Tuane Gorgonsen - Metempsychosis: Part Six

Part Six

A year later, after Tuane secured a position as Dean of Min-Chuan Girls’ High school, Linda was summoned back to Taiwan. There, while Tuane built his career, Linda took care of Tuane’s mom, which is what wives are supposed to do. When Sasha was born, it was a home birth to save hospital and ambulatory costs. The wet nurse was an ah-ma who lived across the road. Baby Sasha ate ground-up leftover vegetables and meat, hand turned by Linda to save money on electric bills. Before too long, Basia and Marsha joined the Gorgonsen clan.  

The glorious expansion of Tuane's 'world familiarization' was achieved through his pedagogical channels. After all, one could not represent the world to natives unless one was an intellectually accredited personage. Tuane took advantage of his relationship with Mr. Millender by being at the right place at the right time as Mr. Millender expanded his bushiban and his legitimate credential in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) into the international school boom that was just starting in Taipei. Every Taiwanese native wanted their children to be familiar with English and Western society; it was considered modernization and the road to wealth.

 Tuane, by virtue of having an Alien Resident Card, being married to Linda, was able to stay in Taiwan permanently while other foreign teachers were fly-by-nighters who had to renew their visas every two months and leave the island after two extensions so as to obtain another tourist entry visa. Tuane parlayed his permanence into an administrative career as the dean of an all-girl junior college called in Taipei. The college didn't so much need his diploma as they did his 'green card' but diploma he produced and presented when it was, by rote, called for. Tuane had barely finished high school in Tetonia, Idaho and the first college campus he stepped onto was Brigham Young University for a day when he applied to become a Mormon Missionary. In Taiwan, he was highly qualified thanks to his confident air and blond hair.

    For fifteen years, Tuane was the Dean of English Studies at Min-Chuan College. His job? Get foreign teachers with green cards for the English program. His checked their credentials, certified diplomas, or verified their experience, and Tuane took some of it for his own. The administration never bothered to ask. He sat in his nice sunny office on most days, read the USA Today, walked out only to verify that students were in their proper assigned seats in the cavernous classrooms, and met with students, as required, to advise them on prerequisite classes and TOEFL exams which had to be passed for students to study overseas in America. Tuane was indeed bringing 'world familiarization' to Taiwan, but no one recognized that Tuane's world was bogus.

     For fifteen fruitful years, Tuane pocketed every New Taiwan Dollar he received while Linda brought home the cash from her executive position in her family's stationary export business. Later, when the "Three No’s" of Taiwan relations with China became the Three "Maybe’s." she even oversaw outsourced production from Chinese factories to suppliers in the American western states.

Tuane Gorgonsen-Metempsychosis: Part Five

Part Five

           When they got off the bus near their apartment, the bus had emptied out, mostly. People went out of their way to stay away from the inter-racial couple, especially the big tall wai-guo ren. Before they went up the quiet street to their home, they could already hear Tuane's golden retriever barking loudly and constantly a block away. Could it smell Tuane's presence or hadn't it stopped barking since they left home four hours earlier? Only the neighbors knew for sure. Tuane and Linda ducked into a mom and pop grocery store on the corner so Tuane could buy his daily USA Today before heading home. Linda bought one onion.

     Stepping outside, they began to cross the street when they heard a terrible screeching sound. Tuane looked up from his headlines to see a taxi with an incised driver yelling at him. The cab shook a few inches from Linda and Tuane's feet. The driver opened the door and stood up yelling at Tuane who, apparently, had crossed the street in front of the taxi which almost hit him. How dare the driver to yell at Tuane? The cab had almost hit them and the cab driver was angry? Tuane should have been the one that was angry, and sure enough, he was. This was another lesson in 'world familiarization.'

Tuane's fist came squarely down on the hood of the taxi, like an ax splitting a tree stump, and promptly and deeply dented the damage. The driver, not believing his eyes, reached into his open taxi door and came out wielding a wooden bat. They were back at the ballpark playing by Tuane's rules. The driver raised the bat with one hand and started shaking it at Tuane as he came ever closer. When he was a few feet away, Tuane grabbed the waving bat from the driver, both men, big and small, red with rage, Linda pleading, bilingually, for them to stop, and begging anyone within earshot to call the police. Everyone just stood where they were and watched the show in the intersection. They had never seen a foreigner fight with a Taiwanese taxi driver before. Tuane took out the souvenir ball he had stashed in his pocket.

     "Okay, so you want a little horse play?" With all his might, he wound up and threw the ball at the poor driver’s chest. The man doubled over and grabbed himself. Tuane scampered to grab the ball which was rolling toward a wet sewer, picked it up and threw it at the man again this time missing him and striking a large plastic sign on the grocery store front shattering it into shards. The taxi driver, scared for his life, ran around toward the open taxi door, sat down, put the car into reverse, jerked the car forward, and started edging towards Tuane. Tuane lifted the bat and smashed it down on the windshield making a thud as the window disintegrated into a million glued pieced. The driver, knowing he had met his match, screamed something in Mandarin outside his open window and drove away, madly, down the street.

     "Tuane, we better go away from here! He's getting his friends to help him," Linda said desperately. She knew what a gang of Taiwanese taxi drivers could do after they called each other on their CB radios.

     "The heck he is," replied Tuane belligerently, hands folded across his heaving chest in defiance.

     "Tuane, please, now! Let us go now! Please, please," Linda cried out. She had had enough 'world familiarization' for one day. She grabbed Tuane by his plaid collar shirt and pulled him up the block towards the source of the barking dog, the barking dog on his apartment's balcony.

     The taxi driver did come back, with his colleagues, after Tuane and Linda had gone. They were asking the locals where the tall blond foreign man lived.

     Around 3 am, Tuane and Linda were awakened by the sound of a siren and the smell of smoke. They looked outside to see a fire engine putting out a blaze coming from two motorcycles parked a few doors down. No one knew how it happened. Tuane stood on the balcony with the dog, mug of coffee in his hand, and watched as the last splash of water was applied, watching two women talking with a fire officer. He felt a little badly for them but was sure glad they weren't his motorcycles. He would have killed whoever did that to him. He went back inside leaving the dog outside to bark and pee. He returned to put the empty coffee mug in the sink and headed back to bed. Linda pretended she was sleeping.

     In the morning, Tuane woke up to another commotion. The Mormon missionary who lived across the street from him was on the ground in front of his home near his bicycle being pummeled by six men, two with bats, two with bottles, and two with their fists and boots.

     “Well would you look at that,” said Tuane, the lab barking like crazy.

Tuane Gorgonsen - Metempsychosis: Part Four

Part Four

At the last bushiban Tuane had taught at, he had met his future wife. She was his student there, improving her business English. She fell into Tuane’s tractor-beam. It wasn’t long before she was inviting him to meet her parents who were in the business of paper supply for stationary store. And trying to crack open the market in America. Tuane saw the potential of a family connection. He married Linda in a court ceremony, just in case her family wouldn't approve. After she was pregnant, they saw thing her way and offered an elaborate wedding party to save their faces. Tuane, despite being asked, couldn't afford to have his mom or sisters come from Tetonia and Idaho Falls but he promised them in letters that he would bring Linda and their first child, Sasha, to Idaho to meet them one day as soon as he could. 

Neither Tuane nor Linda spent any money on anything unnecessary. Their apartment, a four floor walk up with one fan moved from room to room where needed. Any money Linda received from her parents, Tuane took it away to save. Any money Tuane got from being at a workplace, whether working or not, he squirreled away. The only luxury he afforded them was a small used color TV and a daily USA Today newspaper; he needed the newspaper to keep up with the world. The USA Today was his bible; every word in every article was precious and a chapter that must be read to get the whole picture least any money be wasted. Their meals were simple and home-cooked by Linda; that’s what wives are supposed to do. Baby Sasha ate ground-up leftover vegetables and meat, hand turned by Linda to save money on electric bills. They never ate out. Every New Taiwan Dollar was needed for airfare back to Idaho. Like a vacuum, every speck of gold dust was sucked up, never to see the light of day again until the time came to send Linda to Idaho, alone, to meet and take care of Tuane’s mom.

Tuane Gorgonsen took Linda to a baseball game. It was part of the 'world familiarization' program that he was embarking her on. It was the same program he had put himself on that fateful night near Craters of the Moon on State Route 20. Surely, every citizen of the world must know about the game of baseball.                                                   

"How many spikes are there?" Linda said as she looked out over the green lawn from her concrete bench up the third base line.

     "That word is 'strikes', Linda. There are three. Every batter gets three," said Tuane raising his hand to show three well chewed off finger nails. "And the batter gets four balls."

     "Four balls. Four balls," said Linda re-memorizing what she had been drilled on the night before.

     "Shen(Shen) tsai(tsai) tou(tou) shou(shou) Lin(Lin) Xu(Xu) Ming- (Ming,” the PA announcer said, the sound echoing off the walls between two ten-story office buildings the stadium was sandwiched by.

     "What did he say?" asked Tuane, not because he couldn't hear but because he didn't understand a word of Mandarin.

     "He said the next hit-man was the thrower."

     "You mean the next batter is the ‘pitcher’? Linda, pay attention to what I told you!" Tuane shook his head and wrote down “pitcher” on his make-shift score card; he really didn't care what the players names were, anyway but he feigned interest.

"Who's on second?" Tuane asked testing her baseball knowledge.

     "No, Hu's on first!" said Linda and pointed to number 44 taking a lead off first. “His number is bad luck; means ‘die twice.’ Where's his glove?" she wanted to know.

     "He doesn't need a glove; he's a runner," said Tuane a little annoyed.

    There was a PA announcement.

     “He said there’s no Wei,” Linda said. “Wei is not playing today,” she translated from the announcement.

     “Who?” Tuane urgently asked again.

     “No, Wei,” Linda corrected Tuane.

     "What do you mean, ‘No way today!’” asked Tuane.

     “Who?” asked Linda.

     "The batter," said Tuane.

     "I thought Hu was the first base man," stressed Linda, totally confused. No, Wei Jose.” Just then, the batter, who was the pitcher, hit the ball thrown by the thrower. It was coming backwards towards Tuane who yelled "watch out" and pushed Linda out of the balls path just in time before it hit her. The ball was caught cleanly by Tuane who, proud of his foul ball catch held it high above his head for the crowd and cameras to see. For some reason, no one was whooping and applauding. The ball girl, a pretty young Taiwanese woman in pin-striped shorts and cap, ran up the third base line near the stands waving to the crowd near Tuane.

     "Give her the ball."

     "What's that?"

     "She wants the ball."

     "She wants what?"

     "The ball! Throw it to her!"

     "I most certainly will not. I caught it fair and square!"

     Just then the third base umpire walked up the field to near the ball girl. He too started waving to Tuane. "Huan gai wo-men, hao-ma!?" he shouted.

     "He said to give him ball to him," Linda said, nervously.

     "This is my souvenir, Linda. That's what we do in America."

     "But here isn't Merica," said Linda, mortified as the crowd around her started smirking and shaking their heads. "They can't play no ball."

     "Then let them get another ball. This ball is mine, dear," and he put the ball between his legs on the seat smiling broadly, waving, and daring anyone to reach down between his legs to get it. Linda held her head down and squeezed her eyes tightly to shut out the world. Tuane was ‘familiarizing’ her, again.

     Tuane cried out, “Come on Linda, they're playing again," as the game resumed, the umpire begrudgingly used a new ball carried from the dugout. They just couldn't afford to give them away like they did in the Major Leagues.

     Just then, two police officers approached Tuane and Linda from behind. One was pointing and waving his finger at them. Linda took her hands off her eyes and looked up at them as they spoke to her in Mandarin.

     "Tuane, they want us to leave," said Linda as she stood to leave. Tuane remained seated. "My my, never gonna let you go," he said to the ball as he grabbed it between his legs, lifted it and kissed it before standing up. For them, the game was over. They were escorted to the exit, Tuane smiling all the way, Linda almost in tears. Her 'world familiarization' was over for the day, or was it?

They walked to the bus stop and waited for the bus back home so Linda could make dinner. When the bus came, it pulled up ten feet from the curb. Two dozen people rushed to the front and rear doors as another dozen passengers tried to make their way off. Tuane grabbed Linda's hand and shoved through them all pushing an old man almost on to the street. "Out of our way, we're getting on," he said and squeezed into the crowded bus as high school students stared at him, his wavy reddish blond hair almost touching the ceiling of the bus. He had to stand in a recessed air-duct not to hit his head. "These people don't know how to wait on a line, do they?"

Tuane Gorgonsen - Metempsychosis: Part Three

Part Three

Tuane had stepped out to get dog food for his golden retriever. A fifty-pound bag balanced on his shoulder as he held back the large hot dog on a leash as he headed back to his rental in Taipei. He had a long, slow gait that could have challenged John Wayne to a duel. Someone from behind was calling out in a familiar language.

   “Hello, excuse me?” An English voice on a Taipei street? Strange.

   Tuane stopped and turned to look. There, in sunglasses and L.A. Dodger cap stood a middle-aged white man, not as tall as but chubbier than Tuane with ear-length brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He was approaching Tuane where he stood.

  “I saw you from behind, your blond hair, and knew you might be American.” He got close to hand Tuane a business card. “I’m Stuart Millender from Chicago. Glad to meet you,” he said and extended his hand for Tuane to shake. Tuane was still using the hand to carry the dog food. He didn’t reply.

“”What do you want? I’m very busy,” Tuane said without glancing at the business card. The sack of dog food still balanced on his shoulder. The golden retriever sniffed at Mr. Millender’s pant leg.

   “Well,” he said retreating slightly from the dog. “I have a bushiban up the road here and we need new teachers. Do you teach?”

   “Yes, I do,” said Tuane dryly squinting at Mr. Millender who stood before the west setting sun.

“If you need a job, I have one for you.” Tuane shook his head and turned to leave. “I have a job already and you’re making me late for it, but thank you for asking.”

“Wait!” You live in the neighborhood, right?”

“Around the corner I do.”

“My school’s right here, too. You can basically roll out of bed and be home from work in a minute; no buses to take, no hassles.”

“You have a point there,” said Tuane stopping to listen and looking at the card. “My name is Tuane, Tuane Gorgonsen. Alright, I’ll think about it.”

“The salary won’t disappoint you either, Tuane. There’s no Chinese co-teacher to get in your face telling you how to teach, and I’ll show you how to use the textbooks; it’ll be a cinch!”

“Now that’s a horse of a different color.” The dog tugged at Tuane and pulled him toward a skinny tree near the curb. “I have to be going now.” He put down the sack of dog food for a moment to shake Mr. Millender’s hand. “Thanks for the tip. Come-on girl,” he said to the eager panting dog and turned around to walk away, his ground down heels making him seem like he was limping.

   Mr. Millender called out as Tuane was twenty feet away. “My number’s on the card, and if you decide to come, could you introduce us to some foreign friends of yours?  Actually we need two teachers.”

“I sure will,” said Tuane as he let the retriever pull him around the corner and off the noisy main drag up the quieter street where he lived.

The next day, Tuane called Mr. Millender back. The other school Tuane worked at was far away from home and too demanding, always adding new responsibilities onto Tuane’s nerve and cramping his style. They wanted him to follow their curriculum but Tuane didn’t like those restrictions. He took the job at Mr. Millender’s bushiban and quit his old school just like that. His old boss was too afraid to argue with him when Tuane demanded his final salary envelope immediately. In fact, this old boss was happy to get rid of Tuane; he was afraid Tuane would never go away. He thought there’d be trouble. The students didn’t like him; Tuane never followed the program or marked papers. He talked over the students’ heads and was usually late or slow to class.

   Tuane had a way of talking to people that scared them, especially people of gentle Taiwanese nature. His cold large blue eyes, eye-lids folded under his brow, cut into you like a knife without a sheath. His straight neck-length dirty blond hair, pushed to the side by an ever-present hand, racked your brain with his presence. The pores on his cheeks and forehead and temple, so large and prominent, like looking at his face through a magnifying lens. One could count the sweat ducts as sure as one could feel the pain doing him wrong would bring. His smile, insincere and cold, was a grimace away from a death threat. His teeth, behind muscular turquoise lips, loomed large and wide and ready to rip into raw steak. His face was large and ruddy-red like a northwestern lumberjack’s. Tuane was the man you stayed away from after you became friendly; you stayed away for fear what he’d do to you if you stayed too long. Yes, you were glad when Tuane chose to leave and wondered why you’d asked him to stay in the first place.

Tuane Gorgonsen - Metempsychosis: Part Two

Part Two

Provo is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Utah, located about 43 miles (69 km) south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front, 320 miles from Tetonia. The city is home to the largest Missionary Training center for the LDS Church. That’s where Tuane drove the day he returned from his trip with his mother to Idaho Falls to visit his sister.

“Why have you decided to come here, my son?” said the elder.

“I was fortunate enough to be born into this gospel,” said Tuane in quiet repose. “I've always known it's the only true church. That doesn't mean that I've always lived my faith the way I should have. Through my experiences I've come to know that Heavenly Father truly loves me and this is the way I need to live my life. God continually tells me that this is where I need to be and what I need to be doing.”

“We will let you know, my son. If it is God’s will, his will be done.”

After his interview, Tuane went downstairs to the cafeteria for lunch. He sat down to eat with a USA Today on the table before him. Before long, a young man his age approached.

“May I join you, brother?” said he as he introduced himself.” Tuane returned to his newspaper.

“I saw you upstairs coming out of the office with the elder. Do you wish to join us on our glorious mission?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure if I’m ready,” Tuane mumbled and turned a page.

“I believe it is your calling, my friend. My calling was to invite others to come unto Christ, too. Good news! I am here to tell you your time has come!”

“Why do you say that?”

“Brother, I was in your shoes a few years ago before I went on my mission to Taiwan.” It was the first time Tuane had heard of that place on the earth.

“I search my scriptures every day, I ponder while riding my bike, and I pray on my knees,” the young man went on, taking a sip of the soda pop he had brought to the table. “I first went to Taiwan as a Mormon missionary. I was an active member of the LDS church until about six years ago, when, after a year of soul-searching, I decided to leave.”

“You decided to leave?

“Well, yes. When I served my mission, I was sent to Taiwan. Some of the best looking fellows on my dorm floor at Brigham Young Univ. were sent to missions in the U.S. My younger brother, who is tall, handsome, and fit, was sent to Missouri, where he was sorely abused by Baptists wielding frying pans.”

“Wielding frying pans?”

“That’s why I was glad to be with the gentle people of Taiwan.”

“You don’t say?”

“If you serve in Taiwan, you learn a lot about rejection. The average number of converts brought into the church per missionary when I served in Taiwan was one. Two years of labor for one member. Some did better than that, but many saw no success at all. That’s one reason why I left.”
    “I am curious about Mormon or missionary life,” said Tuane.

“Ask away.”

“I heard that if I join, I have to wear special underwear.”             

“Yes, the church does require that members wear Mormon-style underwear. They're called garments, and they're supposed to protect you from evil and physical harm.” Tuane shook his head and smiled in disbelief.

“The temple ceremony is top-secret and full of interesting rituals,” he continued, smilingly. “There's not mixed-gender nudity, but there is a sort of non-sexual, locker-room style ritual for both men and women. It all freaked me out the first time I went.”

“A locker room ritual?”

The whole thing was freaking Tuane out. He was quickly losing interest in becoming a missionary.

Missionaries only spend 1-2 months training before they begin work, which suited Tuane just fine. But they could not choose the country they were sent to. Tuane wanted to go to Taiwan. He had looked it up in the library and liked what he saw.

Missionaries did not get any salary; instead, they used personal savings and money from their family to pay for their travel and daily living expenses. He was hoping to at least get paid airfare and living expenses and have a choice of destination. He would get the money somewhere, probably from his mom.

Newly called missionaries bound for foreign-language missions spend eight to thirteen weeks at an MTC, depending on the language to be learned. During this period, they are encouraged not to speak in their native tongue but rather to immerse themselves in the new language. Tuane didn’t think learning Mandarin or Taiwanese was necessary. English was enough.

In cases where an immediate family member dies, the missionary is strongly encouraged to stay on the mission. The vast majority of missionaries serve the whole two-year (men) or eighteen-month (women) terms. Tuane had no plans to return to Idaho. He was not going to get stuck nursing his mom; let his married sisters do it. Now he had a good excuse, in the name of Jesus.   

All missionaries must meet certain minimum standards of worthiness. Among the standards that a prospective missionary must demonstrate adherence to are: regular attendance at church meetings, regular personal prayer, regular study of the scriptures, adherence to the law of chastity (sexual purity), adherence to the Word of Wisdom (code of health and nutrition), payment of tithing, spiritual diligence and testimony of God. In his heart, Tuane would have none of that.        

In addition to spiritual preparedness, church bishops are instructed to ensure that prospective missionaries are physically, mentally, and emotionally capable of full-time missionary work. The Elder who interviewed Tuane had said, "We realize that while all men definitely should, all men are not prepared to teach the gospel abroad.
     “All in all, I'm glad I was a missionary, and a Mormon. My missionary experience gave me a chance to learn about organizational culture, to learn to speak Mandarin fluently, to learn about my own character weaknesses, and to learn how to be disciplined in going after a goal. I doubt I would be enjoying the life I enjoy right now if I had not been a Mormon missionary.”

“You do like chomping on the bit! What’s the main reason you left the church?” Tuane was getting impatient.

“I left the Mormon church because I couldn't live up to the standards and I was offended by some member of the church.” Duane took the straw out of his mouth and slowly glanced at his guest.

“I left because it no longer made sense to belong to something I didn't believe in,” he said as he placed his hand on Tuane’s shoulder for emphasis. “I've managed to maintain friendships with some members of the church, and about half of my family members are still active. I respect these people, even though I disagree with many of their beliefs.” 

“Like what?”                                                            

“Well, I was strolling through a park in Taichung, Taiwan one day with my missionary companion at the time, Brother Shi. Although he was Chinese and I American, we both were 22-year-old men serving as missionaries for the Church. Our stroll wasn’t recreational.”

Tuane sipped the straw in his Coke.

“We were looking for people to chat up, hoping to persuade them to accept a pamphlet and invite us to their homes for an in-depth discussion of the church.”

“Uh-huh,” said Tuane, shrugging the hand off his shoulder.

“We hadn't met with much success, so partly for mutual support, partly because we liked each other well enough and partly because it was a perfectly acceptable thing for men to do in Taiwan, we went arm in arm. Before long, we came upon a teenage girl and boy who, like us, were walking arm in arm.”

“‘Will you look at that?’ Brother Shi said in Mandarin, turning slightly to watch them walk away. ‘That’s disgusting.’ ‘Why?’ I countered. ‘They’re just doing what we’re doing.’”

“‘But anyone can look at us and see there’s nothing going on,’” he said. ‘If you look at them, you know something is definitely going on.’ I was devastated!”

“Why? Are you gay?” said Tuane slowly without looking.

“I believe the Lord knows no distinction in love,” said the visitor.

“Really?”

Sweat beads glistened purple and red. His breath grew deeper, lips swelled, taut and curled. Long strands of red-blond hair arched above his scalp like a cat whose hair had seen a ghost. Air turned cold rushing through the gauntlet around his earlobes. Hard cartilage nostrils letting go smoking gray soot from the Caverns of the Moon. Half-chewed nails exposing raw waves of top-skin finger-tips like rounded blood worms squeezed to their max with the last glob of ointment. His chest heaving, heaving, ever faster, ever deeper heaving, cold blue eyes stretched to tear-duct space ready to explode in gruesome expansion, his Adam’s apple ready to erupt from the nest in his neck like a phoenix egg hatching. The open mouth, and the sound, the horrible monster sound – hash, hash, hash – aboriginal throbbing words of other- world – deep – black- razor-sharp coral disgust – black rusted words, up and up through a mouth of anal agony, hemorrhoids popping; he spoke:

“The hell he does,” said Tuane. “Get away from me right now,” “Or you’ll become the next horse that was foaled of an acorn!”

 Everyone in the cafeteria turned around to hear and see a slender young man with Tuane get up abruptly and scamper away.

Calmer now, on his way home, passing by the eastern banks of the Great Salt Lake, just near the exit ramp to the international airport, Tuane saw a large billboard for China Airlines. The pretty, well-tailored flight attendant, smiling and bowing in courtesy, was inviting him to come to Taiwan. To Taiwan he would go. On the six-hour interstate drive back to Tetonia, Idaho, he was on a tropical island. The putrid, fishy, salty air blew through the window of the old sedan like a hammer as he passed north.

After application to the church and the requisite approval, prospective missionaries receive a “call to serve”—an official notification of their location assignment—through the mail from the President of the church. The mission call also informs the prospective missionary what language he/she will be expected to use during his/her mission.

The next week, Tuane received the letter; his application had been rejected. He would go to Taiwan, anyway.

Tuane Gorgonsen - Metempsychosis: Part One

Tuane Gorgonsen

    Metempsychosis (In Nine Parts)

Part One

     It crawled out of a dark cavern in Craters of the Moon, naked, skin on limbs and pods shredded, bleeding deep green blood over the razor sharp volcanic rock strewn across acres of blackened wasteland in southeast Idaho. One wouldn't be far from the truth. Some say Craters is the diabolical opposite of the white pristine Salt Lake, others that it’s the end of a tunnel that sucks life from the Mormon city nearby. Evil was at home in the Craters, the terrain eerily familiar, light-years beyond heaven. The name "Idaho" may be derived from the Plains Apache word "ídaahę́" which means "enemy." Heading east from a family visit to Twin Falls, the enemy was met.

     It was crawling across in darkness of deserted two-lane state route 20 when an old sedan with peeling paint heading eastward drove by, plowed into it, and came to a screeching halt, a mile up the road from Arco, the sight of the first U.S. nuclear test. The driver and a passenger pulled over to the side of the road with blinkers on. What had they hit in the dead of night? The driver got out slowly pointing a flashlight at a carcass oozing liquid and feared the worst. Was it human? The felt fear would have been delightful compared to the truth be it known.

     It, from Craters of the Moon, had a choice of two humanoids to impose its will upon, one frail elderly woman in her sixties and one able-bodied young man in his twenties, the person through whom it grabbed the flashlight and exited. The rest of it lay dead as it became Tuane Gorgonsen, so it said on the license inside the wallet in the back pocket. His name would henceforth be Tuane Gorgonsen and his hometown Tetonia, Idaho, in the western foothills of the Grand Tetons Mountains. The navigation, off state route 20, 67 miles from Idaho Falls, well within range of the intended target, Salt Lake City, a mere four hours away. The second coming had begun.

     “Do you think we killed it, dear?” said Mrs. Gorgonsen through the open car window. Tuane’s mother then got out to behold ghastly black shaped lumps scattered across the road.

     “No mother,” said Tuane, surprised at the movements of his mouth and random sounds that emanated when he moved his larynx and breathed outward over his tongue and through his teeth. There were even two air holes above his mouth so he could talk and breathe simultaneously. “No, mother, I think it was dead already and we just ran over it. I’ll move it aside so others don’t trouble.”

     “Alright, son, but don’t be long,” mother said as she limped back to the car door, sat down, and started rolling up the window. “It’s right nearly midnight and we still haven’t hit Pocatello. We won’t be home till dawn at this rate.”

     “Just a minute, mother,” said Tuane as he bent over the dangling carcass. He asked himself, “Now how am I going to move this mess?”

That’s when he had his epiphanic experience, his moment of sudden intuitive understanding. “I’ve got to get away from this place before someone hits me on a dark road in the middle of nowhere!”

He kicked the carcass angrily with his boot but it didn’t budge. Then, he put his heel to it and gave it a shove with all the might of a six-foot four-inch mountain man. The gooey carcass rolled over and into the ditch by the shoulder of the road. The sign on the barbed wire fence which ran for miles just beyond the ditch, shone with his flashlight, said “Warning: Radioactive Area. No trespassing.”

     “There has to be a better world somewhere.”

     “Son, are you coming or not?”

     “Alright, Mom,” said Tuane with a sigh and stamped his feet as much of the goo flew off his boots as he marched back to the sedan.

THE ACUPUNCTURIST A Taste of His Own Medicine

THE ACUPUNCTURIST

A Taste of His Own Medicine

     

"Go to hell; see if I care," said the director of the Taiwan Lung Association. How could Emerson have known that the Taiwanese doctor understood English? The doctor had heard Emerson say to his wife that he wanted a second opinion. This doctor wanted to cut his lung out. 

     "I am the head of the Taiwan Lung Association!" he said angrily pointing towards the door of his office. "If you need a second opinion, go, but don't come back. I'm not helping you anymore!"

     "With that attitude, I don't need your help," shouted back Emerson as he took his jacket briskly and headed out. "

     "Do you realize what you just did?" said his wife in the taxi on the way back to their home. "You just gave up the last chance for you to get well. Go ahead; die, see if I care." Emerson knew she really didn't care as much about his health as she did about his money and her own saving face.

"They can cut your lung out, sweetheart, but they aren't touching mine!" Mr. and Mrs. Davis didn't talk the rest of the way home. Occasionally Emerson hacked a cough, opened the taxi window, and spit out phlegm onto the street. 

     "You're disgusting!" his wife scowled, her long upper teeth glimmering in the oncoming headlights. 

     "But it's okay for the driver to open the door at every red light and spit bloody betel-nut juice on the street. That’s okay. Right?"

     "It's not blood; it's cinnamon they put in the nut." Being correct was most important to her under any circumstance.

     After they got home, Emerson took out a fold of paper with powder he had gotten from the dispensary of an ear, nose, and throat clinic; a doctor there with a reflector light on his forehead, twelve inch Q-Tips, and a row of humidifiers lined up in his clinic like hairdryers in beauty salons had prescribed it for him.

The virus he had caught from one of his adult English class students. Students didn't have the habit of covering their mouths when they coughed or sneezed in class. If they were on the street, they merely covered one nostril with a pointer finger and blew the snot out of the other. If there was a waste basket nearby, they blew it in there. Sometimes, they didn't have a waste basket; a handkerchief would do. Occasionally they would go to a W.C. and find a toilet or urinal to spit into. 

     One sleepless night, on his way back to bed from the bathroom, he spoke to his wife.

 "Let's go to that acupuncturist your sister was telling you about. Maybe he'll know what to do. My back is killing me."

“You mean Dr. Lam?”

“Yeah, that one.”

      Emerson had been coughing so violently the previous two weeks that he threw his back out. Maybe they'd have to cut his spine out, too, in addition to his lung and kidney. 

     "Maybe he can help you; he's not a Western doctor, though. You said you only trusted American-trained doctors"

     "I don't, ker-choo, care if he comes from the moon. Your sister said, (hack-hack-spit) he was good, right?" Emerson had heard convincing testimonials about acupuncture. In China, women had childbirth with no sedative other than acupuncture and experienced no pain.

     The next morning, they got in a taxi and went to the Chinese Herbal Clinic of Dr. Lam Chat-Hom; no appointment necessary. The clinic was a non-descript storefront on a busy Taipei two-way road, three or four cycles haphazardly parked on the sidewalk outside the clinic entrance, unlit with soot coating metal grate over glass, a weather-damaged hand-painted sign printed on yellowing plastic mold near plant pots that were watered by rainfall alone, exposed electric wiring on the pole near a side ally, a step down and two steps up unevenly walked under the building overhang. The clinic, the front rooms of his residence, entered down a harsh florescent hallway, a dozen mismatched chairs of different sizes and shapes along both sides. One stepped over the outstretched shoeless legs of a motley crew of elderly patients occupying. Emerson was the only foreigner. The air, smelling like vinegar with incense-smoke and medicinal plants thrown in; it was the smell of medicinal gao-liang liquor that shot up the nostrils.

     The doctor came out of one of three exam rooms wearing a white smock, grinned at the different Caucasian face of Emerson, walked past to a smudged gray-steel desk, bent low to say something to a dour middle-aged woman wearing an ancient nurse’s cape taken from a Hemingway novel and returned to the exam room. The nurse turned in her squeaky swivel-chair to a cluttered sliding glass-door cabinet, to a shelf holding curled papers wrapped in rubber-bands and removed a pumpkin-sized white ceramic bottle with darkened cracks. On it, an etching of a bald blue Chinese sage sat holding a peach in one hand and a long staff in the other. She removed the ceramic cap, poured some liquid into a little soda glass, stood and went over toward Emerson and his wife and spoke with her in Taiwanese.

     "Drink this. It is good for you," Mrs. Davis told her husband. The slightly bent nurse smiled, kowtowed, and went back behind her desk. Emerson drank up. His nose wasn't stuffed any more now that his virus had left his system but his back still ached whenever he bent over. He could smell the kaoliang liquor with some herbal additives thrown into the mix, clearly. 

      Dr. Lam had made a good point about the medicinal cocktail. It warmed Emerson to the point that he forgot he was sitting in a drafty waiting room of an herbal doctor's clinic. He had almost forgotten his bad back, too, that is until he tried to stand up to return the empty glass to the nurse. That's when it hit him; either this Dr. Lam was the real deal with the acupuncture needles or the rest of his life would be regulated to drinking tainted kaoliang and other alcoholic brews, not to mention a few Perkasets and oxymorphines. 

     On his way to the nurse’s desk, her telephone rang; the doctor would like Emerson to enter his examination room on the left. His wife stood up, thanked the nurse profusely, and helped Emerson the twenty or so steps down the pebbled cement-slab hall, wearing slimy artificial leather slippers, with forty-seven oriental eyes upon him; three elderly patients had one eye each to match their missing rotted feet.

     When Emerson seated himself on the aluminum bed cushioned with fitted-linen tatami pads, another full glass of medicinal kaoliang was placed in his hand by the nurse who told his wife standing nearby to wait a moment until the doctor would be with him, but to have Emerson take off his shirt and unbuckle his pants in the meantime. Patients, on their way to the restroom, passed Emerson's exam room and paused to stop, look in, and give the thumbs up to this foreign believer of Chinese voodoo.

     Dr. Lam entered, white doctors garb buttoned to the top, a white plastic Wyeth pen shield lining his upper left pocket. "How long have you been in pain?" he asked Emerson in halting but understandable English.

     "Over a month now," Emerson's wife answered in Taiwanese.

     "Really," Dr. Lam replied surprised, even though, from the look of his patients in the waiting room, a month of minor pain would have been an endurable interlude for their hunched backs of chronic backaches.  Emerson was lucky, and he knew it.

     "Cigarette?"

     "We can smoke in here?"

     "Sure"

     "Isn't it bad for you?"

     "As long as you live in Taipei you should not stop to smoke." He took out a yellow pack of Long Life cigarettes with the same picture of the large-headed sage with a peach and staff, just like on the jar of medicinal kaoliang. 

     "You mean I shouldn't stop smoking?"

     "No. You should continue," Dr. Lam said as he turned to an aluminum table to take hold of a deep jar filled with blue fluid. The acupuncture needles sat in the jar like combs used to sit in the jar of barber shops back in Brooklyn, to anesthetize the items before they swept through the next customers hair, only these antiseptic needles would soon be pierced through Emerson's skin, somewhere. 

     "There is lot of oxygen pollution in Taiwan air, no?" Dr. Lam explained add he took a drag on how cigarette and handed Emerson an ashtray to catch his falling ash.

     "It's very bad the air," Emerson blew out his smoke and tapped his cigarette ash into the tray. “The tar in the cigarette covers your lungs and prohibits pollution from attacking you."

     "You mean it acts as a shield coating my lungs?"

     "Exactly," said Dr. Lam, taking a swig of his one supply of medicinal kaoliang from a personal flask in his lower left pocket.

     "That's the first time I've heard that. I like that idea," said Emerson, a lifetime pack-a-day cigarette smoker. 

     "Show me where it hurts." Emerson pointed to his lower back. The doctor gave a look.

     By that point, Emerson's back pain was the last thing on Emerson's mind. He was feeling the effects of his third glass of kaoliang and enjoying his cigarette. His wife excused herself and returned to the waiting room to let the boys inside have their fun. She heard laughter and loud talking coming through the doorway. Dr. Feel-good was making Emerson feel good and he hadn't pricked one needle into him. 

     In the next fifteen minutes, twenty needles were twisted and snapped into Emerson's prostrated body: in his ear lobe, shoulder blades, neck, leg, and even the back where the pain originated. Then, the doctor rolled over a silver machine on wheels and flipped on a few switches. Next, he took twenty wire attachments from the side of the machine and, with alligator clips, clamped them to the open ends of the twenty acupuncture needles. Emerson felt no pain.

 Dr. Lam offered him another cigarette and held out a match so Emerson could light it from his reclining position, an ashtray placed on a chair to the right of his exam table.  Through the hole in the exam table Emerson put his head and down through it smoked his cigarette. Then it happened;

The machine was turned on. A trilling vibration shot through there needles into his body followed by pulsing ticks of electric stimulant. Trrrrrrril tick tick tick tick tick tick tick, trrrrrrrril tick tick tick tick tick tick…The doctor asked if Emerson could feel it under his skin. Emerson nodded into the hole in the table.

     "Stay here for thirty minutes. You will fewer better." He left a pack of cigarettes on the chair in front of Emerson and left the room, turning off the light for shade. 

     After thirty minutes, Dr. Lam returned, put on the light, removed the alligator clamps from the needles, and told Emerson to sit up on the exam table. Emerson did so with a back that felt better already. It was a miracle! The doctor offered him another glass of a kaoliang and a cigarette and told him to return the following week for another treatment.

     "You will need four treatments because your back is so stiff. You should come here directly next time you have pain. I help you good."

 Emerson followed his wife to the nurse’s desk as she paid. Another patient was called by the doctor into the exam room behind him.

It was 8:00pm by the time they got home. They'd been at the doctor's office seven hours but it was worth it. Emerson could actually dry himself after he showered. The pain was mostly gone. Only a ghost of it prevailed reminding him of where the pain had once been.

     A few weeks after his last treatment from Dr. Lam, Emerson and his wife went to eat at a restaurant a friend had suggested to them. It happened to be a few block from Dr. Lam’s Chinese Herbal Medicine Clinic. It was in a dark night club atmosphere with Taiwanese music playing on a CD jukebox. There was a smoky bar counter with a dozen liquor bottles lined up on a shelf over a frosted black gala mirror. The food was Hakka style. The tables had cloth covers with glass over them so the waitress wouldn’t have to keep changing them when they got soiled.

As they sat and looked over the menu, they heard the intermittent sound of a hard object hitting the counter followed by a tumble of beads. Each time it happened, there was a roar from the crowd of men who gathered around the sound at the bar.

“What is that noise?” Emerson asked craning his neck to look over at the disturbance.

“They’re drinking,” said his wife without taking her eyes off the menu. “We’re ready,” she called out to a waiter who came by with a pad and pen.

“But why are they making so much noise?” Emerson asked again, this time standing to get a better look.

“They’re playing a game,” she said slightly disturbed that her husband was more distracted by them than by her. “They’re playing a drinking game. Now would you pay more attention to what I’m saying?”

“One second, one second. I think I see someone I know over there.”

“You know someone here?”

“Yeah. That man in the white doctor’s jacket looks familiar.” Emerson stood up gingerly to as to not reinjure his bad back and walked slowly over to the bar. There was someone there who he recognized; he just wasn’t sure because that person seemed do out of place. It was clear now to him; Dr. Lam was sitting there on a stool, cigarette hanging from his lip, with a thick black plastic cup in one hand and a glass of whisky on the rocks in the other, surrounded by well-dressed businessmen who yelled with delight at him slamming the over-turned cup down onto the bar counter. He caught a glimpse of Emerson out of the corner of his blood-shot eyes.

“Hey Davis, how did you know I was here?” Dr. Lim called out as the others followed his eyes and looked over at the foreigner in their mitts.”

“You look like you’re having fun, doctor,” said Emerson ironically.

“I am, I am!” Dr. Lim said loudly through the din of the crowd and jukebox music. “Here, sit down,” he said as he stood up from his stool. “Come join us. Cigarette?”

“I’m here with my wife.”

“Oh!” He stood up to where Emerson was pointing and walked toward Mrs. Davis.”

“Davis tai-tai. Ni hao? Ni ze-ma jr-dao wo zai ji-lee?” That means, “Mrs. David. How are you? How did you know I was here?” Mrs. Davis didn’t know what to say. Dr. Lam wasn’t drunk but too happy.

“I’m going to have dinner now. Thanks for the invitation. Enjoy yourself,” Emerson said in a loud voice with a big smile, winking one eye, and sitting down gingerly to join his wife for dinner.

“Hao. See-you.”

As he walked back to the bar, Mrs. Davis seemed angry as Emerson shook his head in mock disbelief and took a sip of his sofa.

“You think that’s funny? Bu hao yi-se.” Embarrassing.

“Noooo. It’s crazy.”

They sat quietly and listened to the music, Emerson happy but pretending to be disturbed so his wife wouldn’t be upset by him again. He got up gingerly, holding the back of the seat for support, and went to the restroom. On his way back he noticed a smell of smoke; not cigarette smoke, but smoke from a fire.

“Do you smell something?” he said as he slowly sat down in his chair.
     “Smell something?” his wife repeated.

“Yes, I smell smoke. Don’t you?” said Emerson as he glanced around the club for the source of the odor.

“It’s prayer money. They’re burning prayer money outside for the holiday.” Emerson knew that the Taiwanese were always throwing drab slips of construction paper they referred to as ‘money’ into round metallic containers.

“No. It’s not that smell. I know what that smell smells like; it’s not that burning smell,” said Emerson now more alarmed and getting no sympathy from his wife.

He glanced around the club again and toward the windows on each side of the corner entrance door. He thought he might see someone lighting something outside. Then, he caught a glace of what it was; he looked up from the windows bottom to the top where a store awning outside had flames billowing from it dropping melted plastic sparks onto the sidewalk below.

“Call the fire department! There’s a fire outside!”

“What?”

“There’s a fire outside! Someone call the fire department!”

 Mrs. Davis turned in her chair and saw what Emerson had seen. She stood up immediately, went to the entrance, and stormed outside to the street. There she stood for a good minute or two transfixed as the awning fire exploded raining molten plastic onto the street below.

 She stormed back inside and told the cashier who was oblivious to anything until she alarmed her. Dr. Lim and his businessmen friends remained as they were before, playing games, drinking, and smoking at the bar counter. One man, perhaps two, turned around to see what the commotion was at the front of the club. No one moved out of their seats or left the club except for Emerson whose wife stood him up and took him outside.

     Five minutes later, those outside of the club could hear the quiet fire alarms on the tiny red trucks coming up the street. Dr. Lam remainedinside and had a taste of his own medicine.