Memorial(9)

Way back when she was still with Juan’s father, Ximena drove herself and the kid to me and Mike’s place. She was crying, a mess, with a half-stuffed backpack for Juan. Mike made her tea while I sat with her on the sofa. Ximena told me she wasn’t ever going back, that this was the last straw, but it was still another month before she finally broke up with the guy.

Now we watched her son attempt a crab-walk across her carpet.

Ximena said, Everybody’s somebody’s villain.





5.



Mitsuko and I form something like an evening routine: She cooks. I set the table. We both eat at the counter. Later, I wipe it down while Mitsuko hits the dishes.

Otherwise, we mostly keep to ourselves. It’s probably better that way.

But I’ve learned a few things. Little things.

Like how, back home, she works at a jewelry store in Shimokitazawa.

Or how she flies to LA three times a year, to meet a man, or to meet a friend, or to meet a man who is also a friend.

And she’s hardly flashy, but all of her clothes are nice. Every sock and skirt and earring is clearly part of a larger, varied whole.

Mike, meanwhile, wears the same three things seven days a week.

He has no patience for schedules, routines, or patterns of any kind.

Before me, he saw whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted, fucking them however he wanted, and then he’d leave when he got bored.

Living with Mitsuko is, in other words, entirely unlike living with her son, whose gayness she is comfortable with, or at least not entirely uncomfortable with, or at least less disagreeable toward than my own parents, probably.



* * *





When Mitsuko asks about laundry detergent, I tell her it’s in the cupboard under the sink.

When she asks where we do laundry, I point to the laundromat across the street.

When she asks where we buy groceries, I give her a few names, but she looks skeptical at all of them.

Will they have natto, she asks.

I say the H Mart just might.

You know what natto is, asks Mitsuko, frowning.

Soybeans, I say, right? Mike uses it.

And for the first time in our acquaintance, Mitsuko looks confused.

Here in Houston, she says. The city where you could hardly find daikon a few years ago?

Yeah, I say.

And you eat natto, she says.

I do, I say.

I don’t believe you.

Because you don’t think I could like it?

How the hell would I know what you like, says Mitsuko.



* * *





That night, I hear the television from the bedroom. Mitsuko’s scrolling through movies. She settles on War of the Worlds, and I listen as Tom Cruise chases after his son. The kid’s gone to join the resistance or some shit, although the viewer knows he’s a goner. But Tom doesn’t see that. He goes after the kid anyway.



* * *





So I’m dozing off when my phone dings. I’m thinking it’s Ximena, but it’s actually Mike.

He’s sent a picture of his face in front of what looks like a train station. He’s not quite smiling. The background is clogged with bodies.

And he’s texted: HOW ARE THINGS?

I type: How the fuck do you expect.

A few minutes later, Mike sends another selfie. There’s the backdrop of a neighborhood. It looks quiet, bookended by telephone poles.




If you adjust the brightness and squint hard enough, you can see up his nose.




looks cool, I say.


IT IS


found him yet?


YEAH


and?


HE’S DOING FINE


HE’S NOT REALLY DOING FINE


IDREK



Mike sends another photo of some trees. And then one of some other train station. There are plenty of things we should be talking about, but here we are, talking around exactly all of them.




So I text: where can you get natto here


Y?


Your mom says she wants to make some.



And Mike’s response is immediate, possibly the fastest he’s ever replied to me: WHAT THE FUCK?





6.



The next morning, for the very first time, Mike’s mother knocks on my door. She’s fully dressed, while I lean on the doorway in a tank top and boxers.

Take your time, she says.

Jesus Christ, she says.



* * *





We leave five minutes later. Our Black neighbors wave from their porch. There’s a question on the grandfather’s face, and I wonder if he’ll ask it.

But Mitsuko doesn’t look away. If anything, she walks slower. Staring him down.



* * *





Mike’s car is filthy with clothes: our hoodies and socks and a loose pair of shoes. The whole thing smells like him, and I know his mother smells it, too. When I toss a pair of shorts behind us, she grunts, and there’s a jock strap in the back seat, and I pray to no god in particular that Mitsuko doesn’t catch it.

We’ve pulled out of the neighborhood, and into town, when she says, You’re sure they’ll have what I need?