It was a warm summer day. Nearing the start of the new school year. Sandjai was walking alone in the park dealing with the prospect of starting a new life, in a foreign country. His mother had gotten a job at a local university, and that was that. After years of being just a normal woman she decided it was time to up and rejoin the world of human science. Sometimes it was awesome other times having a celebrity mom wasn’t. Being a child prodigy and making breakthrough medicines, coming up with new surgical procedures. Seriously why couldn’t they just go back to Suriname and be in a world more familiar? He never thought for a second his first venture north of the border would be more than just a vacation. It had its bonuses, though. He could see his father more often. A celebrity of another variety.
His grasp on English was exceptional. His grasp on speaking it, that left little to be desired but considering how other foreigners spoke, having been here for years, he was an English learning guru. Besides, he liked his voice and had no desire to lose any parts of its culture. His mother was blowing up his cell phone. He sent her a text about how he had made enough friends to earn alone time wondering in the park.
Shoving his phone into his back pocket, he wondered what happened to the not so overprotective mother he knew. And why didn’t she insist he learn English before? Had he known he’d need it at some point he would’ve insisted. Over by a tree he saw a boy, about thirteen, his age. Crying. Looking like the world was going to fall on top of him. And if not the world at least the tree he was sitting under. He walked over to him. Watching him writing in his notebook, then crumble the page then write again. Then unfold some of the balls of paper and seem to copy from them, then roll them all back up and tear out another page.
Something wasn’t right here. Something wasn’t right at all. When he got close, the boy didn’t look up. Sandjai said hello. Or something that sounded like hello in his own mind. This made the boy look up. Sandjai got a glimpse of what the boy was writing, and didn’t like what he saw.
“Snadjai.”
“You’re cute.”
Sandjai was taken aback a bit. It wasn’t what he was used to getting in the few months he’d been out here. This was an entirely new response. And even still he’d never gotten it from a guy at all.
“You name yourcute?” He stalled a bit. Said you and forgot the is, but managed to punctuate his voice in sceptical tones as if to say ‘this is typical for American names, weird.’ With an eyebrow raise to seal the deal.
“And you have a sense of humour. Bryan.”
“Brye in” it didn’t come out as a seamless sound but two independent words.
“Close enough.” Bryan looked back down and got back to writing.
“Poem?”
“What?”
“You Poem,” for the life of him he couldn’t find the right word. How did he even remember poem before the word he actually wanted. The awkward silence lingered, and Bryan was just looking at him blankly. With almost a slight smile forming on his face.
“Write,” Sandjai said it with so much enthusiasm it was contagious. Bryan laughed.
“You poem write.” Sandjai didn’t offend easily. He knew it had to be funny to watch on a certain level. Especially when he’d seen native English speakers do the same as he.
“Write poem,” Bryan said to correct Sandjais sentence structure.
“You write poem,” Sandjai said a bit slower to be sure if resaying it was the correct response.
“Yes,” Bryan responded and Bryan let out a sigh of relief.
“See?”
Bryan seemed reluctant to hand it over, but he did, and Sandjai took a seat beside him.
“You can read it okay?”
“I no speak English good, but read good.” Bryan thought Sandjai’s smile was ridiculously attractive. He watched him read the two paragraphs he had managed to write. Where was this guy from anyway and why didn’t he run away when he just blurted out he thought he was hot?
“This how write poem in America?”
“It’s not really a poem.”
“No?”
Bryan was very well aware that if Sandjai could read English, then there was no way he couldn’t know what this was. Yet he was doing an exceptional job of feigning naivete. Bryan looked off into the distance. He didn’t want to admit what it was but he had a feeling he wouldn’t be able not to. He took a deep breath exhaled slowly and spoke.
“It’s a suicide note.”
“Suicide. Like you kill self?”
“I was thinking about it.”
“How?”
“The tub. Old fashioned way. Slit wrists. I’ve tried before. Once. Pills. They pumped the drugs out of me, though.”
“So this time work?”
“I thought so. I hoped so. I don’t know.” Snadjai just seemed to think to himself, and then he handed the notebook back.
“I like. You write good.”
“Really?” Now Bryan was the one taken aback.
“Yes. The ocean part. Best. Really like.”
“Um. Thanks.”
“You should write.”
“Huh?”
“Books, movies, poems. You make nice words.”
“You think?” Bryan started to read it again. It actually was rather eloquent. He’d never analysed anything he’d written before. It was all depressing shit. Maybe he should go through all his journals. He knew one thing, though. The oddity of this situation had dissolved his desire to off himself this time.
“So,” Bryan tried to say his name, but it didn’t quite come out right. Unlike when Sandjai had said his name, Bryan was more determined to pronounce it right. English speaking people could be so touchy about foreigners not speaking English and how they should go back to their own land and so on and so forth. If this boy was going to make him feel better, which was a miracle in itself, he was going to learn how to pronounce his name.
“So Sandjai,” he smiled after a gruelling few moments of trying to get it right, success, “What brings you over the border?”
He told him who his mom was and Bryan practically had a teen boy orgasm.
“That’s your mom. Man, the breakthroughs she’s made in medical science. She’s a fucking genius. They even have an operation named after her. Some of my cousins from the University have books with her name on them. Can I meet her.” This was definitely not the same boy he saw when he walked over here the first time.
“Sure.”
“So how does a top surgeon and human biologist end up back in her home country. Don’t child prodigies take their fame and run with it.”
“Books, lectures. She make big money. Then have me. Go back home help community. Not need fame she say.”
“Your father?”
“You no tell?”
“Cross my heart.” Bryan made a point to do the father son and holy ghost cross instead of the X over his heart. It got the desired laugh. Sandjai told him.
“No way. Well that explains all his visits to some weird country no one knows nothing about.”
“No one Knows nothing?”
“Double negative.”
“English is confusing.”
“Don’t sweat it. It’s confusing to everyone. Even us.” Sandjai had heard don’t sweat it and knew what it meant. But had yet to make the connection to where it came from. He wasn’t a shy kid, just the right moment to ask about something he understood seemed weird. Why did he even need to know where it came from?
“What mean. Sweat it. I know what mean but where from.”
“Exercise. Overexertion. When you work really hard you sweat.”
“Oh.” Sandjai thought that was a fairly easy connection to make. It just escaped him for some odd reason. He got other more complicated things easy. He never knew just what would be his own personal kinda difficult.
“So you promise not tell?”
“Come on. He’s my favourite celebrity. Besides. He’s like sex on two legs.” Sandjai laughed. So he found him and his dad hot.
“You like... Gay?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. You first gay I meet.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Okay. First gay friend.”
“Friend?”
“Yeah.” A guy this cute, an obviously destined future heartbreaker wanted to be the little suicidal nerd boys friend. What weird happenings were going on in the universe today?
“So you don’t care that I’m gay?”
“No. Mom say people are people. From boy. She no like hate.”
“Smart woman your mom. Not like mine.”
“Mom not nice?”
“Mom evil bitch bring trouble to family. Doesn’t love us. Plays with dad’s emotions. He divorced her last year. Things are still crazy, though.”
“Why?”
“She tried to take us from him and lost. And me with my issues, and a toddler and preteen boy. And an older brother. They weren’t about to let her near any of us. So she’s on a mission to make my dad’s life hell.”
“She why you?” Sandjai hinted at suicide.
“That. And lots of other things.”
“Okay. Your dad knows you here.”
“Yes. He’s around here somewhere with my little brother and sister.” Bryan looked around to see if he could see them. What he saw was his mom being hauled away by two officers who happened to be in the area. His dad wouldn’t call the police on her unless it got serious. His dad somehow convinced himself that he was enough to keep her in check. He wasn’t, but Bryan reasoned deep down inside he loved her still. Obviously more than he loved his children or she wouldn’t be here.
“You eat ice-cream?”
“I do.
“Then let’s go get some. You thirteen?”
“Yes.” Sandjai gave him an odd look. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen short people before. But Bryan was too tall to be a dwarf but on the same hand not tall enough to be what he’d consider short for a thirteen-year-old.
“I’m just short. I’m only thirteen I could grow any day now.” The sceptical yet humorous look on Sandjai’s face normally would’ve pissed him off, but Bryan just smiled.
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