99 Ways to Die

by Ed Lin

  That was actually close to what happened. I rolled out of bed to my feet and stared out my window. A truck had just unloaded brightly colored pieces of a ready-to-assemble playground. I had no idea such kits existed.

  I stood naked in the shadows as I watched three men in hardhats, T-shirts and flip-flops pull out giant plastic tubes from the pile. The workers had wiry appearances, with darkly tanned and lanky arms and legs. Judging by how ill-equipped they were, these men were immigrant contract laborers, probably from Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam or the Philippines. The men seemed a little stiff, probably because this was their second or third job in the last twenty-four hours for the same boss. I watched them sort out the pieces with their bare hands and it reminded me how privileged I was to be a citizen of the Republic of China on Taiwan. I was wealthier than my Southeast Asian neighbors but the tradeoff was that my country didn’t officially exist in the global community. We had money but not fame, and wouldn’t we have chosen that if we could?

  These migrant workers chose to come here because it offered more money than jobs back home but with a lot more negatives. Taiwanese construction contractors and fishing boats exploited them, especially if they were undocumented or otherwise not officially allowed to work. Every few years, advocate groups for the workers agitated for better pay, equipment and training. Then the business community would push back, saying market wages were already fair, because if they weren’t, then why do these people keep coming in? Why, these people loved coming to Taiwan to work. They even paid job brokers outrageous fees to find the most menial jobs on the island.

  If Taiwanese employers were expected to spend more on salaries, stifling regulations and unnecessary safety equipment, then there’d be fewer jobs, and that certainly wasn’t in the interest of those people. In so many coded ways, however, lurked the idea that only this lower strata of society was open to working-class foreigners, and part of it was because something was wrong with their skin color.

  You’d hear about the protests for the migrant workers, then promises that bills would be passed, and then nothing. I don’t know if any legislation was ever ultimately passed because the same things seem to happen again and again. The latest outrage on behalf of labor activists was when a group of Indonesian men accused a Taiwanese fishing captain of holding them as virtual prisoners while at sea by working them for long hours and withholding food. One man had even died and was buried at sea, a move that was apparently legal.

  I don’t visit nursing homes, farms or factories. Construction sites are blocked from public view and fishing vessels are out to sea. I haven’t actually seen migrants at work until now. I could tell they were exhausted but they pressed on.

  Nancy’s pale arms and legs writhed on the bed and she held a pillow to one ear while pressing the other against the wall.

  “Ugh, so loud!” she moaned. “How am I supposed to sleep through this?”

  I took a seat on the bed. “They’re finally building a playground there. You know, so our kids will have some place to play.”

  Nancy slammed the pillow against my head. Then she reached down and swung one of her house slippers at my face. She wasn’t fully awake but I was barely able to duck the assault.

  “Hey, now! I’m only joking.”

  “Don’t talk about children in the morning. That’s not a casual subject for me!”

  “All right. I’ll wait until lunch.” The other slipper glanced off my chest. “Oh, wait, you’re still mad at me for making fun of Ah-tien for so long.”

  Nancy sprung herself off the mattress to come face-to-face with me. “Thanks for reminding me!”

  I put my hand on my heart. “I told you, I’m letting go of my negative feelings about him.” Yet I couldn’t help but add, “He took advantage of you.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and heaved the bony ends of her elbows at me. “I’m going to say this again, Jing-nan. We got what we needed from each other. Without him, I would have been screwed.” I thought of a wise remark right then but I exercised enough self-control to merely nod. “I never loved him, he never loved me and what we had is over and has been for a long time now, all right?”

  I shifted on the mattress, making us both wobble slightly. “Did you ever visit him in jail?” I asked.

  “No. Why would I?”

  “Have you written to him?”

  “No way.” Nancy scratched her right ear. “He said that if he was ever arrested I should cut off all contact with him, otherwise I would get dragged into the news stories.”

  “I’m glad you weren’t all over the news. You could have been made infamous.”

  She shrugged. “I was scared at first, when he was taken away from his office in handcuffs, but nothing happened to me. No reporters or lawyers ever called.”

  I grabbed her hip and pulled her to my side. “I’m glad you didn’t have to live in the spotlight.”

  A new horrible sound came from the park. A cement truck was noisily lurching to the playground. Was the driver new at this or was the vehicle on its last legs? I turned to Nancy and swept the hair behind her ears.

  “I have to get going,” I said. “Visiting hours start at seven-thirty.” I picked up yesterday’s boxers from the floor and shimmied into yesterday’s pants.

  “You’re not going to shower or put on clean clothes?” Nancy asked.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t need to clean up to go to jail. I need to look as rough and dirty as possible!”

  It may have been a mistake not to. The visitor’s office was clean enough to withstand a health inspection. The walls gleamed like well-brushed and flossed teeth. Even the black floor tiles shone like the surface of an unplayed vinyl record.

  I walked with some trepidation up to the counter. I tried to smooth out my hair, which was now permed in the shape of the inside of my safety helmet. Luckily I only had about three people in line in front of me.

  As I bided my time, I scrolled through the news on my phone. There were stories about the video accompanied with enlarged screenshots of Tong-tong and his fellow captive, who was identified only as an executive at the Lee family’s holding company. The gun was indeed a military issue. Dwayne had been right about that.

  In order to really help Tong-tong, I decided to review a little more about Ah-tien, and there was plenty to read. His case had inspired many hand-wringing editorials in Taiwan’s leading and lesser media outlets that I had been completely unaware of. The only people who really keep up on business news are the ones who expected to read glowing things about themselves and their companies.

  “How far has Taiwan’s democracy backslid to allow such brazen corruption?” howled one editorial. “We are teaching our children that cheating is acceptable!” declared another. A third cried out, “Taiwan’s global reputation will suffer!” I seriously doubted that it had. Most people in the world think we’re “Thailand,” anyway.

  Seeing older pictures of Ah-tien made me realize how badly he had aged in the last two years. Or maybe he no longer had access to hair dye and skin lotion. Ah-tien had pled innocent and stuck to it, but a placard can only hold up for so long in a country with a nearly 100 percent conviction rate.

  It didn’t help that his lawyer, in what everybody agreed was a terrible misstep, never allowed his client to testify before the court. Ah-tien’s only comments were in the form of quickly stifled courtroom outbursts that the jury was told to disregard. When he was found guilty, Ah-tien became so disruptive he was dragged out of the courtroom on his stomach. He banged his handcuffs on the floor so hard that his wife later had to pay for the tiles to be replaced.

  I had advanced in the line and now only one person stood between me and my favorite prisoner. Ms. Chen, the woman behind the desk, was about forty and had no soul inside. She was sipping tea from a glass bottle to fill the void.

  “You can’t bring that in,” Ms. Chen told th
e woman in front of me, pointing to a box in her hands. The woman was here to visit her son.

  “Why not? You allow cakes.” I could feel her heart speed up.

  Ms. Chen tapped her pen against her desktop with joy. “You could be concealing something in it. You’ll have to celebrate his birthday with a hug, not a cake.”

  “Can’t you x-ray it to check that there’s nothing in it?”

  “No. In fact, I’ll say that your son has been gaining weight, so cake isn’t good for him at this point. I’m sorry you’ve brought it all this way.”

  The woman stepped aside and heaved the box into a garbage can. “There,” she huffed. “Are you happy now, you hussy?”

  “No, I’m not,” said Ms. Chen, “but you should be because you can visit your son now.” A door buzzed and the woman hurled herself through it.

  I stepped up confidently to Ms. Chen. “Hello, officer,” I said. I placed my national identity card on the desk. She glanced at it before turning her checked-out gaze to my face. “We’re both Chens, so you should be nice to me in case we’re related.”

  “There are too many Chens in this world,” she snapped. “Now, who are you here to visit?”

  “I’m here for Wu Ah-tien. He’s a class-three inmate.”

  I thought I saw a distant shooting star in her infinitely black eyes. She picked up her phone and although there wasn’t a glass shield between us, I couldn’t pick out a word in the stream of her tense whispers.

  Ms. Chen put down the phone and stood up, smoothing out imaginary wrinkles on her dress. “Please excuse me. Someone else will help you soon.”

  The lock buzzed. She shoved the door open with far more force than was necessary and left the room. I became conscious that no one was behind me in line and I was alone in the room. I guess I had come at the end of rush hour for visiting.

  The door through which Ms. Chen had exited now opened haltingly as a man awkwardly pushed his way through it. His arms were overburdened.

  I crossed a white line on the floor on my way to help him out.

  “Get back and stay at that desk,” he said firmly, before adding a menacing, “Please.”

  I walked back my steps and watched him extricate himself fully from the door. He was an average-sized man, about fifty or so. His off-center nose and lumpy forehead indicated that he had been a boxer or street fighter who enjoyed repeat bouts. The man dumped five three-ring binders on the desk. “Sorry,” he said in an accusing tone as he took a seat. “I didn’t want to take a chance that you were going to rush the door. That would be a very bad thing.”

  I put my hands in my pockets. “I am not a guy who does bad things. Who would rush to break into jail, anyway?” I asked.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Some people want to come in and attack the inmates. Some want to sneak in drugs.” He paused to look me in the eyes and search my thoughts for certain keywords. “I’ve seen it all.”

  I nodded and pointed at the desk. “That’s very interesting to hear. Well, that is my national identity card right there. You’ll see that everything’s in order.”

  He leaned over and narrowed his eyes. “Why do you want to visit Ah-tien, Mr. Chen Jing-nan? You’re not related to him, are you?”

  “That’s true, I’m not.”

  “I don’t remember you coming to visit before. Why are you coming here now? Do you even personally know Ah-tien?”

  I hadn’t expected being questioned. I thought my visit was simply going to be some procedural rubber stamp sort of thing. “I know people who know him,” I offered like an idiot. His nostrils flared. I had said the wrong thing. Well, saying anything to him except “Thank you and goodbye, sir,” would be wrong in his eyes.

  He flicked up my ID card with his fingernails and palmed it in his right hand. His left hand pointed an accusing finger at me.

  “I know what you’re up to. You’re writing a book about him, aren’t you?”

  I almost laughed in his face. Me? Write a book? I didn’t even read books! “No, you’ve got me all wrong. I swear.”

  He tore open one of the notebooks and began copying the information on my card. “Ah-tien hasn’t had a visitor in a few months. He used to be on every website. People he didn’t know were signing up to visit him. But Ah-tien’s not so hot anymore. Now his wife shows up on his birthday but not for New Year’s or Double Ninth.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you visiting him for Double Ninth?”

  I kept still and quiet, refusing to give him a reaction apart from a simple, “No.”

  The man twisted his lips. “You’re not allowed to bring in any writing instruments, Mr. Chen. You’re not allowed to give him anything or receive anything. You will be monitored on camera the entire time. This camera does not record audio. However, we do have a few staff members who can read lips.” He tossed my national identity card at my neck and I snatched it out of midair before the market closed. “Oh, and no physical contact is allowed, no matter how tempted you may be to give him a big sweetheart hug.”

  I’m guessing this guy wasn’t supportive of marriage equality.

  “Sir,” I said, “I didn’t get your name.”

  “It’s Wang. You know, as in royalty.” Although the surname literally meant “king,” it was a common one. There might be a metaphor in there.

  I tapped my ID back into a wallet slot.

  “Are you ready?” Wang asked me.

  “I’m ready.”

  He buzzed me through the door. When I made my way inside, a lanky string bean in uniform guided me down the hall to a windowless meeting room. Inside were a desk and two chairs, all made of polished aluminum. He directed me to sit in one of them and left. A camera squatted in the far corner near the ceiling. The air was a little cold so I rubbed my hands and knees. Then I thought about Ah-tien and I felt warmer.

  Was I jealous of the shared history of him and Nancy? I really shouldn’t be. Was I mad at him for being married and having a mistress? Yeah, I was mad about that. I guess I was angry in general at the whole convention of rich old men doing whatever they wanted.

  I stood up and began to pace the room. Man, I could just punch that guy in the face. I wondered how many I could get in before the guards grabbed me. Then I’d be in a fix. It would feel so great to hit him but the price to pay would be steep. I’d probably be convicted of assault and with the camera right there, I couldn’t say he started it. I’d end up losing my business and maybe Nancy, too.

  Not to mention Tong-tong. Shit, I need to get a hold of myself. I swung my fist a few times to get the aggression out of my system. I stretched my arms to the ceiling and wiggled my fingers.

  A few minutes later, the infamous Ah-tien was led in by a solid-looking man who undoubtedly had aboriginal blood.

  “Please sit down,” the officer said softly to me. “You have ten minutes for this meeting. If you want to come out earlier, knock on the door.”

  I sat down and said, “Thank you.”

  When the door was shut and locked, I focused on Ah-tien. He wasn’t a big man. He wasn’t even an average-sized man. He’d once been a high-ranking corporate executive, but his time in jail had sapped calcium from his bones. His posture was now indistinguishable from any other hapless office worker with a heart full of ashes of dreams that had been incinerated like so much joss paper.

  He caressed the knobs of his right wrist. “Young man,” he said, “why did you want to see me? You’re Chen Jing-nan, right? We don’t know each other, do we?” His voice was searching and not devoid of hope. It seemed a little too high to be a man’s.

  I made sure both of my feet were flat on the floor and braced myself by grabbing the edge of the desk with both hands. “Well, sir, thank you for seeing me, a complete stranger.” I managed to keep my voice even. “I’m not sure what sort of access you have to media in here, but have you heard about Tong-tong?”

 
His mouth twitched. “I saw on the lounge TV that he’d been kidnapped. They want a chip design for his ransom.”

  I stretched my right leg until that foot was slightly behind me. “I was told that you have that design, sir.”

  Ah-tien tilted his head. “I don’t have it with me in here, that’s for sure.”

  “Maybe you can tell me where it is. Maybe you’ve stored it in the cloud somewhere?”

  He leaned back and I heard some of his joints crack. “You can’t trust the cloud with something like that,” he said, shaking his head. “Nothing’s really safe there. All it takes is one disgruntled employee to penetrate the security layer. So many companies outsource now to save money. Some of them use contractors they don’t fully vet. That was how Edward Snowden got his foot in.”

  “I’ve heard the name, but I don’t know exactly what Snowden did,” I said.

  Ah-tien sucked in his cheeks. “You don’t know anything about computers, do you? Are you a member of the Lee family?”

  “I’m a family friend. I’m here to see if you could help Tong-tong.”

  A change came over Ah-tien’s face and he seemed to gain confidence. “So the family sent you, huh? They didn’t want to send their lawyers because that would raise too many red flags in the system. I’ll bet the cops told you to come see me, right?”

  I didn’t like the defiant tone to his voice. I preferred the beaten-down old man. He was becoming aware of the power he wielded over me.

  “If you want to put it that way, Ah-tien, you can. I’m just trying to save a man’s life.”

  He slapped an open palm against his own thigh. “Nobody saved me! Nobody even bothered to scratch their ass to even help!” He folded his hands on the table into an angry pile of dried knuckles. “Why am I in jail?”

  I had to stifle a laugh. “Ah-tien, you were convicted of bribery of a government official. That’s why.”

  He let out a deep sigh. “I was the pencil,” he said. “The fall guy! I had nothing to do with government contracts! I was an engineer before they moved me up to management. Look at me! Do you think they’d send a guy like me around to schmooze with officials and sell our laptops? I don’t know how to socialize and show people a good time.”