Lunch Ticket
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • Issues Archive
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
      • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
      • Issue 1: Spring 2012
    • Genre Archive
      • Creative Nonfiction
      • Essays
      • Fiction
      • Flash Prose
      • Interviews
      • Lunch Specials
      • Poetry
      • Translation
      • Visual Art
      • Writing for Young People
  • About
    • Mission Statement
    • Lunch Ticket Staff
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
      • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
      • Issue 1: Spring 2012
    • Achievements
    • Community
    • Contact
  • Weekly Content
    • Friday Lunch Blog
    • Midnight Snack
    • Amuse-Bouche
    • School Lunch
  • Contests
    • Diana Woods Award in CNF
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
    • Gabo Prize in Translation
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
    • Twitter Poetry Contest
      • 2021 Winners
      • 2020 Winners
      • 2019 Winners
  • Submissions
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Me After You

November 23, 2012/in Fiction, Fiction, Winter-Spring 2013 / by Erin Kilian

In the interest of being honest, I fucked someone else fifteen minutes before we met.  In the pay toilet at the Peace Park, room for only me, this guy, the squat toilet, the sign that said Gyōgi yoku shi nasai – Mind your manners.  He laughed at some half-formed joke I made and turned me around.  I was tan from a summer spent lying on the deck of the Eco-Hotel near Ganne-Moon Beach.  Remember when Tony didn’t care how long you laid out or whether you ordered a single thing, as long as you were gaijin, in a bikini, and talked to everyone as if you really, really, truly missed home?

This was not for traditionalist young men with short haircuts and polo shirts like I might have favored at home.  Japan was a sexual minefield, and by then I already had a well-trodden path.

But the bathroom guy was Kenji. He was one of my night students and he had no clue how much I liked him.  He had heard rumors that I was leaving Japan, so he met me in the park, which was near his office, and then, you know.  His eyes were lined a faint grey, like he’d put on makeup and then tried to rub it off. He’d said “Good girl,” like he was my grandpa and I’d finished all my cooked cabbage.  I know he didn’t mean it that way.  That’s the thing about language: If you listen for what you want to hear, the words themselves don’t matter.

And you know about Hiroshima.  It was easy to flummox some men.  If I pouted my lips, if I exposed a bra strap, if I tugged my bangs across my forehead, just slightly obscuring one eye.  If I stood very close and whispered “Sumimasen” and crawled, two-legged, off the bus.  This was not for everybody.  This was for salarymen just off work, tired old pachi-puro, kinky otaku types.  This was not for traditionalist young men with short haircuts and polo shirts like I might have favored at home.  Japan was a sexual minefield, and by then I already had a well-trodden path.

This was before I knew you, of course.  Before you found me that afternoon in the Peace Park, you on your welcome tour, me drunk on Tennesssee whiskey at three in the afternoon (6,000 Yen for one modest bottle).  Cassie Corko introduced us, didn’t she?  She said, “Here is your future wife, Dumb-Dumb.”  I didn’t pay much attention after I saw your whiteboyness.  It’s like Cassie would say, What’s the fun?  Pretty soon he’ll realize that because he’s blond, they think he looks like Brad Pitt.

But then you said, “You’re cute when you’re fucked up.”

“I don’t know what to say to that,” I said.

“Works for me,” you said.

 

For dinner, we went to Petit Moulin.  You liked it then, even though you try to pretend that you never did.  You ordered sazae for both of us.  I told you that when I worked in Kochi, my boss used to go diving for sea snails off the city pier. He would come home soaked, his wet suit pulled halfway down, his big belly glinting like a gem. He’d present us a plastic bag full of clacking snails.  And his wife – she was so nice, so deferential to him – would boil them and teach me how to spear the innards with a toothpick and pull them out for consumption.  It put me off shellfish: that chewy texture, that watching them watch you absolutely hate this piece of their culture.

Like I said, this was before you.  Before garlic dipping sauce and glugged sancerre and your thick eyelashes pulling focus.  Before you joking that we could dine and dash.  Before me saying that the management wouldn’t know how to describe us to the police except to say, “Brad Pitt and a girl –big eyes, big chest, too fat.”  Before we stopped by the bathroom on the way out and you pulled me in with you and kissed me with hot, mint-sweet breath.  Before you said my name, “Veronica,” letter-perfect, like you’d known how to say it your whole life.  Before you locked the door behind us and I tried to remember when I stopped missing home, when I became an “outside person.”

And you might not remember, but you said, “Have you ever done this before?”

And I said, “No.”

Then you said, “What’s wrong with being a little crazy?  It’s like we’re on vacation.”

And I wanted to say, “This is the fourth year of my vacation.”  But instead of that I hugged you hard, wanting our bodies to fuse into one innocent self.

After that I made us leave, amidst you saying something about other girls you knew and how they might’ve reacted to your spontaneous hard-on, to an otherwise empty bathroom, to a date that had gone so well so far.

We walked home the long way, around the perimeter of the Genbaku Dome, me pretending I was the only thing real and permanent left in the world.  You put your arm around my shoulder, even though I didn’t expect it.  It was like you forgave me, but I hadn’t done anything wrong.

You said, “It’s beautiful here.  I kind of feel like we own the city.”  And I looked up, just past the top of the dome, the exposed lattice of its ceiling.  I didn’t think about my job or my family or my sadness or planes flying over just this spot dropping fire.  I only thought about you and how much you had to learn.  I felt small but safe, bound in place like a child tucked in tight.

Erin Kilian is a Ph.D. student in Creative Writing at Illinois State University. She is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Arizona and a former Fiction Editor of Sonora Review. Her work has been published in Barely South Review.

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png 0 0 AudreyM https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png AudreyM2012-11-23 18:03:422019-05-19 12:17:55Me After You

Issue Archive

  • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
  • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
  • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
  • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
  • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
  • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
  • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
  • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
  • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
  • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
  • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
  • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
  • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
  • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
  • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
  • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
  • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
  • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
  • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
  • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
  • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
  • Issue 1: Spring 2012

Genre Archive

  • Creative Nonfiction
  • Essays
  • Fiction
  • Flash Prose
  • Lunch Specials
  • Poetry
  • Interviews
  • Translation
  • Visual Art
  • Writing for Young People

Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published the second Friday of every month.

Today’s course:

Glitch Wisdom

May 12, 2023/in Blog / KJ McCoy
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/christmas-chamo-squashed-scaled.jpg 2560 1573 KJ McCoy https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png KJ McCoy2023-05-12 11:00:032023-05-12 15:54:05Glitch Wisdom

Lessons on Getting Paid: My First Year as a Freelance Writer

April 14, 2023/in Blog / EJ Saunders
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/paul-hanaoka-unsplash-freelance-pay-post-1-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 EJ Saunders https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png EJ Saunders2023-04-14 11:59:292023-04-14 12:09:57Lessons on Getting Paid: My First Year as a Freelance Writer

How to Kill a Cat, or How to Prepare for CATastrophe

March 10, 2023/in Blog / Meghan McGuire
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/51458407-FB7D-4C1F-AD98-9E3181F097C9.jpg 2288 2288 Meghan McGuire https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Meghan McGuire2023-03-10 11:55:512023-03-08 12:08:20How to Kill a Cat, or How to Prepare for CATastrophe

More Friday Lunch Blog »

Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

The Secret Histories of Everywhere

June 2, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Brian Lynn
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/headshot.jpg 241 358 Brian Lynn https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Brian Lynn2023-06-02 23:47:102023-06-02 22:04:35The Secret Histories of Everywhere

Into the Linguistic Rabbit Hole

May 5, 2023/in Midnight Snack / paparouna
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/alexander-grey-IDxuUey3M5E-unsplash-scaled.jpg 1707 2560 paparouna https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png paparouna2023-05-05 23:55:022023-05-05 20:13:45Into the Linguistic Rabbit Hole

Dancing into Detachment

April 7, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Robert Kirwin
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/IMG_8449-scaled.jpg 2560 1920 Robert Kirwin https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Robert Kirwin2023-04-07 23:50:412023-04-07 18:13:12Dancing into Detachment

More Midnight Snacks »

Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

LitDish: Ten Questions With Isabel Quintero

May 26, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Interviewed by Gail Vannelli
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Isabel_Quintero-scaled.jpg 1707 2560 Interviewed by Gail Vannelli https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Interviewed by Gail Vannelli2023-05-26 10:16:252023-05-26 10:16:25LitDish: Ten Questions With Isabel Quintero

Chop Day

May 19, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Hannah Felt Garner
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Headshot_HFGarner.jpg 770 794 Hannah Felt Garner https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Hannah Felt Garner2023-05-19 11:48:052023-05-18 22:19:17Chop Day

Litdish: Ten Questions With David A. Robertson

April 28, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Interviewed by Gail Vannelli
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/7722CAC2-6115-409D-A317-A768C6903639.jpeg 2018 2038 Interviewed by Gail Vannelli https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Interviewed by Gail Vannelli2023-04-28 10:13:482023-04-28 10:13:48Litdish: Ten Questions With David A. Robertson

More Amuse-Bouche »

School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SL-Insta-Brendan-Nurczyk-2.png 1500 1500 Brendan Nurczyk https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Brendan Nurczyk2021-05-12 10:18:392022-02-01 13:24:05I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-FB-Isabella-Dail.png 788 940 Isabella Dail https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Isabella Dail2021-04-28 11:34:132021-04-28 11:34:13A Communal Announcement

Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-Insta-Abigail-E.-Calimaran.png 1080 1080 Abigail E. Calimaran https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Abigail E. Calimaran2021-04-14 11:22:062021-04-14 11:22:06Seventeen

More School Lunch »

Word From the Editor

Our contributors are diverse and the topics they share through their art vary, but their work embodies this mission. They explore climate change, family, relationships, poverty, immigration, human rights, gun control, among others topics. Some of these works represent the mission by showing pain or hardship, other times humor or shock, but they all carry in them a vision for a brighter world.

More from the current editor »
Current Issue »

Connect With Us

lunchticket on facebooklunchticket on instalunchticket on twitter
Submit to Lunch Ticket

A literary and art journal
from the MFA community at
Antioch University Los Angeles.

Get Your Ticket

We’ll keep you fed with great new writing, insightful interviews, and thought-provoking art, and promise with all our hearts never to share your info with anyone else.

Newsletter Signup
Copyright © 2021 LunchTicket.org. All Rights Reserved. Web design and development by GoodWebWorks.
Scroll to top