Typhoon

Typhoon

I remember the morning of 9/11. I had just started my freshman year at dad’s college. This was in Albany, before I transferred to U of Washington so I could be on the opposite coast where dad was.

I screamed as a plane crashed into the first building on TV and the tattoo artist put the needle into my Adam’s apple. Two weeks earlier I had sold two WTC tour tickets for September 11th to some guy off the street so I could have money for a tattoo or two.

Was the guy in one of the buildings? Perhaps he was one of the pathetic assholes who jumped hand in hand from half way up with someone he cared about. It was better not to ask. That morning, I walked away with a glyph of Uranus on the side of my neck, a bleeding Adam’s apple, and a loathing for the almighty. Don’t ask.

I was telling Castaway this story cuz the atmosphere around us reminded me of that morning. We were watching a baseball game, the Athens Olympics as it turned out, behind of couple dozen silent men with arms folded across their chests. Team Canada was beating Team Taiwan eight to one. Neither I nor Castaway cared about baseball, but we had nothing better to do than that or go back to grandpa’s, just half a minute from where we stood. Castaway giggled when I told him my 9/11 anecdote. A few men turned and gave us dirty looks. They heard us speak English, saw my round eyes, and probably thought we were evil Team Canada fans.

Castaway laughed and I said to him, “think this is funny? Look at you.” Wing Chung, a.k.a. Castaway, Chicken Wing, or Chemo, is my same age cousin, made in Taiwan, aged in Canada, who walks around bald wearing tattered three quarter shorts and a saggy sweat soaked beater that hangs below his nipples, hence the alias, Castaway.

The uncomfortable silence.

Two black cars screeched to a halt in front of grandpa’s place and I was impressed by the smell of burning asphalt on a sultry evening as such. High performance European imports. Several men wearing surgical masks and wielding clubs jumped out and ran into grandpa’s place.

Glass shattered.

The baseball crowd stood motionless and someone might’ve farted I couldn’t tell. The gang then hopped back into their rides with one guy hobbling behind the rest screaming something over and over which I later learned from Castaway meaning “f--- my foot!” in Taiwanese. Very educational.

Flat out we ran to the scene as they drove off to find that it wasn’t grandpa’s place. It was the second hand under garments store beside the real estate firm operating on grandpa’s premise. The splintered display window was dripping blood, so we thought.

Castaway walked into the store and started shooting, with his camera. Heaps of bloody lingerie, racks, hangers, and mannequins lied in disarray. The smell of fresh paint tipped us off to the fact that no one was hurt. When the police came, Castaway walked right up to him and started blabbing, not realizing the cop had his hand on the piece.

Who wouldn’t think of drawing his weapon on Castaway? The cop turned his back while Castaway was still yapping. Hilarious.

As we came up stairs grandpa was still in his boxers, the same pair he’s had for twenty years, sewn around the floodgate and the back door but immaculately clean, just like himself, marred by his double bypass scars but sturdy and low to the ground.

Castaway babbled away in their language about what we just witnessed. Grandpa grunted and kept frowning at the screen. Sumo was on.

According to Castaway, grandpa’s love affair with anything Japanese began in a far away time when vets from my country fought the “Japs.” Grandpa was educated in the Japanese ways as Taiwan was a Japanese territory in those days. He then moved to Japan at age 12, went through college and served in the military there, and probably would’ve stayed there and married and what not had his older brother not killed himself. His brother had been back in Taiwan from Japan just a few years when they found him hanging in his room one morning. Nobody knew why, or at least everyone who did kept it hush hush.

Grandpa came back the year after to head up the family.

With a far away look in his eyes, grandpa spoke of Japan over greasy Chinese lunch buffet when we all met up after Castaway arrived this summer. Castaway acted as the interpreter, gesturing, elevating and dropping his voice as grandpa did so.

One time, grandpa was drinking tea and arranging flowers at home when the Americans bombed Kyoto. Without time to get into a shelter he hit the floor and hoped for the best. A bomb shell crashed through the roof into the living room. It was a dud. Wow.

When he disembarked in Keelung Harbor in 1946, he was disgusted by the sight of liberating Chinese soldiers armed with umbrellas and woks, cussing and spitting all over. Manners were important, said grandpa, waving a finger in the air. Castaway did likewise to me, with his middle finger while spitting all over me. Koki giggled. I kicked Castaway under the table. I had met my main squeeze Koki a year ago while at UW. She studied English there for a year. Then I came to Taiwan and she followed. I suspect she wanted to spy on me.

One year short of getting my degree, I went back to New York asking dad if could stay at home while I saved up money to go travel. After yelling at me for not taking my shoes off at the door, he offered to ship me off at no cost to myself.

“Why don’t you go to Taiwan? You could learn some Chinese and see your grandfather,” he said.

It had been ten years since my last trip there. Dad used to take me there once every few summers when he attended academic conferences. We’d stay at grandpa’s up in the roof shack, where an uncle went through before taking his own life. According to dad, he had a motorcycle accident that sent him flying through the air like a cannon ball and made him funny in the head. Dad didn’t say much bout it.

Anyways, I took dad up on his offer and signed up for a summer Mandarin school in Taipei with room and board. A few months after my arrival and purely by chance, Castaway came to visit and stay with grandpa. The last time I saw him was when I was here last. He still lived in Taiwan then and we used to hang out, throwing rocks at street dogs and what not. That was before I found out I could piss off folks in the psychology department by protesting against experimenting on animals.

Half an hour after the gang rampage grandpa was still watching TV. The police stayed on the scene for quite a while. We could see lights flashing through the window. Then Grandpa sat motionless watching the TV for what seemed like hours. There was a scene from the legislature in which the legislators were duking it out. One guy ran across the assembly floor to punch another guy, sending his glasses flying. A woman joined in. Everybody left their seat. Microphones and eye glasses were flying everywhere. I miss playing hockey.

Then, there was some weather report showing a rather large storm spinning and looming off the northern coast of Taiwan.

“The typhoon’s fast approaching the city,” said Castaway.

Whatever they say. The weather was nice. “Let’s go for a smoke.” I nudged Castaway.

We went down stairs and down to the 7-11 on the corner, got some Japanese canned coffee, and lit up our Marlboros. The cop had left and the store’s up and over door was down. The sidewalk was strewn with shards of glass.

“Just another day in the city. Eh?” I mocked. Castaway cocked back his head and talked about this hood in Victoria, BC, where he now lived. Shootings, gangbanging, and bombthreats. You name it. What was it? Right—Oak Bay. He was trying, but failing, to blow smoke rings. What a dank.

I started wondering why the normally busy eight-lane street was so deserted. Right at that moment it started pouring, hard, real hard. Not a single drop of rain the minute before.

“Shit, I guess the weather report was right. Oh well, at least we’re on shielded sidewalk.” I shook my head.

The wind picked up and the rain turned sideways. We were soaked. A couple inside out umbrellas sailed through the air. The scooters lining the sidewalk were suddenly knocked over like a row of dominos.

“I’m grabbing my camera!” Castaway shrieked, running up the stairs with a perverse gleam in his eyes.

My dreadlocks pointed northward like a compass needle. A woman was pinned to a post by the wind. I didn’t luck out on 9/11 only to die here. Castaway was on his way down as I was on my way up the stairs. Lost cause. I’ll go hang out with grandpa, do some bonding and what not, I thought.

Grandpa was shutting the patio door and windows as I came in. When he went back to watching the TV, I sat down in an inconspicuous little chair a few feet his seven o’clock. Five minutes passed before I tried to say something. The Japanese I learned from Koki took a vacation and I might’ve said good morning or goodbye. He turned his head a little to the left. I was still beyond his field of vision. Right, the old man’s hearing is going, I remembered.

I moved the chair up a bit and leaned forward and—I laughed. “HOW ARE YOU!” the show host said in funny English to—isn’t that Avril Lavigne?

Right. She was on an Asian tour, not that I was ever a fan. Grandpa turned his head and smiled at me, one of those proud smiles kids flash when they come home covered in mud. Ms Lavigne sat helpless and unresponsive in her seat, her raccoon eyes looking far, far away.

Castaway came in drenched and dripping and flashing the same smile that was just on grandpa’s face.

I stayed over that night cuz of the typhoon. We watched some TV after grandpa went to bed. Seems to me all Taiwanese people care about are baseball, politics, corny soap opera, and getting married to strangers.

There was a commercial playing to the tune of Pretty Woman, with young Vietnamese women wrapped like burritos in their traditional costumes. In the next scene they were all in bikini’s on a sunny beach and the bottom of the screen flashed a toll free dial-a-bride number.

Castaway was downing a Kahlua Mudslide. I was thinking about my old lady, Koki, and wondering what she was doing on a night like this.

The wind howled. The patio door shook against the confines of the frame. The windows were neon red and yellow. The air was dank.

I need a smoke. I reached into Wing’s pocket for that pack of Marlboro’s. He pointed up at the smoke alarm and shook his head.

“Take the battery out,” I said.

“No, let’s go upstairs.”

The stairway was dark. Wing turned on a flashlight. We walked quiet and slow as if afraid to wake someone up. My right foot came off the slipper accidentally and I swear I stepped on something.

I remember once turning on the light and seeing these cockroaches scuttle away from me. Two of them didn’t move but were engaged in the act of procreation, their tentacles moving wildly. They were of the South East Asian variety found in this country, four inch long, fat and juicy, with airborne capability.

I burped. Chicken wing jumped and stopped dead in his tracks. The light landed a few stairs up, on the wall, on his feet, on the ceiling, and—“get that light out of my face chemo!” I raised a hand over my eyes.

Up we went.

Castaway flicked a switch. An eon later the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling flickered. They stayed flickering. How ghetto.

“Posh,” I said, “didn’t grandma and auntie live here?”

They lived on the fourth floor, under the roof shack. Grandma died a year or so ago, after which auntie locked herself in their room until these men came, busted down the door, and took her to a fun house. I remember seeing them sit there in summer time, all naked, flabs hanging off the armrests and saggy breasts jiggling to the stroke of the electric fan. They never moved, except for the heads that rolled from side to side on occasions.

We had to walk through the living room and the dining room before we reached the stairs that led up to the roof shack. It was eerie as hell and I’d rather be in Detroit.

The story of the roof shack began before the days of me and Castaway. Grandpa’s youngest son was a bit of a Gypsy. He moved in. He moved out. He moved in. He moved out. Grandpa had that shack built illegally to accommodate him. According to Castaway, he became debt ridden after the 1990 stock market crash. His marriage broke apart. Not long after, he had that motorcycle accident. Then, one day, he plunged head first off a bridge into a bed of rocks. Some say he was grandpa’s favorite child. The uncle dad didn’t like to talk about.

Up in the roof shack was a straw mattress, a desk, a chair, a poster of a dirt biker clearing a jump, an old dusty acoustic guitar with broken strings, and a window with bars over it. It hadn’t changed much since I last visited. Perhaps dustier.

The typhoon was raging. We both lit a smoke. I lied down on the mattress. My head was reeling from the head rush.

“You know, I had hoped to actually learn some Mandarin on this trip,” I stared at a cob web on a corner of the ceiling.

“Not easy is it?”

“No.” I proceeded to share with him my uncertainty about the future. I said a lot, about how I had chosen biology in school just to piss dad off knowing he lacked respect for biology as a science, about how I had planned to travel all over, about how I, well, just wanted to get away from it all till I have the answers figured out. I only saw more questions. I don’t even know why I do what I do half the times.

We both just vegged out for a while. Then Castaway started strumming on the broken guitar. He held it like it was his prom date.

To save my sanity I proposed we check out what was in the closet instead. I expected to see nothing and was surprised to find a cardboard box full of dusty old photo albums.

We flipped through page after page of faded colour photos. One album had pictures of our dads and our aunts through their adolescence: my dad in a grad gown, Castaway’s dad in an army uniform, our uncle playing a guitar, the younger aunt in bell bottoms, and the retarded aunt slouching in a chair staring into the great unknown.

Another album had black and white pictures of a much younger grandpa with people we never knew. We came across a brown envelope filed between the pages. In it was a photo of a young man whom our uncle resembled, and a letter written in Japanese, which neither of us could read.

As sudden as it hit, the typhoon had cleared the city by next morning. The TV boomed out reports of the typhoon’s aftermath in Taipei and its journey through the island. There was a guy on TV with tears in his eyes, asking why over and over while his house floated off a cliff in the background. A dog was barking and wagging its tail atop a piece of floating debris.

We looked out the window and saw dangling signs and broken power lines. But the busses and the metro were running as usual.

Koki dropped by before I went back to school that day. We took her up to the roof shack and showed her the letter.

“It’s from somebody to his younger brother,” she said. “he just talking about nothing.”

Nothing, as it turned out, was a casual account of a bomb shell exploding off a beach and the festivities that followed after the villagers collected thousands of fish that washed ashore, fully cooked. It was dated Showa 20, the year 1945.

“The year the war ended,” I remarked.

“And the year before grandpa came back to Taiwan,” Castaway added, “the year his brother died.”

The man in the picture was grandpa’s older brother. The envelope was addressed but not stamped. It was never mailed out.

“That’s it?” I pressed Koki.

“That’s it.”

Another typhoon had just left the city the very day I was scheduled to fly out with Koki. I spent hours on the phone trying to find out whether our flight was canceled or not. It wasn’t. But the busses were since many parts of the city were mildly flooded.

I spent all morning on the phone. Believe me, the language barrier didn’t help either. We hailed a cab to the airport. The whole way there cars were parked on the shoulders of the elevated highway. I was just glad to be in the air when the plane took off. A little bit sad perhaps, but glad we made it.

A month later I had landed myself a few English tutoring jobs in Japan and was living with Koki when I received a hefty brown envelope from Canada.

There was no letter in it. Just lots of photographs. A picture of grandpa asleep in front of the TV. A picture of me and Koki on a bench. A few pictures of the vandalized clothing store. A ton of over and under exposed pictures of typhoon scenes.

One of them was taken on the day I flew out. In the background was an uprooted tree with a car crushed under it. Off to the side were a bunch of crows perched on a floating cat, dead as a, well, dead cat. In the foreground were little kids in bright yellow rain coats and boots in a flooded skate park, cheeks puffed up, hunched over white paper boats.