Moondogs - Alexander Yates [107]
Bobby arrived some long minutes later, and Katrina greeted him with her usual airy vigor. Together they checked out of the hotel and headed up the long wooded stairway, back to his Expedition. The shirtless boys followed, carting dive gear on their backs, eagerly accepting stacks of coins when they reached the top and pantomiming oral sex—their tongues pressed to the insides of their cheeks, their fingers clasped around invisible pricks—when Bobby turned his back on them. “Bakla!” They shouted in unison as the Expedition drove off. Benicio made the not-too-wild guess that bakla meant faggot. But Bobby seemed nonplussed by it. He rolled down all the windows and put the radio on high.
BACK IN MANILA they exchanged cheery, forced goodbyes. Benicio returned to the cool air of the Shangri-La lobby with his dive bag hoisted on his shoulder. He stopped in at the reception before going upstairs, just on the off chance that his father might have left a message while he was gone. “No messages,” the concierge said as she typed away at her little computer, “but someone has been waiting to see you all morning. If you just have a seat in the lounge,” she pointed toward a grove of plush green armchairs at the far end of the lobby, “I’ll contact them right away.”
Benicio rushed to the lounge and dumped himself into a chair. “Hello first,” he said, coaching himself. “Hello first. Hello first. Not: Nice of you to show up. Not: Where the fuck’ve you been? Not: They don’t have phones in Singapore? Just hello. Hello, Dad. It’s good to see you, you careless, fat, lying … Hello Dad. Just hello.”
“Hi, Benny.” The voice that came from behind him was not his father’s voice.
He stood up and turned to face Solita. “Don’t call me that,” he said.
She didn’t look anything like she did in the green dress—or in his father’s shower. Her hair was up in a messy bun and she wore a pink T-shirt so tight that the stitching on her padded bra showed through in relief. Behind her stood a young boy, maybe about nine years old, clinging to the frayed hem of her miniskirt. “This is June,” she said, grabbing the boy by the scruff of his neck and pushing him toward Benicio. “June, say hello to Kuya Benny.”
The boy kept his eyes on the deep carpet as he shuffled toward Benicio. He took hold of Benicio’s hand and without saying a word pressed his warm, slightly greasy forehead to the back of it. “Howard’s,” Solita said, gesturing to the boy with her lips and chin. “He’s your brother.”
Benicio snapped his hand away and the startled boy ran back behind Solita. “He isn’t,” he said.
“He is. He looks as much like Howard as you do. I think he looks more like Howard than you do.”
Benicio’s fingers trembled and he balled them into loose fists to keep it from showing. “You want money,” he said. “You want cash, from me.”
“No.” Solita furrowed her brow and took a step toward him. The boy stayed where he was, one outstretched arm still clinging to the threads of her skirt. “Yes. But that does not make June less your brother.”
“My father wouldn’t do that.”
“Your father did. Your father does. How else did I get into his room? We are regular.”
“Stop talking.” Benicio hadn’t realized that he’d shouted until other people in the lounge started looking his way. “I don’t mean he wouldn’t be with you,” he said, half-mastering his voice. “Because he would. But if he had a kid, if your kid was his kid …” he paused to get better control of himself. He didn’t know how good the boy’s English was and didn’t want to say anything too devastating. Or rather, he was looking for a soft way to say a devastating thing. “If that boy was my father’s, then you wouldn’t have to do what you do. You wouldn