Three

Miro stared at me and I frantically racked my brain for something to say that wasn’t offensive and yet wasn’t stupid.

“I need some new shoes,” I said. So much for the ‘not stupid’ angle.

“OK,” Miro said, clearly bemused. I didn’t blame him for that. “Have something to eat, and I can give you directions to a shoe store. You want to take my car? I know you didn’t bring one in your luggage.” He laughed, and I was startled by the sound. He sounded perfectly happy and normal, the kind of guy who lends friends his car for the day and leads a happy and normal and productive life.

“OK,” I said, off in my own little world of daydreaming.

I followed him into his kitchen and ate his French toast. It was excellent.

I wandered from store to store, bored out of my skull, questioning exactly why I had said ‘shoes’, because there is very little in this world I hate more than shoe shopping. I would definitely rather be go-karting.

I stepped into the sixteenth or seventeeth shoe store and promptly stepped out again once I realized it was a carbon copy of all the rest. Disheartened, I walked the twelve blocks back to the parking garage where I had parked Miro’s expensive BMW.

Word to the wise: Never go to Buffalo unless you are exceedingly dull and/or you need to rescue someone from themselves. Otherwise, you may find yourself so incredibly bored that you are forced to go shoe shopping for pleasure.

On the way to the parking garage, I passed a normal-looking family, except for the fact that they were all dressed in clothes appropriate for a funeral. The two young sons were crammed into their suits, and my mind hurtled back to the first time my mother made me wear a suit to a funeral.

I was twelve years old, at that skinny and awkward age, poised on the brink of adolescence and ob-viously much, much (!) too old to be dragged to something as stupid as a fu-neral, Mo-om! Nonetheless, she had made me wear the suit, and cut my hair, and generally make myself look respectable. I was jealous of Marcel, who at ten, wasn’t nearly so hassled with matters of self-importance. So I wore the stiff old suit to my uncle’s funeral and whacked Marcel every time he got fidgety and cultivated a bored expression until the car ride home. My mother continued to sniffle and dab at her eyes. At least until I opened my mouth.

“Hey, mom?” I asked. “How did Uncle Karovic die?” My dad looked daggers at me in the rearview mirror and my mom nearly swallowed her Kleenex.

“He was a firefighter, Marian. He died saving a little boy from a burning house. That’s what he did for a living.” I knew that. My dad was a firefighter too. For the longest time I had wanted to be one.

Then Marcel said something stupid and ten-year-old-ish and I couldn’t think about Uncle Karovic dying in a fire anymore.

I drove back to Miro’s house, parked his car in his driveway, and walked up to his front door, and rang his doorbell. His house. His life.

“Just a second,” he hollered through the door. There was the sound of metal being shuffled around and something that sounded like a roll of Saran-Wrap being wrapped around something apparently very large, and finally the door opened.

“Hey, ma—,” I stopped. “Miro?”

The foyer, which had so recently been painted a lovely pale blue, was now a vibrant red. Fire-engine red. It actually gave my a physical headache. “Ow, shit,” I said.

“You don’t like it?” he sounded hurt. Shit.

“Of course I like it. It’s just very, very, very bright. Miroslav?”

“Yes?”

“You have painted your foyer the color of those sirens on police cars.”

“And? Your point?”

“You have sheep sheets on your bed.”

After a moment, he opened his mouth and the warm sound of laughter rolled out. Cheerful. Excited. Happy. I laughed along with him, cherishing the sound. I wished that he could sound like that forever and knew that he wouldn’t.

“It’s like five-thirty,” he said, glancing at his watch. “We should think about getting something to eat. You like sushi?” he asked.

“I’ve never had it,” I said truthfully.

“You HAVEN’T?” he asked, apparently shocked that a twenty-three year old native of Slovakia who lived in Kanata, Canada, had never tried sushi. “I know this excellent, excellent sushi bar about twenty minutes away. Go put on some nice clothes,” he ordered. I shrugged.

“All I have is what I brought from the Olympics. I’ve got like, an Armani shirt and dress pants and that’s my nicest outfit.”

“That’ll do. Go put it on and I’ll get dressed.” He disappeared up the stairs and I followed slowly, wondering. He was incredible. He was light and funny and fun to be with and—dare I say it—rational? It was incredible. He was incredible.

I got dressed slowly, and after ten minutes Miro was yelling at me to hurry the fuck up from downstairs. I yelled back that it’d be just a minute, and I opened my door.

The upper floor smelled like a bonfire and it made my stomach curl up. I stepped into his room, into his bathroom, that stainless-steel mecca, and looked at a series of matches dropped into the sink.

Eight of them.

The last one was still smoking.

My brain stopped thinking, and I went downstairs. I didn’t think for the rest of the night, just observed.

Miro drove to the sushi place, talking the entire time about rice and seaweed and California rolls. It all went in one ear and out the other, and I hoped he hadn’t been expecting me to remember it. At the restaurant, a pretty Asian woman seated us in front of a little stream, and I opened the menu to a bewildering sight.

“You have to get three to five orders throughout the meal, see? But first, we’re going to get some Asahi.”

“Asahi? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Beer.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, so we’ll get that, and then I think first we’ll get the miso soup. It’s got tofu in it, it’s great. It’s to die for.”

“Miro, I like chicken wings. Where have you brought me?”

“You’ll be fine.” He consulted the menu again. “And second we’ll the sashimi. That’s the straight raw fish.”

I wondered if I was in the right place. Could this confident, self-assured man be the same man who was burning himself with matches? Impossible. I had my signals crossed.

The waitress presented herself once again, giving us two hot towels. “My name is Mae, may I please take your beverage order, Mr. Satan?”

“Mae, my friend and I will start with the Asahi.”

“Followed by the miso soup?” Mae asked gently. Miro nodded and the waitress disappeared, only to come back moments later with two green bottles.

Miso soup. Sashimi. Apparently Miro knew the chef, which got us the best pieces the fastest, and eventually sushi appeared in front of us. I’m not quite sure. I had ingested the equivalent of a bucket of wine in alcoholic content, and I was vaguely hoping Miro had not had quite so much, as I didn’t want to walk home.

“Here. Eat this,” he said, poking something white wrapped in green. I stared at it.

“It’s green.”

“So are your vegetables. Just eat it,” he said, poking it a little harder. I lifted it to my mouth and gingerly took a bite.

“It tastes like fish,” I said, garbled. By this point I had totally lost all control of the English language and was speaking in Slovakian.

“Of course it does, you great idiot, that’s what it is. And you can’t just take a bite, you have to eat it all at once.” Miro spoke in Slovakian too, which aided my perception skills.

“I can’t.”

Miro picked up a piece, dipped it in the soy sauce, and held it to my mouth. “Eat.”

“I think I’m getting a little tired of fish.” I nodded. Miro grabbed me by the nose and when I opened to breathe, he forced it in. I nearly bit his fingers off when I smelled the smoke on them.

His hand tasted like smoke and fish and sweat; it tasted good. The tang of the sushi faded as I swallowed it, and I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eyes.

He raised another piece to my mouth.

“That is some tasty fucking shit,” I mumbled. “Very, very good.” I let him think I was referring to the sushi, and he crammed another piece of seaweed and rice and God knows what else into my mouth.

He grinned. I grinned.

Eventually the meal ended, and Miro guided my legs, which had somehow transformed into liquid (must have been all that alcohol I drank pooling in them) across the restaurant, while I smiled and burbled things in Slovak to unsuspecting, probably English-speaking patrons. Our waitress stood at the door.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Satan. Please come again.” Had I not remembered I was gay, I would have probably groped her ass. She was that hot.

“My pleasure, Mae.” He used my head as a sort of battering ram to open the door into the cold February night. I noticed my phone was ringing.

“Hmm, let me answer that,” I said cheerfully, giggling to myself. I flipped open the phone. “Hello?”

“WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?” rattled into my ear.

“Bonkie? What do you want?” I asked, in my poor English.

“What the hell do you think I want? You were supposed to get in yesterday, and guess what? You’re not at your house! Where are you?” he yelled angrily. Sensing even in my intoxicated state that I needed to lie, I put my skills to work.

“I am visiting friends in Casselman,” I lied, naming a city quite a distance from Ottawa, yet close enough to be plausible.

“Thanks for telling all of us. Marty damn near had a heart attack. He thought your plane had crashed.” I could almost see him nodding his head that way he does when he’s pissed.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ll bet you are. There’s only about four days left of break, you know.”

“I know.”

“Just get back on time, okay? I know you’re not the most punctual person in the world.” I resented that remark. Didn’t he realize that even drunk as fuck, I was responsible and punctual? I had it together.

“Okay. Bye.”

“Bye.” I managed to turn off the phone and put it back in my pocket, no small feat. Miro was looking at me.

“That was Radek Bonk,” I offered.

“I know.” He led me back to his car and poured me into the passenger seat, at which point I think I passed out.

I can’t recall for sure the rest of that night.