by Kyle Weik
A man smiles at me while browsing Italian sausages, and I instantly get hard. Hopefully Mrs. Lee can’t tell. I adjust my apron and slide her ground pork across the counter. I tell her that’ll be $8.99. She hands me a wrinkled ten and a sad smile, tells me to keep the change, which makes me think she knows about the other thing.
Mom is busy with a recently divorced Mr. Johnson, whose own son is graduating from Yale next summer. Her voice is two octaves too high. She tells me to get the man a couple pounds of flank steak, on the house.
When I hand him the package, Mr. Johnson calls me champ and asks if I’m going to take over the family business. Mom throws her arms around my neck and I wince. Vodka again. She tells him I’m going to work for NASA one day.
During my lunch break, I research how many astronauts went to community college. I suck at science, but I’ve always been fascinated with space—the moon landing, UFO sightings, black holes.
Years ago, Dad built us a telescope in the backyard. And years later, it was the first thing he broke. Mom said we didn’t need a telescope to see the stars, and the two of us would spend hours on our backs, tracing the sky with our fingers, searching for signs of life.
I vomit again and watch chunks of Hamburger Helper float in the toilet. Everything is backed up these days, including rent. Mom didn’t tell me, the walls at home are thin, which is how I know Mr. Johnson is a moaner and a yeller, just like Dad.
I open the app and scroll through sugar daddies. There’s one who actually reads my profile, says he likes stargazing too. He wants to take me out and treat me right. I ask him where, and he says anywhere, he’s got a fast car. We swap numbers and I send him the address of the butcher shop.
Mom doesn’t know and she doesn’t need to. Come sunset she’ll be at the gas station buying scratchcards or enjoying happy hour at The Rusty Nail. Sometimes she’ll stumble back, red-faced from her winnings, brandishing an ice cream she bought for me. Most times I close by myself. But I don’t mind, because I can blast music and inhale bleach.
As I draw the blinds, I check again and notice the man read my text but never responded. I imagine sending him a long message about how fucked up that is; how you should never leave someone on read, how you should never give someone false hope, how you should know better, how you should do better, how I hate you. I block his number and walk across the street.
The bartender makes me a Shirley Temple with extra maraschino cherries. It’s rowdy for a Tuesday, must be the game. I wonder how many of these men aren’t going home.
The bar lights flicker overhead. I sit next to Mom, a dark mass on the brink of collapse, and fish the car keys out of her jacket pocket. She whips around and grabs my wrist, mouth slack, mascara smudged. I prepare for the explosion. But instead, she pulls me into her chest with a gravitational force so strong it crushes my lungs, and I’m back in our backyard. A man yells, breaks something, and slams the front door. This time I rub her back. I tell her it’s okay. I tell her I’m not going anywhere, and I look up and watch her eyes twinkle, from miles and miles away.
Kyle Weik (he/him/his) is a queer Japanese-American writer based in Los Angeles. His work appears or is forthcoming in Vestal Review, Maudlin House, New Flash Fiction Review, Bending Genres, and elsewhere. You can find him on social media at @kyleisamu.
Emerge Literary Journal 