The Leavers Page 3
After years away, he was shocked at how many people there were in Chinatown, streets in places he couldn’t remember, storefronts packed upon storefronts. Being surrounded by other Chinese people had become so strange. In high school, kids said they never thought of him as Asian or Roland as Mexican, like it was a compliment. He wasn’t that Chinese-or-Japanese-or-Korean-or-whatever kid with the professor parents but the guy who played guitar, who was in all those bands, who scowled in the back rows of Honors classes but always passed (everyone assumed, despite his test scores, that he was great at math). At Potsdam there had been a few other Asian students in his lecture classes, exchange students that clumped together or other lone wolves he’d see at parties surrounded by their own non-Asian friends. He avoided them; it was mutual. But he wasn’t at Potsdam anymore. There was only the city and its long, Lost Weekend: dancing at a party on a barge; a cab ride over the Williamsburg Bridge with Manhattan shining in the distance, five of them crushed into the backseat, a random girl on his lap, Roland in the front gabbing to the driver about intestinal flora or mushroom foraging; watching A Clockwork Orange late at night and stepping out into a Saturday sunrise. Nights like these, the past and present and future rolled out in a sugary wave, everyone he’d ever known riding alongside him on a merry-go-round to a soundtrack of whistling calliopes.
He tripped over his shoelace and bent down to retie it. Was all that gone, after tonight? Maybe there wasn’t so much to lose. There were mornings he would wake up on Roland’s couch, another solitary day stretching out in front of him, and he would trudge around in the cold for hours, not wanting to go back to the empty apartment, convinced he had made a fatal mistake. And now he had. He’d messed up in front of the people he longed to impress.
He rubbed the goose bumps that had formed on his arms, teeth chattering, and passed a cell phone store with signs in Chinese taped to the windows. Junior year of high school, he had seen a Chinese woman in the Littletown Mall. Thin, with permed hair, gripping plastic bags with the handles twisted around each other. She’d honed in; there was no hiding his face, and when she spoke he understood her Mandarin. She was lost. Could he help? She needed to make a phone call, find a bus. Her face was scared and anxious. Two teenage boys, pale and gangly, had watched and mimicked her accent, and Daniel had said, in English, “I can’t speak Chinese.” Afterwards, he tried to forget the woman, because when he did think of her, he felt a deep, cavernous loneliness.
He thought of her now, wishing he had his headphones, wanting a song to soothe him, noise and a smoke to blot out the night. A man, in the kind of glossy puffer coat Daniel remembered seeing crammed on the racks of Fordham Road, eyed him, curious. “What are you looking at?” he shouted at the man’s back.
His phone buzzed. A text from Roland: you ok?? He checked his e-mail. There were messages from music mailing lists, an article on unemployment rates and college degrees forwarded from his parents that he erased without reading. There was the message from a Michael Chen, the one he had received more than two months ago, which he still hadn’t replied to but hadn’t deleted either. Instead he read it again, then closed it, keeping the words simmering inside him at a near constant boil:
Hi Daniel,
I’m looking for a Daniel Wilkinson who used to be named Deming Guo. Is this you?
HI!! It’s Michael. You and your mom used to live with me and my mom and my Uncle Leon in the Bronx. My mother got married a few years ago and I live with her and my stepfather in Brooklyn. I’m a sophomore at Columbia.
I know we haven’t talked in years but if this is the right Daniel, can you write me or call me at 646-795-3460? It’s important. It’s about your mother.
If this is the wrong Daniel Wilkinson, can you let me know too so I don’t bother you again?
Hope to hear from you soon!
Michael Chen
“Fuck,” he said. “Motherfucker.” As if Michael and Leon and Vivian could come back ten years later, as if all of a sudden he mattered to them. They’d let him go, given him away. He couldn’t think of anything Michael could tell him about his mother that he wanted to know. Wherever she was, she was long gone.
He turned his phone off and walked uptown. His hiking boots chomped at the pavement. Crossing Canal, he stepped into a puddle and felt liquid splash the back of his jeans. He would never sell someone out like that. He wouldn’t quit or disappear, not like his mother or Leon. He’d go back to the apartment and apologize to Roland, learn all the songs, play until his fingers were sore, practice until he was absolved and good again, until he was perfect.
“I DON’T KNOW WHY they have to make this menu so hard to read.” Peter squinted at the jagged lettering, which was printed to look like handwriting. His legs hit the underside of the table and the silverware jumped. “And this chair. It’s sized for an infant.”
The waitress, who had a chunky nose ring between her nostrils, was already shouting over the jazz standards, but Peter asked her to repeat the brunch specials as Kay asked questions about the dishes. Is lemon curd very sour? I don’t like sour. What are pepitas? What is LaFrieda beef, why do they have to name the cow? The floppy velvet cushion on Daniel’s chair kept sliding out beneath him, and he bunched up the fabric, tucking it under his knees.
Daniel’s parents were in the same sort of clothes they’d been wearing for as long as he had known them, Peter in his rumpled khakis and earth-tone cardigan, Kay in her pastel turtleneck and wide-wale corduroys. After ten years he had stopped noticing how different they looked from him, but he hadn’t seen them in two months, had been working and riding the subway and walking the streets with all kinds of people, and now they were the ones who seemed different—quieter, diminished, out of touch. This role reversal was unexpectedly fulfilling.
“Controversy’s brewing at the college,” Kay said. “Excuse the coffee pun.”
Daniel drained his cup. “At Carlough?”
“The minority students have been protesting.” Peter placed a hard emphasis on minority. “They want the administration to establish an Ethnic Studies department.”
“So what’s wrong with that?”
“Well, it’s not that we don’t agree with them,” Kay said. “I mean, we do value diversity.”
“But the level of vitriol,” Peter said. “Frankly, it’s not helping their cause. I’ve had students walk out of my lectures. It’s simply disruptive.”
“It’s the white students, too, of course,” Kay added. “All this focus on trigger warnings, political correctness. I’m afraid we’re breeding a generation of coddled children. I’d like to think that we’ve raised you to not have that sort of entitlement, Daniel.”
“Of course, Mom.”
The waitress returned with their food and Peter ordered a coffee refill. Kay removed the teabag from her cup and pressed it against her spoon. Neither of them taught on Fridays, and they had gotten up at six in the morning to drive five hours to the city, planning to drive home right after lunch, refusing Daniel’s offer to stay the night in Roland’s apartment. “We are not sleeping on Roland Fuentes’ sofa,” Peter had said, as if the mere suggestion was absurd.
“Another coffee for me, too, please. And water.” Daniel had chugged two glasses of water when he woke up, but his mouth was still dry.
Kay studied him. “Were you out late last night? Did you just get up?”
He shook his head.
“Sure. Like I remember you getting up at the crack of dawn over summer vacation.”
“You know me,” Daniel said. “I like to rise with the sun.”
“Get a head start on the farm, right?”
Peter stirred sugar into his coffee. “How is Roland doing these days?”
When Daniel had woken up, forty minutes ago, after a few hours of negligible sleep, his coat was folded at the foot of the couch and Roland’s bedroom door was closed. They hadn’t seen each other since he had run out of the show.
He spoke through his teeth, tilting his sentences upwards.
“Great! We played a show last night.” As he cut his omelet, his elbow bumped against Kay’s.
“Last night. Was it in a bar?”
“Mom. I haven’t been doing anything. A beer or two now and then.”
“You know what they say, temptations can lead to relapses. You should be at home with us, going to meetings—you are going to meetings, aren’t you?”
She asked him the same thing each time they spoke, and he always lied. “The one near Roland’s place. I told you about it.”
He’d seen the letter that had arrived from the dean at the end of last semester, the bold print detailing the terms of his academic dismissal. After his spring semester GPA fell to a 1.9, the school had put him on probation, and in October, he stopped going to classes. Peter had installed blocking software on Daniel’s laptop, though the poker sites had already banned him after he overdrew too many accounts.
His knee knocked against the table, sloshing Kay’s tea out of its cup, and Peter watched as he mopped the liquid with his napkin. “I’m doing good here. I’m making decent money at my job, not using my credit card, and Roland’s roommate is moving out in May so I’m going to take his bedroom. It’s not like Potsdam, where there’s nothing to do. I’m too busy to get distracted by that stuff here.”
“Nothing to do in Potsdam, he says.” Peter huffed. “It’s school. You’re supposed be studying, that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. Not all this—stuff.”
“I don’t know,” Kay said. “These addictions, I’ve been reading about it, they go beyond self-policing, and New York City is so full of temptations.”
“Trust me, Mom.”
“There are bad elements everywhere, yes, but there are more people in New York City, more chances to run into bad elements.”
“Working in a Mexican restaurant like a common laborer,” Peter said.
“Don’t be racist,” Daniel said.
“What, it’s racist now to say Mexican? Well, you serve tacos and refried beans. If that’s not Mexican, I don’t know what is. Call a spade a spade.”
“A spade? Are you serious? The owners are rich and white, so you have nothing to be worried about. All kinds of people work there, all races and ages. Why, I even have an Indian co-worker who’s at FIT, and a Black co-worker who’s going to NYU. And the owners didn’t go to college and they’re fucking millionaires. I haven’t met them because they don’t even live in New York. One guy lives in a tree house in Washington state, his brother’s surfing in Costa Rica, and the other guy’s in Berlin.”
Peter said nothing, scooped up forkfuls of eggs benedict.
“Daniel,” Kay said. “Don’t talk to your father like that.”
“Enough of this,” Peter said. “No more beating around the bush. We didn’t drive five hours to listen to his sarcasm.”
“We have good news,” Kay said. “Great news. Carlough College is willing to take you as a student, starting this summer. You can make up the credits you missed. It’ll be on a provisionary basis, of course.”
Peter and Kay had wanted Daniel to go to Carlough, where they could get him a faculty tuition cut, but had relented to his choice of SUNY Potsdam as long as he promised not to take music classes. His financial aid and work-study income had been enough to cover tuition when his grades were decent, and Potsdam had been far enough upstate that Daniel could hide out, not be solely known as Roland’s friend.
“But I’m here now. I have a place to live.”
“Roland’s sofa is not a place to live,” Peter said.
Daniel took a long sip of water. “I don’t want to go to Carlough.”
“You should have thought of that before you got expelled from Potsdam.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to be here.”
“Your mother and I have put ourselves on the line for you. We succeeded at getting you into Carlough despite the misgivings of the dean, which were, honestly, quite warranted. She saw the dismissal, your transcript. We had to bend over backwards to convince her you deserved another chance. Your ingratitude is simply astounding.”
Kay placed her palm on Daniel’s wrist. “I know it’s been a difficult time. But you cannot quit after two years of college. What are you going to do without a degree?”
“Play music.”
“Play music!” A flush spread across Peter’s forehead. “Don’t be foolish. Is music going to pay your rent, buy your groceries?”
Peter had been saying the same thing since Daniel was twelve years old. “Roland didn’t finish college and he’s doing fine,” Daniel said, neglecting to mention that Roland was taking business classes at night. “His roommate Adrian’s in his third year of college and already has a hundred thousand dollars in student loans.”
“This is madness.” Kay rummaged through her tote bag, removed a bundle of papers, and passed them to Daniel.
“March 15,” Peter said. “Three weeks away. That is the deadline for you to fill out this application in order to matriculate at Carlough for the summer. The website for the online form is printed out here. I would write the statement of purpose for you myself if it wasn’t ethically wrong. Don’t think I haven’t considered it. But do not mistake this for a choice.”
Peter had already filled out the first page with Daniel’s name and their address in Ridgeborough. Daniel folded the forms and put them in his pocket.
“What if I enroll in Carlough in the fall, or transfer to a school in the city? There are more job opportunities here, networking opportunities. I need a few months off. When I do go back to school, I’ll be healthy. Focused.”
“I don’t think so,” Kay said.
“One semester off is already too much,” Peter said. “You’re in danger of falling behind. Now, if it were up to me, we would be taking you home with us after this meal. But your mother seems to believe that you can take care of yourself.”
“Well—” Kay said.
“I am. You have nothing to worry about.”
“We’ll get the forms from you next weekend. A copy of your statement of purpose. And after that, you will send us a confirmation of your submitted application.”
“Next weekend?”
“We’ll be in the city again,” Kay said. “Jim Hennings is turning sixty and having a party on Saturday night. Angel will be there. You’ll join us, of course.”
Daniel’s muscles contracted. So Angel hadn’t gone to Nepal. If they were still friends, if she was still talking to him, he would tell her about Michael’s e-mail, about Peter’s accusation of ingratitude, how torn he felt between anger and indebtedness. If only Peter and Kay knew how much he wanted their approval, how he feared disappointing them like he’d disappointed his mother. Angel had once told him that she felt like she owed her parents. “But we can’t make ourselves miserable because we think it’ll make them happy,” she had said. “That’s a screwed up way to live.” Daniel had known her since they were kids, but their long, insomniac phone calls had only started last spring, and for most of last year she had been his greatest consolation. Her sincerity was contagious, and he liked hearing about her friends and crushes, her plans for the summer, the classes she liked and the ones she didn’t, how living in the Midwest was calmer and quieter than Manhattan—sometimes the silence still spooked her—but God, she would kill for a decent slice of pizza, a lamb shawarma in a pita.
Kay motioned to the waitress for the check. “We love you. We want the best for you. I know it doesn’t seem like that right now, but we do.”
“He’ll see it someday.” Peter pushed his chair away from the table. “Where’s the bathroom?”
Daniel watched Peter walk across the restaurant, a new stiffness in his shoulders and legs. Guilt sank through him; they wanted him to succeed in the ways that were important to them because it would mean that they had succeeded, too. Roland had been too busy to talk to him for a year, but Kay and Peter called each week. How could he hurt them more than he already had? He could never return Michael’s e-mail.
AFTER A SEVEN-HOUR SHIFT at Tres Locos, Daniel’s wrists were sore from bean scooping, pepper chopping, and burrito wrapping. On Roland’s kitchen table was an empty box for a Neumann microphone, and Daniel picked up the receipt and let out a low whistle. The mic had cost two thousand bucks. He removed the Carlough College forms, now crumpled after being in his pocket, and left them on the counter.
The couch pulled out into a bed where he slept, his backpack and guitars stashed at its feet. Roland’s roommate Adrian was either working or at school or at his girlfriend’s place, and Roland was mostly out as well, taking classes, transporting art, working on a construction crew for gallery installations, modeling for a designer friend, helping friends in other bands. Daniel sank onto the couch and took his guitar out. Despite his sore wrists, he wanted to work on a song.
He heard keys in the door, and before he could put his guitar away, Roland came in. “What are you playing?”
“Just fooling around,” Daniel said.
They looked at each other. “Listen.” Roland shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I want you to know I’m not mad or anything.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“We’d barely practiced.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Come listen to something I did today.”
Daniel sat on Roland’s bed as Roland opened Pro Tools on his computer. A line trickled out, Roland’s voice, a Psychic Hearts song. Roland pressed a button. It was the same line, but altered with plug-in effects to sound scratched up, scuzzified. Daniel didn’t get it. It was using cheesy CGI effects in a historical film, a bad vintage photo filter.
“Hutch, the Jupiter booker, is into this shit,” Roland said. “After you left last night, I ended up talking to him about the bands he’s worked with. You know he helped Jane Rust blow up, right? And Terraria. Brutal percussion, guitars in overdrive. Now they’re huge. I’m thinking Psychic Hearts should go in this direction.”