Memorial(60)

* * *





At the end of the week, Eiju and I chewed at some curry I’d cooked, when he suddenly started shaking. We’d both had one beer, and then I’d had a second, a third, a fourth. A rerun of a Hanshin Tigers match played on the screen, jostling across the turf through Eiju’s faded, stodgy television.

But then: the trembling.

First in Eiju’s shoulders, and then his knees.

His fingers.

I asked what was wrong.

The fucking face he made.

Nothing, he said.

And then he began to cry.

I sat with my beer and my curry, as Eiju shook, trembling slowly, and I did my best not to move.



* * *





When he’d finished, Eiju coughed. I passed him one of my paper towels. He took it, wiping his mouth, clearing his throat, asking if I had another beer in the fridge.



* * *




? ? ?

The last conversation I had with my father, before he took off from the States, was in our living room.

He walked around in his socks and his sweater. I was headed to school. When I came home that afternoon, I wouldn’t see him, or that evening, or the next morning. By then, he would have effectively evaporated from my life. But that morning, I didn’t know that, and he took his time with his shoes.

Before I shut the door behind me—in Nikes and this big-ass jersey, the way I used to do it—Eiju grabbed hold of my shoulder. Told me to stand right next to him. When I did that, he walked around and faced me, until he was breathing on me, and he smelled alive, and it was the closest we’d stood together in I don’t know how long, and I was acutely aware of his body, and our chests nearly bumped into each other’s.

Eiju didn’t look down on me. He couldn’t look down on me. By then, I’d gotten as tall as him. He met me eye to eye.

He took my hands in his.

He meshed our fingers together.

Then he smiled.

Almost there, he said.

Almost, I said.

Soon, he said, and I walked out first to catch the bus and I locked the door behind me and I wouldn’t hear Eiju’s voice again for over fifteen years.



* * *





Or maybe I’m lying—it wasn’t the closest I’d ever been to him. That would’ve been when I was a kid.

One time, Eiju was out on one of his benders. One of his first in Houston. We didn’t see him that night, or even the next morning, and I collapsed by the door, kicking and screaming when Ma tried to move me, and she ended up sleeping out in the hallway beside me, dragging her sheets across the carpet.

I’d kiss my father on the forehead before bed. Eiju wasn’t an emotional man, but he’d do the same. Right on my ears. I couldn’t fall asleep until he’d done the kiss, and he never forgot to do it. Not even once he started drinking. Before things got bad. If he wasn’t around, I’d sit up with Ma, and she’d try it in his stead, but it just didn’t feel the same, and we ended up waiting for him.

Whenever Eiju reappeared from out in the world, he smelled like liquor and smoke. And the first thing he did was kiss me once on the forehead. And then on my right ear. And then on my left ear. And then, just once, on the bridge of my nose.



* * *




? ? ?

Kunihiko and I reopened the bar a few days later. The morning beforehand, I’d asked Eiju how he felt about that, and he just made this face.

We’d sat in the living room, lounging in pajamas. Two bowls of pickled cucumbers stood on the table between us. This time, a rugby match between Australia and South Korea boomeranged across the screen. I’d rigged together a stream of the game from my laptop.

Does it even matter what I think, said Eiju.

Of course it matters, I said. It’s your bar.

At that, Eiju started coughing. A gaggle of men in front of us stood locked in a scrum, bending their knees.

I waited until Eiju’d finished. Passed him a paper towel. He accepted it. Our little ritual.

Right, he said. Of course it fucking matters.



* * *





So Kunihiko and I wiped down the counters and stools, and we took stock of the liquor. He didn’t say shit to me, and I did my best not to read too much into that. By then, we only communicated when we absolutely had to. I’d nod and he’d point and I’d grunt in confirmation.

This was, I thought, no different from being back home with Ben.

And then I thought about how that turned out. Or how it didn’t turn out.

But this silence wasn’t sustainable. I knew that. Kunihiko had to have known that.

So I waited until he’d bent over by the bar’s sink and I toed him in the ass.

Kunihiko shot up, blushing.

Hey, I said, it isn’t that bad.

Kunihiko gave me a long look. Then he bent over again, scrubbing at a panel below him. I stood there, and Kunihiko kept trying to ignore me, but, eventually, he looked up again.

You’re still here, he said.

Still here, I said.

I know this is hard for you, I said, but none of this is a surprise.

It was a surprise to me.

Okay, I said. I’m sorry about that.

You could have told me, said Kunihiko. He could have told me. You both just left me in the dark.