This is where I dropped him off,” said Hiroki. He was still unsure hunting for Billy was a good idea, but Eva had done that thing with her eyes – with her eyelashes – that made any request seem very reasonable. “He said this is his neighborhood.”
The neighborhood in question wasn’t up to Alpine standards, but it was the nicest in all of Hudson. It was near the river, which meant harbor access for boat owners. The homes that lined its manicured streets were all two-story and the cars parked in driveways were all nicer than Hiroki’s prized Buick.
“How are we supposed to find his house? How did I not think to ask you that before we left school?” Hiroki massaged the steering wheel with nervous hands. “Even if I can think of a way, I’m not saying. This was your idea.”
“You wouldn’t dare just sit there and not help,” said Eva.
Hiroki tried to protest, but she was right. With a quiet growl of
disappointment in himself, he put the car in park and unfastened his seatbelt. “Come on. We’re walking.”
They went door-to-door, knocking and waiting patiently for homeowners just returned from work to answer. When someone did come to the door, Eva did the talking.
“Hello. We’re from Alpine High School and we’re working with the Red Cross to collect clothing for the victims of the recent Earthquake in South America. Do you have any clothes that you would like to donate?”
They fully expected to have every door politely slammed in their faces, but as it turned out the good people of Hudson were moved by the plight of the South American earthquake victims – despite the fact that there had been no earthquake and their were no victims. Since they had left Hiroki’s car behind, the only option for dealing with dozens of donated clothing items was to carry them. Hiroki had the honor, and was soon weighed down by a stack of clothes so high he could barely see over them.
Eva remained focused on the task at hand. At every door, whether the homeowner donated clothing or not, she made sure to ask, “Is this the Rasmussen residence? Is your son Billy home?”
They received the answer “no” nearly twenty times before someone finally responded with useful information. “You mean William Rasmussen? I think he and his son live in the RV park up the road.”
***
It was the first day of Billy’s suspension, and he spent the whole day chopping wood.
His father brought the wood home from his work up in the mountains. Years after his military career came to an end, he worked for a sizable logging operation. He spent sixteen hours a day up in the hills with a team of twenty other men. At the end of each day, he filled the bed of his truck with scrap stumps and brought them home for Billy to manually convert into a few dollars.
The grass was still wet from the previous night’s rain, but the afternoon sun was warm and the work was hard. Billy stripped off his shirt and tossed it on the porch, ignoring the pain as the shirt collar scraped his bruised face. He resumed chipping away at a particularly stubborn stump, but stopped short when he noticed four feet standing nearby.
