SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

“Wake up, already! Wake up! Levantate!”

“What the hell, C? It’s Saturday.”

“I told Brandon we’d be there in the morning. The morning’s almost finished.”

“I didn’t like him.”

“Who? Brandon?”

“Naw, Brandon’s alright.”

“Darius isn’t even cold in the ground, and you’re talking shit about him? He was my friend. We’re going to help Brandon out.”

Travis pulled on last night’s clothes, and they made the twenty minute walk down to Brandon’s in silence.

The doorbell woke Trayvon. Brandon, having hardly slept, was in the kitchen brewing more coffee. When he opened the door, Camilo spoke first. “How you holding up, Bran?”

“Not so good, Camilo. It’s good to have friends around.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” offered Travis.

“Thank you…. What was your name again?”

“Travis.”

“Thank you, Travis. My mind’s just been…”

“Of course, Brandon,” said Camilo. “Let’s go inside. Is anyone else here yet?”

“No, nobody at all. Bobby and Eileen are coming soon, and Susan, too, but Cassie has to work today.” As they traversed the foyer, Trayvon entered the open kitchen.

“Is that nobody?” asked Travis.

“Oh, my god, I forgot,” muttered Brandon. Then he called, “Trayvon, let me introduce you to my friends.” Trayvon approached hesitantly. “This is Camilo, and this is…”

“Travis,” said Travis, who remained aloof. Camilo offered his hand not in a shake, but as if to try and draw the boy’s hand up for a kiss, an offer not taken by Trayvon.

“Trayvon saw the accident.”

“Ay!” gasped Camilo.

“So he’s one of the rioters, then?” said Travis.

“I think I should be going,” said Trayvon, assuming the most proper, schoolroom tone of voice he could recall. “Thank you for letting me stay here, mister.”

“Brandon,” insisted Brandon.

“Thank you, Mister Brandon.”

“No, please, stay. My friends are coming over for brunch, and I want you to tell them what you told me last night, about Darius.”

“I don’t know if I should.”

“There’s nothing to worry about, Trayvon. My friends know powerful people who should know the truth. We can keep you safe.”

“Have you ever had a pisco sour, son?” asked Camilo, brandishing the bottle.

“He’s way too young, Camilo. Twelve.”

Camilo looked down at his shoes, reassuring himself that the boy looked mature for his age, then offered: “I’ll make you one, Bran.”

“Too early, Camilo. But let’s go in, and you can be a dear and put a splash into my coffee.”

The surveillance cameras on the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge across the Anacostia River were knocked out by a power outage just after six p.m. on Saturday. The cause of the outage did not need to be investigated, since everyone whose responsibility it would be to investigate it was already disposed to attribute it to a nearby bonfire.

When the body of Trayvon Allen was discovered the following day in Fort Hunt, on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, anyone who was in a position to investigate his cause of death saw plainly that it was due to a fall from a great height. If he was taking a circuitous route from the Dupont Circle area to his home in Congress Heights, he might very well have been crossing the Douglass bridge during the time when its surveillance cameras were out.

No bullets were recovered from his body. We repeat: No bullets were recovered from his body. Anyone who says otherwise is engaging in irresponsible speculation.

Phantasm Japan, ed. Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington (Haikasoru, 2014)

1. After a restless night of torrenting bootleg hentai manga and trying to translate the contents of the speech bubbles, Aaron Burch, an Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and new resident of North Glamis, Maine, had his tatemae and his honne come unstuck from one another as he was mowing the one-acre lawn of his new family home.

2. The distinction made in the Japanese language between tatemae (建前) and honne (本音) does not appear analogous to the partitions of the soul made in other world philosophies. The first refers to the attitudes and behaviors human beings adopt in order to get along in society; the second, to what we inwardly hold, our true selves.

3. The first kanji of honne is hon (本), book. The second, ne , comes from the Chinese character 音 meaning sound. But the ne pronunciation is a particle conferring emphasis. To be a honne is to be a closed book, whose interpretation is no longer subject to dispute, not so much the words contained within as the noise of gross finality it makes when slammed shut.

4. Tatemae ’s translation seems more straightforward: A constructed front. Yet the passive voice frustrates the Anglophone demand for definitiveness: Constructed by whom?

5. As used in Japanese, the distinction appears to be discursive and heuristic, rather than substantive and metaphysical. It does not refer to discrete entities, but to different ways of talking and thinking about the self. In this sense it is partially homologous to the Hegelian contradiction between essence and appearance, in that both taken together comprise a reality that cannot be apprehended in a single glance.

6. Therefore, a Japanese person would no more expect a honne to assume an existence separate from the corresponding tatemae than one would expect a shadow to detach itself from the body casting it. But just as stories are told in every world culture of such autonomous shadows, it is reasonable to expect incidents of such a separation between the tatemae and the honne .

7. Aaron Burch’s tatemae —henceforth to be referred to as Aaron-T—continued mowing the lawn in a strict rectilinear progression, waving to the neighbors on each side as he saw them.

8. It should not be surprising that a tatemae would be capable of operating a push lawnmower, but perhaps for some readers it is. While in Western philosophical traditions it is customary to treat appearances as ephemeral, a moment’s thought should make it clear that the tatemae has much greater need of the body’s physical form than the honne . Whether bowing at the waist, offering a firm handshake, making air kisses, back slaps or bear hugs, our social being makes regular use of our corporality.

9. The honne , in contrast, has the luxury of becoming spectral. Aaron’s honne —henceforth to be referred to as Aaron-H—chased after a blue-winged grasshopper trying to evade the mower blades.

10. “Please accept my apologies, O Blue-Winged Grasshopper, for cutting down the tall grass in which you were hiding,” said Aaron-H. “I hope a bird does not eat you.”

11. The grasshopper, being unfamiliar with the notion of apologies, mistook Aaron-H’s cries for the wingbeats of a blue jay, and fled further, taking shelter underneath a yellow toolshed. Aaron-H followed him there.

12. It was at this point Aaron-H realized that he had detached from Aaron-T, his tatemae , since otherwise he would not have been able to fit under a toolshed.

13. Aaron-T noticed no change, nor any grasshoppers, and continued mowing the lawn.

14. In fact Aaron-T remained oblivious through the remainder of the day, as the movers arrived with their possessions, and his wife Chloe and young son Jared followed behind, Chloe taking charge of directing the movers on the correct placement of their various goods and Aaron-T pitching in by shifting furnishings, repairing light fixtures, and otherwise acting as the very image of a good husband.