Double Cup Love

by Eddie Huang

  I took another sip, gave Evan a slap on the back and thanked him for coming back.

  “Rabbi! Soup’s ready!” shouted Evan.

  Rabbi walked over with Tim in tow, his old bowl still in his hands.

  “Here, put in my old bowl is OK.”

  “You sure? Drink the rest of the soup so they don’t mix.”

  Rabbi downed the last remaining bit of his soup and extended his hands. Evan dropped a basket of noodles, and I poured in the soup, topping it off once again with one each of oxtail, pig’s foot, and tendon.

  “Hmmm, this is cool. I don’t usually see the pig foot or oxtail in Taiwanese beef noodle soup, very interesting move,” said Tim.

  After all this time, I’d almost forgotten that most Taiwanese people made the stock with beef bones and served it with sliced shank. I started doing it with oxtail, pig’s feet, and tendon a few years earlier and never looked back, the flavor from the oxtail being superior to beef bones.

  “Yeah, you get more viscosity with pig’s feet and oxtail.”

  The two walked away, each with a bowl of soup, and sat down at the table. After a few minutes, I walked over to see what they thought.

  “WOW!” said Tim ecstatically, with half a pig’s foot in his mouth. “Eddie, this is how you say ‘AWESOME,’ eh?”

  “Yes! I agree, Eddie. This soup is even better than thirty minutes ago. What did you do?” asked Rabbi.

  “I mixed fresh chilis with dry chilis for two different types of heat. One smoky, one bright and acidic, so there’s more layers.”

  “Tim, how does this compare to other Taiwanese beef noodle soup you had?” asked Rabbi.

  “Rabbi, I have to say this is not Taiwanese beef noodle soup.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Rabbi.

  “This is just very unique. I don’t know how to say besides this is original! I’ve never had like this. You can tell it comes from Taiwanese beef noodle soup, but many innovations.”

  Evan pulled me aside.

  “Eddie, I think you should stop asking what everyone thinks, you and this soup are your own thing. Even at Old Jesse, you pissed me off, man. You don’t have to keep bowing to everyone. Stop asking for approval. It makes me sad.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, but I was glad Evan had come back. I felt stronger when he was around. I guess my mother was right about the third chopstick.

  “Sorry I quit like I did.”

  “It’s cool. You can come back if you want.”

  “I thought about it a lot, Ed. I don’t respect myself working for you. I don’t know who I am, and you can’t teach me. I gotta go.”

  My mother’s vision of three boys together forever was impossible. A family can’t move as one. A family has to grow, extend, get cut off, and grow again like succulents. If you believe in family, you know it’s built for this. One day, we’ll all come home. And then we’ll go away again.

  Emery had been listening to the entire conversation. In a stroke of unprecedented self-control, he bit his tongue and resisted saying a word until the coast was clear.

  “Dickhead, let Evan go. You got Dena.”

  * * *

  *1 She always wore this T-shirt to bed that said “Vagina” in that Virgin Airlines font. I brought it and even after a wash, it still smelled like her when I put it on.

  *2 Electronic Benefit Transfer…i.e., welfare lobster.

  *3 Chowhounds.

  *4 Lu Zhou Old Noodle Shop.

  *5 Fresh pepper paste noodles.

  *6 Fresh Off the Boat, the original show on Vice, is now called Huang’s World.

  *7 First is the blood and gray foam that comes up when you flash-boil meat before braising it.

  PART 3

  NEW BEGINNINGS

  Tim

  “Hey, Eddie! Emery tells me something very disturbing!” said Rabbi, still in a haze from the soup.

  “What? Something wrong?”

  “I hear Dena is coming tomorrow, but you still haven’t called her father!”

  It was a sore spot with me ever since the phone call at Noah’s Ark. Why did I have to ask? Why did he have to approve? This was some caveman shit, to think he owned her. After his whole rant about The Firm and Tom Cruise and China as this fucking evil communist country, I didn’t feel like I needed his approval about anything in my life. I didn’t understand why telling someone I loved her and that I wanted to be with her the rest of my life required me to kowtow to someone too ignorant to understand that communism in China was like freedom in America. A mirage.

  Even with my parents, wrong was wrong. If I held my parents to a reasonableness standard, why would I lower the bar for Mr. Fusco? Humans should be reasonable if for no other reason than the fact that we can be reasonable. To lean on your status as a parent to justify your baseless, boneheaded opinions and actions is as archaic and ass-backward as breathing out of your mouth.

  “I don’t need his approval. Even if he said no, I would propose anyway. Why ask if his opinion doesn’t matter?”

  “Eddie. This is very shameful. It is not about whether he says yes or no, this is about respect. That is her father. He raised her and in a way you are taking her.”

  “I’m not taking her!”

  “Of course you are. This is natural, though. It is OK. Every parent knows this and expects this, for the most part they want this. Especially father of the bride, this is a huge accomplishment for him! He raised a daughter that somebody wants to marry and be partners with. In many ways, this is his greatest achievement as her father. You cannot take this away from him,” said Rabbi emphatically.

  “I agree, Ed. The right thing to do is ask. Don’t let him drag you down….You already know this is how Americans think about us,” added Emery.

  “Eddie, if you don’t have respect, what do you have? You can’t not do this,” said Rabbi.

  I couldn’t get over it. A part of me wanted to stick it to Mr. Fusco. Americans like him called me “communist” before I ever knew what communist meant. I had nothing to do with communism and even if I did, so what? Communism is an ideology with good intentions that got applied to the world in extremely grotesque ways, just like religion or democracy or fertilizer!

  At the most base level, I felt trapped. I found my wiz, but before I could walk with her into the rest of my life, I had to bow to a white man once again.

  I packed up the leftovers and equipment, thanked Mr. Zheng, and brought it all upstairs to my apartment. Tim helped me with everything because Rabbi had to get to the club across the street and DJ. I grabbed my jade one-hitter from Mongolia and ran downstairs to hotbox Tim’s car; I hadn’t smoked for two weeks.

  “Here, I don’t know if it’s good, but this is as good as it gets in China,” offered Tim.

  It wasn’t good. It wasn’t even close to good. It was vintage hot trash middle-school dance party weed that came with sticks, stems, and now Mongolian one-hitters. I took a puff.

  “This tastes like shit, bruh,” I said, laughing.

  “Ha ha, take it easy, Eddie, this is what we deal with here.”

  “Would you rather have fast internet or better weed?” I asked.

  “Oh…of course better weed, then you don’t notice the internet.”

  “TRUE! Yo, what do you do out here?”

  “You guess.”

  “What do you mean? You want me to guess your job?”

  “Yes, what do you think? Look at me, guess my job.”

  “I mean, Rabbi told me you’re a b-boy, so I figure that’s your job.”

  “Yes, I b-boy and have a studio with my friends, but I am in dental school here.”

  “Ha ha, that’s wassup, man. How am I supposed to guess you in dental school from how you look, though?”

  “I’m just saying, I want you to guess so you remember that I don’t look like a dental school student.”

  “Aight. I get it. I went to law school, but I don’t look like a lawyer, I don’t think.”

  “No, you are not. That is why you
are an inspiration to many Taiwanese kids like me, Eddie.”

  It caught me off guard. After a month in China, I had forgotten about my American existence, especially the notoriety.

  “Thanks, man, I appreciate it. I always wanted to know what Taiwanese people think about the things I say.” My desire for acceptance crept up on me again.

  “I will tell you!”

  “Word?”

  “Yes! I have followed your whole career from Chengdu and Taiwan. In the beginning, many newspapers in Taiwan wrote that you were a bad kid. You didn’t listen to your parents. You quit law school and even though you were successful many people felt like you should still be a lawyer.”

  “That’s funny! In America, everyone gets it and encouraged me to follow my dreams.”

  “I know! But you see, the first thing people think about you in Taiwan is that you disrespected your parents. They can’t get over that. Even I thought it was crazy to go through law school and then ignore your parents’ wishes, but then I went to dental school myself. It sucks, man! This isn’t me. In Taiwan, I was a b-boy. I never wanted to be a dentist, but my parents told me to, so I listened. For many of us, we have no choice. How do you say no to parents that have given you everything they have?”

  It was funny to have the conversation with Tim. In America, being a b-boy is an ethos, and while there are your weekend warriors who may or may not also work as dental hygienists, it’s not that ill to say it out loud or think about in those terms. B-boy shit is just something you do. It’s not at odds with the other things you’re doing in your life, even if it may be funny to see the dude who just gave you a root canal do windmills under the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday afternoon. It’s an extension of your essence. Even as an attorney, I did the work, but it didn’t change who I was. Connie served everything on two plates, and I once turned in a legal memorandum with beef noodle soup stains.*1 No matter how hard the Man tries to sterilize us, I take solace in the fact that we can’t be erased.

  “That’s their choice, though, Tim. Just because your parents chose to have kids, doesn’t mean you choose to have them run your life. That’s not the point of having kids.”

  “Now I agree. I am going to finish dental school for them and show them I can do it, but I want to go to America.”

  “Word? Why not just stay in China? Your parents are in Taiwan. They aren’t going to come get you.”

  “I know. But in China, I am considered Taiwanese. I don’t necessarily fit in here, either. I am used to Taiwan and just the way we are restricted around the city…it’s different. It gets depressing here. I just can’t go back because my parents will control me there.”

  “You think you aren’t going to be different in America?”

  “I don’t know how to explain, Eddie. America just seems more free. Life is hard in China. I want to go somewhere no one expects anything from me.”

  “That’s just the beginning. I understand that you want a new beginning. That’s how a lot of overseas Chinese feel; our lives began interrupted. But that’s all it is, a beginning.”

  I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what I was trying to say, so I took another hit as Tim waited. I didn’t want to let him down. I could tell that he knew more about me than I did about him, and he was expecting something. He’d been anticipating this conversation and we’d connected, but I had to figure out how to say it.

  “So you really not going to ask her dad for permission, huh?”

  “I don’t know, but I still want to figure out what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “Yes, please!”

  “What I’m trying to say is, don’t put so much pressure on yourself or China or America. They’re all doors. You walk through one door, you open another door, you may like this room or that room and the next one, but it’s never the end or actually the beginning. Orlando taught me to appreciate New York. I wouldn’t understand it if I hadn’t spent twelve years wandering gas stations and cul de sacs. New York is my home but Orlando was my motivation.”*2

  “Eddie, man, I feel like what you say is very powerful, but I don’t think I understand.”

  “It’s cool, man. I don’t think I understand, either. I just had to try.”

  I took another hit and reclined the seat.

  “This weed ain’t so bad,” I said, laughing.

  —

  After we smoked the last of Tim’s weed, we headed across the street to Jellyfish where Rabbi was DJ’ing. It was in a huge strip mall upstairs with kids hanging out all around the complex. There were stands selling skewers, pastries, drinks, cigarettes, and newspapers all around. Everyone was Chinese downstairs, but once you got upstairs it was full of international people, i.e., white people and the upwardly mobile colors of Benetton. The bouncer kept stopping Chinese people at the door but let all the international people in.

  “Yo, why can’t the Chinese people get in?” I asked Tim.

  “They don’t have money. Unless it’s really good-looking girl or guy with money, they don’t get in.”

  “Then why they letting in these wack-looking white people?”

  “If you are white in China, you probably have money. Plus, white is ‘cool,’ man. If a club has white people, everybody wants to come. Means it is hip. If good enough for white people is definitely good enough for Chinese.”

  “That’s so fucked up.”

  “In America, though, isn’t it cool to have black people in club?”

  “Ha ha, you right. Black people do bring credibility to a party, but the clubs only want a few without Timberlands, fitted hats, and jerseys. Once there are too many black people, everyone goes to new clubs.”

  “That sucks, man.”

  “The world sucks, Tim. It’s not just China.”

  We got into the club and found Rabbi upstairs. I looked up from the dance floor as he played Katy Perry and caught his eye. He put his hands on his headphones and shook his head in embarrassment. We walked over to him.

  “Rabbi! Why are you playing this shit, man?”

  “The owner make me! He crazy Israeli, but he know what international wants. They don’t want that real shit, man.” He had to shout over the noise and pointed over to a table.

  “I have a table, though, you should go hang.”

  Tim and I walked over to his table, but they had buckets of beer and the requisite glasses for small children. You saw these glasses everywhere. They were the same tumblers I used to use for brushing my teeth as a kid, now repurposed for bottled beer service in a Chinese club.

  “Tim, do they have liquor here?”

  “Yes, they do. Johnnie Walker, Grey Goose, all that stuff, but if you get it, you will end up drink by yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “We all just here to support Rabbi. Nobody want to get too fucked up ’cause this party not that fun.”

  “If none of you guys like it, why does Rabbi DJ here?”

  “Because, Eddie, I try to explain this to you. This is hottest party in town. People that are into international-style party with big clubs come here. But normal Chengdu locals don’t really come here because they can’t get in. If locals go out, they probably go to Jiu Yan Qiao.”

  “Well, where do you go?”

  “I come here,” Tim said.

  “But you don’t like it?”

  “OK, I explain. I come here because it’s supposed to be ‘cool’ and you can meet girls, but I don’t think it’s actually fun. And Rabbi gets paid.”

  I understood what Tim was saying. The weed definitely had us stuck, but this was like Meatpacking District mega-clubbing. It was corny, it wasn’t fun, but it was expensive and if your friend got a table for free you should probably take advantage and try to pick up girls. It always turned out terrible, but you went just to make sure it was still as terrible as you remembered it.

  We sat there for a good fifteen minutes watching Rabbi play Katy Perry, Pitbull, and Flo Rida, before I called ’nuff.

  “Tim, we gotta get outta here. Let
’s go to Jiu Yan Qiao.”

  “OK, but Jiu Yan Qiao can be dangerous.”

  “DOPE.”

  We got back in the car and drove about fifteen minutes to Jiu Yan Qiao. Along the way, Tim told me two stories.

  The first was from a couple years ago when Tim went to the club pretending to be a tourist so that girls thought he had money. Anyone in China who has money to travel is probably well off. With his Taiwanese accent, it wasn’t hard for Tim, so he took the girl back to a hotel and smashed, but the entire time she kept offering him chewing gum. Before they smashed, after they smashed, and figuring she was giving him a hint about his breath, Tim took it….

  Thirty minutes later, everything started melting, his vision got blurry, and Tim knocked out. When he woke up the next morning, he looked around the room and his wallet was gone. Then he told me a story of the time he fought Tibetan gangsters in the club and had a bottle cracked over his head. When I asked him what happened to the Tibetans, he said they got deported. Tibetans don’t go to jail in China, they just get sent back, never to party in China again.

  Once we parked the car, we walked toward the street that was poppington, but not in a Meatpacking or Jellyfish mega-club kind of way. The neon lights flickered, there were bottles on the ground, and street walkers all around. I’d call it grounded. This was the part of town designated for selling seedy nightlife to Chengdu locals. It didn’t need all the amenities of Shanghai or Jellyfish because people knew what time it was. I actually felt more at home; it was basically Chengdu’s Chinatown.

  “Where do you like going here?”

  “I dunno. I kind of just walk the street. The clubs are expensive, and the bars are too dirty.”

  “Let’s check it out, though.”

  It felt like Rabbi and Tim had been hiding this part of town from me, ashamed of how it would affect my perception of Chengdu. I realized I’d been “managed.”

  I walked into a club that looked like Mansion, but immediately someone followed me in.

  “Hey, do you know someone here? What is your name?”

  “Xiao Ming, I don’t know anyone here,” I said in Chinese.