Ghost Month

by Ed Lin

  He stared at me, a knife erect in his right hand. I could tell from his eyes that his mind was set to “kill.” “Who threatened your life?” Honestly, I was touched he was sticking up for me.

  “Two guys. Not jiaotous. Probably affiliated with big gangs.”

  “You think they were Black Sea?”

  “I’m not sure. But one of them was a taiyi asshole.”

  “You got pushed around by a Taiwanese-American! On your own turf!”

  I lifted my shirt and exposed my bruise.

  “Gan!” Dwayne and Frankie shouted.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “I’ll make that guy’s face look worse!” Dwayne vowed. He threw the knife into the sink for emphasis.

  “Let’s forget it for now,” I said. “C’mon, let’s focus on work.”

  “Not yet!” Dwayne pointed at Frankie. “You! Have you been doing your duty?”

  Frankie’s face tightened just the slightest. “You’re questioning me?”

  “I can’t think of a reason why else our young boss here was accosted by gangsters, Mr. Cat.”

  Frankie said, “I’ve been keeping him out of trouble.”

  Dwayne sighed and said to me, “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t blame Frankie,” I said. “This didn’t happen around here. They got me at Taipei 101.”

  “God, I hate that place. The Han Chinese built that thing to give the finger to my people. So they roughed you up, huh? Shit.”

  “I also had to pay them twelve hundred NT.”

  Dwayne whistled. “Next time you get ripped off like that, you goddamn call me and I’ll show up and kick some ass!”

  “I would’ve called you, but I was too busy trying to breathe.”

  “What did they say to you?”

  “They want me to stop looking into Julia’s death. I was asking an old classmate for information. Somehow they knew.”

  Dwayne rubbed his stubbly chin. “What are you going to do?”

  “I have no choice.” By that, I meant I had to keep on going. Dwayne nodded. “I think we should report this to the Black Sea people, Jing-nan. Frankie has connections with those guys.”

  “Shouldn’t we report it to the police?”

  “Naw, it’s faster and more effective if we go straight to Black Sea.”

  “I’ll handle it,” said Frankie as he patted my right shoulder. “Don’t worry.” He walked off.

  “Hey, I didn’t tell you the details, the circumstances!” I called after him.

  “I heard enough.”

  “It can wait, Frankie!”

  “No, it can’t. Right now I’m just going to take a leak, Jing-nan! I’ll talk to Black Sea later.”

  IT WAS A BUSY night, and I didn’t notice Ming-kuo’s email on my phone until we were closing. The alumni office had forwarded my email and he was excited that I was getting in touch. I felt a little bad reading his note, because he thought we were going to resume an active friendship when there hadn’t really been one to begin with. Ming-kuo seemed to think we’d had a lot of good times together. I couldn’t remember even talking to him for more than thirty seconds at a time.

  Shit. Cookie Monster was still in Taipei, and he sounded needy, if not flat-out desperate. I wondered how he would react when he found out I just wanted to pick his brain for info on Julia. I wished we could have done so via email. There was no way to avoid an in-person meeting now.

  Wait. I wasn’t even giving the guy a fair chance. High school was a long time ago. It might be fun to hang out with an old classmate and laugh a little about the old days, back when I was the king of the world and he was Cookie Monster. Hadn’t things ended nicely with Peggy? My conversation with her, anyway, not the aftermath.

  WHEN I WAS DONE with work, I drove home keeping one eye on the rearview mirror.

  I sent Ming-kuo a short reply with my phone number, saying it was great to hear from him. I was tired now from work, I wrote, but I would love to talk late in the morning or early in the afternoon, whichever was better.

  I took off my shirt and noticed that the bruise had expanded into an ugly nebula of blue, purple and red jam. I didn’t know injuries could be so colorful. I went to the bathroom mirror to admire my bruise in full.

  My phone rang.

  I didn’t recognize the number, but it had to be Ming-kuo. Did he just skim my email? It was like three in the freaking morning. Didn’t he know how late it was now? Shit. If I didn’t answer now, I’d have to call him back at some point, and it would never be enjoyable. Why draw it out?

  “Hello, is that you, Ming-kuo?”

  “Jing-nan! It’s good to hear from you again! I wasn’t sure if you were still here in Taipei!”

  “I’ve been here a long time, Ming-kuo.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, clearing his throat. “I was sorry to hear about your parents. I didn’t know you stayed. I thought you would have gone back to UCLA.” His voice was the same. Squeaky and fast, like a gerbil on a sugar high.

  “Yeah,” I said. “There was a lot for me to take care of here.”

  “I heard about Julia,” he said.

  “You did?”

  “Jing-nan, it was all over the TV!”

  “Ming-kuo, where are you? It sounds like there’s a big commotion over there.”

  “I’m at work.” He chuckled to himself. “I have a late shift at the front desk of a love hotel.”

  Damn, and I thought I had it bad. Think of the scumbags and lowlifes he had to deal with.

  “Is something really funny there? I hear people laughing.”

  “A guy is checking in with three girls. They’re all pretty drunk.”

  “That explains the terrible singing.”

  “Do you want me to send you a picture?”

  “No, I don’t need that.”

  “They’re leaving the lobby now. Boy, this job is crazy sometimes.”

  “Ming-kuo, are you working two jobs?”

  “No, this is my only job.” I heard facial stubble brush the phone as he switched to the other shoulder. “Who would have thought I’d end up here? This economy sucks. What do you do, Jing-nan?”

  “I work the night shift at a restaurant. It’s sort of a menial job.”

  “Oh,” he said, unable to disguise his disappointed tone. “Look at us. The smart guys in high school stuck with these dumbass jobs.”

  “Maybe we should talk later, Ming-kuo. I don’t want to bother you at work.”

  “No, don’t worry! They don’t care if I’m on the phone. It helps keep me alert.”

  This could be my break. If he could help me over the phone, I wouldn’t have to see him in person.

  “Let me ask you something. Were you in touch with Julia through college?”

  “You know, Julia was really busy at NYU. Every time I ran into her, she was in a rush to go somewhere, whether it was the library or to an afternoon nap.”

  “She liked to keep herself busy.” And away from Cookie Monster.

  “I saw her when she was working at the betel-nut stand, only a few months ago.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “I saw her from the car a few times. It was by an exit, so I drove slower. I got a good look, but I wasn’t absolutely positive it was her. Until, you know, after the news.”

  “Where exactly was the stand? The news didn’t say.” I looked out my window into the haze where ghosts were supposedly slipping by, looking for bodies to possess.

  “It was out in Hsinchu City, the second exit on National Highway One.” Less than an hour away by car to the southwest of Taipei, right on the coast. “If you get to the intersection with National Highway Three, you’ve gone too far. When you get out of the exit, there are about seven betel-nut stands. She was at the one that had sort of a little parking area. None of the other ones had one. It might have changed.”

  “What sort of binlang stand was it? Did it seem sort of rinky-dink?”

  “Not at all.
It was a classy place. That whole area is, actually. You try to offer money for sex and no one will take it.”

  How desperate were you, Cookie Monster? There are plenty of red-light districts right in Taipei, unless you got yourself banned from all of them. I fumbled around with a piece of paper on my desk and wrote down the directions. Second exit to Hsinchu, place with parking lot.

  “Were you working in Hsinchu City, Coo—er, Ming-kuo?”

  “No, no. I wasn’t working at the time. I was driving around, trying to figure out what happened to my life. This job fell into my lap not too long after. Life wasn’t fair to any of us, Jing-nan. We were the smart ones! You, me and Julia.”

  “Peggy seems to have done all right.”

  “Her family’s rich! Fucking mainlanders stole all the money from China and made out here like bandits!” It was the first time I had heard him angry. “You know how stuck-up she is! Whenever I saw her in college, I turned the other way. I wouldn’t give her the time of day.”

  “Speaking of which, it’s late for me, Ming-kuo.”

  “Yeah? Wow, it’s three thirty in the morning.”

  “I have to sleep.”

  “Hey, let’s hang out real soon!”

  “Sure we will.”

  I chucked my phone into my pillow. I hated how he lumped Julia and me into the same sad sack he put himself in. It might have been an appropriate comparison, but he shouldn’t have assumed he and I would have this sudden camaraderie. I was so glad I hadn’t told him I worked at a food stall in a night market.

  I picked up my phone and threw it back into the pillow again. Damn it! This was the worst thing possible. My life was in danger and Cookie Monster and I were reunited! I slapped my forehead.

  Well, he was at least good for something. I sort of knew where Julia’s betel-nut stand was.

  I was riled up and afraid I would be up all night. After I washed I turned the volume low on the stereo and played Joy Division’s cover of “Sister Ray” by The Velvet Underground. The song had been my introduction to that great ’60s band and Lou Reed’s music. The original recording was a seventeen-and-a-half-minute narrative about a party with drugs, drag queens and a murder, with a noisy groove repeated in the background. In concert, The Velvets could extend the song for more than half an hour, but the seven-minute Joy Division version was enough for me.

  Unfocused anger and frustration combined with my physical pain to give me a vivid sexual dream. I was in a love-hotel bed, trying hard to hurl myself through a woman on all fours. I couldn’t see her face, just her ears poking out from her tossing hair. She reached back and pulled my chin up and in the mirror I saw that it was Nancy, the girl from the music store.

  I woke up gasping. Maybe I needed this girl to offset all the recent horrible people and events in my life.

  Maybe I just needed her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “I was hoping I would find you here,” I said to Nancy. She was wearing a light green blouse and a knee-length blue skirt. I loved her big black shoes.

  “Here I am,” she said with a smile and a shrug.

  Bauhaus was busier than I had hoped it would be. A string-bean male student in a short-sleeved knit was looking over the rare releases under the glass at the front counter—close enough to hear every word we said. I felt self-conscious.

  “I was thinking, Nancy,” I started.

  “Miss?” interrupted the man. “May I see the Goth Box?”

  It was out of print, and the store had one used copy that was kept under the register in a display window.

  “Certainly,” said Nancy. She slid the cabinet back open and handed the item over to the student.

  “Anyway, Nancy,” I said.

  “Excuse me, miss,” said the student. “The CDs aren’t in here.”

  “You can see the track listing from the back of the box,” Nancy said.

  “I want to check the backs of the CDs for scratches.”

  “Our CDs are guaranteed. If there’s a problem, you can bring them back for a refund.”

  “It’s a lot of money. I’d rather not go through the trouble of coming back if I could just make sure before.”

  “I’m going to have to take the CDs out of the file cabinet. Are you willing to wait?”

  “Yes,” said the bean pole. “I have some time.”

  Asshole, you don’t even dress like a goth. You should be doing buxiban commercials. “Hey, kids! Even a skinny dweeb like me was able to get into a great university like Taida because I went to the best cram school in the country! You can trust Old Wang & Sons to steer you right! Jiayou! Let’s go!”

  Mentally, I prepared myself for the time it would take for him to look over each CD, which he would spear on his index finger. I had no doubt he would ask Nancy to play a few songs on each, just to make sure, before he decided whether to buy or not.

  I was willing to wait however long to ask Nancy out, though.

  Nancy crossed her arms. She wasn’t as patient.

  “I get a break at twelve thirty,” she said to me. “Meet me at Sicily Pizza a few minutes after, say twelve forty.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said, leaving the store in two hops.

  I had been with two other women since Julia. Those passing encounters meant nothing to me. That’s how I had been planning to explain them to Julia when the time came. Of course, if she had also had flings I would have been heartbroken. I’d been handling any inconvenient urges in the usual, solo manner. My extensive work hours had kept my ego and my sex drive down for months at a clip.

  I think something related to my survival instinct was kicking in. Now that I knew my original mate was gone for good, my mind and body were searching for another. Now I only had to wait until 12:40 P.M., a little more than an hour from now.

  Ordinarily, I would spend this time at Bauhaus. I wasn’t good at killing time outside of a music store.

  Well, I hadn’t expected an immediate date with Nancy. I thought I would ask her out for another day and then swing by the Huangs’ place and tell them what I knew so far. It sure wasn’t much, and it wasn’t going to help the police, because they might already know.

  The incomplete information could wait another day.

  I strolled into a 7-Eleven, glanced at the wall of differently flavored chips and bought a cold can of Mr. Brown coffee. Little sticks of milk that had settled and congealed along the bottom of the can floated along the surface. Now that the can was popped open, it was too late to shake it, something I had neglected to do. I drank it anyway, wincing a little bit when one of those gross milk blobs washed up on my tongue.

  A rack of newspapers at the front screamed something about how the body found in Shuangxi Creek had been a member of a faction of the Black Sea gang. I went back in and bought the paper. I stood on the sidewalk, drinking my chewy iced coffee and reading the story about the dead guy. An anonymous source said he might have been seen running through the Shilin Night Market the night before, but the police department couldn’t confirm it.

  I noticed a bunch of kids hanging out in the alley two doors down from the convenience store. They were smoking and laughing. When I approached they stopped laughing and gave me hard looks. Jiaotous in training. Delinquents today, corner leaders tomorrow and in the river the day after.

  I finished up my coffee and continued to walk, holding on to the empty can and folded newspaper. Outside of the night-market areas, Taipei doesn’t have public garbage cans. In Los Angeles and probably all over America, you can leave your trash by the side of the road to be picked up. That wouldn’t work in Taiwan. The heat, humidity and relentless vermin would reduce each block to a swampland. We have to buy blue garbage bags from shops approved by the Taipei City Government. It’s not cheap, either. A twenty-pack of twenty-five-liter bags (half the size of the American standard thirteen-gallon kitchen bag) runs 225 NT—almost eight dollars US! Some people buy counterfeit bags, but it’s easy to get caught, because the official ones have holograms and ultraviolet
characters on the sides as security measures.

  We keep the bagged garbage in our homes until the trucks come in the night. The yellow truck in the lead flashes lights and blares cheesy versions of “Für Elise” or “A Maiden’s Prayer” like a smelly music box. When the music plays, we have about a minute to run down to the street and personally throw our garbage into the truck’s compactor. The less adorned, silent trucks that bring up the rear take glass and other recycling. If you miss the trucks, you’re kinda screwed, since they don’t come every night. Many people will wait on the sidewalk in the rain so they don’t miss their chance.

  I’m never home when the garbage truck comes. What little trash I generate I bring to the night market and use the receptacles there. I must have one of the smallest waste footprints in the city.

  I grew up carrying around my garbage, a habit that was suppressed while I was at UCLA. Someone said I looked like I was homeless, walking with a bag of trash.

  I MET NANCY AT Sicily Pizza. As we sat down at a table on the front patio, a waiter brought us water and disposed of my newspaper and coffee can. I took in the restaurant’s sign. The word “Sicily” was printed on a boot that was supposed to be Italy, while the island of Sicily itself wasn’t represented. The top part of the “P” in “Pizza” was the long nose of what was supposed to be an Italian man, while the descender comprised his long moustache or his nostril hairs.

  A small crowd of students had gathered on the sidewalk near us to admire a souped-up bright red sports car parked at the curb.

  “You like that car?” Nancy asked.

  “It’s not really my kind of thing,” I said. “Too flashy.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “I thought all guys liked sports cars.”

  “It might be fun to drive a few times, but it would probably get boring if you did it every day. The mileage probably sucks, too.”

  Nancy smiled. “I think you’re right,” she said.

  We ordered a combo—two sodas and a medium pie with vegetables and curiously crispy pepperoni slices. The tables were small, and there was barely enough room for the pan and our Cokes. The cheese smelled like the hot glue the shoe-repair guy in the night market used. I shook extra crushed red-pepper flakes onto my first slice to compensate.