Once I parked in the alley’s lot, by the dumpsters and the recycling, Eiju let out the longest sigh. He asked if I’d thought at all about his proposition. About the bar.
It’s okay if you haven’t, he said.
No it isn’t, I said.
Good. So?
I don’t know yet, I said.
You don’t know yet.
I have a life in Houston.
I had a life in Houston.
I’ve got plans.
Plans change.
Fucking stop that, I said. I’ve got a partner. A guy.
Eiju whistled at that. A pair of teens passed by, bouncing a basketball across the concrete.
Is he like you, said Eiju, and I turned to look him in the face.
Japanese, he added.
He’s Black, I said.
Oof, said my father.
He looked through the passenger window. One kid bounced his ball around the other.
May as well go all the way, said Eiju.
What the fuck is that supposed to mean, I said.
I don’t even know.
But, said Eiju, it’s like I told you. Your life. And I won’t try to sway you. That won’t work for anyone. But the bar has to go to someone.
Or you could just close it, I said, and Eiju looked at me, briefly, and there was fear in his face.
I said it to hurt him. I regretted it immediately. My father opened his mouth. He closed it. And then Eiju opened the door, letting in the cold air.
* * *
• • •
Everything looks different in context. All of it.
That’s something Ben told me.
We’d just finished an argument about nothing in particular and we’d done our best to fuck it out. The sex we had when this happened was prolonged, frantic. Biting and clawing and crying. Squeezing each other until we were breathless.
Afterward, we lay on the mattress. Houston’d reached its two-week window of autumn. That brought everyone to the street, bouncing balls and standing in their driveways and vaping and talking too goddamn loud for too goddamn long by parked cars.
We’d become a tiny star inside the constellation of the neighborhood. I’d thought of popping our bubble, once or twice, but never too seriously. It was just my life now.
It wasn’t the worst I’d dealt with.
It wasn’t my parents.
And now Ben’s legs sat on top of my belly. He massaged my hair absentmindedly.
Explain about context again, I said.
You don’t get it? said Ben.
I do. But I wanna hear you say it.
There’s the thing that happens, and then there’s the shit that happens around it. They’re as important as the actual event.
But the event is still the thing when it happens. It’s its own moment.
Sure, said Ben. But then the moment passes. That reframes everything. If enough time’s gone by, you aren’t even the same person anymore. The event becomes history. Like, an event. So you just look at it a little differently on principle.
Okay, Professor, I said.
I’m serious.
I know.
I grazed a thumb across Ben’s dick, and he flinched, but he didn’t jump off me.
The mosquitoes still hadn’t emerged from their puddles and creeks. You could still hear the crickets moaning. We’d reupped our lease with the whitegirl who managed the place a month earlier—she wore suits now—and, afterward, Ben had a look on his face.
When I’d asked him what was wrong, he asked how I was feeling. I told him I was fine. He asked if that didn’t bother me.
He wore that same look now.
I started to graze him again, but this time he grabbed my thumb. Hard, at first, but then he loosened his grip.
What are we doing? he said, after a while.
I was still thinking of my answer when I felt his breathing soften.
I didn’t know if he was asleep, or still waiting. But I kept still underneath him. By the time he woke up, I figured he’d have an answer for the both of us.
* * *
• • •
Once, Ben told me that there was one thing the men he’d fucked had in common.
You’re all hilarious, he said. Every last one of you.
* * *
• • •
But this is how quickly it can happen: one night, I was smoking a cigarette on the bar’s railing, and then, out of nowhere—although I know no one ever really comes from nowhere—Tan drifted around the corner.
I watched him stroll toward me, hunched over, hands in his hoodie. I watched him stop like he was considering something, and when he looked up, I flashed him a peace sign.
Hey.
Hey.
What are you doing right now, I said. Right this second.
Tan looked at me. Some equation ricocheted across his face.
He said, Do you have anything in mind?
* * *
Tan’s mother lived in Doyama, a few stops away on the local line. We sat next to each other on the train, not really looking at each other, before we drifted up the sidewalk, away from the lights, down some alleys, and toward the apartment complex. The lights dimmed behind us. Smokers loafed on the corners. Every block we walked was illuminated by some fucking love hotel or another. Eventually, we turned toward a bike shop where a dude tinkered with a faulty wheel, and a couple of kids spun the one behind it.
On the second floor of this building, past some mailboxes and a staircase, Tan knocked on his door once, and then once again.
She might be out, he said, and they were his first words since we left the bar.
But the door was opened by an older lady, and she didn’t look much like Tan at all.
They spoke in their language about something while I stood behind Tan, kicking my feet.
I thought of Ben, listening to Ma and I talk in Japanese.
All of a sudden, this seemed like an entirely ridiculous idea.
That’s when Tan’s mother waved at me, smiling. She shook my hand.
Come in! she said, in Japanese.
Oh, I said.
I looked at Tan. He shrugged.
Hurry! said the lady, smiling impossibly wide. Come in!
She kept repeating something, and I still couldn’t tell you what it was, but it made Tan blush. He covered his whole face.
* * *
She won’t bother us, said Tan, shutting his bedroom door behind him.
That’s fine, I said. She’s your mother.
She’s my mother, said Tan.
He cleared his mattress, brushing away a bunch of jackets. A stack of flash drives sat on a desk by the window, shining under the glow of a tablet, charging beside a pair of cell phones. A handful of cameras was sprawled across the floor.
Nice place, I said.
It’s a shoebox.
For some pretty big fucking feet.
My place back home was three times bigger.
His room was entirely bare, except for the mattress and his desk. There was a laptop charging and a pair of headphones dangling over a messenger bag. A duffel sat on the side of the room, with its guts splayed all over the wood. I didn’t know where to sit, so Tan squeezed my arm and I plopped on his bed.
You live light, I said.
No reason not to.
Still. It’s different.
Did you picture anything else?
I don’t know, I said, wiping my hands on my joggers.
Tell me, said Tan, did you want to have sex tonight?
I flinched, just for a second.
You’re forward, I said.
You’re stalling, said Tan.
I looked to see if he was serious.
He was.
I scratche
d at my nose.
Not really, I said.
Be honest, said Tan.
I mean we don’t have to.
Sure. But do you want to?
I don’t know yet, I said.
Okay, said Tan, and then he plopped backward on his bed.
The two of us sat in silence.
Then, Tan slipped a hand underneath my shirt, rubbing at my back. I let him do that.
I have somebody back in Texas, I said.
Okay, said Tan.
I just wanted to say that. I care about him.
And I never said we were doing anything, said Tan, but he hadn’t stopped rubbing, snaking his arms around my torso.
Are you really gay, I asked.
What do you think, said Tan.
I’ve learned not to assume.
If we were in my country, I’d lie to you.
Okay, I said.
I leaned onto Tan’s hand. He asked if that felt okay, and I told him it did.
Okay, he said. Lay on your stomach. And take off your sweater.
I gave him a look that asked why, but Tan didn’t say anything. But I did what he asked. And he took off his own. And he maneuvered his legs around mine, until most of his weight sat on the center.
We were about the same size. Tan’s mattress was basically wood. Just a slab of concrete underneath us. I should’ve felt like a pressed vegetable, but I didn’t. He felt warm.
Eventually, I felt him growing on my ass.
Sorry, said Tan.
Don’t be, I said.
I was hard, too. We were two horny men lying on top of each other, not having sex. But we were definitely doing something.
Is this okay, said Tan.
Yeah, I said. It’s nice.
Good, said Tan, and that’s how we stayed.
Every now and then, he’d shift on top of me. I’d adjust beneath him. He pressed the tops of my shoulders with his fingers, settling them at random intervals. We listened to the apartment’s static and his mother’s padding around the living room. And the occasional sirens beyond us.
But mostly we lay in silence.
I don’t know who fell asleep first.
* * *
When I woke up, it was still dark. Tan wasn’t on my back anymore. When I turned over, he looked groggy, eyes half-open, but he’d been staring.
Let me guess, he said, you’ve got to leave.
I should.
I didn’t get up though. Tan just blinked at me.
I guess I’ll see you later then, I said.
Maybe, Tan grinned.
But now you know where I live, he said.
Now I know where you live, I said.
Now you have something else to do in this city, said Tan.
* * *
On my way out, I passed his mother in the living room. When I cracked open the door, she jolted upward, with this wild look on her face. But then she saw it was me and she smiled.
She waved. I waved.
* * *
I walked back to the bar. A drunk woman hobbled in front of me, giggling to herself, turning into an alley. But there was nothing else to see. The air’d gotten a little warmer.
I couldn’t make out his body at first, but Kunihiko was sitting on the railing. He held his head in his hands. He had a cigarette in a fist, burning at the tip, but I didn’t even know that he smoked.
When he saw me, he stood.
Where the fuck were you, he said.
Around, I said. Why?
You should’ve fucking been here, he said.
What?
We sent him to the fucking hospital, he said. Where the fuck were you?
Through the windows, the bar looked empty. Kunihiko must’ve kicked everyone out, shut everything down. I allowed myself to wonder if he’d washed the dishes before he locked up.
Then, I gave Kunihiko the most honest answer I could: I don’t know.
* * *
• • •
Whenever I made it back home after my shift at the gas station, or from fucking around out in the world, Ma’d be cooking rice with miso soup or beef and potatoes or mushrooms simmered in dashi over chicken by the stove, always after a full day of her own work. I didn’t have the grades for college, and of course we didn’t have the money to make that happen without them. Ma’d tried reaching out to Eiju about cash, once, after I’d told her not to, after I’d thrown a mug across the kitchen in protest, but she said it wasn’t my choice, Eiju owed that to me, and I didn’t get to refuse, and also we probably wouldn’t hear back from him anyways and even if we did, he probably wouldn’t have the funds, so, knowing that, why not at least try, and Ma was absolutely right because we didn’t fucking hear shit.
* * *
So that’s how we lived: I fucked around. Sold cigarettes and gum and brown-bagged beer and sacks of ice. Ma sold jewelry. I fucked around some more. I didn’t realize it, but Ma was biding her time. And she sat up for me after work, and we ate at the table together, not saying much of anything, kicking our feet underneath it, with our heels hardly grazing, but still. Afterward, I’d wash the dishes. We’d start over the next day.
* * *
Our constellation was, however briefly, restored.
* * *
Ma and I lived that way until I moved out, right before she took off. We talked when we could, but I just couldn’t put it out of my head: she’d gone and left me and flown all the way back to fucking Japan.
* * *
• • •
One day, right before I left for Osaka, during one of our worst fights, I told Ben the world didn’t owe him shit. Nothing. Not a goddamn thing.
At this point, we only touched each other to fuck: he’d set a hand on my shoulder, or I’d lean on him in the kitchen, and we’d make it happen right there, wordlessly, gruffly, and the moment we finished we’d go back to whatever other shit we’d been doing. It wasn’t like I didn’t know what was happening, or that I wanted us to be over, but it just felt like gravity—like I was slowly sinking into something that would eventually happen anyway and I didn’t know how to stop it or turn it around or what.
We stood on opposite sides of the living room. Ben held the doorknob like he was ready to rip it off and throw it at me.
You’re trash, he said.
Great, I said. That’s big of you.
You came from trash, and you’ll always be trash.
And what the fuck do you think that makes you?
That’s my mistake, said Ben, smiling. I fucked up with you.
Right, I said. And now you’ll just go back home, right? To fucking Katy? To your fucking money? Is that your plan? Do you even fucking have a plan?
You can go fuck yourself, Michael. Just fucking go away.
I should. That way someone can do it the way I want them to.
Really. Go fuck yourself.
And you’re obviously the best judge of that, right, Benson? Who to fuck and who not to? Worked out really well for you.
* * *
We never talked about Ben’s HIV status. It was just something he had. He took his meds over breakfast and I’d see him do that and that was it. But this was enough to end the argument. He swallowed his words right up, another first between the two of us.
Ben looked hurt, and I knew that I’d hurt him, and I wanted to hug him and apologize, but I couldn’t, so I didn’t.
I watched him step down the hallway, slowly. Heard him gently close the bedroom door.
* * *
That night, I slept on the sofa. Ben slept in our bed.
* * *
The next morning, we didn’t bring it up, and we kept on not doing that.
* * *
The next week, I left the country.
I didn’t know—don’t know—how
we’d talk about it if we tried.
* * *
Either way, I didn’t try to find out.
* * *
I left.
Figured he’d be there when I got back.
* * *
• • •
Later, I found out that Eiju had collapsed from exhaustion. He’d thrown up in the back of the bar. Kunihiko caught what was happening. The kid dialed 119, but before my father blacked out, he said to call Taro instead, and the doctor showed up ten minutes later, in his pajamas and an overcoat.
* * *
Eiju spent the next few nights at Taro’s clinic. I stayed with him. Kunihiko visited from time to time. I told him not to worry about the bar, about keeping it open or anything, but he insisted on cleaning it, at the very least.
In the morning, I left Eiju’s room for the nurses to conduct their tests. When I made it back, he was deflated and wincing.
* * *
Eventually, Taro came in to see us himself. When he asked if it was cool for me to stay in the room, Eiju only shrugged. And then the doctor told us Eiju’s cancer hadn’t grown more, exactly, but it hadn’t shrunk either. All that had happened was time. Eiju’s body was slowing down. He’d continue to lose weight. The nausea would rise. Vertigo, too. Things the treatment would’ve otherwise done its best to reduce. But the only thing that was happening was exactly what he’d—what we’d—known would happen. It was here. Happening. The only thing surprising about the end was how quickly it had arrived.
* * *
Memorial Page 18
