Mingmei Yip - Petals from the Sky

I peeked at my friend. Her face was twitching with anger, and that suppressed my urge to ask what a “dumb cookoo limp/head” is.

“That kid’s a total brat. His father should have smacked his head against the wall and shattered his skull!” Lisa spat.

That was quite a violent curse toward a small boy.

Soon we arrived at a door decorated with a huge reptile. Then we passed through a glass door enameled with big red letters: THE WINKING LIZARD. We entered a room filled with smoke, the odor of spilled beer, and shouted conversations. Loud jazz made me itch all over as if my whole body were crawling with squirming lizards. I looked around in the dim light. The décor was minimalist and monochromatic, with leather, steel, and glass furniture. Men wore ponytails and earrings while women had shaved heads with lips and brows pierced by small silver rings. The hurrying waitresses all wore black leather. Suddenly I felt very self-conscious. My hair was long and my dress floral, with lace around the lapel. I must have looked like someone who had just walked out of an all-girls school!

A very tall waitress led us to a corner table in the rear of the bar. I wouldn’t say she was beautiful, but she was definitely striking, with her white-chalked face and crimson lips. Her eyelashes fluttered over her blue-shadowed eyelids. Above the leather miniskirt a Bruce Lee-style top exposed muscular arms.

Once seated, Lisa ordered a martini on the rocks and when Muscular asked me what I wanted, I said, “Regular Coca-Cola.”

My friend chuckled. “Oh, Meng Ning, forget the regular. I’ll order you something more sophisticated.” Then she turned to Muscular to reveal an expanse of porcelain teeth. “Give her a Cuba libre, light on the Coke and heavy on the rum, please.” She winked at the waitress.

In almost no time, Muscular came back with our drinks and a bowl of nuts. When she walked away, I saw she had muscular calves covered with veins like a brood of baby snakes. “Coolie’s calves,” the Chinese would call these. Then I soon noticed that most of the waitresses here were tall, athletic, and had coolie’s calves.

Lisa clinked her glass with mine. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” I echoed. The drink scorched my throat; I grimaced.

“You like it?” Lisa smiled prettily.

“It’s…interesting.” I hadn’t really lied. Since it tasted like kitten’s urine mixed with spicy chili oil.

She asked, “You like this place?”

“Hmmm…I can’t tell yet; it’s strange.” My gaze fell on another brood of “snakes.” “Lisa, have you noticed the waitresses here are all very tall and muscular?”

She patted my shoulder. “You’re so innocent.” She leaned close to me and whispered, “They’re all men.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Shhh…not too loud. Of course not.”

“With makeup, earrings, miniskirts, and even lace tops?” My voice adamantly remained in the high register.

“They’re transvestites… Meng Ning, please lower your voice.”

“You mean they’re men with breasts?”

“Shhh…some are, but they’re mostly men who like to dress like women.”

“So they’re gay?”

“Meng Ning, would you please lower your voice?” Lisa squeezed my elbow.

Right then, our “waitress” came back to ask whether we wanted anything more. As I was thinking, I noticed her nails were long, tapered, and painted crimson. I tried to look at her neck to see whether she had an Adam’s apple. But no luck. She was wearing a spiked leather choker.

Her husky, high-pitched voice slithered its way into my ears. “Honey, anything more I can get you?”

“Hmm…” I didn’t want anything else; I only wanted to study “her.”

She flashed a derisive grin that emphasized her bloodred, full lips, her long-lashed eyes ping-ponging between Lisa and me. “Let me help you. Hmm…what about some dessert? We have cheesecake, Sacher torte, tiramisu…” She kissed her fingers and made aloud smack; the gloss of her fingernails gave out a few sparks in the faint light. “So, sweetie”-she turned to me-“what d’you want?”

“Hmm…” I looked at Lisa, then back at the “waitress,” speechless.

She knelt down, put her elbow on our table, then rested her chin on her hand. She blinked several times as if her eyes were really itchy now. Anxiously, I half expected her lashes to drop into my Cuba libre.

“So, my China doll?” She winked at Lisa, then stared at me. “You want a minute? I can wait.”

Finally Lisa came to my rescue. “Give her a chocolate mousse, please.”

“Gotcha.” She wagged a finger at Lisa and chuckled flirtatiously. Her silver hippie earrings trembled like virgin breasts savagely squeezed.

She pushed herself up, and her leather-wrapped, narrow bottom wriggled away. I noticed a few holes, big and small, in her fishnet stockings.

I felt an army of ants crawling up my spine. “Lisa, you don’t find this place…weird?”

“Oh, no, I’m an artist, Meng Ning. Nothing surprises me.”

“Even men with breasts who wear dresses and flirt with you?”

“If you look at a thing as it is, it just is. “

“You like men dressed up like women?”

She squinted at me with a curious expression. “I thought I’d expand your horizons. You know, Michael won’t bring you to a place like this. He’s too serious-and too protective of you. I know him well. Sorry, Meng Ning. If you don’t like it here, I can take you somewhere else.”

“No, Lisa. I also like expanding my horizons.” It surprised me that suddenly my voice sounded so loud and vehement.

After more drinks and more talk, I began to feel at ease and got into the rhythm of the bar. Waitresses floated between tables like fish in water; men drank, smoked, cracked jokes, turned heads at passing buttocks, and threw glances at us.

Under the warm light of our table’s gilt brass lamp, Lisa’s skin took on a golden sheen, looking almost translucent. I felt her body emit waves of energy toward me. During our conversations, her eyes sometimes focused intently on me and sometimes far in the distance-darting between men in tight jeans, bomber jackets, and cowboy boots. Judging from the few wrinkles making their debut around her eyes, she was like a flower at its ripest moment of perfection, which was also perilously close to wilting.

Lisa turned back to look at me. “You know, Meng Ning, I’m actually part Chinese. My grandfather was a missionary and met my grandmother in Shanghai. My mother spent her childhood there.”

Now Lisa’s eyes were unreadable, like a cat’s. “I never lived in China, but Mom used to tell me strange tales about her life there.”

“Tell me her tales.”

She made a face. “OK, but don’t blame me if they’re too weird.”

“Go ahead.” I took a big gulp of my Cuba libre.

“One time her parents took her to a zoo where she saw a man talking to a flower-”

“That’s not very strange-”

“Meng Ning, there’re more to the story; would you let me finish?” Lisa feigned annoyance, then continued. “The man was a street performer. He told the audience that every day he had to feed and wash the flower like a person. Just when he was about to demonstrate how, the flower opened up to reveal a pretty girl’s head-”

“Oh.”

“While everyone was exclaiming in wonder, the man stuck a lighted cigarette in her mouth. The girl’s head started to smoke, blowing out clouds of smoke in circles, triangles, squares, even a heart. After that, she went on to perform other tricks, like singing, eating, and making funny faces. Of course everybody tried to look and see whether she was hiding her body somewhere. But all they could see under her head was a stem.”

Mesmerized, I asked, “Is this true?”