Money Boy by Paul Yee

“Little Universe,” flashes from the TV screen mounted high in one corner.
    Now I have to stay. Qing-feng flies through the air in slow motion. The drums slap me awake, and I want to ride on words that surge with anger and feeling. When the bass player skips rope on stage, I want to jump, too.
    Hey, who chooses the music here? The customers don’t seem to care that there’s Chinese rock music in a Japanese restaurant. The host is too old for Sodagreen.
    I look around for the waiters just as one walks up. One hand grips a water glass and Japanese cup while the other carries a sturdy teapot.
    â€œKomban-wa,” he says, pouring tea.
    â€œDid you choose the music?” I blurt in Chinese. I’m talking to a waiter. That’s something new for me, but this guy is as handsome as Daniel Wu, the Hong Kong movie star.
    â€œYou like Sodagreen, too?” He speaks Chinese and his smile widens. “I started following them when they won the Golden Melody Cup.”
    That means he’s a little bit older than me. Good.
    â€œI heard them later,” I say, hoping to keep him there. “I didn’t follow them until ‘Little Universe’ came out.”
    â€œThat was the best year for music!”
    A tinny bell rings from the kitchen.
    â€œ Konnichiwa ,” he calls out. He gives me a slight bow and smiles an apology before leaving.
    I wrap my hands around the hot tea. At first I wanted to eat something light and cheap but now I change my mind. I want to surprise the waiter and catch his attention. I want him to wonder who I am and where I come from. On the menu, the most expensive item is chirashi with tuna, yellow tail and salmon. I reach into my pocket and see that I have enough to pay my bill and leave a big tip.
    At the next table, the young westerners wear jean jackets and layers of shirts hanging loose like blankets. Two of them lean back and shove their legs out like brooms. The other two play a game, lining up bottles with different amounts of beer inside and blowing into them to make them a musical instrument.
    There are also men with gray hair and no hair, businessmen wearing ties and shiny shoes, jocks in tracksuits, a couple in look-alike sweaters, and a man alone, reading a newspaper.
    â€œReady to order?”
    Rot. It’s the host, not the cute waiter. He swings out one hip like an impatient woman.
    During the TV coverage of Gay Pride, I walked away when the cameras showed men dressed as women with wigs and makeup. I thought they looked like freaks, as if gay men were really women who were born by mistake into men’s bodies. Me, I prefer to look at men’s bodies. I’ve never wanted to wear high heels and lipstick.
    I give him my order. He raises an eyebrow, as if wanting to see my money first. Then he grunts, “Good choice. The tuna is very high grade today.”
    I’m neatly dressed, better than the westerner kids, so he should treat me with respect.
    Diners at one table stretch over to the men at the next one. They were strangers a second ago, two separate tables of men each minding their own business.
    Suddenly they roar with laughter, the kind of unstoppable laugh that bends you over to your knees. It makes a solo person feel very lonely and start to worry that nearby people are poking fun at him.
    My friends and I make the same racket at lunch. One of us cuts into someone’s fashion mistake, or aims a new insult at some innocent fool, and we’ll laugh and shove each other around. Other kids walk by and glare at us but we know they’re jealous. There’s an unwritten law that we’ll be noisier and laugh longer if someone we don’t like is passing by.
    The water glass has a sleek, curvy shape and is lightweight, not plain and heavy like those at our restaurant. Someone around here has better taste than Niang.
    A plate of green edamame beans lands on my table.
    â€œOn the house,” says the cute waiter,