I stood outside of Big Shot Hot Pot and looked back at the kitchen. I saw Kuilan and her husband Bert. Now where was that—
“Hey!” someone called out right behind me. “You looking for me?”
“Ah-tien, I was looking for you. I wanted to ask you something.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked left and right. “Not here,” he said. “Follow me.”
He brought me to an alley off of Daxi Road that had no name and not a lot of light or air.
“What is it?” he asked rudely.
“Why did you try to stop me from getting on my bike that night?”
He laughed bitterly and shoved two sticks of gum in his mouth. “You think I had anything to do with burning your house down?”
“How did you know about it?” I got in his face a little bit. “I didn’t tell anybody about it except Dwayne and Frankie. They sure didn’t talk to you.”
Ah-tien squeezed his gum into his left cheek and sneered. “You just don’t get it, do you, Jing-nan? When someone you know gets murdered, just shut the fuck up about it.” I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw tears forming in his eyes. “You think you’re the only one who’s lost a friend?”
“Tell me how you knew about my house,” I said, a little bit more softly this time.
“I hear things.” Ah-tien wasn’t going to give me anything until I showed him I was in the know. He leaned against a wall and slouched.
“I know that a faction of Black Sea is being liquidated,” I said casually.
Suspicion flashed in his eyes. “What do you know about Everlasting Peace?” So that was the name of the faction.
“I know they’re killing the members of Everlasting Peace.”
He stopped chewing and looked at me hard. “Won’t be long now. There are only two left.”
“Why did the Everlasting Peace guys kill Julia?”
He folded his arms and sighed. “I don’t know, but they ended up signing their own death warrant.” Ah-tien made a fist with his right hand and rubbed the side of his nose with an extended thumb. “This is where you stop asking questions about Julia,” he said. “Seriously, Jing-nan. You’re not safe as long as there are still Everlasting Peace guys out there.”
“I thought it was Black Sea that was after me.”
“Black Sea just wants you to shut the fuck up. Julia’s murder is embarrassing to them. But Everlasting Peace wants you dead. They’re trigger-happy young punks just looking for an excuse.” He broke away from the wall. “Watch your back,” he said.
AT A BREAK IN the action later that night, Dwayne called out to me. “How long are you going to crash at Nancy’s? Real men don’t mooch.” He was at the stove, stirring our heaviest pot, nicknamed Da Pang or “Fatty,” which was filled with stewed tendons, spice leaves and bones that needed to be broken down. He ladled out the steaming stew into four smaller pots.
I ignored Dwayne. Three Kiwis had come by because of the sign and decor. Joy Division has always been big in New Zealand. I talked them into sitting down and trying the stew fresh off the stove instead of getting something to go.
Frankie chatted with two giggly Japanese women. I could tell they were going to buy a lot. I assigned myself the task of washing dishes to give Frankie some more time to work on the women.
I washed out Da Pang first. The giant pot was our workhorse, and Dwayne would need it again soon. I ran the spray nozzle over Da Pang. I thoroughly scrubbed the insides of the pot. It was older than me, and I remembered my grandfather treating the pot with great affection. He used to pet it and talk to it gently.
I had just turned the pot upside down when I heard Frankie yell out, “Gun!” I looked up and saw a muzzle pointed at me.
I couldn’t think. What was that quivering ring in front of me? I had a vague idea that it was something bad. I should be scared of it. Somebody was babbling something.
A loud noise rang out, and then I couldn’t hear. Something slammed into my back. I put my arms out, and my fingers touched the ground. I saw Da Pang, which had saved my life, rolling away in space. Black scissors kicked across the landscape. I struggled to get to my hands and knees. I felt like the tide was dragging me out.
Someone pulled me up and made funny faces at me. Dwayne. That’s your name. The Japanese women were screaming and crying. The New Zealanders were running after someone.
I recognized that the torso on the ground was mine. I looked it over. No holes. Good. Dwayne shook me hard, and I focused on his face.
“Frankie pulled the guy’s mask off!” He said. “It was your friend!”
“It was my friend?”
“The loser guy you’ve been dodging! Cookie Monster! Ming-kuo!”
Frankie came over, holding something. “He got away, but he dropped his piece.” He held up a loose stocking in one hand and in the other, Ming-kuo’s gun, already in a clear plastic bag. “He was too slow.”
It was hard to imagine my old classmate as anything but harmless and pathetic. Why was he trying to kill me? “Ming-kuo had a gun?”
“Yeah,” said Dwayne. “The thing he tried to shoot you with!”
“Poor Da Pang,” said Frankie. The pot now had a dent. A small hole in the brick wall above the main sink showed where the bullet had lodged after the ricochet.
“Cookie Monster,” I said stupidly.
“Yeah,” said Dwayne. “He was a monster.”
FRANKIE INSISTED THAT I let Jenny examine me, as she had experience with medicinal herbs and foods. After taking my pulse, feeling my ears and smelling my breath, she made me drink a room-temperature tea as a preventative measure.
She checked my pulse again when I was done. Jenny then looked deeply into my eyes, searching for something.
“There you are!” she finally declared. I looked Jenny over. I admired her big brown eyes and thick lashes up close. She was treating me with the firm demeanor of a detention teacher.
“He looks all right to me, Frankie,” Jenny said. “Now let me do you.”
Frankie waved his right arm. “I’m in perfect health, Jenny. No need to examine me.”
I walked into the side of a rack of clothes, but before it could tip over, Frankie grabbed the hanging rod and set it right again. The fastest reflexes in Taiwan saved my ass again.
AS WE CROSSED THE street to Unknown Pleasures, Frankie and I both noticed that the bootleg DVD sellers had packed up their rollaway carts and left. It meant that a cop was near.
Closer than near, actually. He was waiting for me at the stand.
“Are you the one who was shot?” the cop asked me as he nervously fiddled with Ming-kuo’s bagged gun. He looked young enough to be on the varsity track team.
“Not quite shot, but it was close,” I said.
“I called it in,” said Dwayne, almost sheepishly. “I know you have a crappy relationship with cops, but I couldn’t let this thing slide.”
“You’re Chen Jing-nan, right?” the cop asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you get a good description of the shooter?”
“I know who it is. It’s Wang Ming-kuo, an old classmate of mine.”
“He’s a loser,” Dwayne volunteered.
“Okay,” said the cop.
“Officer,” I said, “I notice that you’re not writing anything down.”
The cop straightened up. “I can remember what you’re saying. ‘Wang Ming-kuo.’ See?”
Frankie moved to a corner of the stall and crossed his arms.
“If I tell you where Ming-kuo is, will you arrest him?” I said.
The cop shrugged and tilted his head. “At this point it’s your word versus his. We have to review the security cameras in the area.”
I pointed at the evidence that dangled ever so carelessly in his loose grip. “His fingerprints are going to match the ones on the gun,” I said.
“I can’t just take his fingerprints, Jing-nan,” the cop said through a weak smile. He wiped his forehead and pushed back his snap-back hat. “We have to respect his rights as a citizen. We all have rights, you know.”
“Gan!” declared Dwayne. “Gimme that gun back, you lousy cop. We’ll just go shoot him ourselves.”
The cop shoved the gun handle-first into his armpit. “Now, now, let’s not get carried away,” he stuttered.
“Officer,” I said, “what should I do if he comes back with another gun?”
“He probably won’t come back,” said the cop. “Not tonight. I’d better get back to the station now. Write up this whole incident from beginning to end.”
“Get the fuck outta here!” Dwayne yelled. “You can forget about getting any free food, too!”
The cop handed me his card and left, but not before whispering, “Sorry.”
“What the hell, you guys?” I said to Frankie and Dwayne. “What would have happened if I had been killed? The same bullshit?”
“We probably wouldn’t be able to seat people inside,” Frankie offered.
I chuckled and slumped into a seat. Who knew the Cookie Monster could be an assassin? Who knew he could miss an unarmed target from point-blank range?
“You want to take the night off, Jing-nan?” asked Dwayne. “We can manage without you.”
“I’m staying. I’m safer around you guys, anyway.” I bit my lip. “By the way, thanks for saving my life.”
Frankie nodded. Dwayne wrung out a towel that was already dry. “I only did it for the money, Jing-nan,” he said.
The DVD sellers crept back in. I slipped back into Johnny mode and didn’t worry about anything.
Near closing time I saw people running by Dabei Road to Beefy King, which had an outdoor satellite-TV hookup.
Curious, I followed along. The buzz was that someone was about to commit suicide on a live broadcast.
A large crowd had gathered. The flat-panel television was set up next to the menu, which was branded into a wood sign. The broadcast picture was a little blurry, but it was clear enough to show a man standing at the edge of a roof.
Night-market vendors, including me, Jenny and Kuilan, stood closest to the television, impervious to the waves of beefsteak-grease clouds rolling off Beefy King’s grill at eye level. Tourists stood away from the smoke. The guy who sold peanut-candy-scraping crepes was offering 50 percent off to the unexpectedly large crowd and doing brisk business.
“This is disgusting,” said Jenny. “Trying to show someone dying on live television.”
Kuilan popped a peanut into her mouth. “Well, we’re watching, aren’t we?” she asked.
“Someone’s going to rescue the guy in the end,” I said. “No one’s going to die on TV.”
“Is anybody thirsty?” asked Ranny, the Beefy King owner. He looked anxious to capitalize on the crowd. “How about some Coke or iced tea? Also, closing-time special—Philadelphia cheesesteaks, thirty-five percent off!”
“Turn the sound on,” someone yelled from the back.
“If I have the sound on, I can’t hear what people are ordering. Not that you’re ordering anything anyway.”
The channel’s ground crew finally got it together and drew up close on the potential suicide. He was standing, holding his head in his hands. Then he dropped his arms.
It was Ming-kuo.
I held my breath. Goddamn you, Cookie Monster. What did you get yourself into?
The frame suddenly shook and drew back, showing that Ming-kuo was on top of a building with probably a dozen floors. He was on Xinyi Road, the main artery of downtown Taipei. I could tell because Taipei 101 was sometimes caught in the swaying frame.
The camera focused on Ming-kuo’s full-moon face. It was a good lens. I could have sworn that I saw sweat and maybe tears on his face, which was lit from the bottom, leaving his eyes in darkness. Ming-kuo looked down and drew his arms together, as if preparing to dive. The crowd around me swooned as if they were there in person.
“Don’t do it!” yelled Kuilan.
“Help is on the way!” said the crepe vendor.
“Philadelphia cheesesteaks, forty percent off!” yelled Ranny.
Ming-kuo’s face twitched. His right hand brought up a cell phone and fiddled around with it.
My ringtone, the opening drumbeat of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control,” went off.
The entire crowd turned and looked at me. I checked my phone. It was Ming-kuo. I answered the call.
“Hello, Ming-kuo?” I said tentatively. I could hear the wind whipping around him.
“Jing-nan!” he said. “I’m so sorry! I never wanted to hurt you! I was mad, that’s all!”
“That’s all right. You know, we’re all watching you on TV. Maybe you should go back inside. Okay?”
“I can see the crowds down there. Nobody’s ever given me this much attention. I’ve never felt so powerful before.” I saw that one of Ming-kuo’s arms was raised in triumph.
“Ming-kuo, you have to go back in now, all right?”
“I was mad at you,” he blubbered. “Because I thought we were friends.”
“We are friends!”
“But you never wanted to hang out with me! All of you called me a monster back in school—don’t deny it. So I became one! I joined Everlasting Peace a year ago, Jing-nan! When they noticed you were making some noise about Julia, I told them I could take care of you. That was even before you emailed me!”
I tried to read Ming-kuo’s body language. I couldn’t tell if he was going to jump or not. Where the hell were the police and emergency responders? Someone send a goddamn helicopter!
“You know they killed Julia, right?” said Ming-kuo. “The Everlasting Peace guys. I was at the desk of the love hotel when they came back to hide. They were trying to get betel-nut beauties to sell their drugs for them. Things went bad and they shot one. Somehow I knew … I just knew it was Julia!”
Keep him talking. Any second there would be people creeping in on either side of Ming-kuo, ready to snatch him and pull him in.
“Hold on, Ming-kuo, how did you know it was her?”
“I saw her, Jing-nan. I actually talked to her a few times. I was lonely. She was always willing to listen to me back in school. She told me she hid a message to you because she didn’t think you two would ever see each other again.”
Help still hadn’t arrived. Ming-kuo sat down. Maybe that was a good sign.
Keep him talking. “Where’s the message, Ming-kuo?”
“Maybe at the stand, in the dressing room? The lamei might know about it.”
Ah, the boss lady, the “spicy sister,” might have a message for me from Julia.
“It’s my fault, you know,” he said. “I blame myself. I took some of the guys to the binlang stand to show her off. I told them that I had slept with her.” Ming-kuo was sobbing openly now. “I was bragging about it.”
I listened to him cry for a few seconds. I hadn’t wanted him dead after he tried to kill me, but now I wouldn’t have minded seeing him tumble off the building like a dog’s chew toy.
“Julia wouldn’t deal their drugs,” Ming-kuo continued between sobs. “There was some struggle and she was shot—but it was an accident! Now the entire faction has to pay the price. They’re going to get me, too, Jing-nan!”
My heart was raging for Julia, but I managed to say, almost to myself, “Stay calm. Everything’s going to be fine in the end.”
“I know the stand Julia was working at.”
“You told me before. The second exit at Hsinchu City.”
“I lied to you, Jing-nan! It’s the first exit. It’s called ‘Forever Beauty.’ ”
“Ming-kuo, come down from there and we’ll go together. How about it?”
“It’s too late, Jing-nan. I’ve already lost you as a friend, but at least I’ve made up for …”
The crowd around me screamed, so I missed hearing Ming-kuo’s last words. I looked up at the television screen. The camera was now set at ground level, with parked cars mercifully blocking out the spot where he had landed. At the scene, police closed in slowly and awkwardly, like they were in a three-legged race.
I MET NANCY AT her apartment.
“You sounded like a robot on the telephone!” She wrapped her arms around my head like it was going to fly off.
“I feel so strange, xinai,” I said to the back of her neck. My first utterance of an affectionate name, “beloved,” surprised us both.
“My poor baby! Did you talk to the police about Ming-kuo?”
“I can’t believe the guy tried to kill me, and then a few hours later he kills himself!”
“It’s crazy, right?”
“I told the police that I was talking to him when he jumped. The guy I talked to said they would be in touch. It’s sort of a mess, because Ming-kuo tried to kill me in Shilin District and then he killed himself in Da’an District, so those two precincts have to work together.”
I hid my hands in my armpits and made an empty cradle with my arms.
“Nancy, he said he tried to be my friend. I wouldn’t let him, and that’s why things ended this way.”
I let the empty cradle bounce against my stomach. I felt guilty, but there was something I had to ask Nancy. She stepped on my right foot to stop my pacing.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Ming-kuo told me which binlang stand Julia was working at.
He said she had left me some secret message there and that the lamei knew about it.”
Nancy’s mouth shrank to a disappointed pucker. “I thought you were all done with Julia,” she said quietly.
I touched her shoulder. “I have to know what the message says, Nancy!”
“Don’t you see how dangerous it is to keep this up? Two people are dead already! Didn’t you see the movie where the guy wants to know how his girlfriend was killed, and then he wakes up buried alive?”
“I didn’t see the film, Nancy, but if I don’t find everything out, I’m never going to be able to let Julia go.” I rubbed my face. “Besides, I need your help.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Let me see you in that binlang xishi outfit.”
Nancy took an uncertain step back. “The one from Jenny? I’ve never even tried it on.”
“That’s all right. Let’s see how it looks.”
After a few minutes, Nancy was twirling in front of me wearing red-lacquer high heels and a short, red-mesh dress over a minimal black bra and G-string.
“It isn’t really coming together,” she said. “I don’t have my lipstick on.”
“I didn’t even notice,” I said. “I think it’s going to pass just fine.”
Her eyes widened. “You don’t expect me to work at that betel-nut stand, do you?”
“I was thinking that you could. Get close to the lamei, gain her trust and find out what she knows about Julia. I would go right up to her myself, but she might know about me from the American and his buddies. She might shut the door right in my face.” Nancy bit her lip.
“It sounds a little dangerous,” she said.
“It’s not that dangerous. There’s no way another shooting is going to happen there. I’ve already talked it over with Dwayne. We’ll be checking in on you. Also, if you don’t feel safe at any point, just leave. It wouldn’t be worth it at all if you were scared for one second.”
“You really want to know what Julia’s message was.” Nancy looked into my eyes. “She meant so much to you.”
“It would help give me some closure,” I said, crossing my arms. Nancy looked up and wondered at the light fixture. She had a lovely throat.
“Well,” she said. “I wonder if I could pull off being a betel-nut beauty. Maybe it will be fun.” I was relieved to hear it.
“Thank you so much, Nancy. I owe you a major favor.”
“I’d be doing it for me, too. I’ve already played a tang-ki, and that was kind of exciting.” She wavered. “Nothing’s going to happen, right?”
I put my hands on her hips. “Everything’s going to be fine. Like I said, if there’s any danger at all, we’ll stop.”
“I’ll try. I’m tougher than you think, you know. Now I need to get out of this.” She made a move to go to the bathroom, but I stood in her way.
“Hey,” I said, “I was thinking we could take this into the bedroom. I wasn’t in the mood earlier, but things have changed.”
She giggled. “It’s the outfit, right?”
I hooked my thumbs into the waistband of her panties through the mesh dress. “No, it’s you.”
I DROVE OUT TO the Forever Beauty stand by myself the next morning. It was the third stand in from the first highway exit. I went to the other side of the street and straddled my moped. I didn’t want to be too conspicuous. After all, most customers were truck drivers or taxi drivers. Even though I kept my helmet on, I never looked directly at the stand as I pretended to fix my rearview mirrors.
It looked like any other stand. In the light of the rising sun, the green neon and full-length windows made Forever Beauty look like a candy-sprinkled ice cube that encased two nearly naked teenage girls. Both were seated on bar stools. One was wrapping binlang. The other was doing her nails. She glanced at me and quickly looked away.
You can undress a Taiwanese teenaged girl and strip her of her modesty, but you’ll never take her shyness away. Teenaged boys are shy, too. I blame the Japanese. They did this to us.
A back door in the ice cube opened, and I saw a fully clothed woman come in with a food tray and two bowls. The “spicy sister,” as the boss is called, looked more like a sour sister. She was in her thirties and wore a dark blue blouse and slacks. After she set the tray down, she put one hand on each girl and spoke emphatically. Neither girl looked at the boss as they slurped up noodles. Sometimes they nodded in response to the lamei.
The boss turned and tapped something into the fish tank. Flashes of silver and gold swam up and collected near the surface.
I was glad the girls were fed before the fish.
The lamei stepped out and went down half a block to where a table on the sidewalk was set up with packs of joss sticks, an incense holder and bags of snacks for offerings. She lit up a stick, bowed three times with it and then planted it. She walked back into the stand, pausing to pick up some trash on the ground.
Her whole routine was carried out as casually as if she were walking a dog. I wasn’t sure if the ritual was for Ghost Month, a dead relative or the birthday of one of the myriad Taoist deities.
I rubbed my hands. There wasn’t much else I could do. I had confirmed that the place existed and that it was still open. I had also objectively determined that Nancy was a lot more attractive than the current staff. The spicy sister would have to hire her.
Almost everything from here depended on Nancy.
I started up my moped and left.
DWAYNE MET US AT Nancy’s apartment in the early afternoon. I asked Dwayne to look her over in the binlang xishi outfit. He gave her a cursory look and petted the stubble on his chin.
“Not bad,” he said. “That’s actually pretty close. I’ve been chewing binlang a long time, so I know. The only thing I would say is that your clothes look too …”
“Slutty?” asked Nancy.
“Ha, I was going to say too new! I’ve seen sluttier, believe me. You’re going with pretty safe choices here. This outfit would pass at a high school, honestly.”
“Dwayne, I know all about you and high-school girls,” I said. “But how should Nancy act?”
“These girls,” said Dwayne, “they’re in not-so-great economic circumstances. Whatever she offers you, just jump at it, even if it’s just a few hours at a time or a really late shift, or even if you have to start right away. The lamei may even want to dress you herself, but if she tries to make you pay for the outfit, then refuse. A reputable binlang-stand owner would never sell stuff to their own girls.”
I spoke up. “Nancy, if you ever feel for half a second that you’re in danger, get out of there,” I said.
“There’s always a little bit of danger,” said Dwayne. “But there’s no way another murder could happen there so soon, you know?” Nancy lifted her arms and scratched her just-shaved armpits. “I’ll try to be as low-key as possible and eavesdrop?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Who knows what you’ll find out.”
“Well,” she said, “the music probably won’t be as good as what we had at Bauhaus.”
“It’s going to pay a lot more,” said Dwayne.
“How much?” Nancy and I both asked.
“You get a regular shift, you can make fifty thousand NT a month.”
“Wow, maybe I’ll just do this job for the money!”
I touched her hand. “We both know you’re just doing this as a favor to me, Nancy. Even if I can’t find everything out in the end, I at least want to know more.”
“I want to know more, too,” said Nancy.
“Here we go, then,” said Dwayne. “Nancy, you should change back into regular street clothes. Is the sports car the only car you have?”
“Yes,” she said, her face reddening.
“That won’t do. You should take the bus to Hsinchu City.”
“Ugh,” she said.
“Jing-nan and I have to go to work. Just keep us posted with texts, all right?”
“Wish me luck, guys,” she said.
Dwayne cocked his head and watched Nancy’s ass as she walked away to change. Then he put me in a headlock and jabbed me alternately in the gut and the armpits.
“You’re a dirty bastard, you know that? What are you doing, sleeping with this girl, you little playboy!”
EARLY ON IN THE night, Nancy texted that she was at her binlang stand and that she was going to begin working immediately because someone hadn’t shown up. I said that Dwayne and I would swing by and check on her after midnight. The lamei was confiscating her phone for the shift, and she wouldn’t be able to stay in touch.
I couldn’t focus on work. Frankie nudged me when a loud, swaggering group of Australian men nearly walked by. “Hey, mates!” I called out. “Let me put some meat on the barbie for ya!” They all came over. Naturally, they had a lot of questions—the same ones all young men had. What time did the trains stop running? Where were the best clubs? Did I know any women?
“All the women I know are Buddhist nuns,” I said, not missing a beat in getting their food together. “They’ve already said their prayers and gone off to bed. They’re all virgins, too, so don’t think about sneaking in on them.” I had an answer for everything.
They laughed easily and ate a lot. I liked them. I wondered what it was like to be on vacation in another country, eating and drinking, having a good time.
Instead, I had my life. Here I was, skewering meats that I had lost the taste for long ago while Nancy was potentially putting her life on the line. She said she could pretend she was doing cosplay. For men, that meant donning helmets, full-body armor and swords, but for women it meant wearing lingerie-inspired battle gear.
I wondered if Nancy would be able to retrieve Julia’s secret message. She seemed to have a knack for getting things done.
Julia and I had planned out our entire lives together. We knew where we were going and how we were going to get there. I never planned anything at all with Nancy. I never knew what was going to happen the next day.
But I couldn’t imagine that next day without her.
Now I was using Nancy to chase a ghost from the past. In all honesty, that’s what Julia was. By the time she was murdered, I hadn’t seen or spoken to her in years. I didn’t know the person she had become. She wouldn’t have recognized me. The guy who grew up saying he would never be like his parents was now exactly them.
Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. All I really needed to know was that I wanted Nancy to be safe and to be with me.
“Stop slacking, Jing-nan!” yelled Dwayne. “I’ll stick a hot-pepper suppository up your ass if you keep daydreaming!”
“I’m not daydreaming if it’s nighttime, am I?” I muttered.
“Day or night, it doesn’t matter. You don’t know what’s going on, anyway!”
“I’m just thinking about stuff.”
“Stop thinking and start selling, already! Move that mouth!”
I tried to get back into the rhythm of things, but I was distracted. Every second I left Nancy at that binlang joint was another second that she was in danger. I was relieved when the crowds began to break up early. I turned over the last row of skewers, exposing the charred side of chicken hearts.
“Frankie,” I said, “we’re going to close on the early side tonight. As soon as we sell these, we’re done.” It was just after midnight. He frowned. It was a surprise and Frankie didn’t like surprises.
“See, Cat, this is how it starts,” said Dwayne. “Start packing up early today. In two weeks he’s going to let one of us go. A month later, the whole stand is gone.”
“You’re coming with me, aren’t you, Dwayne?” I said.
“Trying to get me to do work off the clock, huh?” he said, even as he folded up his apron.
Frankie stood up. “You two go. I’ll handle the shutdown.”
“Really, Frankie?” I asked. He nodded.
“The Cat was the first person your grandfather hired,” said Dwayne. “He still has that rock-solid work ethic.” I saw the light brown blob of his midsection shiver as he tore off his work shirt and pulled on a black polo. “It’s my lucky shirt,” he explained.
“We need luck?” I asked.
“You always need luck, little brother. See you tomorrow, Frankie.”
I fired up my moped, and Dwayne was kind enough to keep his motorcycle down to a speed that I could match. We turned onto the highway to Hsinchu City, and we didn’t stop once until we got to the turnoff and pulled in to Forever Beauty.
I saw Nancy’s eyes flash for a second after I pulled off my helmet. It was hard not to give her a full smile. Nancy stood up from her stool, but the other binlang xishi had already gotten the jump on her. A woman who couldn’t have been older than twenty swung open the door and sauntered over to me. Like Nancy she was wearing a short red skirt and a white top. I guessed that was the standard uniform here for the late shift. She had dark skin and beautiful, thick black eyebrows. Although she slouched too much, I’m sure the customers weren’t critical of her posture. The girl looked at my neck and asked me what I wanted. I told her one pack of binlang, and she turned back to the stand.
Dwayne remained seated but walked his bike next to me, so that my moped and I were between him and the stand. Nancy stood up and stepped out of the stand as my girl held the door open.
“Hello,” Nancy said to Dwayne. “What would you like?”
He pretended to be preoccupied with her body. He’d better have been pretending. “Hi there, sweetie,” he told her. “How about a date tonight? I can take you for a ride on my big motorcycle.”
“No, thank you. I only sell betel nut,” said Nancy.
“Well, in that case, just bring me a pack, little girl.”
She gave a tight smile and walked back to the booth.
I suddenly realized that my server was standing next to me, clutching a pack of twenty binlang chews. “You like that girl better, too, huh?” she asked. “What’s so great about her?”
“I was just looking,” I said.
The girl’s nostrils flared, and she threw down my pack. “It’s her first day, all right?” she said. “She’s an amateur! I’m the experienced one here!”
“Hey, little girl,” Dwayne cooed. “Come over here. I like you better than that other girl. You go tell her I want you to bring out my binlang, not her.”
The girl crossed her arms but headed back to the booth.
I bent down and picked up the pack and dusted it off. Twenty betel-leaf-wrapped nuggets were packed in a bag featuring an inkjet picture of a lingerie model.
The dark-skinned girl angry-walked from the stand to Dwayne. Nancy trailed her and then came toward me.
“Are you all right?” I asked her under my breath.
“Yes. Actually, this is kind of fun.”
“We’ll talk later.”
I looked over at Dwayne. He had a hand on the girl’s shoulder, and they were both laughing. I handed over a fifty NT bill to Nancy.
“No tip?” she asked aloud. I handed her another fifty NT bill. “Thank you.” She walked over to the other girl and handed her both bills. Nancy was about to reenter the cube when Dwayne called out.
“Hey, you girls want to see something funny? Watch my friend here try binlang for the first time!” He pointed at the bag in my hand. “C’mon, give it a shot. It’s not that bad.”
I pulled out a betel nut and popped it in my mouth. Not too bad. A vegetable smell and a hint of lime. It caved in when I bit it, and a foul liquid spilled over my tongue. It tasted like a dead frog had just spit into my mouth. I gagged. Everything came tumbling out onto the ground. Red juice dribbled from my chin into my crotch.
Dwayne, Nancy and the other girl all laughed as I wiped my face with my shirt.
“Girls!”
We all looked over to the stand. The lamei was standing in the doorway, hands on her hips, looking sexy and furious. The two betel-nut girls instantly sobered up. The lamei observed that her message had been received, nodded once and disappeared. The dark-skinned girl took Nancy by the hand, and the two walked back.
When they got far enough away, Dwayne said, “That girl is from the mountain!”
“What mountain?”
“You idiot. I mean she’s aboriginal! I think she’s into me, too.”
“She was into you because you tipped her.”
“Hell, yes, I tipped her! Say, Jing-nan, are you all right?”
“My mouth tastes like shit, but I’m all right.”
“Now you know how our customers feel when they eat your cooking, ha ha. How about getting that crap off your chin?”
I wiped my face again. I really needed to wash up at home and soak my clothes to get the red out. “It’s fine, Dwayne.” I started up my moped.
“More importantly, is Nancy all right?”
I showed him the piece of paper I had found in the binlang pack. Nancy had scrawled “OK.” Dwayne looked at it, pursed his lips and nodded. We put on our helmets, and I stared at the stretched-out reflection of my face in his visor. I looked like I was in severe pain.
I SHOOK MYSELF AWAKE on the couch and wiped off my mouth. In my dream I had just bitten into a rotten apple. Mouthwash hadn’t helped to get the taste out.
“Whoa, calm down!” said Nancy, who towered over me. “That’s the last time I’ll kiss you while you’re sleeping.”
I swung into a sitting position and yawned, feeling my jaw crack. “What time is it?” I asked.
“It’s about five in the morning.”
I put my hands on her hips and felt her body heat through her jeans. “How did you get back?”
“I did what Dwayne said. I took a cab to some weizhang jianzhu area in the hills near Taipei 101. Then I got out and took another cab here, so nobody knows where I live.”
“That’s good, but Dwayne just said to go to some other district. Why did you go to a neighborhood full of illegal buildings? It was probably pretty scummy.”
Nancy screwed her face up. “My mother lives in a weizhang jianzhu, okay? I grew up in one … and so did you!”
I held her hands. “I didn’t mean to make you mad. I just thought it was strange. I worry about you, and I want you to be safe.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“That’s why I love you.”
She grabbed my chin and kissed my lips. “That kiss went better,” she said.
“Tell me that everything went fine, Nancy.”
“As fine as could be. The spicy sister is a pain in the ass.”
“Did anything funny happen?”
Her eyes rolled to their upper left corners. “Hmm. No, nothing.”
“What were the customers like?”
“Truck drivers, cab drivers. A few military guys. They were all perfectly nice. Bauhaus had more weirdos.”
“Military guys? You mean soldiers?”
“No, higher-ups. Guys with soldiers as their drivers.”
“I see.” I gently pulled her down to my lap. “Did anybody try to touch you?”
“They all did.”
“What!”
Nancy made a snorting sound. “None of them touched me, silly. ‘This is a classy joint!’ like the lamei says. Other places you get to touch the girls’ nipples for one hundred NT. Not us. The other girl says she would do it, though.”
“That girl was mean to me. What’s her name?”
“She wants to be called ‘Xiaomei,’ and she’s really sweet. She’s only mean sometimes to defend herself.”
Xiaomei literally means “little sister.” It’s a nickname for little girls, but some unfortunate women have it as a given name.
“Dwayne says she’s aboriginal. Is she?”
“Maybe he’s right. I didn’t ask her. I don’t think someone calling herself ‘Xiaomei’ is going to give me an honest answer, anyway.” I held her closer. A shocked look came over her face, and then a knowing smile. “You’re really awake now, huh?”
JULIA AND I WERE riding in the back of the pickup truck. The road was bumpy, and we were holding hands. Then we were lying on a beach, watching the sun rise over our toes.
“Is this what you thought our lives would be like?” I asked her.
“I didn’t know we would live so close to a beach. It’s perfect.”
“I don’t miss Taiwan at all,” I said.
She laughed. “Well, I don’t either, because we’re still here!”
“This is Taiwan?”
“Where else would we be?”
“We were going to make it big in America! What happened to that?”
“Those were the dreams of children, and they were beautiful. But not realistic.”
The sun was now high overhead.
“What’s wrong with wanting to make it in the US?” I whispered.
“Nothing’s wrong with that. That was what you chose to believe in.”
“You believed in it, too.”
“I did. With all my heart. But you and I made a big mistake.”
“What?”
“We had no right to put down other peoples’ beliefs. If people want to go to temples or tang-kis for comfort or consolation, it’s none of our business. We didn’t have to call them stupid or backward.”
“But there are no such things as gods!” I blurted out.
“Maybe for you there aren’t.”
The sun was now setting behind our backs.
“You know now whether they exist, don’t you, Julia?”
She smiled and tilted her head away from me. I had forgotten that she used to do that when she was reluctant to say something.
“It’s not for me to tell you, Jing-nan. In any case, only you and I are here right now.”
“I should have called you. I should have written to you.” She reached out to me and touched my nose.
“I was disappointed that you didn’t, especially after your parents passed away. Then I realized that it was your love for me that held you back.”
“It was my pride, really, that I wouldn’t break a promise.”
“It was a promise that you made to me, Jing-nan. Don’t you see?”
The only light now was from the moon and its reflection on the water.
“How about we build a fire?” she asked. We dug a pit and threw in a pile of driftwood. Julia gathered her hands together to light the tip of a branch. Soon, the fire was alive and biting the air hungrily like a chained dog.
“All the elements are here,” I said. “Earth, wind, fire and water.”
“Where’s metal?”
“My belt buckle.” I checked it. “Yeah, it’s here.”
“We have both light and darkness, too.”
I nodded and shifted in the sand. “What’s going to happen now, Julia?”
“A letter?”
“A goodbye letter, Jing-nan.” Her hands seemed to be empty.
I sighed and pulled my legs up. “Well, let’s have it, then.”
“You have to do something for me first. Burn my diploma at Longshan Temple.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to have it.” She stood up.
“If I burn the diploma for you, you’ll give me a letter?”
“Yes.”
The fire grew hotter. I could feel the flames reaching out for my face.
I sensed that she was walking away.
“Wait,” I said.
I woke up with the late-morning sun in my eyes and the dream vividly etched on my mind.
I KISSED THE STILL-SLEEPING Nancy on her forehead. Her eyes shot open.
“I had a dream!” she soft-screamed through her yawning mouth. “I saw Julia!”
“What did she say?”
“I don’t remember, but she was smiling.”
“I had a dream about her, too.”
“What happened?”
“She asked me to burn her diploma at Longshan Temple, because she wanted to have it. I, uh, took it out of the box. Must be my conscience getting at me.”
“Are you going to do it?”
“Yes. I’m going to do it right now. You stay here and rest, Nancy.” I kissed her again. I washed my face quickly and then brushed my teeth. If I left soon enough, I could get there around the time of day my parents used to take me.
WE WERE BOTH NONBELIEVERS, but Julia and I disagreed about temples in general and Longshan Temple in particular. She liked Longshan and enjoyed going.
Our two families went to temple together for the big holidays, Lunar New Year and the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, when the crowds were insane and the temple set up extra decorations and displays in the outer courtyard in an apparent effort to further congest foot traffic.
Sometimes Julia went to Longshan on a whim, merely to see the architecture and contemplate the history, she said. It made her happy to be there, so that was reason enough for me to accompany her several times.
Both Chinese and Taiwanese enjoy the sight of water cascading down rocks, so the temple obliges with waterfalls in the outer courtyard. Approaching the front gate can be intimidating, as you see the multi-tiered roofs and mystical animals leering down from the corners. As a little kid, I would nearly piss my pants as we headed to the entrance. My father told me that I had nothing to fear as long as I was “righteous.” When I was older, I knew that the only thing I had to fear were the temple hucksters inside.
As soon as you entered the dragon gate on the right side, the sham began. Counters lining the entire south wall of the temple sold joss sticks, prayer pamphlets and fruits and vegetarian snacks meant to be left at an altar for the gods to eat.
When Americans think of a temple, they probably think about an enclosed area, a building with a roof. Longshan, however, is essentially a large, walled courtyard with a Buddhist main hall featuring Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, in the center and a Taoist hall featuring Mazu, the goddess of the sea, along the north side. The two main deities are both women. The niches along the surrounding walls are altars for lesser gods and folk gods, the divine bench warmers. Everything is so ornate that you’d have a hard time finding an inch of wood, metal or stone that isn’t carved, gilded or both.
The open-air design allowed for all the burning incense to waft heavenward to the nostrils of the gods and to pollute Taipei’s skies. It used to be worse. Longshan once had open-flame braziers set up for worshippers to burn bamboo-paper notes, but they were scrapped when the Environmental Protection Administration started cracking down in the 2000s. Yet even the EPA knew they couldn’t stop incense-burning at temples. It would be like prohibiting bakeries from smelling like fresh bread. Besides, temples made way too much money selling joss sticks. People also bought temple charms to wave around in the incense smoke, to make them more effective when worn.
When I went with Julia to Longshan, I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes and contemplating the sky, pointedly ignoring the idols.
“Jing-nan, that’s disrespectful,” Julia chided me once.
“I don’t have to respect fake gods,” I replied.
“I know the gods aren’t real and they don’t feel anything. But you have to admire the craftsmanship that went into this place. It’s almost four hundred years old. Think of all the people who have been through here, nursing their hopes and desires.”
“This isn’t the original temple, Julia. This is like the third or fourth one on this site.”
She punched me in response. “You can’t deny that this temple is an admirable achievement by the Taiwanese people.”
Followers of Guanyin began to chant loudly and off tempo in the courtyard before the main hall.
“When I come here, I can’t help but think, what if all the effort, time and money were put into building something really useful? Do you know how many more MRT stops could have been built?”
“This is a nice place to come to. The MRT isn’t.”
“Well, if you like it so much, then let’s go join in the chanting.” I grabbed her arm.
“I don’t want to!”
We both laughed out loud as we had a little tug-of-war. Julia wasn’t as strong as me, but she was shorter and had a lower center of gravity that worked in her favor. Her little hands had a tighter grip, too. At some point our bodies collided and we were suddenly holding each other.
She then fought to get out of my arms. I held on to her playfully.
An older man confronted us.
“You two kids are being very disrespectful! You should come and beg forgiveness from the goddess of mercy, or go to a love hotel!”
We went to the love hotel. It was our first time, and we didn’t really do anything. We were only seventeen. I was sure, though, that going from a temple to a love hotel was a well-worn path.
ENTERING THE TEMPLE NOW, eight years later, I caught a whiff of that mildew smell that comes from improperly dried clothes. I never noticed it at the night market, where the frying smells could cover any odor less potent than a pulp mill. If I rode the MRT, I would definitely notice the smells of the seventh lunar month.
Almost everybody in Taipei usually dried their clothes on an outdoor rack or line, but nobody left their clothes out during Ghost Month. Ghosts could slip into your clothes and then possess your body when you dressed. People resorted to washing their clothes in a tub, hand-wringing them and then draping them in several wet layers across their furniture. The clothes ended up smelling as moldy as the dead.
I tried to focus on the smell of the incense and followed it to the rear hall.
I approached the large metal column before Mazu. I figured that since my dream took place on a beach, it was probably best to let Julia’s diploma burn before the goddess who presided over the sea.
I removed the diploma from my wallet and unfolded it. It seemed smaller than I remembered. I drew closer to a large incense brazier, holding the diploma respectfully horizontal with both hands.
The brazier was about twelve feet tall, the bottom half filled with sand with hundreds of joss sticks stuck in it. Four minor gods held a large gold ingot in each hand as a handle to hoist up the top half, which looked like a big brass pith helmet. There was plenty of room to reach in and plant your joss stick or wave a charm through the incense smoke for good luck. The heat coming off was enough to burn paper.
I pulled the diploma taut and waved it over the hot white ash of the tips of the incense sticks. When the paper burst into flame, I would drop it.
Something miraculous began to take place.
Tiny brown squiggles began to appear on the certificate. They looked like bugs at first. Then they grew to form letters and words.
Someone had written on the diploma using invisible ink!
I waved the entire certificate around and made sure the diploma was heated evenly.
A few hundred words were written neatly in English on the back of the diploma.
I retreated to a meditation room on the side of the temple and sat down to read the hidden message.
Jing-nan, you’re the only one who could be reading this. You should know that I’m probably dead now, even though I left my previous life years ago. I received this diploma by accident—I wasn’t supposed to be issued one. Then I realized that it would make the perfect letterhead for me to write to you. In lemon juice! You would know by the way the paper looked water-damaged! While we were both in Taipei I had to stop myself from seeing you. It would have destroyed us. There was no way you could have found me when you tried to come for me, because I became a contractor for the CIA. They brought me back to Taiwan and let me work on things I believed in, to keep the country secure. Right now I’m focused on stopping people from selling technology to China and also military defections to China. My assignments could change later. I’m not sure you would understand, but I’m happy with what I’m doing. When I arrived in the US, I realized that I missed Taiwan. I wanted to go back immediately. I never felt at peace in America. Maybe you’re living there now. I hope you’re sixty years old and that you’re reading this in your wonderful home and that you’ve had a beautiful life with a woman who loves you and two amazing kids.
Her penmanship broke down into blobs—probably because the toothpick was wearing away—as she ended with, “I will love you forever.”
I folded up the diploma and put it back in my wallet. So this was Julia’s secret message to me. Funny. I didn’t love America when I was there, either, but I was willing to stick it out for her.
I also wanted her to be happy, though. I wouldn’t have wanted to make her sad her whole life so that I could live out my stupid promise. She must have felt bad coming back to Taiwan, even though her father told her it was the right thing to do.
My mouth felt filmy. How could I forgive myself for putting that burden on Julia?
I got my answer by looking up. There, an idol of Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, looked down upon me. Guanyin, whose statue I had turned away from in the park when I first heard about Julia’s murder. Tears streamed down my face and leaked into my trembling mouth.
Even if the goddess wasn’t real, even if it was just an idol, it represented the idea of forgiveness and let viewers reflect upon their lives.
Was it really so wrong to have temples and superstitions if, in the end, they allowed people to find some inner peace in this horrible world?