Shenzhen Zen

Shoot Out the Lights
"I've been thinking hard about this and tonight has to be number two or three in my Top 3 Worst New Year's Eves," I told C in clipped tones via cell phone at about 10pm that night as I was on the bus from Shenzhen to Hong Kong.

I'd just done the mature adult male thing -- men always leave, doncha know? -- and had cut short what had initially promised to be an uneventful, maybe idyllic Dec 31-Jan 5 or 6 respite in Shenzhen. But following one of those domestic spats that flare suddenly outta nowhere for no apparent reason on -- in this case New Year's Eve -- I was outta there.

Up 'til 8:30pm things had been mostly perfect, too perfect perhaps, for an age and culturally divided couple living on the edge of the guy's dwindling unemployment savings/borrowings. A day of relaxation, slow lunch, reading, some tunes, Prison Break (thank you, PRC pirate video empire) and some separate interests as in I prepared a modest evening's repast of pasta, chicken, (hard to find) artichoke hearts, wine and (equally hard to find) avacado salad while she went to her piano lessons. (Note to discerning playwrights: if a gun or a mention of a piano appears in the first act, rest assured that chaos will ensue by the third).

She even lit candles upon returning, sigh. A night out for dancing, drinks and New Year frivolity was already planned, that is, until midway through her second helping of fake fancy pasta chicken she asked about....

Well, forget about specific details. But theoretically let's say you were unemployed at present, expecting new employment in about 15-17 days, but sucking air financially and with nothing but a half month's paycheck following that and you were already deep in hock, theoretically of course, to the Hong Kong tax leeches plus Visa etc in the USA, how would you respond, in a theoretical sense, of course, to a sudden question over candle light and (hard to find) avacados and artichokes, such as: "When will you buy me a piano? In January or February?"

As we're dealing purely in metaphors, symbols and coded language here, let's not assume that a piano was the specific point of the puzzling question. Maybe it was an F-17 jet. Or a sable-lined BMW. Or a simple request such as "When will you bring the only grandmother who loved me back from the dead?"

No matter. I sucked it in, put down my (rare, very rare to find, much less to savor in Shenzhen) forkful of avacado and without raising my voice said: "You know, it's been a swell New Year's Eve. But no (fill in the blank, piano, jet, sable lined BMW, resurrection) will be immediately forthcoming until I get my taxes and other sundry debts under control. Please be patient. And pass the pasta."

You know the whooha about global warming? Twenty seconds with C after my reply could reverse the whole shebang. 10th Avenue Freeze Out, as Bruce once sang. Big time glacial zone because Santa can't pony up a (fill in the blank, maybe a piano) in a month or two. I retreat to the bedroom to re-read a Brit thriller for the second time and she bolts to sulk on the Internet with her virtual pals. An olive branch as in "Uh, are you interested in still going out tonight for New Year's?" is met with stone, soul ummmph. Nearly silence. Worse, though.

So I thought about it. Do I want to spend this night and probably most of the next day in a stone frozen cold zone or do I want to scamper back to Hong Kong where my warm amiable CD pals Zimmy, Mick and Keef, Prince, The late, great Godfather, Townes, and Warren Z, and, yeah, Neil singing "Why Do I Keep Fucking Up?" will not only reinforce my sense of self-pity and justification but also not talk back to me? Damn sure, they won't ask me to buy them a piano. I'm outta there.

The cell rings midway to Hong Kong. It's C and she's kinda sorry. I'm also one sorry s.o.b., but the train (or bus in this case) keeps a-rollin' and we both do a blahblahblah semi-making up, but not completely dialogue.

And I reflected on the worst New Year's Eve ever for me. One of two, actually, both involving my first wife, but this one in particular whereupon we received an invite from our married Korean insurance agent and "family friend" (who had just firmly broken off a three year affair with me) for a New Year's Eve party at her home. At the time I decided to deal with the ensuing juju in an adult and entirely mature manner by swallowing a load of magic mushrooms that had been steeped in a bottle of Jim Beam for about 8 months.

Not the best decision. Wrong call. I'll spare most details like the towers of flames I hallucinated while driving to the illcit locale of many of our former assignations (she preferred her place to cheap motels) and the eerie facial and verbal tricks (plasto-people from Hell's cafeteria third shift if that makes any sense) that greeted me when my soon-to-be ex and I arrived to ring in the New Year. I wound up holing up with my former lover's 14-year-old son in a study watching reconstituted Aerosmith rock in New Year's Eve on MTV or something and midway through muttering something like: "Your mom was sure good in bed."

"Wha? Huh? Mr Mitchell?"

"Your, uh, I said, "I think, your, I said, I said, mother has a good head. Very smart. A very nice person. And, uh, do you think we can do something about those flames, by the way? Thanks."