Incensed (29 page)

Wood Duck stomped his foot and leveled a wickedly crooked finger at the young man's throat. “You're a liar and a coward! How dare you try to run away from your crimes! You hold dissolute performances in my hotel and drag my name through the mud! Still you don't apologize! I only let you work here because Mr. Chang vouched for you. You've betrayed us both!”

Jimmy cupped his hands over his crotch. “But you said it was all right as long as there wasn't penetration . . .”

Wood Duck's teacup bounced off Jimmy's nose and crashed on the floor. His head reeled.

“How dare you use such coarse language in my office! In front of my guests!” thundered Wood Duck. “At least have the decency to apologize to Big Eye and his daughter!”

Jimmy put his hands together, bowed, and apologized profusely to both. When he finally raised his head, a stream of blood was flowing from his right nostril and dripping on the floor. Wood Duck stood up and rolled his eyes.

“Oh, for fuck's sake,” he said in English. He opened a cabinet door, pulled out a peach-colored bath towel and threw it to the floor. Jimmy picked it up and began to wipe his face. “No!” said Wood Duck. “Don't waste it on your face! Clean up the floor. In fact, I want you out of here now, so crawl backwards and wipe up behind you. I don't want my guests to suffer the sight of your blood or slip on all the water you dripped!”

Jimmy sat down in a daze. He was exhausted and his face had taken on a look of incredulity. The day had gone to shit in little more than an hour. If he had only let Mei-ling go. He shook his head, got down on his hands and knees and began to wipe the floor. Wood Duck stood up and barked at him.

“I'm leaving now. So wipe up after me!” Wood Duck made sure to step on each of Jimmy's calves. The old boss opened the door and looked back. “Say, Big Eye, about that other thing. No rush, but it would be nice if you could make it happen sooner.”

Big Eye straightened up but didn't stand. “I will. Thank you for everything, uncle.”

“I've been a terrible host,” Wood Duck muttered and left.

Jimmy inched backwards as he wiped the floor. It was mostly water, not too much blood. He took a disciplined approach to it, rolling the towel as a section became too wet to properly absorb. Jimmy probably was once an up-and-coming kid under Wood Duck's faction. How else would he have been allowed to operate added entertainment at the Eastern Princess?

There wasn't a doubt in my mind that Wood Duck had in fact laid down the ground rules to Jimmy, including that there would be no penetration. But Jimmy was an idiot for contradicting his boss in front of other people and causing the latter to lose face.

Reputation was all gangsters had, really. If people began to associate Wood Duck directly with sexual performances, he might be seen as a common pimp instead of a purveyor of high-end tourism and leisure. A common pimp who should be locked up.

I looked at poor Jimmy. The sneer was gone and now he seemed a decade younger. I didn't feel too badly for him. This exercise in humility may not have made Jimmy a good person, but it would give him pause for thought the next time he thought of disobeying a direct order to simply hand a girl over. In fact, why the hell didn't he just do it? It couldn't have been just for money. . .

“Mei-ling,” Jimmy whispered, his face to the floor. “Mei-ling. You're very special to me.”

She stood up, took three small steps to him and kicked him twice in the head. “Fuck you!” she yelled. Dwayne grabbed her and pulled her into the chair that Wood Duck had vacated.

Jimmy shook it off and continued his task. Big Eye rubbed the cake crumbs from his hands into the air.

“Ordinarily,” Big Eye said to the air above Jimmy, “I'd be against kicking a man when he's down, but you—you're not a man.”

Jimmy, contrary to Wood Duck's orders, stood up, opened the door and left the room.

When the door was shut, Big Eye moaned, cracked his knuckles and opened his legs wide. “That was so painful! I had to speak in Mandarin with that bastard for hours. It was like being back in school.”

There were still non-family members present, so it wasn't yet time for Mei-ling and Big Eye to have it out, but Mei-ling was in the mood to fight now. Big Eye had already let down most of his guard. “How would you know what it was like being in school, Big Eye? You hardly went!”

“I went enough to know that
you
should be in school! Do you think my kind of life is fair to women, now that you've lived it a little bit? Do you?”

Mei-ling sniffed. “It was really awful.” Big Eye closed a hand on her shoulder. “He said that he could help my singing career!”

Big Eye cleared his throat. “Could you all leave and give us some privacy for a few minutes? Everybody except for Jing-nan.”

Aw, shit.

Nancy and I shared a smile as she left. Dwayne and Frankie followed. Soon the temple door was closed again.

“Jing-nan, I don't mean to keep you apart from Nancy,” said Big Eye. “She's not family. Not yet, anyway.” He let that hang for a few seconds before turning to his daughter. “Your cousin is going to get married some day. Will you, Mei-ling? Considering everything that's happened, when you're a wife to a good man, I'll be very happy for you.”

She slouched in her seat and stiffened her legs, unconsciously assuming the exact same pose as her father. “Isn't it a little early for me to be thinking about marriage?”

“What I'm asking is, are you going to be eligible for marriage?”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

He smacked his right fist into his open palm. Both Mei-ling and I jumped. “I think you like girls!” he accused.

Mei-ling curled up in her chair in a casual position that would still allow her to deliver a kick. “What's wrong with liking girls? You sure do.”

He leaned toward her, both fists raised. “Do you want to . . . marry a girl?”

She shrugged. “I said it was too early to talk about marriage, but after I find the right girl, I will marry her.”

Big Eye clenched his teeth and punched his armrests. He screamed and rubbed his face hard like a scratch-off lottery ticket. When he dropped his hands, his eyes were more red and raw than his face but there was calm.

“It's my fault,” he said vacantly. “I didn't keep our family together. You didn't grow up seeing real, natural love between a man and a woman. That's why you're so sick.”

Mei-ling lifted her chin. “I'm not sick, Big Eye! This is who I am.”

Big Eye was beyond comforting. “I should have gotten you dolls of both sexes. You only had Barbies.”

“None of that mattered!”

“Then what's the problem? Tell Daddy!”

Daddy. Big Eye never sounded more pained.

Mei-ling shook her hands at Big Eye's face. “There is no problem! Being gay is a part of human nature and so is being loved.”

Big Eye snorted. “It's useless to talk about it,” he said to his hands. “I'll ask the city god what to do.”

“Yeah, that'll help,” said Mei-ling. “Hey, if I asked you to stop being a fucking asshole, you wouldn't be able to change because you're intrinsically a fucking asshole!”

Big Eye nodded, not hearing what she was saying. “I'm not going to let you upset me anymore,” he said. “You're young, not set in your ways yet. The important thing for now is that you're safe.” He took a final sip of tea and swished before swallowing.

Mei-ling looked at me. “Jing-nan,” she said, “I didn't think you would tell on me. When I saw Mr. Li at the show, I thought it might get back to you that I was doing all right. Why did you tell Big Eye? You said I could trust you!” I knew she wouldn't gel with Big Eye again but she was slipping away from me, too.

I straightened up and looked into her face. “Mei-ling, you were in trouble. Jimmy was exploiting you! What if you ended up dead?”

Her eyes were brimming with tears. “I'm better off being dead! I hate you, Jing-nan!” she growled. “I'll never forgive you!” My cousin leapt to her feet and stomped out of the bus.

“He's your family and he cares about you,” Big Eye mumbled after her. He turned to me and said, “You see what I have to deal with?”

I felt slightly numb. “No one's ever said they hated me before.”

Big Eye laughed. “Lots of people have said it to me and I've heard it from her plenty of times. Just wait until you and Nancy have kids.”

“Hey, Big Eye, about Nancy . . .”

“What, are you upset? C'mon, I'm just giving you shit. Hey, next week, you two come down to Taichung and have a barbecue with us for the holiday. Hell, bring Frankie and Dwayne, too. Mei-ling will be better by then, I promise. I'll find something to make her happy.”

“Wait!” I shouted. “Tell me why you brought Nancy to the hotel!”

He flicked imaginary dust from his knees. “Wood Duck thought it would be a good idea. Jimmy was acting like a dick about giving up Mei-ling. If you walked into that room alone, he might've reacted badly. Why couldn't you simply have waited in the lobby until Nancy got there?”

“One of the bellhops was going to bust me for not being a guest!”

Big Eye laughed out loud. “A bellhop! You tell him to fuck off and he'd be too scared to do anything.”

“So you and Wood Duck were planning things together this whole time. You gave me that bullshit assignment to take pictures of people.”

He leaned over to me, earnest as a guidance counselor, and said, “Have you ever thought about pursuing photography? You have some ability.”

I caught myself dismissing his words with a swipe of my right hand in the air. That was a gesture I'd picked up from Big Eye. I slid down in my chair. Now my uncle and I were slouching the same way. It was the only way to stay comfortable in these chairs.

“Are you still sore about Nancy being here?” asked Big Eye. “Come on! Everything turned out fine. I mean, who the hell could have guessed that that jerk would have a gun? Huh?”

“You lied to Nancy! You told her I was in trouble!”

Big Eye tapped his forehead. “Think about it, Jing-nan. That turned out to be the truth, didn't it?”

“We could have been killed! Nancy, me, and your daughter!”

He leaned into me, grabbed the inside thigh of my right leg and squeezed hard. “Nobody gets to hurt my family, Jing-nan. Nobody.”

I noted the lack of compassion in his eyes and recognized my own mute face in them.

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the love and support of my incredible wife, Cindy Cheung. Major interference in a good way was caused by mischievous wunderkind Walter Lin.

Thank you to my parents and in-laws for your stories and other recollections about life in Taiwan.

Kenbo Liao keeps the spirit of Formosan pirates alive.

The Yilan crew's game is strong: Will Yang and Zheng Zhu-fu are awesome.

Liang Yiping and the faculty and students of National Taiwan Normal University were gracious enough to invite me in. Thank you.

A fistful of smoking joss sticks for the amazing agent Kirby Kim.

Juliet Grames is the best case yet for proving that editors are indeed divine. The rest of the pantheon at Soho reign as well: Bronwen Hruska, Paul Oliver, Meredith Barnes, Rudy Martinez, Amara Hoshijo, Rachel Kowal.

Epigraph from
Zhuangzi: Basic Writings
, translated by Burton Watson, published by Columbia University Press.