still a jack ass?”
“Yep,” I smiled.
“You know your voice never sounds like you when you speak on the phone,” I said.
“Yeah, I'm pretty sure you've said this before.”
Rean lead with a slow pace. This side of town was always depressing to me. Years ago it was a nice neighbourhood, but it had since been swallowed by ghettos that had surrounded it. The once respectable businesses had fled; the few stalls that remained were converted into liquor stores with reinforced windows, temporary job offices filled with rejects and burnouts, homeless shelters, instant cash centres, and corner stores armed to the brim with video cameras. It was a strange place to be looking for sushi, but knowing Rean I decided that it was not too unusual.
The sun set as she was slowly leading the way to the restaurant. The handful of working street lights flickered on and bathed everything in an orange glow: the broken newspaper boxes, the tipped over mail boxes, the dead street lamps.
“You sure you know where we're going?” I asked as drug-addicts began to argue behind us. I gripped my knife.
“Positive,” she said “just relax. I've never lead you wrong.”
“Eh? I'm not too certain about that one. Remember that time, wi-”
“Remember that time I introduced you to Eris?” She knew how to shut me up.
We came to a large alley between an apartment complex and the back of a mostly abandoned strip-mall. A brightly lit restaurant illuminated the dim alley-way and all its blemishes: broken shards of glass and plastic, pools of black water, forgotten garbage heaps, and the occasional forgotten person. “Open”, a neon sign flashed repetitively. Streaks and oily finger prints marred the restaurant windows. The restaurant's plastic strip sign appeared to have been smashed by several bricks, though the sign's light was still lit. Nothing remained of the restaurant's name, though the very end of the sign was still intact. “ushi” it read.
A small bell jingled when we entered the restaurant. A middle-aged Chinese man stood behind a sushi bar counter reading a newspaper. A paper chef's hat sat awkwardly on his head. “Please sit,” he said, looking up from the newspaper. He yelled into the back of restaurant in Chinese, something to the effect of: Come on out, that weird white girl brought one of her punk friends for us.
I guess he thought I wasn't Chinese. A fair assumption, one that I had often encouraged.
The restaurant itself was a small place with dirt engrained floors. A ledge protruded from the sushi bar, serving as the only table. We sat down to half empty soy sauce bottles from a no-name soy sauce company; disposable chopsticks that claimed to be bamboo; tattered printer paper photocopied with the menu. Everything was sticky and smelled sweetly of soy sauce. Old orange caviar stuck to the table. Asian pop music played faintly from a dusty boom box. An old Chinese woman came scuttling out of the back. She pulled a notepad from her stained apron. Rean was already firing off orders before she could ask us what we wanted.
“I'll have- He'll have-”
Was all I could understand. The waitress was having difficulty keeping up with the rate that Rean was spitting out orders; nodding and scribbling at blinding speed.
When the bombardment of orders finally ended the small Chinese woman shuffled up to the sushi bar, slapped the order slip on to the counter, and disappeared to the back. The Chinese man jumped from the loud slapping of the slip. His attention had been completely fixated on his newspaper. Cursing the woman as she passed him by, he threw his paper into a corner and produced a large cleaver from under the table. The cleaver looked rusted and dull but it made no difference as the man began to violently hammer slabs of fish into small pieces. When there would be sufficient number of pieces he would throw the slab of fish back into the fridge and grab a different slab.
I stared as the man hammered away at a wide range of sea-life.
“So how has life been treating you?” Rean said.
I stopped staring at the man to find Rean staring at me. Her cheek resting on her hand.
I hate being caught off-guard. I never know how to react fast enough, and I never come off as witty or intelligent.
“Uh- same ol',” I said.
The man continued to loudly hammer away. Rean threw a pair bamboo chopsticks at me. They snapped unevenly and were covered in fine splinters.
“Oh yeah?” she said, “you really don't look like you've been through the same ol' lately.”
“Yeah well, my budget has been tight.”
“Just remember to eat.”
The Chinese man stopped his hammering and began yelling for the lady in the back. His job was done and he could go back to being indifferent. Grabbing his newspaper, he returned to the position we found him in.
“I don't think it's possible to forget.”
The old woman came hurrying out from the back and picked up the plate of freshly hammered flesh.
“Don't be a smart-ass Jon, and don't make me worry.”
“I'll be fine,” I said, “I know what I'm doing, I can take care of myself.”
The food arrived in place of an awkward silence. Rean reached over to the soy sauce bottle, pouring a small plastic saucer full for each of us. We picked at the multicoloured platter of raw fish. She stared at me as she carefully put piece after piece of soy-sauce drenched flesh into her mouth.
"So how are things with Eris?" she said.
"They're alright I guess."
"You guess?"
"Well, I haven't really heard from her lately."
"That's odd, when was the last time you heard from her?"
"About a week ago," I said.
Eating and the faint beat of an Asian pop song replaced the arrival of another awkward silence.
"I heard from her just the other day," she said.
A split second of outrage overcame me. My hands shook as I put down the chopsticks. Quickly my mind started jumping from one rationalization to another: perhaps she just wanted to talk to Rean; perhaps she was online while I was at work or while I was asleep; perhaps she's been extremely busy with work; perhaps her internet was buggy; perhaps she was in a rush; perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
"Are you okay?" Rean said as she put her hand atop mine.
Snapping back to reality, I withdrew my hand."Yeah, I'm fine. What did Eris say?"
"Nothing really, she was only online briefly. She seemed like she was in a hurry. I think she's doing well though. Are you sure you're okay?"
She was in a hurry. That's why I didn't see her. She was in a hurry.
"Yeah I'm fine." I picked up my pair of chopsticks and forced a smile.
Rean was staring again. My hands were shaking.
"Jon," she said "you aren't fine. You look like hell. You're wasting away. It's like you've forgotten how to take care of yourself."
I opened my mouth to speak but she kept going.
"I know, I know. This is for Eris. I know you're doing everything you can to get to her, but you need to slow down."
"I understand, you're right," I lied. At that point I would have said anything to get her to stop talking. There's nothing I dislike more than someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.
Dinner dragged on. Picking surgically at the pile of raw fish with uneven utensils. Awkward exchanges of glances. More standard issue small talk. Sipping water from styrofoam cups. The pop music droned endlessly on. The old man coughed and hacked as he read his paper. The old woman shuffled in the back, knocking pots and pans as she went.
Finally we were down to the last piece of fish.
"Rean?" I said, lifting the plate to offer her the piece.
"Yeah?"
"I know you're close friends with Eris."
"Yeah, and?"
"Could you promise me one thing?"
"Sure?" she said as she picked up the last piece of fish with her chopsticks.
"Could you promise to keep an eye on Eris for me?"
"Sure."
"Promise?" For t
he first time that night I looked Rean straight in the eyes.
"I promise everything will be alright. I'll make sure Eris is okay." she said, devouring the last piece of raw flesh before flashing a smile.
The old woman came with the bill. Rean paid and I received cold looks from the old woman. You are the cheapest date. Are you even a man? I felt that these were only a few of the words she wanted to share with me.
We left the restaurant and the gaudy district together, before parting ways on the subway platform. Rean held me before we went through our separate turnstiles.
"Don't worry," she said, "everything will be alright."
She smiled, waved, and disappeared down the stairs to her platform. It felt cold after she released me from her hold. It felt as if I had rediscovered a good friend.
"Everything will be alright," I repeated softly to myself.
I went back the way I came, the standard sounds, the usual suspects, a rationed cigarette, looking left and then right before opening my door, being greeted by the silence of an empty apartment. The things I had grown accustom to.
The wind howled, rattling the apartment windows as it blew. I turned on a light, threw my keys on the table, and shuffled to the washroom. It was Thursday, it had been three days since I last used hot water to wash myself. The tub was plugged with an old rubber stopper spotted with harmless black mould. Grit and grim clung to the sides of the porcelain tub. I released the water from the tap and steam steadily filled the small room. I sat on the edge of the tub after undressing and submerged my feet beneath the slowly rising water.
'If only hot water was not so damned expensive,' I thought to myself before shutting off the flow.
I