Memorial by Bryan Washington
Benson
1.
Mike’s taking off for Osaka, but his mother’s flying into Houston.
Just for a few weeks, he says.
Or maybe a couple of months, he says. But I need to go.
The first thing I think is: fuck.
The second’s that we don’t have the money for this.
Then it occurs to me that we don’t have any savings at all. But Mike’s always been good about finances, always cool about separating his checks. It’s something I’d always taken for granted about him.
* * *
Now he’s saying that he wants to find his father. The man’s gotten sick. Mike wants to catch him before he goes. And I’m on the sofa, half listening, half charging my phone.
You haven’t seen your mom in years, I say. She’s coming for you. I’ve never met her.
I say, You don’t even fucking like your dad.
True, says Mike. But I already bought the ticket.
And Ma will be here when I’m back, says Mike. You’re great company. She’ll live.
He’s cracking eggs by the stove, slipping yolks into a pair of pans. After they’ve settled, he salts them, drizzling mayonnaise with a few sprigs of oregano. Mike used to have this thing about sriracha, he’d pull a hernia whenever I reached for it, but now he squeezes a faded bottle over my omelette, rubbing it in with the spatula.
I don’t ask where he’ll stay in Japan. I don’t ask who he’ll stay with. I don’t ask where his mother will sleep here, in our one-bedroom apartment, or exactly what that arrangement will look like. The thing about a moving train is that, sometimes, you can catch it. Some of the kids I work with, that’s how their families make it into this country. If you fall, you’re dead. If you’re too slow, you’re dead. But if you get a running start, it’s never entirely gone.
So I don’t flip the coffee table. Or one of our chairs. I don’t key his car or ram it straight through the living room. After the black eye, we stopped putting our hands on each other—we’d both figured, silently, it was the least we could do.
Today, what I do is smile.
I thank Mike for letting me know.
I ask him when he’s leaving, and I know that’s my mistake. I’m already reaching to toss my charger before he says it, tomorrow.
* * *
? ? ?
We’ve been fine. Thank you for asking.
* * *
? ? ?
Our relationship is, what, four years old? But that depends on how you count. We haven’t been to a party in months, and when we did go to parties, at first, no one knew we were fucking. Mike just stood to the side while whatever whitegirl talked her way into my space, then he’d reach up over my shoulder to slip a finger into my beer.
Or he’d sneeze, stretch, and wipe his nose with my shirtsleeve.
Or he’d fondle my wallet, slowly, patting it back into place.
Once, at a dinner, right under the table, he held court with a hand in my lap. Running his thumb over the crotch. Every now and again, someone would look, and you could tell when they finally saw. They’d straighten their backs. Smile a little too wide. Then Mike would ask what was wrong, and they’d promise it was nothing, and he’d go right back to cheesing, never once nodding my way.
* * *
We knew how we looked. And how we didn’t look. But one night, a few weeks back, at a bar crawl for Mike’s job, all it took was a glance at us. He works at a coffee shop in Montrose. It’s this fusion thing where they butcher rice bowls and egg rolls—although, really, it’s Mexican food, since unless your name is Mike, that’s who’s cooking.
They’d been open for a year. This was their anniversary celebration. Mike volunteered us to help for an hour, flipping tortillas on a burner by the DJ.
I felt miserable. Mike felt miserable. Everyone who passed us wore this look that said, Mm. They touched our shoulders. Asked how long we’d been together. Wondered where we’d met, how we’d managed during Harvey, and the music was too fucking loud, so Mike and I just sort of shrugged.
* * *
? ? ?
I don’t say shit on our way to the airport to pick up his mother, and I don’t say shit when Mike parks the car. IAH sits outside of Houston’s beltways, but there’s always steady traffic lining the highway. When Mike pulls up to Arrivals, he takes out the keys, and a line shimmers behind us, this tiny constellation of travelers.
Mike’s got this mustache now. It wavers over his face. He usually clips all of that off, and now I think he looks like a caricature of himself. We sit beside the terminal, and we can’t have the most fucked-up situation here, but still. You have to wonder.
I wonder.
I wonder if he wonders.
We haven’t been good at apologizing lately. Now would be a nice time.
The airport sees about 111,500 visitors a day, and here we are, two of its most ridiculous.
Hey, says Mike.
He sighs. Hands me the keys. Says he’ll be right back with his mother.
If you leave us stranded in the parking lot, says Mike, we’ll probably find you.