by Ed Lin
“Sorry, Jing-nan,” said Whistle. “I can’t control shitty drivers on the highway. Please forgive me for waking you up.”
“I forgive you,” I said.
I rolled back into a sleep that was as dreamless and grey as a Taipei afternoon sky.
When I woke up again our wheels were churning along a dirt road. Through the windshield I saw tall reeds on both sides stream by.
“You ever see sugarcane up close, city boy?” asked Whistle. Gao made a short grunt that suggested a small measure of amusement.
“Why are we in a sugarcane field?” I asked.
“You’ll see, Jing-nan,” said Whistle. Gao grunted again.
Ah, they were going to kill me after all and dump my body here. No one would ever find me in the field, at least until the next harvest.
I yanked my door handle. It thumped like a bad knee and didn’t do anything else.
“Hey, calm down there!” called Whistle. “What are you trying to do? Hurt yourself? We’re almost there.”
“I could call the police!” I hissed. “They might not get here on time, but you two won’t get away clean if you kill me!”
Gao roared with laughter, a big baritone sax blaring into a microphone. Whistle’s eyes looked at me sharply in the rearview mirror.
“We’re not going to kill you, Jing-nan,” he said. “And the cops are already here.”
Our bodies were tossed around as the SUV galloped over two ditches. After a turn the sugarcane rows opened up, revealing what looked like a sprawling campsite with six large tents in the middle of the field. What the hell was this? A circus?
We pulled up next to the smallest tent and parked.
“Let’s stretch our legs, shall we?” said Whistle. I saw Gao reach down under his seat for his gun and slide it under his left armpit.
I opened my now-unlocked door and was assaulted by the sound of chugging generators. The predawn air was warm and sticky. A ghostly blue mist from the setting moon mixed with the exhaust fumes and pancake-syrup smell of raw sugarcane. I stepped on some felled stalks, which were segmented like bamboo. I felt some give under my foot and remembered chewing fresh sugarcane, feeling the juice run over my tongue as I crushed the soft pulp. I used to love destroying my teeth with it when I was young, before I discovered chocolate. Still, on a hot and humid day, there’s nothing better than a frothy cup of green sugarcane juice from iced stalks cranked through a cast-iron press. I was tempted to pull down a stalk to gnaw on. I wasn’t a kid anymore, though, and I wanted to present myself as a man to my uncle.
Would I recognize him?
Gao pulled up a flap on a tent and evaluated the situation, his dead eyes revealing nothing. He then gave Whistle the smallest nod and headed in.
“Your uncle’s gonna be excited to see you,” said Whistle. He lifted the flap and cocked his head at the entrance. I rubbed my hands on my pants and stepped in.
This was the mahjongg tent. Above the din of voices I could hear the loud clicking sounds of ivory tiles. There were thirty tables packed tightly together. Most of the patrons were men, in every manner of dress ranging from sharkskin suits to worn-thin tank tops and shorts. The women were generally dressed better than the men and seemed to be the more serious players. Everybody was smoking, as if it were an admission requirement. Two upward-blowing fans were propped up on ladders, pointed at side vents. Tripod-mounted LED lamps, bright enough for a surgeon to operate by, cut through the smoke columns.
I followed Whistle to a table all the way in the back. It was only slightly set apart from the other tables, but it was a world away. While nearly everybody else playing was boisterous and happy, the four men in black suits and white shirts at this table were stoic and grim. Their hands only moved during their turn. The smoke trails from their cigarettes dangled in the air.
My uncle hadn’t aged a day but he was dressed better than I remembered. Upon recognizing him, I felt elated and concerned. He was hunched over his tiles, a hand clamping the base of a cognac tumbler to the table. The man didn’t seem to notice my arrival, but within two seconds he stood up and held his hands together in a begging gesture to the other players.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll forgive me, my troubled young nephew has arrived,” he said in Mandarin to the other three men. “I have to attend to him now, but I hope to see all of you soon, my brothers, hopefully under circumstances that are more fortuitous for you.” My uncle bowed. The three glares, heavy as loaded railcars, that were fixed on my uncle switched over to me. I was on the spot, so instinct kicked in and I bowed.
The oldest man, probably in his sixties, nodded and took out his cigarette. He blew out smoke and said nothing. Whistle walked away and my uncle followed.
“Hey, why—” I began to say.
“Shut the fuck up until we’re in the car,” my uncle muttered in Taiwanese and roughly pulled me along by my elbow.
We had only just exited the tent before we heard a commotion behind us. We stopped and turned around and beheld a man with a white beard that flowed over his simple farmer shirt. His slacks were rolled up to the knees, exposing unusually muscular calves and Japanese geta on his feet. He was of average height but his entourage of younger, bigger, and meaner men accorded him an unusual amount of personal space, as if he were radioactive.
“Big Eye,” his voice boomed in menace-laden Mandarin. “Are you leaving my hospitality so soon?”
My uncle stretched his neck and gave a shit-eating grin. “I’m so sorry, Wood Duck,” he said. “I have a bit of an emergency. A family issue. My young nephew has come down from Taipei and he needs my help most urgently.”
Wood Duck stared at my face hard. I couldn’t help but twitch.
“He looks fine to me.”
Big Eye stammered. “He has dysfunction of his private parts. I have special tea to help him.”
Wood Duck reached into the folds of his shirt and withdrew a small pistol. “You’ve been lucky over the last two days, Big Eye,” he said casually. “Very lucky.” The pistol lay sideways in his hand as if it were taking a nap. It was pointed at nobody and everybody.
“Yes, Wood Duck.”
“Maybe we can have just one last bet before you leave. Double or nothing. What do you say?”
“Of course, Wood Duck. I would never deny you. One more game.”
Big Eye began to walk back to the tent, but the old man held up his empty hand. “We’re not going to bet on cards, Big Eye. It’s my right-hand man against yours. Sima against Gao!”
The man named Sima presented himself. He was the same size and build as Gao but his suit was tailored better. The insects in the surrounding field went silent.
Wood Duck reached into his shirt again and withdrew a second pistol.
“Gan,” Whistle swore under his breath.
“A duel, Wood Duck?” Big Eye asked cautiously. “Is that what you want?”
Wood Duck laughed out loud. “No!” he said. “I want a skills competition!”
Two young men in black T-shirts, low-ranking members of Wood Duck’s clique, carried out two donut-shaped glass decanters, each with a hole in the center. I thought pieces like that only existed in liquor ads. Wood Duck watched the men pour bottles of red wine into the decanters and nodded. “Gao!” Wood Duck called. “Your choice. You’re the visitor.”
Gao walked up to Wood Duck without glancing at Big Eye. He looked over the two pistols in Wood Duck’s open hands, picked up both and weighed them. He stuck with the one that had been in Wood Duck’s left hand and replaced the other one. Wood Duck nodded and tossed the other pistol to Sima, who caught it nonchalantly in one hand.
Two women in long sparkly dresses came forth, each holding small red apples. They walked up to the two flunkies and plugged the fruit into the decanters’ holes. The women slinked off to the side and lit cigarettes for each other.
Wood Duc
k jerked his head to a bare table that was about fifty yards away. It had probably been used to burn incense and fake money to the field gods before the gambling got underway. The decanter bearers fast-walked the fifty yards and set down the vessels side by side on the table. Wood Duck slyly produced a string of Buddhist beads and with his left hand began to count off the 108 afflictions of the material world. Big Eye registered the action. It was a tell that the old man was nervous.
“Since Gao picked the pistol,” Wood Duck declared, “Sima gets the first shot. If he hits the apple and Gao hits the decanter, then Big Eye loses all his winnings. If Sima misses and Gao hits his target, Big Eye can leave with his money doubled. But if they both hit the apple, then Big Eye has to stay another night—for the sake of restoring his luck!”
There was one more possible outcome. All my years of preparing to study in America, a country where everybody was expected to speak out against the teacher, forced me to ask a question.
“What if they both hit their decanters?” I challenged.
Everybody, even the indifferent smoking women and the stoic flunkies, turned and stared at me.
Wood Duck expressed his extreme displeasure by laughing hysterically and clapping. The Buddhist beads rattled a warning. “Who is this little boy?” he exclaimed. “Of course he’s from up north! Taipei people don’t understand the courtesies of country folk.” He pried his lips back, showed his teeth and rubbed his cheek as if I’d slapped him. “If both of them miss—which is almost impossible—then we’ll have a second round! Happy now, little boy?”
I nodded. I felt Big Eye’s stare sticking me with poisoned thorns.
“Now! Sima! Stand right here!” Wood Duck pointed with his right hand to a circular spot where something had been burned. His left thumb clacked away at the beads.
He should be nervous. Wood Duck stood to lose a lot of money, but more importantly, his reputation was on the line. If he lost, how could he live this episode down? There had to be at least two hundred people here.
Wood Duck had partially protected himself by having a proxy take the shot. If Sima won, people would remember tonight as Wood Duck’s triumph. If Sima missed, people would primarily remember that fucking loser Sima.
Sima threw his head back and shook his hair like he was about to launch into a guitar solo. He raised his right arm and fired. There was deafening silence.
“You idiot!” yelled Wood Duck. “You didn’t even hit the decanter!”
“It’s a hard shot,” Sima said to his left armpit as he bowed out.
Gao didn’t wait to be cued. He stepped to exactly where Sima had stood and held his pistol at waist level in his right hand. The man kept his eyes on his decanter, his left hand caressing the gun.
His swung up his right arm and fired twice. Two soft punching sounds came back. Nobody moved or said anything. Except for Whistle.
“I’ll go start the car, get the AC going,” he said, walking away briskly.
“Impossible!” yelled Wood Duck. He twitched his head at the taller of the two flunkies. The man ran out to the table and returned with two cored apples. Wood Duck grabbed them and stared at them hard, willing those bullet holes to close up.
“Wood Duck,” Big Eye said, “let’s put my additional winnings in the books. We can settle up later.” He said to Gao softly, “Nice.” Gao blinked.
Big Eye and Gao stepped away. I lingered, looking at Wood Duck and Sima. The slinking women had already disappeared and the other people in the clique were quickly falling away like Antarctic ice shelves in the face of global warming. Why did I stay? I liked watching losers. I have empathy these days.
Sima stood with his head bowed. Wood Duck crushed the apple in his right hand and mashed the applesauce all over Sima’s face.
“Open your mouth!” Wood Duck ordered. Sima complied and Wood Duck tucked the other apple between Sima’s teeth. “Stay like that until I come for you!” Wood Duck flapped his hands clean and headed back into the tent.
Chapter Three
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.