Incensed (12 page)

He jerked his head at me. “My mother's from Indonesia,” he spat. “Does that make me a ‘darkie'?”

“I wasn't talking about you,” I said weakly.

“Yes, you were!” He pointed to the rain outside. “Now get the fuck out of my darkie store!”

“Hold on,” I said.

The second Friendly Mart employee abandoned his post at the checkout and came at me wielding a mop. It was clear that they didn't care for any repeat business from me and the situation was quickly developing into a two-on-one thumping. I only knew how to grapple one-on-one.

I held up a hand. “I'm going.”

I jogged back into the rain and slipped down two doors to stand under the awning of a pharmacy. The deluge splashed against the tarp, sending mists of water across my face. I brought the phone up to my ear and heard Big Eye laughing.

“What's so funny?” I asked.

“God, Jing-nan, you sounded like a scared little girl! If someone told me to leave their store, I'd put my hands in my pockets and tell them to make me! Do you ever stand your ground on anything, little boy?”

“I'm standing my ground on Mei-ling. Give her a chance.”

“Ah,” he said in a drawn out exhale. “You know what? I don't care, in the end. If you think it's going to help keep her behavior in line, that's all I want.” Thunder suddenly cracked so loud I even heard it in the ear I had pressed to the phone. No, wait. That sound was Big Eye leisurely cracking melon seed shells with his teeth. He tried to hack out a seed that had gone down the wrong way and it felt like he was spitting on me.

Close to eleven that
night, a victorious Peggy and defeated Mei-ling arrived at Unknown Pleasures. I slid over to let them sit with me at a table.

“How did today go?” I asked Mei-ling.

“It went just fantastic!” Peggy gushed. Suddenly, a look of concern came over her face. “You have a restroom here, don't you?”

“Right here,” I said. “I wouldn't let my good ole classmate use the common bathroom.”

“I'm sure it's sparkling,” she said as she dropped her saddlebag of a purse into Mei-ling's lap and patted my cousin's shoulder meaningfully. You'd better not let anything happen to this bag, the gesture said.

Mei-ling watched Peggy strut off with disdain. “She's a functioning alcoholic,” she stated.

“She's a workaholic, too,” I said. “That's one good quality.”

Mei-ling stared hard at me, trying to turn me to stone. “How could you leave me with her?”

My hands formed a prayer position. “Do you know how many people would die for an internship with the Lee family? You can learn how money really works there.”

“I know how money really works. I've seen how Big Eye moves his little cash piles around.”

Frankie walked over and slid a plate of skewers between us. I admired the glistening char on the chicken intestines, which were perfectly folded into a string of continuous Ws.

You may not think it matters much if your skewer is neat or not. You'd be extremely wrong, too. When someone has trained enough to precisely fashion each skewer, she or he is likely also fastidious about the freshness of the food and the cleanliness of the preparation area.

Frankly, it's easy to learn how to skewer folded intestines. After some practice, nearly anybody can do it. Mei-ling herself was becoming halfway decent at it on her first night. After a week at it, the knowledge is embedded in your fingers. You could make thousands of perfect skewers while in a subconscious state, thinking of the time when you and your high-school sweetheart were going to conquer the world.

Other things in a kitchen are much more linear. They don't get any easier with experience or repetition. No matter how many times you scrape grill grates clean, once you know how, you can't do it any faster. Likewise, the only way to be more efficient at mopping a floor is by cutting corners.

If those intestines you've ordered are looking as sloppy as a victim in a cheap slasher film, put them down. Seeing the state of the kitchen that served it is probably more horrifying than that movie.

I picked up a skewer and spun it slowly in my hand. The black char and meat browning were even on both sides.

“Even if I weren't hungry,” I said, “I wouldn't be able to resist this.”

Mei-ling continued to sulk but she picked up a skewer and looked it over. “It is beautiful,” she said.

“Perfect,” I said with my mouth full. Mei-ling dug in and her mood improved. As soon as I could I told her, “I've got some good news for you. I talked to Big Eye today.”

“What's good? Is he dying?”

“Don't say that so close to the Mid-Autumn Festival!” I chided her. She rolled her eyes and kept eating. Actually, it was bad year-round to speak of the death of one's parents, even if they were already dead. “Listen, Mei-ling, he's going to pay for you to take singing lessons, as long as you agree to behave.”

“Fuck that,” she yelled in English.

“Hey, watch the language, Mei-ling,” said Dwayne. “This is a family establishment. If you want to curse, keep it down.”

Mei-ling went silent, but it wasn't because of Dwayne.

“Gan!”
said Peggy as she returned to the table. “You guys are talking so loud!”

Dwayne rubbed his nose with his thumb. “I'm going to allow that one to curse because she's experienced life,” he declared.

“Hey stud, get me a cup of soda and ice but just fill it halfway!” Peggy called to him. Dwayne abandoned Frankie and bounded across the stream of tourists for the fruit-shake stand. “Oopsie, I didn't mean to send him on an errand, Jing-nan. Why don't you have drinks here? They have good profit margins.”

“They do, but then you have to load them in, store the syrup and seltzer tanks, store the cups and lids and straws, have an ice maker, and deal with the additional litter. On top of that, people feel entitled to ask for refills.” I waved the idea away with my bare skewer. “We just stick to what we're good at and make money that way.”

“You're such a good businessman,” said Peggy. “How come you're not the one working for my family?”

“You've already got the brightest and best of our clan,” I said. “Please have a skewer.”

“I'm on a diet,” said Peggy. “I never eat solids for dinner.” Dwayne returned with a plastic cup partially filled with Coke. She touched his elbow. “Ah, that's the stuff. Thank you, big boy.” Dwayne went back behind the counter.

Was he blushing?

Peggy produced a flask from her purse and tipped it into the cup. Mei-ling looked at me directly and raised her eyebrows.

“I'm glad you're staying hydrated, Peggy,” I said.

“I make sure to,” she said. “It's an easy thing to overlook when you work as hard as I do. Whoops, I mean we do!” Peggy hugged Mei-ling with one arm.

“This is actually pretty late for Mei-ling to be working,” I said pointedly.

“Well, I need her on the late side. She can come in later tomorrow, but Mei-ling has to be with me through the market openings in the US. She was so good today. It was a first day that will go down in history.” Peggy took a generous swig from her cup and patted her chest.

Big Eye would love Peggy, I thought.

Mei-ling stood up and gave a huge fake yawn that would work on stage but be too big for film.

“I should be going to bed,” she said.

“What time do you want Mei-ling in tomorrow?” I asked.

“Oh, you know,” said Peggy. “Anytime is fine.”

“Seriously. What time?”

“Two is fine.”

I also stood up.

“What,” cried Peggy, “you're going, too, Jing-nan? How can you leave your old classmate?”

“I'll be back. I'm just making sure the best intern in the world gets home all right.”

Peggy toasted me with her cup.

•••

I endured a short
MRT ride of Mei-ling's bitching about how the hedge fund's database was completely out of date, how the computers ran operating systems from two generations ago, and how Peggy had spent the entire day texting or on instant messenger.

Mei-ling had to reconfigure the network so she didn't have to walk to the other side of the office, a half-mile jog apparently, to pick up her printouts. The poor girl also figured out a way to make the spreadsheets update with closing stock prices automatically instead of keying each one in.

She was much better at computers than I had suspected. I guess you learn a lot when writing and editing original compositions (I hesitate to call them “songs”) on a computer.

I suffered some more humble-bragging about Mei-ling's technological prowess as we got off the train and walked to her building. But by the time we got to the lobby, I couldn't take it any more and blurted out, “But did you learn anything today?”

She searched the floor for an answer. “I did,” she admitted.

“Then that's a good thing. Stuff you learn in business will serve you well no matter what you end up doing. If you're a singer, you'll have more control over your career if you're comfortable with numbers and money.” Mei-ling looked away. “Like I mentioned, I convinced Big Eye to let you take singing lessons.”

“I don't want his help!” she said as her arms pushed weakly against my chest. “Or yours!”

“Hey, now. I'm not your enemy.” She rested her head against my chest and I patted her back. Please don't cry, I thought. “Mei-ling, your father and I are your family and we're worried about you. We want you to stop your reckless behavior. You want to be a singer, that's fine. But you have to finish high school. I hooked you up with Peggy because I wanted you to see what an empowered woman is like. Sure, she may be a little crazy, but everyone has problems. I have problems. You have problems. All we can do is help each other, all right?”

Mei-ling jerked herself away from me and scowled. “I only want help from people who believed in me from the beginning, Jing-nan.” With that she strutted to the elevator.

She did learn a lot today. Mei-ling had Peggy's crush-the-world stomp down perfectly.

Chapter Nine

In the morning, Mei-ling
said she was too tired to meet for a late breakfast or early lunch. She had stayed up watching music videos and chatting with people who had favorited her songs online. She needed a few more hours of sleep. I warned her not to be late for Peggy and she warned me not to be late for Frankie and Dwayne.

I turned on the television and saw that there was some emergency at the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan's Congress. Oh, wait, today was the day of Nancy's protest! A bunch of crazy students and their kooky allies had climbed over the barricades and forced their way into the building.

Taiwan Action Eye, the most shameless of the nation's cable stations, had snuck in a reporter with a wireless lapel cam. There was a shrill quality to his voice but the man knew how to walk steadily so that the images didn't rollercoaster.

“Our nation's young people have daringly risked bodily harm to scale the walls of one of our most sacred institutions to make a statement!” the reporter screeched. “Who said that the new generation was complacent? Why did that one politician mock young people as ‘Boys and girls who are in self-imposed exile in the land of texting and streaming Internet'? In fact, dear viewers, that politician who uttered those insulting words, Kung San-cheng, was last seen running with his staff for the parking garage when the students began to breach the perimeter!”

The camera panned through the hallway as the reporter made his way to the main auditorium. He glanced back at the camera and frowned before continuing. “Unfortunately, due to a glitch, footage of Mr. Kung wasn't able to be recorded. I promise you, though, that we will accurately depict his desperate flight in an animated reenactment when I return to the studio.”

He came upon a student who was wrapping a bandage around her left hand. “Excuse me, miss!” called the reporter. “How did you get hurt? Did a policeman beat you?”

“No,” she said, giggling. “I got a papercut while I was handing out flyers.” The student slouched and tried to hide behind her bangs.

“May I see a flyer, miss?”

The reporter held up the piece of paper in an awkward way that was convenient for viewers to see. It read, “Taiwan is a small island but a giant nation.” The writing was an indirect call for formal independence from China, which is what the student takeover was peripherally about. There were other grievances, too. Taiwan's ruling party, the KMT, was trying to ram through a bill to open our markets to Chinese imports. The KMT said the bill would shore up Taiwan's economy and lower the overall cost of food and raw materials. Critics said the bill would destroy jobs, crush small businesses and make Taiwan even more dependent on China's economy.

The flyer shook in the reporter's trembling hand. He was obligated to make some disparaging remarks about it, as the cable station belonged to a woman who ranked highly in the KMT. The editorial voice of Taiwan Action Eye was a steady drumbeat of ruling party dogma. We don't have the unbiased media that the US enjoys.

Taiwan Action Eye's stalwart reporter cleared his throat as he prepared to forcefully confront the introverted student. “It is obvious to me, miss, that this occupation of a government building is a misguided action.” He tossed her flyer away. “Tell me something. Why are you opposed to creating more jobs in Taiwan?”

She stiffened and some of the hair fell away from her face. “Hey, are you a reporter or something?” The camera focused on her chin, drifted downward for a breast shot of her knit top and then came back up to catch a concerned expression on her face.

“No, miss, I'm a student, just like you. Are you trying to distract me with your body because you can't defend your position?”

She clenched her jaw as she took the bait. “The only jobs the bill would create are more positions at Friendly Mart. The skilled jobs would move to China. And stop looking at me like you're some kind of pervert!”

“You think people who work at Friendly Mart are perverts? Aren't you illegally trespassing because you don't have a boyfriend and you're stupid?” Friendly Mart was a main advertiser for Taiwan Action Eye and sponsored the Breakfast Break roundtable discussion on Sunday mornings.

The student rolled up her flyers and jabbed them the reporter's face. The camera jumped with each thrust. “You're the one who's stupid. If you don't like the protest, then why don't you get out of here?”

The reporter remained defiant. “You should get out of here! You're acting like an old homeless woman!”

The student stormed off. The reporter wheeled around and continued down the hallway in search of another victim.

“I'd like to caution our viewers that they are watching this live and some inappropriate language could come up from time to time,” he said. In other words, “Stay tuned for more!”

As he approached the auditorium's open doors, my heart stopped.

There was Nancy, handing out bagged pastries to other protestors.

“What do we have here? Free food!” the reporter said. He tapped Nancy's arm. “Where did you get the money to pay for this?”

“The food was all donated by mom-and-pop bakeries opposed to the bill,” she said. “The people support us.” She tucked some loose hairs behind her right ear. My girlfriend looked like a na
ï
ve and pretty woman who was open to talking. Another perfect cam target.

“The food is a bribe, then, isn't it?” he asked cautiously.

“A bribe?”

“Of course. Students don't have much money and they're hungry. That's why they're here.”

“Not everyone here is a student.”

“Show me someone who isn't.”

Nancy shrugged. “Right here,” she said, pointing to her left. The camera panned and my heart stopped again. It was Frankie.

Frankie flicked his lighter and put the flame in the reporter's face. The camera took a step back.

“Watch it!” the reporter warned Frankie. “You should be in the park feeding birds, you senile old man.”

The camera swerved back to Nancy, lingering over her chest.

“Now,” the reporter continued, “a pretty girl like you shouldn't be doing something like this.”

Nancy's surprised face turned out to be the last stable image he managed to capture. The camera jerked down, transmitting jittery images of the floor and the reporter's stumbling feet.

“Senile old man, huh?” I heard Frankie growl.

“Leave me alone!” cried the reporter.

There was a loud bang and the ugly carpet background gave way to tile.

“You're the one who's senile.” Frankie's voice was calm yet furious. “Only somebody mentally unstable would drink from the toilet.”

“No!”

A stall door banged open and a toilet bowl came into view. The water seemed to be discolored.

At this climactic point, the camera slipped and transmission was cut off.

After five seconds of a black screen, Taiwan Action Eye's male anchor appeared on the screen. “Thanks for your report, J.D. We hope you're doing all right.” He smiled straight into the camera. “We're going to replay the last fifteen minutes of J.D.'s story because it was the consummate ‘live action' report you want to see and see again.

“But first! Taiwan Action Eye brings you some breaking news! The two famous eating champions, Japanese Sadao and the American Chompin' Charlie, have announced that they support homosexual marriage in Taiwan and that they are in a homosexual relationship!”

The station ran footage of Sadao and Charlie at a sausage-eating contest in Germany.

“It's no wonder that both of those homosexuals are so good at eating meat! Again, Sadao and Chompin' Charlie are homosexuals and they support unnatural marriage in Taiwan! And now, Taiwan Action Eye replays our video captured by J.D. in the student occupation of the Legislative Yuan.”

I turned off the TV and washed my hands and face. Nancy was right. I should have been at the occupation. If I had helped to take a stand or at least support my girlfriend, I would have gotten to see the reporter drink from the toilet.

I called Nancy but it went to voicemail. “Nancy, I just saw you and Frankie on TV,” I said. “I'm proud of you for standing up to that reporter. If the students need more food, send someone to Unknown Pleasures and I can pack up some skewers or containers of stew.”

I hung up the phone and shook my head. That poor reporter had picked the wrong old man to provoke and had learned the hard way what Frankie the Cat could dish out. Frankie was strong and spry as hell. He had that special trait that only elderly Asian men have. At some point, their aging process bottoms out and they begin to grow younger.

Frankie is a former flag-waver who had learned the price of having a perceived political position. He never expressed opinions on political candidates. I don't even know if he voted. For him to be at a protest was nothing short of remarkable.

On my way in
to work, I noticed that the stage for the stinky-tofu eating contest was still standing in the central area of the night market. The Americans hadn't bothered to dismantle it and take it away. Some kids sat on the platform edge, kicking their dangling legs, but the vendors had to take their handcarts around it, another minor public nuisance left standing in Taipei for a forgotten purpose.

Frankie was early at the stall, as I knew he'd be. He sat on a plastic stool, a shallow plastic pool at his feet and a large bucket at his side. His hands moved like two coordinated cormorants diving into the pool and surfacing with entrails. Frankie washed off the entrails with a hose, snipped them down to size with scissors that he kept concealed somewhere in his clothes, hosed down the entrails again and dropped them into the bucket. It was mesmerizing to watch him work.

“Jing-nan,” he said without looking up. “I didn't expect you here until later.”

I looked him over for signs of struggle, scratches on his face or hands, but saw nothing. “Frankie, I thought climbing over a few police barricades would slow you down.”

He turned to me and opened his mouth completely before speaking. “Ha! I've been working here since before you were born!” He shrugged as his fingers danced through dirty innards. “Nothing could stop me from getting here.”

I sat on an upside-down bucket and leaned toward him. “Frankie, I saw you on TV. You were at that occupation inside the Legislative Yuan. The cops had the building surrounded. There was no way out. How did you escape?”

He sighed at me and then looked down, pretending he needed to watch his hands work.

“Is Nancy all right?” I asked. “My calls don't get through to her.”

“Too many phones, not enough towers,” he said. “All the students plus the media. Nancy will be fine as long as she stays with the group.”

“What were you doing at the protest, Frankie?”

“I was an innocent bystander.”

“You're not innocent. I saw what you did to that reporter.”

He patted his mouth with the back of a bloody hand and said, “You didn't see anything. The camera was out of commission.”

Dwayne, by contrast, was
uncharacteristically late by about half an hour.

“Stupid protestors and stupid police blocking the streets,” he grumbled. He tore off his gloves and chucked them into his motorcycle helmet. “I can only hope that this is the beginning of the end. All you Han Chinese start fighting amongst yourselves. Then all the survivors crawl onto boats and float back across the strait to where you come from. Good riddance!”

I couldn't help but laugh. It's cute when Dwayne gets so over-the-top about the demise of the historical oppressors of his people. I know he's joking. Less funny is when Taiwanese officials call aboriginals “lazy,” “backwards,” or worse. Donald Trump would have serious competition here for making gaffes.

“Dwayne,” I said. “Who would run the island if all us ‘Han Chinese' were gone?”

He posed as if he were being awarded a medal and thumped his chest. “We would! We'd put nature first again and heal the land after all the pollution and violence that you people brought here.”

“What do you mean ‘we'? The aboriginal tribes fought each other before anybody from China set foot on Taiwan.”

He pointed an accusing finger at my nose. “You people killed us on a genocidal scale! We only killed each other for specific purposes.”

“Like headhunting.”

“Damn right!”

“You couldn't hunt heads for your life, Dwayne.”

He growled and grabbed me around my waist. The guy had thirty kilograms on me, easily. He tried to spin me like a top but I managed to bring my knee up and wedge my way out. I anticipated landing on my left foot and softened the brunt of the impact by bending my knee.

“Do you two idiots have any idea,” Frankie said to his hands, “how hard it is to get a stretcher through the night market?”

“Aw, it's just our little ritual,” said Dwayne.

It was true that our improvised wrestling matches were a part of the nightly routine at Unknown Pleasures. Grappling with Dwayne was like washing my hands. I couldn't go through a night without it.

Our antics had begun at a time when the food stand wasn't doing so well. It was outdated and the deaths of my parents scared away the superstitious locals who thought they'd die or be cursed if they ate our food. Meanwhile the tourists were turned off by the “weird” food choices set by my grandfather and the off-putting menu, which was only in Chinese and Japanese.

I took charge after my father died. I didn't change the menu so much as emphasize the foreigner-friendly items. Visitors generally didn't want to eat organs on skewers but they loved offal when it was socked into a casing and grilled. I put the sausages front and center and made sure to brush them with oil regularly so they glistened. I installed hanging lamps over them expressly for this purpose. I wanted all the elements to be visible through the sausage skin—to make them look more “homemade”—so I instructed Dwayne to ease up on chopping the herbs and to use a coarser grind on the pepper. I installed a chopping block to the left of the sausages and told Frankie to stand behind it every ten minutes or so and cut up a sausage link. To the right of the sausages I installed a grill with show-off flames.