Ghost Month (19 page)

“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
N
ANCY 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.

Nancy chomped away. She tore off a second slice with a vengeance.

“It’s good, huh?” she asked.

“It’s not bad, but in all honesty, the cheese is really weird,” I said. “Pizza is a lot different in America.”

“I’ve never left the country. What’s it like in the US?” She twirled a loose strand of cheese on her plate with her finger.

“What’s
what
like?”

“What did it feel like, being there? I remember hearing you say it was so much better than ‘stupid Taiwan.’ ” She put up her fingers for the quote marks.

I had to laugh. “I did say ‘stupid Taiwan’ a lot, didn’t I?”

“Yes. The younger students debated whether you were serious or not.”

“It’s sort of fitting that I’m stuck here now.” She knew my parents were dead—that had been on the school’s Facebook page, too. I talked about the night market, and she continued eating until she finished her fourth slice.

“Please have another,” I said.

“Those are supposed to be your slices.”

I had only eaten two slices, and that was probably all I could take. The pizza wasn’t awful, but I found that I couldn’t eat in front of Nancy. I was content to look at her. I did the Taiwanese thing and slid the last two slices on to her plate.

“Ai ya!”
she said, but she smiled.

“You can do it. These slices are thin.”

“I’m sorry you don’t like the food.”

“It’s fine. I’m not too hungry now.”

Nancy stuck the cheese sides of the slices together and took a bite. After she swallowed, she said, “You didn’t answer my original question. What did it feel like being in America?”

“Honestly, it’s not too different. Maybe I wasn’t there long enough, or maybe people are the same wherever you go.”

“It sounds like you didn’t really have a good time there.”

I sipped my soda and tried to search my feelings. “I guess I didn’t have the greatest time,” I said. “I guess I was expecting to become different myself. I was ready to change.” I thought about how the ABCs had treated me, and I felt my right hand tighten into a fist. “Some people weren’t really nice.”

Nancy finished the fused slice and brushed her hands over her
plate. “I’m sorry America wasn’t what you expected, Jing-nan. Are you happy living here now?”

“I’m not happy,” I started.

“Yes, of course, about your parents and now Julia! I shouldn’t have said that.” She reached out and touched my shoulder briefly. A small gesture, but even if the city is full of love hotels, public signs of affection are rare. Everything’s supposed to happen under the table, in a hotel room or in the dark.

I reached over and petted her hand on the table. Wow, we were moving fast.

“Before anything happens,” said Nancy, “and I’m not saying anything will, I want us to be as honest and up-front as possible. We went to the same high school, so we owe each other that.” She rubbed the knuckles on her right hand.

“Now is when we trade deep dark secrets? I might disappoint you.”

“No. Now is when we trade the truth about who we are. Who are you, Jing-nan?”

I took a deep breath and slapped my thigh. Was this some crazy personality quiz to see if I was going to be a fling or something serious?

“You know I’m an orphan. You know I run my family’s food stall. You know I never finished college. Anything else I can tell you?”

She raised her eyebrows and rolled her right hand in a circle. Tell me more.

I wasn’t sure where to go. I had a lot of compartments in my head, and none of them seemed waterproof anymore.