Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So

Author:Anthony Veasna So
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ecco
Published: 2021-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

Today Monk D and I ate dinner together. Then, when it got dark, we walked into the field behind the temple. Empty Coke cans and plastic bags crinkled under our steps. Trash litters the dead grass, practically the whole field, even though New Year’s was in April and now it’s winter.

“You know,” I said, “I used to think it was cool the monks lived outside the city. Like it made them gangster or something.” I lit a cig from a pack Monk B had given me. “But now I think it’s sad. I guess the city decided there’s no space for the wat.”

“Everything’s sad. That’s how it goes,” Monk D said. He put a cig in his mouth, but then the lighter didn’t work because of the wind. He signaled for me to help. Our faces leaned into each other. Our cigs touched and lit up.

“That’s messed up,” I said, stepping back and looking around. The last time I’d stood in the middle of the field, I talked to an army recruiter. It wasn’t the first time recruiters tabled at Cambodian New Year, but it was the first time I saw an Asian guy doing it. I recognized him as some Hmong dude who’d been a few years ahead of me in school. He was smiling in his uniform, ignoring the mean-mugging looks from the Cambo grandpas, who hate Hmong people for no legit reason. We started talking and he asked me how life had been. I didn’t tell him I was working two shit jobs, that I’d dropped out of my first semester of community college. I shrugged, and then said, “Eh.” He told me he “got it,” before handing me a stack of army literature. A week later, I flipped through the pamphlets. I liked how organized the headings and subheadings and bullet points were. They could detail every second of a guy’s future, I thought.

“Do you have a picture of your girlfriend?” Monk D asked me out of nowhere.

“I don’t carry pictures of my girlfriend in my monk robes,” I answered.

“Explain her to me then,” Monk D said.

“Lemme finish this smoke.” I glanced at the temple. All the lights were turned off, so it looked like a giant black blob. It seemed weird that people went there for answers, peace, or anything really. I thought about Maly’s body. My hands cupping her breasts as she got on top of me, the way she always did. Feeling myself inside of her, and herself surrounding me. How warm that made me feel. Breathing in her smell. I could feel a hard-on growing under my robes. I didn’t feel embarrassed though. It was dark out. And I felt comfortable around Monk D, like he wouldn’t mind.

I finished my cig and threw the butt into a patch of dirt. I described Maly to him. Basic stuff. How tall she was, the color of her hair. Monk D told me to stop. “No, no, explain how she is in the world,” he said, waving his hand so that his cig made spirals in the air.

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