Chang-Rae Lee - Aloft

"Have some fries, Jerry"

I help myself, though I'm completely not hungry something I've been a lot lately, no doubt inspired in some latent biological way by the sight of pregnant kin. Or maybe I shouldn't be eating at all, to leave more

of the kill for her. In any case Paul, who is enabling this behavior, is back at the house dry-rubbing Moroccan spices on a hormone-free leg of lamb he'll grill for dinner and serve with herbed couscous and butter-braised spargel, German white asparagus he found on special at Fresh Fields for a mere $5.99

a pound. He's been cooking even more furiously than ever, preparing at least four or five meals for every three we eat, so that we're building up enough surplus inventory to last us a couple of weeks, in case there's some threat of a late-summer hurricane and a run on the supermarkets. Last week I made Paul quite happy by cleaning out an old freezer in the basement and plugging it in and then buying him one of those vacuum sealer machines so his lovely dishes wouldn't get freezer-burned.

Every day since it seems he's vacuum-packing not just hot food and leftovers but dry goods like roasted cashews and Asian party mix and banana chips and Peanut M&M's, apportioning and shrink-wrapping whatever he finds bulk-packaged at Costco that catches his eye. No one's said it, for of course these are meals that would certainly come in handy after the baby is born, but that's many months off and then maybe not quite appropriate, as it doesn't seem quite right that you'd be heating up a maple pivot noir glazed loin of veal or halibut medallions in aioli-lemongrass sauce between breast feedings or diaper changes. Or maybe you would.

While I'm pleased that Paul is thusly keeping busy with what one hopes are therapeutic activities, I'm growing increasingly worried that he's maybe starting to sink in his soup, that he's getting too engrossed in work that seems worthwhile and positive but is in fact the culinary equivalent of obsessively washing one's hands. Yesterday as he was coming up from one of his nearly hourly descents to the basement freezer I asked him again (casually, gently, as if accidently) if any writing was going on. He weakly chuckled and muttered, "What?" and then in the next breath asked me in a serious tone if I thought he had what it took to sell Saturns at the new dealership just opened up on Jericho. When I realized he wasn't kidding I told him yes, he'd probably be great at it, for Paul with his gentle, trustworthy, liberal carriage is no doubt just right for those haggling-averse academic-type customers (though he still probably ought to lose the ponytail and hemp huaraches), and after leaving him to roll up some pounded chicken breasts with a spinach chevre pignoli-nut stuffing I wandered off thinking how utterly disturbing this whole mess must be for him, despite what has been since his first disclosure to me an otherwise thoroughly affable Paul Pyun performance. People say that Asians don't show as much feeling as whites or blacks or Hispanics, and maybe on average that's not completely untrue, but I'll say, too, from my long if narrow experience (and I'm sure zero expertise), that the ones I've known and raised and loved have been each completely a surprise in their emotive characters, confounding me no end.

This is not my way of proclaiming "We're all individuals" or

"We're all the same" or any other smarmy notion about our species' solidarity, just that if a guy like me is always having to think twice when he'd rather not do so at all, what must that say about this existence of ours but that it restlessly defies our attempts at its capture, time and time again.

Richie's car streaks by in a red candy flash, the shearing whine of the motor indicating that the assistant manager is driving in too low a gear. He leaps back and forth between the two lanes, weaving in and out of the slow-moving traffic with surprising skill, and turns down a side road, to disappear again. His coworker, shaking his fist in the air, is shouting at the top of his lungs expletives of high praise.

"I forget, how old is Pop again?" Theresa asks out of the blue, between slurps of her vanilla shake. I'd wanted to bring up the Big Issue, but Theresa is now tolerating no talk whatsoever of her pregnancy or the non-Hodgkin's (the non always throwing me off, like it's nonlethal, nonimportant, nonreal), and then practicing deft avoidance maneuvers whenever I try to pry.

"He was eighty-five, around the time of the party."

"And you're fifty-nine."

"Yup," I say, thinking how that number sounds better than it ever has befor4 "Sixty, on Labor Day. You're probably thinking,

`How ironic."

"Gee, Terry, you must think I'm the most horrible person."

"No way. But you can be honest."

"Okay, so maybe I had a flash of a thought. But nobody would say you haven't worked hard all your life. Not even Pop."

"Only because he's not saying much." Though this is not quite true. Pop's actually been in a decent mood since the immediate aftermath of the incident with Bea, generally behav-ing well during my visits, being soft-spoken and circumspect and displaying what for him is an astoundingly modest demeanor, even pleasant, the unvolubility of which should be frightening me to death but that I'm simply glad for whenever I'm there, the two of us slouched in his mauve-and-beige-accented room for a couple uneventful hours (with him propped up in the power bed, and me in the recliner, likewise angled) staring up at the Learning Channel or the Food Network. This might sound dismally defeatist, but when you can't pretend anything else but that your pop is in the home for life and his former main lady is now permanently featuring a bib and diaper, you tend not to want to examine the issues too rigorously, you tend to want to keep it Un-real, keep the thinking small because the issues in fact aren't issues anymore but have suddenly become the all-enveloping condition.

Theresa says, "Would you like a party for the big one?"

"Definitely not."

"Why not?" she says. "It'll be great fun. We'll have a birthday roast. We'll invite all of your friends."

"I don't have any friends."

"That can't be true. What about all the Battle Brothers guys?"

"We're still friendly, but we're not friends. Never were."

"Then some other group, neighbors, people from the neighborhood. School chums. Don't you have buddies from your Coast Guard days?"

"I told you, I don't have friends. I never really have. I just have friendlies."

"Then we'll invite all your friendlies. It doesn't have to be a huge thing. I'm sure Paul will be happy to cater it."

"It seems like he's already started."

"Isn't he great? Actually, Paul's the one who mentioned doing something special for your birthday. I didn't know, of course, because I'm so damn assimilated, but in Korea the sixtieth is a real milestone. I guess numerologically it's significant, plus the fact that in the old days it was quite a feat to live that long."

"It still is," I say. "It's just that these days nobody really wants you to."

"Oh, stop whining. In my mind it's settled. We'll throw you a sixtieth birthday party. That will be our present, as we have no money. I'm sure Jack and Eunice will get you something huge, like a new plane."

"That's just what I'm afraid of." I'm trying to tune in an oldies station on the radio, as the ones that I've always liked to listen to (in this car especially) have somewhere along the line fiddled with their programming, shifting from '50s and '60s songs to mostly '70s and '80s pop, which are of course now oldies to Theresa and often completely new to me. Finally I have to switch to cruddy lo-fidelity AM to find the mix I want, which is no mix at all, just Platters and Spinners and Chuck Berry and James Brown, though it comes out scratchy and tinny like from the other end of a can-and-string telephone. This, of course, is part of the ever-rolling parade of life, slow-moving enough that you never think you'll miss something glittery and nice, but then not stopping, either, for much anyone or anything. And by extension you can see how folks can begin to feel left behind or ushered out, how maybe you yourself come in a format like an LP or Super 8mm that would play perfectly fine if ever cued up, if the right machines were still around.