TINAGO TRIPTYCH
by Dominic Lim
JOHN
I run out of the car, breaking across hot Virginia asphalt back into our house, my small eight-year-old feet barely touching the ground. I am flying because I believe now that a man can fly.
My father ambles quietly behind me, following me inside.
“Mom!” I yell. “Mom! I’m Superman! Look! I’m the strongest man in the world! I can do anything!”
I see her turn her head sideways, still cutting slabs of pork into tiny pieces on the kitchen counter. She smiles.
“That’s nice, anak,” she says, and continues to chop.
I race upstairs to my room. The summer evening has started to settle and the smells of honeysuckle and blackberries wind their way through my room from the open window. I jump headfirst onto my tiny bed, my belly bouncing on the thin, springy mattress. I breathe in the familiar scent of the worn-down polyester sheets and think about what I have seen, what I have just experienced. My skin prickles with electricity and a surge of warmth rushes up and down my body. I am dizzy, swooning with too many thoughts and emotions. I do not know it yet, but for the first time in my life I have fallen in love.
I spend hours lying there, thinking, dreaming. When it becomes too much for my tiny body, I turn over and stare into the white crinkly crevices etched into the spackled ceiling above, seeing shooting stars, planets, moons, and other heavenly things. Then, with a bolt, I sit up, run to my desk, pull out a piece of paper from my notebook, and begin to write.
Dear Superman,
I just saw your movie tonight. I want you to know how much I loved it.
You are the most handsome man in the world.
One day I am going to marry you.
The letter goes on in that way, an entire page of young infatuation. I read it over and over before folding it four times into a tiny rectangle and putting in my desk drawer.
The next day, coming home from school, I see my father standing at the door. I do not know what is going on. He shouldn’t be here, I think. It’s too early. My mother looks out from a corner of the living room window, her red face framed by the sad venetian blinds. I am not sure, but it looks like she has been crying.
JUANITO
I am sitting in the break room at work, eating my ham sandwich in silence when my co-worker Ron pushes his head through the door. He looks around. His movements remind me of a rat, searching for something to eat. I do not want to be disturbed. I have been thinking about the day before, a radiant Sunday afternoon with my son. One of the best that I can remember.
I had told him a week earlier that he was finally old enough to see his first movie. I can still see his eyes, the way they almost engulfed his round face, brighter and bigger than any star.
“I want you to take me to see Superman," he told me, and so we did. An entire day devoted to the movie, eating in the lobby before the show – two hot dogs with extra ketchup and two large root beers. I remember how he slurped his drink, his big, brown pupils glazed with over with excitement. Then the movie itself, an incredible feat of American ingenuity. And there was my son beside me, rocking back and forth, his hand gripping mine from time to time. I looked over at him and saw so much wonder and awe and joy that I broke, my composure nearly decimated, and I had to rub my eyes to mask the tears.
But now, Ron is telling me that my wife is calling for me. What could it possibly be, I think, and my ham sandwich crumbles to white and brown bits between my rigid fingers.
“Ah, ano?” I say. What’s the problem?
“Ai nako,” she says. I can tell instantly that she has been crying. “I found something in John’s room.”
As she talks I feel something inside me tighten and wind up – hard, heavy, and hot. It is a letter, she tells me. A letter from John to Superman. He says that he is in love.
My feet take me out and away from there, into the blistering heat of the parking lot, to my car. I drive home, reckless and unaware, mile after mile stretching in front of me. I feel as if I am falling, my body hurtling towards the ground at breakneck speed. I am racing home to take care of something no father should ever have to deal with.
My wife is sitting on the couch with her face buried in her hands. I tremble.
“Putang ina,” I mutter under my breath. Son of a bitch.
My watch says it is ten minutes before he gets back home from school. I will deal with this, I tell myself. I should not have taken him to see that movie. There must be something wrong. It must be made right.
CONNIE
You are cleaning your son’s room on a Monday morning. It is hot but your husband does not like to waste money on air conditioning so you rely on brief whispers of respite from the cheap oscillating fans that stand guard in each room. The whir of the noisy blades covers up the sound of cardinals singing outside your son’s window and you think how strange and difficult it is in this country but how beautiful it can be, too. You turn off the fan so that you can listen to the birds for a few moments in the stillness.
Then everything is back on: the fan, the vacuum cleaner, and the lights so that you can take full measure of all the dust – motes of it dancing in the air, clumps hiding in dark spaces. You open your son’s drawer and see a piece of paper there, folded into a tiny rectangle, the creases crisp, deliberate.
You are reminded of the time your son won a contest at school, an award for a book. An entire book that he wrote and illustrated all by himself while only in the third grade. Already your son has done great things and you hope, you believe, that he will only continue to do more. You unfold the paper, now slightly damp in the humid Richmond air and think it must be another story, another poem. Another wonderful work of art.
You read it and your breath stops. You read it again. You hope that you have misunderstood. You think: maybe it is not his. Maybe it was written by a classmate or acquaintance.
But no, it is his writing. You can tell by the way his O’s close in on themselves at the bottom instead of at the top, despite your best efforts to get him to do otherwise, telling him that writing in this manner was backwards. Incorrect.
No.
You understand that it is your son who has written this. A love letter to another man.
The air seeps around you like poison and you notice, even above the din of the fan, that the birds are no longer singing.
by Dominic Lim
JOHN
I run out of the car, breaking across hot Virginia asphalt back into our house, my small eight-year-old feet barely touching the ground. I am flying because I believe now that a man can fly.
My father ambles quietly behind me, following me inside.
“Mom!” I yell. “Mom! I’m Superman! Look! I’m the strongest man in the world! I can do anything!”
I see her turn her head sideways, still cutting slabs of pork into tiny pieces on the kitchen counter. She smiles.
“That’s nice, anak,” she says, and continues to chop.
I race upstairs to my room. The summer evening has started to settle and the smells of honeysuckle and blackberries wind their way through my room from the open window. I jump headfirst onto my tiny bed, my belly bouncing on the thin, springy mattress. I breathe in the familiar scent of the worn-down polyester sheets and think about what I have seen, what I have just experienced. My skin prickles with electricity and a surge of warmth rushes up and down my body. I am dizzy, swooning with too many thoughts and emotions. I do not know it yet, but for the first time in my life I have fallen in love.
I spend hours lying there, thinking, dreaming. When it becomes too much for my tiny body, I turn over and stare into the white crinkly crevices etched into the spackled ceiling above, seeing shooting stars, planets, moons, and other heavenly things. Then, with a bolt, I sit up, run to my desk, pull out a piece of paper from my notebook, and begin to write.
Dear Superman,
I just saw your movie tonight. I want you to know how much I loved it.
You are the most handsome man in the world.
One day I am going to marry you.
The letter goes on in that way, an entire page of young infatuation. I read it over and over before folding it four times into a tiny rectangle and putting in my desk drawer.
The next day, coming home from school, I see my father standing at the door. I do not know what is going on. He shouldn’t be here, I think. It’s too early. My mother looks out from a corner of the living room window, her red face framed by the sad venetian blinds. I am not sure, but it looks like she has been crying.
JUANITO
I am sitting in the break room at work, eating my ham sandwich in silence when my co-worker Ron pushes his head through the door. He looks around. His movements remind me of a rat, searching for something to eat. I do not want to be disturbed. I have been thinking about the day before, a radiant Sunday afternoon with my son. One of the best that I can remember.
I had told him a week earlier that he was finally old enough to see his first movie. I can still see his eyes, the way they almost engulfed his round face, brighter and bigger than any star.
“I want you to take me to see Superman," he told me, and so we did. An entire day devoted to the movie, eating in the lobby before the show – two hot dogs with extra ketchup and two large root beers. I remember how he slurped his drink, his big, brown pupils glazed with over with excitement. Then the movie itself, an incredible feat of American ingenuity. And there was my son beside me, rocking back and forth, his hand gripping mine from time to time. I looked over at him and saw so much wonder and awe and joy that I broke, my composure nearly decimated, and I had to rub my eyes to mask the tears.
But now, Ron is telling me that my wife is calling for me. What could it possibly be, I think, and my ham sandwich crumbles to white and brown bits between my rigid fingers.
“Ah, ano?” I say. What’s the problem?
“Ai nako,” she says. I can tell instantly that she has been crying. “I found something in John’s room.”
As she talks I feel something inside me tighten and wind up – hard, heavy, and hot. It is a letter, she tells me. A letter from John to Superman. He says that he is in love.
My feet take me out and away from there, into the blistering heat of the parking lot, to my car. I drive home, reckless and unaware, mile after mile stretching in front of me. I feel as if I am falling, my body hurtling towards the ground at breakneck speed. I am racing home to take care of something no father should ever have to deal with.
My wife is sitting on the couch with her face buried in her hands. I tremble.
“Putang ina,” I mutter under my breath. Son of a bitch.
My watch says it is ten minutes before he gets back home from school. I will deal with this, I tell myself. I should not have taken him to see that movie. There must be something wrong. It must be made right.
CONNIE
You are cleaning your son’s room on a Monday morning. It is hot but your husband does not like to waste money on air conditioning so you rely on brief whispers of respite from the cheap oscillating fans that stand guard in each room. The whir of the noisy blades covers up the sound of cardinals singing outside your son’s window and you think how strange and difficult it is in this country but how beautiful it can be, too. You turn off the fan so that you can listen to the birds for a few moments in the stillness.
Then everything is back on: the fan, the vacuum cleaner, and the lights so that you can take full measure of all the dust – motes of it dancing in the air, clumps hiding in dark spaces. You open your son’s drawer and see a piece of paper there, folded into a tiny rectangle, the creases crisp, deliberate.
You are reminded of the time your son won a contest at school, an award for a book. An entire book that he wrote and illustrated all by himself while only in the third grade. Already your son has done great things and you hope, you believe, that he will only continue to do more. You unfold the paper, now slightly damp in the humid Richmond air and think it must be another story, another poem. Another wonderful work of art.
You read it and your breath stops. You read it again. You hope that you have misunderstood. You think: maybe it is not his. Maybe it was written by a classmate or acquaintance.
But no, it is his writing. You can tell by the way his O’s close in on themselves at the bottom instead of at the top, despite your best efforts to get him to do otherwise, telling him that writing in this manner was backwards. Incorrect.
No.
You understand that it is your son who has written this. A love letter to another man.
The air seeps around you like poison and you notice, even above the din of the fan, that the birds are no longer singing.