time periods

here are the time periods/places i am considering: 1926 - new york city - a diner --> the front steps of a brownstone in the east 60s --> the bathroom of an apartment --> a train station --> a train station bathroom 1940 - los angeles - walking along the side of a road slightly outside the city itself --> in a drug store looking for something --> in a sprawling mansion chasing an errant dog --> by the beach 1959 - chicago - getting hit over the head with a mallet in a grocery store --> riding the elevated train and encountering a bum --> getting stopped by a police officer while walking through a nice residential neighborhood 1963 - dallas, texas - a fruitless search for nachos --> peeing in a sink at the local high school --> getting lost in an office building --> scaring residents of an apartment complex --> making fun of jfk at a drive-in movie 1974 - any college campus - sitting in the university library --> walking around the grounds drunk --> drinking more in the woods --> waking up somewhere (revise this later) 1988 - new jersey --> a dentists office on the eve of the NKOTB concert --> at a large shopping mall --> in the arcade --> on the bus to the city --> in an office building --> getting mugged outside the office building 1995 - outside emporia, kansas - doing absolutely nothing --> smoking crack and trying to recite spice girls songs verbatim --> calling random numbers with a pay phone --> rappin with some white boys at mcdonald's 2001 - bethesda, maryland - eating crab cakes on a front porch --> stuck in traffic for an hour on the beltway --> cooking mac and cheese in a fire station's kitchen --> drinking cough syrup in a GAP while looking for socks

the time i spend

looking out over the city and there's a sky that reminds me of a color from a crayon box when i was small.

or maybe it's a similar sky that i looked out upon when i was young, when i had feelings coursing through me instead of these same dissatisfied thoughts repeating on an infinite loop.

or maybe it's a sensation that made sense to me once; a realization. now i feel like everything's been realized.

walk down and a street and i always think of a particular scent.

listen to a record and i can hear her voice again.

that particular sunset that goes with that tv show we used to watch.

i see in reruns.

it's all on the back of the shelf now.

but what i'm trying to do is take it down once in a while.

and maybe i can pretend it's new again.

or at least try to remember what it was like when it was.

why do you disappear

i had done it once again.

a vague memory of buying another 12-pack at the publix by phillips park. no memory of what the note said.

no memory of even leaving the note until some time later on saturday, useless in bed, watching the high clouds drift by. suddenly the memory of scrawling it out whilst sitting at a bus stop.

and now here i had found what could only have been a rough draft of the note i left. it was addressed to her, it was from the same pen in my jacket pocket.

the time it does go away with the speed of foolishness

i diverged from our plan due mostly to the sycophancy of footmen

suburban station: america's jungle

i trust you are well. please respond

this didn't even sound like me.

i remembered when miami held a promise to us.

now miami was an endless sprawl of pastel and stucco mediocrity.

every new towering crane mocked my failure.

every oppressive evening put sweat on my cheeks when i was too proud to cry.

staring at the cruise liners sat staunchly in the port. remembering the afternoon we moved the furniture in, before the electricity had been turned on.

later i took her to a small cafe with a backyard ringed in tall bamboo.

we sat under a cloudless evening sky as planes descended overhead.

certain we'd found our shangri-la.

her smile lit softly from above like a painting at the end of a dim museum hallway.

and me sitting there, entranced with everything.

the clinking of flatware suddenly distant.

fever dream

you were like a downed power line, i was afraid of you so i kept my distance but i hung back in the shadows waiting to see someone else get hurt. but they stayed away, too.

you were like a deep cut from a kitchen knife. i was trying to create something both of us could share. vivid, alive when it happened. now, decades later i can see a faint reminder but the skin has been shed and replaced many times over.

evening in spring, 1994. you are getting dressed.

browsing the devices you use to look more beautiful. you don't need them, i think.

we're going to be late, i say.

my hair needs to dry, you say.

just blow dry it, i say.

do you have any idea what would happen if i used a hair dryer on my hair?, you said.

actually ______, i have no idea at all what would happen, i said.

but i was smiling. and you were, as well.

in a hurry to be adult but doing a better job of it than i am now.

in photographs your hair looks different now.

who is this man who made you change it?

a song comes on the radio that reminds me of you.

i can't recall ever hearing you sing. i can't recall even hearing you listen to music.

still, i shut the door and sing along.

tram to croydon

you realize, gliding along with a buzz behind backs of buildings, sat next to your 70-something father--no spring chicken yourself--that there is no need for a time machine. time has a way of speeding itself up and slowing itself down all its own.

a grey sky hangs over south london as your carriage fills with more and more people, people of all ages, destined for all corners of the metropolis but mostly for the sales and shopping in the town center. you are on your way to meet your father's old friend and his family, unseen for 30+ years. a reunion long in the making.

you look at yourself in the reflection of the plexiglass barrier by the carriage doors. you will always look the same to yourself, or close enough to sameness; it is the natural result of living in one's own skin. you look down at your jeans and slip-on loafers. perhaps not what you'd have worn a decade ago but nothing extreme sartorially speaking.

life is different. a sea change of sorts which began in your late 20s reached full steam around 31 and has bottomed out now in an attitude of calm acceptance of your life and that which it contains. there is no more uncertain yearning or trepidation; you have a pretty good read now on yourself and others. your bullshit meter is well calibrated, or at the very least you have shed the desire to please everyone all of the time. now, it doesn't really matter as long as the money comes in and the vague part of your mind that understands acceptance or pleasure is minimally stimulated.

which is not to say you don't enjoy things or seek pleasure. another benefit of these times is your clarified understanding of what you want. all those days and hours in your 20s spent in bars, dreaming of an alternate life, of achieving what you thought inevitable. it makes you want to spit in mild disgust. there was nothing very difficult about achievement. there was no barrier all along. it was all in your mind. the tram's buzzing ceases and you slowly ease into the station at mitcham junction.

but you can't blame your 20-something self. he knew no better, he was only living with what he had. it becomes your mantra in your new enlightened period. everyone is just trying to get by the way they know how. you had heard a self-help guru say it on a public television fundraiser and it resonated with you. perhaps the younger you would have dismissed the source and spewed some sort of indignance at the simplicity of the statement; these days you will take anything if it looks good enough on first inspection.

at long last, east croydon and you alight into the breezy cold. the clouds have disappeared and a robin's egg sky flecked with white billows extends infinitely above. you ask your father who to look out for but before the words finish he has spotted his old mate. they embrace and soon you are in a minivan on your way to sutton for dinner.

after a long evening of drinking champagne and presenting a succinct and carefully edited version of yourself to new faces, you settle back into bed in hanger lane. as your father brushes his teeth, you ask him what it was like to alight from the tram and suddenly see your best friend for the first time in 35 years. who was once a tall, striking young brit abroad was suddenly before you now an old man hunched in tweed and sporting a churchillian visage.

"hmm. it was different, that's for sure," he remarks. the thought doesn't seem to bother him. you don't yet know what 35 years feel like. perhaps at your father's age, it is enough time to understand that all things will change, all things will transform immensely. whatever remains will be celebrated, not scrutinized. but to you, at age 32, it all seems scary and surreal.

you look outside before switching off the lights. dark clouds have once again formed above. there is no moon to illuminate the cottages behind the hotel. london sits under a late evening gloom, as it has for centuries.

Translated from the Hmong by Kobe Bryant

clean

i had a dream there, on the sofa, that he walked in through the door. not what i expected, some rather non-descript asian kid in a white hanes shirt with a buzzed haircut. everyone acknowledged him with just the minimal amount of effort required to be polite and off he went down the hallway. i awoke to the white square of brightness in front of me, the sunlit blinds, a sliver of baby blue let me know the rain had finally moved on.

'there is no asian kid,' i thought, relieved. 'there's still no one.'

no, you're still an island, you haven't let anyone in. i sit in the airport and i wonder if you ever will. i see people on tv who look like you and something inside of me cringes, or contracts automatically, and though it's painless i can still feel it. i stand in the crowded awning of a restaurant as the rain pours down and someone sitting nearby has hair close to yours. close but just not it. i've never seen anyone match the shine.

it goes on like this, laying on the sofa. i can hear you laughing in your room, speaking on the telephone to someone. you always hear the descriptions of such a thing as "a stab in the heart" but it's not, at least not for me. it's more like cool water washing over your face minutes before you drown. you haven't lost control just yet, you're still trying to assess the situation. you're still oblivious.

so i sit upright and light a cigarette. i can't spend all morning listening to this. i'll go insane. i leave and walk past the cigarette butts in front of the strip club and the wet newspapers laid out in a grid where the homeless man slept the evening before, before the rains moved in and soaked everything.

there was the afternoon we sat in the back and petted that rambunctious dog, where our fingers brushed against each other's and you looked at me in that way you have, where it's like you're trying to figure something out or remember an old quote, and then it just dissolves into a smile. i remember sitting there in the nascent spring sunshine and realizing that finally i've gotten it, i've done something worthwhile, that this darkness has lifted.

i meet my friend for lunch. we sit and i chainsmoke. he asks how things are going with us and i'm not afraid to tell him it's all fucked. after our sandwiches we hike up to the hills, me out of breath and him in sunglasses. we reach the top and there it all is, spread out to the sea.

"the rain came through and cleaned all the air up," he says. i nod and i think if i try hard enough, i can see your house from here.

instructions in french

this goes out to premium economy class on airliners.

this goes out to steering wheels on the right side of the car's passenger compartment.

this goes out to balmy evenings that defy the season.

this goes out to recessed lighting at dinner on a weekend.

this goes out to police in manhattan.

this goes out to a windy sunday afternoon, she said "take me home" with her pink, woolen arms crossed.

this goes out to waiting in the tomb-like light of the cineplex corridor, for no one.

this goes out to sitting alone in the cabin as the descent begins; upright and alert, perhaps a bit melancholy.

this goes out to understatement.