Brian called from Shanghai and asked if I had time.
'For you I always have time,' I said.
A few days later Brian hopped on an overnight train and came into town with a backpack. By the time we met in the evening, I had been up for 30 hours from work, procrastination, my mental clock ticking too fast or too slow through my thoughts. I had my glasses with grey lens on and wet hair. My hair is almost down to my waist now that I have not had it cut in a year, from around the time Brian and I first met at a sidewalk cafe. Blue lights and an old trumpet on the table.
Brian flung his arms around me at a bus stop in my neighborhood. 'How's it going?'
I shook my head.
We walked along the streets that suddenly seemed empty.
***
Last year Brian was in HK for a while for work--he is an artist and designer from Australia. We spent our days listening to music in his home, where he showed me his sketches and paintings and rare, pirated DVDS he collected in HK and China. Brian has this nervous habit of spreading his artworks all over the table so he can move them, half an inch at a time, to their rightful places and relations with one another as if they were a deck of fortune telling cards. The predictions are always of fright, of abrupt endings--Brian is colorblind and uses conflicting, overtly bright colors.
I gave him a blank stare sometimes when he turned to me, seeking an answer, his sketches and paintings hovering in the air like ghosts.
'You're so honest,' he said. 'Most people try to hide it when they don't like my work.'
I could not help it--when Brian sees a door opening in music, in hope, in love, I see death.
***
On some days we went to the beach to hide our tears. We were both heartsick over someone we could not be with, which made us best friends in misery. When I bobbed up and down to watch people, Brian was breaking splits in the rip curls and his face shimmered in the faces of breakers. His long feet slapped the water and he turned like the tail of a large dolphin, a big shape moving deep beneath me. I turned to backstroke my way to the shore, my eyes burning in tears and salt and sun.
We had ice-cream cones like children did.
At night we went to jazz gigs, sat around the back alley outside the bar, chatted with gay men. Or we sat outside the sidewalk cafe where we first met and talked like broken records.
It'll pass, we would say to each other. One day it won't matter anymore. But it did and it still does, every time.
***
This year Brian had to settle some banking business in HK once his schedule opened up. He had sent me an anti-evil eye bracelet which he ordered from Greece--there was a jealous, back-stabbing bitch in my workplace and Brian has an imagination--for my birthday before that phone call. He knew I was having a bit of a rough time, so he figured he would come by to see me. We ended up at the balcony of a British bar/restaurant.
I leaned back in the chair and covered half of my face with my hair.
'Don't be so hard on yourself. You don't know what people think and feel after a while.'
'That's you and me, Brian. We leave things behind. Most people hold grudges.'
'That's true...but that's because we fuck off a lot.'
'Do we have a choice if someone doesn't like us enough to begin with?'
'I guess we don't.'
***
On his last night in town I saw Brian to the train station. For a moment I hesitated to hug him goodbye. Brian knows this one thing about me: whenever I have gone through an emotional time with someone I like, be it a friend or a lover, I look at them in my mind as if I would never see them again. I would kiss or hold them for a moment too long because I am fighting the urge to cry. Then I flip the switch, let go and send them off while I am still in that zone where losing them forever is a reality I could deal with. With people who know me well, I look at them and wait. With Brian it was a bit of a problem: he is just like me when it comes to saying goodbye.
'I wrote a flash story for you after you called.'
'I'll read it when I'm back in Shanghai...Let's hope we can catch up again this year.'
We hugged and we were children all over again.
'For you I always have time,' I said.
A few days later Brian hopped on an overnight train and came into town with a backpack. By the time we met in the evening, I had been up for 30 hours from work, procrastination, my mental clock ticking too fast or too slow through my thoughts. I had my glasses with grey lens on and wet hair. My hair is almost down to my waist now that I have not had it cut in a year, from around the time Brian and I first met at a sidewalk cafe. Blue lights and an old trumpet on the table.
Brian flung his arms around me at a bus stop in my neighborhood. 'How's it going?'
I shook my head.
We walked along the streets that suddenly seemed empty.
***
Last year Brian was in HK for a while for work--he is an artist and designer from Australia. We spent our days listening to music in his home, where he showed me his sketches and paintings and rare, pirated DVDS he collected in HK and China. Brian has this nervous habit of spreading his artworks all over the table so he can move them, half an inch at a time, to their rightful places and relations with one another as if they were a deck of fortune telling cards. The predictions are always of fright, of abrupt endings--Brian is colorblind and uses conflicting, overtly bright colors.
I gave him a blank stare sometimes when he turned to me, seeking an answer, his sketches and paintings hovering in the air like ghosts.
'You're so honest,' he said. 'Most people try to hide it when they don't like my work.'
I could not help it--when Brian sees a door opening in music, in hope, in love, I see death.
***
On some days we went to the beach to hide our tears. We were both heartsick over someone we could not be with, which made us best friends in misery. When I bobbed up and down to watch people, Brian was breaking splits in the rip curls and his face shimmered in the faces of breakers. His long feet slapped the water and he turned like the tail of a large dolphin, a big shape moving deep beneath me. I turned to backstroke my way to the shore, my eyes burning in tears and salt and sun.
We had ice-cream cones like children did.
At night we went to jazz gigs, sat around the back alley outside the bar, chatted with gay men. Or we sat outside the sidewalk cafe where we first met and talked like broken records.
It'll pass, we would say to each other. One day it won't matter anymore. But it did and it still does, every time.
***
This year Brian had to settle some banking business in HK once his schedule opened up. He had sent me an anti-evil eye bracelet which he ordered from Greece--there was a jealous, back-stabbing bitch in my workplace and Brian has an imagination--for my birthday before that phone call. He knew I was having a bit of a rough time, so he figured he would come by to see me. We ended up at the balcony of a British bar/restaurant.
I leaned back in the chair and covered half of my face with my hair.
'Don't be so hard on yourself. You don't know what people think and feel after a while.'
'That's you and me, Brian. We leave things behind. Most people hold grudges.'
'That's true...but that's because we fuck off a lot.'
'Do we have a choice if someone doesn't like us enough to begin with?'
'I guess we don't.'
***
On his last night in town I saw Brian to the train station. For a moment I hesitated to hug him goodbye. Brian knows this one thing about me: whenever I have gone through an emotional time with someone I like, be it a friend or a lover, I look at them in my mind as if I would never see them again. I would kiss or hold them for a moment too long because I am fighting the urge to cry. Then I flip the switch, let go and send them off while I am still in that zone where losing them forever is a reality I could deal with. With people who know me well, I look at them and wait. With Brian it was a bit of a problem: he is just like me when it comes to saying goodbye.
'I wrote a flash story for you after you called.'
'I'll read it when I'm back in Shanghai...Let's hope we can catch up again this year.'
We hugged and we were children all over again.
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