Ghost Month Read Free Page A

came across the open amphitheater near the center of the park. When I was a kid, I’d seen an Elvis imitator on this stage. I remembered that when he spoke English he seemed to have a Filipino accent, but when he sang he sounded just like the recordings.
    I looked at the people hanging out on the benches before the barren stage. All the guys seemed to be with their girlfriends or families. I didn’t have either anymore. As an orphan I had more in common with the squatters and homeless old soldiers who’d been thrown off the land to make the park.
    Somewhere in the park was a Buddha statue that a typical Taiwanese in my distressed state would probably seek out to pray to. I decided that I’d rather see animals than a good-for-nothing statue, so I headed northwest to the giant lotus pond. I leaned against the railing and listened to hidden insects make whirring sounds. The egrets seemed to be out to lunch. I looked over the floating green muck and found a group of turtles doing nothing. It seemed to be a life free of worries.
    To my left, three older men in baggy slacks sprawled on top of a bench, mirroring the turtles in the pond. They spoke in a Chinese dialect I didn’t know. Maybe they were soldiers who’d been stranded in Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War ended sixty years ago. More likely, younger relatives had brought them over more recently from rural China, thinking they’d be better off in a modern city. The men didn’t look or sound too happy to be here. Content Chinese people do tai chi in the park. Bitter Chinese people complain until the sun goes down.
    It was a common story, that elderly Chinese couldn’t enjoy the urban conveniences of Taipei. They could have anything they wanted except for the foods, places and people they had left behind—which was all they wanted. I know what it’s like to be unhappy where you are.
    I STILL RUE THE day five years ago when I came back to Taiwan from UCLA because my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.My mother was killed in a car accident on the way to the airport to pick me up. After that my father lived only three more weeks.
    It was the hardest thing in the world for me to tell my father that his wife was dead. He burst into tears, and the rare display of emotion created an uncomfortable situation for both of us. Then he told me that it was up to me now to keep the food stall going after he was gone. There was an old gambling debt my grandfather had accumulated that had never gone away, and those people had to be paid. I’d known about it, but I hadn’t realized how large it was and how little of it we had whittled down over the years. Selling everything my family owned would cover maybe a quarter of the debt. If I tried to return to UCLA, leaving the country without repayment would put a price on my head.
    Just like that, my American sojourn was over. I didn’t even get to finish my sophomore year.
    If only I had taken a different flight or not come home at all, my mother would still be here, I would have an American job and Julia would be alive. Maybe she’d be sunning in her bikini on a California beach with me instead of being shot dead in her bikini at a highway betel-nut stand.
    Before we left for college, we had both known that carrying on a long-distance relationship would only distract us from our schoolwork. It would hurt our grades and therefore our prospects for American jobs.
    We promised ourselves to each other in the nicest love hotel we could afford, and I told her that while I wouldn’t be in touch, I would come for her when I was fully set up in the US.
    “I’ll just show up at your door with my best suit on, and we’ll head to the city hall and get married,” I had told her.
    “That would be so romantic!” she had said. “You don’t have to wear a suit. I know you hate dressing up.”
    “I have to for the photos! For the kids to see.”
    “You’re so stubborn. I know that’s exactly what you’ll do.”
    Now when I