camera lucida 5/5
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--
"Are you seriously trying to take credit for this?" Kame boggles.
"I'm just saying," Meisa says, examining her nails carelessly. "When I interviewed Jin for the house? I knew he was the one."
"The one what," Kame says, rolling his eyes as he measures flour out for pancake batter. He steadfastly refuses to acknowledge her emphasis. "-the one pain in the ass?"
"Hey," Jin says, coming up behind him, dipping his fingers into the flour cannister and flicking flour at Kame. "Watch who you're calling a pain in the ass."
Kame scowls at him. "Do you even know how unhygienic that is? Keep your hands out of my flour."
"Oh ho," Jin waves floury fingers at Kame and leers. "I'll put my hands in your flour whenever I want."
Kame's expression is pained. "How do you even do that?"
"Do what?" Jin asks, feigning innocence.
Kame shoots him a withering look. "That. Make a normal statement sound dirty. What's wrong with you."
"Nothing's wrong with me," Jin says, looking thoughtful. "I just think I'm the best pain your ass has ever had."
Jin ducks the towel Kame aims at his head.
Meisa beams.
--
In April, when the west lawn is littered with fallen cherry and plum blossoms, Jin looks up from the piano one day in the morning room while Kame is lying nearby on an antique chaise lounge with a book across his chest. Kame opens his eyes when the music stops and he watches Jin slip off the piano bench. Closing the book, Kame makes room for Jin to shift into the v of Kame's thighs. Jin braces himself on the reclined back of the chair and leans in, his expression a bit tense and serious, as though he needs something to ground him, to steady him. At first it makes Kame's breath catch with the first flush of Jin's urgency; he hooks his knee around Jin's back to drag him closer, and then Kame finds himself smiling into the kiss, unable to repress his sense of wonder at the way these moments happen. The way Jin has just moved into all the dead spaces he'd spent so much time building around himself. It's still terrifying. To feel what Jin's pouring into him, what he's drawing out. It's fucking terrifying. Kame clutches Jin tighter; he forces himself to relax when Jin's tension finally seems to drain away, when the kiss gentles. Jin pulls back, their foreheads touching. Kame feels the warmth from his scalp to his toes.
"So I was thinking," Jin begins, a hesitant note in his voice. "Road trip. Highway 61. You know, the-"
"-Blues Highway," Kame finishes with a curious smile, nodding. "Yeah. Yes." As if he would say no when Jin's asking. And while Kame's been down that way, he's never properly done it, and he won't pass up the chance to travel it with Jin.
So in early May, they fly into Memphis and treat themselves to several days in a suite at the Madison: long languorous mornings in bed, and late afternoons around town. One evening they hit up crowded Wild Bill's for some down-and-dirty blues, including a rendition of "Purple Rain" that leaves Kame speechless and prompts Jin to promise he'll play his version for Kame in private. There are dinners and lunches around town in the homes of several old friends of Jin's - mentors, Kame guesses from their age and the way they look at Jin with deep affection. Impromptu jam sessions inevitably break out, leaving Kame to curl up on a couch or chair or somewhere on the floor while the room erupts into something old-school - jazz, blues, whatever - that often lasts late into the night.
Kame doesn't pry, but he guesses there must be intent in this trip. He sees it in the way Jin's eyes keep finding his from wherever Jin is perched, bent over a guitar or at a piano's keys, or when the stories begin: road stories, bus stories, the long nights in clubs and shacks and recording studios. A picture of a life begins to emerge, the life Jin doesn't talk about all that much: fifteen years among some of these people, in the company of many black men and women, musicians and their families, steeped in a culture and traditions of which Kame knows little and understands even less.
After five too-short days, they gas up the rental car and drive south on 61, stopping at a roadside diner for what Jin promises will be incredible fried chicken and peach cobbler before continuing on. In Clarksdale, Mississippi, not far from the famous crossroads where they say the devil roams with a guitar at midnight, there is an endless night of music over barbecue at Hopson's, and somehow, even Jin sneaks in a slow soulful vocal performance of "Old Home Place," crooning into a microphone with his eyes closed while a few guys back him on guitar, bass and drums. When Jin opens his eyes and fixes on Kame, Kame feels a wrench in his chest, the good kind that doesn't let him look away, keeps him riveted in the standing-room-only crowd. Someone hands Jin a guitar and a bottleneck slide, pushes him onto a stool. Glancing around, Kame can see that some are murmuring to each other and nodding, perhaps taken by the novelty of a Japanese guy who can hold his own in their midst. Kame watches as Jin tunes for a few minutes to hushed chatter. Jin looks up then, and over his shoulder at one of the nearly toothless, elderly men who hovers nearby and he says something quiet, nodding. Jin ducks his head again over the guitar and rips into a jangly intro to "Rolling and Tumbling," while the old guy claps his hard brown hands together to keep time. A cheer goes up; random cheers punctuate Jin's performance as he leans into the mike, shifts his shoulders and wails out the plaintive words.
Kame is mesmerized by Jin's hands, by his voice, by the way he grooves into the music, the little faces he pulls as he plucks the strings, shifts the bottleneck slide up and down the frets. When Jin's done, Kame just stares, not even applauding, not even attempting to leash the heat rushing through him. Jin's eyes find him once more, and there's this peculiar half-smile on Jin's face. He gives the guitar back and thanks everyone a little bashfully before slipping away to follow Kame who's already turned and is making his way out as steadily as he can.
Jin finds Kame in the parking lot, where Kame watches Jin's approach from where he's leaned up against the passenger's side of the car. He tosses the keys over the roof. Jin snatches them neatly out of the air.
"You drive," Kame says, short, and Jin nods, his expression as tense and expectant as Kame feels.
Jin drives. Kame sits beside him, carefully keeping his hands to himself, looking out the window into the darkness of the local roads speeding by. The one time he chances a look, he sees Jin biting his lip and shifting in his seat. Kame's eyes drop into Jin's lap before he can stop himself, and when Jin makes a soft noise, Kame's gaze jerks up, startled. Jin tosses a quick heated glance in his direction that tightens Kame's throat and sends a thrill curling down his spine.
When they finally arrive at their roadside motor lodge motel room, all the way at the end, far away from any of the other cars parked along the long line of rooms, they barely make it inside before Kame falls on Jin, tackling him down to one of the two queen beds, rutting and grinding against him as hard as Jin's pushing up against him.
"You-" Jin begins in a pained voice as Kame rips the snaps of his dark blue shirt open, presses one palm over the center of Jin's chest. "-liked that."
Kame doesn't look up from where their hands are tangling between them. Jin opens Kame's jeans and shoves down his boxer briefs, pulling him out. Kame makes a small noise in the back of his throat and goes still, watching Jin work him, hand sliding roughly up and down. Kame's heart races, and his mind goes quiet. Jin watches him wolfishly through the hair in his eyes and grins. "Oh," he says, and his voice has sunk to that dangerous place, that velvet-dark place where Kame will pretty much do anything he wants. "You liked that."
"Yes," Kame manages, pushing his hips forward, closing his eyes. "Yeah. Like that."
"No," Jin says, "not like this." He fights his way up, pushing Kame so he topples over and down onto his back with his arms trapped behind him in the sleeves of the shirt Jin's ripped open and shoved over his shoulders. Kame bucks as Jin rears over him, tearing Kame's jeans partway down his thighs. Jin licks his hand and pulls up in one long, perfect stroke.
Kame can't help the breathless moan that escapes.
"Hmm?" Jin murmurs, working him slow, tortuously, while Kame continues to push up into Jin's hand, his arms still still caught behind him. "Don't think I heard that."
Kame presses his lips together and meets Jin's eyes defiantly.
"Oh, Kame," Jin whispers, "why do you have to be so stubborn." His smile is tender.
Kame growls, squeezing his eyes shut. "Fuck."
"Later," and Jin's voice sinks ever deeper, filled with dark promise. "Come on," Jin says, "come on." He bends down and takes Kame into his mouth, hums around him, surrounding him with moist heat. Kame comes up off the bed, nearly gagging Jin who gets his forearm across Kame's hips a little too late. Jin pulls off and looks up at where Kame's gasping and watching him through slitted eyes.
"Come on, Kame," Jin says, and he's almost laughing, like it's a goddamned game. "-just fucking say it. If you don't-"
"You'll what?" Kame grits out.
Jin shrugs one shoulder carelessly. "Maybe I'll leave your ass here where you can just get rid of that on your own. Maybe I'll go back to Hopson's. Stay there all night, you know - playing. You can stay here and think about that." Jin's smile has faded and he scowls down at Kame.
"So dramatic," Kame mutters. "Let me up." Jin releases him so Kame can free his arms and finish opening Jin's jeans. He says: "Come here," before dragging Jin's solid, warm weight down on top of him. At first, it's awkward and clumsy, but somehow they shift around for the right sort of friction, panting and moaning into each other's ears, sometimes kissing roughly, until they're reduced to clutching at each other and sliding together in a smooth, rolling rhythm.
When it happens, Kame's not ready for it, it shocks a moan out of him, and he hides his face in the crook of Jin's neck. Jin takes a little longer, but he follows eventually, thrusting against Kame helplessly until he collapses down, breathing hard into Kame's ear.
Kame floats in a boneless stupor, aware and yet unable to hide the stupid smile tugging up the corners of his mouth. He works his hand deep into Jin's luxurious hair as he feels Jin's fingers stroke along his head, shaping his warm palm to the curve of Kame's head. Kame swallows, blinks rapidly, trying to think again.
"I do," he whispers. "I do. You know I do." He pauses, and he feels Jin listening hard, feels Jin smile against his throat. "I love y-your music."
Jin's smile blossoms wider into Kame's skin. Kame feels the puff of air as Jin chuckles softly before mumbling, "I know. That wasn't so hard, was it?"
Kame tightens his fingers into Jin's hair, smiles over Jin's head, and says nothing.
The next day, Jin drags Kame off to Cat Head to browse for a couple hours. By the time they leave, Jin has a bag full of new CDs and an artful Clarksdale guitar t-shirt for Kame while Kame scores Delta Land, a book of black-and-white photography that he props open across his lap after they leave the Delta Blues Museum to continue on south. At Highway 1, Jin hangs a right and drives them west through endless flat farmland until Rosedale where they find a late lunch of tamales at a small whitewashed clapboard house on the side of the road, creatively named White Front Cafe. Then onward to Greenville where they get a room at the Levee Inn off Highway 82 and eat dinner at El Charro, the shabby Mexican restaurant built smack-dab in the middle of their single-level horseshoe-shaped motel.
Kame flips through the shots on his digital camera in Vicksburg, where Jin's gotten them a room at the Battlefield Inn. They visit the Coca-Cola Museum and the Vicksburg military park, and they have catfish and steak at Jacque's Cafe. Kame documents each new town and the vast expanses of flat delta farmland in between, breaking out the DV camera often enough.
But Kame finds himself watching and rewatching video he shot in Memphis, looking at the photographs of the jam sessions, Jin, the people Jin calls his friends. There's energy there in the images, and vitality; remembering it makes him feel younger, more alive, just for having experienced it.
"It's like," Kame says one morning. They're pulled over to the side of the tiny country road slicing through deep green fields and freshly-tilled black delta earth. Kame cradles a camera, holding it up to capture an old farmhouse and its collapsed barn through the lens. Kame hadn't even had to ask Jin to stop the car: by now, Jin's picked up on Kame's love for old abandoned places and worn-out collapsing structures. He'd slowed the car as soon as the farmhouse came into sight.
Jin hums expectantly from where he's leaned against the car behind Kame. When Kame doesn't continue, Jin prompts, "It's like what?"
Kame blinks rapidly, feels the breeze ruffling his thin hair. It feels good. It feels like a second chance. He turns to look at Jin, filling his lungs and letting the air out slowly. Jin's eyes are steady where they return Kame's gaze, tinted lenses not hiding the warmth in his eyes.
"It feels like I'm waking up," Kame says, unable to keep the wonder from his voice. He turns back to the window, taking in the green of early summer in the Mississippi delta.
Back at the Battlefied Inn, Kame does laps in the courtyard pool for an hour, while Jin disappears with his phone for a while, mouthing my agent to Kame apologetically before he walks off, bluetooth earpiece in place. It's an unwelcome bit of reality intruding, but Kame does his best not to think about it. He's been avoiding Nakamaru and Miki Maya's messages for days.
After two days in Vicksburg, they head further south until Jin turns them onto another tiny rural road, taking them deep into the verdant countryside until at last he pulls into the driveway of a neat little house on a flat plain, surrounded by a small stand of trees and endless fields of farmland. There are two old black men on the front porch, one of them in a wheelchair.
Kame has let Jin navigate this entire road trip, pointing them in whatever direction he wants, taking Kame to places Jin knows and remembers, and introducing Kame to people, Jin's friends, all along the way. But the feeling he gets from Jin as they climb out of the car is a bit different, as though this place or these people are somehow separate from the rest.
But there doesn't seem to be anything unusual about Levi and Charlie, Kame decides later, after they've had lunch in the afternoon shade, frypan cornbread and spicy fried catfish with a simple salad of fresh young cucumbers from their small garden. They're two elderly musicians, guitar and bass, who've largely retired to a pleasant little house only a short drive from Charlie's niece who looks after them. They speak with gravel-rough molasses-slow voices, and they move around even slower. But they laugh with gusto, rusty and congested, the laugh of life-long smokers and lovers of life. They joke with and tease Jin, scold him like old uncles might, and they ruffle his hair. They don't leave Kame out, either, exhibiting a curiosity that he finds mildly exhausting but not unpleasant. Into the evening, there are more stories, and more music as Jin tries out some of his newer pieces on them, until it's too late to leave, and Charlie sends them upstairs to a guest room with a single large bed. Kame stares at it, his heart beating faster. Jin touches his shoulder.
"It's okay," Jin says quietly. Kame sends him a sharp glance. Jin's smiling awkwardly. He shrugs. "We're okay."
The next day, Jin is quiet for a long time after they've driven away, headed north back to Memphis, leaving the two men to wave them off from their cool green shady porch. Kame lets him have it, his solitude. He'd seen the tears in Jin's eyes as he embraced each man, crouching down to hug Levi in his chair. He'd seen the way both men had stroked Jin's hair, petted his shoulders. Not exactly like friends.
Jin clears his voice at long last, and Kame turns to him. Stretches out his arm and rests it against the top of Jin's shoulders, cupping Jin's neck, tracing a small pattern onto the skin below Jin's ear with his thumb.
"They're family," Jin says, not taking his eyes off the road. "Like my fathers."
"Are they-" Kame begins.
"Yes," Jin answers, and he meets Kame's eyes, his meaning unmistakable. "Yes. Sixty-five years."
Kame blinks at that, turns his gaze back to the road, feeling poleaxed. He doesn't know what to say, so he casts around for something else, something that's been nagging at him for a long time.
"Your accent," Kame begins, looking back at Jin curiously. "It's gotten stronger since we've been out here."
Jin smiles. "I was obsessed with English when I was a kid," he says, "and when I came to America, I came here first, to Mississippi and Tennessee, and - it just got into me, you know? I guess it's in the way I talk now, too. I hooked up with some of the folks you've met, or rather, they took me in. I was young and stupid and hopelessly green, and they rescued me, I guess. Saw some potential in me, and saved me from the dark side, you know, the drugs and the gambling and all that. In a way, these are the places where I feel like I come from. Does that make sense?"
Kame feels his lips curve up. "Sure. Yes. Yes, it does."
Jin drives a little longer in silence, but when a clearing comes up beside a field, he slows and pulls over. Climbs out of the car and walks off a ways. Kame climbs out, too, stretches, sips from a bottle of water, and then pulls out his camera to take in a few random shots while he waits.
When Jin comes back, he walks straight up to Kame and wraps his arms around him.
"You've been so great," he says, sounding slightly foggy.
"Jin?" Kame's voice is muffled.
"Yeah."
"I can't breathe."
"Oh. I - sorry." Jin loosens his arms and draws back slightly. "Better?"
"Much," Kame says ruefully before he points out, "I haven't actually done anything."
Jin steps back and makes a dismissive gesture. Holds out his hand, which Kame takes after only a second of hesitation. They walk to the scant shade of a young nearby tree where Jin stops, releases Kame and slides his hands into his pockets. Kame opens his mouth, but Jin cuts him off with a glance.
"Just listen," Jin says, "okay?"
Kame nods, tilting his head, a frown fleeting across his face. Jin leans back against the slim tree trunk and looks away.
"I came to America because I couldn't stay in Japan any more. I needed to be here, doing this and I was willing to do almost anything if it meant I could learn from the masters and play. I was so hungry and desperate when I got here, I could have gone down some pretty bad roads. A lot of these people? Not just Levi and Charlie." He makes a vague gesture. "They set me on the right path. I owe them a lot. I brought you out here because I wanted you to understand this about me. About where I come from. Not Japan, but from here. From these people. From these places. This music.
"I've basically sacrificed my entire life to this. To music. To playing, and that meant traveling, and when you're good, you get booked everywhere. It just-" Jin twitches his shoulders helplessly. "It got away from me, and by the time I realized it, I'd been doing it for so long, I didn't know how to do anything else. Other people would get tired, you know, my bandmates? They'd come off the road, take a break. Me? I'd hook up with someone else, and I'd go back out again. The longest times I ever spent in one place were the times I spent working on a recording and actually recording it."
Kame sort of gets it, that drive to work. But in his case, his own workaholic tendencies came from attempting to compress a career's-worth of work into the short time he thought he had left.
"Don't get me wrong," Jin continues, meeting Kame's eyes. "I love the life, and I love playing. It's the most incredible feeling, to put your music out there and get it back from people who feel it. There's nothing like it in the world. If I could live off that, I'd be the happiest man.
"But I can't. The older I get, the more I know it. I basically arrived at this point where I looked around and I realized I didn't have anything aside from my work."
"You have friends," Kame protests. "Amazing friends, from the look of it."
Jin nods. "You're right. And I'm grateful for them. But all this time? No one to come home to, no one to take with me. No one to take care of. No wife, no kids. None of that."
Kame stares at him, stricken. "You want a wife?"
Jin's surprised gaze swings back to him. "No!" he says. "No, not exactly. You know what I mean. I want more than just friends. I need - I need someone - someone who's just for me. My own family. Does that make sense?"
Kame considers that. Maybe he does.
Jin reaches out then, snares Kame's shoulders, draws him closer. "And then there's you. Tell me if I'm wrong, but - but I get the impression you've - that you haven't let yourself get close to anyone for a long time. I think, and maybe this is bullshit, so tell me if it is, but I think you didn't want to leave anyone behind. You thought you were going to die, and you didn't want to give anyone pain."
Kame can't look away from Jin's soft brown eyes, his throat tight. He jerks a nod, and tries to laugh. Maybe it sounds stupid now, but it's true. It's all true.
Jin leans in, pressing his forehead to Kame's. "I found you," Jin says, his tone growing fervent. "-and you aren't going to die for a really long time."
Kame nods again, trying to comprehend Jin's simple faith. He tries to understand how Jin does this, how he keeps doing this, climbing under his skin when he's not expecting it.
"I just think," Jin continues, "we found each other. Don't you think-" He breaks off, biting his lip. "That has to mean something."
Kame turns his head, passes his hand over his face, and he tries for a lopsided smile. Jin looks at him, sun-dappled and earnest, affection and a blaze of confidence in his brown eyes. There's only one possible answer, which Kame gives, and when they break for air, Kame holds Jin closer, and he gives it again.
--
It isn't easy for Kame to automatically switch off how he feels. Overcoming twenty-some years of believing his life had a kind of expiration date? It wakes him up in the night, more terrified than before - because now he has infinitely more to lose.
Kame doesn't like to talk about it, but Jin won't let him give up on the idea of a future. Jin makes him go to the doctor where he gets a clean physical bill of health. He'll always carry the leftover aches and pains from the car accident, and the normal wear and tear of growing older, but physically he's fine. It's his mind that needs a little help; his earlier diagnoses are confirmed, so Jin makes Kame take his meds, and he tries to be patient when Kame has really down days. It's not perfect. Neither of them seem capable of suppressing their stubborn, contrary natures, so misunderstandings and arguments periodically flare. But it's good, and it's far more than Kame ever thought he'd get.
Even privately, Kame no longer calls it his farewell tour, but he follows through on his plans to visit his family, and Jin, who won't be left behind, accompanies him. In June they visit Kame's father in Norway for midsummer where they sail around spectacular fjords during the day and attend bonfires at night under the midnight sun. From Norway they fly to Sardinia where Kame's rented a flat near the sea for the days around Jin's birthday. In mid-July they're in Boston with Yuya and his daughter for a week, going to baseball games and museums, spending late nights listening to music at Scullers and Ryles and Wally's.
In August they're back at Meisa's house while Jin lays down a few tracks at Gizmo in Silver Spring. Kame hangs out at the recording studio with Jin on several occasions to shoot photographs and video, and when he looks at all of it later, he comes to a decision. After a long talk with Nakamaru, Kame writes a new pitch, emails it to Nakamaru along with some samples of the documentary-style he's going for. In early September, he takes the train to New York to meet with Miki Maya.
"So this isn't the project Steidl agreed to," she says, folding her hands on the desk in front of her.
Kame nods. "I know."
"We like the concept, though," she says. "My bosses think it has potential. We can get behind this, but I need to know if you're sure this is what you want to do." Her gaze is serious as she peers at him across her orderly desk. "It's a huge departure from your previous work." She taps the stack of books by her left hand, Kame's previous efforts covering such themes as industrial landscapes, architecture and contemporary art.
"That's partly why I'm doing it. Yes, I'm sure," Kame says. "And I understand if Steidl decides they're not interested in this. But this is what I'm working on right now, and that's not going to change." There isn't anything else Kame wants to do; any doubts he might have center on the collaboration necessary to complete the project.
After the meeting, while he's waiting for the elevator down from the thirty-sixth floor, Kame calls his lawyer and asks him to draw up a contract.
He presents it to Jin one night they're both in New York for meetings and work; Kame organizes a dinner at a restaurant in K-town with Nakamaru, Jin, and Jin's agent, Josh.
"What is this," Jin asks blankly after Kame slides the envelope to him. Kame waits for him to open it and begin reading, waits for Jin to look up, sees the confused frown creasing his forehead.
"What do you think?" Kame waits less than patiently until Jin's eyes lift to his.
Jin clears his throat. "You want me to have half?"
"It's only fair," Kame allows, "and keep in mind, that's only if the book sells. It might not, so then you'd get half of like, two dollars, or something."
"But-"
"If you do this with me, I want you to be a full participant. Not just my subject," Kame says. Nakamaru shifts beside him. Jin hands the sheaf of papers absently to Josh. Kame doesn't look away from Jin. "I want you to be my partner."
"I don't know what to say," Jin says, leaning forward, returning Kame's gaze.
Nakamaru knocks back his glass of soju and reaches for Kame's. He's shaking his head and muttering to himself. Kame thinks it sounds like why do I have to be here for this?
"Say yes?" Kame's smile is hopeful.
"Yeah, Jin, say yes," Nakamaru says in a dry tone before downing Kame's soju in a single gulp. Josh looks up from the papers, his eyes flicking between Jin and Kame: "Wait, aren't we even going to talk about this?"
"No," Jin and Nakamaru say at the same time. Kame ducks his head and tries not to laugh.
--
As the year progresses, Kame's fears of his death recede; they're pushed farther to the back of his mind with each new plan and each new project, both personal and professional, that extend into a future he never imagined he'd have. Jin still goes with Kame to visit Koji and his family in London for a week in early October followed by two weeks with Yuichiro and his family in Japan; Jin introduces Kame to his parents and his younger brother who still live in Tokyo. But when they get back, Jin hunkers down, spending long stretches - sometimes twelve to fourteen hours a day - working alone or with various musicians, mostly local, others passing through, including the rest of the Murasaki Blues Trio, Ephraim and Rachel. Kame tries to make himself invisible as they work, and at the end of each week he has hundreds of new photographs to study, and sometimes video, too. Winter descends and after endless jam sessions with other musicians and painstaking solitary effort, Jin's record begins to take shape. Kame, observing the process from behind his lens, considers how similar Jin's effort sometimes is to what he's trying to do with his current project - collaborative at times, and reclusive and lonely at others.
--
After another New Year's in Japan, Jin announces he's taking Kame somewhere warm for his birthday in February. Jolted, Kame stares at Jin, at a loss for words. He's been so busy, so occupied, that the passage of time - and what it means - hits him like a thunderbolt.
Jin raises one eyebrow when Kame doesn't respond. "What? Don't tell me you want to go camping at Assateague again."
Kame shakes his head. "But-"
"No buts," Jin says firmly. "We both need a vacation." Which Kame, rubbing his eyes, knows is true.
Aside from telling Kame that he'll need his passport, Jin keeps their travel plans secret until the day of their departure. When Kame discovers they're flying to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, he thinks it sounds nice, but he's puzzled, too; Kame can't imagine that Jin just chose their destination at random. If he's learned anything about Jin over the last year - which makes sense when Kame considers Jin's homeless musical wanderings - it's that Jin's travel is almost always grounded in purpose.
That purpose becomes clearer when Jin follows the instructions of the rental jeep's GPS from the airport about forty-five minutes straight to the old, ruined gates of a huge compound spilling down an incline of the island. Jin tosses the ring of keys to Kame who climbs out and unlocks a few padlocks on chains that bind the gate together. Once Jin has pulled the jeep through, he has Kame lock up behind them.
"What is this place?" Kame asks, casting his gaze at the profusion of dense green all around, and at the emerging shape of a main building and outbuildings beyond the curve just ahead.
Jin pulls the jeep all the way down a long slanted drive through overgrown tropical vegetation to a circular driveway partially covered by a carport. A worn sign affixed near the entrance to the sprawling building still reads Grapetree Bay Hotel. Jin pulls just beyond the carport and switches off the engine. He turns to Kame.
"Want to look around?" Jin's smile is a little shy, and a little proud.
They climb out, Kame with his camera in hand, into the late afternoon heat and sunshine. While they walk along a broken path following an exterior wall, crumbling in places, Jin begins to explain the little he knows, what he was told. The 1960s-era hotel was once popular but it was badly damaged when a hurricane hit the island a few decades earlier. It was abandoned, and although it's changed hands a few times, and there's some occasional talk of restoring it, the property has largely been left to the elements for nearly three decades.
"How did you find this place?" Kame asks as he pauses to frame a photo of a young sapling sprouting from a window. The exterior walls are stained, but still whitish, cracks spiderwebbed everywhere, old waterlogged plaster crumbling to dust.
Jin tosses Kame a pleased grin. "Oh, I know people," he says airily, "and I know you like this stuff. Ruins."
"This definitely qualifies," Kame replies in awed tones. He slowly shakes his head as he looks around, taking in the riotous green plant life overgrowing everything, the fallen leaves, the flowers bursting cracks. When they descend to the terrace, there is a pool, empty but for a quantity of deep green rainwater collected in the deepest part of its angled bottom, cloudy with masses of algae. Moss creeps in the spaces between the stones surrounding the pool's edge and in the shade of towering palm trees that screen the terrace from the clear blue Caribbean waters.
Kame turns around in a circle, gazes upwards to take in the dimmed white face of the hotel nestled into where the island slopes down to the sea, the wreckage of what would have been a beautiful, vibrant place. And yet-
"It's still beautiful," Kame murmurs, tilting his head back, the afternoon sun behind him, drowning the building in light. He turns to Jin and pulls him close, presses his lips to Jin's ear. "It's spectacular. Thank you."
Jin's arms go around him, squeezing for a moment before he relaxes his grip and moves his head back. He meets Kame's eyes from behind his tinted sunglasses, and his wide mouth spreads in a happy, satisfied smile. "I knew it," he says triumphantly, "I knew you would love it."
"Ha," Kame replies. You think you know me, is on the tip of his tongue, a gentle teasing rejoinder, but he leaves it there, unspoken, because, well, it's true.
They leave when they get hungry, driving about five minutes across the eastern tip of the island to Duggan's Reef. Dinner ends up on the open-air deck overlooking Teague Bay, beer and conch fritters and local lobster cooked in irish whiskey. It's messy and delicious, and Jin takes full advantage of Kame's discomfiture as he snaps photos of Kame eating his lobster with his hands, juice dripping down his chin. After tolerating this for a while, Kame finally retorts, his eyes narrowed dangerously, "Remind me again. Am I paying you to take pictures of me? I think you should be paying me." Jin snickers, popping a conch fritter into his mouth.
The next day, when Kame wakes up in the sunny bedroom of their borrowed condo, he's alone; it takes him a few minutes to remember where he is, and why. He feels strange, disconnected, somehow, but in a good way, as though he's been shedding weight for a year, letting dead things go, bit by bit. The ever-present grief - and fear - he'd lived with for more than two-thirds of his life doesn't overwhelm him all the time like it used to. To be sure, there are bad days, and there will always be bad days - and he'll never stop missing his mother - but he's able to be here, now, in this place without those long shadows darkening each step. Now he's able to live and breathe and laugh and enjoy life in a way he'd never dreamed possible, no longer always looking backwards, searching for truth and answers in a lost childhood. He no longer fears the future.
Kame luxuriates in the comfortable bed for a while, relaxed and dreamy, until delicious smells and a full bladder finally drive him out. Padding out to the kitchen, his bare feet quietly slap against the cool tiles and he scratches idly at his chest. When he comes to the kitchen, he pauses in the archway for a view of Jin at the stove, spatula in hand, patch of blue sky through the window beyond. Folding his arms over his bare chest, Kame leans his shoulder into the doorway, watching Jin hum and even dance a little to whatever tune is in his head.
After a few minutes of watching Jin bounce over the stove in his Burlington Jazz n' Blues Festival t-shirt and a pair of boxers that reads "you are here," Kame clears his throat, and grins as Jin whirls in surprise.
"You're up!"
Kame strolls over. "Hard to sleep through the smell," he says, collapsing into a chair. Jin's face wrinkles in worry as he sniffs the air.
"Is it bad?"
"No, silly." Kame reaches out, touches Jin's warm hip. "You're making me breakfast," he says, propping his chin in his other hand.
Jin looks down at him with a fond smile. He shrugs. "It's your birthday," he says. "You're always making breakfast for me. Thought I'd return the favor."
"So those are birthday pancakes?" Kame eyes the stove hopefully.
Jin snags Kame's hand off his hip and pulls him back up to his feet. "Those are birthday pancakes," he agrees, putting the spatula aside and taking Kame's face in his hands. "And this is your-" Jin stops, and the look in his eyes makes Kame's chest swell and ache, not with pain.
"Happy birthday, Kame. Looks like you get to be another year older after all."
And if the pancakes are a little overdone later, Kame doesn't complain.
They don't spend their entire stay on St. Croix at the old ruined hotel, but Kame does get in some quality time with the morning and afternoon light, capturing beautiful old mosaics and murals whose colors haven't entirely faded in the sun and weather. Everywhere Kame turns, there's something to draw his eye: long once-white shutters propped up against a wall, plants growing out of windows and corners and cracks, the upper level arcade overlooking the pool with beams of light slanting through hanging vines. Jin brings his guitar and plays in the shade by the pool so Kame photographs him, too, until Jin simply follows him around and flat-out poses, even stripping off his shirt under the hot tropical sun.
Jin stabs a finger at him as Kame licks his lips and ducks his eye to the viewfinder. "This is just for you," Jin says. "-okay? No one else."
On their last day, they make a final trip before heading to the airport. It feels oddly portentous to Kame as they wander together through the decaying, ruined hulk of formerly-beautiful construction one last time, stepping over and around rubble and damaged furniture, taking in all the sadness and magnificence of the hotel-turned-wildlife refuge. If Kame closes his eyes he can almost see it, like a memory or a photograph, a time when it was gorgeous and whole and alive. While it may have fallen into disrepair, battered by the wind and the rain, the inexorable creep of nature reclaiming it has given it a different, no less vibrant, unconceived life.
From one end of the upper arcade, Kame stands in a warm flood of sunshine, a light breeze ruffling his hair. He looks down the long tunnel-like hall and watches Jin lean against the rickety rail of the far terrace; his shoulders and fluffy hair stand out against the deep blue sky, sunlight catching on and playing over him. It's a photograph Kame would like to take, but he doesn't. Instead, he stands there with open, empty hands and drinks it in, memorizes and breathes without filter. When Jin turns around, Kame feels it in his chest. He wonders if he'll ever get used to it, if someday he won't feel this rush of gladness and gratitude. Maybe someday. Maybe never. Today, it fills him, and he waits as Jin's face brightens, as Jin takes one step, and then another, striding toward him without hurry, untroubled, confident, carefree.
When Jin reaches him, Kame takes his hand and squeezes it tight.
"Hey," Jin says, squeezing him back and bumping him affectionately. "You all right?"
Kame smiles past the lump in his throat. "I'm great," he says, and shifts away, drawing Jin with him. "Let's go home."
FIN
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Soundtrack, References & Thanks.
