The Bowl

“So it’s six molecules of carbon dioxide and six molecules of water combining under the influence of radiant energy to form a single molecule of glucose and six molecules of oxygen,” Erik said as he wrestled with the door to apartment 306. He looked over his shoulder at Dustin as the key finally turned with a satisfying click.

Briefly, Dustin looking up from his book – something that was definitely not their biology text, but a novel, by someone named Gibbons, that set off communist Russia associations in the depths of Erik’s brain – and arched a single eyebrow at Erik.

The door opened with a push from Erik. He scowled. “I know. I just don’t want to screw up on the basics.”

Dustin’s eyebrow descended before he returned to his book.

“Uh . . .” Erik pocketed his keys. Absently, he scratched at the peeling sunburn on the side of his nose as he tried to force his uncooperative memory into divulging the answer. “Cee-six-aitch-twelve-oh-six.”

With a finger stuck in the book to keep his place, Dustin closed it.

“Er . . . um . . .” Erik worried his lower lip. “I know this one . . . uh . . .”

The corner of Dustin’s lip twitched.

“No! Shut up. I know this. It’s, uh, the exchange of genetic material between two bacteria. Right?”

Dustin inclined his head fractionally, removed his finger from the book, and went set it on the table, which was more cluttered than usual.

“That’s the one that becomes uracil . . .” Erik hazarded a guess, dropping his backpack on the ground just as Ray burst out of the bathroom.

“Thor! Perfect! Dust, good to see you. Stand on this, Thor,” Ray ordered as he crouched down, jamming something Erik couldn’t see under the corner of one battered running shoe. “Hold this.” He slapped something squarish and made out of plastic into the palm of Erik’s hand before straightening.

Erik blinked. “What–?”

“Christ, man, a trained gorilla would be more responsive!” Ray grabbed Erik’s hand and lifted it. A thin, twisting strip of metal unfolded as he went.

A tape-measurer, thought Erik. In an ideal world, understanding that little fact might make everything that was happening contain some kind of sense. As it was, Erik was standing in the entrance to his apartment holding a tape-measurer while his roommate glared up at him with unconcealed impatience. Clearly, something else was expected of him. “Only if it was a psychic trained gorilla,” he muttered. “What am I supposed to be doing?”

“Measuring me!”

Of course. Erik’s eyes slid to the numbers as he reminded himself that there were worse ways Ray could be manifesting final exam stress. “Five,” he began.

“Metric!” Ray threw his hands up in exasperation. “God, you Canadians have no sense of commitment.” He ran his fingers through his hair before he straightened again.

Erik grit his teeth. “One-six-eight centimetres.”

“That’s all?” Ray asked. His voice was abruptly plaintive.

“That’s all.” Erik stepped off the end tab and the entire thing shot back into the tape measurer, sliding swiftly and painfully across his fingers in the process. “Ow!” he dropped the tape measurer on the floor and kicked it. “Ray,” he mumbled irritably around the fingers he was trying to nurse, but Ray ignored him. His roommate raced to the table, made a quick note, and disappeared again into the bathroom.

Dustin looked up from silent contemplation of something on the table. An eyebrow rose.

“His sociology final’s tomorrow. I thought he’d be at the library, doing the desperate last minute studying thing.”

Dustin frowned.

“Damned if I know, man. I figure a don’t ask, never ask policy is the best way to handle him. It’s just not–”

Ray burst out of the bathroom again, looking frantic. “Why,” he asked, his voice harsh, “do we not have a scale?”

“What, in the bathroom?”

“Yes!”

“Where would we put one? There’s barely room for a guy to piss in there.”

One of Ray’s blunt fingers came up to wave accusingly under Erik’s nose. “If you were a girl, we’d have a bathroom scale!”

“If I were a girl, I’d kick you in the crotch for perpetuating sexist stereotypes right now,” Erik said flatly. “How do you have better luck than I do with women?”

Ray continued his current trend of ignoring Erik. “Dammit, Thor!” He yelled something else, in Italian, and bolted out the apartment door.

“If I were a girl, I wouldn’t be stuck with you as a roommate,” Erik informed the door as it slammed shut.

Dustin tilted his head to the right, barely.

Erik scowled. “I know, I know. I’m gonna regret it until the day I die.” He sighed and yanked the door open. “This, too.”

It took less than a second for Erik’s eyes to dart around the hallway and determine where Ray had gone. Apartment 307, not 305.

Erik was actually grateful for at least five seconds, before he heard the furious, high-pitched exclamation of “You!” Further expletives were not needed. Swallowing a nervous surge of bile in his throat, Erik pushed into the apartment that he had always considered forbidden territory, for his sake as well as that of one of the residents.

Girls didn’t seem to use old pizza boxes as decoration. It was a dumb thing to notice, but that was what first leapt to Erik’s attention. Belatedly, he turned his attention to the glowering figure of Susan Mitchell, who was pushing long blonde hair back with one hand and furiously clutching a history text book in the other.

“Get out of here this instant, you pervert!”

“In a minute, in a minute,” came Ray’s voice from behind the bathroom door.

“He just needed to borrow the scale, Susan. He’s not doing anything wrong.” That was Sarah, also from behind the bathroom door.

“And I can’t believe you let him in! You know what he–” Here, Susan spun around to see Erik. She glared fiercely. “What they do.”

“I know what you think they do, Susan. You just have an overactive imagination.” Sarah emerged from the bathroom, looking cute but stressed. “Hi, Thor.”

“Hey. Um. Sarah. Uh. Sorry about Ray. Is he, uh, bothering you?” Erik asked, trying to ignore Susan while his face was becoming hot with discomfort.

“No. I mean, I’m not really used to boys appearing at the door in the middle of the afternoon and demanding to use my bathroom scale, but, well, it’s Ray.” Sarah smiled up at Erik rather shyly, her hands thrust into her pockets. Out of the corner of her eye she shot Susan what might have been a warning glare.

Susan ignored it. She marched the short distance to where Erik stood and jammed one elegant finger at his chest. Erik crossed his eyes to stare at it so he wouldn’t have to look at a very pretty girl who wanted him to burn in Hell. “Yes, he is bothering us. You do realize that tomorrow is the first day of exams, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Erik mumbled.

Erik’s answer was of little interest to Susan. “You’re clearly beyond any help or salvation at this point, you shameless pervert–”

“I’m not–”

“But you could at least see fit to keep him under control and stop him from polluting the uncorrupted with his filthy, heathen presence.”

“Actually,” said Ray, emerging from the bathroom, “I’m Catholic.”

Susan snorted.

“Please be quiet, Susan,” Sarah implored. “Sorry Ray. Thor.”

“It’s okay,” lied Erik.

“81.6,” said Ray cheerfully. “You’re an angel, Sarah. Don’t make any plans for the last day of exams. I’m going to organize a party so amazingly amazing that it will make everything that comes after it look dim and dull by comparison.”

“Orgy, more like,” sniffed Susan.

“It sounds wonderful, Ray,” said Sarah.

“It sounds terrible!” exclaimed Erik, who didn’t approve of anyone, especially not Sarah, humouring Ray. He grabbed his roommate’s arm. “C’mon. You’ve bothered the girls enough.”

Sarah’s eyebrows rose in silent question. “Don’t mind Susan,” was all she said.

“I will. I mean, I don’t.” Erik winched. “I meant – it’s not Susan. Ray just needs to study. Don’t you, Ray?”

“Oh, yes,” Ray carolled. “Studying is so very important. Must keep those marks up.”

“Ri-ight,” Erik said, eyeing Ray’s cheerful countenance warily. “We’ll, uh, talk to you when things calm down, at any rate. Later, Sarah.”

“Goodbye Sarah. Susan.” Ray beamed as Erik dragged him out the door.

“Bye, guys,” Sarah said uncertainly as she shut the door, so all Erik could hear as he dragged Ray back to 306 were raised but muffled voices.

“What the fuck was that about?” Erik shoved Ray into the apartment. No good could possibly come from knowing. No good ever came from knowing how Ray justified his actions, but Erik couldn’t help himself. Maybe if he could learn to properly suppress his curiosity, the pain that was life as Ray Fujimoto’s roommate might end. But until he learned to do that . . .

“What was what about?” Ray asked as he strode past Dustin to the table and wrote something down again.

“Barging into Sarah’s apartment! I’d kind of like you to not scare her off by acting like a total lunatic!”

“She didn’t mind. She’s helpful.”

“Why, Ray?”

“It’s my birthday,” Ray said simply as he sat down at the table.

“And?” Erik prompted, despite the fact that Dustin was frantically and pointedly suggesting he shut up with a twitch of one raised hand.

“And . . . it’s my birthday. I’m nineteen. Christ, Thor, but you’re slow.” Ray shook his head and bent studiously over something that was definitely not any one of his textbooks.

“Y’know, after Dustin turned nineteen, he started buying us beer so we wouldn’t have to rely on Invisible Bob,” Erik said slowly.

Dustin nodded minutely.

“And when Ash turned nineteen last month, well, he punched a lot of people. More than usual. And stood in the Bowl for an hour or so yelling obscenities at god . . .”

Dustin tilted his head.

“Oh, well. I guess that explains it.” Erik rubbed the back of his head as he digested this new bit of information. “The point is, Ray, that even crazy guys with issues like Ash don’t run around measuring themselves and weighing themselves and annoying cute girls.”

Ray’s shoulders hunched with irritation as he bent so his nose was almost touching the paper. “It’s a ninja thing.”

“Going completely fucking nuts on your nineteenth birthday?”

“God, Thor, try and see past your bloody nose for once. I told you I’m from a family of ninja, right?”

“Right,” Erik said. Safe behind Ray’s back, he rolled his eyes and shared a sceptical look with Dustin.

When Dustin lifted an eyebrow, Erik couldn’t help agreeing. Sooner or later, someone was going to have to take Ray aside and talk to him about all this.

“Well, the head of the family is my grandfather, and the old–” Ray said something in Italian, “–expects yearly reports on the status of everyone in the family. Everyone. My father sent off a report on my youngest brother last year – he won’t even be two until June!”

“Sounds kind of controlling.”

A brief look from Dustin before he turned his attention back to his book.

“Yeah, that too. Seriously, man, it sounds like your grandfather is a control freak. Why even bother?”

“Trust me, Thor, you don’t disobey an eighty-year-old ninja.” Ray made another mark with his pen. “Not overtly, anyway. If you do it covertly, you might get points for style.” There was a brief pause. Erik wasn’t sure how to fill it – wasn’t suer he was supposed to fill it – and from Dustin’s expression, neither was he. Ray saved them the trouble of deciding how to respond by doing it himself. “Or, you get points for style if you’re someone besides me. You’re me, you need points for style just to break even.” There was another barrage of presumably obscene Italian.

After about a minute and a half, Erik felt the need to interrupt. “Sounds, uh, rough, Ray.”

“You have no idea, Thor.”

“Wanna bet?” Erik muttered, and was, as usual, completely ignored, aside from a brief glance from Dustin.

“Your mother may be strange, Thor–”

“Thanks, Ray.”

“–but no mother, no parent anywhere has anything on an old ninja who thinks you’re a complete disappointment to the family name. He’s got this way of narrowing his eyes and saying my name . . .” A shiver travelled visibly across Ray’s shoulders.

“Well, yeah, sure, I mean, my grandfather’s kind of a tyrant too, but it doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day he’s still just Grandfather. Not, y’know, my dad or something. It’s not like what he thinks really matters.”

“Oh, Thor–”

Erik couldn’t possibly be imagining the silent ‘you idiot’ in there.

“–it’s different in ninja families. In families with tradition. History. A name to uphold.” Ray pressed the end of his pen to his forehead in a gesture parodying deep thought. “Besides, the old man still has control over all the real money. And stocks. And property . . .”

Erik coughed pointedly. “So,” he asked, peering over Ray’s shoulder, “what exactly is the bit that you’re working on right now?”

The paper on the table in front of Ray did have what looked like Japanese writing on it Japanese writing that, yes, Ray was actually writing. And there was, near the top of the page, something that looked like a data table with some number values written down. Erik had to give Ray points for the effort he put into such things, all in the name of procrastination. Procrastination and Ray knew what else.

“Well, see, this,” Ray ran the end of his pen down one row to indicate what he was referring to, as though Erik could understand a single mark, “is the bit where I explain how classes were this year at my horrible, uncultured, foreign university.”

Erik wrinkled his nose. He hated it, too, but it was his to hate, dammit.

“But,” Ray continued without sparing a glance for Erik or the unnopinionated, for once, Dustin, “if you turn it on its side to the right,” he did so, “and then take the primary radical of every third kanji and combine it with the secondary radical of the kanji directly to the left – that’s the left the right way around, not when it’s on its side – and one above, then it reads ‘I hate you, Grandfather, and you suck.’ Roughly translated, of course.”

“Of course, Erik echoed weakly. He could feel the headache starting, just above his left eye.

“If you don’t look at it closely then it just looks like I have really sloppy penmanship. Which I certainly do not have, so that should tip him off if he isn’t completely senile and asinine and bigoted by this point. Grandfather created secret codes during World War Two. Afer being hospitalized with two broken legs and one broken arm. Really, he was too young to be doing work that would endanger him in the first place, Grandmother says. But, well, it was a war.”

Erik bent his brain to deciphering this tangle of Ray-statements. “You want your grandfather to know that you hate him?”

“Yes.”

“And that you think he sucks?”

“Yes.”

Erik hesitated. Then, with a sigh, he put a hand on Ray’s shoulder. Vaguely, he patted it, not sure what else he should do. “Good luck with that, eh?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got the situation under control.”

“I . . . wasn’t worried, exactly.” Erik shook his head and released Ray’s shoulder. “Maybe when you’re done that you can buy us a six-pack. To, y’know, celebrate.”

“Sounds like a plan, Thor,” said Ray. Already he was turning the full force of his attention back to the paper.

“Me and Dustin are just gonna go. Out. For coffee. To that place on 8th. By Al’s. To study. Because finals start tomorrow.”

“Have fun.”

“I’ll see you tonight, then.”

Ray waved a hand in Erik’s direction, absent and dismissive.

Erik gave up. With a jerk of his chin directed toward Dustin, he left the apartment as quietly as he could.

“You got any cash on you?” Erik asked as they waited for the elevator.

Dustin nodded.

“Sorry about that. I mean, he always gets kind of weird around exams, but this is bad even by his standards.”

Pressing the elevator button, over and over again, but not looking at it, Dustin shot a sideways glance at Erik.

“I know someone should–”

One of Dustin’s eyebrows lowered emphatically.

“I’m just his roommate!” Erik exploded. “I don’t se why it’s my responsibility–”

The eyebrow rose again. It was quite accusing, for an eyebrow.

“Is that going to be rubbed in my face forever?” Erik groaned. He aimed a kick at the elevator door, wondering what was taking it so long. His knee caught the edge of the wall. Leaning against the elevator, he clutched at the knee, gritting his teeth against the pain.

Dustin was unsympathetic.

“Oh, well then, that’s okay!” Erik let the sarcasm escape instead of the stream of profanity that his throbbing knee wanted to unleash.

Dustin shrugged.

“Look, it’s a very nice thought, but I’m pretty sure you have to arrange to see mental health counsellors yourself. Not that I’d know,” Erik quickly added. “But I don’t think me saying Ray is nuts is going to get him an appointment. Even if it did, I couldn’t force him to show up. He’s Ray! I’d feel safer getting Ash help – at least then I’d know what to expect from him when I told him. And how to prepare. Ray has to help himself. I have other things to worry about.”

Dustin tapped the side of his leg with the book he probably desperately wanted to go back to reading.

“Exactly! I have problems of my own!” Erik said emphatically before falling backwards as the elevator doors opened.

Dustin calmly entered the elevator after Erik, lowering one hand to help Erik to his feet.

Erik sighed as he scrambled to an upright position, with his best friend’s help. “Dustin . . .”

The look Dustin gave Erik as he pressed the button for the first floor was almost stern.

Erik sighed again, but topic change was topic change. “Klinefelter’s syndrom, caused by an XXY chromosome configuration,” he began to list obediently.

With an approving nod, Dustin opened his book again.