Missing In Rangoon

“What makes you think she’s going to break up with you?”

“She said she bought the bookstore for us. She said it was a new start. It was like a new life for the two of us in Rangoon. But I don’t believe her. Mya did it for Mya.”

His mouth trembled as he stared at the wall across the way.

“When I look at the wall outside, I see stuff falling apart. I see people drifting away from each other. They can’t stop it from happening.”

“But you haven’t split up.”

“Not

yet,” said Rob, shaking his head. “I’m watching the wall, and you know what I see? I see Splitsville station one more stop down the track.”

His lips trembled. They were dry. He licked them, swallowing a mouth of Johnnie Walker.

Rob made the sound of an old steam locomotive train whistle.

“Train pulling into the station.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Calvino said. “You’ve got a life back in Bangkok. I can get you on a flight tomorrow. What do you say? Fresh start.”

Calvino refilled the empty glass as Rob stared at the brick wall out the window. Dark shadows sprawled in a tangle of blurred webs. A sudden agitation propelled Rob to lurch forward and gesture with his fist.

“Somchai, I’m not afraid of you!” Rob shouted, the veins in neck thick and bluish under his pale skin.

His eyes moved in a hellish frenzy, the torment of the vision burrowing deep into his psyche.

“There’s no one there.”

“You’re not looking. There! Do you see him?”

He twisted his hand into the shape of a gun and pretended to fire it at the phantoms dancing on the wall opposite the window.

“Out of ammo,” said Calvino.

Rob lowered his arm and stared at his hand as if it were a smoking gun.

“Still loaded.”

Rob smiled and dropped his arm by his side.

“Mya promised to clear me with Somchai. But she doesn’t know the Thais. You can’t fix things with Somchai.”

“Maybe she’ll come back later and surprise you,” said Calvino.

“She sleeps above the bookstore. It’s her dream. I’m not in it.”

“People change.”

Rob glared at Calvino.

“You sound like my father.”

“There’s something you’re holding back, Rob. What’d she say before she left?”

“She said it was okay for me to go back to Bangkok. That I’d be okay. How can it be okay if she stays here? Do you get that? I don’t,” he said, slurring as his voice slowed. “Somchai said he’d kill me. How can she fix my problem? Can you tell me that?”

He sighed, staring out the window.