RE:1982 by Kelsey Chen
Here is a brief interjection. A story, not about me. About 1982, which is also the same moment as Now. About you. Not about you you, per se. About You, Vincent Chin. Not you. You are not him. You probably do not even know who he is. And that is part of his tragedy. His mother’s tragedy. Our collective tragedy. Is the cause of our sadness what is truly devastating, or that we do not know the depths of our own grief? But the sadness of this story is deeper than that, less universal. Not mine. Not yours, either, not really. Not your sadness. We were born in the year 1982, you and me both.
Last night you were straight out of college, I think, with a fresh new cut and everything—new suit, new job, new hope, new girl. I remember she was dressed in blue and very demure. I liked her, and your dad would’ve too. Last night you walked through the door of my apartment, leaving it swinging in that way I don’t like, and said, Ma, I’m in love. For some reason, our kitchen was painted a neon yellow so electric it was almost green. And then, millions of years later, the whole apartment flashed into a deep, dark magenta.You were gone and I was on the floor, face-down, unsure of how I got there. Those are the things I can remember. I can’t remember if you died. I don’t think you did—not in front of me, at least. This is different from the usual. This is the first time that you aren’t murdered in front of me. Every night, it happens almost the same way: you bring your fiancé home, and I like her.You leave her with me and head out. Time passes uncannily in the kitchen, me and her. She and the room both undulate for a while. The kitchen is always blue, she is always in red, and the clock on the wall above our dinner table is always glowing violet. Something always compels me to walk into your bedroom, the one that has looked the same since you were twelve, all baby blue and lined with these little baseball trophies from that one summer you played in the little league. I leave your fiancé and her red dress in the kitchen. And you’re there, and sometimes there’s no one else there, and sometimes there’s a hundred men there—all equally gruesome and pale—and you’re always dying.You die in different ways, but your skull always cracks in the same spot, right above your right ear. Tai Yang, it’s called. The acupuncture point named after the sun, my son. Unfailingly, I’ve dreamt your death every night for six years, so I feel disoriented at this sudden new twist. I never quite remember everything when I wake up, but your death, I never forget. So today I am particularly shaky, particularly unsure. The neon glow of this dream is still echoing when I climb out of my sheets. This is an uncertainty I cannot take, so I stumble quickly out of bed, still tangled in the sheets, and into the living room. 20
