MAIN & MAINE

They know of each other in the coincidental kind of way. She is the cousin of his cousin’s boyfriend. Also, they have almost the same last name. His is Chiang. Hers is Chang. All this makes it sound like they are related, but they aren’t. When they first meet in real life, he sees her in the kitchen at a party. She’s drinking a soda out of the can. She’s got something baking in the oven, like a dessert. She takes it out. It’s graham crackers and some kind of yellow sauce. It looks terrible, but she looks great, pretty like in her pictures, but pale and also shorter. Less Korean, if that makes sense, less assertive, less sociable. He guesses those kinds of things show differently in pictures.

But she moves like she’s floating in water, out of time with the music, but in time with the deep, the invisible, like she’s one with God or the ocean. These are the kinds of things he might say to describe someone he wants to sleep with. He does want to sleep with her. He also thinks he could be in love with her, but she isn’t available and neither is he. So, he keeps his distance. He hides out in the kitchen. He drinks several beers. He keeps count in his head. Seven. That’s too many. He’s drunk, maybe. He’s a quiet drunk. He is also a quiet sober person.

She keeps coming to talk to him as if they’re flirting. He doesn’t think she is good at flirting. He is not good at flirting. He doesn’t know for sure that they’re flirting, but she touches his arm when she talks to him. This is maybe the fourth time she’s touched his arm like this. She says, “I don’t know why I keep touching your arm.”

He pays close attention to her exact words: “I don’t know why I keep touching your arm.” He tries to interpret this. He wants it to tell him that she wants to sleep with him. He also wants it to tell him how to talk to her. He wants to say things to her. He can feel his heart in his throat.

Then the moment passes.

Her boyfriend comes and joins their conversation. Her boyfriend’s name is Walt Gourley. Walt is a tall, muscular Scots-Irish guy with Pokémon tattoos up and down his left arm. He likes Walt. He’s a fan of Pokémon. And also, Walt talks a lot, which means he doesn’t have to talk as much.

Walt says, “Who’s this?”

He wonders why Walt doesn’t recognize him. They go to the same school. They’re almost the same major. His is Literature. Walt’s is Creative Writing.

She says, “This is James Chiang’s cousin.”

He puts his hand out to Walt. He’s about to introduce himself when Walt slaps his hand away and gives him a hug. “Hey, no way, Jimmy Chiang’s cousin? I fucking love Jimmy.”

Walt holds him for a long time. It’s a full contact hug, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, penis to penis. He arches his back to keep their penises from touching. It doesn’t help. Walt is very strong. He gives in. He relaxes. He hugs Walt back. It feels really great. He is about to lay his head on Walt’s shoulder when Walt lets go, keeping one arm around his neck, Walt grabs her with the other arm so it’s a Walt sandwich, him to the left and her to the right. He wonders if something sexual could happen with the three of them. It’s not exactly what he wants, but he wouldn’t say no either.

Then his girlfriend calls from across the room. He sees her calling. She’s hard to miss. She is tall and has bright blonde hair. It’s amazing, and it’s her real hair.

Walt says, “That your girl?”

He nods, “Maggie.”

He waits for Walt to say something approving. Walt doesn’t say anything approving. Maggie motions for him to come over. Walt holds tight and then motions for Maggie to come to them. Maggie tilts her head to the side and frowns.

He says, “I better go.”

Walt grabs the back of his neck and shakes him gently, and says, “Alright, Jimmy’s cousin. Take it easy then.”

He looks past Walt and says, “See you later, Hanna.”

It’s loud. He doesn’t know if Hanna hears him. He turns and starts to walk to Maggie. As he gets turned around, he feels a slap on his ass. He turns back. It’s Walt.

Maggie takes the beer from his hand. It’s still cold. She takes a sip. She asks him who invited those two, meaning Hanna and Walt. He doesn’t say anything. He just shrugs. It’s his most common gesture.

He doesn’t want to be with Maggie. He keeps trying to think of ways to break up with her. He’s not sure why he doesn’t want to be with her, except maybe it’s because she’s too tall for him. She’s taller than him by almost an inch. Also, her hair is itchy. And also, he doesn’t know if she likes him. She’s never said anything, but he thinks she also wants to break up, and she’s trying to make him do it. But he’s trying to make her do it. He admits, this is dumb, and it’s dishonest, and it’d be better if he were upfront and didn’t make up stories in his head, but still he lets it continue on.

Maggie puts her hand on his shoulder. “Seriously though, what’s wrong?”

He shrugs. “Walt’s cool.”

“Not him. I’m worried about you, Reggie.”

Reggie says, “Oh.”

Maggie kisses him on the forehead and asks him if he wants to go home.

Reggie says, “It’s your party,” which it is; it’s Maggie’s graduation party. She’s just graduated from art school. Transportation Design. It’s kind of a big deal, but she says, “I don’t really care for parties.”

Then this guy named Khalil comes over and starts talking to Maggie. Reggie just met Khalil. Khalil also went to art school, graduated the year before. Fine Art. Reggie watches them talk. The two of them look nice together. Maggie is tall and Khalil is tall. Reggie wonders if people think he has a hang-up about being short. He honestly doesn’t have any issues about being short. It’s not even that he’s so short. It’s just that he’s not tall.

Reggie says, “I’m gonna get another beer.”

Maggie and Khalil don’t seem to hear him. He doesn’t get another beer. He goes outside instead to have a cigarette. He doesn’t have to go outside to smoke. There are people smoking inside, but he goes outside anyway. As he goes through the door to the backyard, he sees Hanna. She’s not with anyone. He stops and watches her. She’s smoking. She has a can of cola that she’s using as an ashtray. She’s holding the can in her one hand and her cigarette in the other. She looks over. They make eye contact. Reggie gets nervous. He almost turns to walk back into the house, but Hanna calls his name.

“Chiang,” she says. “We keep finding each other.”

Reggie says, “Divine intervention.”

He’s embarrassed for saying that but also proud, because he’s not usually good at banter. Not that this is banter, but it’s something like banter.

Hanna says, “What are the odds?”

Reggie should say something clever to keep the banter going, something about the odds actually being very high, but he can’t think of a clever way to say it. Hanna doesn’t say anything clever back either. She just asks him if he came out to smoke. He nods. She offers him a cigarette. He takes it. She lights it. They smoke. They stand and smoke for a while. Then Reggie asks if Hanna wants another drink.

“No thanks. I’m thinking of going home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Main and Maine.”

Main and Maine is on the other side of town.

Reggie says, “I can give you a ride.”

Reggie doesn’t have a car, but he has the keys to Maggie’s.

“That’s okay. I don’t mind walking.”

“It’s too far to walk. Let me drive you.”

Hanna seems to think about it for a second and then says, “Sure.”

Reggie and Hanna leave the party without telling anyone and set out in the direction of the beach. They’re not planning to go to the actual beach. They just drive that way down the main street. The main street is actually called Main Street. It goes east-west from the highway to the beach. Along the way are twenty or so north-south streets that cross Main. These streets are Avenues and named after states. They start with Hawaii Avenue and end with Maine Avenue. So, at the end, it’s Main and Maine.

Main Street is busy in the daytime, but it’s nighttime. So, it’s quiet now. It’s still a slow drive because of the many stop signs. It’s not late though. Places are open. They stop at the stop sign on Ohio, next to the Ohio Ave Coffee Shop.

Hanna says, “You ever been to that place?”

Reggie says, “Yeah, you should try it.”

“Oh, yeah, no. I’ve been there.”

“Oh,” says Reggie. “The donuts are good.”

Hanna turns to him and says, “I could eat.”

Reggie turns onto Ohio and parks the car. He and Hanna then go into the coffee shop. It’s an old-fashioned kind of coffee shop. It has a waitress, a little jukebox at the table, and all-day breakfast food. It’s the kind of coffee shop where old people go to be nostalgic, but Reggie and Hanna are not old people so they don’t feel nostalgic there. They are the youngest people there. They’re also the only Asian people there. Reggie notices this and mentions it.

Hanna says, “You have a lot of preoccupations.”

Reggie says, “I don’t know if I do.”

Reggie guesses she’s waiting for him to say more. He doesn’t say anything more.

“What’s up with you, Chiang? I wonder.”

She says that as if she is psychoanalyzing him. He asks if she’s a psychology major. She says that she was, she graduated two years ago. Reggie didn’t know that. She doesn’t ask him what his major is, but maybe she already knows.

They sit and eat their donuts and drink their coffee. They’re both quiet for a while. Reggie finishes his coffee. Hanna waves the waitress over. The waitress refills his cup and asks Hanna if she wants more. Hanna says no thank you. She then starts to tell Reggie stories. Reggie thinks they’re going to be wild party stories, but they aren’t wild party stories. They are stories about back home. Back home for Hanna is Houston. Reggie didn’t know she was from Houston. She talks about the church in Houston where she grew up in, how much she liked it, and then how she dated the youth pastor.

“His name was Mark,” she says. “He was like thirty, and I was still in high school. The whole thing messed me up for years. Maybe that’s why I left Texas, but who can know for sure.”

Reggie says, “California is better.”

Hanna says, “California isn’t so great either. People in California are duplicitous. You all act like you’re easy-going but you’re actually obsessed with social hierarchy.”

Then she says that she’s sorry. Then she pauses and says, “I can tell that you’re different.”

Reggie has lost track of the conversation. Hanna looks at him and frowns a little bit. Not like she’s mad at him. He can tell from her eyes. Her eyes aren’t mad. It’s more like she’s a little bit sad. He thinks it’s maybe the way he’s staring at her.

She says, “I feel like I can tell you things.”

Reggie nods. Hanna shifts in her seat a little, tilting her head like she’s trying to get a better look at Reggie.

She says, “Did something bad happen to you when you were little?”

Reggie is not expecting this question.

He says, “What do you mean?”

“You’re kind of hypervigilant.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s trauma theory. Hypervigilance. It’s a trauma response. It means something terrible happened to you, and now you’re always on the lookout for danger.”

“I don’t think anything bad has happened to me.”

“Well. It’s just a theory.”

Reggie expects her to reach out her hand and take his hand because that seems like something someone would do in this situation if this were a movie. But she doesn’t do that. This is not a movie. Instead, Hanna takes a sip of water.

Reggie sighs. It’s not like a sigh that’s trying to communicate something. It’s just an exhale.

Hanna says, “That whole thing with Mark messed me up. Not just because of him, but because people found out, and then it was like everybody either wanted to save me or take advantage of me.”

She laughs a kind of a tired laugh, and then continues, “I don’t know. Maybe that’s how it is all the time for girls, for women. You know?”

Reggie doesn’t think that’s true, but he’s never thought about it. He’s never thought about what it’s like all the time for girls, for women.

He says, “I’ve never thought about it.”

She says, “No, of course not.”

He’s trying to listen, but he’s not, not really. He’s mostly just listening to the sound of her voice. It’s a pretty voice. It’s like a song. Hanna’s voice is like a song where the words don’t matter, you just like the song. It could be about death or peanut butter or anything, and you wouldn’t care. It just sounds good to you.

She says, “I know I didn’t really love Mark. It was an illusion. He tricked me. But I also tricked myself, you know? Have you ever felt that way?”

“Yes,” says Reggie. “Yes, I think so.”

He doesn’t say anything else right away. So, Hanna keeps talking about Mark. Reggie wonders what Mark looks like. He wonders if he’s white or if he’s Asian or Black or something else. He thinks Mark must be thirty-five now. He wonders if he looks young for his age or if he just looks his actual age.

Hanna says, “That’s one reason I like Walt. Walt’s so obvious. You know what I mean? He’s just what he is. No tricks.”

It takes Reggie a second to remember who Walt is. Then he also remembers Maggie. He remembers them both in a past tense way. Like they’re people he used to know from a way’s back.

Reggie says, “Yeah.”

He then stares into Hanna’s eyes. He does this thing that his cousin told him about, the soul stare. He gives Hanna the soul stare. He’s not sure he’s doing it right. He stares at Hanna’s left eye with his left eye. It’s supposed to have something to do with the hunter-gatherer instinct. It doesn’t seem to be working, but he keeps at it.

Hanna says, “You okay, Chiang?”

Reggie looks away. “I’m okay. I was just looking at your eyes. It’s just your eyes are so green.”

Hanna takes a napkin out of the dispenser. She wipes her nose with the napkin. She looks up at him and tilts her head forward. Reggie leans forward too.

She says, “They’re just contacts.”

Hanna dabs at her eyes with the edges of her napkin. Reggie gets his wallet out and puts ten dollars on the table.

After the coffee shop, Hanna says that she can walk the rest of the way. Reggie asks if she’s sure, and she says, yes, it’s just a couple blocks. Then he asks if she wants him to walk with her. She doesn’t say yes or no, so Reggie leaves the car and the two of them walk around for a while. They go a couple streets down to Virginia Avenue. There they walk through Olde Farmers Market, which is really more like an outdoor shopping mall. It’s closed. They walk around it. It’s made to look like a barn. It has weathered wood panels and farm relics like rusted fittings and wagon wheels. There are stores for pie and toffee. Also, there is a jewelry store. Hanna stops there. Reggie stops too. They look at the display through the glass. The jewelry is put away. The only things left are things used to show off the jewelry, the display trees and manikin busts.

Past the stores, they get to the petting zoo. They lean on the gates and try to see the animals. They can see some of the animals. They’re far away. Hanna points to a group of pigs sleeping and tells Reggie to listen to them snore. There are maybe five of them. They are fitted together like jigsaw pieces. Reggie listens for snoring, but he doesn’t hear anything. One pig, who is on the outside of the group, nuzzles its way into the middle. The other pigs make room for it. They don’t seem to wake up.

Hanna puts her arm through Reggie’s arm, at the elbow. She rests her head on his shoulder. Reggie looks at the pigs. He looks at Hanna. She’s closed her eyes. He closes his eyes too.

After the zoo is a playground on New York, off Main by a half block. The playground is on the other side of a park, a nice park, with very big trees and an artificial creek that runs through it. They get to the playground and stand by the swings. Hanna sits on one and starts swinging, just a little bit. Reggie is just standing there, but when it seems like they might be staying for a while, he goes ahead and sits on a swing too. It feels strange to him, sitting on a swing. He hasn’t sat on a swing since he was little, which seems like a long time ago. He wonders why he hasn’t. He wonders why more adults don’t.

The two of them swing. Reggie swings higher than Hanna. It’s not because he’s trying to. It’s because of the length of the chains. Reggie tries to swing lower, so that they can even out, but this doesn’t seem to work. He gives up and tries to just enjoy the swinging. He likes the feeling. It’s a little bit queasy because he’s been drinking, but it’s good. He doesn’t feel it in his head. He feels it in his stomach. The feeling in his stomach is like fear but also like happiness. The feeling of swinging goes well with the feeling of being with Hanna.

From the darkness, Reggie hears someone yell something. He can’t make out what it is. He turns his head to where it came from. He doesn’t see anyone.

When their swings pass, he says, “Did you hear that?”

Hanna doesn’t answer. She lunges forward. He hears the yelling again. The voice says, “Drop the zero!”

Reggie doesn’t know what that means. He looks over again. Two guys are walking up to them. They’re athletic looking guys. They look kind of like Walt. They’re not Walt though. They just look like the kind of guy Walt looks like. White guys. Sports guys. They’re both wearing tank tops and basketball shorts. They look like they came from the gym, except that they also look like they’re drunk. The one who’s talking is wearing a baseball cap with a B on the front, for Boston maybe, or maybe for Bruins, which could still be for Boston. Reggie is not sure why he is trying to figure this out.

The B-hat guy says, “Drop the zero!”

Reggie still doesn’t understand. Hanna keeps swinging. She seems like she doesn’t hear them, or is trying to ignore them.

The B-hat guy walks out in front of Reggie, in front of the swings. He stands just out of reach of Reggie’s feet. Reggie has to bend his knees so that he doesn’t kick him. The other guy goes behind them. He’s shorter than the B-hat guy and skinnier. Reggie cranes his neck to try to see him. He’s standing behind Hanna.

The skinnier guy says, “Hey, you need a push?”

Then he pushes her.

Hanna says, “What the fuck. No, I do not want a push.”

The skinnier guy laughs.

The B-hat guy says, “Drop the zero and get with the hero.”

He says this in a sing-song voice, like it’s from a kid’s poem. He leans to the left and points his thumb at Reggie and nods at the skinnier guy. They both laugh. Reggie figures out that in this situation, Reggie is the zero and the B-hat guy is the hero. Then the B-hat guy looks at Hanna. She swings forward. He curls his right arm in a muscle man pose. Reggie can see his bicep bulging even in the dark. Hanna swings backwards. The skinnier guy laughs and pushes her again.

She says, “Dude, leave me alone.”

The B-hat guy laughs more. “Ah, don’t be mad. We’re being nice. We like you. We wanna be friends.”

Hanna swings forward again and jumps off the swing. Reggie wants to jump off too, but the B-hat guy is in his way. Hanna lands in the sand and trips over the B-hat guy’s foot. She stumbles and hits her knee on the concrete walkway. Reggie is still swinging. It seems really, very stupid for him to be still swinging. But there he is.

The skinnier guy walks over toward Hanna. The B-hat guy also takes a step toward her. It’s finally clear for Reggie to jump. Reggie jumps off.

The B-hat guy leans over Hanna, “Oh no, you got an owie.”

She says, “I’m fine.”

He says, “No, you’re bleeding. Hold up. I have Band-Aids.”

He reaches into his pocket. He takes out a Band-Aid. It’s weird that he has a Band-Aid in his pocket.

Hanna says, “No, thank you.”

He says, “Come on.”

She says, “No.”

She then takes Reggie’s arm, and they start walking away. Reggie doesn’t say anything. They keep walking. The B-hat guy walks next to them. He keeps pace with them. Reggie doesn’t look at him. Reggie looks ahead. The B-hat guy stops. Reggie and Hanna keep walking. They walk faster. Reggie is walking very fast. Hanna pulls her arm free and takes Reggie’s hand and pulls it down. Reggie pulls his hand away, but he slows down. They keep walking. The B-hat guy yells out one more time, “Drop the zero!” He says this with enthusiasm. He sustains the last two syllables. The Zeeee Rowww.

Reggie and Hanna walk the next couple minutes or so in silence, passing the last few avenues, Massachusetts and then Vermont. Reggie is upset, but he doesn’t have the words to express it. Instead, he stares out into the space in front of him. He breathes through his nose. He clenches and unclenches his fists.

Hanna asks him if he is okay. He shrugs and doesn’t answer.

She says, “Do you want to call the cops? Maybe we should call the cops. I’ll call them.”

Reggie doesn’t think they should call the cops. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea. He feels worse even thinking about calling the cops. He feels like acid is in his veins. He feels both hot and cold. He thinks he should go back. He wants to go back. He feels like he should go back and do something, or at least, go back and say something. He tries to think of something to say. The things he thinks of to say are terrible. He thinks he should tell those guys to fuck themselves, or to fuck each other, or their mothers, or their fathers. He thinks he should tell them that their fathers are fucking them and that’s why they’re such giant assholes.

Hanna takes his hand again and says, “Hey, it’s okay.”

He looks at her, and for a second, he’s mad at her, but he forces himself not to be. Then Hanna tries to make a joke out of it. She says something about the B-hat guy’s line, “Get with the hero? How lame is that?”

Reggie tries to agree with her, but he doesn’t feel like that line was lame. He feels like he himself is lame, and he feels like the B-hat guy’s line is true. The B-hat guy is the hero, and Reggie is the zero.

Then they reach Maine Avenue, and it’s only ten o’clock, but it seems later. Everything is black, but the kind of black that moves and has shape. The sand, the sky, the water.

They stop at the end of the sidewalk, at the start of the sand. Hanna lets go of Reggie’s hand. Reggie takes her hand back. She tries to pull her hand away, but he holds on. He then leans in and kisses her. It’s not more than a second before he realizes she’s not at all reciprocating. He stops and lets her go and she steps off the path and on to the sand and looks up at Reggie and then exhales a long breath out.

She says, “What are you doing, Reggie?”

He says, “I’m sorry.”

She says, “Why are guys so fragile?”

Reggie is not sure what she’s talking about, if she’s talking about those two guys at the park or something else.

Reggie says, “What do you mean?”

She doesn’t answer. It’s quiet. It’s dark. Reggie can’t tell for sure, but it looks like she might be crying or about to cry.

He says, “What’s going on?”

She says, “You know, I was scared too. I was mad too. It wasn’t just you. I was there too.”

She puts a hand to her face, rubbing her eyes and breathing loudly, like she has a lot more to say but doesn’t know if she can say it without things getting ugly. Reggie doesn’t know what’s happening. He tries to apologize again, though he’s not sure what for. Hanna seems to know that he doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for.

She says, “Why are you all like this?”

“Who are you talking about?” he says.

Then the ocean makes a low rumbling sound. Hanna turns away from Reggie, turning her ear to the ocean, as if it’s speaking to her. She then starts walking on the sand toward the water.

Reggie is still on the concrete. He watches her. He thinks, she’s got it all wrong. He’s not the villain here. Why would she think that? He is obviously not the villain here. He’s the good guy. Or at least he’s the regular guy. The regular guy, at least, and definitely not the bad guy.

He then also steps off the concrete onto the sand and starts to follow her toward the water. She walks ahead of him. She doesn’t talk to him or look back at him. She just keeps going and the gap between them starts to widen. He asks her to wait, to slow down. He asks her to wait for him. He speeds up. He tries to catch up to her, but she stays ahead.

“Wait,” he says, “Hanna, please.”

He then tries to speed up even more, but it feels like it’s too late, and even though it doesn’t seem like she’s trying to get away from him, he cannot catch her.