I like your apartment, he said, it suits you.
The one thing I was proud of was my display of found objects on the wire shelf near my bed, things I’ve found on the street, or stolen, nothing worth more than ten dollars. There were three animal figurines carved out of macadamia nuts, a faded drawing of Marcel Duchamp printed off my roommate Julie’s printer, one Swiss Army knife, a glass finch, an old-fashioned amber-colored pharmacy bottle with a skull and bones, a broken record player with assorted broken acetate records, a packet of Genmaicha tea, a skeleton key, a can of pepper spray, tampons, overnight-sized pads, a worn-down biography of William H. Prescott, an SH-50 microphone with no cord, a Japanese NOH mask, one gold Zippo lighter, a giant, heavy fork. It stopped raining, and the sun shone in a friendly way through my apartment window. Directly across from the window there was another building, a shabby concrete affair. So next to the window I had taped a painting of pink flowers. The title might have been SUNLIGHT STREAMING THROUGH PINK FLOWERS, and it reminded me of nature, that it existed, because there were times I forgot. I noticed my adoptive brother staring at it.
It’s a French Impressionist. I forget which one.
Our mom has that exact picture in her closet.
I don’t think so. I’ve never seen it.
Yes, she does. Next time you’re home, go into her closet. It’s above the jewelry box.
I thought he was imagining things, and I suggested we take a walk. Despite our differences, we were both lifelong walkers. We both rejected Catholicism and its pedophile priests and lesbian nuns and took up walking as our religion. Our adoptive parents never walked unless they had to, they drove their station wagons and SUVs to and fro, out of the garage and into another garage, never coming close to nature, avoiding nature at all costs, whereas my adoptive brother and I both from a young age gravitated naturally toward walking everywhere in nature whenever possible, except the forest behind the neighbor’s house, the forest that had been forbidden to both of us, the forest of abuse and child molestation and kidnapping, therefore that forest was off limits when we were young for our walking purposes, only later would we be able to walk in the child-molestation forest, and by then we no longer cared to walk there, we each had our own routes of where we liked to walk, he in Milwaukee and I in New York, each of us fixed in habit, each of us unable to take a radical step and alter our ways, until—
I suggested we go to Prospect Park in Brooklyn to sit and walk only because it was more peaceful than Central Park. And now, as I sat in my adoptive father’s study, it occurred to me: why didn’t I take him to Central Park? Why Prospect Park and not Central? It didn’t make sense; I should have taken him to Central Park, I said to no one. Why decrepit and rundown Prospect Park and not Central Park? Tears came to my eyes and I kept saying things to no one as I began to slowly weep.
If you knew someone was going to die a few months later, you would take him to Central Park, not Prospect. It tormented me, the thought that I would never be able to show him glorious Central Park, Central Park in early autumn, Central Park with a scarf and hot chocolate, Central Park with the pigeon people, the golden-hued leaf-draped Central Park of film and TV! That afternoon in July we proceeded down the seven flights of stairs and into the beautiful New York City streets filled with garbage and all kinds of miserable and neurotic people. Sister Reliability! some voices called out, and I thought I saw a few people I recognized as my troubled youth, their faces were distorted with laughter and amusement. I waved back warmly. My adoptive brother and I walked past numerous bodegas and stores that sold wigs and wigs only, we went into a Duane Reade so he could buy cough drops, we descended two flights below ground level into the subway, Dante’s inferno. He rushed in through the turnstile behind me. He was a small person and pressed himself easily into my back. Was that the last time he touched me? I wondered. Was that the last time he touched anyone? I believed to this day that my adoptive brother never had sex. He was not a sexual person and neither was I. Sometimes I wondered if our lives would have been easier for us if we had both been adopted into an Amish family.
When we got off the train, we walked four city blocks to the park. We came upon a small zoo within the park. He paid for my ticket. Near the zoo entrance a fake-looking cave housed a fat, densely furred cat with short, flat ears and an unhappy, evil expression on its face. We sat down on the iron bench and some men walked by pushing carts selling popsicles and hot dogs. No one looked at us because we were short, miserable Koreans. The zoo was mostly empty. Not even public schoolchildren came to this zoo, it was that depressing. At least it was a bright day. Neither of us pursued the idea of going deeper into the zoo.
I told them I had to go to Wyoming for some job training, he said, but I’m here with you. Can you believe they believed me? I told them I would live at an extended-stay hotel, training with a group of federal investigators. Can you imagine me actually doing something like that? They don’t really understand anything about who I am.
That’s right, I said sympathetically, they’ve never understood either of us.
I’ve come to peace with it. Don’t say anything to them.
You have nothing to worry about. I never like to talk to them and it’s not like I’m going to start talking to them any time soon.
The truth is, he said, I’ve started working with a Korean professor at Marquette, Dr. Kim.
Oh?