Chapter 88
Alex kept getting missed calls from his mom, and by Wednesday he figured it was time he returned them. He called her and she scolded him for staying so out of touch, then asked if he’d listened to her messages. He said no, why would I when I could just call you and have you tell me yourself? She got mad and informed Alex that his father was going to have an operation to remove a tumor on his prostate. She seemed blasé about it, which Alex recognized as her usual defense mechanism, removing herself emotionally from situations she didn’t want to be in. He hated when she did that.
She said she’d let him know how it went, but not to worry too much, because the doctors said it wasn’t anything too serious. Alex apologized and said he’d send a card. She said that would be a good idea.
It made Alex nervous talking to his mom because he still hadn’t gotten around to telling her about his being gay. He knew it was awful of him to have held this information back for so long, but he didn’t have a clue where to begin. Maybe today was the day. He thought this every time he talked to her, but never ended up having the balls to go through with it. What the hell is my problem?
That’s it, he thought. “Mom, I’m gay. Tell dad.”
“What?”
“Gay. I like men.”
“Well, I already knew that, honey.”
“Really?”
“Well, you never brought home a girl, for one thing. And there was that boy Daniel who used to come around, well, a lot. We all kind of figured.”
“So you’re not upset?”
“Of course not. What good would it do even if I was?”
“And dad?”
“I don’t think he’s too happy about it, but he’ll be fine. Alex, I have to go, it’s Kyoung on the other line.”
“All right, bye mom. Tell dad good luck with the operation.”
“I will. Bye, Alex.”
He hung up, worrying about his dad already. At least the coming out business was out of the way. He felt like a moron for not having had this conversation earlier. It was actually quite a weight off his shoulders, and he opted to celebrate by drinking something. Something alcoholic.
Andrew came home from work and went directly into the bathroom, saying he really needed to pee. Those five seconds were more than Alex had seen Andrew in the last couple of days. He’d been putting in more hours at work and trying to finish up his set of sculptures for the show or whatever, and it seemed like every spare second he had was spent going to the bar with Romy. Alex couldn’t complain, though; working from home guaranteed a certain amount of loneliness.
The toilet flushed and the sink ran and Andrew left the bathroom, wiping his wet hands on his shirt. He sighed and plopped down on the couch next to Alex, who was drinking a beer.
“God, what a day. I hate that motherfucking job sometimes.”
“Don’t you pull a Romy on me. I ain’t paying rent for all three of us.”
“Hey, now that you mention it…” Andrew began, scratching his chin thoughtfully. He turned on the TV and scoured the airwaves futilely for something half-decent to watch. He did three laps through the channels before settling on some kind of documentary about the
“There are few greater pleasures than the after-work cocktail hour,” Andrew said, raising his bottle in a toast. Alex returned the toast, feeling less lonely already.
A half hour later, Romy came over and she and Andrew disappeared into his bedroom. Typical.
Alex, never a fan of listening in on Andrew’s sexual activities, decided to take a walk. It wasn’t nearly as much fun to go walking now that he wasn’t a smoker, so in order to recall a little of that old pleasure, he brought along a joint. He walked around the neighborhood, passing trendy bistros and wine bars and hipster bars with Pabst Blue Ribbon emblems in the window. He came upon a café he hadn’t noticed before, but kept walking, promising himself he’d stop by for a coffee on the way back. Right now his mind was troubled for no good reason that he could figure out, and he wanted to walk it off a little before he did anything else.
He passed a string of Islamic general stores, the kind that sold religious paraphernalia, everything from books to traditional outfits to rows and rows of fragrances made physical in various incarnations. Alex had always been intrigued by the objects and buildings associated with organized religion, even though he didn’t agree with the religions themselves, having been an atheist since birth (save for one bizarre month in the fifth grade when he decided he wanted to convert to Judaism, an impulse which he was now incredibly grateful he never pursued). Therefore he’d always wanted to go into these shops, where Muslim women congregated and browsed the selections while the male shopkeepers looked on, but he figured he’d look out of place. This made him kind of sad. Strangely, he didn’t feel the same way when he shopped at the Islamic food markets nearby, but food has a way of bridging cultural divides.
Walking made Alex feel a little better, although he wasn’t any closer to figuring out what it was that was eating him in the first place. The news about his dad’s cancer hadn’t exactly put him in a sunshine mood, but it was something more than that. It was a feeling of futility that had been following him around since he didn’t know when. He had come to accept the meaninglessness of life a long time ago, as much as someone is able to accept it and still go on with life, but some days, like when the news of the war was bloodier than usual, or when he read the news at all, really, he would get a sick feeling, like no matter what he did to distract himself, the world was rotten from the inside out. He was getting the feeling that the heart of his life, the things he was always ignoring but which really constituted the truth of his existence, were fear and cowardice. He lived his life to avoid unpleasant days. And the basis of mental disease, they always say, is the refusal to suffer.
Now, you know that’s not true, he told himself. You could’ve taken the easy way out hundreds of times, and you didn’t.
He stopped by a used bookstore, a quaint little place that made him feel cultured by osmosis. He looked at the books in the clearance shelves outside, and came across a biography of Imelda Marcos, who he’d always loved. As he looked at the pictures of her in the picture section at the middle of the book, he remembered that he didn’t have it that bad, at least not compared to this poor woman, and suddenly he started to feel better.
He put the book back, as he didn’t have enough money for a book and a cup of coffee, and he desperately needed the coffee. He’d been boozing it up an awful lot lately, and in order to curb that habit a bit, he was trying to replace alcohol with coffee at least once a day.
As he watched the café patrons typing away on their laptops (what were they always so busily writing? College papers? First novels? Suicide notes?), he ate some kind of brownie with candy on top and drank the biggest-sized coffee. He knew he’d be getting the craps soon, but hopefully he could get home before it hit.
He read a newspaper someone had left lying around, but idly, devoting more of his attention to a bickering couple seated nearby. They were fighting quietly but seriously, and it looked bad. He suddenly felt glad to be single, and his mood improved even more.
