Ghost Month (7 page)

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.

S
OON 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 businesses, 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.

M
Y 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.

I could have been an extra in
Monga
. I was approached in the street by a production assistant who told me that I was a good-looking guy and asked if I minded taking a light kick in the neck. I shouldn’t have turned down the offer. I never say yes to the right things.

In reality,
jiaotous
are older than the actors in the movie, and they look like a regular bunch of guys. They don’t run around shirtless, and you don’t want to see them that way. The film got one thing right, though. They were mainly dangerous to one another rather than to the general public.

The only time a tourist would encounter a
jiaotou
is probably at one of the smaller temples. You might notice that the guys sweeping the floor and cleaning the joss-stick urns have scary tattoos on their necks and arms. They’ll show you where the gods are, how to worship them and where to leave your donation. You don’t have to worry about your safety. As long as you’re respectful,
jiaotous
will always be polite.

For example, look at the
jiaotous
waving to me as I walk by. Why, they look downright friendly. I waved back but maintained my stride and kept the moped between us.

One guy called out, breaking away from the car. He pushed up his sunglasses and pointed his Longlife cigarette at my throat as he approached.

“Hey, you! You’re Ming-teng’s kid, right?”

“That’s right,” I said, finally stopping. This is how every conversation with the
jiaotous
started.

“How come you’re still riding this crappy old moped? How about we get you a new one? Maybe even a motorcycle?”

“That’s okay. I still like this one.”

“I gotta tell you, chicks like men on motorcycles.”

“I can’t afford one right now.”

He shook his head and smiled, showing teeth stained red from chewing betel nut. “Ming-teng was a good man. A great man. We all miss him a lot. We’re glad you’re keeping his business going.”

“I don’t know if my father was a great man,” I said. “He was too busy to even be a dad, really.”

“Hey, at least your father stuck around.” His smile faded a little.

“Do you want money?” I asked, my hand going to my pocket. My father always told me to pay them whatever they asked, because they prevented other people from coming into the neighborhood and asking for even more.