Memorial(55)

I don’t say anything about it. I just keep on driving.



* * *





We made it back though.

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.