Billy – The Tragic Tale of my Doppelganger
The Blue Angel Club was halfway between the Red Light District and my apartment, and I had passed it numerous times without going in. While I seldom tired of slumming in Sugar Daddy Row there were times that I did appreciate an opulent background for my drug-fueled self obsessed brooding and morbid nostalgia. On such occasions, I’d put on my white linen double-breasted blazer and black pants and pretend I was Bogart in Casablanca and languidly haunt piano bars. I had heard some of my students rave about the club and the high-class decor and so I decided to give it a shot. It was a blessing that double-breasted white blazers were in fashion again and so I didn’t attract too much attention with my Hollywood themed costume.
The Blue Angel was located under a high-rise apartment building in what was originally intended as the building’s underground parking garage. The entrance was down a ramp that normally one would drive a car down.
Through the blue neon main entrance guarded by Bamboo Union boys dressed in black suits, the ramp, now covered in lush carpeting and low-level lighting, continued down into the club’s first stop, the piano bar.
Opulence reigned in the piano bar with a fifty-foot long brass and marble bar, thick leather chairs and couches, brass and glass end tables with Tiffany glass lamps, and no fewer than five large TV screens lining the walls showing the latest MTV videos. At the end of the bar, lost in the distance when viewed from the entrance, was another room that functioned as a Karaoke parlor with a dozen tables and another large screen TV.
The now level parking access ramp continued its carpeted way through the club, where there are several VIP rooms luxuriously furnished and completed with a Karaoke machine, video player, and telephone to order in drinks and snacks. Beyond the VIP rooms lay the bathrooms and beyond these the disco. Again, no expense was spared in the disco, top-notch sound system, the full range of lighting effects, lasers, strobes, and fog machines, and a DJ booth that resembled an altar to an electronic god. What was originally a parking lot for a hundred cars is now a smoky disco that could house a thousand people.
The techno dance music nearly drove me away, but I explored the full extent of the disco out of duty. Following Sun Tzu’s advice of always knowing your terrain, I made it a habit to explore the entire location I planned on spending any time in. First on the list of things to look for the exits. Never allow yourself to be trapped in a dead-end with no escape.
There was a slight chance that the police would raid a disco. Under Taiwan’s martial law, all discos were illegal. Of course, this mattered not, since they were run by organized crime in partnership with the government. But occasionally, a manager would skim too much of the take, or seduce the mayor’s mistress, and the police would be given the order to stage a raid with the duel purpose of sending a warning to other overly greedy managers, and as a publicity stunt for the local news showing the honest and brave police forces busting another illegal nightclub.
After walking the perimeter of the entire club, I made my way back to the piano bar closest to the entrance. There was only one entrance or exit. The stairwells that would have functioned to allow access to the rest of the apartment building had been sealed off to prevent any undesirables from entering. The entire club was a firetrap. Being illegal and protected by both corrupt government officials and their Triad henchmen, complying with building codes and fire regulations, would have been an absurdly naïve concept.
Having recently experienced a 6.3 earthquake that had collapsed a few of the older buildings in the city, sitting in the underground firetrap with only one way out made me nervous. I took a seat at the end of the bar where I could see the exit ramp, and if things started shaking or smoking, I could cross the distance in ten seconds. I quickly ordered a double shot of whiskey and beer chaser.
The second purpose of reconnoitering the club was to assess the quality of women available. The doormen enforced a dress code, and so everyone was done up to the nines. The women were uniformly young and sexy. These were Han Chinese, the high brows, most with haughty attitudes. The women of Sugar Daddy row were from Fukienese stock and half-breed mountain people- shorter, darker, and with more Malayan features.
The Blue Angel girls were descendants of refugees from the Communist mainland that fled in 1948 after the defeat of the republican government. Classy, but they were the spoiled daughters of government officials and businessmen. Dressing like hookers to dance seductively at underground discos was one thing, letting some barbarian take away the only thing of value in their world was another. While nice to look at, I knew I wouldn’t be coming to the Blue Angel to chase women.
Turning my attention back to the bar, I noticed a Chinese man dressed in a white double-breasted blazer, black pants, and back T-shirt sitting at the bar with two young women dressed in metallic mini-skirts standing next to him. He looked down at himself, then up to me, and then made an expression of surprise. I got his meaning; we were dressed identically. I smiled and nodded. He lifted a finger, and a girl behind the bar ran to him. He spoke to her, and shortly thereafter, another double whisky and beer chaser was brought to me.
“On house” said the bartender, sheepishly brushing a lock of long dark hair from her porcelain face.
I couldn’t say no to such an invitation, and observing the way the staff was attuned to his every movement, I guessed he was management. I grabbed my drinks and walked down the bar to introduce myself and thank my host for the drinks.
“I think you have very good fashion sense,” said the man fingering the lapel of his jacket.
“As do you,” I replied while brushing the sleeve of my jacket with a flick of my palm.
“My name is Billy, and this is Ming and Ling”
“Smack,” I said and shook his hand. The girls batted their eyes in the way gun molls do in the film noir.
“So, are you a big fan of Bogey too?” Billy’s English was excellent, and I was surprised by his correct intuition of my Bogart fetish.
“Casablanca,” Billy continued before I could answer, and gestured with one hand to the rest of the club.
“Rick’s Americana,” I replied, “And you must be Rick.”
Billy didn’t answer but raised his glass in a toast and gave me a knowing smile. He had the same ‘Casablanca’ esthetic as I. What a bizarre coincidence I thought. I returned the salute and downed my double shot in one gulp.
Billy again nodded to the bartender and without a word, she brought another double whisky and beer for me, and another round of what looked like whisky for Billy. “On house,” she said, I wondered if it were the one phrase she knew in English.
“Look I really can’t accept so much hospitality,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I was being lured into something. After all, these were gangsters, or I thought Billy was anyway, and you don’t ever want to owe anything to them. I wasn’t intimidated by any of the Chinese gangsters I met. Westerners had a special status. We were civilians, and as foreigners, even more so. Stay cool and say little is always the best strategy when dealing with anyone from the criminal world.
“Don’t worry; it’s nothing.” Billy assured me. It wasn’t unusual for westerners to be given the VIP treatment at nightclubs, I was getting quite used to it. Younger Taiwanese adore western culture, especially the music and fashions. For a nightclub to be frequented by westerners meant, in the eyes of the Taiwanese club crowd, that the club was cool, and thus our presence gave it a cache that was good for business. Many clubs would hand out VIP cards to expats. These plastic cards entitled the bearer to a twenty percent discount, and, if the waitress didn’t already know who you were, flashing the card would have her running even faster, and bartenders pouring a little extra into the shot glass.
I thought Billy was too debonair to be a gangster. Most were low class, dressed, and acted that way. Spitting beetle nut and picking their noses. Billy had movie-star good looks. He sported a stylish razor cut hairstyle that was the de rigueur look of Asian boy bands, dressed well but without the ostentatious Rolex watch and gold chains, and his body language showed confidence, possibly some Kung Fu training. Unlike the image portrayed in the contemporary Hong Kong gangster movies, real gangsters were much too lazy to learn any real Kung Fu. We exchanged some small talk, and I tried to read him. He had to be working with the mob but perhaps in a way that Wendy and Michele ran the Shaolin Club. There the mob handled the heavy work, took most of the profits, laundered and embezzled what they could, but the girls were otherwise free to run the day-to-day operation.
I knew all this because Edgar was dating a Hostess from the Charlie Brown Club. She gossiped incessantly about all the inside scandals and shenanigans of Sugar Daddy Row. Richard and some of the old ex-pat reporters for the AP filled in assorted details about Taiwan’s cultural underground. Another source of intelligence was an ex-pat newspaper called The Grapevine. It featured a weekly gossip column that was written under the pseudonym Archibald Hornblower. It was a constant guessing game who Archibald Hornblower really was since he had good inside information on the city’s dirt, even mentioning our gang’s notorious partying in one column and so we had to have met him. The ex-pat crowd was not that large after all.
“So, where do you usually hang out?” Billy asked me after I answered that this was my first visit to the Blue Angel.
“Down in Sugar Daddy Row, mostly at the Shaolin Pub.”
“Well, then you must know my girlfriend Michele.”
“Wha? Michele is your girlfriend?” I had adopted the Chinese expression of saying ‘what’ without enunciating the consonant.
“Yes, she’s beautiful isn’t she?”
“Yea, she’s gorgeous. You’re a lucky guy.” I was glad for the idea that Michele was with such a charming fellow as Billy rather than the gangster scum I imagined her to be the property of. Michele was sweet and stunningly sex. I had proposed marriage to her across the bar several times, both shit faced and stone-cold sober. She always gently brushed me off explaining that she had a rich and famous movie star boyfriend.
“So are you the famous actor then?” I asked. Having friends in common is an important part of Chinese culture, and the fact that I knew Michele aided in the bonding process.
“I wouldn’t say that.” Billy chuckled, “I have a part on a soap opera. But I’m only famous with some middle-aged Chinese housewives. I’m sure Michele made it sound much more than it really is.”
“So, if you’re an actor, why are you working here?”
“Chinese show business is not like that in the West. We don’t get paid like they do in Hollywood.” Billy said with some resignation.
I didn’t continue the line of questioning. I knew a little about the entertainment industry in China, from a historical point of view. Until recently, entertainers were the lowest rung of Chinese society. They often lived a nomadic lifestyle and had to supplement their income with prostitution, both the female and male performers. Their nomadic lifestyles made being an entertainer a good cover story for escaped criminals and revolutionaries. These associations made all entertainers suspected subversives.
One of the legends surrounding the style of Kung Fu I studied in Hong Kong claims that the style was adopted by a troupe of traveling entertainers who plied their trade from Sampans traveling the southern rivers. Kung Fu and Peking Opera were like brother and sister.
I pulled out a spliff I had brought and held it up for Billy. “Should I spark this up?” Most Chinese had no knowledge of marijuana, and we often smoked a joint in a public restaurant or bar with no one noticing.
“Nice, yes, but not here. I have something for you too.” Billy motioned with his head to follow him. He told the two girls to wait for us at the bar, and he led the way to the back office accessed by an almost hidden door off to the side of the main hallway.
He sat down at a desk and motioned for me to take the opposite chair. I handed Billy the spliff. He lit it with a black enamel and gold DuPont lighter. He took a couple of deep puffs and handed it to me. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small mirror, a razor blade, and a small glass vial. He proceeded to pour out eight lines of coke on the mirror.
Billy rolled up a banknote and handed it to me. “After you.”
“I haven’t had a toot in a long time. Did you get this around here?” I said, taking the rolled bill in my hand,
“No, there’s no blow on the island. I had a friend bring some back for me when she went to California.” Billy slid the mirror towards me.
“Are you sure you want to share your stash with a stranger?” I asked.
“May guan shi, (no problem) Bu yao ke chi (don’t be too polite). I’m glad to share with someone that appreciates it.”
“Well, many thanks.” I bent forward and vacuumed two lines into my nostrils.
I rose up and sighed. “Billy, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
“You funny guy.”
We finished the spliff and snorted the remaining lines then headed back to the bar. I was feeling much better. The coke, the dope, the four shots of whiskey, and two beers made me stop worrying about earthquakes and firetraps. Billy ordered another round of drinks, on house, I stopped pretending to object. The effects of cocaine negate the drowsy effects of the booze, and I could have downed a twenty-sixer of whisky and barely noticed.
“So you’re here for the exotic pun tang and cheap drugs, what else do you do?” Billy continued our conversation. I told him about my studies.
I gave Billy points for not doing the obvious. Most men hearing about my Kung Fu training react by assuming a ridiculous ‘fighting pose’ and making monkey noises.
I’ve seen about seven hundred men do this, and each one was an idiot. The truth is most men are cowards. The Kung Fu pantomime everyone does is a version of dissipative behavior, burning off nervous energy through irrational actions to avoid having to face a perceived threat. A confident (or is it brave?) man would not feel threatened, and therefore would not feel the need to react.
“That’s funny. I was telling Ming that you moved like you knew Kung Fu.” Replied Billy.
This was noticeable to anyone who had achieved some level of skill in the martial arts. There is a certain method of locomotion, the way you roll off your feel as you walk, heel, ridge ball, that is solid yet fluid. That Billy noticed confirmed my earlier suspicion that he had had some training as well.
“That’s funny, I was thinking the same thing about you.”
“I learned a little Kung Fu in school,” Billy said deferentially while shrugging his shoulders.
“You didn’t by any chance go to a Peking Opera school?”
Billy’s jaw dropped in mock shock. “Boy, you are good.”
“Well, that explains what I’ve been trying to figure out about you.” I was on a roll. I was trying to cold read Billy and had hit it pretty close. It was a skill that required knowledge of the human condition. One must observe both the verbal and non-verbal body language to determine the type and quality of character one was dealing with.
“Interesting, and what is that?” Billy did not betray the least sign that he was or would be threatened by my insights.
“Well, I know you must have a connection with the mob in order to manage this club, but you have a legitimate job, and you are also much too classy to be a real gangster. So what kind of Chinese education could produce both a gangster and a movie star?’
“Peking Opera School!” Billy answered my question and burst out laughing.
The Peking Opera school system is a bizarre medieval Chinese institution that is both benign and diabolically evil. It is a cross between orphanage and boarding school were poor parents would send an unwanted or unaffordable son since it was cheaper to pay the opera school for room and board than to raise the child themselves. Because they occasionally took in orphans, they were also charities. The curriculum was a severe regime of gymnastics and a stage version of Kung Fu with only a little academic study. The beatings and cruel punishments handed out were legendary. Graduates had few options in the modern workplace.
“You know what they say about Peking Opera School?” asked Billy.
I shook my head, but I already knew.
“There are only two career choices, movie star or gangster.”
This explained Billy’s career. His stage training and good looks landed him a part on TV. However, for most of his classmates, they would have ended up gangsters. That they would use an old schoolmate like Billy to front the club and who had the cache of being a local celebrity made perfect sense. He was someone they could trust even if he wasn’t in the gang exactly. It also explained his kung fu trained body language.
Both of us having studied Kung Fu was another connection and an important one. Many of the old-style Kung Fu schools also functioned like a Masonic lodge. There were secret handshakes, symbols, and catchwords to indicate that one was a member of that style of Kung Fu. In dynastic times, these fraternities were often the source of anti-government movements and rebellions. More recently, some devolved into organized crime families as in the origins of the modern Triads. I had studied under a couple of the old-time masters and knew more of the lore than most. This made my meeting with Billy similar to a mason meeting a fellow mason.
One of the hostesses came over to Billy and whispered in his ear. His mood became serious. He looked towards the entrance. I followed his gaze and saw a group of five men walk in. They wore loud silk shirts draped with gold chains, black pants and shoes, and white socks. They all had their hair greased and combed back. Their body language betrayed a readiness for violence.
“Listen I have to go. Why don’t you come back next Saturday? It’s my birthday.”
“Well, there’s another coincidence, it’s my birthday too.” This was true.
“What year?”
“57.”
“Me too!”
“Look, I’ll let you go, and I’ll see you Saturday,” I said since I could see Billy getting anxious to attend to business. We shook hands, and I left walking past the group of gangsters, pretending I didn’t notice them but watching from the corner of my eye.
Outside it was pouring rain and cold. I was surprisingly relieved to be out of the underground disco bunker. I put on my vinyl raincoat over my blazer, and then a poncho over that. It was still early, so I decided to go to the nearby Ding Hao night market to wander around and take advantage of my extreme intoxication to revel in the neon. Neon always looks so cool in the rain when you’re stoned. I first bought another two cans of beer from a night vendor’s cart parked under the awning of a nearby hair salon that was closed for the night. I sat on my motorcycle and pulled my poncho up and over my head to create a tent-like shelter over myself. I pulled out another spliff, and, first drying my wet hands under my armpits, lit it with a Bick lighter. I left just a slit of my poncho open to see through and blow out puffs of smoke. I finished the spliff and drank the beers before walking down the alley to the market.
Ding Hao market was a warren of narrow alleyways lined with shops, each lit up with neon and Christmas lights, and each with a portable radio blaring distorted Chinese pop tunes. Hundreds of people crushed and cruised along the market’s narrow arteries. In the center was a food court, actually a parking lot, inhabited by dozens of portable food stalls. The smell of soy and fish and spices and burning grease assailed your senses from a block away. The rain kept pouring, so I wore my poncho’s hood low over my face and buttoned the rain jacket collar up over my mouth so that only my eyes showed. I imagined myself a medieval Japanese Yamabushi, wandering swordsmen who traveled incognito wearing a large basket-like hat that covered their entire heads. I felt quite snug listening to the patter of raindrops on my poncho, like lying in a tent at night during a rainstorm.
There was a strange dichotomy wandering the night markets that always gave me an emotional rush. On the one hand, I was utterly and completely alone, ten thousand miles from home in an obscure corner of a backwater city in a strange land. No one knew where I was, what I was, or what I was doing. It felt hauntingly empty and sad. Yet, at the same time, I was immersed in bustling, vibrant humanity. There was always something interesting to see and do and life rushed around you like a whirlwind of lights, smells, sounds, and sexy girls.
“What the fuck have you been taking?” Richard asked me when I arrived at the Ploughman’s on Sugar Daddy Row.
“Whatever do you mean?” I replied. I wasn’t going to tell Richard I had snorted some lines with Billy because I’m sure he’d be over there in ten minutes begging Billy to sell him his stash.
“Your pupils are fucking dilated.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“So, where have you been?” Richard changed tact.
“The Blue Angel.”
“Oh, did you meet Billy?”
“You know Billy?”
“Yeah, everyone knows Billy.” Richard rolled his eyes as if he was talking to an idiot.
“Did he lay out a few lines of coke for you? That would explain your pupils.”
“What, you have spies everywhere?” I remembered there were no secrets in Taipei.
“I told you I’m CIA man.”
“No, seriously, asshole, how did you know?” It was a mystery to me how gossip traveled so fast.
“Because, asshole, I know the girl that smuggled it in for him. She’s one of the models that sometimes works for Charley. She also smuggled in two blotters of acid with fifty hits on each blotter.”
“You mean you have a hundred hits of acid?” I said incredulously. Richard’s access to drugs never ceased to amaze me.
Richard pulled out an envelope from his pocket. Inside were two sheets of paper with rows of little elves stamped on them. Richard tore the paper along one of the rows and handed me the strip of paper. When it came to drugs, our gang employed a purely socialist strategy, whoever found some, shared with everyone else.
“There’s ten hits on that. That should do you awhile, and if you need any more let me know.”
“Thanks buddy. Did I ever tell you how much I love you?”
“You’re a real fucking junkie, you know that,” Richard pretended to be serious, “If I have drugs, you love me, but if I don’t have drugs, I’m an asshole.”
“And your point is?”
“The point is you’re a real asshole.”
“Was there any doubt?” I placed the strip of paper in my pocket and drank a sip from my beer.
“So, what did you think about Billy?” Richard asked as he folded the papers back up and stuffed them in the envelope.
“Seems like a great guy. Why?”
‘You know he’s Michele’s boyfriend.”
“Yeah, he told me. Lucky bastard eh”
“Okay, I’m gonna tell you something that has to be a strict secret between you and me.”
I nodded.
“Billy’s married.”
“Really?”
“They can’t stand each other. It was an arranged marriage.”
“I thought that went out of style by now.”
“Yeah, well, mostly. But it still goes on in the more remote villages. Billy’s family was dirt poor. You know his family sent him to a Peking Opera School.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And you know there are only two jobs waiting when you graduate right?”
“Yeah, soap opera star or gangster.”
“Good. I’m glad to see you’re doing your homework. But here’s the kicker, his wife is the daughter of one of the Bamboo Union bosses.”
“Shit, that can’t be good.”
“That’s why he works at the Blue Angel. That’s also how he got the part on that soap opera. The Bamboo boys put in a good word with the producers, and Billy was in.”
“Interesting. How did Billy come to have an arranged marriage with the Godfather’s daughter?” I felt a tang of guilt for being such a gossip.
“You’re not going to believe this shit.” Richard always prefaced the juiciest gossip with a disclaimer. “He was performing in a Peking opera recital at the school, and of course half the gangsters in Taipei are graduates, so they were all there to support the school. The Godfather brought his daughter, who everyone says is an ugly spoiled shrew, and she saw Billy, and you know how good looking Billy is?”
“If I was gay, I’d do him.”
“So she sees Billy and falls in love. Now she’s also seven years older than Billy, he’s like eighteen at the time and she’s twenty-five.”
“An old maid in Chinese years,”
“Exactly. So she tells Daddy to buy her the pretty boy on stage.”
“Jeeze, where do you get all this stuff?”
“Hey! I’ve lived here for fifteen fucking years man,“ Like most psychopaths, Richard could turn mean in an instant. “There’s nothing else to do but hear everyone’s shit!”
“Okay, take it easy.”
“No, I got to get off of this fucking island man, you don’t know, I’m going nuts stuck here.” Richard couldn’t leave because he hadn’t filed an income tax return for eight years. You could renew your visitor’s permits endlessly, provided you file an income tax return. If you tried to leave and you’re passport visa showed you’d stayed more than three months, then you had to provide an income report. The income tax charged was only three percent and everyone paid that upfront from their wages. But without a tax return, you would be brought to the local jail and left there until all the details of your stay were worked out, which could take months.
“Relax buddy. You wanna smoke a doobe?”
“No, I’m good.” Richard calmed down. “Any way where was I?”
“Super bitch asks Daddy to buy her Billy boy.”
“Right. So Daddy finds Billy’s dad, and it turns out his dad has a bit of a gambling problem and owes the local triads a chunk of cash.”
“A Chinese with a gambling problem? Humm never heard that before,” I said sarcastically. Gambling was a scourge among the Chinese like crack is in America.
“Exactly, and so Daddy offers Billy’s dad to pick up his IOUs if he’ll sell them Billy. Now there are not many locals that are going to say no to the Bamboo Boys, and next thing you know, Billy is married.”
“So then what happened?”
“Well, the wife is so ugly Billy can’t get it up.”
“How could you know that?” I said with skepticism. Not even a man’s sexual proclivities were secret? I wondered.
“Billy’s wife told one of her girlfriends, who’s friends with one of the girls in Charley’s office, who told Charley, who told me.”
“The Chinese ‘old wives’ grapevine.”
“Exactly. So super-bitch is not pleased and soon grows to resent Billy for not laying the pipe to her. Now they both hate each other’s guts, but she won’t give Billy a divorce because she would lose face.”
“That’s pretty ugly.”
“Yeah. Now Billy fucks everything that moves just to provoke the bitch into divorcing him, but she won’t budge. And Billy can’t divorce her because her Daddy would have his kneecaps removed.”
“The horror.” I quoted Joseph Conrad.
“Yeah it’s driven Billy to drink and now he’s a raging alcoholic.”
“Nah, he looked pretty together when I saw him.”
“Don’t be fooled. Billy keeps it together better than most, but they have to scrape him off the floor every night.”
“Poor bastard.”
“Yeah, but he’s a great guy,” said Richard.
The next week I dropped by the Blue Angel on mine and Billy’s birthday. Billy wasn’t there. There were indications of a party in the piano bar, a few balloons floating against the ceiling, some scattered doilies with cake and icing stuck to them. The carpet appeared to have been recently cleaned with several wet patches. It was around nine in the evening, bright and early for the nightlife scene, but apparently, Billy’s party had already come and gone. I asked around and finally found one of the waitresses who could speak enough English to tell me what happened to Billy. He had started drinking early in the day. By late afternoon he was plastered. Then there was an argument, a fight broke out, then Billy went back to drinking. By six, Billy was passed out on the piano, a couple of the doormen took him home.
I sat at the bar, ordered a double shot of whiskey and beer chaser, and took two hits of acid. I hated celebrating my birthday, and it seemed Billy did too. I made my way to Sugar Daddy Row and headed for the Shaolin Pub. I arrived before the effects of the acid had kicked in. Richard was there as well as Mark and Bogo.
“There’s the birthday boy!” They all greeted me as I walked in.
“How’d you guys know it was my birthday?”
“Michele told us. You have the same birthday as Billy,” Richard answered.
Michele came over, pretending to look happy. “Hey ya smacky, happy birthday, you like usual?” she tilted her head in a flirtatious manner out of sheer habit as she spoke.
“Thanks, Michele, yes, shay shay.”
“So I guess you missed Billy’s birthday party then?” continued Richard.
“How do you know?” I was starting to think Richard was psychic, but he had been living in Taipei for a long time, and he was plugged into the grapevine.
“Michele was there. She told me what happened.”
Michele came back with my drinks, she leaned on the bar to listen to our conversation. I could see despite the dim lighting that her eyes were red.
“So, what happened?” I asked.
Mark and Bogo pulled their barstools in closer, so the five of us formed a conspiratorial huddle. Richard looked at Michele as if to ask permission to tell the story, she nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Well, Billy got shit-faced early. Then his brother-in-law shows up at the Blue Angel. He’s all mobbed up too and thinks he’s a big shot. He just came to piss on Billy’s birthday party. The guy is swaggering around talking bullshit about Billy.”
“He big asshole,” Michele interjected, “May Shui Jen” (no class).
“So Billy picks up what’s left of his birthday cake and throws it in the guy’s face. Next thing you know, they’re throwing punches and really getting into it. The doormen break it up and drag the brother-in-law away, screaming that Billy can’t get it up because he’s a fag.”
“Billy no fag, I know!” Michele said knowingly. I’m sure Billy had no problem laying the pipe to Michele. I knew I wouldn’t.
“After the guy’s gone, Billy grabs a bottle of scotch and downs a third in one swallow. Five minutes later, he collapses over the piano. The doormen take him home in a taxi.”
“I fucking hate birthdays,” I said.
“Yea, Billy say so too,” said Michele, “Why you guys so sad on your birthday? You should be happy.”
“We’re born under a moody star,” I explained. Most Chinese were very superstitious and tended to believe in both the Chinese and western astrology. I knew this answer would serve as an explanation for Michele, and yet it revealed nothing.
Some more patrons arrived at the bar, and Michele went to greet them.
“So, have you tried the Sid yet?” Richard asked.
“Just dropped two hits about half an hour ago.”
“And you rode your bike here?” Richard motioned towards my shoulder bag bulging with cans of beer and the telltale poncho and rain gear in case it started raining again. If we were riding our motorcycles, we always carried rain gear. However, if we were getting around by taxis, we only needed an umbrella.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, it’s your funeral.”
Richard was the only one of our gang that didn’t ride. When I had asked him about it, he told me that he used to ride a bike, then one day he saw his best friend picked from the grill of a Taipei city bus. “He was fucking hamburger,” and hadn’t ridden since.
Edgar had arrived and with the gang assembled, we headed off to The Gasworks for some rounds of billiards. Michele grabbed me by my arm at the door as we were leaving and motioned me over to the side.
“You know Smack that Billy really like you. He say you two are soul brothers.”
It was strange that we had connected so strongly, even though I had only met him once.
“Well, I like Billy too,” I replied.
“You know, maybe Billy would listen to you.”
“Listen to me about what?”
“Maybe you could say him not drink so much. I really worried him.”
“I’m no one to preach to Billy. I drink too.”
“Yeah, but you not alcoholic.”
“How do you know? You’ve never seen me sober.”
“I work bar, I know alcoholic. You no alcoholic.”
“I don’t know.”
“Please, he would listen to you.”
“Okay, I’ll try and say something next time I see him.”
“Thanks Smack. It would make me feel better.”
I went over the trunk like doing a Fosbury Flop over the high bar. Time slowed, and it was almost as if I were flying in slow motion through the air backwards. I wasn’t wearing a helmet. I knew that by landing on your back, your head would tend to whip backward and crack open on the pavement. I knew exactly what to do.
For months, Master Tsai my Kung Fu instructor, had me practicing the Iron Vest technique. I hated this exercise and thought it to be both painful and pointless. From a standing position, you had to arch back, leap into the air, and land flat on your back on the cold concrete floor. This was very different from the gentler rolling break falls taught in Ju Jitsu. This was akin to running full speed into a brick wall. Master Tsai said it would toughen me up to withstand blows to the body. He often demonstrated this skill by having students break two by four wood beams across his back or shatter cinderblocks with a sledgehammer across his chest. Mostly it just knocked the wind out of me, and I worried about cracking a rib or rupturing a kidney.
There were two important points I did learn though. First, you needed to tense just at the moment of impact and dissipate the force of the impact by distributing it across the flat of your upper back. Second, you needed to tuck your chin in and hold it so that your head does not slingshot into the ground.
I tucked my chin in and braced for impact.
The evening had been uneventful. We had shuffled along and hit a couple of clubs, but the city was dead. It was Chinese New Year, and for a week, everything was deserted, closed, or empty. I hated Chinese New Year as much as I hated my birthday, and the two occurring at the same time was thus doubly depressing. The rest of the gang similarly lost their enthusiasm and decided to all go home early. However, the acid was kicking in, and I knew I couldn’t sit in a room for the rest of the night without going insane and so I took off on my bike to cruise the city’s strangely silent foggy streets.
The acid wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I had been dropping a hit every year or so since I was thirteen and knew what to expect. The lampposts rippled, the buildings swayed like curtains blowing in a breeze. The neon lights smudged like motion blur on a photograph. My motorbike was no longer earthbound but now a space vehicle traveling through star clusters ala 2001 a Space Odyssey.
It was a good trip.
I meandered through the streets at random, somehow ending up in a junkyard on the outskirts of the city. Here hundreds of buses were parked in neat rows front to back that extended for what seemed like miles. There wasn’t any indication of life, no people or animals, just a vast apocalyptic wasteland of rusting machinery. The only movement came from a plastic bag that caught subtle eddies of wind and danced among the hulks, a plastic ghost in a surreal industrial graveyard. Have no doubt that we will all end up here.
I rode through the rows as though trapped in a maze. Finally, I stopped and turned off the bike to listen. It was quiet. Usually, the city gave off a constant white noise interspersed with the occasional siren, car alarm, or horn blow, but not now. Streetlights ringed the junkyard in the distance, but the light that reached the interior was so dim that you could not see color. The shadows started to grow and contract as if breathing. I had traversed the galaxy and arrived at the end of time, where all that remained was the breath of Brahma, the inhalation and exhalation, the Yin and the Yang.
“Well, birthday boy, time to go home, wherever that might be,” I said aloud to myself, hoping I wouldn’t hear a response from one of the buses.
It was a game I often played with myself. I would ride or walk deep into the bush or strange city until I had no idea where I was, and then try to find my way home again. Extra points if you could make it back while wasted. I kept a survival kit in my shoulder bag, a poncho for the rain, extra T-shirt, an extra pack of smokes and lighter, extra joint, a small bottle of 160 proof spirits, three cans of beer, and a thousand-dollar NT note in a hidden pocket in case of a cash emergency.
The acid still had me wide-awake and feeling twitchy, and the slowly moving shadows indicated that things could start to go bad if I wasn’t careful. I smoked the joint, washed it down with two ounces of Kao Liang, and snapped the tab on a beer. The booze and hash should mellow the Sid a bit and prepared me for the journey back. “Well Billy here’s to us,” I said aloud and raised my beer can. The empty buses listened without reply.
It was almost dawn when I hit the car. I was riding along a road that runs parallel to one of the canals that channel the runoff from the mountain and harmlessly deposits it in the Dan Shui River. It’s always the booze that makes you reckless. I should have stopped at every crossroad that cuts over the canal on an arched bridge, but I didn’t. The small sedan came across from my right. By the time I saw it, it was too late to stop. I swerved my bike to the left so that I would hit the car going in a sideways skid but facing in the direction the car was traveling in. I impacted the driver’s side rear wheel well and cleared the rear trunk like going over a high bar in track and field.
I landed surprisingly softly ten feet further down the road. The momentum carried me another six feet, sliding on my back. My head never touched the ground. I lay still for a moment to assess the damage. From my St. John Ambulance training, I knew that a serious injury might not cause pain for some time, and so, although I felt fine, that did not mean I might not have ripped a leg off. Still lying on my back, I felt down each arm, searching for breaks or injuries. Then I felt along my torso and legs. I wiggled my toes. Everything seemed fine.
I then noticed a couple in their mid-forties standing in the street looking with horrified expressions at me lying on the pavement. I guessed they were the occupants of the car I just hit. No doubt they thought I’d sue them into bankruptcy even though I was at fault.
I stood up, brushed off my pants and jacket, and rotated my head and shoulders to stretch out. There wasn’t a scratch on me, not even a bruise. I am a monster, I thought to myself.
My Iron Shirt training had saved my ass.
I ignored the couple who stood there in silent awe as I checked their car and my bike for damages. The rear panel of their car was caved in, and there was a trough in the metal where my ass gouged a channel over the trunk. Thank god for cheap cars. My bike had a few additional scratches and scrapes, but the only real damage was done to the right handlebar that was bent into the center of the steering column. I picked up the bike and, holding on with both hands to the left handlebar, I put my foot onto the right handlebar and pushed it back into shape. You couldn’t even tell it was ever bent. I jumped on and kick-started her up. She thrummed to life instantly. That’s my girl.
This whole time the couple remained motionless as though not comprehending what was happening, the wife holding onto her husband’s arm for safety. They said nothing, nor made any indication they wanted to speak with me. I needed to getaway. I had no license or insurance, and I was carrying a stash of illegal drugs and so had no desire to report, or have anyone else report, my accident to the police.
With just a nod in their direction, I gunned the motor and took off. I had no doubt they would be relieved to not have the incidence reported as well since intense litigations surround every accident in Taipei.
I felt unfazed by the whole event. It is ironic that while alcohol is responsible for most fatal crashes, it is the drunk that usually survives due to being drunk in the first place. I knew there was still a possibility of going into shock later and so I thought it best to find a place to sit down and maybe have a coffee. The Taipei Grand Hotel was nearest, easily visible as the city’s major landmark, so I headed there and decided to have breakfast.
The Grand Hotel was the pet project of the late generalissimo and Dictator Chiang Kai Check. An over the top luxurious thirty-story hotel designed to resemble in every way an ancient imperial palace. The hotel lobby was an immense and opulent affair with a fifty-foot ceiling supported by dozens of thick red columns and a floor covered in seemingly endless swaths of plush red carpet. Enormous traditional styled Chinese lanterns hung from an ornately carved and gilded ceiling.
I arrived at the front entrance disheveled, dirty, and stinking of booze and gasoline, my bike spewing a thick cloud of white smoke. This did not deter the doormen from racing to open the large Chinese bronze doors and usher me into the lobby with bows.
I had breakfast in the Golden Dragon Pavilion, ordering the steak and eggs, and then the croissants and café o’ lay. The wait staff was courteous, but I saw then gossiping in the corner. I must have looked like a lunatic.
While I had narrowly escaped disaster, Billy was not so lucky. His wife destroyed him in a way no one could have predicted.