I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like (36 page)
Read I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like Online
Authors: Justin Isis
—
No, that’s not it either, Park said. Christ isn’t an exception. The universe doesn’t allow oppositions to exclude each other.
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Now I don’t know what you’re talking about.
They fell silent for a time. Park looked again at the paintings under their plastic covers, remembering the portrait of himself. Although the plastic covered its eyes, he felt as if it were staring at him somehow. It bothered him that Tomo had studied his face so carefully. Although he didn’t know enough about art to tell whether Tomo was talented or not, there was something about the angle of the face that disturbed him, as if Tomo had captured a part of his existence in time. Trying to put it out of his mind, he said:
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Did you read the part in the Gospel of Mark that I told you to read?
Tomo turned back from the window.
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I looked at it, yeah.
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What’s your interpretation of Christ driving the demons into the Gadarene swine?
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You mean why he did it?
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Yeah.
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Because they were different.
Park sat up on the bed.
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No, they weren’t different. He was the same thing, something from outside. When he saw the demons, he started getting self-conscious, because they reminded him of himself. There’s no such thing as possession, the demons weren’t ‘inside’ the man — the possessed man and the demons were the same thing at the same time. Christ and the demons both had the same gimmick, except Christ was the better actor. There’s nothing a good actor hates more than seeing a bad actor ruin a role he’s played well.
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Christ’s death was better, though.
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His death was more dramatic, that’s all. I like the death of the pigs more.
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You think the death of an animal is more immediate than the death of a man.
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No, animals are metaphors too. They don’t exist outside of metaphor.
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You don’t think so.
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Animals don’t exist at all and have never existed, Park said. Animals are a hoax.
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What other things are hoaxes?
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Pretty much everything.
Tomo was staring at him now.
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Is Mutsumi a hoax?
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Yes.
A pause.
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So you don’t like her.
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I didn’t say that.
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Okay. So who came up with her as a hoax?
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Her parents. When she was born, her parents decided to deceive their friends and family, and themselves, by telling everyone they had a daughter named Mutsumi. They told her the same thing and she believed it.
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Are you going to expose her?
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Even if I tried to do that no one would believe me. If a hoax goes on long enough no one believes it when you expose it. So you just have to keep living with it.
Tomo looked away.
—
I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be back, all right?
Park nodded and shifted to the edge of the bed to let him pass. After Tomo had left the room, Park got up and sat in the desk chair. He flipped up the laptop screen and watched it hum to life. He looked at the desktop, seeing mostly music and image files. Then, he noticed an open document in the taskbar. As he pulled it up, the screen froze for a moment and he realized how large the file was. But after a moment it loaded, and he scrolled to the top. It was a series of dated entries beginning two years ago — Tomo’s journal, he assumed. But only a few of the entries recorded specific events. Most of them were long spirals of thought and association, one idea darting to the next with few connective threads, the memories mixing with dreams. Sometimes an isolated passage caught his eye.
I feel like my mind has been exactly the same at every point in my life. I remember being in kindergarten and my mother took me into the classroom and I sat down next to Haruko Kawamura and Haruko asked why my shirt didn’t fit properly. I remember that moment exactly the same as I remember what happened to me yesterday. I don’t think I’ve learned anything since then.
Park flipped forward, then stopped when he noticed his own name come up.
I was with him today outside the entrance and we were smoking cigarettes he got from his girlfriend, I was looking at his face and thinking that he is never going to be more beautiful than this. He was looking away from me and talking like he always does, he stares into space when he talks and closes his eyes a little. He was wearing the shirt he got from 109 two weeks ago, the white shirt with the gold embossed letters that are starting to fade from being washed. It was still warm out and everyone was filing out of the gate and I could tell he was looking at everyone and their clothes, he was looking at everyone like he usually does and probably waiting for her to come out. I looked at the back of his neck, just above his shirt, and I was thinking how white his skin was when Masa from Photography came over and started asking me whether I’d prepared anything for the next meeting and I wanted to kill him for talking to me because I could tell Park was not really looking at him but at least listening and thinking even less of me, like he always does when someone comes over. When he was gone I asked Park whether he was going to be free on the weekend and he gave his usual excuses that I was expecting anyway and so I tried to smile but I think I just looked at him. He must have gotten sick of waiting because he got up and I followed him and walked to the station with him, thinking he doesn’t like me, he’s never going to love me, I will never be able to touch his face, hold his body or put my lips to his neck, I should have been born as a girl, I shouldn’t have been born at all, there was no reason for me to be born after they already had Maiko so I don’t see why they needed me and why no one has ever needed me.
The entries went on for hundreds of pages. Park scrolled through, skimming each one. In them he encountered a depth of self-pity that alarmed and disgusted him. But there was something impressive about it as well, a kind of abandonment, like a concealed form of pride. It occurred to him that Tomo had completed these pages without expecting that anyone would read them. In their disconnected sprawl he felt a self rising to the surface. Only his own role troubled him. Every time he caught sight of his name, he wanted to tear it from the screen.
Hearing Tomo’s footsteps outside, he closed the laptop.
—
You okay? he asked as the door opened. You were gone a while.
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Yeah, Maiko started talking to me.
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She seems happy, Park said, getting up from the chair.
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Yeah, well her boyfriend’s a fucking idiot. Some kind of real estate agent, I don’t know what he does.
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I guess you can’t do anything about that.
They fell silent again, until there was another knock at the door. Tomo got up and opened it, and Park listened for the sound from the hall.
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There’s still cake left, he heard Junko say.
Without thinking, he looked back at the covered paintings.
•
On Sunday he called Mutsumi and told her to meet him in Shibuya. She protested; it was too far and she was tired. Why couldn’t he just come to her house, where they could be alone? He could tell she’d been out the night before and was probably hungover.
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I need to go to Shibuya, he said. I need to get my hair cut.
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Come out here and I’ll do it for you.
He thought of the train ride to Kanagawa. More than anything, he wanted to be alone.
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All right, he said. Just wait for me there.
He got dressed, made himself an omelette and headed for the station. As soon as he stepped outside he felt the mid-day heat soaking into his skin, and he regretted not wearing lighter clothes. Already he could feel the approach of summer.
When he reached the house he found the door unlocked. Mutsumi was in her room reading a magazine. When she saw him she got up and kissed him.
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What did you do last night? she asked.
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Had dinner with my friend.
She made to embrace him and he pulled away.
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I’m sorry, he said.
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Why? What’s wrong?
He looked over at the bed. Her clothes from last night were crumpled next to the pillow: white pants and a pink shirt decorated with silver English lettering.
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I think we should break up.
She looked into his eyes.
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Why?
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I don’t know, he said. No reason.
She kept looking at him. He was surprised how calm she was — he’d expected her to cry. At last she turned away and went to the dresser.
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I’ll have to find a new boyfriend, she said.
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I’m sorry, he said again.
She took her clothes from the bed, folded them and placed them in a green plastic basket next to the door. He stood rigidly in place, watching her. There was no sign on her face that anything was wrong. Perhaps she hadn’t taken him very seriously at all, he thought. But he remembered her eyes when he’d given her Sujung’s hair clip and the feel of her teeth on his neck. As she piled the clothes in the basket, he felt a great respect for her, as if she understood him completely.
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Come on, get in the chair, she said.
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What?
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I’ll cut your hair.
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You don’t have to, he said.
But she’d already taken out the plastic cape and draped it across the chair. He sat down and let her position it over his shoulders.
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I’m going to do what I want with your hair, she said. You don’t have a choice.
He nodded, and she took a pair of scissors and a comb from the dresser. He closed his eyes and felt her parting his hair. She worked quickly, tilting his head backwards and forwards, brushing off the plastic cape. He relaxed and focused on the feel of her fingers, the wet comb, the precise snip of the scissors. The warmth of the air passed through the open window, and he felt very calm.
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People should trust hairdressers more, Mutsumi said. I don’t think most people know what’s right for their hair.
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Do you think people will trust you when you start working?
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Yeah. I won’t give anyone a choice — there won’t be any magazines or anything. They’ll just come in, sit down, and they’ll have to trust me.
She moved onto his fringe, trimming it with quick, practiced motions.
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What if you can’t get their hair right? he asked.
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I’m always right. Some people are just stupid.
He felt her move to his side.
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There, almost finished. This suits you a lot better.
He opened his eyes. His hair had been thinned out, but remained the same length. Only his fringe was different. He could see his forehead now.
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It’s good, he said. Thanks.
Instead of answering she brushed the last of his hair from the cape and took it off him. He got up and looked around the room, then moved aside as she swept the hair from the floor. When she’d finished she sat down on the bed.
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I forgot to dry it, she said. Your hair’s still wet.
He ran a hand through it.
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No, it’s not so bad.
He sat down next to her and looked at the floor, at the stray clumps of hair still beneath the chair. Feeling an itch, he took a towel from the pile of clothes and wiped his neck. Mutsumi got up and took the scissors and comb back to the dresser, then came back to the bed and lit a cigarette. Park sat next to her, listening to the sound of her breathing. Several minutes passed. Eventually he felt her take his hand.
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Do you want to fuck? she asked.
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I don’t really feel like it.
She leaned against him.
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Well, okay.
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What are you going to do tonight? Park asked.
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I might go out.
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With Saya?
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Yeah, maybe her. Or someone else. Why? What are you doing?
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Probably just study.
She laughed.
—
I don’t believe you.
He lay back on the bed and looked at the ceiling. The light was on, silhouetting a handful of dead moths caught beneath the plastic fixture. Staring at them, he felt himself becoming sleepy. He stretched out against the pillow, and before long Mutsumi joined him, resting her head on his arm.
When he woke up she was gone. He found her in the other room watching television.
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Hey, she said, not looking up.
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I’ll probably go soon, he said.
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Okay.
He looked at her for a while, then made his way to the door. Outside, it was still mid-afternoon; but it would be dark by the time he got home. On the way to the station he took out his mobile phone and scrolled through his old messages. He was still checking them when he got onto the train. Then, taking a seat, he deleted them one by one, starting with those from Mutsumi and moving on to Tomo’s. Finally his inbox was cleared. He rested for a while, then opened the phone again and composed a message to Tomo. It read:
