“You can’t what?”
Bryan picked up his pencil again, gripped it hard, turned to Jaidee. His face warped with frustration. Jaidee braced himself. “Look at you!” Bryan said. “Seriously! All dressed in Abercrombie and Fitch. That shirt! Jesus. Look at yourself. It’s pathetic.”
“What’s pathetic?” Jaidee said. The rage surged from his head to his neck to his shoulders to his chest. Everything internal expanded and pressed against his skin. He couldn’t move his fingers; they dug violently into his palms. How many times had Bryan interrupted his studying? How many times had he had to leave the room because Bryan refused to get off the phone? The hypocrisy! The absolute nerve!
“You. Trying so hard,” Bryan said. “That’s pathetic. It’s so transparent, dude. Look. Your haircut. Those clothes. News flash, Jaidee: You’re not white. You’ll never be white. Your reverence for whiteness is fucking embarrassing.”
“What? What is wrong with you?”
“I’m just saying.”
“What are you saying?”
“Listen,” Bryan said, his eyes dancing, “I see you, trying to hang out with white dudes on campus, ignoring your own. I see that. And I’ve held it in, because you’re different, trying to assimilate I guess, and maybe that’s your idea of being American, you know, to be this bland Abercrombie and Fitch drone, but that’s not America, dude! It’s just one representation. And anyone who’s receptive to that dominant representation, well, they’re weak, because that shit is boring as fuck. But you, look at you, you don’t even see how pathetic you are. None of those fratty white dudes like you, Jaidee. And yeah, I know you’re gay. I’ve known forever. You think I care about that shit? You think I’m . . . Listen. They make fun of you and you don’t know it. They make the chinky eyes behind your back. They do! But you. You just play into it because of this weird reverential bullshit. What do they call your type of people—Twinkie? Yellow on the outside, except that’s not you, you’re not even a Twinkie, because you aren’t white anywhere, you’re a wannabe white, and that’s so much worse.”
“You don’t know anything about my life.”
“I know enough. I observe, Jaidee. I see with my eyes. The world. I see it.” He paused, scratched his chin. His eyes were large.
“You see it? Oh, you don’t see anything.” Jaidee stood up. “If you saw anything, you’d see how rude you are, to invite people to this place, my place, when I need to study, when I have an exam, and now you have the gall to get upset when I ask you a simple question? And I am not a racist person, I’m not, but I do think that your type . . . your type . . .”
“My type? Jaidee. Jesus.”
“I think that your friends, your type, oh, but what I’m saying is that maybe your type is not studious—”
“Jaidee! Do you understand the words coming from your mouth?”
“I am only observing, just like you. In my composition class, there are two Black people and they sit in the back and they don’t listen to the professor, and you—”
“We need different roommates.”
“Why can you say things about me, and the minute I say things about you—”
“I’m saying things about you specifically, Jaidee.”
“Oh really? Just me specifically? Oh, what did you say? Twinkie? My type of people? You see what this is? It’s hypocrisy!”
“Saying Twinkie isn’t racist.”
“Oh, it isn’t? Grouping people by race with negative connotation? That’s not racist?”
Bryan shook his head. “It’s totally different.”
“It’s only different when it benefits you.”
“No, dude. I’m talking observation. I’m talking . . . I’m trying to help you look less pathetic. I’m trying to stop you from, well, whatever it is you like.”
“You’re homophobic.”
“That’s me! Yep. What did I just say? I’ve known forever. I’ve never cared.” He turned back to his book, lowered his voice. “What else, Jaidee? Anti-Semitic? Sexist? What else am I?”
Instead of answering, Jaidee left, slamming the door, hating himself for his spotty articulation. He stomped through the halls, down the stairs, and out into the spikes of winter. He hadn’t put on a coat, which was fine at first, the wind and snow and cold hovering just outside his body, his anger a protective shield. He held on to his collar and walked past faceless students behind bulky scarves and wool hats. Hypocrite! he screamed inside. He’s a goddamn hypocrite! He walked downtown. The anger-warmth faded. Suddenly, the sting of the season attacked. He shouted, brought his shirt up across his nose, ducked into the first building he could.
Shoulders covered in snow, he passed through the lobby, sat on one of the couches, brushed off his shirt, shivered, crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t know where he was, and he didn’t care; though the initial rage had worn off, Bryan’s words rang through his head. Wannabe white, wannabe white, wannabe white. That wasn’t right, right? He wasn’t wanting to be anything but Thai.
He lay down. He wanted to rest, to nap somewhere other than his room, and this room with the scratchy green couch and clean, oxidized smell, and fluorescent warmth and auditory numbing from above—Muzak?—seemed the perfect place to clear his head, so he did, and that was that.
He was awoken, however, only a few minutes later by a man in oversized khakis. “Up and at ’em,” the man said. “This isn’t a shelter, bud.”
The man’s face—long, clean-shaven—took up the entirety of Jaidee’s line of sight. Jaidee looked down at the man’s shirt. A silver name tag blinked up at him. Leonard Grandton, Manager. Jaidee scrambled to his feet, noticed his soaking clothes, the wet couch.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“You don’t have a coat?” Leonard said. “It’s freezing out.”
“I forgot it.”
“You forgot your coat?”
“I’m sorry. I’ll leave now.”
“No, now, wait. Where you heading? You can’t go out there without a coat. I mean, you a student? You heading to campus? Here. I’ll give you a ride. To a dorm, maybe? Listen. I can’t let you walk out there. Look at it!”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll take you, okay? I have four-wheel drive, so this snow? Simple. Just give me a minute. Have to tell my staff I’ll be right back, okay? Just hang on.”
So Jaidee stood in the lobby, feeling miserable, wet, cold, wondering how it’d come to this, how everything that had seemed so promising had blown up into this pathetic, distressing moment: falling asleep in a hotel lobby, waiting for some random man to plow through snow with his four-wheel drive so Jaidee could get back to his hateful roommate.
“Ready, bud?”
The man with the name tag smiled at him. He was wearing an immense parka, the hood like an unruly lion’s mane. He was tall, though his body seemed not to have grown into its height: he hunched over, his shoulders pushed down by some heavenly force.
“Well, come on,” Leonard said. “Car should be warm by now.”
In the car, blasted by artificial heat, Jaidee felt itchy all over.
“Can you turn down the heat?” he said.
“Serious?” Leonard said.
Jaidee looked out the window. The snow was still falling, but gentler now, coming down in large crystal puffs.
“What’re you doing walking around in this, anyway?” Leonard said. They were less than a mile away from his dorm, but some of the roads had been closed off, left unplowed, making Leonard take a longer, more circuitous route. “Seriously dangerous. But I’m sure you know that.”
Jaidee thought again of his roommate’s words: wannabe white. He looked over at Leonard and thought, No. That’s not me.
“So,” the hotel manager said, turning slowly onto Eleventh, “where you from?”
“I live in the dorms,” Jaidee said.
“Yeah, well I know that. I’m driving, right? But where are you from?”
“Oh,” Jaidee said. “I’m from Thai
land.”
“No shit, really?” Leonard said. “My girlfriend’s Thai.”
“Okay,” Jaidee said.
“She wants to come over here, to the States,” Leonard said. “She’s desperate to, but we’ve gotta get everything lined up, you know? We’ve gotta get things perfect because, as you know, it’s difficult to come from an Oriental country to ours. It’s all pretty scary, I imagine.”
“Not that scary,” Jaidee said.
“And I’ve been learning some Thai, like sawatdee-krap! and all that. Gonna learn recipes, too, make her feel at home.”
Jaidee looked out the window at all the swirling white. The man was annoying; he reminded Jaidee of the lady who worked at the student cafeteria who’d shouted, Ni hao! at him, then smiled and waved and told him that her adopted niece was Chinese and had adjusted really nicely. Jaidee tuned the man out. When he dropped him off at his dorm, Jaidee didn’t say thank you, just raced off.
In his dorm room, he half expected Bryan to fly at him from the shadows, to descend on him with further indictment. But the room was empty. On his desk was the Des Moines phone book, full of promise. He thought, then, of how Xavier Klein on American Blademan had once traveled all the way to Siberia for Becky Thatcher. She’d been held hostage by Electro in a purple ice cave that only became visible twice per year, and since Klein didn’t know the specific whereabouts of the cave, he’d had to journey from village to village, gathering information from the locals and securing maps and supplies from an assortment of seedy characters.
Sort of like me, Jaidee thought, his hand on the phone book’s cover. Lots of seedy characters on my route to you, Victor. But that’s love.
He sat, opened the phone book, looked for the name, found it. (Found it! Found it! Found it!) Here it was: dunlap, victor r. His heart pounded. He put his finger on the name, traced it over to the address, the phone number. This was it, he thought. It’d been so easy! Just look the name up in a book, and there it was! Travel halfway around the globe to try to find one person, and all you had to do was order a book, look for the name, and it was all given, right there, the most personal information—destiny!
He wrote the address and phone number down in his history notebook. Hey, it’s Jaidee, he imagined himself saying. I came so far. And Victor: Jaidee. You can’t believe how great it is to hear your voice. And Jaidee: I’m here now. I’m here just for you. And Victor: I’m so happy.
Cell Five
Someone has entered Bryan’s jail cell. It’s a hard-breathing man. The man’s voice is a devious whisper, sometimes close, sometimes far. Mostly, he makes unintelligible noises—suckling, clucking, chirping—but sometimes he whispers enraging missives. Bryan lashes out against the blackness.
Hello, Bryan, the man says.
Bryan punches into the dark, but the whisperer is quick on his feet, and Bryan can never pinpoint his location.
I’ve heard so much about you, the man says.
You’re all fucking freaks, Bryan says.
The man clucks by Bryan’s right ear. Bryan lunges, hits something hard. He punches the air again: nothing.
What did your cousin say to get you into this mess? the man says. “Please, Bryan, be the alternate. They just need one.” She pleaded and begged. And you said yes?
Bryan races around the cell, punching at everything. His fist hits the wall. Pain scatters up his forearm, his shoulder. He runs back the way he came, trips, falls, scrapes himself, pinwheels his arms into nothing. He feels something skitter up his leg. He shouts, shakes it off. It’s furry.
Not much time left, the whisper says.
Bryan lunges, makes contact. The man, surprisingly small, grunts as Bryan tackles. Bryan finds the man’s masked face with his hand. He cocks his fist back, punches. His fist hits concrete. Bryan screams. The man is on top of him now, his arm around his throat.
Was it worth it? the man pants.
Bryan chokes. But the man on top of him is small. Bryan bucks his hips back, throws his fist up, makes contact with something fleshy. The man howls, falls back—thunk. Bryan reaches out, finds the bars. He jiggles them hard. Harder. Harder. They open. He runs out into darkness.
He stops, breathes, closes his eyes. He knows there are four jail cells, one in each corner of the room. He just ran straight out of one. If he keeps walking in one direction, he’ll reach another.
He walks, hands outstretched, until he hits a slimy wall. He inches his way along it. Around him, rodents skitter. He imagines the floor crawling with them. He hears bangs, thumps, crashes, grunts, shouts, all amplified, all hideous. Darkness, he thinks, is torture.
Jaidee! he shouts. Do you have any envelopes?
Bryan! Jaidee shouts faintly from his corner. Over here!
I’m going to get Victor and Jane, Bryan says.
CLUNK. BANG. ZZZZ.
Suddenly: muffled screaming—shattering, curling, impaling.
Jane! Bryan says. Jane!
The screaming doesn’t relent. Bryan races along the edge of the wall. He hears a snap, then his fingers are screaming. Motherfucker! he shouts, pulling his index and middle finger out of a mousetrap. He takes his hands off the wall, walks without its aid. Just go straight, he tells himself. Keep going straight. His hands hit metal bars. He relaxes. Hey, he says. I’m here. Who’s in there?
Mmmmmfffff, someone says. Mmmmmfffff!!
Blue light punctures his eyes. His fingers, throbbing already from the mousetrap, are suddenly aflame.
Fuck! he says, wringing his hands.
Mmmmmffffff!
Victor, is that you? Bryan says, panting. If you can, come to the bars. I’ll rip the tape off.
Some shuffling. Then Victor’s at the bars. Bryan reaches for his face, finds the lip of the tape, pulls down.
Victor screams, then regains composure, says, Here, I’m gonna turn around. My hands are tied. Can you—
ZZZZZZZAP!
Goddammit! Victor, briefly illuminated, falls to his knees. There are two of them in here with me, he says, his voice coming out in harsh rasps. I can never tell where they are—they keep moving, and one’s a fucking clown. Sometimes they get up—
Beat ’em, Bryan says. Just punch into the air. That’s what I did. You’re gonna hit something.
And then?
Find the envelopes. They’re on them. They have to be.
Okay, Victor says. Okay, okay, okay.
I’m gonna find Jane, Bryan says.
Wait, Victor says. How did you get out?
Rattle the door as hard as you can. Mine eventually gave.
But I’ve tried . . .
Try harder. And get those fuckin’ envelopes. We’re almost there.
I’ll try.
Bryan leaves Victor, heads back into the abyss. He waves his arms up and down in the dark, braces for more electricity. Jane! he says. Jane!
And then: a door opens, yellow light tumbles onto the floor. Bryan shields his eyes. In the doorway, suddenly, is the shadow of a man. Hello? Bryan says. Behind him, Bryan hears footsteps. He walks toward the open door, toward the man.
Where is John Forrester? the man says.
What? Bryan says.
I need to talk to John Forrester.
Bryan continues walking: closer, closer, closer.
John Forrester, the man says.
Wrong room, Bryan says.
The lights come on. Bryan shields his eyes.
The man grabs him, turns him around in a bear hug. Something cold and hard is by his throat. He can’t breathe. White light stabs at his retinas. He blinks hard. Hot breath comes in dark waves down his face. Where is John Forrester? the man says.
Bryan’s eyes adjust. He looks around.
The jail cells unlock. The actors stop their assaults, remove their masks. Everyone looks at Bryan. Everyone is silent.
Jaidee
Jaidee knew, from his years watching Thai soap operas and American movies, that in order for a man to win over the love of his life, he needed to relentles
sly pursue. Even if the partner rejected the man’s advances at first (they always did), persistence won in the end, and the love interest—usually a beautiful woman—eventually realized just how awesome the pursuer truly was. This was how things were.
Sometimes, love was founded on deception, as in: Falcon Crest, Dallas, Overboard. Other times, people realized weirdos were beauties: The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, The Goonies. Sometimes, love was based on a growing friendship: Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally. And other times, love arose out of unusual circumstances: Splash, Big, The Princess Bride. Jaidee thought his love would be more of a Say Anything sort: Jaidee, coming from a separate culture, would face obstacles to his love based on difference, causing him to continue pursuing until those obstacles dissipated and he’d proven himself worthy. Love would always win in the end, he knew. That’s what everyone said.
So he would go to the address in the book. He wouldn’t call first (calling isolated voice, and Victor needed to see Jaidee to understand his grand gesture)—he would just go. Before he went, though, he would prepare.
He got a haircut—Caesar-style, he told the hairdresser, pointing to the white boys in the magazine. The stylist, a curly-haired woman with smoker’s breath, told him that with his hair it wouldn’t quite look like the pictures, but she’d do her best. Get it as close as you can, he said. She did her best. In the end, he was left with a lop of poofy, thick hair atop skin-shaved temples. He used lots of gel.
He bought a henley sweater from the Gap, some chinos from Abercrombie, gray-and-white hybrid shoes from Skechers. He stored these clothes in his closet, saving them from wrinkle until the day of the reunion.
He wrote fictional dialogue, predicted retorts—Yes, I’ve changed a bit, America has widened my waist!—and practiced conversations in the mirror, noting his most flattering expressions, angles, and movements. In class, instead of taking notes, he wrote down memories, developing them into full-fledged anecdotes—adding humor, poignancy—reminding himself that once upon a time, many years past, he’d developed the life of a fictional superhero, and that that life had moved at least one person, Aran, his childhood friend.
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