I finally got back to my apartment and showered. Gao had offered to come up with me, to make sure that everything was safe, but I refused. After all, could there be a bigger threat in my apartment than Gao?
I pulled on a T-shirt that looked like it was completely black but when the light hit from an angle it lit up the black print of the tattoo on the cover of The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat. Maybe the shirt wasn’t officially licensed but it was so cool. Nancy had had the prescience to buy it for my birthday. It was always a hit with the tourists in the garish lights of the night market. The only problem was that the Americans always wanted to touch the tattoo print, and that would make me uncomfortable even if it weren’t close to my crotch.
I rarely listen to music while I commute, unless I need a serious pick-me-up. For one thing, I never have that far to go. For another thing, I’ve already memorized every thump and howl of my favorite albums. The Velvet Underground? Entire discography of four proper studio albums covered along with the two posthumous outtakes collections. Joy Division? You bet, and include the bootlegs, too.
I stood on the MRT platform and waited for the southbound train to the day market. I was going to buy some fresh lemongrass for tonight’s chicken skewers. I tapped my foot in time to my perfect recall of the title track from White Light/White Heat, which is the noisiest VU album. With the glamorous Andy Warhol and Nico gone from the band’s camp, Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Mo Tucker could realize the full ugliness of their vision, most notoriously in the seventeen-and-a-half-minute long semi-improvised and bass-guitar-free squall “Sister Ray.” Seems like just yesterday when I was blasting Joy Division’s cover of it at my upstairs neighbor.
As a train going in the wrong direction pulled into the station, I shifted gears and contemplated “Here She Comes Now,” the quiet but dissonant two-minute wisp of a song that closes side one of the album. It’s the most gentle and vulnerable moment of the band’s life, strung through with John Cale’s tense viola. Lou Reed was never better. I don’t hate any of Reed’s solo albums—well, maybe Mistrial—but they all suffered to some degree without Cale around to keep his ego in check.
As the train I was waiting for pulled in I wondered if I had thought of the song because the title could be referring to its arrival.
These are the sorts of thoughts one is free to have when one doesn’t have a proper job. I boarded the train, grabbed a handrail and looked down at my jeans and black Doc Martens. The jeans were Japanese selvage and years of constant grease splatter had made them waterproof—a bonus when a sudden rainstorm is always right around the corner. My shoes also benefited from work-related oil coatings—they always looked like they were just polished.
The train slid down from elevated tracks and as we submerged, the interior lights threw a reverse-image of myself onto the opposite window. Reverse Me looked cool. He looked like he should be in a band. You’d never think the guy worked in a night market. Maybe he was in a band that played at The Wall on a regular basis. The Wall was known as the CBGB’s of Taipei before the actual CBGB’s in New York closed down. Now that people are forgetting what CBGB’s was, The Wall is known as the cool club that books cool bands. Camera Obscura, Deerhoof, Slowdive, and other overrated hip bands play there.
We pulled into my stop and the doors opened, splitting Reverse Me in half. I strutted out of the car. The rock star was headed to the day market.
I overtook a slow-moving group of uniformed high-school girls on the platform and thought about Mei-ling. My cousin had a job that was more academically challenging than mine and she was nearly a decade younger and technically a high-school dropout.
I felt a little down about it until I caught another glimpse of myself in the polished metal of the escalator up and smiled.
My work look was a lot cooler than hers.
Hours later, Mei-ling walked into Unknown Pleasures, seemingly on tiptoes.
“Have a chicken-and-lemongrass skewer,” I said as I held out a plate of them. “It’s the special tonight.”
She hoisted one up and bit in. “Wow, this vegetable really tastes a little lemony.”
“I picked up a bunch of fresh stalks today. A little bit of chili pepper and oil makes the citrus taste pop out.”
Mei-ling finished the skewer and winged it into the trash. “Do you think I could do another show?” she asked.
“You mean here at the night market?” I asked.
“Yeah. If it’s not too big a deal to wheel out the stage again.”
“What, the stage is gone?” One of the symptoms of Taipei-itis is becoming numb to the constant buildups and teardowns of major structures. Another is forgetting what had been there previously.
Dwayne sat down roughly against me. “They took it away late this afternoon,” he said. “One of the platforms had broken in half. Bunch of idiot kids was screwing around.”
“It’s rude to shove, Dwayne,” I said.
He responded by leaning even harder against me. “You Han Chinese taught us how to shove people around.” He cupped my left bicep. “It’s a part of your culture, isn’t it?”
I felt Mei-ling’s legs swing under the table. “Dwayne is funny,” she said.
“He’s only funny-looking,” I said. “But about the stage, Mei-ling, if it’s gone, it’s not coming back. How about a sidewalk show in Ximending?”
She wrinkled her face. “At this point it would be a step down for me. I would love to play a club there, though.”
“You have to be eighteen to get into clubs. But listen, you know The Clash used to busk on the sidewalk for change, before they made it and even after.”
“Who are The Clash?”
“Aw, man!” said Dwayne. “Even I know who The Clash are! I think you’re better than them, though.”
Mei-ling inhaled sharply. “Really! You think so?”
“Mei-ling,” I said, “don’t let yourself be flattered so easily.”
She punched my arm. “You only say bad things about my music!”
“I said the production wasn’t right on your demos.”
Dwayne stood up and rubbed his mouth. “That still sounds pretty negative, Jing-nan.”
Now that she had backup, Mei-ling challenged me. “You see? Now you want me to play in the street like a beggar! I know there are clubs there I can get in to. I’m not too young for some of them.” She paused. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You are young,” I said. “Your nearly naked pictures on your card and your site are wrong.”
Mei-ling pulled up the collar of her shirt and shifted in her seat. “I can’t help it if you think like a pervert. We’re related, you know?”
“That is the only reason why I spend more than five seconds listening to you.” I thought a little more and drummed my fingers. “We’re going to ride the Maokong gondola Saturday. The gondola cars and platforms are decorated with Hello Kitty characters. I should take pictures of you with that in the background. I think it’s more appropriate for your marketing angle than the soft porn.”
Mei-ling hunched over the table as she considered my suggestion.
“That would be a new image,” she said. “Do you really think it would be better?”
“It would be more commercial,” I said. “That makes it better. You want to make a living from music, right?”
She nodded anxiously.
I am wary of too much tooling in the making of an artist, but a little commercial consideration is necessary. Talent will only get you so far. The Clash’s manager dressed them in fatigues with stenciled slogans and their militant image became almost as important as their music. Joy Division may never have landed a record contract if they hadn’t nearly forced their way on to Tony Wilson’s television show.
Mei-ling definitely needed an image rebranding. The sexy look was too creepy, didn’t fit her music, and, worst of all, it wasn’t who she really was.
“It’s settled,” I said. “We’ll go up to Maokong and then maybe go to Ximending if there’s time. But maybe since we’ll be in Maokong, we should take the time to hike the trails and check out the mountain scenery.”
“I came from the country,” said Mei-ling. “I’d rather stay in the city as much as possible.”
“Taichung isn’t the country.”
“It’s a hick town and there’s nothing to do at night. It’s not like here in Taipei.”
I leaned back and crossed my arms. “I wouldn’t know!” I said. “Look at how I spend my nights!”
I saw Mei-ling to her door and then I swung by the katsu place in the subway again. I’m accustomed to the fast pace of change in Taipei, but even I was in for a surprise.
The stall was renamed “Transmission.” Could it have possibly been named after the Joy Division song? The question was settled when I saw the nebula motif—directly copied from the original seven-inch single sleeve—on the signage and walls.
I was hurt and confused. I walked up to the counter in a daze, my mouth dry and my hands sweaty.
“Hello,” said the owner. “How are you today?”
“Why are you called ‘Transmission’ now?” I was blinking involuntarily. This bastard was ripping off my Joy Division theme!
“You like it? It’s a new name, but we still serve the same great food.”
“Joy Division fan, are you?”
“I’ve never really listened to them, and I don’t really get into music, but I’ve always liked the visual aspect of the band, the artwork on the releases. I saw the ‘Transmission’ single online and I thought it looked like a katsu in space. Funny, isn’t it? Thanks to the redesign I get to have conversations like this.” He smiled warmly.
Why didn’t this guy who was allegedly in the food industry know me and my business from the news? My business was a direct tribute to Joy Division. It was done out of love. This guy just copied the artwork. Granted, the nebula did indeed resemble a katsu, but still, the whole deal stank. Also, if you “don’t really get into music,” please go straight to hell!
If I started to tell him that I was a huge Joy Division fan and that I had named my business “Unknown Pleasures” because I loved the songs, I was afraid that I would begin to yell and wouldn’t be able to stop. Instead, I wiped my hands on my pants and ordered a chicken katsu to stay. I wanted to see someone tell him he was ripping off an internationally known night-market stall. I’d feel vindicated.
“So that’s one chicken katsu,” he said. “Anything to drink?”
“Oh, no.”
“Just a few minutes. Say, I like that T-shirt. It’s got a hidden design in it. Where’s it from?”
“It’s The Velvet Underground,” I said.
“Never heard of the store.”
“They were a band,” I said, unable to stop myself from chuckling at him. He didn’t pick up on it.
“Have a seat there. What’s your name?”
“Johnny.”
“Johnny. My name’s Kenny.” Nice original fake name, Kenny. Doesn’t sound like “Johnny” at all.
“Thanks, man.”
I slid into a booth, my robe of sarcasm catching a little on the edges of the pressed-wood seat. I watched Kenny duck behind the curtain and listened to him bang around. The fryer came alive, sounding like a heavy rainstorm.
•••
I thought about a night not too long ago when Nancy and I had argued about going on a bike trip along the Keelung River. She had wanted to go and I hadn’t. I was feeling angry and vaguely righteous, yet also inarticulate.
We had retreated to opposite sides of my couch. I could have sat there all night and not said a word. I played the cold, stoic boyfriend and kept my head turned away. I knew that if I looked at her I would want to hold her.
I became conscious of my breathing. I tried to slow it down and take as few breaths as possible. I felt Nancy shift on the couch and tried to put it out of my mind. I wanted to pretend I was alone.
It was a tiring exercise to ignore somebody. Maybe I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. We could have fallen asleep and woken up bloated with our unresolved conflict. The situation required divine intervention.
Out of the clear night sky, thunder cracked as loud as airborne planes meeting head-on. We both jumped for each other. As we fell to our sides we laughed and then I started crying.
“I’m sorry,” was all I could say. We slid to the floor and then slid into each other while the rain gods spat on my apartment and took turns licking the windows.
I had been in a negative frame of mind then, as I was now. I should stop feeling hyper-resentful now to Kenny because there was no point to it, really.
The katsu guy put a tray in front of me as I shifted in my seat. The angry shell that I had formed around myself shattered.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, “but I’ve been calling you, Johnny. It’s best to eat it when it’s crispy.”
“Thank you, Kenny,” I said. He gave a brief nod and walked away.
Spotting a bottle of lemon aloe drink on my tray, I called to him, “Excuse me, I didn’t order a drink.”
“That’s on the house,” he said. “The aloe will coat and protect your mouth while you’re eating the hot food.”
“I couldn’t—” I started.
He cut me off with, “It was a promotional case from the beverage distributor. Just try it.”
I twisted the cap and let the colloidal drink blub into my mouth. It was a pleasantly watery gelatin, the perfect complement to the katsu, especially after the hot mustard was applied. The freshly fried katsu was even better than what I had sampled before. The chicken cutlet was expertly fried yet again. The oil was at just the right temperature. The batter included the perfect blend of flour and seasoning so that the hard panko crust stuck to the supple meat like tasty scabs.
And the cutlet itself! How could it feel so tender but also offer enough resistance to provide a satisfying bite? Did he steam the cutlets before breading them? Maybe they were fresh and never frozen?
The viscous katsu sauce, a little more tangy than I remembered from my previous takeout order, was definitely a homemade recipe, as I could identify most of the ingredients. Cane sugar, soy sauce, onions, and tomatoes for sure. Pureed pear instead of the usual applesauce? Also, he didn’t use cornstarch as a thickener. No skimping here.
I applied a touch of hot mustard. The sense of smell is stronger than taste so a whiff of the stuff is sometimes sufficient.
I looked over at the man with renewed admiration. He was talking to a woman with a key ring in her hand, a sign that she owned one of the businesses nearby and had just locked her rolldown gate. She was a country girl in the big city. Skinny, dressed in too-tight clothes, not a clue what to do with her long hair. She started and ended her sentences with flirty, dragged-out “ahs.”
“Kenny-ah! Why do you stay open so late?”
“This is around the time drunk people come in and eat.”
“Ah, people go to the night market to eat!”
“Some of them get lost in the subway and end up eating here.”
“Why do you want to cook for drunk people?”
“I don’t.” The disappointment in his voice was as thick as the katsu sauce and far less sweet.
“You should have a night-market stand, at least. You’d have more customers.”
“Maybe not.”
“Ah, definitely!”
“Well, this is all I can afford. I borrowed as much money as I could.”
“Oh,” she said. “So that’s the problem.”
Kenny began to rub the back of his neck with his right hand. Nervous tic. He looked like he wanted to yank himself off stage. “At least I had the skills to do the redesign myself.”
“You painted those things? You should be an artist!”
I heard his feet shuffle. “I studied art in college but this is what I’m doing for now.”
I finished up my meal. I couldn’t believe that cooking wasn’t his true passion. Kenny was born with a gift. If I had a Japanese restaurant I’d hire him in a second. But I didn’t and cooking wasn’t what he wanted to do, anyway.
I rescued him from the awkward conversation by standing up. He swooped down and grabbed my tray.
“Thank you very much,” I said.
“It’s my pleasure,” he said with a smile that pained us both.
•••
It was almost one in the morning but Nancy was on a mission. She typed on her laptop as she lay stomach-down across the entire couch—the only position she could write essays in, she claimed. I was relegated to a cushion on the floor. If I’d known she was in “political activism” mode, I wouldn’t have stopped by.
She didn’t want me to touch or even talk to her. I watched a television show, on mute, that featured fan-submitted footage. UFOs, ghosts, talking dogs, you name it. The camera broke away often to a panel of celebrities to clumsily riff off what they just saw. They never said too much. Mostly they would mug a bit after a scary video and the live audience would whoop it up like trained seals.
The actor Chen Han-dian was one of the celebs and I didn’t care to hear what he had to say. I didn’t like him. I didn’t like his face. I think it was his eyes. They popped out a little bit. I watched him blink. I knew why I didn’t like him. He reminded me of my old classmate with googly eyes—Cookie Monster. He wanted to be friends but I never allowed that to happen and then he’d tried to shoot me. Too bad. My annoyance at Chen Han-dian shifted to my old classmate and then to the only other person in the room.
“Nancy, are you going to be at this all night?” I asked. She flashed me a sour look and adjusted the angle of her laptop screen, as if that could tune me out.
“I am,” she said. “Just like I said on the phone. You came over, anyway. You said you would help.”
I had a vague memory of saying something similar to that. “What do you need help with?”
“I’m looking for primary reasons why we don’t want the trade pact with China. Something that sounds good in English.”
I twisted on the floor. “Where are you going to post this essay?” I asked her.
“I’m not sure yet,” she said.
“You’re going to do this anonymously, right?”
She cracked her knuckles. “Don’t worry. I’m going to put your name on this.” Nancy gave a tight smile. “I’m also going to put in directions to Unknown Pleasures and say that you want the KMT supporters to go to hell.”
“I don’t want anybody to go to hell,” I said. “Well, not until after they buy my food.” In a serious tone I asked, “How much have you written?”
“About a thousand words, but mostly it’s background on trade across the Taiwan Strait.”
“God, could anything be more boring?”
Nancy tapped her foot against my jaw. “Don’t you care about the future of Taiwan? Every day China is plotting how to capture the island, and our government is going to help them any way they can.”
I pressed the nail of my index finger into the bottom of her big toe. “Are you going to spend the rest of your life here?” I asked.
She moved her foot away. “I might live abroad a little bit,” she said defensively.
“Why would you want to leave?”
“I want to see other places in the world. Why did you want to leave?”
“I wanted to leave and never come back.” I lay down flat and added, “Now I’m stuck here with you.”
Nancy snapped her fingers. “Hey! Maybe you should finish your college degree!”
I bit my lip. The truth was, I had thought about it, but there were two major hurdles, one psychological and one financial. At UCLA, I’d had a pretty good scholarship for international students but it had expired long ago.
My most ambitious plans these days were the nightly offerings at Unknown Pleasures. Now, it isn’t an easy thing to draw up a menu at a night market. It requires creativity and flexibility. Your kitchen is literally steps away from something potentially more interesting.
One night I saw that another skewer stand was advertising a Jeremy Lin three-pointer skewer that included chunks of beef, chicken and chicken gizzard. I one-upped them by creating a Jeremy Lin and Kobe Bryant double skewer that included a folded pork intestine that connected the two. Wait, was it a cow intestine? In any case, it had been a great night, better than Lin and Bryant ever had playing together, that’s for sure. Creating something like that was the product of years of on-the-job learning no one could ever teach in school.
“I don’t need to finish my college degree,” I boasted. “Have you seen Unknown Pleasures’ online reviews? Thousands and almost all of them five stars!”
Nancy hit a few keystrokes and I heard her laptop chime as she saved a file. “You used to hate being there,” she said. Succinct and so true.
“It used to be more of a burden. I’m a minor celebrity now.”
“Celebrity,” Nancy said as if her mouth were coated with expired cough medicine. “That means you’ve sold out.”
“I said ‘minor celebrity’—I still know where my roots are.”
“With your lofty status, you could come out to the protest and raise our profile.”
“That’s not for me,” I said. “I work full-time. Besides, when you get arrested, you’re going to need me to bail you out.”
Nancy rolled on her side and her hair flopped over half her face. She tapped her fingers on the wrist rests of the laptop. “I guess that’s true. I doubt they can arrest all of us, though.”
I hooked an arm around her right leg. “If I were a cop, I’d pick you out and spank you in front of everyone.” I tickled her foot, but she managed to free it and buried it under a cushion.
“I have to work, Jing-nan!” she grunted.
I fell asleep on the floor to her furtive typing.