Taipei

by Tao Lin

  “You look the same. What about me?”

  “Taller,” said Mitch seeming a little nervous.

  “How can you tell? I’m sitting.”

  “The shape of your legs, and your body, I think. Something about your bone structure.”

  After the reading Lucie, 23, introduced herself and Amy, 23, and Daniel, 25, to Paul and Mitch, saying something about her and Amy’s online magazine. Paul asked if they had business cards, not thinking they would. Amy, after encouragement from Lucie, reluctantly gave Paul a business card, seeming a little embarrassed. When Paul looked up from the business card, putting it in his back pocket, he was startled by the sudden appearance of Frederick smiling at him with his arm around Lucie in a manner that seemed calculated, but wasn’t, Paul knew, to firmly establish they were “together.” A bewildered-seeming, middle-aged woman with an Italian accent asked Paul something about agave nectar, wanting it for a diabetic friend, it seemed. Paul said he’d actually learned, a few months ago, that it raised blood sugar as intensely as sugar and that he’d mailed his mother unheated, unfiltered honey, which was the healthiest sweetener—for diabetics, or anyone—based on what he currently knew, which could be wrong, he also knew.

  In a taxi to a party, forty minutes later, Paul imagined another him walking toward the library and, for a few seconds, visualizing the position and movement of two red dots through a silhouetted, aerial view of Manhattan, felt as imaginary, as mysterious and transitory and unfindable, as the other dot. He visualized the vibrating, squiggling, looping, arcing line representing the three-dimensional movement, plotted in a cubic grid, of the dot of himself, accounting for the different speed and direction of each vessel of which he was a passenger—taxi, Earth, solar system, Milky Way, etc. Adding a fourth dimension, representing time, he visualized the patterned scribbling shooting off in one direction, with a slight wobble, miles from where it was seconds ago. He imagined his trajectory as a vacuum-sealed tube, into which he’d arrived and through which—traveling alone in the vacuum-sealed tube of his own life—he’d be suctioned and from which he’d exit, as a successful delivery to some unimaginable recipient. Realizing this was only his concrete history, his public movement through space-time from birth to death, he briefly imagined being able to click on his trajectory to access his private experience, enlarging the dot of a coordinate until it could be explored like a planet.

  At the party, which was mostly people in their 30s and 40s, Paul asked Amy an open-ended question about her parents. When she began, after a pause, to answer, he moved his phone from his pants pocket to his ear. “Hello,” he said in a clear voice, and felt physically isolated, like he was wearing a motorcycle helmet, as he peripherally observed Amy moving her wine, almost spilling it, to her mouth.

  “Just kidding,” said Paul. “No one called me.”

  Amy had a glassy, disoriented expression.

  “I don’t have a phone call,” said Paul.

  “That was good,” said Amy looking away.

  “Just kidding,” said Paul grinning weakly.

  The rest of the party, after briefly talking to Lucie, who invited him and Mitch to a party next week at her apartment, Paul talked mostly to Daniel, who had enough money from selling marijuana in San Francisco that he hadn’t had a job since moving here last autumn. Paul asked if Daniel liked drugs. Daniel said he liked “benzos” and opiates. Paul asked if he liked Rilo Kiley and he became quiet a few seconds, seeming worried, like he might not be able to answer, before saying “um, not really.”

  Paul went with Daniel, the next night, to a BBQ-themed party, where their main focus, soon after arriving, was on discerning how to leave tactfully, considering how much food they’d eaten and how little they were contributing to conversation, for a party at Kyle and Gabby’s apartment. Standing in a kitchen, at one point, while Daniel was outside smoking, Paul felt like a shark whose eyes have protectively “glossed over” during a feeding frenzy, as he mechanically ate salad, cheese, a burger, apple pie, chips while vaguely focused on not doing anything to cause others to talk to him.

  At Kyle and Gabby’s apartment—his first time back since moving out—Paul uncharacteristically approached an intriguing, attractive stranger named Laura and asked her questions with a serious expression, standing at a maybe too-close distance, as if after an unskillful teleportation he didn’t want to underscore by fixing. Laura was here with her friend Walter, who knew Gabby. Paul could see that Laura, who wasn’t looking at him, didn’t like his presence and was getting annoyed, but due to alcohol he felt unaffected by this information and kept asking questions, including her age and what college, if any, she attended, or had attended. As Laura’s annoyance intensified to a slightly curious disbelief she became extra alert—focusing exclusively on Paul with a challenging, vigilante expression. She asked why he was asking so many questions.

  “I’m not. I’m just trying to talk.”

  “Why are you interrogating me?”

  “I’m just trying to have a conversation.”

  “What college did you go to?” said Laura accusatorily.

  “New York University. How old are you?”

  Laura walked away, somewhat aimlessly, into the room Paul crawled across the first time he saw Michelle cry—around a year ago, he realized. In the room now was a king-size bed, which occupied maybe 80 percent of its surface. Paul was sitting alone, at the snack table, thirty minutes later, when Laura approached with a bored expression, unaware of his presence until he stood and said “I highly recommend the Funyuns” in an exaggeratedly helpful voice, choosing Funyuns—corn in the shape and flavor of fried rings of onion—somewhat randomly from the eight to twelve snacks on the table.

  “Oh, really?” said Laura reciprocating his tone.

  “Let me help you,” said Paul lifting the giant plastic red bowl toward Laura, who chose and bit a piece, then moved backward a little, with a playful expression, nodding and smiling, before turning around and walking away, reappearing around twenty minutes later at a near distance, moving directly, as if after a search, toward an inattentive Paul, seated in the same chair as earlier, not apparently doing anything. Before he could say anything about Funyuns, or form any thoughts, Laura had told him her full name, which she wanted him to memorize, quizzing him on it twice—crudely, functionally—before abruptly walking away.

  Around midnight an aimlessly wandering Gabby, appearing lost in her own kitchen, stopped in front of Daniel and said “you have a nose ring,” with a slightly confused expression to Daniel, who confirmed he did. Gabby, a foot and a half shorter than Daniel, stared up at him a few seconds before saying something that, Paul thought, conveyed she earnestly believed nose rings were objectively bad. She asked where Daniel was from and said “oh, that makes sense, then,” appearing visibly less tense, when Daniel said San Francisco.

  Paul, staring at Daniel’s left profile, said “I just realized you look like Hugh Jackman.”

  “He looks like Richard Tuttle,” said Gabby.

  “I don’t know who that is,” said Daniel.

  Gabby said Richard Tuttle was a famous artist. Daniel said when he was young his father only brought him to galleries and museums whenever they went anywhere. Paul heard someone say “sculptor.” Someone who didn’t know Daniel drunkenly said “he got the nose ring so people won’t think he’s Hugh Jackman” to Paul at close range. Gabby mentioned another artist Daniel didn’t know and Paul began to sometimes say “you’re too mainstream for us” in a loud, sarcastic voice while staring at Gabby—thinking that, by underscoring that he and Daniel were obviously too mainstream for her, he was sincerely complimenting her knowledge of the art world—who ignored him easily, with no indication of any awareness of his presence. When Gabby finally looked at him, seeming more confused than agitated, Paul sarcastically sustained a huge grin, which Gabby stared at blankly while appearing to be thinking, very slowly, due to alcohol, about what, if anything, she should do about what was happening. After around five seco
nds she walked away with a slight, momentary wobble. Kyle appeared around fifteen minutes later and said “leave” to Daniel, who was grinning about something else.

  “Huh?” said Daniel.

  “Leave,” said Kyle.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes,” said Kyle, and Paul realized, with a sensation of low-level epiphany, that Gabby, offended by the nose-ring encounter, must have forced Kyle to tell Daniel to leave. Paul said this aloud a few times, to seemingly no one, then asked why Kyle was “being mean.” Daniel said he would leave after he finished his drink and Kyle said “that’s fine” and walked away.

  “Jesus,” said Paul. “Gabby hates nose rings.”

  “I didn’t think she was angry when we talked,” said Daniel.

  “You’re probably benefiting this party the most out of anyone,” said Paul. “You’re standing in one place, occasionally saying something witty, causing people passing by to laugh. You’re not even eating anything.”

  “I planned to go to another party anyway,” said Daniel.

  Almost half the party, thirty minutes later, was on the wide sidewalk outside the apartment building, grinning drunk-enly or looking at one another with openly bored or neutral expressions, waiting for directions to the other party. Paul, who was grinning uncontrollably, had approached groups of acquaintances asking if they wanted to go to a different party while a cheerful-seeming Daniel, standing in place in the kitchen, sometimes assumed the role of an unruly tyrant, saying things like “get every single person” and “we aren’t leaving until you get every person.” Paul had wanted to tell Daniel he shouldn’t want so much from life but couldn’t remember the stock phrase for “don’t want too much in life” and, after a long pause, had said “you shouldn’t want so much in life.” Mitch had repeatedly held shots of tequila toward Paul, who drank two and, at one point, entered the small room where Kyle and Gabby slept and interrupted Gabby and Jeremy and Juan by asking if “anyone” wanted to go to “a different party,” aware he was unaffected, due to alcohol, by Gabby’s presence.

  Someone said it probably wasn’t a good idea to stand “in a giant mass blocking the entire sidewalk” in front of the party they’d just abandoned, and the group of twelve to fifteen people began walking in a direction, led vaguely by Daniel, who was talking into his phone. Laura slung an arm around Paul’s shoulder and said “Paul” loudly and that she was going to slap him if the party wasn’t good and asked for a cigarette. Paul said he didn’t smoke and Laura walked away. After around ten blocks Daniel moved his phone away from his head and told Paul—and three or four other people within range—that they’d walked in the wrong direction. Paul said someone needed to make an announcement because the group, which wasn’t stopping, was too large for information to spread naturally to itself. “We walked the wrong way,” shouted Mitch. “Stop walking. We walked the wrong way.”

  People scattered a little, on the sidewalk, looking at their phones, seeming confused but surprisingly calm, except Laura’s friend Walter, who was moving an unopened Red Bull Soda in arcs through the air, as if wielding it, while sometimes saying “what’s the address of the party?” to seemingly no one, with an agitated expression, then abruptly walked away, followed by Laura.

  “Wait,” said Paul, and hit her shoulder with a chopping motion while intending to touch it lightly. Laura briefly turned only her head—she was frowning—while continuing to walk away. Paul went with Daniel and Mitch to the other party, which they found after around forty minutes, when everyone else had gone home, to bars, or sheepishly back to Kyle and Gabby’s party.

  • • •

  When Paul woke, the next afternoon, Laura, 28, had already friended and messaged him on Facebook. She had a MySpace page, as an unsigned rapper, with six songs, including one whose music video, in which she rubs pizza on her face and feeds pizza to her cat, Paul remembered feeling highly amused and impressed by when he first saw it, when it had “gone viral,” to some degree, one or two years ago. In the library, that night, Paul discovered Gabby had defriended him on Facebook and was surprised that Kyle, his closest friend the past two years, except the nine months he was with Michelle, had also defriended him and that both had unfollowed him on Twitter.

  The next night, outside Taco Chulo, a Mexican restaurant in Williamsburg, Laura apologized for being late and said she’d gotten lost on the walk from her apartment, eight blocks away. Paul asked if she wanted to eat at Lodge, which had “good chicken fingers,” or Taco Chulo, as they’d previously agreed, and she seemed confused. In Taco Chulo a waiter said to sit “anywhere.” Paul watched Laura move very slowly, in a kind of exploring, it seemed, as if through darkness, to arrive at a four-person table, where once seated, with a slightly desperate expression, not looking at Paul, she focused on signaling a waiter. Paul also focused on signaling a waiter. Laura ordered a margarita, then sometimes turned her head 90 degrees, to her right, to stare outside—at the sidewalk, or the quiet street—with a self-consciously worried expression, seeming disoriented and shy in a distinct, uncommon manner indicating to Paul an underlying sensation of “total yet failing” (as opposed to most people’s “partial and successful”) effort, in terms of the social interaction but, it would often affectingly seem, also generally, in terms of existing. Paul had gradually recognized this demeanor, the past few years, as characteristic, to some degree, of every person, maybe since middle school, with whom he’d been able to form a friendship or enter a relationship (or, it sometimes seemed, earnestly interact and not feel alienated or insane). After finishing a second margarita Laura became attentive and direct, like she’d been at the party, when she had been probably very drunk, Paul realized.

  “You have a girlfriend?” said Laura, surprised.

  “No,” said Paul, confused. “Why?”

  “You said ‘my girlfriend.’ ”

  Paul said he meant “ex-girlfriend.” Laura said she’d thought he was “a Gaylord,” because at the party he’d been surrounded by males, which someone had called his “fans.” Paul said the party was “like, seventy percent males” and that he had always thought the word “Gaylord” had been invented by someone in middle school for derogatory purposes by combining “gay” and “lord.” When he showed Laura prints of his art (which, according to StatCounter, she’d already seen on one of his websites), she seemed to reflexively feign seeing them for the first time: her eyes, upon sight, became and remained slightly unfocused and she made a noise indicating she was seeing something new, but when he asked if she’d seen them before she said “yeah,” but seemed to continue feigning “no.” Paul, endeared by her extreme and complicated helplessness, took back his art and focused conversation on other topics. They agreed to leave, but continued talking for around forty-five minutes, inviting each other to parties that weekend. Paul felt a kind of panic when they realized the parties were the same night and said “I don’t know what to do” and “maybe they aren’t on the same night.” Laura said they could go to both parties—which seemed immediately obvious—and asked if Paul wanted to go to K&M, where her friend was DJ-ing. Paul carefully said he did, then went to the bathroom, thinking that for matters involving social interaction he shouldn’t trust himself, at this time, after being mostly alone for around four months.

  In K&M—empty except for the DJ, bartender, two other people—they each drank two shots of tequila and sat with glasses of beer in a booth, side by side, facing a giant screen showing Half Baked on mute with subtitles. Laura complimented Paul’s hair and level of “casualness” and, going partially under the table, held a candle toward Paul’s shoes—which from Paul’s above-table perspective felt stationary and storage-oriented as shoe boxes—asking what brand they were.

  “iPath,” said Paul.

  “I can’t see. What are these?”

  “iPath. The brand is iPath.”

  “I like them,” said Laura.

  “iPath,” said Paul quietly.

  Laura said her ex-boyfriend was in a
band and used heroin and they already stopped seeing each other, but it was “ongoing,” for example he asked her to a movie last week and she went and it was awkward. “I just wish he would disappear,” she said in a sincere-seeming manner, staring at Half Baked, which Paul saw on her right eye as four to six pixels that sometimes changed colors. Laura said she didn’t want to talk about her ex-boyfriend. Paul asked if she’d tried heroin and she said no, but liked painkillers, then nuzzled his shoulder with her head. When he said he had a headache and drugs in his room and asked if she wanted to go there, she seemed instantly distracted (as a reflexive tactic, Paul felt, to not appear too eager) and expressed indecision a few minutes, then said she also had a headache, then directly stated, more than once—in an openly and uncaringly, Paul felt with amusement, confirmation-seeking manner indicating her previous indecision was at least partly feigned—that she wanted to go to Paul’s room to ingest his drugs.

  Outside, after fifteen minutes of failing to get a taxi, they began walking purposelessly, both saying they didn’t know the correct direction to Paul’s apartment, maybe twenty blocks away. Paul’s arms felt more tired, from signaling taxis, than “in five years, maybe,” he estimated aloud. They got in a minivan taxi, which after a few minutes dropped them off near the center of a shadowy, tree-heavy intersection.

  The address was correct, according to the street sign, but Paul didn’t recognize anything, even after turning two full circles while dimly aware, in a detached manner reminding him of his drunkenness, that his behavior’s dizzying effects might be counterproductive. He heard Laura, somewhat obligatorily, he thought, say she was scared, then said he was a little scared, then in a louder voice, as if correcting himself, said he was confused. His inability to recognize anything began to feel like a failure of imagination, an inability to process information creatively. His conscious, helpless, ongoing lack of recognition—his shrinking, increasingly vague context—seemed exactly and boringly like how it would feel to die, or to have died. He felt like he was disappearing. He was aware of having said “is there another Humboldt Street, or something,” when he realized he was—already, without a feeling or memory of recognition—looking at the bronze gate, thirty to forty feet away, of the walkway to the four-story house in which, in an apartment on the second floor, he shared a bathroom and kitchen with Caroline, an administrative assistant at the New School with an MFA in poetry.