I was tired as hell the next day in school. I’d gone into school after cleaning rooms all night before, but I had never been this tired. My entire body ached, even my ass muscles. I must’ve looked like I was a druggie. But Lee looked fine. As if nothing had happened.

I’d called Seaside Taxi from the pay phone to take her home, then waited right by the highway with her, watching the sky darken to a deep blue and lights leaking from passing cars. I gave her five dollars and a small hug before she got in and left.

Something was different now for us in school. Lee wanted to hold hands all the time. It was fun for a few days. Then it got embarrassing. Then one day she was out sick.

“You get Lee pregnant, or something?” Crispy asked me.

“Naw…” I said. I’d been careful every time.

“You did fuck her.”

“Might have,” I said, feeling a sliver of pride. “So when are you gonna be balling, Queer Bait Crispy?” I asked, punching him in the shoulder as hard as I could.

Something slammed against the blackboard.

“No talking!” Mr. Hendrickson yelled before continuing our review session. “A lot of you are asking me about the final exam even though it’s still a few weeks away,” he continued, kicking away broken chalk. “I haven’t even made a goddamn outline yet, so get off my fucking back, already.” As the school year drew to a close, Hendrickson’s dual persona had merged until he was launching into violent curses even when his glasses were on.

I cared less and less about school. One day, I realized I had nothing to write with. I stuck a hand into the back of my desk. All I found was a stubby pencil. I tried to erase with it, but the metal eraser clip was empty, and I ended up ripping a slash in my notebook.

We fucked a whole bunch of times. In Room 54, and a few times in the woods on an old blanket.

I threw all my magazines into a Hefty bag and dumped them with the bush clippings in the woods. I didn’t need them anymore. I had the perfect girl.

In the second week of June, a dizzying heat wave clamped down, slowing down my thoughts and movements. They let us wear shorts in school, and I shivered when the backs of my thighs touched the cold molded plastic of our seats.

I had just gotten back to the classroom from gym. I was early because I wore the same shorts in gym that I did around school and didn’t need to change. Mr. Hendrickson came over to me.

“Your daddy’s been in an accident,” he said. “Mrs. Daly will give you a ride to the hospital.” Mrs. Daly was the principal’s secretary, a bitter, crusty old widow. I had been terrified of her since my second-grade class had elected me to bring the absentee slips to the principal’s office. Mrs. Daly’s sharp eyes would narrow as she snatched the slips out of my hand.

Mrs. Daly’s Duster was a shrine on four wheels. It was loaded with small boardwalk teddy bears and other dolls that crowded each other in the back seats and tumbled over the dashboard. Three poseable plastic figures hung from the stem of the rear-view mirror as if they’d been lynched. With the bears, the dolls, and the searing heat in the car, there wasn’t much room for air. It reminded me of a picture I’d seen of a Chinese temple with thousands of carved images of Buddha repeated on every surface. Rows and rows of smiling faces and rounded heads and bellies.

“I am so sorry,” said Mrs. Daly. “I heard what happened. You have my sympathies.” She sounded sincere, but her expression still had a sharp edge that could slice apples through the core. I didn’t know what she was sorry for, though, because no one had told me any details yet.

I signed in at the hospital desk and rode the elevator to the fourth floor. My sneakers squeaked against the polished floor like I was walking across a giant, empty basketball court. I never felt as small as I did when I walked into that room and saw the white curtain pulled around my father’s tired form under the sheets. His limp face was pale and rippled.

I didn’t yet know what a stroke was, but my father had had one. My mother had found him in the basement trying to pull himself up off the floor. He’d been screaming for hours, but I was at school, and my mother had been out cleaning rooms.

His left side was paralyzed, probably permanently. If any movement was going to come back, we’d know in the next few days.

And then we knew.

I was excused from the rest of school, all two weeks of it, and I spent those days behind the counter and cleaning rooms, playing tag team with my mother. No finals for me, but no Lee Anderson, either. She called a few times, saying over and over that she was sorry about my dad, that she loved me, and that she was moving real soon, in that order. She made me take down her address and phone number twice the day she was leaving. This time, when she made the kissy sounds, I made them, too. It was okay because no one was listening.

My mother and I could never be in the same place at the same time because we couldn’t rent rooms if they weren’t clean, and we also couldn’t rent rooms without someone in the office. My father’s absence began to take its toll on the business. We had to cross two rooms off our sheets because the hot water wouldn’t turn off in one and the other didn’t get any water at all. I’d gone into the crawlspace and turned a few knobs, but I didn’t know what I was doing, and nothing had happened.

One day, I found my mother sitting on the office couch with her head in her hands, rocking back and forth. She wouldn’t say anything. I thought she might be having a stroke, too.

“Are you okay? Hey!”

She took her hands away from her face and covered her ears.

My father’s medical bills for just the first few weeks had sunk our savings. We had no health insurance. Why should we? He was young. We were all young. Who knew you could have a stroke at 42?

The hospital worked out an installment plan for the rest, but we weren’t going to make it, even if the rooms were full every day. And we still had monthly mortgage payments on the hotel.

Everybody was going to come down on us. The laundry service would cut us off. Then the cleaning-supplies company, the phone company, the electric and gas companies. The bank would repossess our stuff. Even the Pinto.

I woke up once in the middle of the night because I heard shouting. But it had been me yelling in my sleep.

There were calls to Taiwan. There were calls from Taiwan. I was sleepwalking to hotel rooms with a bucket in each hand. I put sanitized bands around toilet seats without even cleaning them. In the sunlight, the Bennys moved awkwardly and carefree, bouncing spinning Frisbees off of their toes and onto the beer bottles they were holding. There were a few barbecues on the lawn. I wanted to see those Frisbees turn into circular saw blades and lop heads off. I wanted to see headless bodies charbroil on the grill.

I thought of my father in the rehabilitation wing, half of his face and one shoulder and hip slumped down as he struggled with a walker. He was literally a broken man.

My father had given his life to the Bennys. Next on the menu were me and my mom.

I dropped my cleaning buckets and went behind the odd-numbered wing of the hotel. I was trying to breathe two inhales ahead of what I could, and I fell on my knees. I was so tired, it felt like too much work to lie down.

My eyesight was going. I heard blood rushing past my ears. I looked up. Somewhere, high above, the sun was shining. But I couldn’t see it.

I didn’t play Atari or even watch television anymore. I barely had time to brush my teeth before falling over asleep.

One night, when I was cleaning rooms by myself, I went into the supply closet to get more toilet bands and saw the rocket-shaped rear reflector of my bicycle poking out from behind a wall of towels. I pulled my bike out and wiped it down. It still looked like it was in good shape.

I went around the hotel, nice and easy. The moon was out, pouring a watery gleam over the handles as I made the turns. It was effortless. I couldn’t feel my legs or my arms, just the sensation of a slow coast downhill.

Then I felt something give under my right leg. I looked down and saw the pedal coming loose. It fell off, and I hopped off and picked it up. The grooves around the mouth of the cylinder had been eaten away so I couldn’t reattach it.

“Motherfucking whore slut!” I yelled at the bike. I kicked it in the spokes, then dragged it back home. I stood at the top of the stairs leading down to the basement and gave it a push from the seat. The bike bucked like a pissed-off horse in a rodeo as it tumbled down.

The next day I tried calling Lee at her new number in California.

“This is Paul Tee Real Estate,” said a man with a cheery voice.

“Hello? Is Lee Anderson there?” I asked, looking again at the number I had written down and running my finger under it. I heard a heavy sigh.

“Lee Anderson, you mean my little niece?”

“You’re her uncle?”

“Don’t get fucking wise with me!” the man sneered. “I don’t need to be taking phone calls for my fucking niece!”

“Is she there?”

“Why does this run in my goddamn wife’s family? Why do they have kids when they can’t hold a job because they drink all the time? Now they’re giving the phone number out like it’s their phone? Who pays the goddamn phone bill?

“I don’t have enough problems, already? I’m trying to feed my wife and our kids and we have to take in her fucking older brother and his family? I’m taking messages for my stupid niece when I’m trying to run a business out of this house? I need people sleeping in my basement?” He was shouting so loud, I could hear his voice in the ear that wasn’t next to the receiver.

“I’m paying for the phone call. I just want to talk to Lee…”

“And I just want to live without people hanging on my back! Why do you people have three kids when you can’t pay down your mortgage? Why buy new color TVs when you know you can’t afford the credit-card payments? Don’t you people ever think of saving money? Is there no shame in leeching off of relatives? I’ve been working since I was 10 fucking years old! No one ever gave me shit!” He slammed down the phone so hard I thought I heard the receiver crack.

I woke up in the middle of the night again. It was becoming a bad habit. My stomach hurt so much, I put my hand over it and rolled out of bed onto the floor. What was wrong? I hadn’t jerked off in more than a month. Maybe that was it.

I lay on the floor and stared at the moon. Something was jabbing me in the back, but I didn’t know if it was a book or a shoe. Something else was pulling me up and away. Light from the moon and stars was shining on my doorknob. I got up and pulled on some jeans.

The next thing I knew, I was walking along the highway. I couldn’t remember if I’d locked the office door or not. Clumps of rags and dented hubcaps littered my path. Sometimes a car would go by. The moon was pulling me to the beach.

I stepped up onto the ramp that led up to the boardwalk. Hearing the sound of my feet on the boardwalk made it seem like the rest of the world was dead. The ocean was pitch black, but I could hear it slithering along the shoreline in the background.

Then I saw the beach. The craters and dunes looked like a lunar landscape. I’d finally gotten my wish. I was an astronaut on the moon. I was going to be famous and get a big promotion at NASA.

I jumped and ran all over the beach, spinning in circles and doing long jumps. Sand was getting into my shoes. I pranced around and screamed. Threw my head back and yelled and shook my fist at the stars. How many millions of years did it take for their light to reach the earth? How many of those stars were already dead and useless?

I lay down in the sand and looked up. I wasn’t on the moon. Looking up in the sky, I could now see that I wasn’t any closer to it than I’d ever been. I wasn’t any closer to being an astronaut, and I wasn’t any farther away from the hotel.

I felt my heart swell with hate. Hate for women. Hate for men. Hate for my mother, my father. Hate for sex.

I could fuck Lee in a hotel room or in the woods, but could I ever have sex in a bed, in a house, in a home?

I was crying now. Not the sobbing kind, but the kind where you feel lousy and then you notice tears rolling down. I flipped onto my stomach and crawled up the beach, away from the ocean.

I felt like a giant sea turtle in a science-class film, flailing in the sand, struggling to get far enough away from high tide to make a nest and lay eggs that I could never turn my neck far enough to see.

I kept crawling until I was under the boardwalk. It smelled like piss and booze down there. Cracks of dim light shone through the boards above me. I was still crying, and my eyes were blurry.

I saw a lot of scary things under there.

First I saw Vincent fucking me. And then I was fucking Vincent. Then it wasn’t Vincent. It was my father. And then it was me.

I was ready to die. If I’d been a girl, I think I would have killed myself already. A girl renting out rooms at the hotel would have been raped before she was 11 or so. Gang-raped by drunk Bennys. Right in the office. My father wouldn’t hear from the basement, and my mother would be out cleaning rooms.

Thank God I wasn’t a girl. I howled with laughter. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d thought, “Thank God.”

I found a univalve seashell by one of the columns, and I put it up to my ear. I wanted to hear the ocean, but it sounded like some little boy laughing at me.

Two days later, I was riding with my mother to the airport in Newark. When I leaned my head against the window pane, I could feel the vibrations behind my eyeballs.

My father’s older sister’s family was coming to take over the hotel. They were going to get the living quarters, and we were going to live in Room 3, which was a nice room. My father was going to be in rehabilitation for another few months or so, but he was going to stay in Room 3, too.

My mother and I were going to teach the family the business and help with their English. God knew what my father was going to do around the hotel. There was no way he was ever going to make it down the stairs to the workshop again.

My grandparents in Taiwan, my father’s parents, were paying the mortgage. They said they’d take care of my college costs, too, as long as I worked at the hotel at night.

I met my cousins by the baggage claim. Suitcases moved around on the winding conveyor belt like slow slot-cars on a track.

The boy was about my age. The girl was a year or two younger.

I climbed into the back of the station wagon with the suitcases as the boy, the girl, and the mother fell asleep in the back seat. The father sat in the front talking with my mother. They nodded their heads a lot.

It was cramped where I was sitting, and my back was already sore from having boxed up most of our stuff and piling it into the attic. What we needed most was already in our hotel room — some clothes and some pans, bowls and spoons to go with our hotplate and tiny fridge.

Our relatives really wanted my mother and me to eat dinner with them, so we pulled into the Chinese place off the exit. It was a nice offer, since cooking anything beyond macaroni and cheese was a stretch in our hotel room.

“Make sure we buy enough for your father,” said the man my mother had told me to call Uncle.

“Have to buy him sweet-and-sour pork,” said my mother, pointing to me. “He doesn’t eat anything Chinese.”

“What!” Uncle said.

While we waited for our food to cook, the guy at the counter talked on the phone, with his back to us. Once in a while, he’d look over his shoulder at us and frown.

“What’s wrong?” I asked my mother.

“They don’t like people from Taiwan,” she whispered. “They from Hong Kong.”

Back at the hotel, I helped Uncle carry in the heavy suitcases.

“Strong! Very strong!” he said. Then I helped him carry some boxes down into the basement. I picked up my bike from the bottom of the stairs to clear a path. The little boy followed us down, gawking like he’d never seen a basement before. Uncle rubbed the baseball cap on the boy’s head and said something in Chinese. We went back up.

“Aunty” set our old table quickly and opened every carton. The smell of all that Chinese food made me sick. She put the sweet-and-sour pork in front of me and smiled.

The two kids were sitting down already. They didn’t make a sound. They looked like aliens, with skin much darker than mine. The boy took off his cap and I saw that his hair was shaved close to the scalp. The girl’s hair was down to her chin, and it was thick and greasy and stuck to her cheeks.

My mother told me their names, but I was so mad at them, I couldn’t hear her. These assholes were moving in, forcing us to live in a hotel room.

The kids were so tired, they left the kitchen without eating and slept on the sofa.

When dinner was over, my mother got together some rice and tofu for my father to eat back in the hotel room.

“You stay here. Watch office tonight,” she told me. I was tired, but happy to still have an important position.

I told Uncle and Aunty to go to sleep. It was a pretty slow night. I only rented about three rooms. Around 5 a.m., I closed up the office. I figured my mother would come in around seven or so.

As I came in, my mother turned on her side and put her arm over my father. I’d never seen them that close before. It made me glad that I had my own bed, even though it was just a flimsy cot.

I was almost asleep when I heard a familiar sound from the hotel driveway.

No, it couldn’t be, I thought. I put on a pair of sweatpants and slipped outside to investigate.

The boy was on my bike, riding around the driveway. He was barefoot, with one foot on the left pedal and the other awkwardly on the shaft where the right pedal had been.

It wasn’t night anymore, and it wasn’t yet day. There weren’t any shadows on the ground. The boy was wearing a bright white t-shirt and a pair of navy shorts. His dark legs were surprisingly muscular. He was beautiful.

I sat down on the step in the doorway and watched him go.

How long would it be before something terrible happened, I wondered. Lightning could strike him right now. He could hit a rock and go flying. Or maybe a parked car could back up into him.

But then I thought about that little boy pushing that broken bike all the way up the stairs from the basement. He must have wanted to ride that bike pretty bad.

Maybe life would be okay for that boy. After all, he had a sister. That was one more set of hands to help. He also had me.

The boy passed by, and I saw that his ankle had scraped against the bike chain and was bleeding. He smiled and waved to me while holding the bike steady. He was sitting back in the seat, pedaling slow like he was the only one in the race and all he had to do was finish.

I got up and got a soda from the machine. I drank some and shivered.

Then he came over, and I let him have some, too.