Memorial(18)

Don’t worry about it, I say. Anytime.

We watch the whiteboys behind us.

Tomorrow? says Omar, and for a moment I can’t tell if he’s joking.

Any other time, I say.

An indeterminate time, says Omar.

A time and place to be determined, I say.

Cheers, says Omar.



* * *





When I make it back home, Mitsuko has already cooked. There’s miso soup on the counter. She’s watching television on the sofa. Her eyes are red, like she’s been crying, and when she sees me, she doesn’t say a word. And then I hear her sobbing, and then I see the television.

She’s watching Maid in Manhattan.

She’s bawling at Maid in Manhattan.

Jennifer Lopez sits on the stoop, and Mitsuko’s leaking her eyes out.

When she catches me staring, she asks what the hell I’m looking at.



* * *





That night, I text Lydia about our father. Then I call my mother. She answers on the third ring.

I’m a little busy, she says, and her new life erupts in the background.

There are children laughing. The Pomeranian’s barking. I think I can hear a man.

I saw Dad, I say.

Something pops on the other end of the line. There’s more laughter from my stepbrothers. We’ve only met a handful of times, and I can never match their names with their faces.

I said I’m busy, says my mother.

I saw Dad, I say again.

Hold on, says my mother, shifting over the speaker, away from the noise.

Okay, she says. Okay. Was he drinking?

He wasn’t drunk.

Good, says my mother. That’s better than when we stopped by. But you’ve got to stay on him.

I can hear a screen door shutting behind her, and then the click of a lighter.

Are you smoking, I ask.

I am, says my mother.

I thought your husband wasn’t into that?

You can use his name, Benson.

I could.

It wouldn’t kill you, says my mother, taking a drag.

Ever since she got remarried, my mother’s toggled between her old vices and her new life: She started going to church again, because of her new husband’s profession and the need to show face. But she also picked up her cigarettes again, because she loved them, and my father couldn’t stand them. She changed her entire wardrobe. She started swearing. She started smiling, deeply and widely.

Lydia says my mother and I are the same. She says that this, too, is something that I’m too close to see.

You never told me how you were doing, says my mother.

You didn’t ask, I say.

I did. But I’m asking again.

Things are fine. Nothing’s changed.

You’re taking your medication?

That’s not something you have to worry about.

You can’t stop me from worrying about you, says my mother. And how’s Mike? I didn’t see him.

Mike’s away, I say, and I can hear my mother start to say something before she stops.

Is that something you want to talk about, she asks.

No, I say.

It’s okay to talk to people about these things, Benson.

You don’t have to keep saying my name.

You’re my son, says my mother. I named you. I love saying your name.

I watch some flies dance outside my window. They connect and reconnect.

Let me know if you need anything, she says. Whatever it is. I’m here for you. Whatever this thing is that you’re going through, you don’t have to do it alone.

And I start to thank her, but then the kids start yelling, and the dog starts barking, and my mother’s husband calls her name, and everything on her end dissolves into noise.





16.



Another dream about Mike: This time, we’re in a nightclub. The sort of place you’d never actually find us. Only, he is a stranger, and I am a stranger, and we are flirting at the bar.

Hey, stranger, says Mike.

Hello, stranger, I say.

And then we are laughing together. Our shoes kiss each other’s soles.

And then we are in a bathroom stall, biting at skin, hands in each other’s pants, grunting like otters against a dingy, dented stall.



* * *





It’s a little past midnight when I clean myself up in the bathroom, because it’s been literal years since I’ve had a wet dream. The television outside is at a low murmur. Lydia’s texted me back.

She says: Nigga u really went? LMAO.





17.



The next morning, before I head to work, Mitsuko says she needs a ride downtown. She’d mailed herself ingredients from Japan to the FedEx building by the Marriott.

So we pull out of the neighborhood, and off I-45, dodging the never-ending construction on Elgin. As I hook a right at a stoplight under the bridge, a disheveled guy in a Rockets sweater sips from a paper bag. He’s seen better days, but the sweater’s brand-new. It’s got the tags and everything.

He nods our way. I nod back. Then the light changes, and we both turn back to our lives.

Tell me something about my son that I don’t know, says Mitsuko.

Well, I say.

But, the thing is, I’ve got nothing.