Bronson Gao

July 30 20XX

McKinley Highway

NOT NOWHERE II

I didn’t realize “how close” we were. Yeah, again, I guess you can’t appreciate where you’re at until it’s gone, and I mean places, people, things, anything you’ve ever thought.

I’m driving back home now. This is the same route I took that one night: 1:00 in the morning, smothered by the naked darkness, recalling Deadra’s collapsed form in the passenger seat, folded inward in spontaneous sleep.

七月十七日から十八日まで四時間ぐらい運転をしたり、日本語で考えたり、遊んだりした。From July seventeenth to eighteenth, I drove for roughly four hours, thought with Japanese, had fun, etc. A key drawback to community college is an absence of any Japanese language courses. I think I could do something in Chinese, and that would be the irony of my high school experience. At least I know some kanji.

At least I know some kanji. I was supposed to go to a state university, that’s a part I’ve been leaving out. For the convenience of my narrative, I’ll also mention that my dad didn’t serve long enough to pay for my college.

I’ll intensify that logic with the tidbit that my parents were poor, and are now less poor, but still lesser middle class assholes, hence why I’m myself. My dad is a slob. My mom spent her whole life in a village and had nothing. I sometimes wonder if she just married him to get the fuck out.

And that’s the tragedy of a son that looks just like the man you chose for freedom, and are paying the price for everyday. Chan looked just like you, spoke just like you, shared your sense of humor, your aspirations, Mom, all that generic shit.

China’s poverty was different then than it is now, in the nondescript, mythological past. Modern prosperity made it make sense for Chan to go back when he did, to assimilate into something he’d spent his whole life preparing for. And I can cite bullying—racially-suggested suppression—as the trauma of a second-generation immigrant; but as a kid, I still remember liking my nationhood as it was, being an American from nowhere in America. And now, all the money’s gone. We’re not goin’ nowhere. まだどこにも行けません。

But anyways, I’m back home. I didn’t speak to my parents; they were watching television. Their faces glow like radium painters for a watch company, poisonous work sitting there. It’s familiar disgust.

I carry my tote of mysterious personal items, my pandora’s box. I sheepishly took it from Betty’s hands, appreciating the weight. It was heavier than I expected. My imagination devolves into a tasteless wonder for what all would be “of interest” to me, Deadra’s underwear my image of moral terror, and primal impulse.

The grotesque becomes, but not as the image itself, but myself in its relation. I disgust myself the same way as had been you, Deadra: for seeing what I think, but do not choose to think.

There’s no underwear in the box, and I sigh in relief for what I don’t have to prevent myself from doing, not knowing if I could actually commit myself to it, not knowing how much of this is just fantasy. I reel back, disarming and breathing.

The horror returns when I look back in the box, making meaning for the six or seven composition notebooks stacked on top of each other. I feel a visual tremble, and put my eyes to everything else. There’s an old digital camera, a house key—a piece of paper with an address taped to it—a couple cds and books, and a few clothing items, for my shame.

And for my shame, I take out her Lazer Snake hoodie and just look at it. It feels grimy, matted in my fingers, and I now realize I never touched her, which was probably for the best. There’s something in the pocket.

I pull out the knife. It’s the same one in her right hand in my photo. Now in mine, I look longingly at the handle, blade folded inwards like she was in my car that day. I still see her thin fingers packed tight against it into a fist, a flair on the edge, eroding, draining into the water.