by Tao Lin
At home at dinner that night, Li’s mom said, “People from Dad’s family only care about themselves.”
“Dad’s older sister gives us things,” said Li reproachfully.
Li’s mom said Li’s dad’s sisters seemed to believe she never cooked. Once, seeing how clean her kitchen was, the older sister had assumed it hadn’t ever been used.
Li’s dad denied lying to his sisters about Li’s mom.
“Do your sisters know you went to prison?” said Li.
“Not my older sister,” said Li’s dad. In the early aughts, unable to raise sufficient funds for his second company, he’d invested in it himself by laundering money through his younger sister in Taiwan.
“Who else doesn’t know?” said Li.
Fat Uncle didn’t. Auntie and Thin Uncle did.
* * *
—
“Is this where I came to sell my textbook?” said Li’s dad the next day by Taipei Main Station. In the seventies, working as a tutor, he’d written and sold a grad-school physics textbook to a bookstore for a one-time fee.
“He says this every time we’re here,” said Li’s mom, who’d typed and formatted the textbook.
“How old were you?” said Li, who’d heard the story two or three times that year.
“Twenty-eight or twenty-nine,” said Li’s dad.
“When I was that age, I’d published six books,” said Li. Earlier, his dad had non sequitured that each of the four papers he’d written that year would be more influential than any of Li’s books.
“I’ve published almost two hundred papers,” said Li’s dad.
“When I’m your age, I’ll have twenty books,” said Li.
“You don’t make money off them,” said Li’s dad.
“I’m making fifty thousand per book now,” said Li, exaggerating. “And I still get royalties from every book.”
“You two are funny,” said Li’s mom.
“I made two children,” said Li’s dad. “You haven’t made any children.”
“I can make children,” said Li.
“Sometimes, you make two children and get four,” said Li’s dad, referring to Alan and a second grandchild whom he seemed to think was forthcoming from Mike. “When you have children, you can leave them in Taiwan. We’ll take care of them.”
Li’s mom said she’d end up caring for them, as with Mike, Li, Binky, Tabby, and Dudu.
* * *
—
Around midnight, Li’s parents sat in Li’s dad’s office with the TV off. Li’s dad used a magnifying glass to read his semi-illegible notes on his time at Coleman, a low-security prison complex in Central Florida. Li’s mom typed what he said into her computer.
“Blow job,” he said in English. “One hundred dollars.”
Li’s mom made a disapproving noise.
“This is real,” said Li’s dad.
Li was drawing in his room. He’d said he’d read the notes in the future and maybe use them to write a book. He started a voice memo, put his phone on the piano in the hall, and returned to his room, moved by his parents’ activity, which seemed like the most intimate thing they’d done together in years.
“Mr. Fat,” said Li’s dad.
* * *
—
In 2003, on his dad’s sentencing day, Li was a sophomore at New York University. At the courthouse in Brooklyn, he sat with his mom and brother. His dad, who’d been offered a six-month sentence if he pleaded guilty, read a prepared letter. “In prison I cannot make further contributions to society. In prison I am useless. I will fight to the end for my reputation, innocence, and name.”
The judge said seventy-one months. Three months later, in July, Li’s mom drove Li’s dad to prison. His first cellmate, Mr. Fat, was a four-hundred-pound high school English teacher in prison for possessing child pornography. He wanted the top bunk. Li’s dad said he should have the bottom, and Mr. Fat agreed. They played Ping-Pong, even though other inmates told Li’s dad not to talk to Mr. Fat.
In August, Li’s dad paid a man twenty dollars a month in stamps and ice cream to be his bodyguard. Cell phones cost five thousand dollars from officers. An inmate with prison blueprints offered Li’s dad a helicopter escape for four million. Some inmates had paid servants, who made their beds, folded their clothes, cleaned their rooms.
In September, Li’s mom said in an email to Li that his dad had written her “a real letter, the first one in twenty years,” saying he’d gotten too focused on business and forgotten to care for his family. “This is the real Dad I knew a long time ago,” said Li’s mom. “I was so moved that I cried for a long time.” Li cried too, reading her email in a computer lab where he often teared up while working on short stories about loneliness and resignation.
In November, Li’s dad was locked in a windowless cell for twenty-three hours a day for three days for his own protection after he told on someone for stealing eggs from the kitchen. Li and his mom didn’t understand why Li’s dad had cared, and told him not to do it again, and he didn’t.
Li’s mom visited twice a week, driving west for an hour. Li visited around ten times when home from college. Mike visited once. The cafeteria-like visitation room had rows of vending machines and microwaves. Li’s mom snuck in food in her waistband. Once, she and Li were caught transferring peanuts, Li’s dad’s favorite food, into microwaved fried rice, and had to leave early. Officers began to call Li’s dad Mr. Peanut.
He worked outside (mowing grass, picking up cigarettes) and in the library and the kitchen. He played poker, watched TV, and wrote papers, which he mailed to Li’s mom, who typed and mailed them back for edits and submitted them to journals. He gained two patents, used statins (which at home he often forgot to take) daily, and began to gain weight.
In 2004, Li and his mom gave a woman two hundred thousand dollars in gold bars in a parking lot. The woman’s husband, an inmate at Coleman, had lied to Li’s dad, saying he’d graduated from MIT, had connections, and could get Li’s dad out early. Efforts to recover the gold were unsuccessful.
In 2005, Li’s dad sometimes leaned back in his chair and said life in prison was good. In 2006, he moved to a halfway house. In 2007, Li’s parents sold their Florida house and returned to Taiwan, and in 2008 they bought a four-month-old Dudu.
Li visited his parents for a week in 2008; three weeks in 2009; four weeks, with his wife, in 2010; and six weeks in 2013, spending most of his time away from them, in his room or the city, private and preoccupied.
On his fifth visit, in the Year of Mercury, from November 2014 to January 2015, he suddenly started to spend most of his time with his parents, writing about them and involving them in recovery, leading to intimacy and conflict.
Now it was February 2016, and he was near the end of his sixth visit.
Conflict
Tidying his room, then washing a cup in the kitchen, Li heard his mom tell his dad four times to finish working so that they could go on a walk. Li quietly told her excessive pressure could make his dad refuse out of spite.
“That’s how she is,” said Li’s dad, and began to mutter that all Li’s mom did, day and night, was niànjīng—a term for chanting Buddhist scriptures that Li’s parents often used on each other pejoratively.
Li stood by his dad, feeling wary of himself. He’d used LSD thirty minutes earlier. He’d learned to be alone for ninety minutes post-LSD, as he became more emotional and contentious, but sometimes he didn’t time it right, wanted to test it, or got confused.
“No one told me when we were leaving,” said Li’s dad, randomly moving files around his computer screen.
“Next time we’ll tell you,” said Li. On the time problem, which went back decades, he’d sometimes sided with his dad, but mostly he’d sided with his mom.
“You think he’ll listen if we tell him?” said Li’s mo
m, looking down at her hand, wiping piano keys with a cloth.
Li shut his dad’s computer.
“Don’t hit me,” said his dad.
Li looked helplessly at his mom.
“Did you hit him?” said Li’s mom.
“No. I closed his computer.”
Li’s dad blamed Li’s mom for Li’s behavior.
“I copied you,” said Li, pointing at his dad with his right forefinger, which he for some reason touched with his left forefinger, confused and overwhelmed. When he was seven, he’d blamed his parents for making his LEGO structure fall by vibrating the air with their voices—a story his parents often amusedly refreshed.
“You always blame others!” said Li, feeling suddenly out of control and near tears. “I copied you. My life is ruined because of you,” he said, unsure what he meant. As a teenager, he’d blamed his mom for ruining his life (by spoiling him), but this was the first time he’d blamed his dad for this.
“Since you came back, we’ve been bickering half the days,” said Li’s dad, putting on his jacket. He criticized Li and his mom for fomenting an atmosphere of constant bickering.
“It’s because of you two!” said Li. “Since I’ve been born, every day, I’ve heard you two bicker.”
“Can only one person bicker?” said Li’s dad.
“I said you two,” said Li. “You’re both to blame. You’re the only one out of us who has hit anyone; you hit Brother. You say not to throw things. But you hit people.”
Li’s mom stood between them, telling them to stop.
Li’s dad said every child in Taiwan had been hit, that it was right for children to be hit. He said Li needed to stop throwing and destroying things.
Li said he and his mom agreed it wasn’t good to throw things, but his dad kept defending hitting Mike. He picked up his dad’s decrepit laptop, disconnecting a cord.
“There’s important things in there,” said Li’s dad.
Li’s mom reached for the computer.
“Didn’t you say throwing things is good?” shouted Li incoherently.
Li’s mom pulled Li’s arm down.
Li put the computer on the table.
Li’s dad walked away, picked up an umbrella.
“How did it get like this?” said Li’s mom.
“Isn’t hitting things good?” shouted Li, cheeks and lips quivering. “Five seconds ago you said hitting things is good. One minute ago you said it was right to beat Brother.” He grabbed the umbrella from his dad. They pulled it back and forth. Li gained control of it as its handle broke.
“Mike deserved to be hit,” said Li’s dad.
“If hitting people is good, I should hit you, since you don’t listen,” said Li.
“You dare hit me?” said Li’s dad.
“You’re so fat,” said Li. “Of course I do.”
Li’s mom was shouting at them to stop.
Li’s dad picked up Dudu and moved toward the front door. “We’re scaring Du,” he said, looking down to put on shoes. “This kind of child is useless,” he said, and left.
“I’m not going for a walk,” said Li, legs shaking.
Li’s mom took the broken umbrella.
Li entered his sunny room. He closed his door to his empty luggage’s extended handle. When he’d gotten to Taiwan, he’d kept his door shut for at least two hours a day, saying he needed privacy because he was normally alone all the time. Four weeks earlier, after pushing his dad’s machines off the table, he’d begun to keep his door ajar with the luggage handle. The change had made him feel less curmudgeonly. Working on his nonfiction book the past two weeks, he’d been friendly and cheerful and calm. He was returning to New York City in ten days.
Li lay supine on his bed with his crura—his legs below his knees—extended horizontally off the mattress. He was wearing shoes. He’d put them on for the walk. He heard his mom softly crying in her office. His closed eyes watered.
An osmotic, oval, pastel form grew and shrank on his personal screen as he sloshed in and out of consciousness.
He remembered Kathleen Harrison saying there was a phase near the end of her psychedelic trips when she practiced “mending”—thinking about people close to her, trying to understand them a bit more, considering what she could do for them, what she could say that she’d never said before.
Li’s dad entered the apartment. The TV bloomed on. Li heard his parents berate each other at a restrained volume. His dad said, “Bickering for an entire lifetime.” His mom began to prepare dinner.
“Li?” she said at his door.
“Ng,” said Li, who’d been motionless for around fifty minutes. His crura and shoed feet were still horizontal off the bed. His room had darkened.
“We’ll eat at 6:30. Okay?”
“Okay.” Wondering where his phone was, Li felt it in his pants pocket. His mom had emailed: “I am sorry I kept pushing Dad and let you feel bad. I know it must be annoying. From now on, we just set a time and everybody follows it. You yelled at Dad, I understand your stress, but as soon as you calm down, apologize and let it pass. Dad loves you the most, try not to be so mad. We are all responsible for this kind of thing. We must try using other methods to settle disagreements and love one another more.”
Li began typing a reply.
“We’re eating now,” said Li’s mom.
“I’ll come at 6:30,” said Li.
“Okay,” said Li’s mom.
It was 6:26. Li stood at 6:29, still typing. Leaving his room, he pushed send: “I shouldn’t have closed Dad’s computer and yelled. But you shouldn’t have said he won’t listen even if we set a time. He does listen sometimes, and we can wait when he doesn’t. He isn’t as strict with time as us, and work can be disrupted but a walk can wait. I am not criticizing you. I like being on time, like you. Dad should be more considerate of others’ time. He shouldn’t have blamed you for me closing his computer.”
“I shouldn’t have closed your computer,” said Li, approaching his dad.
“It’s okay,” said Li’s dad. “Nothing was lost.”
“Sorry. I don’t want to close your computer in the future.”
Li’s dad apologized to Li in a general way, seeming unupset.
Li’s mom told Li’s dad to apologize to Li.
“I just did,” said Li’s dad.
“I’m getting better,” said Li. “I haven’t done that in a long time.”
“Don’t throw things,” said Li’s dad in a friendly tone.
“I know,” said Li. “I’m trying to stop being like this.”
* * *
—
At dinner, Li’s mom nudged Li’s dad after he said for the tenth or so time that Li needed to control himself, shouldn’t break things. Li’s dad made a little noise.
“When Dad says I need control, I don’t feel not good,” said Li. “I agree. It’s good to keep reminding me. It’s like me reminding you two all the time about health things.”
“When I hit Mike…,” said Li’s dad, trailing off.
“What about it?” said Li.
Li’s dad said every child in Taiwan had been hit, that it was okay for adults to hit their children but not okay for adults to hit anyone else.
Li said Mike had been “old,” sixteen. Teenage Mike had rarely been home. He’d broken his curfew sometimes, sneaking out his window to skateboard with friends. One night, as Mike and his mom shouted at each other, his dad had emerged from work with a thin, metal clothes hanger, muttering loudly.
“I hit Mike in the garage,” said Li’s dad.
“You hit him in his room,” said Li, who’d been ten and had stood crying in front of their unyielding dad, hitting him with the plastic end of a foam Nerf baseball bat as he left and returned once or twice to continue to hit Mike, who was bigger than he was.
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Mike had cowered floorward, screaming.
Li’s mom said Binky had attacked Mike.
“He bit the wrong person,” said Li’s dad.
“He bit whomever was loudest,” said Li’s mom.
“I made Mike listen to Mom,” said Li’s dad.
Li’s mom expressed sympathy for Mike.
“It’s so far in the past,” said Li. “We shouldn’t talk about it.” He said he normally never brought it up, even though Li’s dad often referenced Li and his mom’s disreputable behaviors.
“He always says I throw things,” said Li’s mom. “Actually, I haven’t thrown anything in seven years.”
“Brother isn’t as close to Dad as I am due to being hit,” said Li.
“That probably has something to do with it,” said Li’s mom.
“I’ve never hit you,” said Li’s dad.
“So I care for you two,” said Li. “I’m here. I’m here so much.”
“Mike has his own family now,” said Li’s dad.
“Li really loves you, right?” said Li’s mom.
“Right,” said Li’s dad.
“Dad counts as a good dad, right?” said Li’s mom.
“Ng,” said Li. “Right.”
Li’s mom said Li’s dad’s dad hadn’t cared about his children at all. He’d left home for ten years when Li’s dad was five; when he returned, Li’s dad’s mom hadn’t let him in the house; he’d lived with his younger brother the last seven years of his life.
Li’s dad said they should get soft things to hit.
“We should be alone when upset,” said Li’s mom.
Li said one had to increase self-control over years, and that no matter how much one tried to heal one’s mind, if one didn’t also heal one’s body, change wouldn’t happen.
“Is that so?” said Li’s mom.
“I think so,” said Li, and remembered the saddest thing he’d ever owned—a set of twenty tapes for reducing social anxiety through self-directed cognitive-behavioral therapy. He’d found the tapes on a message board late in high school, after the lung collapses; they’d helped a little. “Or the change won’t be as much. Everything I do now is to try to change. Even writing.”