by Ed Lin
“Wow, what the fuck!” shouted Dwayne as he came out to the street.
My guess was that the man had tried to shoplift and got more than he had bargained for from the store owners. Dwayne marched over to him and Jenny and I followed.
The man was tired out. He slipped from his squat and sat on the wet street, panting. He seemed to be about twenty years old, and it had been a rough twenty years. He was probably living the same sort of liumang, petty-criminal, life that Ah-tien had been. So it was probably fitting that Ah-tien was calling out to him.
“Yang-yang! Yang-yang!”
Dwayne stood over Yang-yang. Jenny and I were behind him. I became conscious that we were holding hands tightly. Ah-tien made his way to the other side of Yang-yang and touched his shoulder. Blood was seeping through the collar of his shirt, as if Yang-yang’s head was the end of a roll cake filled with strawberry jam.
I heard a commotion coming from behind us and it became pretty obvious that a number of people were after him. Men were yelling to be let through.
Three beefy guys wearing shades and black, short-sleeved oxfords muscled their way from different areas of the crowd and fell upon him. Cops. People who ran less-reputable carts covered their pirated DVDs with T-shirts and pieces of cardboard.
One of the cops elbowed Dwayne, possibly on purpose, and grunted, “Gan ni niang!” Literally, it means “do your mother,” but the figurative meaning is decidedly worse.
I thought Dwayne was going to punch the guy’s lights out, cop or no cop. It would have been a fair fight. But the guy had two equally big friends. Dwayne crossed his arms and flared his nostrils. The runner scrambled to get up, but one of the blackshirts, a guy with a bruise on his left cheek, kicked his feet out from under him. I noticed Ah-tien had split.
“Thought you could get away, huh?” the bruised guy yelled down at the runner. He and another man picked up their quarry and each twisted an arm back as they hustled him away. The third man, the one who had elbowed Dwayne, followed behind.
“He’s a criminal!” the elbower yelled to the crowd. “We’re here to take him away! Don’t let it ruin your evening! So sorry!” When he passed by Jenny and me, I noticed he was wearing a vest under his shirt.
The crowd melted away. Dwayne bent over and picked up the iPhone-accessories rack for a grateful older woman. She patted his arms and said, “Fuck those cops. Don’t pay any attention to them.”
Everybody thought the three men had been policemen until a cop actually showed up about half an hour later. I was already back at my front grill.
The cop was a thin veteran with short, white hair bristles and a chip on his shoulder about not having been promoted from his beat by now. He came up to me and tapped his keys against the glass of my sneeze guard.
“What did you see happen over here?” he asked.
“Some guy came in, and some other guys picked him up and took him away,” I said.
The cop was staring at some beef-tripe skewers and tugging at his windbreaker as if ready to molt. “These any good?” he asked.
“They’re the best,” I said, tilting my head. “If you buy two, I’ll throw another in free.”
A pained look came over his face. “I’m on duty now, I really shouldn’t eat.” He licked his lips. “Anybody else I should talk to?”
“Talk to Dancing Jenny over there.” I pointed my tongs at Belle Amour.
“Oh, her,” he sighed. “Never mind, I know where I should go.” He strode off to Big Shot Hot Pot.
“Jing-nan,” said Dwayne. “Go see what this guy is up to. Something’s up.”
I followed the cop, who had gained a confident swagger by the time he entered Kuilan’s business. He pointed at Ah-tien. “Hey, you little hooligan, what happened here tonight?” he boomed.
Ah-tien wiped the chopped garlic chives from his hands. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Some liumang came running through here, but the gang of heavies caught up with him, right? I’ll bet they were people you know, or at least recognize.”
Ah-tien didn’t even look up to reply. “I didn’t see anything. Go ask somebody else.”
“I’m asking you, little cocksucker!”
Kuilan stepped up as her husband crossed his arms. “Leave my son alone, officer. If he says he didn’t see anything, then he didn’t.”
“Leave him alone, huh? What about the time I had to come over to your house to break up a fight between your husband and this little dirtbag? You begged me to help you then! I took him in to jail for a night to scare him straight, didn’t I?” The cop smiled and rocked on his feet. He was getting off on this.
“I didn’t ask for you to beat him up!” said Kuilan.
“Nobody beat him up. As I tried to explain to you before, the kid knocked his own head into the wall to make me look bad. Anyway, it seems to have worked a little. It’s nice to see him all cowed like this.” I had forgotten how bad cops could be. There was this guy in Wanhua District who used to harass my friends and me while I was growing up. The jiaotous helped us by showing us shortcuts through alleys and building basements where we could lie low for a while. For the most part, cops didn’t seem to be around, unless there was a huge demonstration. They liked to stay in the air-conditioned station rather than walk beats and prevent crime with their presence. One block in the Ximending area of Wanhua District had been classified as a high-crime area because of a karaoke bar frequented by members of different gangs who wanted to drink and fight over girls. There had been shootings in the street outside. Instead of posting officers there, the police merely installed more security cameras. It was safer for the cops to investigate after whatever assault had occurred by reviewing footage.
No wonder the Huangs weren’t happy with the investigation into Julia’s death. With faulty camera footage, the police probably had no idea how to go about solving the crime.
As I watched the cop leer at Ah-tien and Kuilan, I felt someone brush up against my right elbow. It was Jenny. She was always good about keeping one eye on the street.
Ah-tien was still chopping up chives with a metal cleaver. It was pretty clear that if the cop continued egging him on like this, Ah-tien’s next chop would be just above the knot of the officer’s dark blue tie. The cop knew what he was doing. He had one hand on his truncheon. I hadn’t thought they carried those anymore.
“Ah-tien, do you like being here?” the cop taunted. “I think you’re quite suited for women’s work.”
I didn’t say anything. Maybe a part of me wanted to see Ah-tien cut the guy. But Jenny spoke up. “Hey, you lousy cop, leave him alone! He doesn’t know anything!”
He whirled around. “Oh, it’s you, huh? Still doing porn?”
Jenny put up her phone and began to record video. His smile died instantly.
“Well, if any of you hear any more about this incident, then please call the station. Good night.” He nodded and marched down Dabei Road.
“Are you all right, Ah-tien?” Jenny asked.
He shrugged, still chopping in a detached manner. “Yeah,” he said.
“Thank you, Jenny,” said Kuilan’s husband.
“That was very smart of you, to use the phone camera,” Kuilan added.
“The lens is broken, but it still makes a good prop.”
“I know it’s probably best not to get involved,” said Kuilan’s husband, “but do you think we’re safe here? What if the liumangs come back?”
“It’s no problem,” said Kuilan as she also took up a cleaver. There was no such thing as having too many chives. “The whole thing started somewhere else, and they just happened to run here. Nothing to worry about.”
“Well,” I said, “I’d better get back to the stand before Dwayne kills me.”
Jenny muttered to me, “This cop was sent to hush things up, not to figure out what happened.”
“Seems like it. What a fucking asshole he was to Ah-tien … and to you!”
“Jing-nan, I never did porn. It was nude modeli
ng. They tried to … anyway, the judge threw it out.”
“I believe you, Jenny.”
“I wasn’t underage or anything.”
“Jenny, I’m sure you were doing the right thing.”
She smiled and gave me a big hug. “Stay safe,” she said. I watched her walk away and wondered what sort of life Jenny had had.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Traffic on the way home was light as people were still avoiding routes along the water. There didn’t seem to be any more ghosts than at any other time of year, but I did notice a modified black pickup truck keeping pace with me. I slowed down a bit, and so did the car. I sped up, and its red lights zoomed past me. It pulled over and stopped on the shoulder. I nearly flipped my moped trying to brake in time.
A man got out of the passenger side. It was the American who had confronted me earlier in front of the Huangs’ building. Now he was wearing a dark suit that rendered him nearly invisible in the night.
“Jing-nan,” he said. “You’re poking your nose where it shouldn’t be.”
“Is this about the liumang?” I asked.
“Don’t get smart with me, bitch!” Typical conceited Taiwanese-American asshole. “You stay away from Julia’s family and the investigation!”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know for sure you saw the Huangs this morning. Let’s make it your last visit there.”
“They’re family friends. Julia was my girlfriend.”
“I’m giving you one warning. Do you know how easily I could have knocked your sorry ass over into the river? Might happen next time.”
I crossed my arms and felt my skinny biceps. “Who are you?” I asked.
He shifted stance so his feet were even with his shoulders. “I’m a guy with a gun. That’s who I am.”
“What happened to Julia?”
“She’s dead. Unless you want to join her, stay far away from the Huangs.”
“I get it,” I said. It lacked conviction, but it was good enough for him. The American got back in the car, which eased away from the shoulder before peeling out. I got back on my moped like a little fucking boy.
It wasn’t until I was taking the highway exit home to the Wanhua District that I started shaking. I’d never had my life threatened before by someone who could possibly back it up.
Looking into Julia’s story was dangerous. Who the hell ran the betel-nut stand she’d worked at? Gangs? Cops? Americans?
Who was the Taiwanese-American, and why was he watching the Huangs’ apartment? He knew who I was. If he really wanted me dead, he’d already had a few opportunities to pop me. But why would he? He had already written me off as a shadow from Julia’s past. A love-sick schoolboy chasing a ghost. I was something to brush aside, not a threat.
MY HOME DISTRICT, WANHUA, is the old part of Taipei, settled by Chinese from Fujian Province after the Ming Dynasty fell in 1644. I say “settled” in the American sense: the Chinese immigrants drove the natives from the land. The Mandarin name “Wanhua” is derived from the name the indigenous aborigines had given it, which was closer to “Banka,” the Taiwanese pronunciation. Taiwanese also called it “Monga,” and that was the source of the title of that blockbuster gangster film that has made Wanhua a tourist destination.
Many areas of Taipei still have the names given to them by people who were subsequently forced off. Two of Taipei’s biggest districts by population—Shilin, which has my night market, and Beitou, famous for its hot springs—still carry names derived from the extinct Ketagalan language. The Ketagalan homeland was unfortunately in the same footprint as the future Taipei, and they were pushed out as Han Chinese arrived and built out the city. The Japanese after them claimed even more land when they renamed the city “Taihoku.” When the city reverted back to “Taipei” at the end of World War II, there weren’t any Ketagalans left to push out. We killed them off and took their land, but at least we kept their place names. That was an American thing to do.
I felt bad about the way aborigines had been treated over the years. I wasn’t alone. The government had made small but symbolic concessions to Taiwan’s first people. Long Live Chiang Kai-shek Road—seriously, that was the name—in front of the Presidential Building was renamed “Ketagalan Boulevard” in the 1990s. The Generalissimo’s reputation had slipped by then from Savior of the People to The Wedge That Continues to Divide Us.
The Ketagalan aren’t even one of the fourteen tribes recognized by the government. Taiwan doesn’t acknowledge their existence, but they are still here, somewhere. The early Chinese immigrants to Taiwan were almost all men, and they hooked up with native women. Around the Taipei settlement, that would mean the Ketagalan.
The Japanese administration recognized the tenacity of Taiwanese aborigines after fighting many deadly skirmishes against them. In World War II, Japan organized native peoples as the dogged Takasago Volunteers. How dogged? The last holdout of the Imperial Japanese Army to surrender—in December 1974—was Amis, like Dwayne. When Private Teruo Nakamura, whose Amis name was Attun Palalin, was brought out from the Indonesian jungle he had been hiding in, his years of resigned solitude came to an abrupt end. Palalin said he had kept his mind off his wife (who had remarried) and son (who was born after he left Taiwan in 1942) by focusing on gardening.
My story wasn’t too different from Palalin’s. I was living and working among other people, but it was a solitary existence. Julia’s death had dragged me out of my crude hut to reality. I was stunned, naked and blinking back at the world.
I DROVE BY LONGSHAN Temple, a gigantic open-air complex built in 1738, probably the top foreign-tourist destination in Wanhua. Taiwanese people come here in droves, too, to flop in front of Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, Mazu, the goddess of the sea, and other idols.
The temple stood here when the British invaded Taiwan in 1840 during the Opium War. It was here when the French invaded in 1844 during the Sino-French War. Longshan Temple was already one of Taipei’s oldest temples in 1885, when Qing Dynasty China finally decided that Taiwan was indeed a Chinese province and not merely a “ball of mud.” When the Japanese took over Taiwan in 1895, they wisely decided to leave Longshan be, although they destroyed other temples that featured Chinese folk deities in a quest to desinicize the island. The temple survived World War II, when the US bombed the shit out of it, convinced that Japan was hiding armaments among the idols of the immortals. There were stories of miracles the goddesses performed during that war. In 1945 believers witnessed Mazu materializing in the sky, spreading her skirts to deflect most of the bombs from US planes away from the temple. Despite her efforts, the main hall was completely destroyed. But underneath the rubble, the Guanyin idol, eyes still closed in meditative serenity, was completely intact. People see these incidents as proof of divine intervention. I see it as proof that the people operating the temples will spread such stories in the name of preserving their livelihoods.
Lit up by the moon, lanterns and streetlights, Longshan, literally “Dragon Mountain,” looks just like a temple should. Even a nonbeliever could agree to that. Dragon sculptures in full color prowl around the tiled roofs and columns while phoenixes and other supernatural-creature pals do their best to keep up. The walls and ceilings are covered with painted, carved wood and stone. Angry guardians painted on open doors warn evil spirits not to enter. For Ghost Month, the temple hangs lanterns and bamboo hats to guide lost spirits to Longshan.
The temple was the last place I wanted to go when I was a kid. We had a smaller one on our block that my parents bypassed because it only had Taoist idols. They brought me to Longshan for their weekly stop to ask the blessings of the gods and goddesses, every single last one of them. “The most forgotten ones are the most grateful,” my mother often said. I think my parents expected me to bow and pray with them to each idol as we made our way through the inner courtyard, where there was a new god or goddess every few meters, but I just stood by them and waited. So many old people came to the temple, there was neve
r a seat available. One time, out of frustration and out of view of my parents, I discreetly gave the finger to Mazu, the sea goddess, the mother of heaven and essentially the patron deity of Taiwan. Nothing bad happened to me. Well, not immediately.
The Longshan visits were more than a waste of time. I found the energy of the miserable people at the temple to be completely draining. Most people weren’t regular visitors like my parents. Most people only came to beg the gods for help because they were suffering from health or money problems, or their loved ones were. Maybe some people had come to give thanks for their good fortune, but they were drowned out by whimpering elderly people begging for forgiveness before death and muttering young people who had just been laid off.
Most galling of all—and even my parents found them offensive—were the slick characters rolling dice before the altars, thinking one of the iterations of Buddha or a Taoist demon would give them winning lottery numbers.
On certain days my parents left wrapped pieces of candy at the pedestals and altar sills. Those were good days for me, because I would swipe most of them and hide them in my pockets for a sugar boost later. I was scared the first time that I would be punished for stealing a treat left for the divinities.
I asked the oldest kid I knew at the time.
“Dwayne, is it true the gods can punish people?”
“Not for taking candy, Jing-nan. The gods exist, but they don’t really interfere down here for minor infractions. My ancestors prayed to our gods to make the Han Chinese go away, and look what happened. You guys took over. Maybe we weren’t good enough to our gods.” Then he laughed. “Hell, maybe you people are our punishment for not being pious enough!”
THE FAMILIAR STREETS WERE dark and empty from the temple to my house. Not my house. My home. This was my home. I stopped at a red light for nobody and got mad.
Who the hell did that Taiwanese-American asshole think he was to threaten me? Now that I was back on familiar turf and my antagonist was long gone, I was feeling brave, even cocky.