“Tonight we’ll be hosting another special guest: Comedian and actor, Louis C.K. will be joining us here in our Los Angeles studio to talk about his take on the quality of life today, society, gay marriage…” The radio faded into background noise. I looked around, out the front of the car at the surroundings. The sidewalk was empty, illuminated by some lights. The long, wide street yielded few cars -- save the parked ones. The hedges on either side of the street were mostly dark; the gated driveways ever gaining more light as they curved up towards their houses. The dim, smoldering view of the city impressed me. How romantic -- if only I wasn’t working.
“Hey Mike, what do you think about, like, Jennifer, man?” I looked over at Jon, sitting there in the passenger seat, filtering words around the noodles he ushered into his mouth; making his accent even harder to understand.
“Who?” I asked grinning, looking through the cultural window he sat behind.
“C’mon man,” he said, his face practically in the noodle box, slurping them up. “Curly hair lady. She always talk to guy at front desk, man.”
“Oh, right, yeah. The one you think is pretty.” I said, toying with him. “She’s ok. Not that great.”
“C’mon, dude! She has perfect body! Wish I was like him, you know, white security guy. Why she talk to him? You know, Asian guy here. No one likes Asian -- small dick.” He paused to offer me the box.
“Oh no, go ahead, finish up.” I said.
“Stupid white, just take man. I know you’re hungry, you’re always hungry.” He was right, my stomach was turning itself inside out.
“I know you don’t have money man. Just pay me back when you get, like, million dollars.”
“Thanks, I’ll pay you back one of these days,” I said gratefully with a grin. I know how annoying any scavenger can be. I tried to restrain myself but it must have been obvious. Jon always took care of me, even when I didn’t want it.
“No worries man.” A phrase recently coined from another co-worker. “Doesn’t matter, in Korea friends always share what we have.” He chomped viciously, grease tipped at the corners of his mouth. I had to smile at his art of nonchalance.
“Do you wanna get beer later?”
“We gotta finish up here first.” I laughed.
“They’re probably having party right now.” He indicated a giant white house up ahead. “Friday night dude, why not? Nothing ever happen here, man! Why we, like, have to do this?” The unusual placement of emphasis in Jon’s sentences always put a smile on my face.
“We have, like, perfect view here man.”
“I know, the city is pretty at night, huh?” I said.
“No! House man! We can watch through window, you know? White lady doing dirty things.”
“Oh, right, of course.” I grinned. “Hey, I mean, c’mon, it’s only fair. We have to work our way up from the bottom, right?” I handed the box back, thinking about how perfect a cold beer would be.
“Ya true. If I wasn’t foreign guy man, I’d be like FBI you know? ‘Freeze FBI! Hey you! Freeze’!”
I laughed. I was so happy to have been assigned together, even if we did sit in front of the same damn house every night waiting for something that was probably never going to happen. I remember him from the first day, fresh off the boat. “Hey, I think the Dodgers are on! You wanna listen to them?”
“Oh Dodgers! Yah, let’s listen!” Jon exclaimed. “Dodgers gonna win man, way better than stupid Red Sox, you know?”
“What?! The Red Sox are killing it! They’re the best team in baseball!”
“Why you even like them man? You’re not from Boston, stupid German guy here. You only like them cause they winning man!” Jon exclaimed. I leaned over and flicked a couple neon buttons on the radio and the intercom buzzed: “Adler 1, 2. Adler 1, 2. Possible code 6G on east Lexington. Possible suspects Hispanic male, about 5'6 headed south bound. Gonna check it out.”
I grabbed my drink and looked through the windshield. I looked over at Jon. I actually really enjoyed these nights. “No sign of movement yet,” he said, imitating Captain Pierce’s thick Nevada accent. I lowered my seat back a bit and put my feet up. “How long have we been here?”
“Hey man, why you no like girls, man?”
“What do you mean? Of course I do. Hey, you got something.” I touched the corner of my mouth.
“Huh?”
I reached towards him with a napkin.
“Uh-huh, watching me dude,” he said snatching it from me and cleaning his mouth. I smiled and shook my head.
“Girls like, ‘Oh Mike how was your weekend?’ ‘Are you going to bar later? I will just wait forever’ you know? Heart like coming out of eyes. Waiting forever for you man.”
“I dunno I just haven’t felt the want to, really.”
“Huh? Fell the one two? What that mean?” Jon looked at me with those foreign eyes of innocent ignorance. I could see the vast unknown in them- as if seeing only air was possible. I burst out laughing. “No, felt the want to. Meaning I haven’t really felt like I was interested in getting to know any of them.”
Jon looked at me, his vanilla expression instantly morphing. “AHH! The want to, not like two, number two.”
“Yeah it’s just a hard time for me in life right now. I’m not really so sure about a lot of things and women definitely won’t make things clearer.”
“Up to you, man. Girlfriend is nice. We can go into city, holding hands, go to Dodgers game, you know?”
I look over at him for a long moment. He hadn’t noticed I was staring. Jon laughed a petite laugh, very Asian, slightly covering his mouth with a flat hand, as if he felt guilty for thinking a dirty thought. I reached out and touched his arm, his skin was cool against the summer heat. I studied him, he looked so powerful, so masculine in the bulky blue uniform. His gun holstered around his hip, the pouches padding his waist, his bare arm visible until halfway up the bicep where the short sleeve covered the rest. He looked over, breathing steadily through his nose. My eyes were fixed on his neck. I look up and they met his.
“You’ll find something like that one day. But it will come when you don’t expect it.” I held his gaze. The surroundings seemed to go still, it was as if we were engulfed in a bubble --everything was damp and the sound was dull. There was silence. Jon didn’t seem to have registered what I said. I retracted my hand from him. It was getting hotter so I cracked the window. The night thickened, the radio buzzed, the intercom crackled.
