Kill Price
Saturday morning and she goes shopping at the Taichung Fifth Market. She picks up two fish heads for the price of one from the fish lady whose daughter sells slippers and fly swatters in the adjacent stand. She passes by the bean lady next and picks up a bag of pears from the fruit lady across the aisle who always throws in one or two more for free. Outside, she checks out the imported T-shirts, hoodies, and jeans from the U.S. and proceeds to kill price with the merchant before opening her purse. After that, she swings by the breakfast stall and orders four sets of egg pancakes, baked bread, deep-fried dough sticks, and soybean milk for less than what the fish lady’s daughter was trying to sell her six plush Hello Kitty slippers from Hong Kong. By the time she’s home, she’s convinced she should have killed half price off the T-shirts and makes a mental note to kill better next Saturday.
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Lemons
He waves his hand in a fish and chips place the way Chinese people holler at servers in Chinese restaurants. He asks for lemons by saying lemons but his wife says can we have some lemons please. He ignores this, at her trying to tell him what to say in English or how to say it as if he didn’t know how to ask for what he wanted. A thin slice of lemon floats in his glass of water and he takes the straw and stabs it pulpless while waiting. He makes little noises with his mouth and flags down a waitress holding a coffee pot. She has a smile at least and this time he says can I have some lemons. The waitress says yes I’ll be right back but she’s still pouring coffee at the adjacent table and the one after that and chatting. He drums his fingers now too close to the fork and knife until someone brings him two teeny lemon wedges. He says okay okay but his wife says thank you. He grunts at this, at her trying to imply that he doesn’t know how to say thank you in English or that he should say thank you for two teeny lemon wedges. He considers not tipping the way Chinese people consider not tipping in Chinese restaurants. But he’s hungry and his nose is running over the batter-thick halibut.
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Baby Cuz
I like it better when Baby Cuz’s ba calls my ma to say business is bad or business is so-so. But then he has to go and drop dead early in the hospital and yesterday Baby Cuz calls my ma, her gugu, to say how beautiful her ba was. She calls her gugu mornings to say she’s thinking of moving to New York or Abu Dhabi. Ma calls me evenings to say did I tell you Baby Cuz is moving to New York or Abu Dhabi. Maybe it’s better this way — Ma doesn’t call Baby Cuz, who doesn’t call her ma, who sometimes calls Ma, who always calls me if I don’t call her — and I’m having a late reaction. I call Ma to say where’s Baby Cuz moving to, New York or Abu Dhabi. Then we show up in the same crematorium in our home town, Baby Cuz and I. It’s thirty-five degrees Celsius. We laugh a lot about a lot of nothing and bond like cuzes do over sticky dead cells and foods we don’t digest anymore. We share a taxi to the same airport, separate gates, neither boarding for New York nor Abu Dhabi. Best conversation of our lives and I mean it.