Incensed (4 page)

Just hearing about my uncle brought up these feelings of familial ties and the inherent duties. He might indeed be no good but that wasn't a reason not to hear and obey him. We shared the same name, blood, and fate. It was actually strange for us not to be in touch and our reunion was timely considering the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Whistle and Gao brought
me to their Infiniti SUV, which was parked around the corner in the shadows. It was customized with tinted windows. I took a seat in the back. Whistle got behind the wheel and Gao heaved himself into the shotgun seat. He wasn't armed with a shotgun, though. He was armed with a handgun that he checked before stashing it somewhere under his seat.

Yep, I thought, these guys sure know my uncle.

My neighborhood is never completely quiet at night, but all I could hear inside the car was Whistle making faint slobbering sounds as he chewed gum. He was probably banned from chewing betel nut (and spitting out the juice) while inside the SUV.

I noticed that the tint seal was bubbling in a few places. I tapped my finger to a double bubble. The glass was unusually thick—more than two inches.

Bulletproof.

Just a few months ago I would have been scared out of my mind being in the company of armed criminals. A lot has changed since. I've been beat up, shot at, and I even whacked some guy in the head with the butt of a gun. It sounds like a video game but in real life, fighting is exhausting and you feel bad about the people you hurt—even the bad people. Once you experience something like that, it's easier to remain calm in times of distress.

Then again, I wasn't being kidnapped. Presumably these two guys were my uncle's henchmen, and presumably my uncle wished me well. I hadn't seen him in a long time, but I had good memories of him, despite my father's misgivings. “Younger Uncle” was how I was taught to address him, but his friends and people in the neighborhood called him “Big Eye.” It was an odd little nickname, because he didn't have big eyes at all. In fact his eyes were often narrowed and shifty.

Come to think of it, he had a pretty mean-looking face. Yet my uncle was also very generous with me and laughed easily and louder than anybody else. He had given me candy and chocolate. The night before he took off, he asked me if I had what it took to be a man. I said I did, and he let me try cigarettes and beer, turning me off to smoking and drinking for years. Could that have been the plan?

I looked out the bubbly dark windows and watched streetlights and buildings whip through my dark reflection.

Way too late to call or text Nancy. I probably wasn't in danger, but I wanted to let her know where I was. I tried to write her an email to explain that I'd been called away to visit my uncle. Everything I came up with sounded like I had been abducted and like it was written under duress. In the end, I settled on: “I have gone to visit my uncle because he is having personal problems. I should be back soon but I'm not sure when. Don't worry about me. I'm fine.”

I copied Dwayne. Frankie didn't trust email. He didn't like putting anything in writing because your own words could be twisted and turned against you. If I'd been a political prisoner like him, I'd probably feel the same way.

All three of them would understand. Long-lost relatives could pop in at a wedding, a funeral, or near the Mid-Autumn Festival, as it turns out. My girlfriend and friends would only be alarmed if it turned out to be the last message they ever got from me.

We circled up a ramp to the highway and passed by a roadside betel-nut stand. I watched a so-called betel-nut beauty, dressed in a hot pink halter top and matching miniskirt, standing frozen in the glass window. I thought about my first and lost love, Julia. She had been working as a betel-nut beauty, or posing as one, when she was murdered.

When I was just a kid I was so sure I was going to marry that girl. The pain of losing her for good made me a man better equipped emotionally.

The streetlights passed at a regular pace that entranced me. My eyelids constantly slid shut. Rain began to fall and I watched droplets of water shiver across the windowpane. The last things I saw before I fell asleep were blurry flashes.

I stood before an
offering table that was adorned with burning incense, plates of fruit, and a bunch of other sacred objects I've never understood the purpose of. Smoke from the joss sticks obscured everything beyond the table but I could feel that my old classmate Guo was near. While he was alive, I used to refer to him by his childhood nickname, Cookie Monster.

“Jing-nan?” he asked. “Is that really you?”

“Yes, it is,” I said. “Where am I?”

“You're standing at one of the doorways between the world of the living and The Courts.”

“What are ‘The Courts'?”

“I'm being judged and punished for all the wrong I've done in my life,” said Guo. He had made some mistakes in life; one of the last ones had been pointing a gun at me. “Jing-nan, the gods here are all mainlanders! And they're really loud and mean!”

“I'm sorry you're having a hard time, Cookie, er, Guo. But why are we talking?”

“I had to see you to apologize for trying to kill you,” he said. With all sincerity, he added, “I'm very sorry.”

“It's all right,” I said.

“You have to say that you forgive me, or it doesn't count!”

“Okay, I forgive you.”

“Thank you, Jing-nan. Please allow me to apologize to you 9,999 more times.”

“What!”

“Ten thousand times every day for the next ten thousand years.”

“I'll be dead by then, Guo.”

“That doesn't matter! All of the dead are apologizing to each other as we try to work our way out of this maze.”

“I forgive you to infinity,” I said. “Please consider the issue closed.”

“It doesn't work that way,” Guo said sadly. I dimly felt my physical body sway and recognized that I was dreaming.

“Say, Guo,” I said, “while I'm here, could I talk to Julia?”

I sensed fear in his response. “You want to talk to Julia? Before your parents? Jing-nan, how could you put anybody before your father and mother?”

“Well, why the hell am I talking to you, then?”

“I'm here to grovel,” said Guo. “Under any other circumstance, you should be paying respects to your family. Nothing's more important!”

I woke up with
a start.

“Sorry, Jing-nan,” said Whistle. “I can't control shitty drivers on the highway. Please forgive me for waking you up.”

“I forgive you,” I said.

I rolled back into a sleep that was as dreamless and grey as a Taipei afternoon sky.

When I woke up again our wheels were churning along a dirt road. Through the windshield I saw tall reeds on both sides stream by.

“You ever see sugarcane up close, city boy?” asked Whistle. Gao made a short grunt that suggested a small measure of amusement.

“Why are we in a sugarcane field?” I asked.

“You'll see, Jing-nan,” said Whistle. Gao grunted again.

Ah, they were going to kill me after all and dump my body here. No one would ever find me in the field, at least until the next harvest.

I yanked my door handle. It thumped like a bad knee and didn't do anything else.

“Hey, calm down there!” called Whistle. “What are you trying to do? Hurt yourself? We're almost there.”

“I could call the police!” I hissed. “They might not get here on time, but you two won't get away clean if you kill me!”

Gao roared with laughter, a big baritone sax blaring into a microphone. Whistle's eyes looked at me sharply in the rearview mirror.

“We're not going to kill you, Jing-nan,” he said. “And the cops are already here.”

Our bodies were tossed around as the SUV galloped over two ditches. After a turn the sugarcane rows opened up, revealing what looked like a sprawling campsite with six large tents in the middle of the field. What the hell was this? A circus?

We pulled up next to the smallest tent and parked.

“Let's stretch our legs, shall we?” said Whistle. I saw Gao reach down under his seat for his gun and slide it under his left armpit.

I opened my now-unlocked door and was assaulted by the sound of chugging generators. The predawn air was warm and sticky. A ghostly blue mist from the setting moon mixed with the exhaust fumes and pancake-syrup smell of raw sugarcane. I stepped on some felled stalks, which were segmented like bamboo. I felt some give under my foot and remembered chewing fresh sugarcane, feeling the juice run over my tongue as I crushed the soft pulp. I used to love destroying my teeth with it when I was young, before I discovered chocolate. Still, on a hot and humid day, there's nothing better than a frothy cup of green sugarcane juice from iced stalks cranked through a cast-iron press. I was tempted to pull down a stalk to gnaw on. I wasn't a kid anymore, though, and I wanted to present myself as a man to my uncle.

Would I recognize him?

Gao pulled up a flap on a tent and evaluated the situation, his dead eyes revealing nothing. He then gave Whistle the smallest nod and headed in.

“Your uncle's gonna be excited to see you,” said Whistle. He lifted the flap and cocked his head at the entrance. I rubbed my hands on my pants and stepped in.

This was the mahjongg tent. Above the din of voices I could hear the loud clicking sounds of ivory tiles. There were thirty tables packed tightly together. Most of the patrons were men, in every manner of dress ranging from sharkskin suits to worn-thin tank tops and shorts. The women were generally dressed better than the men and seemed to be the more serious players. Everybody was smoking, as if it were an admission requirement. Two upward-blowing fans were propped up on ladders, pointed at side vents. Tripod-mounted LED lamps, bright enough for a surgeon to operate by, cut through the smoke columns.

I followed Whistle to a table all the way in the back. It was only slightly set apart from the other tables, but it was a world away. While nearly everybody else playing was boisterous and happy, the four men in black suits and white shirts at this table were stoic and grim. Their hands only moved during their turn. The smoke trails from their cigarettes dangled in the air.

My uncle hadn't aged a day but he was dressed better than I remembered. Upon recognizing him, I felt elated and concerned. He was hunched over his tiles, a hand clamping the base of a cognac tumbler to the table. The man didn't seem to notice my arrival, but within two seconds he stood up and held his hands together in a begging gesture to the other players.

“Gentlemen, if you'll forgive me, my troubled young nephew has arrived,” he said in Mandarin to the other three men. “I have to attend to him now, but I hope to see all of you soon, my brothers, hopefully under circumstances that are more fortuitous for you.” My uncle bowed. The three glares, heavy as loaded railcars, that were fixed on my uncle switched over to me. I was on the spot, so instinct kicked in and I bowed.

The oldest man, probably in his sixties, nodded and took out his cigarette. He blew out smoke and said nothing. Whistle walked away and my uncle followed.

“Hey, why—” I began to say.

“Shut the fuck up until we're in the car,” my uncle muttered in Taiwanese and roughly pulled me along by my elbow.

We had only just exited the tent before we heard a commotion behind us. We stopped and turned around and beheld a man with a white beard that flowed over his simple farmer shirt. His slacks were rolled up to the knees, exposing unusually muscular calves and Japanese
geta
on his feet. He was of average height but his entourage of younger, bigger, and meaner men accorded him an unusual amount of personal space, as if he were radioactive.

“Big Eye,” his voice boomed in menace-laden Mandarin. “Are you leaving my hospitality so soon?”

My uncle stretched his neck and gave a shit-eating grin. “I'm so sorry, Wood Duck,” he said. “I have a bit of an emergency. A family issue. My young nephew has come down from Taipei and he needs my help most urgently.”

Wood Duck stared at my face hard. I couldn't help but twitch.

“He looks fine to me.”

Big Eye stammered. “He has dysfunction of his private parts. I have special tea to help him.”

Wood Duck reached into the folds of his shirt and withdrew a small pistol. “You've been lucky over the last two days, Big Eye,” he said casually. “Very lucky.” The pistol lay sideways in his hand as if it were taking a nap. It was pointed at nobody and everybody.

“Yes, Wood Duck.”

“Maybe we can have just one last bet before you leave. Double or nothing. What do you say?”

“Of course, Wood Duck. I would never deny you. One more game.”

Big Eye began to walk back to the tent, but the old man held up his empty hand. “We're not going to bet on cards, Big Eye. It's my right-hand man against yours. Sima against Gao!”

The man named Sima presented himself. He was the same size and build as Gao but his suit was tailored better. The insects in the surrounding field went silent.

Wood Duck reached into his shirt again and withdrew a second pistol.

“Gan,”
Whistle swore under his breath.

“A duel, Wood Duck?” Big Eye asked cautiously. “Is that what you want?”

Wood Duck laughed out loud. “No!” he said. “I want a skills competition!”

Two young men in black T-shirts, low-ranking members of Wood Duck's clique, carried out two donut-shaped glass decanters, each with a hole in the center. I thought pieces like that only existed in liquor ads. Wood Duck watched the men pour bottles of red wine into the decanters and nodded. “Gao!” Wood Duck called. “Your choice. You're the visitor.”

Gao walked up to Wood Duck without glancing at Big Eye. He looked over the two pistols in Wood Duck's open hands, picked up both and weighed them. He stuck with the one that had been in Wood Duck's left hand and replaced the other one. Wood Duck nodded and tossed the other pistol to Sima, who caught it nonchalantly in one hand.