Pink Mountain on Locust Island

by Jamie Marina Lau

  In here it’s a greasy intergalactic mission. The walls are white with nothing on them, and Yuya is holding up side-by-side two photographs from runway catalogues. She asks me without looking up which one I prefer. I point to the one with the big red flare pants. I tap her on the shoulder and whisper if God asked her personally not to talk.

  Yuya holds up the next two photographs. I point to the one with the white jumpsuit and a big yellow headpiece. The model is from Spain. I ask Yuya again if God asked her not to talk. This time she presses her palm against my mouth. It tastes like salt. She tells me okay, and she tells me to shut up. She holds me against her bed frame, leans in close, says that I can’t tell anyone. I nod quickly. Yuya breathes in deep and says okay, and sighs, and tells me that her ma has powers to talk to the Spirit. She’s whispering. Her words trip over themselves.

  You can’t tell anyone.

  She takes her palm off my mouth. Her eyes are glossy black coils. She wipes chocolate away from around her mouth using the inside of her wrist.

  JOB

  Honey rehearses in the living room the next morning, screaming at the television: It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you! It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you! It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you! It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you! It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you! It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you! It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you! Her face is pressed against the screen.

  A country pop star on the early-morning show with a guitar, next to him a barista with a fedora slapping a tambourine, making the tambourine palpitate.

  An hour later, Yuya and me eating rice for breakfast in front of the television watching CatDog. Honey is wrapping a wholegrain sandwich for the father’s lunch. When she isn’t screeching she has a voice like plump cushions. She asks Yuya’s father if he wants seed mustard or normal mustard.

  When Yuya’s father leaves for work and Yuya’s in the shower, I am quiet at the circle table. Honey is spitting out cherry pips into a tissue, red pulp between her front two teeth.

  I whisper to Honey across the table: Honey, excuse me, could I ask you something?

  Yuya’s shower is on full blast.

  HERMENEUTICS

  All during Yuya’s twenty-minute shower, I devise a recipe to consider. Honey listens as I tell her about Santa Coy throwing paints in the living room and Dad asking me to get the washcloth and telling me hurry up, to stop standing around—that there’s art to be made, that this is a no-standing area. You can never tell what’s on Honey’s brain because when she’s not screaming, her only expression is a stiff smile. You can tell she was beautiful once but her face has lopsided a little in various slumps. She sits and thinks for a long time and then looks at me funny. She tells me she might be able to figure something out, to do something to help my situation. She puts a long red fingernail to her lips and says that it’s not that simple.

  I tell her, I know how you have powers; special gifts.

  She tells me then about how someone named Reverend Bugsy took her gifts away because of his jealousy. She says that if I help her out, then she might help me out, and to call her on her business number if I decide we should help each other.

  A cold sun today. I’m wearing yesterday’s clothes and one of Yuya’s beanies. She fixed it on my head and told me I can come by anytime, but that I must remember not to talk during dinner.

  STRING INSTRUMENTS

  Our lounge room is Santa Coy, a slimy fish across one brown couch, and Dad, a grumpy strap of leather on the other. There is no more politeness about smoking in here, or television etiquettes. The TV plays only infomercials. I change it to the jazz station and it’s pan flute and orchestration.

  I sit on the floor with a box of cornflakes and watch the radio station logo rebounding off the screen’s edges. No one’s listening but still I ask: when was the last time you considered the fact that you are not kings of the world?

  ITALIAN FOOD

  I’m here on this website about the most popular Italian dishes for dinner parties in autumn. I’ve asked my dad if I can cook when his art colleagues come over. They’re visiting because he’s now becoming successful. It’s good, this is working—something I heard him say to Santa Coy.

  He’s asked my sister to cook instead. But I’m a chef and no one can stop me.

  My big sister is wearing an apron when I open the front door. She tells me: I think it’s good Dad’s seeing his friends again. Her husband is a red fluster behind her, carrying a slow cooker and the slow cooker recipe book on top.

  I’ve spent the last nine hours memorising an Italian recipe so that I can tell her that I don’t need a recipe book. I tell her that it’s all in here like a real chef. I point to my brain.

  My big sister sets up her slow cooker, an aluminium mammoth, where the toaster’s supposed to go. I tell her a real chef doesn’t need a slow cooker.

  My sister’s best friend is this slow cooker.

  She wipes it down before beginning. I sit on top of the bench until Dad comes out from his shower, his greying beard half shaved off. My sister tells him that he looks great. He ignores her and points at me, swiping his finger in downwards motions.

  Sitting on the bench is dangerous, get off, he orders.

  At five o’clock my sister is on her phone, waiting for the slow cooker to do all the work.

  I tell her: real chefs are at their work stations the whole time.

  I drop spaghetti inside a big pot of cold water and put it on the stove to cook. Squelching between my palms is a hoard of tomatoes, and one is rotten—but gets mashed together with the others in a big bowl so you can’t tell. I sprinkle in some herbs from the cupboard. There is no beef mince so it’ll be the fish scraps that my sister was supposed to cook but didn’t because she forgot to bring white wine. I cut the fish into little lumps and cook them in a pan in layers of chunky onion.

  I say: real chefs improvise. But I’m not even talking to my big sister anymore. She’s started watching MTV. Her husband keeps peering through the glass lid of the slow cooker with his hands behind his back. He’s wearing a polo shirt.

  My fish lumps are white with golden edges. I pour the mashed tomatoes in and start to chop up an eggplant I found at the bottom of our vegetable drawer. I soak the eggplant in boiling water and pat it dry and tip it into the pan as well. I reel the flame down and turn around.

  Inside my big sister’s slow cooker is a brown swamp.

  I whisper that real chefs use all different kinds of colours.

  My sister yanks herself around: what did you say?

  I say it again: real chefs use all different kinds of colours. Because, in a way, chefs are like artists.

  She grunts.

  I tell her: cooks are artists too and so this is why they make colourful meals.

  She says that not all art has to be colourful. I tighten my big black leather belt and tug my red boob top down and say, I’m not just talking about physical colour. My sister turns back to MTV. This feels like a speeding train is about to drive through the wall.

  My sister scoops her brown muck out of the cooker into a big bowl and drops a big serving spoon into it. I ladle mine out into individual servings. My sister says that mine looks nice. I look at hers and tighten my lips and say thanks.

  My sister’s husband comes over the counter. He asks me if I was supposed to cook today. He serves himself a bowl of his wife’s food across the counter top and stares at me until he realises I’m not going to answer him. He murmurs to his wife: it’s still a bit cold.

  I take my spaghetti to the table first. My big sister stands at the counter, stirring.

  I say: I guess it’s true, that slow cookers r
eally are slow.

  Three of them arrive together, knocking on our door. They’re all wearing black-and-white clothes. Two men and one woman. Dad hugs them and kisses each of them on both cheeks. One of the men asks him if he’s lost weight. This man has a bald patch in his beard. Everybody laughs.

  When men get to a certain age they start to lose hair because the testosterone gets converted into something that makes their hair weaker and also because this man probably has a lot of receptors in his chin.

  The woman asks how long Dad’s been staying here for, that she doesn’t remember this place. He says we moved here when my mother went away. He doesn’t introduce his colleagues to me or my big sister or her husband, who is still eating cold muck, sitting on a chair in the corner. Instead Dad says that Santa’s not here yet, but he’ll be around shortly.

  When Santa Coy shows up, he’s with a duffel bag over one shoulder and a bright red scrunchy windbreaker. He tells everyone he’s sorry he’s late. He calls everybody ‘folks’.

  They’re a closed pentagon around the table. I slop another ladle of pasta into a bowl and put it in front of Santa Coy. He nods at me, pulps his lips until it’s a smile. Looks embarrassed.

  My sister looks at Dad as I stand behind the man with lots of receptors in his chin and wait for them to start eating. Dad asks my sister if she cooked this. My big sister looks at me and tells him that I did. He says to me that he thought he told me that I wasn’t cooking. His mouth is a tilted line. I tell him that I’m a better chef. My sister’s husband scoops himself a bit of my pasta into a bowl and tries it.

  No you’re not, he says.

  I ignore this polo-shirt leprechaun. Instead my eyes are fastened on Dad and Santa Coy. Santa Coy is eating my pasta.

  My big sister ignores all of us and watches MTV.

  The other male colleague points at Dad and chuckles. He resolves: your family must love you very much if they’re all fighting to cook for you!

  Dad forks a slither of pasta. He puts it in his mouth and lets it slink down his throat.

  It’s alright, he says. But alright is not good enough. This is why your sister should have cooked.

  He puts his fork down, gets up and looks through all the cupboards. He leaves them open because he’s unable to close them without slamming them. He grabs the salt, cheese from the fridge, and a small knife, and slices thin slates of cheese over his plate. He passes it to the next colleague. He laughs and passes the cheese and knife and salt to his colleagues, telling them they’ll need it. Everybody laughs.

  Nobody takes notice of me again except for when the woman colleague looks up at me and smiles a little. I like fish, she says.

  After the three colleagues leave, Santa Coy and my big sister watch a trivia game show. Dad asks the polo shirt to wash the dishes and he obeys.

  Santa Coy calls over to my dad: that went pretty nicely. Dad’s face softens as he switches to the animal channel.

  On television, it’s a black bear.

  Dad and Santa Coy have endless conversation in low growls: say things like how they’re cutting it very fine for the budget, that they can’t continue to use good quality paints. They could probably get away with scanning and reprinting the paintings they already have, what with the authenticity of the designs, no one could pick it. They could still charge the same amount. That nobody’s going to notice if they quickly paint over the top of the prints, just a little. Layering in different mediums, that this will look even more immaculate. Need the money quicker if they want to keep doing this. Oil paints are so much money on their own, and yes acrylic doesn’t look as good, but really they have to start experimenting with more ranges of colours because if they want to keep their customers up, they’ll soon be wanting more colours.

  I interrupt. I tell them: art doesn’t necessarily need to be colourful.

  They ignore me and keep talking.

  They not only need the money quicker, but also in larger chunks, in fat portions. Dad starts to make a baked bean sandwich. He swears when he notices the cheese is finished.

  I interrupt again and say: I can get a job. Nobody looks at me.

  Dad stares at Santa Coy smoking a paper rolled.

  Black bears are usually born during hibernation. If a cub dies, the mother will wait the whole year before reproducing again.

  NAIWONG BAO

  Downstairs I buy a warm white bun with yellow slime in the centre oozing like yolk.

  The old man recognises me and gives me another one on the house because it’s closing time. I sit on a table covered with white shiny paper and a jungle of small chicken bones on it. He tells me he’s closing in ten minutes. He wears a Reebok cap.

  Outside it’s starting to spit a little. I ask the man if he thinks I could own a restaurant one day. He mutters: school first. He uses long tongs to pull buns out of the display case and into plastic containers. I tell him I played a beggar in a school play once. He smiles with teeth and tells me he played a Chinese emperor when he was in school. I ask him if he had very many lines. He asks what I mean by lines. I say that I mean things to say on stage, from a script. He says he didn’t, because emperors don’t waste their voices. I tell him that I wish I was an emperor. He tells me there had been a girl emperor, her name was Wu Zetian, and she was very good at ruling China because she asked only the most talented people to help her. That she made it important to be educated. And that to get to the throne, she eliminated and murdered anyone in her way of becoming emperor.

  The old man lets me finish my buns before I leave. He closes up and I stand with him on the street while he smokes a menthol cigarette.

  Outside our neighbour’s flat I hover and watch Outlaw Star for a bit. It’s a Western space opera, and plays at weird hours. I’ve seen this episode before. Reds and blues, mad grins, shallow smirks. When it finishes I wait in the corridor for another half an hour just reading a pamphlet about Shanghai cuisine. Eventually I hear Santa Coy shuffle out of our apartment, going home with paint markings all over him. Dad’s fallen asleep.

  BLACK BEAR

  We’re sitting in Santa Coy’s parents’ shiny black Rover Defender with a pile of empty canvases in the back seat. It’s a round slimy silence in here.

  Santa Coy wears a bandana over his face so that the fumes don’t intoxicate his throat. He tightens it while we drive.

  Hands on the wheel, I remind him. Dad looks at me.

  The printing store is a big warehouse that smells like cheap shampoo. The men here are tattooed up their arms, and they don’t look at me once. Playing Raekwon.

  Everybody here talks in wily snarls. I’m sitting on top of a drying machine and watching silent music videos on a TV. Girls are warping their puckered lips at the camera with big slick eyes and bangled arms.

  Eventually they seat me at a table eating bowls of cornflakes with some other men. Santa Coy and Dad have entered a different room. The canvases are stacked in the corner. The printing machines erupting like cramps. Nobody does the talking except for the main man who has a black bandana wrapped under his nose and no pants on, just boxer shorts. He makes another bowl of cereal and scratches his bum. He still hasn’t looked at me once. When he sits down again, he talks about how nobody genuinely likes art anymore, they just like the whole process of it. Going to an exhibition, standing and staring at a frame, offering up a price, the intimacy about a conversation with the artist and his product. It’s all just a baroque routine. Rococo for gingerbread beefcakes. He checks the machines.

  Dad and Santa Coy and two smaller men shake hands.

  Santa Coy drives again and keeps looking at me in the rear vision mirror. I ask him what he thinks he’s looking at. Dad purrs at me, telling me not to be rude. He’s in a crème brûlée kind of mood. He’s got his arms crossed like he wants people to look in at him and wonder if he’s been doing something sneaky lately.

  From the apartment parking lot we bring up four canvases at a time.

  Inside, Santa Coy and Dad smoke rolled cigarettes, l
istening to my three bossa nova CDs. There are canvases everywhere, leaning up against each other, looking like shanties from disaster city. They stand in the middle of their plastic shantytown, smoke dripping away from their mouths and nostrils while they just stare.

  THREE

  RESORT

  All of a sudden we’re rich.

  We’re in our fixed Commodore, our destination a few hours away from the city, listening to fusion funk jazz by musicians with names like Pharoah Sanders. Soon the land around us is empty, where truck stops are big traps and there are middle-aged men with open-buttoned silk business shirts eating with their fingers, rings clinging tight. They ride their motorbikes to escape.

  Each time we stop they all look to see if we’re looking. A few of them give Dad a nod. Santa Coy is wearing hot mom jeans. A smell of air conditioners on fire. In the public bathroom a woman is peeing with the stall door open. Town gossip. She looks at me and her eyes don’t move. I say hello. She scoffs and says one word: rude. She rips toilet paper and flushes. Glares at me in the reflection of the mirror and leaves.

  Santa Coy and Dad are laughing about somebody’s lopsided bum when I get back to the booth. They’re already eating double beef burgers, tomato sauce dripping out one side of Santa Coy’s nearly-empty burger. My dad just watches it happen. In the next booth a woman has stood up to get a straw. A man wearing a red hoodie and a sports backpack takes her handbag and puts it around his shoulder, walks away. When she gets back she’s furious.

  Dad passes me a ten-dollar note and tells me to get whatever I want.

  I order what I think Dad’s ordered: a double beef with Old English cheese and pickles. They give it to me in a paper bag. When I look inside, it has garlic aioli instead of tomato sauce.

  The woman now missing a handbag is sitting next to Santa Coy and yelling while eating a burrito that drips barbeque sauce out its other end. Nobody’s told her that 80 per cent of the sauce has squirted onto the aluminium table. Dad and Santa Coy look at each other and videorecord her on Santa Coy’s mobile phone. They tell her it’s for an art project. She yells straight into the lens. I tell Dad I nearly got the same burger as him.