“Seven. Nine. Moon. Mountain. What's that supposed to mean?”
The priest laughed and walked over to an ancient chest at the side of the temple. He opened a drawer in the seventh row and ninth column and plucked out a small scroll. The priest's crawling fingers unrolled the piece of paper. He gave it a studious read and then nodded.
“It's a good time for Mei-ling to go to Taipei. She has to visit a mountain before the Mid-Autumn Festival. Then everything will be okay. Your family's going to be just fine.”
“You hear that, Jing-nan? My daughter needs a trip to the mountains.”
Well, so what?
“Sure,” I said.
The priest crumpled up the note and tossed it at a small brazier, meant for burning ghost bank notes. He was unconcerned that he missed. The priest bowed deeply to Tu Di Gong, then turned to confer with Big Eye and accepted an envelope with both hands.
I snatched up the crumpled fortune and flattened it in my hand. It was covered with the crazed strokes of fake characters. I knew it. This whole charade was a scam, from the lighting of incense at the beginning right through the written prophecy at the end. The drawers were filled with bullshit scribbles and the priest “read” them while saying whatever the hell he wanted to.
On our way out of the temple I showed the paper scrap to Big Eye. “I hope you didn't give the priest too much money. All the fortunes are nonsense.”
“It's written in a spiritual language, Jing-nan,” he said. “Only priests can decipher it.” I could only shake my head. Well, his faith in Tu Di Gong had been working for him this far. Why should I care?
We walked down the temple's steps. I noticed that Gao turned and did the briefest bow, one that said, “If you really exist, please don't hurt me.”
As our SUV wound down the mountain, I said to Big Eye, “How much do you trust that priest?” Big Eye drummed his fingers on his flask.
“I trust him with my life,” he said. “He's one of us. He wouldn't bullshit me.”
One of us. That meant
benshengren
, the long-time Taiwanese. Yams, as we sometimes call ourselves, since the island is in the shape of a yam.
Those winnings against Wood Duck must have been especially sweet. An upstart yam pulled one over on a powerful mainlander, or
waishengren
. The division between
benshengren
and
waishengren
was evident at all strata of society, even at the illicit seam.
Back on the highway,
traffic slowed to a standstill. Big Eye tapped Whistle's headrest.
“What's going on?” he asked. Whistle snorted and hunched his shoulders to get closer to the windshield.
“Police barricade ahead.”
Oh shit, I thought. If they searched this car, who knew what they'd find. Whistle checked his hair. Gao bent over as if tying a shoelace. Big Eye stuck out his jaw and stretched his lips. We slowed to a stop and then crawled forward to our doom.
I considered throwing open the door and bolting. Yeah, that wouldn't be suspicious. If I remained in the car and these guys were busted, I could be arrested and charged as a hooligan for just being with them. I've been in a lot of compromising situations but I couldn't go to jail. I couldn't.
“Look at you,” said Big Eye as he grabbed my left shoulder. “You've gone all pale, Jing-nan. You look scared, like you're hiding something.” He patted my hand. “You would have never made it with me.”
“My shoe prints are back at the gambling site,” I gasped. “They've got me.”
Big Eye's lips ripped apart into a toothy smile. “You're talking crazy, little nephew!”
“Are we going to be okay?”
“Only if you fucking relax.
Ma de!
Want some candy to take your mind off things? You still like candy, right?”
“No thanks.”
He shrugged and popped something into his mouth. In a few seconds it was apparent that it was a honey-loquat cough drop, one of those medicine-candy hybrids that has questionable merits as either. The smell was unmistakable and inescapable: menthol and Coca-Cola.
Soon enough two men wearing orange vests with National Police Agency patches on the short sleeves of their khaki uniforms stood on either side of the SUV. Whistle powered down his window. The cop swept a light across our eyes.
“Officer,” said Whistle, “what seems to be the problem?”
“Who said we had a problem?” the cop spat.
Gao reached into his jacket and the cop's flashlight followed his hand.
“Hey, you! What do you think you're doing?”
Gao slowly pulled out a leather ID holder. The cop grabbed it, flipped it open, ran his thumb over the oddly cheery picture of Gao and read the text out loud.
Gao Ming-kung, Under Chief Superintendent, Taichung Police Department.
“Sir, I'm sorry,” said the cop.
Gao grabbed his ID back. “Don't sweat it. You're doing your job.” He wiped his nose. “I'll bet you're looking for one of those no-good Indonesian monkey-ass punks.”
The cop nodded and crossed his arms. “There was a shooting, you see. We had to take certain measures.”
Gao shook his head. “We let these people into our country, out of the goodness of our hearts, and this is how they repay us.” The cop nodded. “Well, officer, the good people in the Taichung Police Department and you guys will catch them all soon.”
Whistle powered his window up and we were on our way.
“Listen, kid,” Gao said to the roof. “About what I said, that's not how I think, but it's what those people believe. All right?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I'm an immigrant myself.”
â¢â¢â¢
I sat cross-legged on
the floor of the living room of my uncle's house. My shoes were off and the woven straw of the tatami mats imprinted a pattern on my calves as I shifted. I can't sit Japanese-style, on my knees. My legs fall asleep. I like chairs, but there weren't any.
Big Eye and even the hulking Gao sat casually, comfortably drinking tea. Whistle had gone to sleep, saying he was beat from driving. It was probably six in the morning, and judging by the ease with which Big Eye and Gao operated, tea at this time was a long-established routine.
“Look at Jing-nan,” Big Eye scoffed. “He sits like an out-of-shape foreigner!”
I shifted and spilled my tea. “Could you please give me a cushion?”
“If I give you a break,” my uncle said, “you'll never learn to sit properly.”
With that admonishment, I felt it was within my rights to be a little defiant. “I did you a favor by coming down and getting you out of a tough spot,” I said. “I shouldn't have to suffer for it.”
“Ha! What do you know about suffering? Look at this guy.” Big Eye flapped his left elbow at Gao. “You know what he's been through? He escaped from China by himself when he was only twenty. He floated across the Taiwan Strait on a fucking door! He survived by fishing through the hole where the doorknob used to be and he drank his own piss! After he washed up in Houlong Township, the Kuomintang put him in jail! You know why?”
“They thought he was a spy?” I asked.
“They would have shot him if they thought he was a spy, Jing-nan! I'll tell you what happened. Gao said he wanted to escape from China. But the very idea that Taiwan wasn't a part of China offended the local governor of Taiwan Garrison Command, you know, the secret police. They jailed Gao in Green Island for a decade for sedition. In 1992, Taiwan Garrison was disbanded and those guys went underground and handled dirty work for the government under subcontract. The former secret police hired the toughest guys they had originally imprisoned. Of course they had to get Gao. He was such an ass-kicker in Taichung, the regular police went on to hire him. Look at him now! He's the number-three man in law enforcement and the door he floated over on is his office door.”
“It's not,” said Gao. “Also, I didn't drink my own piss. I had some water and it rained a lot.” He cleared his throat but he didn't have anything else to add or revise. Big Eye poured out more tea.
Damn, another hardcore guy who had done time on Green Island just like Frankie the Cat. If the prison didn't kill you, you came out a serious badass.
“This is a real man, Jing-nan,” Big Eye said as a clump of steam from his refilled cup punched the air and disappeared. “Your generation never knew the tyranny of the KMT regime.” He shook his head. Disappointment is a privilege older Taiwanese people hold over the young.
I wasn't ready for a lecture. If my phone weren't recharging in Whistle's room, I would have been on it. I glanced around the bare room. No clocks. The only furniture was the low table we were gathered at and a side table supporting a vase that held an ugly jade-encrusted plant. Big Eye tracked my attention.
“You like that plant?” he asked. “Do you want to take it home?”
“That's all right,” I said. “I wouldn't know where to put it.”
“It's awful, isn't it?”
“Maybe,” I said. Gao and Big Eye chuckled.
There was a scratching sound to the left. A screen moved aside and a sullen young girl stepped in. She was dressed in a skirt and two layers of tops.
“Where have you been?” Big Eye thundered. “Do you know what time it is?”
She crossed her arms and jutted out her chin. “You haven't been here for two days, you can't be asking where I've been,” she shot back, her earrings swinging. Gao coughed to cover up a laugh.
“Unbelievable,” said Big Eye. He put down his teacup and added, “Mei-ling, say hi to your big cousin Jing-nan.”
“Hello,” I said. Now that she was finally home, maybe Big Eye would let me hit the sack. There had to be an empty guestroom in this house.
“I've read about you online.” Mei-ling, who had just acted so boldly to her father, now turned to me, calculating how to inflict defeat.
“Are you packed already?” said Big Eye with a tone of admonishment.
“Of course.”
“Two suitcases?”
“Just like you said.”
I hid a yawn by pretending to scratch my nose. My eyes watered slightly. I wiped them dry and tried to follow the conversation because I didn't know what was going on.
Big Eye clapped his hands.
“Okay, wake up Whistle. He's going to drive you two to Taipei.”
Mei-ling left the room.
“We're going to Taipei?” I asked.
Big Eye stood up and stretched. “Well, that's where you live, Jing-nan.” He yawned. “Mei-ling is going to stay in Taipei in a condo I own on Xinyi Road in Da'an District. She got thrown out of private school again. There was a fight in the school courtyard and one of the asshole teachers blamed Mei-ling for it. It was a case of mistaken identity, but the headmaster didn't want to hear it.”
“Girls were fighting?” I asked.
“Crazy shit, right?” he snorted. “Anyway the only real trouble Mei-ling has is her boyfriend, this no-good Indonesian fuck. The deal is, she'll stop seeing him if I let her visit Taipei for a week, so there you have it.”
“Why does she want to be in Taipei?”
“Supposedly it's more sophisticated than anything we have to offer here in our tiny hamlet of nearly three million people. Anyway, I want you to keep tabs on her.” Big Eye pointed at my nose. “If that piece-of-shit boyfriendâChong is his nameâshows up, you call me right away. Apart from that, if anything happens to her, I'll kill you and make it look like an accident.”
He smiled but he wasn't kidding. I looked over at Gao to see if the high-ranking cop objected to Big Eye's naked threat to my life. He shrugged.
“Don't screw up, Jing-nan,” said Gao.
Chapter Four
Whistle and Gao sat
in the front of the SUV again while Mei-ling and I sat in the back. With my third ride in one night, my ass was taking on the shape of my seat. I almost never rode in cars. Mei-ling flipped open a compartment and pulled out a glass and a plugged crystal decanter that refracted the light from the rising sun. A jittery rainbow slid across her face. She poured herself a shot, both of her knees bouncing.
“I don't think you should be doing that,” Whistle said cautiously as she threw the shot back.
Mei-ling coughed and smiled. “Too late now.” Turning to me, she asked, “Are you hungry? I am.”
“I could eat,” I ventured, sure that this twitchy teen probably wasn't going to let me sleep.
“Whistle,” she yelled, “take us to La Corona!”
“It's a little out of the way,” said Whistle as he looked sheepishly at her in the rearview mirror. “In fact, I'd have to turn around to get there.”
“Then stop driving the wrong way,” Mei-ling snapped.
Whistle had wanted to
get the food to go but Mei-ling insisted on staying to eat, otherwise we wouldn't get free tortilla chips. A good decision, because the chips were better than the burritos, which were packed with mung-bean sprouts and came off as soggy spring rolls with refried beans.
La Corona was hopping at eight in the morning. It's one of those places that people support only because it's open twenty-four hours a day. They brag that there isn't a lock on the door without mentioning how their food is. I guess the point is that it doesn't matter how the food is. Look at the people who came here. Hungover kids. Red-eyed and red-toothed truck drivers. No gourmets. Nobody's taking pictures of their food and posting them online.
The only difference between my breakfast burrito and Mei-ling's grilled-pork wrap was that mine allegedly included a scrambled egg. I looked around the table. Mei-ling, Whistle, and even Gao were scarfing the food down. I wasn't going to make it half way. I wasn't a snobâit's not like Unknown Pleasures had a Michelin starâbut I couldn't bring myself to choke down food made from inferior ingredients.
I forked over the mess to make more room on my plate for salsa and chips. I drank some more coffee. Also not great.
I was feeling lousy for coming down to see Big Eye but honestly I would have felt worse if I hadn't. Not that Whistle and Gao would have entertained that option. If it weren't for me, Big Eye would probably still be at that gambling table and Mei-ling would have spent a third night wondering where her father was.
I looked at Mei-ling closely. She had an innocent, heart-shaped face but the same tight mouth and steely eyes as Big Eye. As I watched, she gathered up her dirty napkin and smeared it across her mouth.
“I'll be back,” she told her plate and headed to the restroom.
“Say, Whistle,” I asked. “What sort of guy is Chong?”
He took a swig of coffee before answering. “He's in a bad situation. He's after the wrong girl.”
“You can say that again,” said Gao, breaking into a smile. “Those people should just stick to their own.”
Whistle cut in. “The guy's a petty criminal. He runs with this group of kids who came over from Indonesia. They shoplift and push old ladies down for their purses. Their own people are the victims, usually. You wonder why the parents don't have better control of their kids.”
“The parents are too busy drinking and gambling!” said Gao. “All day, that's all they do!”
I decided not to point out that my uncle drank and gambled for days on end.
“But worst of all, Big Eye gave Chong and his buddies some work for good pay and they were completely ungrateful in the end,” said Gao.
“Did Big Eye try to rip them off?” I asked.
“He's entitled to a cut,” said Whistle. “And he's entitled to decide how much.”
“They felt they got the short end of the stick, but without Big Eye, there wouldn't be any stick,” said Gao.
“How did Mei-ling meet Chong?” I asked.
“In school,” said Gao.
“In detention,” Whistle added. “This was back when Mei-ling was in public school.”
“She seems to find trouble,” I said.
“You have no idea,” said Whistle. Gao gave him a meaningful look over his slick plate.
Mei-ling came back and sat down.
“You two should go to the bathroom,” she said to Gao and Whistle. “It's a long trip.” Amazingly, they got up and went.
“You really shouldn't talk to people like that,” I said.
“So what? They work for us. They're not our family.”
“Do you talk to Chong the same way?” Her face went stiff. “After all, he's not family, either.”
“It's none of your business, Jing-nan!”
“It is. Your dad told me to keep an eye on you. Part of the deal if you get to visit Taipei is that you give this guy up.”
She looked at me for the first time with sincerity. “I did already, so don't worry about it,” she sniffed.
“Is he going to come after you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I don't care about him, anyway. I was with him just to piss off Big Eye. He hates new immigrants as much as he hates gays and lesbians.”
“But he has a lot of love for you, his only daughter.”
“Hah!”
Whistle and Gao came back and stood at the table.
“Anything else, Mei-ling?” asked Whistle.
“Let's get going, already. Jing-nan was wondering what was taking you guys so long!” They both gave me dirty looks. I shook my head but they didn't buy it.
Mei-ling curled up and
fell asleep right after we piled back into the car. I started to drift off, too, but her snoring prevented the door between wakefulness and dreamland from closing entirely.
“Tired?” asked Gao.
“Naw,” said Whistle.
That was the end of the conversation. These guys did what they were told and they were efficient. I wondered what other jobs they did and what else they wouldn't talk about.
A couple hours later, I felt a warm patch of sun on my face. I opened my eyes and sat up. I could tell by the ugly construction barriers that formed the median that we were on Xinyi Road, a major artery of downtown Taipei that sliced through Da'an District. Xinyi connected Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to the Taipei 101 skyscraper. We drove toward that gleaming spire that symbolized not only Taipei but the future of Taiwan itself. The past with its memories of colonization, defeat, dead dreams, and oppressive martial law rose up behind us, always close.
The Memorial Hall grounds, which also include the National Opera House and the National Concert Hall in addition to ponds and gardens, covered almost as much area as fifty American football fields. My dad used to say that no fair and honest man would have conscientiously allowed something that big to be built in his honor.
Traffic was bad on
Xinyi. Whistle cursed as some madman in a van cut us off. I crouched to look out the windshield. The van ahead of us looked like it had been through the Chinese civil war, a driving patchwork of welded metal sheets. A sign in the rear window declared, in English, its opposition to the legalization of same-sex marriage:
made by mommy and daddy
.
I looked over to Mei-ling. She was awake and glaring at the sign.
“This is Taipei,” she said. “I thought people here were more open-minded in the city.”
“What do you care, Mei-ling?” I said. “You're not gay.”
She crossed her arms. “Some people are.”
“Let other people worry about it. You've got enough problems.”
“Who are you to criticize what I say and think? You're not that great!”
I was about to tear into her when I heard Gao cough. I looked up and saw him gesture discreetly with his left hand. Let it go, it said.
I'm not experienced in talking to young people, even though I once was one myself, but I do know you're supposed to let babies get their way. Once they started crying, it was almost impossible to make them stop. All I could do was sigh and look away. I've noticed that Whistle and Gao were already well-versed in this tactic.
Mei-ling took out her phone in a dramatic gesture and fiddled with it.
“Turn on the Bluetooth, Whistle,” she ordered.
Some awful sounds began to throb out of the SUV's speaker system, synthesized dance music with layered vocals so devoid of character they could all belong to the same robot. The lyrics seemed to be about finding someone to kiss.
I yawned. Music of this ilk was popular now and was destroying the finest young minds of East Asia. Mei-ling bounced to the beat.
“What do you guys think?” she squealed.
“It's good,” offered Gao.
“Yeah,” said Whistle. “Even better than the other one you played.” Mei-ling gave a measured smile and turned to me.
“And what do you think, Jing-nan? I know you're a big music fan.”
“How do you know that?”
“Big Eye told me. He said you never stopped listening to Black Sabbath.”
“Yeah, that was when I was young. My tastes changed as I matured. I've moved on from Sabbath and metal in general.”
“Tell me what you think of this song!”
“It's not my kind of music at all.”
“You don't like girl singers, huh?”
“It's not that.” I shifted in my seat and turned to face her fully, so there would be no misunderstandings. “I really hate this genre. It's nothing but a bag of bones. There's no meat. The keyboards are so cheesy. Worst of all, the lyrics are completely vapid. Now that you're in Taipei, you can stop listening to crap like this. I can give you some real music.”
Mei-ling turned red and her pursed lips resembled the anus of a tied-up balloon.
“You think this is crap, huh?”
I can be well-humored about almost anything except someone questioning my informed taste in music. “Yeah. It sucks!”
“If it sucks, then why did it win a song contest?”
“Because shit like this is popular, that's why.”
“You think it's âshit' now, huh?”
“It is shit, and if these two guys,” I pointed to Whistle and then Gao, “were honest, they'd say the same.”
Mei-ling slapped her car seat and stopped the music. “It's
my
song, Jing-nan. I did it all by myself on my computer. That's me singing, too.”
I immediately felt like a monster. It was my first day with a cousin I didn't know I had and already I had shattered her dreams. I knew how it felt to be put down by older people but I never thought I would be one of those older people. I should say something constructive. Something moderately positive. Something you'd expect from your older cousin.
I cleared my throat and ran a finger on the inside seam of my jeans. “That song's not so bad for something you did all by yourself,” I said.
Mei-ling searched my face for an artery to bite. “You said it was
shit
!”
“I won't lie to you, Mei-ling. I really do hate it. But if you're serious about your music, you shouldn't care what critics say. You should just pursue it and to hell with what other people say. If you think it's great, then it is great.”
She shifted. “You think so?”
“Of course. Every successful artist has had to overcome adversity. If it were easy, then everybody would be a star. When you make it, you can throw all my words back in my face. You should probably do that now.”
She let out a heavy sigh. No one had ever been honest with her about her music before.
“Did you really win a contest?”
She nodded. “It was online.”
“What was the prize?”
“They played my song in their podcast.”
What a lousy prize, I thought, but I said, “That's great.”
Somewhat placated, she decided to busy herself with her tablet.
I sat back and debated offering her my phone to listen to Joy Division. She wasn't ready for something that intense yet. I would have to start her off gently, maybe with late New Order stuff. Our ride continued creeping east on Xinyi.
“At the next light, make a right!” Mei-ling called out. “There's a store that sells a microphone I want.”
“It's open now?” asked Whistle.
“It opened at nine and it's nine-thirty now.”
“Well, then I guess it's open, but we really shouldn't take too long.”
“It's not going to take long at all,” she said. “I do need to borrow some money, though.”
“How much?”
“Five thousand NTs.” That had better be a decent microphone at more than 150 American bucks. Whistle passed his wallet back to her and she counted out the bills, folded them into her hands and gave the wallet back. After we made the turn, we went down two blocks to the entrance of a side alley.
Alleys in Taipei are narrow roads that have a Japanese look to them. Supposedly the roads in Tokyo are confusing and narrow to confound any potential invaders. I think the Japanese colonizers brought that concept to Taipei, which they renamed Taihoku, when they redesigned and planned out the city. When the Japanese left after fifty years of rule in 1945, the Republic of China administration tried to remove everything overtly Japanese, but renamed the roads and alleys instead of carving out new ones.
“Where?” Whistle asked as he drove along the curb.
“This should be good,” Mei-ling said. She popped the door open.
“Do you want Jing-nan to go with you?”
She rolled her eyes and let her mouth fall open. “I don't need my biggest critic as an escort.”
“Mei-ling needs to do this herself,” I said. She slammed her door and smirked at me through the cloudy window. “This girl's a handful.”
Whistle reached back and slapped my leg hard.
“Dammit!” I said.
“What's wrong with you, telling her her song sucks?” he said.