My brother sat there staring at his plate, occasionally picking at food, scraping his paper plate with his knife and licking it clean. My cousin Matt came in then, late, with his girlfriend, who is some Jewish girl who went to Westward and now goes to Berkeley. Matt is a little older, twenty-five, and teaches English. Though Matt is half Filipino like us, he dresses like the rich white kids he went to school with. I remember in the eighties he wore a pink Polo shirt, though now he is in a fashionable dark brown suede leather coat with seventies style lapels and huge drooping buttons, Doc Martens, and black pants. His school was only a mile away from ours. It is strange how differently we turned out. My mother says he goes to temple on Saturdays with her family and attends classes on Jewish mysticism, which bothers his mother, who buys him books by Thomas Merton on Catholic meditation. Tita also sends money to some Indian nuns on a reservation in New Mexico, to pray for his soul. They got their food from the buffet in the kitchen and on their way to the dining room passed Tomas. Matt paused a second, glancing down at my brother, and Tomas nodded up, coolly, and I could tell that Matt knew he was stoned. Matt was surprised, but didn’t want to alienate my brother, and so tried to hide his reaction. The girlfriend was trying not to appear too curious about my brother, or afraid, and used my cousin, whom she stood behind, as a shield between them. She cupped his arm.

How’s it going, Tomas? Matt said.

My brother looked at Matt like this was a farce. They both knew Matt did not like the way my brother behaved, so why pretend. Matt had always come over to our house to tutor him, though that stopped when he went off to college back east. The same falling-off happened with me. For some reason we did not pick up with the tutoring after he returned.

Yeah, cool, man, Tomas said, looking down at his plate again.

Matt and his girlfriend traded glances (as if to say, What’s he on?) but said nothing, then Matt went into the dining room and they ate with the Filipinos.

III