Memorial(65)

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Another memory: Stuffing shit into the car before a drive to California, to see the coast, Eiju lifts my mother and sets her in the back seat. She screams, laughing, and a Black neighbor beside us peeps through her blinds. When she sees that it’s just my parents, she waves her hand at the three of us.



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Another memory: It’s a long drive to San Francisco, and we only stop once, at the motel. The front desk lady is brown. She smiles with all her teeth. When my mother asks us to pull some ice from a machine down the hallway, Eiju takes me with him, half-asleep, carrying me on his shoulders, running at full speed as I carry the bucket screaming.



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Another memory: Our first night in the motel room. It’s so hot that I can’t sleep; the air conditioning doesn’t work. When I can’t get comfortable in my sheets on the floor, I leave them for the carpet. When I can’t get comfortable on the carpet, I take off my shirt, and then my pants. When I start crying, Eiju leaves the bed with my mother to sleep on the floor beside me. Ma finds me cradled around him in the morning. She asks why we thought this would make us any less hot.



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Another memory: Eiju flips through photos on the floor, asking me if I look like his father or my mother’s father. I shrug, because I don’t know. He tells me that someone will tell me if I don’t decide early on.

It’s the ears, he says, tugging on mine.



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Another memory: My mother attempts to flip a pancake on the motel room’s hot plate, and it lands on the floor tile. Over the past two days, we’ve watched fuck knows how many roaches sprint across it. My mother’s eyes never leave the pancake, and, out of nowhere, Eiju appears from the next room over, peels it off the ground, swallows it whole.



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Another memory: My parents, washed from the heat and sprawled across the carpet, turn the radio to a station playing D’Angelo. Eiju leaps from the floor, where he’s lying with me, and grabs Ma by the shoulders. But she isn’t surprised by the suddenness: her body tenses, for half of a second, before they fall into a slow dance. Eiju croons the chorus of “Brown Sugar.” Eventually, they bring their serenade to a circle around me, falling, laughing.



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One day, I was lying on the sofa, dozing, and Eiju just stared. I asked what he was looking at.

My son, he said.

Stop that, I said.

Okay, he said, and I knew I’d regret saying that for the rest of my life.



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One day, I found another notebook by Eiju’s bed. It was full of lists, half-scribbled in English, like the one in the bathroom. I put it back where I found it. Then I changed my mind, stuffed it in my duffel.



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One day, Eiju asked me to walk him to the Shinto shrine a few blocks from the apartment.

Not to be a dick, I said, but it’s a little late for religion.

Shinto is for everyone, said Eiju. You dick.

Our pace was slow, but the afternoon was, too. Bikers wheeled around us. Pedestrians didn’t even glance our way. Once we made it to the shrine, I walked my father up the steps, holding his elbow, toward the bell and the podium, and when I stopped just behind him, he turned my way.

What the hell are you doing, he asked. Get up here.

I started to say something, but then I didn’t. I joined him.

Standing beside him, I saw how small he’d gotten. My father had shrunk. Eiju’d become feeble.

Do you know how, he asked, and I told him I didn’t.

You used to know, said Eiju. You used to love coming to the shrine.

He walked me through it: we washed our hands, made our offering.

Bowed twice.

Clapped twice.

Bowed again.

Now, said Eiju, make a wish and ring the bell.

Why are we ringing it?

So the gods can hear you, said Eiju, and he wouldn’t meet my face as he rang it.

He stepped to the side while I grabbed the rope.

Big guy like you, he said. They should definitely hear it.

So I rang it.

I thought about wishing, and my mind went blank.

But I rang, and I rang, and I rang.



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Some nights, Kunihiko slept over on an extra tatami mat by the door, and other nights he didn’t. Eiju called it Kunihiko’s big wet dream. And the first time the kid heard that, he blushed furiously, intensely, but he didn’t deny it.

Now, the lights were off above us. Snores floated in from Eiju’s bedroom. Kunihiko and I lay head to head, arms crossed.

Mike, he said, and I looked up.

It’ll be all right, said Kunihiko. Really.

Yeah, I said. You’re doing a great job.

Mike.

Really. You’re taking the whole thing well.

That’s not what I mean, said Kunihiko.



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The next morning, we ate eggs over rice. Kunihiko and I cooked side by side. And afterward, Eiju nodded as Kunihiko holed up in the bathroom.