Daniel trudged up the stairs of the subway station, down the four blocks to his building, and up the five flights to the apartment. When he unlocked the door, he was glad to see the lights on, and that the place was warm and smelled like food. He unlaced his boots, took off his coat, and put his guitar on his bed.
There was no couch, TV, dining room, or kitchen table. They ate on the floor, using a blanket as a tablecloth. Each of the bedrooms was large enough for a twin bed and nothing else, with space on only one side of the bed to squeeze in and out, and there were no closets, so Daniel had put his box spring up on concrete blocks and stored his clothes in plastic bins underneath. Over the past three months he had replayed his memories of Fuzhou until they lost their potency, leaving only a sense of awe: I went there. I did that.
Michael’s door was open. Daniel knocked on the wall and said, “What’s up, brother?” in Fuzhounese.
Michael was sitting against his bed, eating out of a large bowl. “Long day at the lab. I’m beat. How was work?”
Daniel switched to English. “I didn’t work tonight. I had a show. I mean, I played a show.”
“You did? Where?”
“At this bar in Brooklyn.”
“How’d it go?”
“Actually, it was really good.”
“Why didn’t you let me know? I would’ve come.”
“I’ll let you know about the next one.”
Michael held up his bowl. “I made food. It’s on the stove.”
“Thanks, I’m starving.”
The kitchen, on the opposite end of the apartment, consisted of a two-burner stove, a sink, and a small refrigerator. The dish rack sat on top of the microwave, the cutting board sat on top of the stove, and the rice cooker was on top of the cutting board. Daniel lifted the lid. Steam floated out, along with the sweet, garlicky odor of pork sausage, which Michael had cooked so that it would flavor the rice below. A fried egg awaited him as well.
He took out the other bowl, filled it with egg and rice and sausage, and topped it with a spoonful of hot sauce. Sunday nights, he and Michael went to Sunset Park, where they did their laundry in the basement and left the house armed with condiments. When Daniel helped Vivian make dinner, he would think of his mother, in her new apartment, looking at the harbor in the distance. “I’ll visit you in New York,” she had said in last week’s video chat, and he told her he would like that, though he wasn’t sure if she could get into the country after being deported.
For now, this was where his life would be. This apartment with Michael. This city. His best home. The heater clanked, a siren ripped up the block. He placed the lid back on the rice cooker and took his bowl into the bedroom so he and Michael could eat together.