The Summer of Lame

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Gen Kaz logged onto his work-station computer on Tuesday July 13th, 2008, although it perfectly well could have been any other day, every day in this place was the same. He was in Texas. He had been in Texas for forty-two days. He would be in Texas for another twenty-five. There were no emails in his inbox, save random assorted junk.

He opened another tab in his browser and checked his Mixi. Minami. How was she? No updates. She had not written any new diaries, and had only posted a few scant comments on those of others. He had not seen her in 135 days. He had spoken to her, briefly, only in the orange-bordered interface of the Mixi-message at odd times since her leaving. He longed for a conversation. She had promised to skype him, that had never come. Then he had left Montreal. He hadn’t forgotten her though, how could he? He’d never felt that way about a girl before, or so he had written in his weblog.

He opened another tab, and checked his Travelblog. There were no comments on his article about the happenings of July 3rd. Too bad, it was a good one. Well what was the use anyways? The reader’s would be inevitably disappointed. There was nothing to report. ‘The drought continues…’ That had become his tagline. It had been over 220 days since he had last had sex. Mylene. No, best not to think about her.

He opened his Facebook. Immediately, He noticed in the news feed. “Ted Smith and Soon-Mi Kim have ended their relationship” heartbreak emoticon. Three stories down from not but five days before: “Ted Smith and Soon-Mi Kim are in a relationship” heart emoticon. He could not help but laugh at how ridiculous this was. He had seen this coming, from a mile away. He went to Teddy’s wall.

Ted Smith God damnit.
July 15th, 2008 at 2:53 AM

RECENT ACTIVITY
Ted Joined the group “Operation Get Teddy a Date”
Ted commented on his own photo
Ted wrote on C-Benz’s wall

C-Benz dude ted, did you hear they're trying to fire Casey Novak, the ADA on SVU!!! WTF?!?!
July 14th, 2008 at 1:53 PM

C-Benz hey ted just dropping a line from your faithful-as-ever blog reader... it was quite comical when you virtually shouted FUCK at my mom while she was using

the computer... almost as good as the first time i met your mom... wasted in the basement of H-house with andrew martin after a wine-and-cheese function gone bad... so what's up? how's your life and such, since i know your blog has a bit of a time delay.

cheers,
cory
July 12th, 2008 at 1:12 AM

Jenny Shau dear Ted, how would i go about changing this? It can be quite the bother.
July 11th, 2008 at 10:55 AM

Ted Smith wrote on Jenny Shau’s wall.

Se-Jess sorry. i feel partially accountable for this.
July 11th, 2008 and 9:07 AM

S.W.G. tedddy how are you i am just at the smiths residence right now your uncle said something halarious i will have to tell you what he said sometime.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:19PM

Jeff M Alright teddy, after being sent down to AAA Tacoma to work on my friendship, I've finally figured my shit out and caught up on your blog.
Heat, drama, suspense, I had a blasty-blast reading them, and it killed a good portion of my meeting about Web Application Firewalls.
Hurry home so we can sit in the cold of your basement and watch our Mariners kick balls around in the cellar of the West Division.
How's my long-lost homeland treating you?
July 10th, 2008 at 1:57 PM

Keith P******** is it over brotha?? you'll be aight, didnt seem as tho it were meant to be. got anything dope planned in the next couple weeks over there??
July 10th, 2008 at 11:17 AM

Garrett T****** sorry to hear about you and Soon Mi
July 10th, 2008 at 10:49 AM

Ted Smith Knows Mikey-shox was right about him.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:14 AM

RECENT ACTIVITY
Ted went from being “in a relationship” to being “single”.


He panned down the internet inanity. The usual disingenuous condolences. Did these people even really care? Or was it about the same as when someone’s grandma dies: They all understand how painful it can be, but they can’t really sympathize, only remember by analogy to personal experience. He had none. Check that, he had, but it didn’t seem relevant to the problem at hand. That thing about being sent down to AAA Tacoma to work on friendship was admittedly clever. He thought perhaps he should use something like that in a later entry. If there was ever anything to write about.

He wondered how much longer would it be. Four weeks? He paused and looked over the screen again. Assuming there might be something explicating the severe emotional tragedy Ted had clearly experienced over the past week, he returned to the previous tab and then proceeded by means of hyperlink to Ted’s Travelblog page. He had frequently checked the blog since coming to Texas and Ted had frequently checked his, and both had tacitly agreed that this was their summer of lame.

Edward Jonas Smith. He smirked. The same smug picture of Teddy holding a martini glass, as though offering it up as a toast. To whom? Himself? The reader? The future? …The prospect was wearisome. There was a new article from July 14th. He read along Teddy’s account of yet another blistering fight between he and “Soon-Mi”. A roar of laughter crept up over him, like a wave. What an idiot. Who uses an A-bomb metaphor to describe the anger of his Japanese girlfriend to her face? He should show this to someone. He forwarded the article to several people in other workstations in the room. They would be amused when they checked it. They wouldn’t until tomorrow however. It was late, he was alone.

Another Ted Smith entry, another metronomic emotive display of self-doubt and uncertainty. It was a small but comparable amount of solace to know that even those who have, also suffer. This happened on June 20th, twenty four, no, twenty-five days ago. Teddy was behind. It was quite obvious why. The evening redness in the west was remiss in its duty to relinquish the day. The days were long here indeed, more so than just in form. The All-star (Major League Baseball, to be exact,) Game would be beginning soon, in Yankee Stadium no less. He thought of his hometown of New York with much anguish. His friends there would be watching it in Brooklyn. His friends here would be watching it on the big screen. Thus would another night pass in Texas. Or so he thought, rather…

As a last ditch effort to make human contact outside of this strange lone-star desert world, he signed in to his account on MSN messenger. And that’s when the trouble started.

No sooner than had he done so, an aggressive message window invaded his screen:
—GENGENGEN
It was Teddy. He hesitated and typed back cautiously
—what?
—Crazy sh*t happened this weekend. I have to talk to you. Are you near a phone?
He was, but he felt it necessary at first to inquire as to why it was necessary to use a telephone. Ted insisted that it was too long and too complicated to explain in an instant message window. He sluggishly agreed and began searching the room for a campus phone directory and the extension number of his work station. He told Teddy to wait.

Gen was concerned, but more than a bit amused. What could it possibly be? Those two didn’t seem to fit together very well, but all the proposed ‘solutions’ were ineffectual. Then there was all that medical business too, he was sure that only could’ve complicated things. He conjectured that they might’ve just given up and tried to do things the old fashion way. He smiled. Double entendres. Had he gotten her pregnant? It seemed possible, given what Teddy had been telling him. If that were the case what would happen? Shotgun wedding? That would be amusing, especially given all the circumstances surrounding their meeting (and apparently, recent parting). He found the extension and transmitted it to Teddy. He was told to stand by and wait for the call.

Nothing happened. He transmitted this to Teddy as well. Teddy reconfirmed the number and retried. He was told that the number was apparently not in use. Gen methodically reconfirmed the initial data and then patiently waited yet another dial-trial, which yielded the same result. This was lame. But it wasn’t as though he had anything better to do, at least for the next hour anyways.

Teddy asked him if there was any other phones in his vicinity. The phone in his dorm room was not hooked up. The phone in the residence common room was for local calls only. His cellular telephone was currently deactivated. He had been cutoff from communication from the outside world for weeks now. The internet had been his only hope. And hadn’t proved very much effective at that he should say. Teddy then asked him if there were any pay phones on campus.

Gen sighed. He said he would go look.

Gen left the computer science building and went rolling about the heat of the early dusk on the Texas A&M campus. He saw nothing. He walked fifteen minutes down an empty black asphalt road with nothing to look at save the barren desert wasteland scraping away at the edges of civilization. In the distance he saw a lone pay-phone, demarcating the end of campus, and the beginning of suburbs on one side of the road, and what was left of the great legacy of the wild west on the other. He went inside. It was dusty. The phone receiver was broken, the phone book was missing. He swept off the dust on the front panel and recorded the area code and number. He walked back.

He returned to his work station, just the way he had left it, and input the number into the window and waited for Teddy’s response.
—OK. Do you have time to talk write now?
Asked Teddy. Gen asked what about.
—Just trust me, you’ll want to hear this.
Teddy insisted.

Gen went back to the phone. And waited. The phone rang one minute after he arrived. He picked up. He had to hold the earpeice to his ear and the receiver to his mouth like one of those two-peice brass telephones from the 1920's. He thought he probably looked ridiculous.

“Yo.” Said a familiar and far away voice.
“’Sup” Was all that Gen could think of to respond.
“Aw Christ, I don’t even know where to start.” The All-Star game started in 15 minutes.
“So…what’s this about?” Gen asked.
“OK” Teddy went on, “So…Soon-Mi and I broke up last week.” Had it really been a week since they had last spoken? So much had happened.
“I know.” Gen said. “You kinda advertized that fact.” This was weird. He was standing in the middle of the dessert watching the setting sun, while Teddy had just watched the same sun rise in the early morning so he could make a personal call with the office phone while not on paid hours. The world is so…
“Well, how have you been?”
“Did you really need to phone me to ask?” Gen replied tersely. He wanted him to get to the point.
“All right, well the next day I phone her back and asked her to get back together with me.”
“- -Wait, why did you guys break up in the first place?”
Teddy sighed, “Well…for starters, things were going shitty between us anyways. She didn’t trust me at all, she was always phoning me and asking where I was, like- -do you really think calling me up and asking me ‘are you cheating on me right now?’ is going to make me not want to?”
He wondered if he had cheated on her. “Women, always pull sh*t like that.”
“Yeah.” Agreed Teddy, “So…that- -and she’s in three bands right now, and never makes time for me. Like you want to keep me on a leash but you don’t wanna spend time with me?”
“Lame” said Gen.
“Yeah…Anyways, we had talked about going back to Canada together right? But my mom was pretty against that from the start because ‘we’re too young and that’s an expensive decision to make with our money’ especially the way things had been going since I got there and I kinda agreed with her…And like, her English is terrible…and she’s been taking a class hey? But she always skips it, and she never does her homework. I mean, she’s literally dating a native speaker and I’ve offered to help her, but she’s never taken advantage of it. So I was like, you can’t just go to my home and live with my family and not interact with them.”
Gen nodded. That sounded reasonable. “What did she say?”
“She got angry. And my brother is coming soon hey, and I need to travel with him for a little while too, so when I told her that she flipped shit at me. I guess she figured either this was my breakup speech, or that I’d been hiding the fact that my mom was against us- -“
“- -Weren’t you hiding that from her?”
“…No…Well, like, I only found that out the week before, and I thought I could deal with it myself. I wasn’t sure of it anyways…”
He wasn’t sure what Teddy had meant by the last remark. “So what happened?”
“She threw a hissy fit in a restaurant while we were having breakfast and then stormed off and bitched me out in the middle of the street.”
Hadn’t he just read this earlier in the evening, “Again?”
“Yeah, only worse. In front of the schoolgirls and the all-girl’s college students at the train station.”
Gen pictured the scene in his mind and it was amusing.
“Then,” Teddy went on, “We officially broke up the next night, and I’ve felt like sh*t ever since, and I’ve tried to get her back.”
Gen wondered why.
“But she said she wasn’t sure if she could trust me, and she didn’t think I wanted to be around when things were ‘bad’ only when things were ‘good’…”
This was taking too long. Gen looked at his watch. The All-Star game had just started.
“But this is where it gets interesting…”
Gen was suddenly intrigued again. Somewhat.
“So…Minami called us on Saturday night and invited us both to year-end function she was organizing for architecture and fashion design students.” Gen wondered how it is that those two things go together. “So we both show up to this Chinese restaurant, it’s packed, there’s like, 150 students there and it’s raging. It was out of control. And she goes around and introduces me to everyone as ‘My stupid ex-boyfriend.’”
Gen winced. “That’s cold.”
“Yeah I know. And people were like, how long has it been since you broke up? And we were like, hmm…three days? And they were like, WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?”
Gen laughed. Not very loudly. “Holy sh*t.”
“So I was like, well if you’re gonna be a b*tch about it, then Imma play hardball. So I went around trying to get as many numbers from chicks as I could.”
“How many did you get?”
“About eight.”
Gen thought that was nice work.
“So I was hitting on Minami’s friend and guess what she told me- -”
Gen felt a flicker of hope in his narrow, hairy bosom. Teddy sounded excited. What could this be? Did he find out the reason? The reason she wouldn’t accept his confession- -the reason he had felt alone and heartbroken for months. He needed it to move on—or perhaps better, there was still hope. He could return to Japan next year after graduating and achieve his dream of being married at 22 and children at 25. This could be the defining moment in his summer. This could the glimmering star on the horizon to indicate the end of the darkest night and the coming of glorious daybreak.
“She said Minami likes you a lot,”
“Uh huh.”
“But there was also someone else she liked.” Teddy’s tone started getting very serious. Gen knew he had a penchant for dramatics.
“…Who was it?” Probably the ex-boyfriend.
.
.
.
“Me.”


Gen heard Teddy speak the word and felt the passage of time slow around him. He felt helpless…lost. Texas, already a big place, felt all the more bigger. And he was trapped in the middle of it, in a payphone with nothing but bad news on the other end.
“Oh sh*t.” was all he could bring himself to say.
“Yeah I know.” Gen knew Teddy was trying to sympathize, but he got the tone wrong. It was hard to do such a thing, he appreciated that he was trying, but still…
“Well…so what happened?” Gen inquired further.
“Well- -I confirmed with her two or three times, but I still thought maybe she was just being a drunk b*tch so I decided to go after Minami for confirmation.” It was good that Teddy finished the sentence with ‘confirmation’.
“So after Soon-Mi went home, me and Minami went to an after party at some girls house.”
“And?”
“And…after the party died down and people started to pass out I went and grabbed a spot on the couch, next to where she was sleeping.”
Gen didn’t like where this was going.
“So I laid down next to her and- -tried to go to sleep, but then she turned over and put her arms around my neck. And then she leans in- -and then she’s like, ‘We can’t!’” Said Teddy in his standard imitation of a girl’s voice, “And I’m like, can’t what?OHSHITIT’SREAL!!!”
.
.
.
“Holy f**k.” Gen said.

The was a long break. He was processing things. He wanted to ask, but he didn’t know where to start. “Did you- -do anything with her?” He was going to say ‘F**k her’ but that sounded too strong in his brain.
.
.
.
“No.” Said Teddy. “After that, we talked for a bit—she didn’t let go of me—and then she turned over and went to sleep, and when I woke up the next morning, she was asleep on the floor next to the couch."

The response sounded a little dubious to Gen.

“She walked me to train station the next morning. I haven’t really talked to her since.”
“Did she say anything?”
“Nothing really in particular- -about you or me.”
“…Wow.”

There was a long awkward break in between friends. Teddy apparently felt like clearing up the silence. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way…I just- -felt you should know.”
“Yeah…no, thanks man…” Said Gen, still bewildered.
.
.
.
“Look, work started about ten minutes ago…I’m on company time right now. My boss isn’t around, but I’m worried if I take up too much clock here in English then somebody in the other department will snitch on me.”
“- -Yeah, no, you should go then.”
“…Are you OK man?”
“…Yeah.” He stated. “Yeah.”
“…OK. Imma go then and…we should talk more this week, maybe do this again if there’s another date where my co-workers aren’t in.”
“Yeah…for sure.”
“OK…well…take it easy hey?”
“Yeah…”
“…OK…later dude.”
*Click*

Emptiness.

Gen Kaz took the long way home, and watched the sun set in Texas. When He arrived back at the dorm the All-Star game was in the 9th inning. He didn’t pay attention to the score. His friend, “T-Camp” noticed he was perturbed and took him into his room and offered him a drink and asked him what was the matter. Gen recited his version of events, adjusted accordingly for personal emphasis and necessary dramatics.

“Wow.” Said T-Camp. “That’s pretty heavy…I’m going through some shit too right now.”
“Oh yeah? What?”
“I just found out I had another kid. Different mom.”
Gen squinted and computed the numbers. 19. 2 kids. 2 mothers. “T-Camp,” he said with bitter sarcasm, and no inhibitions, “Why are you so black?”

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Photos

This is What Texas Looks Like
Gen Kaz (right) Pictured with "T-Camp" (centre) and a white person (left).

The Phonebooth.
The site of the fateful phonecall.

The Phone.
Deliverer of bad news.