Jade’s 1st Arrest

The police report described Jade, Dante’s Taiwanese wife, as having lunged at Dante with an intent to harm him. That’s not how Dante recalled the incident. He had called 911 because Jade had locked herself in the bathroom with a container of prescription pain-killers. She had tried to kill herself with muscle relaxants several months earlier. That time she had spent a few nights in the hospital. This time ended up with a few nights in jail. The marriage wasn’t going well.

Jade gave the police quite a fight. She looked so petite and pale in pajamas, eyes puffy from lack of sleep and tears. But Dante, on many occasions, had felt Jade’s strength in the midst of hysteria. As the two officers tried to cuff her, they had to wrestle her thrashing body to the ground . Dante thought that the movement she made towards him was for protection. Hadn’t he vowed to protect her? Dante cowered backwards as Jade tried to free herself from the police.

What Dante felt after the police drove away with Jade cuffed in the back of their patrol car, was extreme relief. The drama for that night, at least, was over. Dante, being the sole breadwinner, couldn’t afford to miss work again. He needed to sleep. Dante walked to the next room where both kids were laying in his bed, awake.

“Your mom will be okay,” he said to Charlotte and Amos who were staring at him from under the covers.

“It sounded like a fight!” Amos, the seven-year-old, said with more excitement than fear.

“Your mom is really strong. It took two police to control her,” Dante responded.

Ballpoint Tattoos

The night before the arrest, Dante hadn’t been so eager to get Jade out of the house, in spite of the fact that she was having a psychotic break of sorts. Jade was drawing over her arms and legs with a ballpoint pen. “Beautiful tattoo,” She said to ten-year-old Charlotte who was sitting next to her. Charlotte got up and left the room when Jade tried draw on her arm.

Jade then turned her attention to Dante who was sitting on the adjacent loveseat. “What’s wrong!” Jade said to him in a slightly menacing way. “I’ll give you a tattoo!” With that, Jade moved to Dante, sat at the foot of the loveseat and firmly secured his leg by wrapping her limbs around it. Dante glanced up to make sure the kids were not watching. Jade started drawing on his hairy leg. It tickled. Dante squirmed a bit when she pressed hard. Jade was mumbling incoherently as she drew blue lines on his leg. She wrapped her arm up and around Dante’s thigh to make him hold still. Dante started to feel aroused. The arousal was visible under his shorts. “Oh look at you!” Jade exclaimed with a triumphant cackle. “You like tattoo!” She leaned over and kissed his engorged manhood through the shorts, then bared her teeth and snapped them shut in the air close enough that he could feel her breath on his thigh.

It crossed Dante’s mind that sex with someone who was mentally unstable might not be morally decent. It was akin to taking advantage of a drunk or retard. As those thoughts crossed his mind, Dante was already too caught up in the excitement to stop. They weren’t divorced yet, he thought to himself.

Jade’s First Overdose

In one of her previous suicide attempts, Jade had locked herself in the bedroom for a couple of days. Dante periodically pounded on the door. “Come on honey, at least eat a bit!” No answer. Shifting between sympathy and irritation, he periodically tried to cajole her back into the world of the living. In the end, she did finally get up and go into the bathroom for a few minutes. When she returned to her room, she didn’t lock the door. Dante sat at the foot of the bed as she lay there. Jade, unresponsive when dante tried to wake her, appeared to be sleeping.

“Bathroom.” Jade slurred in Chinese a few hours later. Her body was limp and rubbery when Dante helped her get out of bed. Charlotte and Amos came and grabbed her other arm and the three of them carefully moved mommy towards the bathroom. Before they could get her on the toilet, Jade squatted and peed right on the bathroom floor.

“Mommy peed on the floor!” Amos exclaimed with glee. He found the situation funny. Mommy was acting drunk. Amos had some bed wetting issues and to see his mother have a mistake was a vindication of sorts.

It was only after Jade lost consciousness and the emergency workers came and found the prescription muscle relaxant bottle in the waste basket that it was clear that Jade was actually trying to kill herself. She left a troubled suicide note written in tight and tense Chinese characters.

Taiwan Rock Band

Dante had first met Jade in Taiwan in 1981. He was playing keyboards for a soft rock band that was performing at her college. Jade followed the band members out of the auditorium after the concert. The group was headed towards a noodle shop for an interview with a reporter from the college paper. The band members tended to behave like spoiled rock stars. They ignored Jade as she followed behind the group trying to chat. Dante felt bad for her. She had bigger than average bosoms on her slender frame. Those are the things that caused him to remember her a year later when they met at a Christmas party.

Dante wasn’t much of a keyboard player. The band, a fairly popular group called The Travelers, was looking for a white member to spice up their image. The lead singer had approached Dante late one night at a night market and asked him if he could play any instruments.

The group had a weekly gig at Idea House, a club in a trendy part of Taipei. The pay was decent. Dante got paid for a few TV appearances and concerts around the island, as well.

Taipei in the 1980s was the kind of place that white people, even untalented, unattractive ones, could get work in movies and advertisements. Many of the locals tended to be a fauning and obsequious towards their foreign `guests’. As a result, whites who had the inclination could walk around the island feeling more special than their abilities and accomplishments warranted.

Christmas Dance Party

It was at a depressing ex-patriot Christmas party in an old Japanese style house rented by a few Canadians where Dante met Jade for the second, life altering time. It was over a year after their first brief meeting. At the party, Jade was one of the local girls huddled in a dark corner watching the foreigners dance spastically to the unfamiliar songs popular on western campuses. After a few beers, Dante danced by himself to the Talking Head’s Burning Down the House, imagining all the dark eyes following his every gyration.

Andrew, the host of the party, was a drab Canadian fellow. In spite of his drabness, he was famous. All over Taipei there were Andrew underwear advertisements in magazines, wall posters, and one large billboard covering almost the entire side of a 30-story building in the movie district. It seemed everywhere you turned that winter, Andrew was standing there in his tidy whiteys. The largest billboard was hand painted. Proportions were a bit distorted and somewhat grosteque, still everyone knew it was him.

Sweaty from dancing, Dante plopped himself down next to Jade and struck up a conversation. She reminded him of their previous meeting. Dante felt a familiarity and comfort with her.

It was in the presence of the fully clothed underwear celebrity that Jade and Dante exchanged telephone numbers and began a relationship that would lead to marriage, children, fights, suicide attempts, and eventually divorce.

Snake Alley Date

For their first date, Dante and Jade went to the night market at Dragon Mountain Temple in the oldest part of Taipei City. Dragon Mountain was dark and still with the scent of stale incense emanating from the wood and stone. Fresh incense smoke rose from a big urn and dispersed into the unnatural orange glow of the polluted night sky. Dragon Mountain Temple was serene compared to the bustling Snake Alley night market surrounding it. Jade lit an incense stick. She bobbed her head and muttered something to Buddha and wouldn’t tell Dante what she was praying for. It was all amusing superstition as far as Dante could see.

Dragon temple night market was famous for unsavory pastimes. One popular activity was the drinking of blood from venomous snakes. Dante watched a snake being slit down the underside and drained of blood which was then auctioned off to the highest bidding red-faced drunk. The drunk gulped it down with lot’s of bravado. It was believed by the locals that poisonous snake blood made men virile. They would drink the blood and then go see a nearby prostitute.

Dante and Jade walked through the narrow alleys towards the brothels to get the full flavor of the place. Young prostitutes entreated him to enter. Jade watched his reaction as the girls tried to pull him into the dubious looking entrances. A slightly putrid smell hung in the thick warm tropical night air. That night Dante and Jade parted with a long kiss. Their first kiss.

Buddha Flower

Along with the money Dante made as a member of the Travelers, he supported himself teaching English and eventually with translation jobs once his Chinese was good enough. One place Dante worked was the Easy Nature Language Center where, instead of formal English lessons, he was paid to attend social events with students. All Dante had to do was be available, chat and correct students when they made mistakes as they tried to speak to him in English. The owner of the language center was a practicing Buddhist. He occaisionally invited a shabby looking dharma master to Easy Nature for dharma talks. Dante went once to hear a lecture. The lectures made little sense to Dante. It was just arcane, existential craziness as far as he could tell.

Buddha Flower, a journalism student, was at the language center frequently. Dante thought she was very pretty. Unlike Jade, who he was bonking with frequency by that time, Buddha Flower was quiet, proper, and had a aura of purity surrounding her. Buddha Flower shared with Dante that she found Jade to be a bit uncouth. Buddha Flower took it upon herself to indoctrinate Dante in the subject of Zen Buddhism.

The language center organized frequent excursions around Taiwan. It was at the beach as the sun was setting where Buddha Flower introduced the topic of ego to Dante. Buddha Flower’s head was resting on Dante’s torso at the time.

“Buddhists try to let go of their egos. You are very attached to yours,” Buddha Flower commented as the waves lapped at the sand a few feet from them.

South Temple

Dante knew that compared to many of the people in Taiwan he appeared to be quite ego-centric. He wasn’t devoted to supporting his family group. He was in it for himself. Hopefully, he thought, the talent that he was nurturing in himself would make a splash and the world would understand and appreciate his specialness.

In Taiwan, it didn’t help his egotistical tendencies that everyone was always complimenting him about how smart and capable he was. Before he could spit out one word, strangers would be complimenting his Chinese.

Buddhism intrigued Dante on an intellectual level. The “Life is Suffering,” precept of Buddhism didn’t appeal to him, though. After all, he was enjoying life. What suffering?

Buddha Flower took Dante on a hike along a well-trodden trail on the northern edge of Taipei city. It followed a yellowish, slimy, polluted river and ended at an old temple. They had lunch at the temple, a simple vegetarian meal cooked and served by bald nuns. Buddha Flower explained that payment for the lunch was optional. She placed some bills in the collection box as they left.

As they were leaving the stillness of the temple back on the path through the tropical vegetation, some nuns began to chant. It was a low drone, almost like the buzzing of insects.

“What’s that?” Dante asked Buddha Flower.

“That is the Heart Sutra. It is the most important sutra for a Buddhist,” Buddha Flower said smiling.

“What does it mean?”

“Form is Emptiness. Emptiness is Form.”

Caught in the Rain

Dante pondered this existential challenge as he walked with Buddha Flower. How could nothing and something be the same thing? What did that mean in terms of how a person should behave? How could a whole religion be built around the idea that nothing is real?

As frequently happened in Taiwan in the summer, a thunder storm moved in suddenly and drenched Buddha Flower and Dante as they were walking back from the temple. They decided to lay down on the grass to dry off. Dante saw Buddha Flower’s slender torso and shallow-cupped bra through her wet cotton blouse which stuck to her, wet and transparent. The bra had flowers on it.

Suffering comes from desire. That was another Buddhist doctrine that Dante had learned. He couldn’t really refute that one. Dante wondered about Buddha Flower’s desires and if she had them like he did.

“I’m a mess,” she said.

“You look fine,” Dante replied. He thought about touching her skin . It looked cool and smooth with water beads sparkling as the sun beams broke through the clouds.

Jade was easier to touch than Buddha Flower

Chinese Art

Dante’s first art class in Taiwan was a calligraphy class. Chinese calligraphy appealed to him in ways that studying art in America never had. He felt connected with ancient Chinese scholars as he copied their masterworks. Practicing calligraphy was a meditative skill that his teachers assured him would make him a better, more focused person as well as cure his constipation.

It was a discipline that was supposed to teach humility. Dante was constantly being complimented on his shaky calligraphy, even though it was at the level of an average Taiwanese middle school student. The teachers took to Dante. He was a novelty. His calligraphy teacher sent him on errands. That was an honor, apparently.

As it turned out, calligraphy would be a constant in Dante’s life, a more dependable pursuit than marriage, often more rewarding than sex.

His calligraphy teacher talked about getting married to a woman that he didn’t really care for. He was in his 50s. She was in her 30s. It was his first experience with a woman, he said. The teacher said that over time he had grown fond of this woman. It took him about 15 years to warm up to her and now they had a good relationship. He felt some affection for her.

That different than marriages I grew up with, Dante thought

Don’t Marry Her

Dante swore to himself when he left Taiwan that he wouldn’t marry Jade. He remembered the exact moment that he vowed to himself not to marry her. She was bent over in his apartment sweeping the floor. At that moment, Dante was saw a crudeness in her, something that wouldn’t age well, he thought. He promised himself silently, that he wouldn’t marry her. Afterall, she didn’t ever seem to understand who he really was. She didn’t see his deeper side, he thought. She had some notion of what boys are like and just expected him to act that way. These pleads to himself were unheaded. They did marry.

As hospitable and interesting as Taiwan had been to him, the charm started to fade after 2 years. Dante started to feel a strong sense of alienation to the place and the people. He realized how American he was and thought of all the things he liked about America. Taipei seemed stagnant and shallow. The sense of humor was different. The street life that once thrilled him now just seemed predictable.

I better head back to the States and start a life there before it’s too late, Dante thought. Jade was upset by this plan

Bearing Children

In spite of Dante’s vow to himself not to marry Jade, he did. Her father paid for her to attend graduate school at NYU. She slept on a futon on the floor in an East Village dive with Dante and his brother Nik, for a while. Eventually they moved from the East Village to Jackson Heights, Queens.

They had their first child when Dante was in graduate school getting an MA in Asian Studies. It wasn’t an easy pregnancy for anyone involved. Jade didn’t like the college town they were in and spent a chunk of her pregnancy back in Taiwan. There, she could see Chinese doctors and have tiger balm rubbed into her belly by her father.

Charlotte was born after a long labor. Dante walked with Jade around campus for most of the day to encourage the baby to rear it’s face to the world.

Charlotte arrived late at night. The nurse asked Dante if it bothered him that his baby looked Asian. What an odd question to be asked moments after you have participated in miracle of bringing a life into the world. Maybe they always asked fathers in bi-racial births that question.

In the end, it was Jade who was profoundly unhappy being married to an American guy with half-white children. She eventually, after the divorce, moved across the country and seldom saw her children.

Marriage Dies

“Chinese don’t divorce.” Dante heard this from Jade and her relatives. Was divorce a tragic mistake? He knew many examples of okay divorce. His own parents included.

According to his understanding of Buddhism, it was his attachment to his ego that would cause him to end a marriage. The bad things he saw in Jade were just a reflection of what was inside himself. If he was at a higher state of enlightenment, he would look at Jade and everyone else with compassion because of the understanding that this whole reality he had constructed in his mind was empty. Emptiness is form. Form is emptiness. There is no such thing as good and bad. No such thing as a good wife or a bad wife. His monkey brain was deceiving him into believing that something could be gained from divorce just as it had deceived him by making him think that he should covet certain things in his marriage.

In Taiwan he had imagined himself to be so desirable. A rock star. An emblem of western licentiousness titillating the natives, stoking their desires. Any of those girls would be lucky to have him, Dante thought. Maybe self-deception was the root of his problems.

Regardless of what it said about Dante and his state of spiritual development, he got the divorce.

We Think With Words

When Dante first decided to study Chinese in the summer of 1980, a family friend, George Schneeman, casually tossed off the comment, “How can those Chinese think with all that gobblety-gook in their brains?” George, a painter and friend of the many New York poets and writers, was good at stirring up discussion. He did it from his perch four stories above the streets of St. Mark’s Place in the East Village.

Dante couldn’t refute an underlying premise of what George said. We use our words to think thoughts. The language you are thinking with influences the thoughts you can have. Can you have a thought without forming it in words? Try. Maybe Jade was right when she said that in spite of all his study, Dante really didn’t understand the Chinese. Buddhist meditation was designed to free a person from the thoughts jumping around like an uncontrolled monkey in the brain. Dante hadn’t been that successful at his attempts to meditate.

The character for form (色), actually means sex or color in modern Chinese. Dante liked those multiple layers of meaning in Chinese. This was in spite of the fact that teachers had told him that some of the layers of meaning he liked didn’t really exist for native Chinese speakers. Using his English vocabulary to think about Chinese created false meanings. On top of that all thoughts were empty, anyway.

Form is empty (空), afterall. The piece of paper was empty until Dante applied colors to it with his brush, hoping to make something beautiful, or at least, to communitcate something.