Hopeful Monsters

  Hopeful Monsters

  Hiromi Goto

  Hopeful MONSTERS

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  Hopeful Monsters

  Copyright © 2004 by Hiromi Goto

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical – without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a license from Access Copyright.

  ARSENAL PULP PRESS

  #102-211 East Georgia St.

  Vancouver, BC

  Canada V6A 1Z6

  arsenalpulp.com

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for its publishing activities.

  Design by Solo

  Printed and bound in Canada

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons either living or deceased is purely coincidental.

  National Library of Canada

  Cataloguing in Publication

  Goto, Hiromi, 1966–

  Hopeful monsters : stories / Hiromi Goto.

  ISBN 1-55152-157-1

  ISBN 978-1-55152-157-2

  EISBN 978-1-55152-306-4

  I. Title.

  PS8563.o8383H66 2004 C813’.54 C2004-900678-9

  For Tiger Goto,

  who shows me, through example,

  how to walk lightly into the darkness,

  whistling as you go. . . .

  I respect and love you.

  Night

  Osmosis

  Tilting

  Stinky Girl

  Tales From the Breast

  Drift

  Home Stay

  From Across a River

  Camp Americana

  Hopeful Monsters

  All Possible Moments

  Acknowledgments

  Night

  When your sight tilts like that

  You laugh out loud in your sleep, you know. Did you know? You laugh out loud in your sleep. There are heads of hakusai in the basement starting to dry out before they have a chance to rot because of the heat from the dryer in what would otherwise be a very cold basement. It would be a terrible waste to throw them out because they are not so bad that I couldn’t peel away the topper leaves and use the rest but I can’t bear to touch them because they’re garden hakusai, grown outside, and there are bugs gone cocooned or chrysalis or whatever in the crinkle leaves and it’ll make me scream if any touched my hands. (Three women sit around a Formica table in the kitchen.)

  Cup

  I like to sleep with the window open but you prefer it closed and I have to stick my feet outside the covers if I want to get any sleep at all, but the one drawback to sleeping with the window open is that the magpies squawk at sunrise and I have to get out of bed and slam my palm against the glass until they fly away while you go to the fridge for a cup of cold mugi-cha but forget to bring me any and the baby wakes up from all the noise. (Three women at 1:37 AM.)

  Two Linger

  Sometimes you say a word out loud and it’s just that there is only the one falling from your mouth like a small bone or a stone from a plum and there’s nothing to hold it up against so I have to prod you with sticks of questions but you never say anything else and only nuzzle below my breasts with your fingertips in your sleep. (The grandmother sips, noisily, her beer and sucks the residue from her teeth in smacks.)

  Tick Tock

  It’s loud, you know. At night.

  SometimesIhateyousomuchIcan’tevenbeartoliebesideyou

  andI’dwishyou’dgoandsleeponthecouchbutyouneverdoso

  IhavetoleaveifIwantyoutogo.

  It’s loud, you know. At night.

  Tick

  Tock

  Three women sit around a Formica table in the kitchen. Three women at 1:37 AM. The grandmother sips, noisily, her beer and sucks the residue from her teeth in smacks. The mother turns to her daughter.

  “You should go to sleep soon. The baby’s going to wake up at least once.”

  “Yeah, soon,” the daughter says, wanting to sit a while longer, in the quiet, with the women.

  “Of course, if your father has another dream like the other night, everybody’ll be up,” the mother laughs.

  “What happened?”

  “Such a colossal racket! I thought my heart would burst!” says the grandmother. Slurping the last drops of beer from her cup.

  “Your father started screaming at the top of his voice in the middle of the night. Thrashing about on his bed. I was sleeping downstairs, but I woke up, it was so loud. I ran upstairs. Grandmother ran in from her room too.”

  “I thought he was dying,” the grandmother says.

  “He was awake by then and such sweating and panting! I asked him what he dreamt about. And he said, his voice all quivering, ‘Two women were trying to crawl into bed beside me while I was sleeping. Two strange women!’”

  The mother glances at the grandmother and they burst into laughter, snapping the humming night stillness.

  “I said to him, ‘Well, what are you so frightened about? Most people would love to have two strange women join them in bed!’ But he only shook his head, got a drink of water, and went back to his room.” They laugh again and the daughter laughs with them.

  “The poor man,” the daughter says. “We shouldn’t make fun.” She rises from her chair and goes to the fridge for a beer. She twists it open, pours some into her grandmother’s cup, then takes a long swallow from the bottle.

  “I think I’ll join you,” her mother says and pours herself some rye and Diet Coke.

  The women sit together, drinking.

  “I had the most frightening nightmare last night,” the mother says.

  “What was it?” asks the daughter, picking at the label of her beer with a fingernail.

  “I dreamt I was sleeping in the spare bedroom, so I didn’t realize I was dreaming because I was dreaming I was sleeping, which I was. Anyways! There I was, sleeping, and something wakes me up. A rustle, rustle, then tapping. Kon, kon, kon. Like a hammer or something. Kon, kon, kon. And I lay there for quite some time, just listening, until I realize that it’s an awfully strange time of night to be doing any construction work. So I slowly open my eyes and there beside my bed, in the wall, there’s a great jagged hole – like someone has been using a pick-axe on it. Inside the room it’s night dark, but outside, framed by the jagged edge of the broken wall, it’s a grey dawn colour. I thought to myself, ‘That’s strange,’ and then a German Shepherd sticks his head inside the hole to look at me! But I like dogs, so I’m not frightened. I just think, ‘Why, there’s a dog looking at me.’ The dog pulls his head out and leaves and I can see a pair of legs standing right outside the hole.”

  “The dog’s?” asks the grandmother.

  “No, a man’s! I can only see from his mid-thigh down to his feet, just outside my room, and a long wooden handle stands vertically beside his legs and I know it’s the pick-axe! My heart’s pounding in my ears, but I can’t move, can’t move, can only watch as he bends down, looks through the hole, and sees me watching. He crams his head inside, shoving his shoulders, trying to force his knee through and I yell! I yelled, ‘Dorobo! Dorobo! Dorobo!’ until I woke myself up.”

  “Well, I didn’t hear a thing,” says the grandmother, peering at her daughter. “And there’s nothing much in this house a thief would want to steal,” she adds. Sips from her cup.

  “What do you dream of, Grandmother?”

  “Oh I have frightening dreams, girl. Something terrible!” She say
s nothing more, and her daughter and granddaughter sit, watching her, waiting for her to continue. Outside, a late cricket begins to chirp and the cat wanders in from the living room, jumps lightly onto the mother’s lap. The mother snuggles the cat between her breasts, cat rubbing his head against her chin.

  “A very strange thing, this. Every time, it’s a new dream. Every moment, it’s brand new, and I don’t realize I’ve dreamt it a hundred, a thousand times before until after I wake up.” The grandmother gazes beyond her fingers clutching the cup. Strokes the plastic cup with pebbled fingertips, her other hand a knuckle around the handle. The cat watches her stroking fingers with half-closed eyes, his pupils full and black. The mother stares at the top of the cat’s head and glides her hand down his gleaming back. Her daughter watches the grandmother’s face. The sharp bone of cheek, the hollows around her eyes, her throat.

  “I don’t know why, but I have all my clothes on, you know. Everyone else is naked. And I think, ‘How strange,’ but not because everyone is naked. Something else bothers me, only I don’t, I can’t see it.” She leans into her cup and takes a sip of beer. Smack. Smack. The young woman leans back in her chair and sets her feet on the seat opposite, between her mother’s legs, still intently watching her grandmother’s face.

  “Everyone starts kissing and touching each other. Men and women, women and women, men and men. And it’s good. Healthy. Then a woman I’ve never met before comes to me and starts touching my breasts and stroking my neck and I feel fine. Yes, fine. Then a man, a stranger, he pushes her away and starts to kiss me. I’m not sure about this, but he keeps on kissing me and kneels down to kiss my breasts through my clothes. I’m still half-pleasured from the woman touching me, but it’s going away and my head is clearing. There’s something wrong. I know it now so close. Very, very wrong. I feel his erection against my thigh and he grabs me close, close, no! Something hard stabs beneath my chin, pushing up and up against the bottom of my chin and I shove him back and back and I see him. I really see him. Oh god. . . . He is deformed. He is deformed. He has two erections. One between his legs and oh god, one at the base of his throat. A penis rising at an angle from the hollow of his collarbones and mat-mat of hair and his scrotum sags upon his chest. And I feel sick. I feel sick and turn and look and all the men. I can see. They are deformed. Every one of them.”

  The three women sit silently. Only the sound of the cat.

  “It’s funny,” the grandmother says, “how frightening the dreams are when you are in them, but if you try to explain them, they never sound that way.” She sucks the last bit of beer from her cup and turns to her granddaughter. “And what about you, child. What do you dream?”

  The young woman rolls bits of the beer label into tiny pills. She looks up and sees her mother and grandmother watching her face. “I don’t dream,” she says. They remain silent.

  “At least,” she adds, “none that I can remember.”

  From upstairs, there is a sleepy wail and the three women are still. Perhaps the baby will go back to sleep. Perhaps. . . . But the crygathers momentum, no longer sleepy, rising in pitch to become anger. The young woman finishes her beer in three long swallows and burps. She picks up a baby bottle from the draining board and fills it with warm water from the tap, screws the nipple on.

  “Well, see you in the morning,” she says, and thumps softly upstairs.

  The grandmother and mother sit at the kitchen table. They didn’t notice the cricket had stopped chirping until it begins again.

  Upstairs, it is quiet.

  Osmosis

  The texture of night.

  Everyone is asleep after drinking too many rye and Cokes, too many bottles of beer, and you are tired-aching in your joints from the alcohol lingering there. Wood smoke. Stub your toe on a cooler, should have worn thongs, never knew there was cactus in Alberta until today. The humped backs of canoes flipped upside down on the shore. It is still hot even though the moon has set. Peel sticky undershirt off like a sausage casing and thumb shorts, panties down thighs. Your arms limp beside you, curl toes into crumbly sand. Hesitate. Lift cracked heel, arch, the fleshy pad of foot, slowly, like an ancient bird. Slip one cautious foot into liquid smooth. One foot on land. The clasp of water cool, like a bracelet around your ankle and shivers run up your leg, spread across your back. No wind. No wind. Just the lap of water. Just the muted roar of blood coursing and your body fills with the night. You think you are alone.

  You stepped up to the rim of the water and when you placed one foot inside, the silent circles of your movement lapped against my neck. I flicked back my head because I thought it was some man drunk with intent, but I saw a soft shaped shadow and a gleaming ankle. Youcannot see me, the moon long set and short black hair sleekwet against my head. I am still, watching your stillness.

  You look up.

  Ankle softly clasped in the water and the sky swirls above you. The stars are too close so you shut your eyes to their clamour and lean thoughts toward the water. You want to think only of the water but there is the chirp of crickets and the distant snores of drunken friends. A splash in the outer limits of sight, but you think it is a fish or a bird. Perhaps a pebble, dropping from a steep embankment. How your laughing father threw you out into the ocean, the first time you ever saw a large body of water. Sank slowly, eyes open, burning, the seaweed looked like eels and your hiccupped lungs full of liquid salt. When your sister fished you out, you couldn’t believe how painful it was to vomit sea water through your nose, the back of your throat stinging of salt for days. You know you shouldn’t remember this. You were only two. Never ever learned how to swim, but you like the texture. Wish that you could trust it.

  I want you to step inside the water and lean against its back. If you took one more step you would see the shape of my head darker than the water. The mud between my toes is cool and slides slick between revulsion and pleasure. A tiny mouth nibbles the skin on my calf and I almost giggle. Kappa, I think. Kappa. Not a drowner of children or an anus-sucking monster. But a tiny green froggish thing with a tickly mouth. Kappa, I think, and I almost say the word aloud.

  Close your eyes.

  The after-image of stars. Wanting to move, trying to move the other foot into the water. You rest most of your weight on the foot on land and it has been still too long, takes movement upon itself. You know the flesh of your thigh, belly, are jiggling, but the black of night and the heat of quiet is enough to dim the movement. The clasp of water around your ankle makes you feel beautiful. You are beautiful. You know you will not be beautiful when the sun rises tomorrow. Both feet will be on solid ground and you’ll have to force your heavy body to mince around cacti you never knew grew in Alberta until yesterday. People will fight about who gets to cook and who will end up washing waxy bacon grease off cast iron frying pans. Watch, with envy and disgust, people crawling out of tents that are not their own. Someone will step on a cactus and you’ll mince even more carefully. You will not be beautiful tomorrow.

  Shiver the water cooling, evaporating from the surface, and I have been still too long. The cold seeps into chest, the hollow of my lungs. Breathing deep. Longing. Wrinkled hands to my breasts floating weightless and such a strange sensation. My hair starts to dry, stirs against my forehead.

  Open your eyes.

  But the night is still dark when you imagined that it might be lighter. Realize the lightness you felt was the cool breeze tracing the curve of spine. Skin pimpling from your wrists, up your arms to your neck. It feels so good you almost pee, standing where you are. One foot in, one foot out. You wish you could trust the water enough to take another step. Maybe two. You want to stand at least waist deep so you can pee inside the water. You know the hot urine from your body will seep into the fluid all around you and in that moment, all would be one. You would be able to lie back, sink smoothly without a ripple, and assume the texture of water. Osmosis. You will not drown. You are water. And when you rise, you will take a part of that with you. When you wake the next mo
rning people will come up to you and say you look different. That you look really nice. You will smile, not saying a thing, and two girls and a guy will ask you out on a date for next Friday.

  The stars are tilting away from me and the breeze has picked up to a wind. My toes begin to ache in mud, my lower lip starts to quiver. I could call out. I could call out. But I don’t even know your name. You don’t know I’m here. And I may have imagined you as I have imagined myself.

  I slide backward, underwater, slicing down through dark fluid soft as egg yolk. Slowly twist my body around. Kick the mud with my feet and propel upward. My head breaks the surface and I start swimming to the other side of the lake. I imagine I hear a voice softly murmur, “Kappa.”

  Tilting

  Obā-chan was the first to come out of the terminal gates, pushed in her wheelchair by a bearded Canadian Airlines man in a navy blue sweater. Her bamboo walking stick pointed straight up and down like an exclamation mark. The navy blue sweater man all brisk brisk and a quick fake smile hidden by his facial hair.

  “Obā-chan,” I said, “you don’t look too tired.” And tried to hug her as best I could around her walking stick, the cool metal arms of the wheelchair. Kunio held Kenji up, dangling the child in front of Obā-chan so that she could give him a kiss, but he squirmed away from her face.

  “He just got up from his nap, so he’s a little grumpy,” I said, excusing him. Obā-chan smiled wanly. Kunio juggled Kenji on to his left arm and bent down to give Obā-chan a quick peck.

  “I’ll just take her down to the luggage area,” the navy blue sweater man said, and swung Obā-chan around us, pushed her brusquely down the hall. Kunio and I watched him stride stride, his back straight and the exclamation of Obā-chan’s bamboo walking stick. Swallowed by the elevator.