Men Adrift

by Robert Nazar Arjoyan

Thrice I’ve seen my son, and I wonder who of us is out of his time. 

The first occurrence was at the gas station near my parents, the overpriced one on the corner of the cute village. I filled up the Tiguan and thought of saying sorry when Norik strode past, cloistered amongst a group of preteens. He held a skateboard by the trucks and wore a sneer across his peachfuzzing lip. Not for a second did I think that was someone else’s child, a foretaste of what my toddler would look like in a decade. No, it was Norik. Yes, this was Norik. He pinned me to the pump with a glance, aversion and disfavor dripping from his surprisingly bony face. Minutes later, he was buckled in the car seat, his day with Nana and Dede at an all too early end. Norik’s eyebrows, my grandfather’s, were scrunched, and his eyes, yours, were averse and disfavorable. I tried to apologize, but his waving hand silenced me as he declared, with the vehemence of preschoolers, that we were still definitely-no-way not friends. That evening, you chalked up my uncanny experience to groundless guilt. 

The second happening took place shortly after the initial brush. Again, he and I were at my folks’ house because being alone together was hard. It was 4:44 and I took our dog walking, leaving unnapped Norik with thirty more minutes of Hercules. North I went, wending along sidewalks and hellstrips trod by the two of us, you and me. I chuckled at a memory of nighttime flashing, whispering it to the girl who threw down the dare one old evening in those early years, the woman who I hoped and wished and felt was ambling with me even now, when Majora began to bark and charge. As I tugged at her leash, I heard answering snarls from across the way and spotted Norik, yanking back his own Majora. She, smaller, he, taller. His sprouting mustache was gone, but the antipathy from before was not. I wanted to ask Norik, my boy, to shout over the confused dogs, who taught him how to shave. I knew it was me, but what if it wasn’t? Back on Linden, Norik announced that he would sleep over at Nana and Dede’s with ice cream and movies. I was too drained to say no, so I said yes. At home, I lit a fire and watched it die while you promised me unbelievable things.    

Your headstone was the sight of the third instance, very next morning. I saw myself with him, their backs to me. His arm around my shaking back, my temple on his strong shoulder. Those things, all things, no longer unbelievable. You sighed, I’ll never forget, you sighed and were gone, a cheated mother stealing stolen glances of her son and husband, men adrift. 

Kami, I realize it wasn’t me who was flung from time, or Norik.

It was you.

Robert Nazar Arjoyan was born into the Armenian diaspora of Glendale, California. Aside from an arguably ill-advised foray into rock n roll bandery during his late teens, literature and movies were the vying forces of his life. Naz graduated from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and now works as an author and filmmaker.