Memorial(37)

But when I looked up again, Natsue was still staring.

Seriously, she said. It means something.

Wait until you’re our age, she said. See who’s still around.



* * *




? ? ?

Eiju’s doctor dropped by every couple of days. The first time I met him, it was too early in the morning. I heard this rapping on the door, and I opened it dazed, shirtless, not even thinking about it.

The man actually gasped.

Oh, he said. Sorry.

Wait, I said.

I’ll come back, he said. Didn’t mean to interrupt.

Get the fuck out of the way, said Eiju, pushing past me.

And put some fucking clothes on, he said. You’re not in fucking Texas anymore.



* * *





The doctor, Ryutaro, used to be a regular at my father’s bar. He’d been fighting depression for years. His wife and daughter died in a car accident.

A truck T-boned their taxi. They’d caught the cab during a train delay. Hours beforehand, Ryutaro had berated the two of them for showing up late to a hospital function.

In the days after the accident, my father kept Ryutaro company, and, eventually, the doctor cut down on the drinking. He returned to his practice. They welcomed him back. Ryutaro regained the roster of patients he’d built up pretty quickly, and he still visited Eiju’s bar from time to time, but now he only drank water.

Once Eiju’d made the decision to give up cancer treatment, Ryutaro was the second person he told.

My mother was the first.



* * *





After they spoke outside, Eiju led Ryutaro back through the living room. The doctor took his blood pressure and his temperature and his pulse. I watched from the futon, in a tank top and Eiju’s shorts. The heater blew warm air above us, and when Ryutaro brought up Eiju’s medication, my father burped.

You know I’m done with all that, said Eiju.

I know, said Ryutaro, but I still have to ask. Are you seeing a difference in your daily pain?

Just the usual. Shortness of breath. Funniness in my gut.

The wheezing, I added, from the sofa.

Both men turned toward me.

He collapsed the other day, I said. At the bar.

I tripped, said Eiju.

Over nothing? I said.

Mind your business, boy, said Eiju.

Eiju-san, said Ryutaro, and it was the gruffest I’d heard anyone talk to my father since landing in Japan.

But then the doctor smiled.

That information gives us a sense of scale, he said.

Look, said Eiju, it’s all the same at this point.

Not necessarily, said Ryutaro.

Bullshit.

It’s all data. We take what we know, and—

Then you can fix me? said Eiju. Is that what you’re saying? This will help you do that?

Well, said Ryutaro.

Then it’s nothing, said Eiju, tugging his arm from the blood pressure cuff’s sleeve.



* * *





Just like that, the checkup was over.

Eiju thanked Ryutaro, and Ryutaro waved him away. The old man shoved past me on his way to the bathroom, and when I heard him lock the door, I ran down the steps to chase down his doctor, and the woman living below us shouted something as I passed her.

But Ryutaro had only made it up the road. He fumbled with a pack of cigarettes.

Mike, he said, smiling.

I’m his son, I said.

Okay, said Ryutaro.

His biological son, I said.

Oh, said Ryutaro, smoking.

We stepped into an alley by the building, allowing the flow of traffic to pass us. The doctor told me to just call him Taro. He took a slow drag, waving his pack my way.

You have your father’s ears, said Taro.

Most people say they’re my mother’s.

I’ve never had the pleasure, but I’m sure that she’s lovely.

That’s what people say until they actually meet her.

But, Mike, said Taro, you only get one mother.

Look, I said. How is Eiju actually doing? Really?

Taro exhaled smoke toward the road. We watched some girls skip rope by a shopfront. When they turned toward the man sitting on the ledge beside them, he worked his cheeks into a smile. It disappeared when they turned back around.

If you flew all the way here, said Taro, then you must have a general idea of where things stand.

He won’t tell me much, I said.

Sure. Your father’s a strong man.

But he’s just a man.

He’s only a man, said Taro. How long do you plan on staying?

However long it takes, I said, surprising myself.

Good, said Taro, nodding. That’s going to mean a lot to him.

We watched the dude by the storefront stand, clapping his hands. The girls in front of him protested, pouting. But they each grabbed one of his wrists, disappearing around the corner.



* * *




? ? ?

The first time Ben made it to my apartment, he looked around my yard, with its sloping trees, and its half-cracked sidewalks, and the Black people out and about, with the chopped and screwed mixtapes rattling everyone’s car windows rolling by, and my other neighbors blasting cumbia from their windows, in competition, maybe, or some sort of fucking concert, some kind of impromptu fucking southwestern ensemble, and when Ben saw all of this, the first thing he did was laugh.