Mahu Fire by Neil Plakcy

like in gym class, and these kind of romantic daydreams of guys touching me, and I knew those were wrong. So it was all a big mess.”
    “Did you like doing it with girls?”
    “Jimmy,” I said, whining in spite of myself. Traffic moved forward a little more, and I looked at my watch again. “I guess so. I mean, it’s nice to have that physical contact with someone, even if it’s not, I don’t know, exciting. I ended up having sex with a lot of women, and it was usually nice, but not great.”
    “And with men it’s great?”
    “It can be. I don’t have a lot of experience with guys, Jimmy. I can’t give you much advice.” I gave him a sidelong glance. I wondered if he had any other clothes anywhere. He was staring out the window, trying to be nonchalant. “Have you been on the streets long?”
    “A couple weeks.”
    “When’d you start hooking?”
    “And you complain about me asking questions!”
    “Turnabout’s fair play. I answered yours.”
    “When I had to drop out of school and leave my friend’s house, I ended up in Ala Moana Park, sleeping on the beach. I met this guy there, late one night. He told me I could make some money. That was maybe, two weeks ago.”
    “You use protection?”
    “I just suck, Kimo. I won’t let anybody do anything else.”
    “It’s still dangerous. With people you don’t know, you should get the guy to wear a condom.”
    He laughed. “Like that’s going to happen.”
    “You gotta promise to stop hooking, at least for a while,” I said. “While you stay with these people.”
    “What am I gonna do for money?”
    I opened up my wallet. I had about fifty dollars in it. I gave it all to Jimmy. “Take this. I’ll get you some more. And you won’t have to pay for anything there, like food or anything.”
    He took the money and stuffed it into his pocket. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
    The lane next to me moved a little and I swerved into it. We made almost a block’s worth of progress. I could see Uncle Chin’s turn just ahead, tantalizingly close. “I think you’re a good kid. If you hadn’t come forward with the information you did, you might still be living with your dad. So I feel bad about that.”
    “I think you’re really nice.” He reached over and put his hand on my thigh. “Really cute, too.”
    I picked up his slender pale hand and put it back on his own leg. “Don’t get any ideas. Sometimes people care about you without expecting anything back.”
    “Yeah, right.”
    I looked over at him. “Get this one thing straight, Jimmy. I like you, and I care about you, but I do not, repeat do not, want to have sex with you. And it has nothing do with you. If you were ten years older, then, well, maybe. But you’re not. I don’t think it’s right for adults to have sex with kids, whether they pay or just do it to be nice. I don’t think it’s right and I won’t do it.”
    “All right, don’t get excited.”
    We finally moved forward enough to make the turn up into the Heights, and I felt like I could let go of a deep breath I’d been holding.

LIVING IN DIFFERENT WORLDS
    It appeared that Aunt Mei-Mei had been cooking non-stop since I left, and she had set up TV trays in the master bedroom so she, Uncle Chin and Jimmy could all sit and eat together. I sat with them for a while, eating some of Aunt Mei-Mei’s special Hunan chicken, and then I left them in that room decorated with embroidered prints and black lacquer, sitting at their tables, eating and watching the news on TV. They weren’t talking much but it didn’t seem like a strained silence.
    On my way home, I called my parents and told them what I’d done. My father thought, like Aunt Mei-Mei, it was a good idea, that taking care of Jimmy would give Uncle Chin something to live for. My mother was worried, though.
    “You know this boy?” she asked. “Does he come from a good family?”
    “His father runs a pack-and-ship place in Chinatown.”
    “Are you sure you can