Reprieve

by James Han Mattson

  The boy was cute—brown hair cut Caesar-style, a five o’clock shadow, broad shoulders, arms that pressed tight against the sleeves of his white T-shirt. Jaidee assumed the boy had sat next to him for a reason. There were other places to sit—why sit so close? Jaidee stared some more. The boy didn’t look away from his sandwich or the TV, however, and Jaidee attributed this to shyness, so he got up, moved to a chair that was directly across from the boy, thinking that maybe he’d be less bashful if Jaidee was in his direct line of sight. He stared some more, but still the boy only paid attention to his sandwich and the TV. Canned laughter came from the screen. The boy chuckled.

  “That was funny, huh,” Jaidee said.

  The boy stopped mid-chew, looked at Jaidee. Jaidee saw that his eyes were green.

  “Uh, I guess,” the boy said.

  “So what is your major?” Jaidee asked.

  The boy didn’t answer, just continued to watch.

  “What is your major?” Jaidee asked again, thinking maybe he hadn’t heard.

  “Finance,” the boy mumbled, chewing.

  “Oh, that’s a good major,” Jaidee said.

  The boy stared intently at the screen. It was a commercial for an auto dealer.

  “You have a car? Or are you buying a new car?” Jaidee asked.

  “What?” the boy said.

  “You are interested in buying a new car?”

  “Dude,” the boy said, “what’s your problem?”

  “My problem?”

  “Jesus,” the boy said, shaking his head, wrapping the rest of his sandwich in the paper, putting it in his backpack.

  Jaidee felt a wave of heat course down his spine. “I would like to talk to you more,” Jaidee said.

  The boy stood up, looked down at Jaidee, his brow wrinkling. “Dude,” he said, “I know you’re from, like, an Oriental country, but you’re kinda coming across as a homo.”

  “What?” Jaidee said.

  “Later,” the boy said, and left.

  Jaidee went through the rest of his day with gray cumuli roiling above his head, noting how everyone on campus looked happy and content, hating them all for this happiness and contentment. He noticed, then, how people didn’t notice him, how they looked through him, passed by without a second glance. He was an Oriental homo, he thought—whatever was he doing in white America?

  And yet, at the group that evening, he still sat next to Nick, Chris, and Jared. He still wore his brand names. He still leaned into their discussion. Nick, Chris, and Jared still ignored him, though once in a while Chris—the thin-lipped leader, the spiky-haired communications major—would look at Jaidee and smile, and one day, a bitingly cold day in early November, Chris’s comrades, Nick and Jared, had to go home right after the group, had tests to study for, and Chris wanted to stay out, so Chris told Hayley that yes, he’d be going to Brewsky’s that night, that he was hungry and thirsty and it sounded lovely. After his friends had left, Chris smiled once again at Jaidee and said, “Hey, man, you coming?”

  The music was loud, and the bar was smoky. They found a long table, sat on uncomfortable stools.

  Chris sat across from Jaidee. In the bluish light, his face looked friendly. “I mean, in this day and age,” he said. “It’s the fucking nineties and people are still calling people faggot? God.”

  “No, not faggot. Homo.”

  On the way over, Jaidee had told him about his incident at the student union, eliminating, of course, the fact that Jaidee had been unable to control his stare. “Seriously,” Chris said, “it’s Nebraska shit. Believe me, I’ve lived here my whole life. Lincoln seems all liberal but it’s just like everywhere else in this fucking state—redneck heaven. Everyone here’s lame. Seriously. All they talk about is the Huskers and the Quigley House. You heard of that shit? People pay to get beat up there. It’s all just messed up—tons of protests, as you can imagine. Anyway, I swear, when I graduate, I’m getting out. Probably go to Chicago. Maybe New York.”

  “Paid to get beat up?” Jaidee said.

  “At the Quigley? Yeah. It’s what they call a ‘full-contact’ haunted house. You haven’t heard of it? It’s, like, all anyone ever talks about besides football.”

  “That sounds really weird.”

  “It is, man,” he said. “But everything in this town is weird. Screwed up. Husker Suckers is what I call people.”

  He had a raspy voice, a voice that reeked of years of cigarette use, though as far as Jaidee knew, Chris didn’t smoke. Jaidee didn’t particularly love the voice, but it did lend Chris a sort of masculine quality that some of the others didn’t have. Jaidee hummed a bit, tried to make his throat vibrate. The server came over. She looked at him and cocked her head. “You okay?” she said. She was chewing gum. Jaidee could smell watermelon.

  “I’m seriously outta here when I graduate,” Chris repeated after they’d ordered. “All these lowlifes. Bottom-feeders. And the gay guys, man. They’re so ridiculous.” He shook his head. “All of ’em thinking they’re so great. They’re nothing, you know? Nothing.”

  Jaidee looked away. Though he found Chris nominally attractive, he realized, then, that his allure was directly attached to his association, that without the other two, he lost some of his luster.

  “I think maybe I’ll go backpacking through Europe,” Chris said. “Like, right after I graduate. Just take off, go through all those European countries.”

  The food came. Jaidee picked at it. He felt scratchy. He wanted to sleep.

  “So what’s your deal, Jaidee? You came all the way over here from—where? China? What a place to come! You must have a ton of culture shock.”

  “Thailand,” Jaidee said, chewing on a fry.

  “What’s that?” Chris said.

  “You said China. I’m from Thailand.”

  “Oh,” Chris said, winking. “Well, it’s Asian all the same, right?”

  Jaidee shrugged. He’d found it difficult to impart to Americans just how different Asian countries were from one another. Americans seemed to see them as one big cultural mass, all with the same history, the same geography, the same government. People in America said “Africa” and “Asia” like they were countries, not continents, and yet when you talked about their state, their small land mass in the middle of an enormous country, they became self-righteous, indignant, inflamed: How dare you not know Nebraska! How dare you not know Iowa! How dare you not know Kansas! My state is the state.

  The gay guys, interestingly, were the opposite, deriding Nebraska, praising the coasts, wistfully planning on one day being in a city, able to look down on the simpletons of their youth.

  The server came back, checked on them. Chris ordered a beer—it was his fourth. Jaidee also ordered a beer—it was his first. He’d tempered himself since the party. In America, it was best not to be red.

  “Nick and Jared couldn’t come?” Jaidee asked.

  Chris shook his head. His eyes were small, distant. He leaned in, smiled. “Hey, man,” he said. “Why are you drinking so slow? You’re nursing that beer like a girl.”

  “I just don’t want—”

  “Drink up, man. It’s Thursday night. Thirsty, thirsty Thursday.”

  Jaidee smiled hesitantly, brought the mug to his lips. When he did, Chris reached over and pushed on the bottom, forcing beer down the sides of Jaidee’s mouth.

  “There ya go,” Chris said. “Put some hair on your chest. Or—is that okay to say to an Asian dude? You don’t got hair, I assume.” Chris reached out, rubbed his hand swiftly across Jaidee’s chest. “Nah, you don’t. I can tell. Look here.” He unbuttoned his shirt. “Look at all that fuckin’ hair, man. It’s like a forest there. A hairy, hairy forest. Go ahead, man, you can touch it. It’s all me. All me, and all hair.” He chuckled. “You can touch, seriously. You know you wanna.”

  Next to Jaidee sat Katie, the ruiner of Pride floats. She looked over at Chris and rolled her eyes.

  “What’s that, Katie?” Chris said. “You want some of this too?”r />
  “You’re such a douche,” she said.

  “Yeah, well,” he said.

  Chris looked over at Jaidee and winked, buttoned up his shirt. Jaidee wondered what the wink meant. The beer buzzed in his head. He could feel his face getting hot. He wanted more to drink but knew what he’d look like. Still.

  “You know,” Chris said, “you could be cute. I mean. Yeah, there are dudes who go for the whole Asian thing, right? I think there are dudes who only go for the whole Asian thing. You should try to hook up with one of them.”

  “What?”

  “Hell yeah. I mean, people all got their tastes, right? Take Nick, for instance. He, like, only goes for guys twice his age. It’s weird. Like some hot guy will wanna get with him, some twenty-two-year-old or something, and Nick won’t even give him the time of day, won’t even say hi, you know? Will only talk to guys who are, like, our dads’ age. Kinda gross, but, well, to each his own, I guess. Anyway, works out for him ’cause those guys go fuckin’ bananas over him; like, buy him things, take him places, just go nuts. So I guess it works out. It’d be cool to be into old dudes, I think. But me, you know, I just can’t stomach the thought. Grosses me out.” He chugged the rest of his beer, raised his hand in the air, signaling the server. “Another!” he said. “And for my friend here too. Put it on my tab, please.”

  Jaidee looked at his beer. It was still half-full. He was certain his face was turning. Everything felt warm. He looked at Chris and wished he’d touched his chest hair when he’d had the chance. In Thailand, he’d obsessed over Victor’s body hair, the dark puff that sometimes escaped his shirts, the soft golden padding on his forearms, the curled bristles on his legs. He’d seen body hair, of course, but only rarely, and it was never the flax coloring of Victor’s. At home, he’d sometimes stand in front of the mirror naked, wondering what it’d be like to have a body covered in hair, if it’d be itchy. Victor, he remembered, sweated a lot, darkening the pits of his shirts, streaking the front of his clothes, and Jaidee assumed all that sweat was because of the hair—that extra layer had to be warm. Maybe that layer toughened you, though, he thought. Maybe because you were in this constant state of heated discomfort, you went through life ready to take on any challenge because movement itself was a challenge.

  “I just don’t get him, you know? Going for those old dudes. There are plenty of guys who’d love to be with him. Normal guys our age.” Chris smiled, reached over, touched Jaidee’s cheek. “Look at you. You look like you’re, like, fifteen, but you’re what, like, twenty-five or something? You’re older, right?”

  “Twenty-three,” Jaidee said.

  “So you’re like a double nontraditional student. Like, from Asia and older. That’s nuts.”

  They stayed for two hours. The rest of the group paid their checks and left the table without saying goodbye. They didn’t like Chris, Jaidee knew, thought him and his cohort insufferable in their idle, superficial chitchat, but Jaidee wondered if beneath that dislike was also envy. Chris and his friends moved through gay circles easily, were accepted, and often welcomed, in gay male environments, and had a cadre of attractive female friends who adored them. Others in the group moped through their lives, bemoaning their weight, their height, their relative unattractiveness. Chris and his friends did this as well, but in a different way, in a way meant to elicit scoffs from others, like: “Oh my god, I’m so fat” (scoff) “Oh my god, I feel so ugly” (scoff) “Oh my god, my skin is so dry” (scoff) (girl, please).

  Three beers later, Chris and Jaidee stumbled out of Brewsky’s. The cold air sobered Jaidee for a second, enough for him to realize that the night might not be so good, that he was likely to be sick, that his face was certainly beet red. He walked quickly. He didn’t want to be around Chris anymore.

  “Hey, man,” Chris said, catching up to him. “Why so fast?”

  Jaidee didn’t answer. His dorm wasn’t far. It’d take maybe twenty minutes to walk. He walked faster.

  “Hey,” Chris said, grabbing Jaidee’s arm, turning him around. Chris looked at Jaidee and laughed. “Holy shit, dude,” he said. “Your fuckin’ face. I didn’t really take a good look till now but holy shit. You’re like—”

  Jaidee pulled his arm out of Chris’s grasp and continued walking. The exercise was helping him think. He’d get home, drink four big glasses of water. That should sober him up. Then he’d sleep. Hopefully, the room would stay in one place.

  “Man,” Chris said, “like you’re in a hurry to get somewhere? We could go somewhere else. Night’s still young, right?”

  Jaidee shook his head, kept walking. He didn’t like college binge drinking in America. It seemed so silly; it was what everyone seemed to look forward to, and Jaidee found that obnoxious. It was very common that late on a Friday or Saturday night, he’d hear retching in the bathroom. One night, he even caught a guy on his floor peeing in the hallway. What was it that Americans were trying to erase? he wondered. That they needed to binge so much to feel anything. That they needed to make themselves so sick all the time, and that they looked forward to this sickness, that they were proud of this sickness, saying, the next day, “Man, I was so drunk. I was puking everywhere,” as if it were a badge of honor to make your stomach revolt.

  He was in his dorm now, checking in, and to his surprise, Chris was still next to him.

  “Yeah, I’m his guest, you got a problem with that?” Chris said to the front-desk guy, a pale, small-boned sophomore.

  Minutes later, they were in Jaidee’s room.

  “Not bad,” Chris said, looking around. “But really, it’s better to live off campus. But I get it. It’s, like, your first year, right?”

  With Chris in his room, Jaidee felt suddenly less tired. He went to the mini-fridge, pulled out two bottles of water, offered one to Chris, who just stared at it. “Water?” he said. “It’s pretty early for that shit, right?”

  Jaidee shrugged, uncapped the bottle, took a long swig. His roommate wasn’t there—lately, he’d been spending weekends at Simone’s and his mother’s apartment. Jaidee didn’t mind. He liked having the place to himself.

  “What else you got here?” Chris said. “I’m sure you got something stashed away, right? Some vodka, maybe?”

  Jaidee shook his head. “Just water and Coke,” he said.

  “Nah. That’s not true. Who doesn’t have alcohol in his dorm room?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Well, I bet your roommate does. This his desk?” Chris opened the top drawer, rifled through some papers. “He Asian too? Or is he hot?”

  “I don’t think you should do that,” Jaidee said. He lay down on the bed. Though he knew it’d be good to sleep, something else snaked inside him: a warm, syrupy desire. He was a virgin, had masturbated constantly to the slow-loading pictures of naked men he could sometimes get on his computer, but had never touched a guy, had never dared. But now—drunk and safe in his dorm room—he felt like it was time, and Chris had come up for a reason, right? He hadn’t just wanted to hang out. Guys weren’t like that.

  “Bingo,” Chris said, pulling out a bottle of Jim Beam from Bryan’s file drawer. He unscrewed the cap, drank, exhaled loudly. “That’s good shit,” he said, his voice more gravelly than normal.

  Jaidee looked at Chris’s stubble, imagined it prickling his face. He thought the contrast of that prickle with the thinness of his lips would be remarkable. It’d be right.

  “You want some?” Chris said, looking over at Jaidee.

  Jaidee shook his head. He moved his hand to his inner thigh.

  “You guys could spruce it up a bit in here,” Chris said. “You know, decorate. It’s a little too plain. I mean, it’s okay, but I’m just of the mind that you shouldn’t have a bare wall, that’s all. You should always be looking at something.”

  Jaidee sat up. All he could do was stare. He didn’t know the mating ritual for gay men. Should he go over to Chris? Put his hands on his shoulders? Should he just ask him if he wanted to have sex? Should he
pretend it was hot and take off his shirt? He’d seen all of this done in movies before, but in real life it seemed strange and awkward. But still. He needed to try something.

  “Are you hot?” Jaidee said. “I’m hot.” He pulled his shirt over his head and realized, even in his state, that the room was certainly not hot. Goose bumps bubbled his arms.

  Chris stared at Jaidee, took another swig. “Hmm. Serious?” Chris said.

  “You could get more comfortable.” This was also a line he’d heard many times on television. Getting comfortable always required removing some article of clothing.

  “Your chest, man, it’s like sunken,” Chris said.

  “Sunken?”

  “Yeah. You gotta hit the gym. Seriously.”

  “I hate the gym.”

  “Well, it shows.” Chris took another swig, looked away. “Look, I thought we could hang, but I gotta get going, okay? This, this isn’t—”

  “It isn’t . . . ?”

  “Dude, I’m not at all attracted to you, okay? Sorry, just being honest.”

  “I was just too warm—”

  “Fuck, man. It’s like I can’t just be friends with gay guys. They always want more, like to jump my bones. Sometimes I just wanna chill, you know?”

  Jaidee put his shirt back on. He felt small, inconsequential, embarrassed. He wanted Chris to leave, but he just sat there, talking, berating.

  “It’s, like, the worst from ethnic dudes, you know? Like, they’re all over me, like, all the time. My friends too. We’re not racist or anything—I mean, that’s why I wanted to hang tonight with you—but man, it’s like they just don’t get that we don’t wanna screw, you know? We all got our preferences and that’s not ours, but they just keep coming at us like we’re just gonna give in one day. And no offense, Jaidee, but Asians are, like, the worst. Like, they come over here from China or wherever and just don’t get that we’re not into them like that. I mean, we could definitely be friends, but they’re like falling all over us. What’s up with that? It’s like they don’t even like each other, just us white dudes. What’s up with that?” He took another swig, exhaled. “Like I said before, there are guys who’re totally into Asian guys. That’s cool. But, well, me and my friends, we’re just not, and that should be cool too.”