When we were back on the road leading out of the sugarcane field Big Eye tilted his head back and laughed hyena hard.
“Jing-nan,” he said, slapping my knee. “So good to see you!”
“It’s been so many years,” I said. “How are you, ah-jiet?”
He slapped my knee again, harder.
“Don’t start that ‘younger uncle’ shit! Call me ‘Big Eye’! Everybody else does.” He looked at me sideways with that familiar leer. There were traces of grey now in the hair above his ears and it made him charming even though you knew he was up to no good.
“I didn’t expect for you to send for me,” I said. “I could have just taken the high-speed rail down here.” Big Eye grunted and brushed off his knees.
“I needed you here right away,” he said. “Those guys wouldn’t let me go without a good excuse after all the money I’ve won over the past two days.”
I twisted in my seat, afraid to know the answer to the question I was going to ask. “Who are they?”
“Aw, just some men I know. Business contacts.”
“You were gambling in a sugarcane field.”
“So what? Was it a little too country for your tastes, city boy?” His right hand dove inside his suit jacket and retrieved cigarettes and a lighter.
“Isn’t gambling illegal, um, Big Eye?”
He lit up and took a long draw before blowing smoke over his shoulder and out the slit at the top of his car window. “Illegal.” He sounded out each syllable with utter contempt. “It was just friends playing, a private gathering. Hey, little Jing-nan, you think you can judge me just because you were on TV? You think you’re on some reality-show panel and you’re going to vote me off?” He thumped Whistle’s headrest in a rude and yet familiar way and repeated, “He thinks he can vote me off the show!”
Whistle gave a practiced and forced laugh. “Yes, that’s very funny.”
Gao rolled his neck to crack the bones and yawned. I tried to fight it but I had to yawn as well. I was tired and now that flying bullets were out of the picture, I rediscovered a particular bad mood that only your relatives can put you in with their impositions.
“Look, Big Eye,” I said, “I just want to know that you dragged me down here for a real reason.”
“I needed to see you, Jing-nan! Of course I had a legitimate need!” He scratched his neck. “My daughter—your cousin—needs your help. Mei-ling wants to go to America for college and since you went there, you could help counsel her.”
“I didn’t know you had a daughter!” I said. “You’re married now?”
He looked at me full on, calculating something. I saw my father’s face in him. “Mei-ling is sixteen,” he said. “Her mother’s a cheap-ass Hakka bitch and we separated a number of years ago. We share custody.” He flared his nostrils and pointed at my nose. “Don’t get married until you’re sure in your heart that it’s what you want. You promise me that.”
“Your daughter was born before you left. How come I didn’t know?”
“I didn’t know, either, little boy!”
We slowed and then took a highway exit lit only with a single withered lamppost. A large red sign warned private road. As we began to ascend, I asked Big Eye, “You live up on a mountain?”
He laughed and rubbed my shoulder. “A brief detour first. We’re going to pay our respects to Tu Di Gong. He’s been so good to me ever since he warned me that I had to take that little vacation to the Philippines a few years ago.”
I was tired. The restorative power of the nap on the way down to Taichung was now tapped out. I wasn’t sure how much more stimuli I could take.
Just reuniting with my uncle would have been heavy enough. The illicit gambling and sharpshooting exhibition were more than icing on the cake. It was like another cake on top. It was pretty cool seeing Gao shoot both apples. No special effects, either. The entire criminal world of heidaoren was probably already buzzing about how Wood Duck lost face big time. My uncle and his crew were even more fearsome now. Surely after such events it was time to head home, catch up a little and cook up alibis?
The road was dark and rocky. Trees whipped by and the occasional clearing showed nothing but stars, as if we were ascending to heaven. I cleared my throat, preparing to ask Big Eye a Big Question. “Is there still something like a warrant out for your arrest?”
Both Whistle and Gao exchanged mortified looks. Big Eye gave me a big fat smile.
“Jing-nan! There was never a warrant out for me! Well, not officially. It was all a big misunderstanding. The guy they were looking for, his name was pronounced the same way, but the third character was different, just a few strokes off from mine. Can you believe that?” He clicked his tongue to emphasize that the question was rhetorical.
We rode in silence until we reached the temple to Tu Di Gong, the earth god.
Out of all the deities worshipped on Taiwan, Tu Di Gong is probably the most informal, the most empathetic to the human world. The god you could have a beer with and bitch about life to. He would probably nod slowly, reach his hands through the sleeves of his ancient Chinese bureaucrat robe and stroke his Santa beard. “Yeah, sorry, that sucks,” he would say.
You can get more than empathy out of Tu Di Gong, but you have to get in real tight with him.
You need to offer him enough sweets to say good things about you to the Jade Emperor, the ruler of heaven. You should include a generous serving of rice cakes to stick to the roof of his mouth so he can’t say anything about your bad deeds. The most important offering, though, is money to the temple priests, presumably to fancy up Tu Di Gong’s altar.
Then and only then will Tu Di Gong risk the abuse from his wife and the wrath of the Jade Emperor to intercept an interoffice memo in heaven and discreetly make an adjustment or two in your favor.
Our headlights fell upon metal gates blocking access to the temple but as we rolled up, two sullen young men swung them back. As we entered, the gates closed behind us.
Big Eye tapped his nose. “Listen to me, Jing-nan. Stupid people worship Tu Di Gong only when the lunar calendar says his wife is away. That makes them part-time believers. I give thanks to him every fucking day.” He slapped his hand against his thigh to emphasize his words. “That’s how devout I am. That’s how unselfish I am.”
I shifted in my seat. “Why do you say you’re unselfish?”
He raised a fist to my face and extended his index finger to point at the roof.
“You think I come here for just me? Huh? I’m here because I care about my family, what’s left of it. How many years have I asked Tu Di Gong to watch out for you, my dead older brother’s son and my only nephew? When you survived the shooting at the night market, did you think that was plain luck?” He solemnly touched my shoulder. “Tu Di Gong was protecting you.”
We took a turn and the temple sailed into view. It wasn’t that big, just a single-hall deal. The roof, with its curled corners, probably wouldn’t shelter more than thirty people from the rain. As the SUV slowed to a stop, Big Eye sprang out of the vehicle. I almost pitied Big Eye for his unabashed affection for Tu Di Gong. He was a boy who believed in Santa Claus.
The rest of us exited with undisguised reluctance. It was distressing to see the skepticism of his right- and left-hand men.
I’d spent my childhood being dragged to temples. It must be in my karma. Now, I neither believe in nor fully understand the concept of karma. I blame myself, my incarnation as the young man known as Chen Jing-nan, for my present circumstances.
Well, maybe I could ask if I could stay in the SUV and rest. When he saw me last I was a boy but now I was a man. I could speak my mind, even to him, an older relative.
Big Eye bounded from his side of the car and put an arm around my shoulders.
“Let’s go, Jing-nan!” he said, adding needlessly, “I’m excited you’re here!”
I wilted as his enthusiasm bowled me over. “I am a little tired, Big Eye.”
“Tired? What the hell are you talking about? You know how much sleep I get? Zero. C’mon, now. The incense will wake you up.”
He guided me to the temple’s entrance with Gao lagging behind us. Whistle leaned against the SUV and toyed with his phone.
“How come Whistle’s not coming?” I asked.
Big Eye stifled a laugh. “Aw, Whistle? He’s been on this Jesus kick.” Dammit, that’s what I should’ve said!
“He’s been born again,” offered Gao.
“Just once?” Big Eye coughed. “Whistle should become a Buddhist. You know how many times they get to be born again?”
“He seems serious about Jesus,” said Gao. Big Eye waved a hand and grumbled.
The temple wasn’t as gaudy as others I’ve been to. There were only two pairs of ceramic dragons and phoenixes perched on top. Two ten-foot-high wood columns at the entrance were painted over with scenes of gods, mythical creatures and a shape-shifting monkey. A pair of stone guardians, modestly human-sized, stood at either side of the door, hands on the hilts of their swords, their hollowed-out mouths in eternal grimaces.
The Tu Di Gong idol sat on a throne holding a ruyi in his right hand and a gold yuanbao in his left. The ruyi is a short curved scepter with a knob at one end. It resembles a backscratcher with a tassel attached to the bottom. The yuanbao is a metal ingot shaped like an egg with a brim around the long oval circumference. From the side it could pass for a sailor’s cap or a boat. Tough guys in Chinese historical novels could break off pieces of the brim with their bare fingers to pay for trifling amounts of food and drink.
This particular Tu Di Gong idol was the unhappiest one I’d ever seen. The smile was pained, one that a now-diabetic old man would have while remembering the first time he had tasted chocolate. His fellow idols were depicted in chortles approaching Buddha’s open-mouthed guffaw.
The offering table was crowded with dishes of cooked meats and candy, and planters of burning joss sticks, some already reduced to fuzzy columns of ash.
Big Eye and I stood side by side at the offering altar. Smoke from the incense gave the glistening skin of a roasted-chicken offering an Instagram-like filter. The lack of sleep weighed on me and I yawned again. My uncle pushed a finger against my arm and whispered.
“Stay awake and be respectful, Jing-nan. I’ve been to many Tu Di Gongs all over Taiwan. This one’s the strongest.” He gestured to the bare stone floor. “See? No padded cushions here. We feel the floor when we kneel down.”
Alarmed, I whispered back, “We have to kneel?”
A Taoist priest, suspiciously young at about fifty and suspiciously clean-shaven, approached Big Eye. He also seemed too muscular to wear the robes. This guy was more ex-jock-turned-sports-announcer than withdrawn follower of the Tao.
“Dearest Big Eye,” said the priest softly. “Thank you for gracing us with your presence again.”
“I’m here every night, right?” Big Eye whispered back. He tipped his head at me. “My nephew, Jing-nan.”
The priest put his hands together and nodded at me. “Tu Di Gong blesses you.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said.
He blinked. “Don’t thank me.” He handed two joss sticks to Big Eye. “Please.”
Gao stepped forward, touched a lit lighter to the joss sticks and then slipped behind a thick column carved with a dragon spiraling up to heaven. Big Eye blew out the fire at the end of the joss sticks. The glowing embers that remained would slowly digest the rest of the sticks and release the poison into the air. Release the scent, rather.
Big Eye held out a stick to me. A thin curl of smoke trailed from the tip.
“Thank you, Big Eye,” I said as I took it.
“Do what I do,” Big Eye said. He clasped the stick in his hands and gave three forty-five-degree bows. I did the same. When I thought I was done, Big Eye grabbed my left wrist and whispered, “Do it again, Jing-nan. This time face Tu Di Gong square-on.”
I obeyed and when Big Eye was satisfied he jabbed his stick into a sand-filled censer. I did the same.
“That was a nice ceremony,” I said as I checked my phone.
He glared at me. “We’re not done by a long shot.”
Gao returned and handed him a pair of crescent wood blocks, each about the size and shape of shoes for a ten-foot-tall marionette. One side of each block was flat, the other rounded.
Big Eye got on his knees and pressed the flat sides of the blocks together. I heard my uncle take in a deep breath and hold it. He cast the blocks to the floor with a flourish and finally exhaled. One block stood on its flat end and the other teetered on its rounded side.
The priest tilted his head and evaluated the blocks.
“You should ask again,” he said. “Let’s have Jing-nan kneel down, too, to show how devout your family is.”
Big Eye, still on his knees, gathered the blocks together and looked at me, one eyebrow raised. I dropped to my knees and felt the floor smack back, cold, hard, and angry. I grimaced and noticed the priest’s smirk.
Big Eye blew imaginary dust from the back of both hands and cast the blocks once more. The priest nodded. “All right,” he said and withdrew. Big Eye remained on his knees.
“Can I get up?” I asked.
“No!” he snapped.
The priest returned and handed Big Eye a bamboo canister filled with carved wooden strips.
Big Eye shook the canister with the vigor of a mischievous toddler.
“Careful,” admonished the priest. Big Eye reduced his fervor and a single stick slid out apart from the pack, centimeter by centimeter, until it clattered on the floor. Big Eye handed the canister back to the priest and snatched the stick from the floor. We stood up and Big Eye’s knees cracked before he read out the characters on the stick.
“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.”
•••
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 boyfriend—Chong is his name—shows 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.