Alexander Chee - Edinburgh

Fee

1

Sometimes I imagine my grand-aunts. Escaped from their tormentors, unable to go home. They would be like my grandfather, of course, thin and tall and silver. Their hair would be wrapped into modest buns, let down only at night, when some daughter might help them brush it. The red hair would be gone, turned silver now. The white fox, very rare, is the good fox, the most holy one. Helper to the rice god.

If they were still alive, though, they would have come home. Could they be alive out there, somehow unable to have found their way home? Sometimes I see them: old women, vigorous as teenagers, stepping across the night in a rush of wind, their hair turning to fire. When the fox flies her hair is a fiery tail behind her. Watch them come. They dodge church spires and office towers in their pell-mell, sow sparks, set mysterious fires at the homes of their now-elderly tormentors, who emerge to put them out, a little afraid. They laugh as they go.

We love him, they would say of their brother, their words scattering across the roof of sky. We miss him. But we can’t come home.

2

When a fox marries another fox, fox trouble ends for one whole day. Kitsune no yomeiri, the Japanese say. Rain and sun together at the same time. Good luck.

I met Bridey when I was leaving San Francisco, a place where I’d spent far too much time, for New York, where I was intending to spend another as-yet-indeterminate period of time, that would turn out to be three years. I’d abandoned all pretense of a fine arts career some time ago, had drifted into making raku pottery for some of the home goods stores in the area and developed a line I called stormware, for all of it looked as if the sea had gotten to it first. It was popular. Magazines used it in pictures, and sometimes I made some money. I couldn’t make enough, though, on my own, but didn’t want to expand the business, and began looking for a way to leave. But of course, the only way to leave is to just leave.

I no longer spent all my time wanting to die, but I was fairly apprehensive about being alive. It wasn’t that my life lacked meaning, but rather that I disliked the meaning it offered to me every morning as I sat at my studio wheel, spinning. My father’s scientific mind had given me a knack for the chemistry of glazes, my mother’s orderly ways and laid-back approach made for a loose style. The housewares were popular and profitable and vanished more or less as they were made. I kept none of them, eating off odds and ends I found in church sales. With the exception of the occasional political demonstration, I lived quietly, and was relatively solitary, avoiding the Castro as well as the Mission, and the bars of SOMA. I was not making great art, but I didn’t want to, either. I wanted to make lots of things that added little beauties everywhere, on a daily basis. This seemed to me better. I’d had enough of great art, I had decided, through music. One afternoon, though, my resolve was stronger than on the others and I made my plans. I gave my notice at my apartment and called friends from school in New York, who said, Well, it’s about time. Penny in particular was impatient.

I had heard in gossip from these school friends that there was a boy from the crew team who was doing erotic dancing at a strip club in Chicago, at a place called Slick. It was a place that had male dancers a few times a week who all showered in front of the clientele before walking around to collect their tips. I loaded my car with my suitcase, dropped my boxes at Greyhound, and headed off. Checking my mail on the day I left, I discovered a letter from my mother. I decided I would open it later,

I thought of Bridey fairly often. Who would he be? My friends had tried to describe him to me. He wasn’t out when you were there, they said. He was closeted. He’s beautiful, they said, but sort of arrogant and very crazy. As I wound my way through Reno, and then Omaha, and then Iowa City, I thought of the stories again and again, how he had married and divorced a beautiful and wealthy Boston girl from an old family, how he had been forced to divorce her because he was caught with a boy I did remember, a breathtaking boy he had seduced apparently for the first time at their wedding reception. I had decided well in advance to stop and so I parked under the SLICK sign, locked my car, and went in. I realized, pushing the door open, I had no idea if he would be the one I thought he was. I’d no way of recognizing him.

I had my mother’s letter in my back pocket, and set it on the table in front of the stage, where I ordered a Scotch and water and watched as boys made their way in and out. Most of the clientele were older men, some of whom openly stared at me. The bouncers raised their eyebrows but did nothing. And then he came out.

I remembered him as soon as I saw him. He was beautiful, he was arrogant. I remembered paying him almost no attention. I don’t remember there was time enough to do so, as I was graduating, and occupied by thoughts of my worthless life. He remembered me as well, for what he did was step off the stage to perch on my table and squat down. He wore only a towel that night.

You’re a bastard for coming here, he said. He looked me right in the eye. No one else has, he said.

I shrugged. I was trying not to laugh.

Aren’t you going to open that, he said. He pointed to the letter.

I might, I said. He had squatted so that my drink lay under Ins towel, which is to say, under him. To get it, I had to reach there, so I did. I left my hand there. He didn’t seem to notice.

Who’s it from, he asked.

My mother, I said. Listen. What exactly are the rules here about touching you?

He laughed. There aren’t any in the house. I have personal ones though. In order to keep the local peace. He brushed his hair out of his face. A drop of water fell from somewhere underneath the towel and hit the bar, and then another dropped on my wrist. I noticed the thing around his neck was a wet G-string.

I stood. My arms reached out, as if I were waiting for a baby.

What is this, he asked.

I want to pick you up. I mean, carry you. Just for a bit. I reached for my wallet.

How are you going to do this if you don’t hold out your hands? he asked, and began to swing himself toward me. I reached and he sat himself down in my arms. People stared as I wandered around the room, him laughing. There’ll be trouble, he said.

Yes, I said. I bet.

He was warm, he smelled clean, of course, having just showered. He reached out and plucked the letter from the table, and when I set him down again, he handed it back to me.

Thanks, he said. I’d like to see you again.

Nothing seemed likely, except that I would have to open the letter, and so I said, You could see more of me now. It’s unfortunately the only way. You could take me home.

He laughed. You’re like a boy someone lost in a toy store.

I live well over three hours away, I said.

All right then. But I have to finish this shift. And saying that, he climbed back up on the bar.

He told me that his name was Albright Forrester, but that everyone called him Bridey. I sat at the bar and waited through several more drinks as he showered again, and the other men in the bar pushed dollars into the G-string he had put back on and then eyed me, suspicious. He remained cheerful, as if this were the most fun he could have. The money, the fingers, didn’t seem to touch him, as if his skin wasn’t really skin but a field of energy with color and texture. If you had to do a job like this, his skin was the right skin.

Later, in his apartment, I told him. I’m not from around here.