Drafts of a Suicide Note

by Wong, Mandy-Suzanne

  Behind him I could see the glow of headlights. Her black Prius idled at the bottom of the steps. I tried to slam the door but Motomura grabbed the thing (old fool still moves like lightning), and then all the strength I had couldn’t budge that door. I shook my head. He looked at me with disappointment. That infuriated me, but I gave in. I held up my hand, indicating that he’d have to wait, and Motomura raised his chin. Two articulate grownups miming like a couple of spies.

  I should note that these weren’t habits of Masami’s. Showing up at my door in the middle of the night or making Motomura do it for her. Till that evening I had no idea that she knew where I lived. Nabi was alarmed. She wanted to go with me, started to get out of bed. “So Masami will find out about us,” I said. “You’re ready for that?”

  The look on Nabi’s face as she shrank against the pillows. Such anguish that I wished I’d thought of snubbing her when she tried to lend me that crayon.

  “That’s what I thought.” Dressed, snatching my phone. I walked out with that look of hers burning in me, worse than the worst gastritic pain.

  The whole affair wrapped itself in the gray aura of the clandestine. It seemed she’d sealed us off from everything, perhaps so when she dragged me down to the deepest, darkest reaches of her lair, it would seem to all who had survived that I had never been at all.

  Two of us in the backseat like a cargo of stolen statues. Motomura drove in silence. I was too angry to know how to begin, Zo notwithstanding, and to my consternation Masami said nothing. She can’t stand inefficiency. Excessive words are inefficient.

  We left the southern coast for a dark and empty Middle Road. I figured we were heading for the cavernous mansion she’d installed in Warwick, where under one of the pagodas Erik had a wing all to himself. But the silent Prius glided past the site.

  Like a chill wind from across the sea, she spoke.

  “Are you very ill? Do you indeed require money?”

  No apologies for the ungodly hour. No thanks for getting out of bed to drive around in pitch blackness. Besides that of rare street lamps, the only light came from the cruise terminal at Dockyard, mere twinkles from across the dark expanse of the Great Sound; and she wouldn’t deign to turn on the lights inside the car and look at me.

  She spoke quiet Japanese. For me: English, indignation. Like conversing through shatterproof glass. “So?” I said.

  “The so-called documents you mentioned. What sort of documents?”

  The clumsy adjective “so-called” appears often in my so-called conversations with this woman for the maddening reason that she refuses to believe a word I say.

  My valiant parry: “First you have to tell me everything you know. Clocktower, Aetna Simmons, Char Richards.”

  “This is no negotiation.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  Masami sighed. The kind of sigh that chills CAM employees to the bone, bringing nightmares of want-ads and destitution.

  “Char Richards,” she said. “An executive at Clocktower.” You could hear the redactions a mile away.

  “How long have you known her?”

  “Some years. Not in the way you think. These accusations, you believe that she’s involved?”

  “I know she is. As I know who stands to gain.”

  The light flipped on overhead, showing the dragon’s eyes blazing with ravenous fury. Take it from me: this woman’s hush belies a temper like the head of a match.

  “Is this some kind of scheme to get back at your brother? If so, it is stupid, it is malicious and ridiculous, and you are only wasting everybody’s time.”

  A red herring of course, intended to enrage me so I’d say too much.

  I affected boredom. “This business would go sailing over that bye’s head, you know that.”

  “Insulting your brother won’t get you anywhere.” Of course. Her golden boy.

  “That idiot’s beside the point. This is about you and CAM and Char and Aetna Simmons. And let me tell you something—”

  “Quiet.”

  Zip. I shut up. Habit. Couldn’t help it. Thirty years under her thumb. Could’ve slapped myself.

  “Tori wo nakazuba utaremaji,” she murmured, whipping out her phone.

  Proverbs at a time like this. Aetna’s dead, a stranger wants to send my life up in flames, I’m sticking my neck out in search of answers, and this woman comes out with a proverb? The bird who does not warble eludes the hunter’s arrow.

  “Really,” I said. “And who’s that holding the quiver?”

  She ignored me. Typical. Scrolling her phone, I thought, to create the impression that something more important awaited her elsewhere. But she held out the phone to me.

  Missing Woman Leaves 10 Suicide Notes.

  “She’s dead,” said Masami.

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Your concern?”

  All this intended to finagle information out of me without letting anything dribble back in return. Her MO? Sit back, take it all in, strike when the victim bares his throat. On any other night it would’ve made me laugh. But as a victim of midnight kidnapping who’d spent almost two days throwing up, I was pissed off, drained, foiled, utterly at her mercy. I said, “She died for a reason.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You tell me.”

  She put the phone away, folded her hands in her lap. Again that look. I wondered if I was asleep or high and trapped in a new version of that hopeless dream. When next she spoke, she spoke English, soft as the movement of a reptile over leaves.

  “So it’s not only fraud you wish to lay upon my shoulders. It’s also death.”

  “She wanted to stop. Char wouldn’t let her—”

  “Threats are dangerous for those who utter them all misinformed. Instead let us be clear. You believe that through Char Richards, Clocktower is involved in embezzlement of some sort. You believe this woman Aetna Simmons somehow participated.”

  “Falsifying documents. As if you didn’t know—”

  “And how do you know?”

  “She worked for them, there are documents—”

  “Which to your mind are false.”

  “No, you’re twisting my words. You always mess around with what I say. You’ve assumed I’m a liar since the day I was—”

  “She participated, then. Or at least she knew about this so-called scheme.”

  “She wasn’t the only one. Difference is she died because of it. But you knew that.”

  Thought she’d sock me in the face. Barrington would’ve, I think. But the dragon lurked. Sat there with that look. Daring and disdain, challenging and withering.

  “Okada Kenji, you are talking about your family.” Kazoku: family. And she addressed me surname first.

  “This quit being a family when it became a kabushiki kaisha!” A sort of “Co., Ltd.”

  “You really think your family would be party to such things?”

  Without the naked fury that set fire to her eyes, the uninitiated might have mistaken the sharpness in her voice for horror. I thought she’d tell Motomura to stop and let me out, run me over, and scrape me off the tires back at home.

  “Show me evidence to the contrary,” I said (Japanese). With a sardonic look, I dared her to consider her track record.

  “And you? Where is your evidence?”

  “I tell you there are documents—”

  “Again these documents. You have them?”

  “No. You kidnapped me.” (English.)

  “You can describe them?”

  “I’m not going to do that.”

  “Then this nonsense will cease at once. From now on, you will forbear to amuse yourself with affairs that in every sense lie beyond your reach. Motomura-san will drive us to your flat. You will give the documents to me.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”


  “You will give me the so-called essay that you have written. You will give me your computer. And if there’s a publisher—”

  “Of course I have a publisher. In fact, there are several interested parties.”

  I haven’t talked to any publishers.

  “Then I will speak to them.”

  “Hell no.”

  “You will not address me in that manner.” English, and she was hissing mad.

  “It’s true, then, isn’t it.”

  Yes, I was smug. But I can’t pretend it wasn’t still a shock.

  “It most certainly is not true. None of your accusations are true. And I say to you that this so-called evidence does not exist,” said Masami.

  “Of course it exists.”

  “Then you are simply unprepared? You barge into my building, flinging accusations here and there, and you don’t bring any proof? Very well, this shouldn’t be surprising. I’ll send Motomura-san tomorrow.”

  “To beat it out of me? He won’t get anywhere.”

  “So there it is. Where on earth did you learn to try to bluff your way through things?” She gave a signal. The car slowed. We’d come as far as Paget. Something like ten miles from my place. I could see Hamilton twinkling across the harbor.

  “You wouldn’t,” I said.

  “Stop, Motomura-san.”

  “If either of you shows up at my place, I’ll call the cops. You know it’s true, all true. Otherwise you wouldn’t bother with this cloak-and-dagger shit. And here’s your minion from Clocktower scurrying around the place, pretending not to understand Aetna died because she couldn’t wait around for you to hang her out to dry. What you did to her is murder.”

  “Quiet.”

  “It’s worse than murder. You taught her to believe she had no reason to live!”

  “I said quiet.”

  I shut up. It’s incredible, really, it’s disgusting, the lengths to which people go to hide things from themselves. Something pierced and made me wince. An old wound that never closed. And through it all, Masami breathed, quelling her anger with air. Quiet as the still, black water in the harbor.

  “I certainly don’t need to explain myself to you. But to make your situation absolutely clear, I will tell you. I came for you this way because I do not wish my son to shame himself in public.”

  She looked at her small, pale hands. Spoke as though I were a monster who’d corrupted her misguided progeny. As though I’d mangled somebody for whom she’d felt some maternal feeling sometime, way back when. Like she’d ever in her life known such inefficient sentiments.

  “I am not the one who’s brought shame upon this family.” Harsh words in Japanese cracked my voice so I hardly recognized it.

  “These delusions sadden me, Okada Kenji.”

  “Yeah, right. And anyway, how dare you—”

  “Let me tell you what I know. With these accusations, this tragic fantasy, you intend worse than dishonor.”

  “Fantasy,” I said.

  “Fantasy, yes. With this pathetic fantasy, you intend to sabotage your family, the company which I have worked all my life to build for you—”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “And to ruin yourself, most ridiculous of all.”

  “Even if that’s what I wanted, it wouldn’t hold a candle to what you’ve done.”

  “You don speak to yo maatha in such tone!” This from the peanut gallery. After thirty years, Motomura’s English leaves something to be desired. “Is wrong! Very insorrent, ungratefuru!”

  “Motomura-san,” said Masami.

  His eyes glittered in the rearview. A shake of her head. All of us were silent. And that said everything.

  “You did know. Both of you,” I said.

  Pale hands, glittering eyes.

  “The way they used Aetna. It started with Char. Or was it Jim Falk?”

  Motomura looked away. Masami looked at her watch. I felt a sneer spread out on my face. In the air was just a hint of a little waft of victory. She couldn’t do anything to me for fear that I’d do worse. She, Masami—yes, Masami, the dragon—didn’t dare attempt to call my so-called bluff because she knew it was no bluff. She’d confirmed it herself. And if she was powerless against me, Char was too.

  I’d won.

  “So there it is,” I said, snarky to the last.

  Masami took out her phone. Affected unconcern, pretended the matter was of little consequence compared with whatever bits of data eked across her screen. “You have shown me tonight that you have nothing.”

  “Think what you want. Doesn’t change the truth.”

  “You have no right to speak of truth. You have your fantasy and your perversion of your disappointment, that is all. Yet you will go to any lengths to publicly embarrass me, knowing full well the xenophobic currents running rampant in this place. And you apparently intend to stage this farce in writing.”

  This torrent of words? They didn’t rush, their placid volume never altered. But there were so many of them! It meant she was enraged.

  An inkling of a possibility of a tingle of glee. I took out my phone too.

  “You intend to see your family disgraced and ostracized. You intend to have us ruined, perhaps driven out,” etc.

  None of this drivel had ever crossed my mind. Masami, however, is the type of person to chase down the remotest implications of whichever conclusion strikes her fiendish fancy at the time. Masami is Queen of uncontrolled extrapolation and hyper speculation. I knew this. And I couldn’t help myself.

  “You wouldn’t consider that a kind of justice?” I said.

  Motomura let out a growl. I really thought he’d spin around and grab me. I hopped out of the car, slammed the door, heard Masami snap a leash on him. As I dialed Nabi’s number, the dragon, foiled for now but raring to fight another day, rolled down the window. A growing breeze took a nip at her black coiffure.

  “You are the one who’s set the terms,” she said.

  These were much as you’d expect. All my lies would be disproved, blah blah. In the instant I attempted to flaunt my campaign of dishonor before the public, her vengeance would swoop down upon me with the power of ten thousand angry ravens, etc. To wit, if I did anything to threaten CAM’s good name or any of their clients, there would be repercussions. In short, I told myself, I’d won. I felt better than I had in weeks. Triumph as a shot of espresso, yet with all my might I kicked the low wall that was my only company there in the dark with the sparkling city mocking me from across the treacherous harbor.

  When Nabi finally found me, triumph exploded from me like fire from a stricken match. I spilled everything. Redacting Char of course. I hadn’t lost my head completely. At times raising my voice, the expletives just kept coming. By the time I got home, I owed Nabi a thousand sorrys, I was shaking, and I knew it was Masami who’d whispered intolerable things into Aetna’s ear with a sibilant forked tongue. Poor Nabi thought I was in the grip of fever.

  Words of advice: never tell yourself you’ve won. It’s just not a good idea.

  Just sent Nabi an obnoxious text: Please. Sat watching the phone like she’d actually reply to such twaddle. Beginning to wonder if she’s made a clean break. Redacted me from her life once and for all.

  

  AS7.

  By hand on verso of W-2 tax form. Red ink. Fragment? Repetition (now) may be beginning of unfinished thought. Vagaries: addressee and what they want; the word this (possibly 2 different meanings?). What if YOU are not the same as you?

  The Web has 2 sides too. The shadow side & the side with noise & color. I found these deaths on the colorful side. 13 years ago: 214 deaths in a 737 trying to get from Atlanta to Orlando. 11 of those deaths were a family heading to Disney World. The articles don’t say that. Cuz by the time they reach the Web, deaths are numbers. Couple members of the family lived @USA, some in Canada,
many were Bermudian, & they all met in Atlanta to fly to Florida together.

  Why did You need all 11 all at once? You must’ve known there were really 12. 1 Bermudian who happened to be in England went direct from Heathrow to Orlando only to learn that everyone was dead. I don’t want to, but I keep thinking of that airplane as a giant shredder. What do You plan to do about that 1 who’s left? Why did You help midnight ice-cream cravings & not that 1?

  Do You know Kenji’s momma took him out of bed in the middle of the night? She knew he wasn’t well, she just saw him this afternoon! Do You know that woman abandoned him on the side of the road in darkness? Did You know, Lord of lords, I had to take his car & get him, & Baby was so angry he was running to the top of Burnt House Hill towards Southampton? He was trying to laugh at her but he was talking too fast. I had to make him lie down, lead him to the couch & make him. Otherwise he’d still be pacing up & down getting mad enough to start attacking furniture: “She _____ thinks I’m _____ stupid, like I went to _____ Harvard to learn how to just not read between the lines & just not _____ ask already. How could any _____ see what’s there for anyone to see & not even _____ wonder?! Which _____ means she _____ did it. She killed her, Nabi, she killed Aetna. Aetna, OMG…”

  I didn’t say nothing about his language. If You’d been there, Lord, You wouldn’t have said nothing either. In fact I can’t help thinking if You’d been listening to what I’ve been begging for, Kenji wouldn’t have gone thru all this. He jumped up & came back with that nasty genshu alcohol, & I couldn’t argue quick enough, he drank it all one time even though his stomach…! He jumped up again for a sleeping tablet. Looks like it’s finally knocked him out.

  Lately it’s like the only way I can protect us is to send Kenji to sleep. Sleep, Baby. Close down that passionate brain. Lock down those pretty eyes, flood your Crystal Caves with silence & the dead of night. & keep them closed, my reckless love, for both of us. Whatever made me think it was anything but depraved to tell Kenji to do that? Stop asking, Baby, quit thinking, throw out your sensitivity. Forget the guy who asked what some novelist’s made-up countryside has to say about thinking & being (“phenomenology & ontology,” course I remember, Baby). Time’s up for being you, sweet genius. How could I do that to him. What choice do I have? To think of this while he’s flopped out here exhausted, not even an inch away. To say it to him now, again (walk away, Kenji) now he thinks his own momma is some kind of murderer. He’s holding onto my left hand with his 2 hands, I’m scribbling in my book. He forgets his momma is a woman, Mrs C is just a woman.