Memorial(2)

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? ? ?

It took all of two dates for him to bring up Race. We’d gone to an Irish bar tucked behind Hyde Park. Everyone else on the patio was white. I’d gotten a little drunk, and when I told Mike he was slightly shorter than optimal, he clicked his tongue, like, What took you so long.

What if I told you you’re too polite, said Mike.

Fine, I said.

Or that you’re so well-spoken.

I get it. Sorry.

Don’t be sorry, said Mike, and then he boxed my shoulder.

It was the first time we’d touched that night. The bartender glanced our way, blinking.

I just hope you see me as a fully realized human being, said Mike. Beyond the obvious sex appeal.

Shut up, I said.

Seriously, said Mike, no bullshit.

Me Mifune, he said, you Yasuke.

Stop it, I said.

Or maybe we’re just fucking Bonnie and Clyde, he said.



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? ? ?

Three different cops peek in the car while Mike’s in Baggage Claim. I smile at the first two. I frown at the third. The last guy taps the window, like, What the fuck are you waiting for, and when I point toward the airport’s entrance, all he does is frown.

Then I spot them on their way out. The first thing I think is that they look like family. Mike’s mother is hunched, just a little bit, and he’s rolling her suitcase behind her. For a while, they saw each other annually—she’d fly down just to visit—but the past few years have been rocky. The visits stopped once I moved in with Mike.

The least I can do is pop the trunk. I’d like to be the guy who doesn’t, but I’m not.

Mike helps his mother adjust the back seat as she gets in, and she doesn’t even look at me. Her hair’s in a bun. She’s got on this bright blue windbreaker, with a sickness mask, and the faintest trace of makeup.

Ma, says Mike, you hungry?

She mumbles something in Japanese. Shrugs.

Ma, says Mike.

He glances at me. Asks again. Then he switches over, too.

She says something, and then he says something, and then another guy directing traffic walks up to my window. He’s Latino, husky in his vest. Shaved head like he’s in the army. He mouths at us through the glass, and I let down the window, and he asks if anything’s wrong.

I tell him we’re moving.

Then move, says this man.

The next words leave my mouth before I can taste them. It’s a little like gravity. I say, Okay, motherfucker, we’re gone.

And the Latino guy just frowns at me. Before he says anything else, there’s a bout of honking behind us. He looks at me again, and then he wanders away, scratching at his chest, wincing back at our car.



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When I roll up the window, Mike’s staring. His mother is, too. She says something, shaking her head, and I pull the car into traffic.

I turn on the radio, and it’s Meek Mill.

I flip the channel, and it’s Migos.

I turn the damn thing off. Eventually we’re on the highway.

All of a sudden, we’re just one more soap opera among way too many, but that’s when Mike’s mother laughs, shaking her head.

She says something in Japanese.

Mike thumps the glove compartment, says, Ma.



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? ? ?

My parents pretend I’m not gay. It’s easier for them than it sounds. My father lives in Katy, just west of Houston, and my mother stayed in Bellaire, even after she remarried. Before that, we took most of our family dinners downtown. My father was a meteorologist. It was a status thing. He’d pick up my sister and my mother and me from the house, ferrying us along I-45 just to eat with his coworkers, and he always ordered our table the largest dish on the menu—basted pigs spilling from platters, pounds of steamed crab sizzling over bok choy—and he called this Work, because he was always Working.

A question he used to ask us was, How many niggas do you see out here telling the weather?



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My mother never debated him or cussed him out or anything like that. She’d repeat exactly what he said. Inflect his voice. That was her thing. She’d make him sound important, like some kind of boss, but my father’s a little man, and her tactics did exactly what you’d think they might do.

Big job today, she’d say, in the car, stuck on the 10.

This forecast’s impressive, she’d say, moments after my father shattered a wineglass on the kitchen wall.

I swear it’s the last one, she’d say, looking him dead in the eyes, as he floundered, drunk, grabbing at her knees, swearing that he’d never touch another single beer.



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Eventually, she left. Lydia went with our mother, switching high schools. I stayed in the suburbs, at my old junior high, and my father kept drinking. He lived off his savings once he got fired from the station for being wasted on-air. Sometimes, he’d sub high school science classes, but he mostly stayed on the sofa, booing at the hourly prognoses from KHOU.

Occasionally, in blips of sobriety, I’d come home to him grading papers. Some kid had called precipitation anticipation. Another kid, instead of defining cumulus clouds, drew little fluffs all over the page. One time my father laid three tests on an already too-cluttered end table, all with identical handwriting, with only the names changed.