three blocks from where they now lived. He had been stationed as an air force mechanic in South Korea in the late ’70s, and when he returned, he came with Kaz and his mother, Sue.
For years, Sue had barely spoken a word of English, but when we were in sixth grade she opened Sue-nami, a sushi restaurant off Highway 54. It was in a strip mall in what used to be an old gun shop, and the walls were hung with wallpaper made from large-scale photographs of life-size trees. It was engineered to produce the illusion that you had entered a clearing in a forest. When we were in high school, after practice, we would go to Sue-nami and Sue would bring us wooden boats filled with sushi. Afterwards we would lie on the blue carpet and she would massage us by walking across our backs, one foot on each of us. I envisioned toxins releasing with each tiny step, knots untying in my tight shoulders. Kaz and I would sometimes end up facing each other on the floor, side by side, laughing and grunting and moaning as she made her way across shoulders tightened from hundreds of serves. I never knew if it was a Japanese tradition or not. For all I knew, it could have been Sue’s invention. My family did not attend church, but for me this was prayer. It was ritual. It was otherworldly and relaxing and transporting.
Sue’s husband was a welder who dropped a bundle of rebar on his left foot and crushed it. It was amputated when Kaz was five. Part of his rehabilitation included exercise on the cheapest prosthetic I had ever seen, just an oblong slab of jiggling rubber that he kept shoed with a black velcro Reebok. There was a tennis court near Midway at an apartment complex called Millcreek, which was occupied almost entirely by undergraduates so well-to-do that they didn’t need to live in dorms, they could live in a complex with its own well-maintained tennis court that none of them ever used. Or if they did use the court, they were too scared to try when the one-footed black man with bloodshot eyes was on it hitting muddy tennis balls to a five-year-old half-Japanese kid. My older cousin lived in Millcreek at the time. I don’t remember when I first met Kaz, but I do remember playing tennis with him there while his father sat in the shade of a pine tree at the farthest edge of the court and smoked a menthol Kool.
By twelve we were ranked ninth in the country for doubles. Individually we rotated in and out of the top 15. By high school we had already been partners for almost a decade. Sometimes when Kaz left a message on my answering machine, I mistook him for myself—on my own phone . On VH1 a few weeks ago, Keith Richards had said that the Rolling Stones weren’t a band anymore; they were now a single musician. I thought, That’s how it is with Kaz .
During our troubles getting pregnant, Anne told me that she resented the fact that every time she ovulated I was in a hotel room with Kaz. I was always in a hotel room with Kaz, or a locker room, or a tennis court. I was everywhere with Kaz. I always had been.
Manny led us into a short, dark hallway, no larger than a closet, and the door swung shut behind us. The space was draped in thick velvet curtains, one of which Manny parted to reveal a narrow room lit only by candles. A bar stood in the middle against the left wall. Six or seven
booths and a few chairs at the bar were the only seating options. At the end of the room, on a stage no larger than my bed, stood a large-breasted woman in a red dress beside a suited man playing the vibraphone. The woman sang softly in Spanish.
“She saying, hombre?” Manny said. Kaz spoke Spanish but did not answer. I did not, but I’d taken enough Spanish classes in middle school to know this one. Love, your heart is on fire. Love, my heart is on fire. I die. I die. She repeated herself in drawn-out notes, stretching the melody. I wondered if Kaz didn’t translate because of me.
Manny ordered three tall, thin glasses topped with thick
For years, Sue had barely spoken a word of English, but when we were in sixth grade she opened Sue-nami, a sushi restaurant off Highway 54. It was in a strip mall in what used to be an old gun shop, and the walls were hung with wallpaper made from large-scale photographs of life-size trees. It was engineered to produce the illusion that you had entered a clearing in a forest. When we were in high school, after practice, we would go to Sue-nami and Sue would bring us wooden boats filled with sushi. Afterwards we would lie on the blue carpet and she would massage us by walking across our backs, one foot on each of us. I envisioned toxins releasing with each tiny step, knots untying in my tight shoulders. Kaz and I would sometimes end up facing each other on the floor, side by side, laughing and grunting and moaning as she made her way across shoulders tightened from hundreds of serves. I never knew if it was a Japanese tradition or not. For all I knew, it could have been Sue’s invention. My family did not attend church, but for me this was prayer. It was ritual. It was otherworldly and relaxing and transporting.
Sue’s husband was a welder who dropped a bundle of rebar on his left foot and crushed it. It was amputated when Kaz was five. Part of his rehabilitation included exercise on the cheapest prosthetic I had ever seen, just an oblong slab of jiggling rubber that he kept shoed with a black velcro Reebok. There was a tennis court near Midway at an apartment complex called Millcreek, which was occupied almost entirely by undergraduates so well-to-do that they didn’t need to live in dorms, they could live in a complex with its own well-maintained tennis court that none of them ever used. Or if they did use the court, they were too scared to try when the one-footed black man with bloodshot eyes was on it hitting muddy tennis balls to a five-year-old half-Japanese kid. My older cousin lived in Millcreek at the time. I don’t remember when I first met Kaz, but I do remember playing tennis with him there while his father sat in the shade of a pine tree at the farthest edge of the court and smoked a menthol Kool.
By twelve we were ranked ninth in the country for doubles. Individually we rotated in and out of the top 15. By high school we had already been partners for almost a decade. Sometimes when Kaz left a message on my answering machine, I mistook him for myself—on my own phone . On VH1 a few weeks ago, Keith Richards had said that the Rolling Stones weren’t a band anymore; they were now a single musician. I thought, That’s how it is with Kaz .
During our troubles getting pregnant, Anne told me that she resented the fact that every time she ovulated I was in a hotel room with Kaz. I was always in a hotel room with Kaz, or a locker room, or a tennis court. I was everywhere with Kaz. I always had been.
Manny led us into a short, dark hallway, no larger than a closet, and the door swung shut behind us. The space was draped in thick velvet curtains, one of which Manny parted to reveal a narrow room lit only by candles. A bar stood in the middle against the left wall. Six or seven
booths and a few chairs at the bar were the only seating options. At the end of the room, on a stage no larger than my bed, stood a large-breasted woman in a red dress beside a suited man playing the vibraphone. The woman sang softly in Spanish.
“She saying, hombre?” Manny said. Kaz spoke Spanish but did not answer. I did not, but I’d taken enough Spanish classes in middle school to know this one. Love, your heart is on fire. Love, my heart is on fire. I die. I die. She repeated herself in drawn-out notes, stretching the melody. I wondered if Kaz didn’t translate because of me.
Manny ordered three tall, thin glasses topped with thick
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