boyfriend. Didnt you know? He lives in Dupre, the floor below us. Shes always hanging around there. Its not a secret or anything.
It had never occurred to me that Tyson and Kathryn Newey might be a couple. They sat next to each other in class, but I had never noticed any signs of affection. I had her pegged as a spinster till the day she died.
Was her story that bad? Jessica asked.
I thought it was good, actually, but now Im not so sure. Im starting to doubt my ability to judge. The things Joshua pointed out, I have to admit, they were pretty hokey, but I dont knowI think she deserved better.
Its a stupid argument, Joshuas.
Do you think, as an Asian American artist, you should have Asian themes in all of your work? That itd be a betrayal not to?
Is that something else Joshua told you? Hes fucking whacked. You need to stop listening to him.
She had complained to me recently that I had started talking (and growing a goatee, in addition to smoking occasionally) exactly like Joshua, but she, too, had picked up on some of his mannerisms, particularly his use of profanity. Youre doing exactly that in your drawings, I told her.
No, Im not.
Yes, you are.
Coincidence, she said. Art should not be a polemic.
I was confounded. The political context of her drawings was obviously more than coincidental, and I couldnt understand how she could deny it so baldly. Thats a total contradiction.
No, its not.
She had been working with ink on paper this semester, and her newest project was a series on Mao. The largest piece measured four-by-three feet and was an adaptation of Zhang Zhenshis famous portrait of the Communist leader. Seen from afar, the contours of his face appeared to be composed like a topological map, with ragged, pixilated lines and blobs. But the drawing drew you in, and, looking closely, you could see that the lines and blobs were actually made up of infinitesimally tiny, intricately etched tanks and ships and cannons and soldiers, thousands of them. It was fiendishly elaborate, painstakingly detailed. You could make out the facial features on the soldiers, the threaded hilts of their bayonets. The hours, the dedication, the obsessiveness that must have been required to do this was breathtaking. Staggering. But you walked away not so much with admiration for the artist as concern for her mental health.
I dont know, I said. Im starting to think all art is political, whether you intend it to be or not.
I still say Joshuas full of shit, she told me. His story, yeah, everything was well doneI had lent her my copy to readbut a poor Korean merchant and his kid in postwar Seoulhas Joshua even been to Seoul? Hes from Pusan, right? What the hell does he know? Hes so assimilated, hes no more Korean than I am now.
It could be that hes just fucking with us. Maybe hes not serious about any of this. Sometimes I get the feeling he does things just to get a rise out of us.
Its easy being outrageous. Much harder to offer real meaning. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and glanced at herself in the mirrors that lined the wall. Do you think I got fat? Loki told me I got fat.
Like the rest of us, she had not been immune to the freshman fifteen, but the extra weight, just five or seven pounds, became her. More filled out, curvier. She was wearing green sweatpants, rolled at the waist, and a T-shirt with the midriff cut off, exposing that lovely swale on the small of her back. You look good, I said.
I still carried a little torch for Jessica, although her relationship with Loki Somerset seemed more secure than ever. During spring break, she had finally introduced him to her parents, and she had been both pleased and stumped by how welcoming they were to him, particularly after he began speaking to them in Mandarin.
You know, maybe Loki and Kathryn ought to get together, I said.
C. C. Hunter
Robert E. Howard
Ted Hill
Barry Lyga, Robert DeFranco
Matt Christopher
Christine Bell
Graeme Davis
Mia Henry
Richard Parks
Alexis Gold