by Alex Austin
“Oh. Was she pretty?”
“Very pretty.”
“Short?”
Hugh smiled. “Tall, actually.”
“What was her name?”
“Setsuko.”
“In one word tell me what Setsuko was like,” said Anna, echoing the challenge he gave to his creative writing students when asked to describe their stories’ characters.
“Indomitable,” Hugh decisively responded.
“Umm. What’s that mean?”
“Like the bunny that keeps on going.”
“A pretty bunny,” said Anna with satisfaction.
“She was an artist, a painter. She used these tiny paint-brushes to make lines thinner than a spider’s strand.” Hugh took his right hand from the steering wheel, held his thumb and forefinger together and pretended to draw. “Seascapes. Most of all, she painted seascapes . . .” He clamped the wheel. “We’re divorced.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” said Anna.
Hugh had never mentioned his wife or sons to his students. He wanted to tell Anna more about Setsuko, her dry sense of humor, her tolerance for Hugh’s clutter and dreaminess, her love and respect for the natural world— her hand pressed to a slab of granite as if she might draw out its thoughts—her serene, effortless, transfixing beauty, her unflappable poise, her grace under pressure as Hemingway would have put it, but Anna had moved on, no more interested in Hugh’s ex-wife than the irrigation methods of the ancient Egyptians. She was digging through her purse. Hugh took his hand from the wheel and gazed at his fingers.
“Where in Reseda are you going?” asked Hugh.
Anna turned to Aaron. In the mirror, Aaron moved his head a centimeter.
“We’ve changed our plans, Mr. Mcpherson. We’re going to Van Nuys. It’s not much farther.”
“What exit?”
“Van Nuys Boulevard,” said Aaron.
“All right.”
“We’re not putting you out, I hope, Mr. Mcpherson.”
“No, it’s okay,” he said. Reseda, Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks . . . Studio City.
“Mind if I turn on the radio?” asked Anna.
“Go ahead.”
She settled on a hip-hop station, but kept the volume low.
“So, when can I get my story?” asked Aaron.
Jesus Christ, his story. “I told you, Aaron, I have to find out if the school is even open.”
“Why wouldn’t it be open?”
“Budget cuts.”
“I need that story.”
“Yes, you’ve told me a half-dozen times.”
“Two, three maybe,” said Aaron.
“Why? Why is the story so important?”
“When can you get it?” asked Aaron.
“That’s enough,” said Hugh. “Let’s drop it for a while.”
Aaron beat time on the window, and then said, “My grandfather is pissed that I wrote it. He wants it back. Wants to burn it.”
“Your grandfather?”
“Yeah.”
“The grandfather in the story was your grandfather? You didn’t make the story up?” asked Hugh.
“Some,” muttered Aaron.
“How much some?”
“Fuck, man, you gave me an A.”
“The story is about your real grandfather and your real grandfather didn’t die?”
Aaron groaned. “If he died, how could he have told me the story?”
“I should have given the A to your grandfather.”
Anna laughed.
“Yeah, that’s funny.”
“As I recall,” said Hugh, “his name in the story was Juan Valdez.”
“So?”
“That’s the coffee bean guy.”
“No, it’s my grandfather.”
“You used his real name?”
“That’s what my grandfather said, only he didn’t say it that way.”
A van pulled alongside Hugh, slid closer. A big blue van with a sign that read GO HOME. Hugh stared in amazement as the truck drifted closer. Hugh hit the horn, accelerated. The truck slipped away, slipped back. GO HOME AND RELAX. LEAVE THE MOVING TO US.
“There are a million stories out there,” said Hugh.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Your grandfather’s safe.”
“Fuck you, Mr. Mac,” said Aaron, leaning his head on the window.
Juan Valdez . . .
Hugh glanced in the rearview at the truck. He felt a soft flow against his chest, the flutter of the water when his sons swam toward him. Go home.
“Teachers aren’t supposed to give students rides, are they?” asked Anna.
The twins’ presence fled. Hugh’s throat tightened. “No, not generally.”
“Why not?”
“It’s for the students’ and the teachers’ protection.”
“Why would they need protection?”
“The bitch says the teacher molested her,” Aaron eagerly speculated. “How can he prove he didn’t?”
“But how can she prove he did?” asked Anna.
“Why did he give her the ride?” asked Aaron.
“But why would she lie?”
“Maybe she asked him for money and he refused.”
Anna leaned toward Hugh. “Mr. Mac, would you loan me twenty dollars? Pretty please?”
Hugh ignored her.
A weight light as a leaf slid down his thigh.
“Anna!” said Hugh, swiping away her hand. The car veered into the right lane. “Why the hell did you do that? That’s terrible!”
“I was joking,” said Anna, giggling.
“That’s a joke? You think that’s a joke? Goddamn. Goddamn.” Despite the air-conditioning, sweat slicked his forehead.
“Yeah, Anna,” said Aaron.
“I touched his leg. Big deal.” Anna turned up the radio.
“He rejected you. Reject,” taunted Aaron.
“Please, down the music,” said Hugh, breathing hard as if he’d just sprinted.
“Down the music? That don’t sound right,” said Aaron with a laugh.
Hugh jabbed the radio’s off button.
“Leave my radio alone, all right? Leave everything alone,” said Hugh, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
Anna huffed and crossed her arms. “God. Now everything’s all tense. You never yelled in class, Mr. Mac.” She reached over the seat and took Aaron’s hand.
Mr. Easygoing. Yeah, Mr. Fucking Easygoing.
At the White Oak exit, Hugh changed lanes. The traffic was thickening and approaching the 405, the 101’s lanes reduced to two. He pulled in front of a tricked-out BMW. In the rearview mirror he saw Aaron’s head turn. The boy liked cars and guns. In the computer lab, if he left Aaron alone for a moment, he’d be researching assault weapons. The district’s computer system filtered out sex but not .45 Magnums. When Hugh monitored his viewing, Aaron’s face colored a little, but he didn’t close the page. Most kids would be slamming the X.
Hugh glanced at the cloudless sky. Satellite surveillance captured such detailed images of earth that individuals could be seen slipping into porn shops, buying drugs in alleys, cheating on their spouses. At this moment, an employee of some bleak agency could be considering a digital image of Anna getting into his car.
You’re going to kill yourself, man, what the fuck’s the difference?
Passing the 405, Hugh maneuvered into the far right lane to take the Van Nuys Boulevard exit. Aaron whispered something, and Anna twisted in her seat.
“Sorry, Mr. Mcpherson, we’ve changed our plans again. We want to go to North Hollywood. Sorry to put you out.”
“You said ‘Van Nuys Boulevard.’ This is it.” Hugh slowed as he took his place at the end of the line of exiting cars.
“It’s only another ten minutes. Please?”
“Is this a game? Are you playing another game with me?” asked Hugh.
Anna giggled nervously.
“My grandfather lives in North Hollywood,” said Aaron.
“Hey, this ain’t no limo. Where’s your cap?”
Hugh swung out of the exit lane, floored the accelerator and zipped across several lanes, horns sounding angrily.
“Get off at Cahuenga,” said Aaron.
They approached an overpass. If Hugh took his hands from the steering wheel, just let the car drift with the road’s camber . . . flipping, flipping, flipping. But his passengers were innocent, weren’t they? He clasped the wheel at ten and two, and glanced in the rearview at Aaron, eyes cold, mouth turned down.
Go home.
As they approached the 101 split, where to the left the 134 would continue on to North Hollywood and Burbank, Hugh crossed lanes to the right.
“Hey, wrong way,” said Aaron.
Hugh accelerated into the far right lane, the Tujunga Avenue exit.
“Maybe he’s taking a shortcut,” suggested Anna.
The exit wrapped around so that if they turned right he’d be heading north, not south as the off-ramp led one to expect. When the family lived in the area, Hugh frequently took this exit, and he never rid himself of the feeling that when he turned left, he was turning the wrong way. He turned left.
“This ain’t the way to North Hollywood,” said Aaron.
“It is to Studio City.”
“Don’t make any sense.”
“I’ll let you out at the light,” said Hugh.
“But this isn’t where we’re going.”
“It’s where I’m going,” said Hugh.
He stopped at the light on Moorpark. “Should I let you out here?” There were plenty of people around to watch them depart.
“What the fuck, man?” said Aaron.
Hugh pointed back over his shoulder. “North Hollywood’s that way.”
“Come on, Mr. Mcpherson. You’re not like that,” pleaded Anna.
“So long, guys.”
The light turned green. Hugh crossed through the intersection and pulled to the curb.
“It’s because I touched your leg, isn’t it?” asked Anna.
“I’ve got something to do,” answered Hugh.
“Don’t be mad at me,” said Anna.
“I’m not.”
Anna got out and walked to the driver’s side. She tapped on Hugh’s window. He rolled it down. “Does my lipstick look okay?” she asked, licking her vermilion lips. The wattage jumped.
“Yes. Fine.”
“Do you like this color?”
“Sure.”
The back door slammed. Aaron stood in back of Anna. Leaning against her, his chin on her shoulder.
“How about loaning us fifty?” asked Aaron.
“Fifty cents?”
Aaron guffawed. “Fifty dollars, maestro.”
“Why would I do that?”
“You’re leaving us in the middle of nowhere. We need bus fare.”
Hugh took his wallet from the console and slipped out a five dollar bill. “Here’s your bus fare. Smile.”
“Come on, you can spare more than that.”
“Tell Aaron to take the money and back off before I fucking, fucking—ah, shit.”
Anna’s eyebrows jumped. “Mr. Mcpherson!”
“Hey, teach, you let a student rub your leg,” said Aaron.
Hugh sat back in the seat, turned his eyes away. “This is bullshit, total bullshit.” Hugh crunched the five-dollar bill and threw it out the window.
“Just joking,” said Aaron as Hugh pulled away.
“Sorry about touching your leg,” Anna said, the thin eyebrows disappearing into her bangs like the steps of an escalator.
“Remember my story!” shouted Aaron.
In the rearview, he caught them staring thoughtfully after him, like parents watching the morning school bus leave.
Hugh drove through Tujunga Village. Outside the Aroma Café, a star of a TV forensics team twice removed from the original series inspected his lunch. Hugh passed the Italian restaurant where Robert Blake had dinner with his wife before she was murdered. The jury found him innocent, and the tour buses came by twice a day.
When he reached Ventura Boulevard, he turned east. He hadn’t driven a hundred yards, when a car swerved within a foot of the Volvo. Hugh punched his horn. The car slipped back into its lane only to meander closer a moment later, sliding by Hugh. An old primed Camaro with tinted windows. Was it the car that had been behind them on the on-ramp? It drifted closer again. “Get the fuck away,” shouted Hugh, honking repeatedly. The car returned to its lane, slowed and vanished into the traffic behind.
“Asshole,” muttered Hugh, but by the third stoplight, he had all but forgotten the encounter.
The next turn took him back a decade. As he gazed at the familiar houses, Hugh eased up on the accelerator.
Turning onto Rosegate Street, Hugh gripped the steering wheel tighter, for his body felt weightless, as on the first plunge of a roller coaster. Here a tree had been climbed, a curb jumped, a driveway chipped by the edge of their skateboards.
At the end of the street, a cul-de-sac, two children were forming figure eights on silver scooters. For an instant—but, no . . . always skateboards.
Hugh stopped in the middle of the street, leaving the car in neutral. He didn’t yet look at the house, but stared at the freeway noise barrier that twenty years ago served as a backstop for his pitches to Takumi and Hitoshi.
The two children on scooters, noticing his gaze, scooted off.
Executing a U-turn, Hugh pulled up in front of his former house and turned to face memory’s indictment.
Chapter 8
From the pier restaurant’s second-deck dining area, Kazuki watched the fat fisherman break the bonito’s jaw. The blood leaked to the wooden slats, pooled in a perfect circle, bulged as if in mitosis and formed a rivulet that trickled down the inch-wide space between the slats and emptied into the sea twenty feet below, drops striking the water like little red bombs. The angler tossed the improved fish into a bulging gunnysack.
At the end of the pier, the breeze was strong and cool. Kazuki hoped it might tamp his fever while he worked. But his stomach was in turmoil, and he would soon have to use the bathroom. He bent over the keyboard, gazed somberly at his words.
Katashi Ito twisted the ring on his left index finger.
“This isn’t right,” said the slight man with the crescent scar below his right eye. “The mistake was made in Seoul.”
There was no air-conditioning in the dockside warehouse, and summer Tokyo’s nightly steam bath did not relent. The man’s white shirt was dark and clingy with sweat as were those of the two broad-shouldered men who flanked him. Katashi’s shirt was as if freshly pressed. Three years ago, a surgeon had removed Katashi’s apocrine glands as a precaution against the spread of a malignant melanoma. Katashi did not perspire. He turned his ear to the ratcheting of a saltwater reel and smiled. Someone fishing on the dock. So late!
“Relax,” said Katashi.
Kazuki tapped Pg Dn several times, then slipped the curser to the vertical scroll bar, pulling the manuscript a few hours forward.
Deep in the ship’s belly, Katashi led his associates down the intricate path of ladders and narrow passageways. As a young man he’d worked in the merchant marine, and as they descended, the thickening smell of oil and brine comforted him, took him back. At the base of the final ladder was the bilge, where a tall, thin, bare-chested figure kneeled on a catwalk above the black pools streaked with rainbows . . .
“Are the fish jumping tonight?” asked Katashi.
Slipping his fingers from the keyboard, Kazuki stood up and placed his palm to his midsection. Below, a small girl in red dashed about, checking the big plastic paint buckets that most of the anglers used to hold their catch. On newspapers spread beside their husbands’ tackle, wives prepared lunch, bright bowls of salsa, pork, onions, and chicken to be scooped in
to corn tortillas. In the midday sun, the meats swam in their juices. Without warning, the pier shivered as a docking boat slammed against the pilings, engines then roaring and flooding the patio with diesel fumes.
Holding his stomach, Kazuki staggered toward the restroom.
On his knees, Kazuki vomited into a shit-flecked toilet bowl. He gazed at his deposit, trying to remember the English words for its consistency and color, but Katashi and his men intruded.
The dark figure stood, arms raised, stretching taut a piece of rope. Behind Katashi, the slight man made his pitiful case. Even if he were not completely innocent, what of his family? How would they get along in this hard world?
The restroom door squealed and banged. Kazuki listened to the creak of a zipper and the hesitant stream of piss, and—after long delay—the rapid flapping of penis.
The door squealed and banged again. Without washing his hands!
Kazuki peered into the bowl. On the white slope, a cockroach struggled to find traction. Teeth chattering with a sudden fever, the author yanked off a piece of toilet paper, rolled it in his fingers and pointed the tube at the insect. Should he nudge the creature to safety or push it back into the fetid pool?
Katashi met the man’s pale and tear-stained face. “I’d forgotten your family, Makoto.”
“Yes?” asked the man, face brightening.
Katashi shielded his eyes with his hand. “Will you forgive my thoughtlessness?”
“Of course,” said Makoto.
“Thank you.”
Katashi nodded to the dark figure, turned and began his ascent even as the two large men carried Makoto, screaming and kicking like a baby fresh out of the womb, to the dark waiting figure.
“Forgive me,” said Kazuki, poking the tube at the archaic shell of the struggling insect. It toppled down the white slope into the last of Kazuki’s breakfast. Teary-eyed, the author fumbled for the toilet’s handle. His deposit swirled. The cascade of fresh water swept the roach into the rich whirlpool, whose consistency was that of coffee grounds, and whose color was that of tangerines.
Liver cancer.
Chapter 9
Gathering himself, Hugh got out of the car. He walked up the cracked asphalt driveway to the garage. Above the garage door, a rusted basketball hoop framed a well-trafficked cobweb. A dozen insects slept in the fine mesh.