So Mike and Mom met right around her birthday.
Her forty-fifth, while I was twenty-three
and Mike was only twenty-one. She’d made
a fair amount of money editing
for Microsoft. She spent it on a pair
of adjacent apartments, where she stayed
along with Amerasian refugees,
the left-behinds of soldiers in Vietnam.
She trained them all to call her Mom.
My girlfriend at the time must have been so
confused by all the hues when asked to take
our “family photo.” I could not explain.
One day Mom said the other refugees
were picking on poor Mike because he was
hermaphroditic, male and female parts.
But then she said he and she were in love
and they moved to a townhouse of their own.
He shoved a tiny diamond in my face.
I think it was an earring that she’d stuffed
into a ring, and he said Marry. Oof.
Soon I moved to Spokane for graduate school.
The news said Seattle cops had busted up
an Amerasian prostitution ring,
and I knew that my mom would get involved.
I rode the Greyhound out, and sure enough:
she’d filled the townhouse with those prostitutes.
They challenged me and Mike in basketball,
a game of two-on-five. We held our own
until Mike benched himself, and I had no one
to pass to, which, I think, works pretty well
as metaphor of sorts for all those years
I scratched my head and tried to make some sense
of something senseless. I do not recall
the final score, but those five whores sure wore
me down and schooled me on that sweaty court.
Mike lost his index finger while at work
at Midas Muffler and he said “Maybe
I won’t work there no more.” And yet he did.
One day a Midas colleague with a truck
helped Mike move out. The air was thick. The air
was always thick. She told Mike’s co-worker
“You’re breaking up a happy home.” To which
he said “Mike asked for help.” Hey Mike, you were
A Motherfucker, but I wish you well.
I never blamed you. Not one bit. In fact
I’m glad you made it out almost intact.
