Ghost Month

by Ed Lin

  I nodded at Megan and gave a big, platonic smile. “Oh, yes,” I said. “Everybody in Taiwan is very nice.”

  “I’m going to be here for a few days,” she said. “Maybe you can show me around a little.”

  “I think you would find a taxi tour very interesting.”

  Dwayne didn’t understand much English, but he read the woman’s big smile and the tilt of her head.

  “Tell her you’re married!” he yelled out in Taiwanese. “Say your wife keeps a padlock around your cock and you don’t know where she hides the key!”

  Frankie the Cat’s smile curled up tighter at the ends.

  Fearfully, I looked at Megan, but she hadn’t understood. Most tourists, if they spoke anything other than English, only knew the official and formal Mandarin dialect.

  I looked directly at Megan’s chin and said, “My boss says my wife will be really jealous if she sees us talking.”

  “You’re married? I thought you were like twenty!”

  “No,” I said, not smiling. “I’m a very old man.” I glanced over at potential customers buzzing near the stall, hoping she would get the hint to leave. Her friends had already moved on to Dancing Jenny’s Belle Amour.

  Megan brushed her hair back over her ears and said, “Anyway, happy holiday, Johnny!”

  “Thank you, Megan,” I said, sounding as sincere as possible and nodding perfunctorily.

  Three Asian men in their thirties stood a few footsteps away. They looked like guys who had stepped out of the office early. I could tell they were on the fence.

  In Taiwanese, I said, “Better get your food now and go home early before the brothers come out and get you!”

  They chuckled and came over. They ended up getting some appetizers up front and stews inside. People say it takes money to make money. It also takes customers to make customers. A small line had formed to sit inside, and that generated more interest. I was running out of skewers on the front display grill, so Dwayne transferred over a few tubs of partially cooked skewers.

  “Thank you, Megan,” he said in a high-pitched whine. I kicked him lightly with my right heel.

  DURING A SMALL SLOW period around 11:30 P.M., Dwayne caught me offguard. I should have been ready. When there are no customers, it’s high school guy-guy time, and my ass was pretty much up for grabs, along with my private parts. In school, when the teacher’s back was turned, you had to practically cover your crotch with one hand. Taiwanese boys punch and kick each other in the balls just for laughs.

  Dwayne snuck up behind me and pinned my arms back. The smell of his sweaty arms and neck, smeared with burned fat and grease and blood and shit from dirty intestines, would have made me gag if I didn’t smell so strongly of all those things myself.

  “That’s it, you lousy Han Chinese people,” Dwayne grunted with pleasure. “We’re taking revenge for all the years that you people have mistreated our tribes.”

  “We gave you the Great Warmth a few years ago,” I said, referring to the stimulus bill that targeted disadvantaged populations, including those of aboriginal descent. I struggled to find the weak spot in Dwayne’s grip.

  “You gave us the Great Warmth of your farts,” spat Dwayne.

  Frankie the Cat sat on a plastic stool, put his back against a wall and lit up a cigarette.

  “The English, Dutch and Japanese murdered you off, too,” I said dryly.

  “We’ll get to them soon enough, you dirty Han! It’s only because your parents were kind to me that I will spare your life and also the life of one potential mate. Now pick one!”

  “So we’re going to play this game again, huh?”

  “Hey, how about Dancing Jenny? I know you think of her when you beat off!”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t since last week.”

  “What about her?” Dwayne still had me swaddled in his grip. He turned my entire body and pointed my face at a woman in a low-cut dress sucking on a frozen melon pop.

  “She’s not quite my type.”

  “Don’t tell me her tits aren’t your type!”

  “I look for many things in a woman, not just her body parts.”

  “I think you like her,” growled Dwayne. While trying to keep a firm hold of my waist, he worked his hands down my stomach to my crotch. “I’m going to check if your dick’s hard.”

  He was trying to do too much at once. This was my chance.

  I turned to my side and dug into his chest with my right elbow until he had to let go.

  “I’m going to put a skewer in my boxers so the next time you reach in for my cock you’ll shish kabob your fingers!” I told Dwayne.

  “Your thing’s so small, it’s already a skewer!” We clasped right hands and Dwayne cradled my head with his left hand. “I’ll make you a warrior yet!” he told me.

  Frankie dropped his cigarette and clapped his hands. “C’mon, boys!” he yelled. “Customers!”

  CROWDS BEGAN TO TAIL off shortly after one in the morning, and market stalls began to close around one thirty. Sometimes it’s later, sometimes it’s earlier. A few savvy people rushed around to get great last-second deals at stands. To the south, on the other side of the night market, the secondary stalls opened up in the little lanes between Dadong Road and Wenlin Road. This is where the people who work at the Shilin Night Market come to relax after a long night, eat soup noodles and omelets, chew betel nut and play mahjongg. If you are a tourist, do not go to the aftermarket. Non-vendors are not welcome. After all, this is their safe space, where they can stretch and complain about people like you, in addition to life in general. I didn’t go there, either. For one thing, I didn’t want to hang out any longer than I had to at the market.

  I was cleaning the counters when Dancing Jenny stopped by. All she had to do to close was roll down her metal gates and padlock them. She was now wearing a blue linen blouse and matching skirt that went past her knees.

  “Jing-nan,” she said, “I’m going to Cixian Temple. Do you want to come?”

  The temple was less than two blocks away. Supposedly the night market grew out of stands that sold snacks to worshippers more than a century ago.

  “I’m not going, Jenny. You know I don’t believe in that stuff.”

  “I don’t really believe, either, but why take a chance?”

  “He’s taking a chance going the other way,” said Dwayne. “I’ll see you there, Jenny.”

  “Don’t take too long,” she told him before turning back to me. “It will just take a minute, Jing-nan. Just light some incense. That’s all.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “Even if you don’t believe, your ancestors did, so do it for them.”

  “I’m already running this stand for them. Jenny, please. Don’t ask again.”

  “Frankie, are you going to talk some sense into him?”

  Frankie briefly looked up from scrubbing the grill surfaces and shrugged. “He’s my boss. I can’t tell him what to do.”

  Jenny sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jing-nan.”

  “I have some leftover skewers, if you’re hungry, Jenny,” I said. “Not for me, I’m vegetarian for the month.”

  After she left, Dwayne poured a watered-down detergent on the floor and scrubbed a stiff brush over the tiles. As he worked, a light foam built up on the floor. It looked like a toothpaste commercial with a close-up of the toothbrush cleaning the teeth.

  I sorted and counted up the cash.

  “It was a good night again, gentlemen,” I said.

  “Of course it was,” said Dwayne. “You got the two best workers in the world here. Frankie, how about we unionize? That way the little bastard will pay us a fair salary.”

  Frankie’s face twitched, looking like he checked a sneeze.

  The work night ended with me paying out Dwayne and Frankie, and giving Frankie some more to shop for tomorrow’s ingredients.

  Dwayne got up close to me and warned, “I’m going to say prayers for Julia. I don’t care what you think.”

 
I’d had my phone charging the whole night and hadn’t had a chance to check it. There was no more news about Julia, but I had an update on the supposedly related story. The incarcerated Black Sea member had made a new allegation: the American CIA was operating fronts owned by the gang. An anonymous senior member of the Legislative Yuan, our parliament, said the allegation was ridiculous and that the CIA hadn’t been in Taiwan “since the Cold War ended.”

  Doesn’t matter, I thought as I slid on my helmet.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Driving southwest along the grimy Tamsui River on my moped, I felt Johnny peel away like sunburned skin. I allowed myself to picture Julia for the first time in hours and felt my heart slowly fossilize.

  I was driving the same route our families used to drive back home from the night market. Some of my earliest memories were of riding in the open air on the back of a pickup truck. Julia and I, still aged in the single digits, sat on loose cushions and held on to each other while our mothers grabbed rope holds on either side of the truck bed and shouted over the engine about how much better the other’s stall was doing. Our fathers sat in the cab together in silence, blowing trails of cigarette smoke out of either side.

  I don’t remember talking to Julia much during those rides home, because usually we were barely awake. I yawned a lot, yielding tears that turned cold when whipped by the wind. On the night of my ninth birthday, Julia leaned in and kissed my cheek, and I quickly kissed her back on the forehead. We held each other tighter. Blood was rushing past my ears and I couldn’t hear a sound, not even what our amused mothers were saying.

  I SHOOK MY HEAD to adjust my helmet and regarded the Tamsui for a few seconds. It looked like two rivers—one of black water near the banks flowing south, with a multicolored midstream sliding north.

  The road was notably less crowded than usual. Many people thought it was important to avoid going near or into the water during Ghost Month. The spirits of people who perished at sea are sure to possess you, as they are wont to do. Considering Taiwan’s long history of harboring Japanese and Chinese pirates in its coves, there must be scores of soggy, angry souls.

  But I wasn’t going to change my route and avoid the river for the sake of superstition. If I had it my way, and if I wasn’t still a bit of a coward, I wouldn’t even light up the incense at home for my ancestors.

  I wondered if I should have gone to the temple for Julia. She would have hated it.

  An idea took form in my head. Maybe the murdered girl wasn’t her. Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. Of course. I took a deep breath. The only way I could be certain that it was Julia was to visit her parents.

  It would be rude to simply call the Huangs, considering how close our families had been and how many years it had been since I’d seen them. I had to show up in person. The thought made me feel helpless, afraid of what I’d find. I could understand why one would seek solace in charms and temples. Suffering sucks.

  I slouched to my right side and regarded the river again, this time in despair.

  My gut felt like a friend at the other end of the seesaw jumped off and my ass slammed on the ground. Thinking about that playground made me think of school. Thinking of school made me think of Julia. Thinking of Julia made me want to die.

  I took my hands off the handlebars and folded my arms over my windbreaker. Julia, I thought, if you’re dead and can somehow hear me, please come and knock me into the river. Right now. I could accept it from you. Do it! Now! We can be together again!

  Suddenly I panicked and brought my hands back down. How foolish would it be to get in an accident for such a silly stunt? It certainly didn’t make sense to tempt fate when I had already taken the precaution of wearing a helmet. In order to fight superstition one had to be practical, and it was practical to keep both hands on the handlebars.

  My eyes drifted over to the river again. It was a little unnerving to see my reflection in the water followed by two small blobs of white light. Streetlamps? My parents?

  Stop looking.

  I turned as the road followed a bend in the river. The buildings on the other bank scrolled by with the curvature. At night all cities looked the same from the highway. What I saw now could easily pass for LA.

  If only my father had been healthy for two more years, I could have finished college.

  Time was the cruelest change agent. Back then, two years would have meant the world. Without them, the last unremarkable seven years had gone by as fast and as meaningless as oncoming traffic.

  Ten years from now, I could be driving the same dark route home—I hoped on a better moped, at least. Where would I be in my life at that point? Married? A father? Maybe still lonely?

  What a pathetic turnaround from being Johnny. I chuckled to myself darkly. One minute he’s chatting up tourists and they’re hitting on him. The next, he’s ready to kill himself.

  Julia might be gone for good now, but I hadn’t spoken to her or even seen the woman in years. You can’t be hurting for someone whom you’ve been out of touch with for this long, can you?

  I always felt that she was near, though. Sometimes even as a physical presence. Some nights I slept on one side of the bed to make room for her, and I saw her in my dreams at least once a week.

  I dropped my head and wiped my nose with my right shoulder.

  It was best that Julia never saw what became of me. What woman would want a man who came home late seven nights a week, smellier than a fried chicken ass and tired as shit?

  I knew that not getting married and having kids as soon as possible was an affront to my ancestors. Ghost Month was supposed to be the time to show what a good descendant you were, but I showed my filial piety all year round by keeping the food stand going. I didn’t need to fanatically burn heaps of incense. The smell rising up from the main pit stoked by Dwayne was strong enough to reach the spirits of my mother, father and grandfather even if their ethereal sinuses were stuffed with ectoplasm.

  SOON ENOUGH I WAS back in the Wanhua District. I think it’s the oldest part of Taipei, but it’s hard to tell with the constant tearing down and building up all over the city.

  Zoning is a joke in Wanhua. Futuristically textured green office towers with solar paneling abut older buildings with birdcage bars over the windows and rust smears running down the grey concrete outer walls like parrot droppings. Webs of television, telephone and electric cables wind all around the upper floors for blocks and across streets.

  I pushed my moped down a narrow alley crowded with incompetently parked cars and piles of bricks, stones and other building materials. There were little gaps in the piles where people had helped themselves to a tile or five.

  The alley tightened up even more, leaving barely enough room for me to walk my moped. Corrugated aluminum was used piecemeal to patch walls on either side of me, and algae-stained ridged-plastic strips that jutted out overhead served as rain gutters. It was like walking through a forest of trees with leaves made of crinkle-cut potato chips.

  There were fewer prostitutes on the street than there used to be, so in that sense the neighborhood was improving. Commercial sex now happens at the all-night barbershops and the upscale karaoke joints, abbreviated around here as “KTVs.”

  The alley opened up into a concrete parking lot, and I walked by a group of guys in their twenties and thirties, jiaotous, leaning against a BMW with smoked windows. In LA you wouldn’t think much of men in flowery shirts and flip-flops, but in Taipei they are the local enforcers. Everybody has their own “corner leaders” to protect the neighborhood against jiaotous from other areas.

  It wouldn’t be right to call jiaotous “gangsters.” They are more hyper-local outfits. They don’t own more than a few blocks. Most of their money comes from running the local temple—a major source of tax-free income—and bars and nightclubs. They’re laid-back guys, happy to collect protection money and keep the temples looking good for festivals.

  Full-on Taiwanese gangs are much different. They’re run like busin
esses, and their members are disciplined and professional. It’s in the genes. The nationwide criminal organizations of today were founded by army brats whose fathers lost the Chinese Civil War to the Communists in 1949. They grew up training to “retake the mainland,” as the slogan went, and transferred that focus to “taking the money.”

  The heads of Black Sea, for example, all hold engineering degrees (which come in handy for those rigged construction bids and contracts), and many graduated with honors from American schools. It seems fitting that gangsters on an island that values overachievement are also scholarship material.

  Black Sea has politicians in its pockets, and some regional leaders cut out the middleman altogether and run for local offices. Once elected, they make sure to get on the commissions overseeing crime and fire police captains who are too clean or too greedy.

  MY FAMILY HAD NEVER been seriously bothered by jiaotous. We paid the late-night parking fee and other fees. When I was born, the local leader, German Tsai, had presented my parents with a congratulatory basket of fruit and a lucky money tree. My parents paid German for his trouble. After all, he had a bunch of little brothers to look after, and he wanted to get them something to eat, he had said.

  That old gambling debt of my grandfather’s, the one that sat inside me like an abscess, was once owed to German’s father, who’d had the foresight to have a lawyer draw up the loan as a promissory note. Now the debt was what I owed to German.

  I looked over at the men, looking for German’s distinctive mole on his upper lip, which looked like a Hitler mustache. He wasn’t here, but the guys on the sidewalk were his boys.

  They looked nothing like the young, pop-star-pretty boys who had portrayed local gangsters in the hit film Monga, which was shot in the Wanhua District and had turned some neighborhood locations into tourist destinations. Suck down a bubble tea in the alley where Mosquito stabbed Monk in the side. Instagram the warehouse where Dog Boy was murdered by having his mouth and nose sealed shut with glue.