Joseph Ramelo
In those early days, Hunter Point was a bantam uncial: shorter, rounder, and everyone called him ‘p’. Only his mother called him Peepee, but for him that was not a nickname, just an embarrassing secret. Anxious were the rare moments when the other kids visited him, but though his mother would call him by his given name, he was always on his toes — she might slip up, and his whole life would be ruined. He was forever Peepee to the world, even if the world actually knew of no such person.
The other kids couldn’t bear to call him Hunter. It was just too much for them. “Oooh, Hunter,” Sara Alderson would whine. “Are you hunting something today?”
“He thinks he’s better than us,” Andy accused. He was Sara’s younger brother, but they were both the same to p: one body, separated by bad breath. They became a blur whenever he came across them at school. p was an innocent who carried a red lunch box adorned with an image of a cartoon, the Pound Puppies. When Sara and Andy approached him, he was a cornered animal, eyes watering, puppyish frown.
His mother was not much taller than he, but she was a grown-up. She did grown-up things, like own a wallet, which contained money and little plastic cards that acted like money. She put gas in the car and, most important of all, she helped him when he was hungry: there was always food around somewhere, sometime. Most of the time, she made the food. The kitchen blossomed with smells of adobo, tinola, spaghetti and meatballs, fried chicken. When they were out shopping — pashal-pashal, in the other language — she bought food: McDonald’s, usually, but sometimes Burger King, Popeyes, Panda Express…
They came home. It was grocery day. p trudged along behind his mother. He was supposed to shut the door behind him but, against her wishes, had jumped into a task.
“Mommy, I cannot carry it anymore,” p said.
He was dragging a gallon of milk into the kitchen.
“Then don’t,” his mother said, solemnly. She raced to him, hands outstretched. But p was determined.
“No,” he cried, twisting away.
“What?” his mother demanded. She was confused. “I thought you said you can’t…”
All three and a half feet of him made its way to the refrigerator. He wasn’t even dragging the milk on the floor anymore.
“Be careful,” his mother said, tiredly. She was eager to finish her chore. “Here.”
“No!” p howled. His squeal had the potential to rattle the windows.
He grunted first, then let the milk drop to the floor. His mother made a heroic lunge at him, but p had a plan. The milk would not touch the floor for very long; he simply needed to set it down so that he had enough strength and balance to pull the refrigerator handle.
p grunted again. Now he cradled the milk and, on his toes, hefted it onto the top shelf. He afflicted the shelf like a guitar, the bars ringing with a kind of melody as they quaked, but they were thick and sturdy. He heaved his shoulders forward, made one final push, and then stumbled backward a bit, giggling as he gasped breathlessly.
He clapped his hands and leapt.
“See?” he beamed.
“Okay,” his mother said, unmoved. She went to close the fridge. “Good job.”
For many days, it was just the two of them: she and him, mother and child. They were also brother and sister when she was flattered by Uncles — the Mister kinds, not family.
“I cannot believe that this is your mother,” Uncle Manny said playfully. “She must be your sister.” p blushed then, a trip to the store that had been interrupted by this Uncle who wasn’t Daddy.
Life could be confusing. Uncle Manny was at home often, and when Daddy was back, Uncle Manny only visited on the weekends. The three of them were friends, and when Daddy was away, it was just Mommy and Uncle Manny. Sometimes, they left p at home.
“Just play with Trolio,” Mommy sweetly advised. “I’ll be back soon. If you’re hungry, just warm up the food.”
It was already prepared on the table, foil-wrapped, so that all p had to do was remove the foil and stick it in the microwave. In those days, he was already savvy, though to him the operation was suspiciously simple: all you did was press the keypad to input at least one minute or so, and the food would be hot. There didn’t seem anything impressive about it, even though he derived satisfaction from Mommy’s high regard for him.
Alone in front of the TV, p played with his doll. The stuffed troll had a flat nose and a wild mane of rainbow hair that had the feel of cotton candy but without the stickiness. It might have looked deranged, except that all p saw was a friendly smile, and the surface of the nose was either kissable or a pillowy thing on which he could rest his face.
p curled his legs onto the recliner and rocked back and forth. On TV, a familiar theme song was playing. It was about friendship, and in this case, the friendship between women who were aged fifty-something. Hearing the song made the solitude more bearable, especially since he was always alone on this night of the week. But at least Mommy always came back home by midnight, and she always let him stay up late until then.
Tonight was different, though. He had already seen this episode of the TV show. Something inside of him felt miserable. He clutched the doll, which loomed in size, and rested his head against the troll’s nose. It smiled indifferently, lifelessly. But it was soft, and it was all he had.
On TV, one of the harmless and familiar old women in the show made a joke, and the audience guffawed. p laughed too, of course, not understanding the joke but deriving comfort in it nonetheless.
“Nobody home,” he said to himself, singsong. “Nobody home…”
He fell asleep.
“Peepee?” Mommy said.
The troll’s nose was damp. p sucked in his drool and some snot but clung to the doll. He heard the familiar hum of the automatic garage door’s motor. On TV, the old women were replaced by newscasters.
Mommy smelled like flowers. p scratched aside the little pebbles in his eyes. Mommy was smiling very happily. Her face glowed. He reached for her, the troll landing on the ground with no thud, it was so soft. The TV was off.
p hung from Mommy’s neck. The smell of flowers was stronger on her shoulder, where he rested his head. His eyes easily drooped asleep, he was so profoundly tired, though he sensed his ascent up the stairs. His neck stretched a little, and his head dangled against Mommy’s shoulder.
“Where did you go?” he asked, yawning. It was the same question every week.
“Nowhere,” Mommy said. The answer was always delivered with the same, casual tone, as if she was telling the time. “Just with Uncle Manny.”
“Can I come, too?”
“Yeah. Next time.” It was always the same promise.
The next day, p worried again worried that Mommy might slip up.
“Oh, hello, Hakeem,” she announced at the door. Her English was good — she never confused words or meanings — but there was something about it that sounded so strained. It wasn’t enough that she had learned the language; she had to impress the kanos with how well she understood it, how much of a good job she was doing. Every syllable was stylized with heavy articulation. She even did this with Hakeem, who she secretly disapproved of.
“You shouldn’t be friends with him,” she had said and p, though he was young, understood why. And he was repulsed. He had ignored her for a week, until she made amends with a Super Nintendo console.
“Hay, Mrs. Point,” Hakeem said in his youthful drawl, tinged with an accent that was southern, but not quite. “Hi” sounded like “Hay”. It was the southern Maryland soundscape, the linguistic remix of a state caught in the flux of North and South, materializing as some mid-Atlantic purgatory.
Hakeem said, “Is p around?”
He was actually waiting at a close distance, down the little hallway away from the front door, in the kitchen nook. Theirs was a modest suburban house: a three-story carbon copy of a colonial style that was vaguely historic. The kitchen nook had thin fabric for curtains. p was hidden in sunlight, sheltered with one foot in the safety of home, the other foot longing to go out and play with Hakeem.
p made a hesitant approach. To his surprise, Mommy opened the door widely. Hakeem’s ebony face expanded with a welcoming grin. p’s heart raced with joy. It was time to play.
They bicycled, and then they kicked around a basketball because Hakeem’s mom had taken down the net after the last parent-teacher conference. For the rest of the afternoon, they rested curbside. Cars drove by with sleepy speed. In the distance, younger kids squealed. Dogs were barking. The same light that had blinded the kitchen nook had more room to disperse outdoors: Hakeem and p sat with their elbows to the pavement, sunning themselves. The rocky sharpness of the pavement was a pleasant, primal sort of massage.
“You’re too quiet,” Hakeem said to the sky, eyes closed.
“Huh?”
Hakeem clucked his teeth. “That ho Sara be all up in your face, motherfucker. You gots to stand up to her. Didn’t your daddy teach you?”
p was silent for a while.
“Oh,” Hakeem said, mournfully. “That’s right. Kwate.”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
p shrugged. He didn’t count anymore. He only looked forward to letters and phone calls, which he was starting to not look forward to anymore. He missed him at first, missed him enough to cry every night. But something was happening, something that didn’t have anything to do with Uncle Manny, who he still hated: Daddy wasn’t really Daddy anymore. He was gone so long that he was now just a memory, and p had no use for memories. He enjoyed TV because it was right in front of him. School was there every morning. And then there was Hakeem, who always came over to play. But Daddy was letters and phone calls — forgettable things.
“My daddy works in DC,” Hakeem said. “Always wears a suit. Comes home every day at the same time.”
p had averted himself, was no longer facing the sky, but turned to the side, eyes shut tightly. The basketball was locked beneath Hakeem’s foot.
“Sorry,” Hakeem said quietly. Then, with a sudden force, he kicked the basketball at p, who collapsed on impact. Hakeem guffawed as p skid his arm over the pavement. p’s face withered with the impact before he sat erect, absorbing the pain. The stinging burned for a little while, but then it was replaced by a weirdly frank numbness.
p winced when he turned the bottom of his arm to his face. Canals of flaky, broken skin were carved freshly over the affected area, which was flushed. Blood began to seep out. p shuddered.
“Whoah,” Hakeem said. His laughter dropped immediately. “I have band-aids in my house.”
p followed him automatically, as if they were linked by a congenital bridge of trust, but he was still pissed at him. p thought to himself: Jerk. But how he could vocalize the sentiment, especially now, when Hakeem was quickly making up for it — something that was his fault to begin with?
Hakeem’s house smelled of fresh home cooking. From the kitchen, his mother called out to them. “You boys eaten?”
“I’m eating at home, Auntie,” p explained graciously. Hakeem led him into the bathroom.
p harbored something that was resentment, though the word was still unfamiliar to him. It was a blocked sort of feeling, the sensation of constipation, and it was for his mother. Mommy was a sweet person. She cooked unconditionally, loved unconditionally. She gave gifts with no strings attached. She also stiffened whenever Hakeem came over, and she never made friends with his mother, who was all too happy to engage Filipino custom. “Oh, honey. None of that Mrs. Naples stuff,” she had said, laughing. “I know how it is with your people! Please, now — Auntie Lenora. Uh-huh,” she said when P had repeated the salutation, his boyish cheeks warm with bashfulness.
Hakeem rushed off as soon as he found the band-aids, hastily tossing the little box to p. The compassion of people only went so far.
p slowly opened the top of the box. He relished the noise it made, the contact of skin with paper, cardboard against cardboard. It was like opening a present. Daddy liked giving presents. The military kept him away, but that was his job. Mommy had explained as much: Daddy traveled, and he would be away for a long time. His returns were fleeting: fatherhood cameos. He was always flush with gifts. Birthdays and Christmases were best. Mommy got the Super Nintendo, but Daddy had brought the big teddy bear straight from Italy. He also let p run around the electronics department at the BX, trying out computers for nearly an hour, before settling on one that Daddy happily agreed to make monthly payments on. “My son is a genius in training,” he told the sales clerk. Daddy spoke better English than Mommy.
Unaware of the usefulness of hydrogen peroxide, a bottle of which was under the sink, p slapped a square bandage over his wound, then raced to Hakeem’s voice, which energetically summoned him.
“I’m puttin’ it up, I’m puttin’ it up,” Auntie Lenora called. She shuffled urgently to the front door, all Reebok walkers and Lee jeans. “p, you too! Come out here. But just for today, only because you’re here. Then the net goes down again, least ’til that boy gets his grades up.”
Mommy would expect him home soon, but she was probably waiting for Uncle Manny to call anyway, and cowering from the Naples for no good reason.
In Northfield, the honeycrisps were as miraculous as the dining hall. The room was high-ceilinged, sometimes drafty, and coated with rustic wooden interiors — smooth teak floorboards, rectangular oak dining tables. The kids called it the log cabin. In fact, the floor was often tracked with damp, crunchy snow. No one ever went home for Thanksgiving. Biwabik, with its rich slopes, was just three hours away.
Spitz was at his usual spot, a four-person table in a far corner of the hall, his back to the panoramic window that overlooked the raging Cannon. He bit into his apple, opened the notebook on the table, and scribbled words. Every day, this was where he wrote, where he crunched into the juicy apple reliably offered to him by Mark, the burly chef who whipped out delicious pastas, roasted chickens, baked eggplants, and peach pies. At this school, they were well fed.
Spitz turned that food into muscle. He stood at just a shade away from six feet. His broad shoulders and lean, unyielding build were betrayed by his face, which was impervious to age. Sometime in sophomore year, he had entered, then stayed, permanently, in a phase of letting his hair grow long, never past his shoulders, just enough coif to frame that youthful visage. He was a midwestern brat with far east ties, that black hair contrasting severely with his pale skin.
MTVu played in the background from strategically placed speakers, part of the school’s misaligned finger on the pulse of the student body. Spitz donned thick headsets over his wool cap. He drowned out whatever pop song radiated through the hall, so he didn’t notice Hakeem’s approach. The burly quarterback gave him the finger as he took a seat. Then they bumped fists.
Spitz slid back the headset as Hakeem turned a chair backward.
“More day old NPR?” Hakeem said. He chuckled softly, though the delicate action was enough to tremble his robust frame.
In response, Spitz held up the little grey device marked with the logo of its maker: CREATIVE. The disjointed angles of his teeth were prominent through his gummy smile.
“Why do you do that, man?” Hakeem said. “Day old news isn’t news anymore, my brother.”
“That’s what you think,” Spitz said, his voice crackling a little. Hakeem laughed at that, shaking his head. Hakeem’s speech had the presence of a man. Spitz, meanwhile, was suffering from some sort of indefinite puberty.
“You think that you’re up to date just because you know what’s going on right now, right this very minute?” Spitz challenged. “We’re so hell bent on keeping up to date that sometimes we don’t even know the date at all. Information overload doesn’t necessarily translate into information literacy. You ever think about that, man? How many people out there have asked you what today’s date is? I guarantee you those are the same people who start their sentences with—” and here, his voice dropped, drenched with mocking “—‘According to the Associated Press’ or ‘I read in the Times’…”
He coughed, clearing his throat, the bass effort too premature. “Just a bunch of name droppers, man. With no sense of place. No sense of self.”
Hakeem stared at him.
“What?” Spitz said at last.
“It’s the fifteenth,” Hakeem began, precisely. “According to the Star Tribune, the new Hiawatha Line is scheduled to open in seven months. They’re already engraving invitations. Okay, the last part was a wittily facetious commentary on my part, but it has its basis in reality. You see, man? You radicals are always generalizing everything for your agenda. Broad strokes cause fires, man.”
He fussed with his jersey, removing imaginary crumbs over his assigned number, 55. He swept his palm over the fabric, carefully eyeing each motion, pretending to tidy up.
“So, you see,” he said, looking up at Spitz, “I don’t have to be some lefty to have a sense of self.”
Spitz slouched, crossed his arms, nodding without conviction. “Lefty, huh? You mean left wing? Because, uh, ‘lefty’ could mean something else, too.”
He sat erect, then leaned over the table, coyly sliding his hand over the oak surface. Hakeem recoiled, palms up.
“Hey, man,” he said, finger at his forehead. “I keep an open mind. But not that open.”
“Oh? Are you homophobic?” Then Spitz urgently went for his notebook. He made dramatic strokes with the graphite. “Mister Naples, as the star quarterback and only hope for the remainder of an otherwise dismal season, are you really prepared to tell your collegiate community that you, sir, are a bigot?”
Hakeem stood with his chin angled sharply at him. “I got you, Spitz,” he said, backing away. “I got you.”
Spitz aimed the pencil at him. “Is that threat on the record, Mister Naples?”
Hakeem shook his head. “Man, I came here to do you a favor.” He dismissed him with a heavy wave, then turned away. “Later, Spitz.”
“Aw, come on.” He stood abruptly, the chair squealing in protest. “I’m just—”
“Gotcha,” Hakeem exclaimed, spinning around, dual fingers trained at Spitz. “You are so easy, radical boy.”
His chest jutted out and his hips swayed dramatically, a victorious strut. He swung his legs back around his chair.
“So, that Blue Blouse guy is coming to campus tomorrow with his little group,” Hakeem said discreetly. “That’s the word, anyway. It’s real hush-hush right now, you know what I’m saying? But I’m in the know, you know? So I’m telling you, because I know you wanna know, radical boy.”
Spitz sat still, pondering. A silence fell. Then he slowly nodded.
“What?” Hakeem said.
“What?” Spitz parrotted.
“You got this weird look. Like you’re planning to attack New York.”
Spitz widened his eyes. “That is so not okay, man.”
“You’re white and you have long hair. It happens.” He nodded sharply, pleased with himself.
Spitz shook his head. “Whatever.”
He was content to sit wordless until Hakeem got the hint. But defeat was quick.
“What?” Spitz exclaimed.
“Are you ever going to tell me what the hell you were thinking about just now, terrorist boy?”
Spitz sighed. “I was thinking about Point.”
“Huh?”
“The Blue Blouse guy!”
“Oh. Yeah.” Hakeem chuckled through another little body quake. “Pudgy little guy. But sweet.”
“Yeah?” Spitz grinned. “That your type?”
Hakeem nodded thoughtfully. His eyes stared off at some invisible attraction. “I do like meat on the bones. But a woman’s bones, sweety.” He slid a suggestive and apologetic hand toward Spitz. “Sorry.”
This time, it was Spitz who recoiled. “Get outta here.”
Hakeem stood and dug into a pocket of his jeans. He tossed a crumpled flyer onto the table. “I know him. Blue Blouse guy.” He threw his chin at Spitz. “We tight. Well, we were, when we were kids. We drifted apart in high school. You know? It happens. But he’s still my boy.”
Hakeem took two fingers and delicately slid the flyer over the table. The paper, worn and hastily shoved into his pants, slid gracelessly. Then Hakeem stepped backward, away. He rolled his hand into a fist. “Peace.”
Spitz was motionless as Hakeem strutted off. His lips puffed into a thoughtful frown and he continued sitting a while before he eyed the flyer and then, finally, reached for it.
He fell into the dark eyes of the Blue Blouse guy.
Point reminisced about the old colonial. Maryland was a far away memory, and even further was Accokeek, their little town. Gwynn Park High School. The ice rink on Tucker Road. These were sepia memories, at once timeless and ancient.
He inched toward the cheval mirror. His sides were roundly, but he had been good about his weight. That was according to Spitz, anyway. He was a good liar.
The ceiling of the bedroom was strung with incongruous crochet linings laid out by an artist friend. All of the material was black except for the blood red center. The vaginal focal point was supposed to be hilariously ironic, but the installation had been up for almost a year, and now it was falling apart, and anyway, Point had long since departed from those dogmatic days. He had a new agenda now: family.
Ma had spent years complaining about maintaining the old colonial. When one burst pipe was repaired, some appliance, sensing resolution, decided to end its own life. But the bitching and moaning was out of love; Ma was not ready to leave the house, even when Spitz offered the money. They were old fashioned, you see. Point and Spitz believed in progress, womens rights, minority rights, a vegan’s right to fake cheese that tasted like the real thing… but Point had resisted the money, at first.
“Okay, I’m your bride, but you don’t need to offer a dowry or anything,” he’d said.
“You really want to be my bride?” Spitz had asked. He couldn’t conceal his affection.
They were formally engaged by this time. Spitz was asking the question more in terms of context. Point was at once acknowledging and challenging an institution. There were rules to follow, but also, rules to ignore. Break. Rewrite. What rules?
In response, Point had taken Spitz’s hand. It was Point’s yes, his unspoken I do. Warmth and trust radiated from their palms. That was the true beginning of their engagement.
Spitz bought the Victorian in Noe Valley, but it wasn’t for them. They also lived in the city, but not there. It was a sacred space — a gift for Ma.
“Ma, can you handle this?” Point had asked. But she mostly muttered decorating ideas to herself. She had yet to thank Spitz. That sacred space, crosstown, would also be sacred sanity for the newlyweds.
Ma was not a beast; she would give her thanks, in time.
Point was still regarding his reflection. The glass saw only his form and some details from behind: a California King bed, plush with linens, overflowing with dimension; diamond-print wallpaper; carpeting in decadently upholstered red. All the major details upon the glass were from his body. Point stretched his hand to the glass, reaching for Spitz.
Spitz was installed in an adjoining cabin. This, too, was a superstition that Point cherished as tradition. It had been nearly two days since they saw each other. An eternity. Outside, the Santa Cruz sun was strong. Floral-print curtains diffused the light. The mirror was in a shadow that would soon be dissolved. Point stepped away, backing into the light.
From the door, a knock.
At 55, Ma’s hair flowed as dark and vibrantly as Point had ever known. Her face was sandy with age, but healthy and youthful. She stood modestly in the threshold, her palms crossed over her flat stomach. She did not regularly exercise, but weight wasn’t the battle that it was for her son. Age had widened her hips a little. She was elegant and simple in grey slacks and a peasant top laced with a pink bow at the center — the chosen uniform for the bridesmaids, the best men and ladies. Point had grown to favor order, counted on predictability. No more waiting.
“My, my,” Ma said. She had taken to picking up all sorts of expressions from her coworkers. It was a habit that Dad was also good at. For a while, they both said “Oh, my Lord” even after the simplest tasks. They didn’t say much else to each other.
“Tinola,” Ma would announce for dinner.
Daddy would sit, Ma patiently setting down plates and silverware, and he watched with something like gratitude, never dominance. Then came the slurping; Daddy was not very graceful, a little uncouth. He was sweet in a distant way. He was a presence, just there, never known.
“Sarap,” he would say. Delicious.
A patois of estranged marriage.
Ma’s smile was suddenly afflicted with concern. Or was it disapproval? She commanded a lifetime of mixed signals.
“Let me fix your hair, Peepee,” she said hurriedly. There was no time for Point to resist. Soon she was inside the room, fussing with his long locks, which curled naturally, like Dad’s hair. Point’s style also resembled that of his taller beloved — they were the couple that annoyed everyone by looking like they were related.
“When you were small, I always combed and combed your hair,” Ma said. Point felt sorry for her, but not in a pitying way. He was taller now, not really struggling to put milk in the fridge. He gently took hold of Ma’s wrist to pause her work: for her ease, he would sit on the edge of the bed and, for one more time, be her small boy.
“I grew up knowing that it would be better that way,” Ma said, resuming her task. “Straight hair. Light skin. That’s what I knew.”
She dropped her hands down against her thighs. She hunched slightly, peering at him, a prayerful stance of some sort. Her eyes shimmered as she regarded her son. She saw him now, taller than her, but also her small boy. She rewound to a history that was as fresh as yesterday, and then, abruptly, returned to the present. Her heartbeat grew anxious at the speed of a fast forward, which only revealed to her a pale fog of time’s passage, the accumulation of years, the uncertainty of change. Past, present, future — two generations trisected by the shades of time.
Ma smiled. She was capable of saying what was on her mind, but her heart raced anxiously. She was too scared of honesty, even if it was toward her child — the barest confrontation of all.
She reached for his hair and began again.
“It’s very scary when everything you know changes,” she said. She took a breath, speaking quietly, each follicle of hair a delicate journey. “When I met your dad, it was when I was on my own. Your grandpa, he kicked me out of the house. I was a daddy girl. Daddy’s little girl?”
Point nodded his understanding. “Daddy’s girl.”
“Yeah. Daddy’s girl. Until I was 17. And then he said, ‘Efi, it’s time for you to provide for the family, just like your brothers and sisters.’ You know, your Uncle Tomas became so rich in Hong Kong…”
Point listened and his smile was sincere. Ma rattled away the accomplishments of other Uncles and Aunties, the sibling variety, and then circled back to Uncle Tomas, who apparently liked hoarding his money.
“So your grandpa, he gave me three months to apply for school and find, you know, lodging,” Ma went on. “An apartment. I was so scared, Peepee. Oh, my Lord. But, thanks God, your Auntie Hilda let me stay with her. I went to school and I got my first job. I sold coconut juice.” She laughed, then broke away from Point’s hair to fold her hands and mimic the shape of a coconut. “You know, you had to put the straw in it? That straw was so thick, but it always broke. I couldn’t get it in there. My boss was this old man. He always yelled at me. Yelling and yelling, every day.”
Point stared in alarm, and secretly, he was excited to have a regular conversation with Ma. “Did he pay you?”
“Oh, yeah,” Ma said quickly. “Yeah, he was, you know, he was not bad. Not like that. He was just not nice. I didn’t like him. But yeah, he paid me. Yeah.” She was nodding quickly.
She yawned. Point knew this reaction, which he’d inherited. It happened when a moment got to be too profound, too much to process. Sleep is a defense mechanism, his therapist once explained.
Ma took a breath. Now, when she fiddled with Point’s hair, it was playfully, purposely messing up her prior work.
“That was a long time ago,” she said. Her voice carried with it the waves of time travel: she was a child, and then a scared young woman, a new mother, and now, giving away her son. Ma was a repository of life.
Point tried to picture her youth. It was not difficult to imagine the Philippines — he’d been there several times, as a kid, but the trips stopped when he got older. Ma would go alone, emphasizing that he wouldn’t like it anymore, part of her lifetime perception that his own life would best be served by growing up pristinely American. “It’s so dirty there,” she would say with a mixture of disdain and longing.
Point remembered the landscape: the dense expanse of primitive jungle at the edge of town, with its teeming markets of animal innards and balut, and the heat, oh, that sweltering and wet heat! But he could only come up with a white haze for Ma’s actual life. The picture was blank because he was never there. His life was after. Before could only belong to Ma.
“I was scared, Peepee,” she went on. “But I did what I had to do, you know. Like they say.”
She approached the bed, motioning that she wanted to sit next to her son. Point urgently slid aside.
“Sometimes I don’t think,” Ma said. “You know what I mean? I don’t want to think about things. I don’t want to, ah, examine them.”
Point’s own heart raced with anticipation. They didn’t share too many talks like this. He was almost thirty, had long since been an adult, or was supposed to be. In the mirror, his face was a betrayal of age.
He thought to himself that he ought to have done this sooner, that he should not have wasted time creating order in every other part of his life that didn’t involve Ma. Also, she wasn’t prone to speaking complicatedly. “Examine,” coming from her, was alien. Ma was old and new, the same Ma as always, and now being reborn, slowly. He now understood why she kept her distance from Spitz. Together, Point and Spitz had reconfigured her life, changed what she knew.
“But that’s your job,” Ma continued. “You know how to examine. You’re a writer. Right?” They shared a laugh. “But before you were a writer, you were my son. My one and only, and you always will be.”
She took a breath. “Maybe I should have had one more. Huh? What do you think?”
Point knew enough to not answer that question, so he just smiled shyly; only Ma could so effectively reduce him to boyhood.
“No,” she said, answering for herself, as she always did. “Then you might be different. You might not write, and I like my writing son.” She reached for his cheek and pulled a chunk between her thumb and finger, shaking him as he protested lightly. “Don’t think too much, Peepee. Let your history follow you. But don’t carry it.”
She stood up, her gaze modestly trained at the floor. In truth, she could not bare to face him, while all he could do was stare at her as she walked away.
“I’ll be outside,” she said. She tugged at the door, lingering in the threshold. “It’s such a nice day, Peepee. God is smiling.”
A silence followed that was so deep, it stung Point’s ears. When the door creaked open, he was ready to run to Ma for a sweeping embrace. But he stayed on the bed, dazed, as Spitz looked in. He was peeking, his forehead visible over the door, his pallid green eyes blinking unsurely — a little boy to Point’s hazily adult man.
“Look,” said Spitz, his voice muffled by the door. “I know that you want to be all traditional and—”
Point made a run for it, after all. He leapt off the bed and pulled the door open with such force that Spitz tumbled. Point caught him with a kiss.
“I wasn’t always sure about marrying you,” Point said. Their eyes locked. “I knew that I loved you, but I would also wonder if that was enough.”
Spitz’s jaw hung.
“…and now?” he said carefully.
“Yes.” Point nodded with finality. “I’m sure. I’ll marry you. I want to. I do.”
Spitz was hardly convinced. “Okay. So, wait. When you said yes the first time, were you, like, lying?”
Point heaved a robust sigh. His palms landed flat on Spitz’s shoulders — pat,pat,pat.
“I love you so much,” Point said babyishly. “You’re so tall and strong, yes you are!”
Then he was hurriedly brushing away imaginary dust from his dress shirt.
“I like your shirt,” Point said, his voice abruptly casual. “Target. Classy.”
Spitz was easy, a placid sort of college radical. His put away his confusion.
“Cream deli cream,” he said, grinning widely. Then he stretched out his arms, presenting himself. Damn, he was a handsome son of a bitch.
Point drew closer, bringing his hands around Spitz’s nape. Point stared into his eyes, oh, those damned eyes.
“Cream deli cream,” he whispered with conviction.
Later, the write-ups were clinical. Point and Spitz bypassed the tabloids and even the more respectable periodicals. Instead, they filtered themselves through the wires: Langley Spitz and Hunter Point have married. The private ceremony took place late Saturday afternoon at the Carmelita Cottages in Santa Cruz, California. Spitz recently earned the Nobel Prize in Literature for his memoir, The Radical In Your Kitchen. He is one of the youngest recipients of that award. Reports circulated that Point was also in the running, but that he had abruptly withdrawn his name. In a statement, Point had denied the possibility that he was ever nominated. “I don’t think so. The Committee doesn’t award lameness.”
Joseph Ramelo studied Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. For almost ten years, he has remained in the City by the Bay, where he regularly volunteers with local organizations such as LitQuake and the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. He has pursued continuing education courses with City College of San Francisco, where he studied queer literature, and creative writing refreshers at The Writing Salon. He recently attended the residency program at the Vermont Studio Center, where he began work on a novel entitled Baseball 2.0. Joe divides his time between San Francisco, Minneapolis, New York, Washington DC, and a curious ambiguity located at www.frogslife.net.