Yuska Lutfi Tuanakotta - Gentlemen Prefer Asians: Tales of Gay Indonesians and Green Card Marriages

GENTLEMEN
PREFER ASIANS

Tales of Gay Indonesians
and Green Card Marriages

Yuska Lutfi Tuanakotta

ThreeL Media | Berkeley, California

Published by

ThreeL Media | Stone Bridge Press

P. O. Box 8208, Berkeley, CA 94707
www.threelmedia.com

2016 Yuska Lutfi Tuanakotta.

Edited by Jill Kolongowski.

Book design and layout by Linda Ronan.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America.

p-ISBN: 978-0-9964852-0-3

e-ISBN: 978-0-9964852-2-7

My endless gratitude to those who have
made this book a reality. Terima kasih.

LOTS WIFE

We hoard memories like a rodent preparing for winter. We hoard them in objects like a movie or a song or a color or a sunset or a white pair of Fruit of the Loom boxers or words like toxic and passive-aggressive and codependent. Sometimes an object holds so many memories that they overflow, and if one were to sort through them one might find dried pieces of cat poop wedged between the box of little kisses and the box of angry shouts.

Our memories dont care what were doing. A split second of idleness and they occupy. They take over when were sitting on the toilet, or when were lying down waiting for sleep, or when were doing our night run. Even when were supposed to be focusing on an activity, like driving or having sex. They invade, they push around, jab their elbows at the present, like teenagers in their mosh pits, seeking anarchic attention. Me, me, me. Look at me, listen to me, but dont fucking touch me. Oh look, I made you run through a stop sign. Bad driver. Must be Asian.

Our memories attack us. They come out of nowhere, they blindside. I was slicing a satsuma open, and its scent filled my nostrils. The next thing I knew I was crying over a night long gone, in a country where I was born, when it was humid and searing hot, and my motherthat small Asian womanhad placed satsumas in the fridge, knowing full well that they would cool the throats of her family so we could go through the night without turning on the air conditioner and racking up the electricity bill.

Our memories metastasize. They attach and associate. They network like hungry politicians. Some associations are simple and self-explanatory: airports mean pilots, Indonesia means family. Some are cryptic and personal: full moon means a dead cat, Practical Magic means a best friend, UC Berkeley means assholes. Some are just as bizarre and as pareidolic as finding Jesus face on a piece of toast. I was at Singapores Changi Airport walking to my boarding gate to fly home to Jakarta when I realized that I might be walking the same path, stepping on the same carpet, perhaps even sitting in the same chair as The Baker whenever he flew back to Jakarta on his yearly Southeast Asian backpacking trip. It didnt matter that Changi had three terminals and hundreds of boarding gates.

Our memories are shape-shifters. They change their stances like opportunistic friends. They are bipolar. They go from positive to negative to good to bad to cherished to a weapon until we cant decide what they really are anymore and we dont know how to categorize them, which explains why I now hate Christmas.

Our memories are like fig trees. Their roots dig deeply into the past and their branches and leaves reach up to the future. They leap across minutes, months, and years, from the first flirt to the last straw.

Our memories are jet-setters, astronauts, farers of universes. Our memories dont care for boundaries or visas or green cards or immigration rules or TSAs. They slap us from behind pictures on postcards and places on television screens. Every trip to a Chinese market is like flipping through a family album. Every Facebook post, every Tweet, every goddamn article on the Internet needs to have a trigger warning.

And eventually, little by little, those memory boxes will disappear. Forcefully cleaned out. Thrown away. Eventually, well find ourselves unable to recognize people anymore, unable to verbalize what we want to say, unable to do simple tasks, unable to find the bathroom in our own house, and well end up crapping ourselves. But there will still be boxes we hold on to until our last breaththe boxes that house precious fragments from our lives.

THE ENABLER

One of my earliest fragments was of my father and me.

It was a strange day. Strange because I was spending it alone with my father. I cant remember where my mother was. I was five or six and Id spent most of my time with her. My father was about forty-three and I remember his hair was still thick and jet black.

We were at a department store in Jakarta, riding up the single-file escalator to the upper levelthe kids section.

As I got off the escalator, I saw an island of piles and piles of Goggle-V costumes, folded and wrapped in plastic. Goggle-V is a band of masked Super Sentai heroes, a predecessor of Power Rangers. I was in love with Goggle Pink. And by in love, I mean I worshipped her and wanted to be her.

I scanned the island for Goggle Pinks costume and finally found it. It was just a flimsy, shapeless, spandex jumpsuit with Velcro on the back, no shoes nor mask. But it was just as magical. I asked my father if I could try it on. He called a salesperson to find one in my size.

Other fathers buy their five-year-old sons robot toys or miniature cars or fake guns or rubber bows and arrows. That day, I came home wearing a pink spandex superhero jumpsuit and a pair of pink-rimmed plastic sunglasses that my father thought went with the costume.

ARIO

Los Angeles was hotter than the Human Torchs asshole that Sunday. Id driven over to Glendale in The Musicians car to see Ario. It was to be our second meeting. The first one had been a week before, when Arios husband, The Sculptor, hired me to photograph his latest pieces. He told me he was married to an Indonesian, and I, always needy for a real-life conversation in my native language, had tried to talk to Ario. But he had been elusive, only peeking once into The Sculptors workroom. Then he sent me an email, saying hed gotten the address from his husband, and he knew Id wanted to talk to him. He told me we could talk if I could bring Djarum, Indonesian clove cigarettes. I havent smoked it in years, he wrote.

The yard of their Glendale house had patches of unkempt weeds and dandelions that created a lush, green illusion. The door swung open before I knocked.

Do you have it? Ario said. He had a British accent. He wore a teal tank top. His long, wiry arms hung loose. Golden-copper colored. I nodded and handed him the pack that Id stolen from The Musicians stash. Hed bought a carton of them on his trip to Indonesia. Ario grabbed the pack and walked away from the door. I trailed behind. Tutup pintunya, he said, and I closed the door behind me.

All they have here are shitty American cigarettes, Ario said. Fuck this country and its whole anti-cigarette sentiment. I followed him to the patio in the backyard. It was just as unkempt as the front. He lit one and took one long, Zen inhale, and blew it out. So good.

I coughed. Sorry, I said.

Dont apologize. I should be the one apologizing for killing you with this.

Youre alone?

Yeah. The whores out.

The who?

The whore, Ario said. My husband.

Ah.

Ario took another nicotine swig.

So, he said.

So, I said.

I saw your portfolio, he said. Not bad. I bet you had fun taking nude photos of those guys.

Oh, well, Im not Terry Richardson.

Good.

You know who he is?

Sure. I follow fashion. And good job on my husbands sculptures too.

I nodded.

You know he fucks his models, dont you?