Reprieve

by James Han Mattson

  “But if you run out of people . . .”

  “Why don’t you just call the building owner?” Jaidee said.

  His mother shook her head, closed her eyes. “You’re too young to understand these things.”

  His mother liked saying he was too young for everything, but Jaidee, on many days, felt much older than her. She was petty and bored, and though she spent a great amount of time cooking, cleaning, praying, he couldn’t help but think that this whole fiasco with their neighbor concealed the fact that she simply wanted something else to do, a job. Before she’d met his father, before they’d had him, she’d been a secretary to one of the top military figures in town, and she often talked about how, during that time, she’d learned government secrets that she couldn’t even tell her family.

  “Maybe I’ll find children? Children who have died?” she said.

  “That’s too strange,” his father said.

  “But it’ll get the message across.”

  “Maybe you should give him some of those foreign bootlegged tapes in your closet,” Jaidee said.

  “How would that change anything?” his mother said, frowning. “He’d just get free entertainment.”

  “There’s lots of violence in American movies,” Jaidee said. “Maybe he’d understand.”

  She sighed, looked at the far wall. “You know those tapes are special, nok,” she said. “You know most people don’t have access to those shows. But you do because of me. You do because of my connections.” She turned to her son. “Anyway, you must stop being late for dinner. You must stop that play nonsense you do with Aran and his neighbor friend.”

  “What?” Jaidee said.

  “It’s silly. You need to concentrate on your studies. This whole acting madness is not what you’re meant to do.”

  Besides citing how young he was for everything, she also enjoyed telling him the things he “wasn’t meant to do,” these things completely dependent on her mood. One day he wasn’t meant to bike so much, another, to shower so little. A few days he wasn’t meant to eat in the evenings, another, to watch television in the dark. Some days he wasn’t meant to read paperback books, write with his right hand, hum on the balcony, carry his backpack like a briefcase.

  “I don’t want to be an actor for real,” he said. “It’s just fun.”

  “Well, you have too much fun. You’re not meant to have so much fun.” His mother was stout, broad, with a face that looked constantly swollen and extremities that looked inches too short. When she spoke, her eyes hardened.

  “We practice our English,” Jaidee told his mother. “Through the acting.”

  “Pfft,” she said. “You’re playing—that’s that. Don’t make it seem educational, nok. It isn’t.”

  “We’re going to sell our stories someday,” he said. “It’s going to be a big hit. Wait and see.”

  His mother groaned, cleared her plate from the table. “Focus on studies,” she called out from the kitchen. “That is your only way to happiness. All this play will pass. You’ll see.”

  * * *

  Years passed, and as his mother had predicted, Jaidee’s commitment to Belly-Kos the Great waned: puberty and hormonal unruliness replaced his interest in the hero of his childhood imagination. In his bedroom, with his best friend Aran, he noted how all the scripts they’d written amounted to nothing, how nobody but complaining family members attended their performances—what they’d considered masterpieces were simply childish amusements, he said, and it was all starting to seem a little silly to him.

  “I don’t agree,” Aran said.

  They were both fifteen now. Aran had grown taller than Jaidee, his hair chopped in the usual crew cut, his cheekbones strong, his face assertive and symmetrical. He’d become boisterous and outspoken, a more dominant presence in the classroom, and during their script-writing sessions, he’d gripped the reins where Jaidee had slacked, sometimes working alone while Jaidee did homework or watched TV.

  “What is there to disagree with, yai?” Jaidee said. “This is all just make-believe. What good is it?” He sat cross-legged on the floor, looking out the window. Aran sat at the rolltop desk, poring over a stack of papers, the contents of which held the penultimate scene between Belly-Kos the Great and Villain. In this scene, Villain would die for real—Belly-Kos had finally discovered the one thing that would destroy his archenemy: a rare Amazonian wood containing pink emeralds.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Aran said.

  Jaidee shook his head. “This is kid stuff. I started it when I didn’t know what ‘bellicose’ meant. Now I do. So it’s all just stupid. Why do we keep on?”

  Aran smarted. Over the years, the two boys had drifted apart: Jaidee had become withdrawn, hypercritical, ornery. While Jaidee still excelled at school, he often slunk down in his desk at the back of the classroom, arms crossed, eyes glazed, silent. He found fault with his friends, and he often made these faults known, deepening the already considerable rifts between them. Slowly, one by one, each friend drifted away, leaving Jaidee to his solitary misery. Only Aran stuck around: though the script meetings had become biweekly instead of weekly, he still consistently attended, and even when Jaidee emitted his trademark grouchiness, Aran stayed and worked, dedicated as he was to finishing the Belly-Kos saga.

  As time passed, however, Jaidee’s investment declined so sizably that by this day, he hadn’t written a thing, had just sat in the room watching Aran write, occasionally looking out the window.

  “We’re older now,” Jaidee said. “Continuing this is foolish.”

  Aran shook his head. “We’ve worked on this story for six years, nok. You can’t just abandon it.”

  “We fight with little sticks,” Jaidee said. “We memorize dumb lines. Nobody cares about this story. Even Narong won’t allow himself to be tossed around anymore. It’s time to grow up.”

  “Narong is an idiot.”

  “I don’t know why you keep coming over here,” Jaidee said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t ask for your help on this, but you insist.”

  “I insist?”

  “Yes. You insist on coming over here and pretending we’re still children. Isn’t that why you love the Belly-Kos story so much? So you can pretend we’re still little?”

  Aran looked hard at the papers. “Why would I want to be little again, nok? You make no sense.”

  Jaidee sighed. “I abandoned this project long ago. It’s clear. But still, week after week, here you are.”

  “It’s not your project,” Aran said, turning around, glaring. “We started this together.”

  “Oh, it’s not my project?” Jaidee said. “I’m not the one who came up with the whole idea? I’m not the one who secured all our practice locations? I’m not the one who named Belly-Kos and all his enemies? I’m not the one who roped Narong into joining us? Please. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be sitting there right now.”

  “I wouldn’t?” Aran said.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Aran said.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Well,” Aran said, inhaling deeply. “If that’s how you feel, I suppose I should go.”

  Jaidee shrugged. “Do what you want.”

  Aran sniffed, stood up, walked to the bedroom door. “So this is done?” he said. “For real?”

  “It was done a long time ago,” Jaidee said, not looking up.

  “Well, okay then. Goodbye, nok.”

  Jaidee didn’t reply.

  With Belly-Kos essentially defunct, Jaidee turned further inward, and much to the chagrin of his mother, he watched hours on end of the pirated American VHS tapes she kept in her closet. His favorite was American Blademan, a series about a man named Xavier Klein who’d been born with metal fingers, toes, knees, and elbows. Klein had initially hated his condition, had gone through high school a bullied mess, but once adolescence retreated, he transformed. A video montage, accompanied by sufficiently upb
eat music, outlined his renewal—Klein lifting weights, Klein running marathons, Klein molding his fingers, toes, knees, and elbows into sharp, masculine weaponry—and in the end, he emerged a six-packed American superhero, vowing to fight all enemies, foreign and domestic, his body now a fortress, an armament, a sculpted work of art.

  Jaidee watched breathlessly. At night, he envisioned Xavier shirtless, gleaming, unbreakable, his thick chest hair matted to his swollen pecs; his neck, arms, legs, veiny and bulging; his granite jaw, nose, ears, eyes an exercise in graceful symmetry. While his friends at school talked and giggled about girls, Jaidee thought about this actor, Chad Mirseth, a native of Chicago, a star who’d risen to fame after a series of car commercials in which he, only twelve at the time, had played a mischievous son who tried to drive his father’s truck down the driveway.

  After Jaidee finished the series, he came upon a realization: because he’d had such deep feelings for Xavier Klein/Chad Mirseth, an American boy was undoubtedly in his future. This boy would be very much like Xavier Klein—tortured but beautiful, blond, strong, considerate, caring; a boy who put the welfare of others before his own, moved effortlessly in his body, and treated his family like royalty. This boy and he would eat together, sing together, meet at each other’s apartments, sleep together, and happiness would accumulate from days spent as a couple, touching. It was just a matter of time before this boy happened, he thought. He was out there waiting.

  Time happened and the boy didn’t come. As Jaidee neared the end of his secondary school career, he became despondent, thinking that perhaps he’d have to seek out the boy after graduation, that he wouldn’t simply appear one day. But then, his last year of school, an English teacher named Victor Dunlap—tall, broad-shouldered, twenty-five years old, from Nebraska—joined the faculty. When Jaidee saw him, his body tingled, his heart hammered in monstrous beats, and his head bounced erratically above his body.

  It happened, he thought. It actually happened.

  Mr. Dunlap was blond, athletic, poised. He had a deep, throaty voice, reminiscent of Xavier Klein’s, and he instructed with confidence: he wasn’t like so many of the foreigners who came to Thailand and knew nothing about their discipline; he could tell a participle from a gerund, a colon from a semicolon, and it was clear that he actually cared about his students’ progress. Jaidee swooned.

  One day early in the term, Jaidee stayed after class, stood hesitantly in front of Victor’s desk, rocked back and forth from foot to foot. His heart clapped in his chest. He put his hands in his pockets.

  “Teacher,” he said, his mouth dry. “Do you know Chad Mirseth?”

  “The American Blademan actor?” Victor said, looking up.

  “Yes.”

  “Like, do I know him personally?”

  “I don’t know. No.”

  Victor leaned back in his chair, grinned. “That was one of the best shows.”

  “I can’t believe it was only three seasons.”

  “You’ve seen it? I wouldn’t think you could here. You remember the episode with Phantasma? She was in it for, like, one minute but I heard they’re making a spin-off show for her. Crazy, huh?”

  “But why?” Jaidee said. “Why not just keep Blademan? That’s what everyone wants.”

  “I heard they want more women viewers, but let’s be honest, right? Dudes are gonna watch her, and probably not women. I mean, it’s Pamela Anderson.”

  “They shouldn’t have canceled the show.”

  “I agree.” Victor paused, narrowed his eyes. “Say, Jaidee, your English—it’s good.”

  “Thank you, Teacher.”

  “It’s actually the best in the class.”

  Jaidee flushed. “I can say Chad Mirseth taught me a lot.”

  Victor chuckled. “Well, then.”

  “You know, Teacher,” Jaidee said, breathing deep, “you look like him. You look like Chad Mirseth.”

  “Ha-ha, nah. That handsome dude?”

  “You are very handsome.”

  “Well, Jaidee. I appreciate it.” He looked at the clock. “But listen, I’ve got to get going. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  “You have similar faces and bodies.”

  “You’re too kind,” Victor said, shuffling some papers, looking down. “Someday we’ll have to talk more about Blademan. That show was incredible.”

  “Yes. I’d like that.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Victor said, not looking up.

  “Okay,” Jaidee said. He stood for a moment longer, waiting for something to happen, then walked to the door, his head light, his face hot. “I like this class the best,” he said before he left.

  “I’m glad,” Victor said, still shuffling papers. “Thanks, Jaidee.”

  From then on, Jaidee searched for signs of interest—every time Dunlap called on him, every time he aced a quiz, every time Dunlap said, “Good job,” every time they made eye contact. The hints were subtle, he thought, but they were there: the surreptitious smiles, the pats on the shoulder, the longer-than-normal gazes, the overly encouraging written commentary. At home, Jaidee greedily scanned his corrected homework assignments, looking for clues of amorous intent, something hidden that would impart Dunlap’s true feelings. He didn’t find anything at first—only cursory comments, cursory praise—but then, one day, he noticed small black smudges at the bottom of each vocabulary quiz. Could it be? he wondered. The spots floated in the center of the page, blemishing each sheet with tiny imperfection, and the closer he examined, the more he saw that each spot looked vaguely heart-shaped, two curves delineated by a central break. This is it! he thought. This must be it! His chest felt puffy and light, his stomach lurched upward. I knew he’d send me a sign! I knew it! He put the assignments in a folder, stuffed them in his desk, and went to the front room to watch TV.

  The next day in class, Victor split the students into groups. He asked the group members to arrange a series of sentences in the order they deemed most appropriate—Watch for transitions, he said. Pay close attention to every word. Jaidee thought the task relatively elementary, but no matter: He’d seen the hearts. His entire world was now different. He would do anything Victor asked of him.

  It was a group assignment, however, so he couldn’t simply do the exercise alone, couldn’t hand it in to receive more hearts, so he snapped at his classmates: they were impediments, he thought, and they were so unabashedly stupid.

  “I don’t think ‘consequently’ should go after a sentence that doesn’t have a command,” said a girl named Malee.

  “What?” Jaidee said.

  “Because it is cause and effect. Command and action is cause and effect.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Jaidee said. He leaned back in his chair and shook his head. That school year, because of Victor, he’d read voraciously—mostly the Stephen King and Danielle Steel novels that were sold at the nearby used bookstore—and had spent hours at home practicing his writing and speaking skills. His mother, while happy with her son’s diligence, told him that he needed to pay attention to all his subjects, that he wasn’t meant to focus so hard on one.

  Malee’s face reddened. “You don’t need to be terrible,” she said.

  Jaidee sighed. “Do what you want. We’ll just get bad points.”

  The group pored over their sentences while Jaidee slouched, crossed his arms over his chest. After a few minutes, Victor came to the group, sat next to Jaidee. Jaidee sat up, moved his chair closer to Victor’s.

  “How’s it going here?” Victor said.

  “We’re doing good,” said Malee. She was round-faced, pockmarked, chubby. “We’re understanding. But this word ‘consequently.’”

  “‘Consequently’ infers cause and effect,” Jaidee said. His groupmates turned to him, glared. “It means something happens as a consequence of something else. It clearly goes after sentence three.” Jaidee leaned closer to Victor, smelled cologne.

  “Jaidee,” Victor said. “I’m impressed.”

  “I’
ve already said this,” Malee said.

  “My group thinks that a sentence that infers effect must come after a sentence that is a command. I don’t understand this logic, Mr. Dunlap.” Jaidee looked away, smiled.

  “Just look at the word,” Victor told the group members. “Notice that there’s a ‘seq’ in the middle. What other word can you think of that has that arrangement of letters?”

  The group looked back, blinked.

  “Come on,” Victor said. “Think. That arrangement of letters isn’t that common in most English words, so it must mean something.”

  “Sequin?” Malee said.

  Victor smiled. “Well, that word has that arrangement for sure.”

  “Sequo?” said a boy named Anurak.

  “I don’t think that’s a word,” Victor said. “But—”

  “It’s clearly ‘sequence,’” Jaidee said.

  “Yes,” Victor said. “It is sequence. And when you think of sequence, then what?”

  “You think of things in order. So it makes sense that it would be cause and effect because one thing follows another.”

  “Awesome, Jaidee,” Victor said.

  “But again, my group doesn’t seem to understand cause and effect. Because they think it must come after a command.”

  Victor looked at Malee. “After a command?” he said.

  “Yes,” Malee said, her face near broken. “Isn’t that . . . because you command and then an action happens or doesn’t happen.”

  “I suppose,” Victor said, stroking his chin. “But there are many instances of cause and effect that don’t involve a command. I can say something like, ‘He dropped a book. Consequently, there was a loud thud.’ It just means one thing causes the other. That’s all. The book dropping causes the thud.”

  Jaidee beamed. His groupmates didn’t look at him; they returned to the paper. Jaidee looked at Victor, grinned. Victor stood up, went to the next group.

  On the last day of school, Dunlap brought everyone an American treat—a spongy yellow log-shaped candy called a Twinkie. Most of the students loved it, gobbled it down in seconds, but Jaidee felt sick and only ate half before putting the rest on his desk. Stomach rumbling, he excused himself to the bathroom and cried into his hands for five minutes: It had been announced, the week before, that Victor would not be staying for another school year. He’d loved his time in Thailand, he said, but it was time to return to America and resume his life.