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Family Meal

E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
320 Seiten
Englisch
Atlantic Bookserschienen am12.10.2023Main
From the bestselling author of Memorial, a novel that will 'break your heart twice over, with sadness, sure, but more unexpectedly, with joy.' Rumaan Alam Growing up , TJ was Cam's boy next door. When Cam needed a home, TJ's parents - Mae and Jin - took him in. Their family bakery became Cam's safe place. Until he left, and it wasn't anymore. Years later, Cam's world is falling apart. The love of his life, Kai, is gone: but his ghost keeps haunting Cam, and won't let go. And Cam's not sure he wants to let go, not sure he's ready. When he has a chance to return to his home town, to work in a gay bar clinging on in a changing city landscape, he takes it. Back in the same place as TJ, they circle each other warily, their banter electric with an undercurrent of betrayal, drawn together despite past and current drama. Family is family. But TJ is no longer the same person Cam left behind; he's had his own struggles. The quiet, low-key, queer kid, the one who stayed home, TJ's not sure how to navigate Cam - utterly cool, completely devastated and self-destructing - crashing back into his world. When things said - or left unsaid - become so insurmountable that they devour us from within, hope and sustenance and friendship can come from the most unlikely source. Nourishment has many forms: eating croissants, sitting together at a table with bowls of curry, sharing history, confronting demons, growing flowers, showing up. This is a story about how the people who know us the longest can hurt us the most, but how they also set the standard for love, and by their necessary presence, create a family.

Bryan Washington is a writer from Houston. His fiction and essays have appeared in, among other publications, the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, the BBC, Vulture and the Paris Review. He's also a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 winner, the recipient of an Ernest J. Gaines Award, a PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize finalist, a National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize finalist, the recipient of an O. Henry Award and the winner of the 2020 International Dylan Thomas Prize. BryWashing.com / @BryWashingmehr
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Produkt

KlappentextFrom the bestselling author of Memorial, a novel that will 'break your heart twice over, with sadness, sure, but more unexpectedly, with joy.' Rumaan Alam Growing up , TJ was Cam's boy next door. When Cam needed a home, TJ's parents - Mae and Jin - took him in. Their family bakery became Cam's safe place. Until he left, and it wasn't anymore. Years later, Cam's world is falling apart. The love of his life, Kai, is gone: but his ghost keeps haunting Cam, and won't let go. And Cam's not sure he wants to let go, not sure he's ready. When he has a chance to return to his home town, to work in a gay bar clinging on in a changing city landscape, he takes it. Back in the same place as TJ, they circle each other warily, their banter electric with an undercurrent of betrayal, drawn together despite past and current drama. Family is family. But TJ is no longer the same person Cam left behind; he's had his own struggles. The quiet, low-key, queer kid, the one who stayed home, TJ's not sure how to navigate Cam - utterly cool, completely devastated and self-destructing - crashing back into his world. When things said - or left unsaid - become so insurmountable that they devour us from within, hope and sustenance and friendship can come from the most unlikely source. Nourishment has many forms: eating croissants, sitting together at a table with bowls of curry, sharing history, confronting demons, growing flowers, showing up. This is a story about how the people who know us the longest can hurt us the most, but how they also set the standard for love, and by their necessary presence, create a family.

Bryan Washington is a writer from Houston. His fiction and essays have appeared in, among other publications, the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, the BBC, Vulture and the Paris Review. He's also a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 winner, the recipient of an Ernest J. Gaines Award, a PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize finalist, a National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize finalist, the recipient of an O. Henry Award and the winner of the 2020 International Dylan Thomas Prize. BryWashing.com / @BryWashing
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9781838954451
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen
FormatE101
Erscheinungsjahr2023
Erscheinungsdatum12.10.2023
AuflageMain
Seiten320 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse4504 Kbytes
Artikel-Nr.12532161
Rubriken
Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe

Cam

Most guys start pairing off around one, but TJ just sits there sipping his water. Everyone else slinks away from the bar in twos and threes. They´re fucked up and bobbing down Fairview, toward somebody´s ex-boyfriend´s best friend´s apartment. Or the bathhouse in midtown. Or even just out to the bar´s patio, under our awning, where mosquitoes crash-land into streetlamps until like six in the morning. But tonight, even after we´ve turned down the music and undimmed the lights and wiped down the counters, TJ doesn´t budge. It´s like the motherfucker doesn´t even recognize me.

For a moment, he´s a blank canvas.

A face entirely devoid of our history.

But he wears this grin I´ve never seen before. His hair tufts out from under his cap, grazing the back of his neck. And he´s always been shorter than me, but his cheeks have grown softer, still full of the baby fat that never went away.

I´m an idiot, but I know this is truly a rare thing: to see someone you´ve known intimately without them seeing you.

It creates an infinitude of possibility.

But then TJ blinks and looks right at me.

Fuck, he says.

Fuck yourself, I say.

Fuck, says TJ. Fuck.

You said that, I say. Wanna drink something stronger?

TJ touches the bottom of his face. Fiddles with his hair. Looks down at his glass.

He says, I didn´t even know you were back in Houston.

Alas, I say.

You didn´t think to tell me?

It´s not a big deal.

Right, says TJ. Sure.

The speakers above us blast a gauzy stream of pop chords, remixed beyond comprehension. Dolly and Jennifer and Whitney. They´re everyone´s cue to pack up for the night. But guys still lean on the bar top in various states of disarray-a gay bar´s weekend cast varies wildly and hourly, from the Mexican otters draped in leather, to the packs of white queers clapping off beat, to the Asian bears lathered in Gucci, to the Black twinks nodding along with the bass by the pool table.

As the crowd finally thins out, TJ grabs his cap, running a hand through his hair. He groans.

Feel free to hit the dance floor, I say.

You know I don´t do that shit, says TJ.

Then you really haven´t changed. But I´ll be done in a minute, if you want to stick around.

Fine, says TJ.

Good, I say, and then I´m back at my job, closing out the register and restocking the Bacardí and turning my back on him once again.

I hadn´t heard from TJ in years.

We hadn´t actually seen each other in over a decade.

Growing up, his house stood next door to mine. My folks were rarely around, so TJ´s kept an eye on me. I ate at his dinner table beside Jin and Mae. Borrowed his sweaters. Slept beside him in his bed with his breath on my face. When my parents died-in a car accident, clipped by a drunk merging onto I-45, I´d just turned fifteen, cue cellos-his family took me into their lives, gave me time and space and belonging, and for the rest of my life whenever I heard the word home their faces beamed to mind like fucking holograms.

Not that it matters now. Didn´t change shit for me in the end.

Before I start mopping, Minh and Fern wave me off. When I ask what their deal is, Fern says it´s rude to keep suitors waiting.

He seems pretty into you, says Minh.

He isn´t, I say.

And he´s not your usual type, says Fern. I´ve never seen you go for cubs.

I´m constantly evolving, I say, but we´re not fucking.

Spoken like an actual whore, says Minh.

Fern owns the bar. Minh´s his only other employee. After I flick them off, I step outside and it´s started to drizzle. And TJ´s still standing by the curb, sucking on a vape pen as he taps at his phone, blowing a plume of pot into the air once he spots me. The rain pokes holes through his cloud.

You´ve lost weight, says TJ.

And you´ve gained it, I say.

Nice.

It´s no shade. You finally look like a baker.

But it´s different. You´re-

That´s what you want to talk about?

It was an observation, says TJ. I have eyes.

Did you park nearby, I ask.

Nah.

Then I´ll walk you to your car like a gentleman.

Ha, says TJ, and we drift along the sidewalk, ducking into the neighborhood under stacks of drooping fronds.

. . .

The middle of Montrose is busted concrete and monstrous greenery and bundled town houses. Scattered laughter bubbles along the roads snaking beside us, even at this time of night. Bottles break and engines snarl. But TJ´s pace is steady, so I ease mine, too. Sometimes he glances my way, but nothing comes out of his mouth.

Deeply stimulating conversation, I say.

I don´t think you get to be like that with me, says TJ.

Is that right? After all these years?

It´s not like I planned on running into you tonight, says TJ. This isn´t a date.

So you´re actually dating now, I say, instead of fucking straight boys?

Shut up, says TJ. How long have you been in Houston? And don´t lie.

Relax, I say. Just a few months.

What´s a few?

A few since Kai died.

Oh, says TJ.

He stops in the center of a driveway. A gaggle of queens searching for their Lyft walks around us, whistling at nothing in particular.

Shit, says TJ. Sorry.

Nothing for you to be sorry about, I say.

No, says TJ. Not about that. Or not completely. But I never got to talk to you, after what happened.

After, I say.

After, says TJ. You know.

He keeps his eyes on the concrete. One of his hands forms a fist.

The reaction´s totally human. But it still isn´t good enough for me.

So I walk up to TJ, standing closer.

You didn´t kill him, I say.

I know, but-

No buts. Don´t be a fucking downer.

TJ doesn´t say anything. He takes another hit of the pen. And he extends it to me, dangling the battery from his fingers, so I take that off his hands and huff a hit of his weed, too.

We walk a few more blocks, hopscotching across Hopkins´s sidewalks, toward Whitney and Morgan and the gays honking in Mini Coopers behind us. We pass a pair of Vietnamese guys steadying each other by the shoulders, torn up from their night out, taking care not to step on any cracks. We pass a huddle of drunk bros holding court on a taquería´s corner, swinging their phones and laughing way too loudly. When one of them asks if we´re looking to party, I feel TJ tense up, so I tell them we´re good, maybe next time, and add a little extra bass in my voice.

But the guys just wave us off. TJ and I duck under another set of branches. And then we´re alone on the road, again, beyond the neighborhood´s gravity of queer bars, where it´s as silent as any other white-bread Texas suburb.

Hey, I say. Does showing up at the bar mean you´re finally out?

I was always out, says TJ.

Right, I say. But are you-

My car´s here, says TJ, nodding at a tiny Hyundai parked by the intersection.

He leans against the door while I fiddle with my pockets. It makes no fucking sense that I´m nervous. But when TJ asks if I need a ride back to my place, I decline, pointing toward the neighborhood.

I´m local, I say.

Of course you are, says TJ.

Staying with a friend. Another friend.

One that knew you were in this fucking city.

TJ speaks plainly, like he´s describing the weather.

What the fuck would you have done if I´d told you, I say.

I guess we´ll never know, says TJ.

He makes a funny face then. Another one I´ve never seen before. Something like a smirk.

So I think about what I´m going to say, and I open my mouth to launch it-but then I change my mind.

Because TJ´s earned at least this much.

Instead, I reach for his pen, pulling another hit. I blow that back in his face. When TJ waves it away, I blow another.

Listen, he says. Seriously. You´re really okay?

It´s a short walk, I say.

No. I mean, are you all right?

I twirl TJ´s pen a few times. He really does look like he means it.

Come back to the bar and see me, I say. I´ll be around.

TJ gives me a long look, pursing his lips. Then he reaches into his car, snatching something, pushing it against my chest.

It´s a paper bag filled with pastries. Chicken turnovers. They´re flaky in my hands, warm to the touch, and the smell sends a chill up my neck-entirely too familiar.

Are you the fucking candy man, I say.

Try them, says TJ.

How do I know they aren´t laced?

Because I´d have poisoned you years ago.

So I take a bite of the pastry.

It´s just as delicious as I remember.

And when TJ sees my face, he nods.

Then he steps into his car without glancing my way, and I watch him drive off, and I wait for him to wave or throw a peace sign or whatever the fuck but he doesn´t. TJ turns the corner and he´s gone.

So I take another bite of the turnover, tasting the food, rolling it around my mouth.

Then I spit it out.

It´s only another block before I find a trash can to dump the rest.

. . .

A few streets later, my phone pings...
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Autor

Bryan Washington is a writer from Houston. His fiction and essays have appeared in, among other publications, the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, the BBC, Vulture and the Paris Review. He's also a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 winner, the recipient of an Ernest J. Gaines Award, a PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize finalist, a National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize finalist, the recipient of an O. Henry Award and the winner of the 2020 International Dylan Thomas Prize.BryWashing.com / @BryWashing

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