Eddie Huang - Double Cup Love: On the Trail of Family, Food, and Broken Hearts in China

I arrived at the end of my vision only to realize it was another door to confusion: dun-dun-dun-bana-nana-nana-na-na-naaa-naaa.

I could hear Bird in my head and it was starting to make sense.

Like Parkers Mood jumping out in a moment of satori, I took my cue from the horns and put my head down, sprinting toward the finish. I stumbled over the keys, tried to understand the drums, but really just improvised my way to the end, where I realized that all that was waiting for me was another epiphany, the same one that started it all three minutes and eight seconds earlier: dun-dun-dun-bana-nana-nana-na-na-naaa-naaa. But unlike the first time I heard Parkers sax, this realization wasnt hope in the face of rejection. It was despair in the face of acceptance. That old, harrowing, reluctant motherfucker despair staring you in the face with empty hands upturned: dun-dun-dun-bana-nana-nana-na-na-naaa-naaa.

You listen to his loop at the beginning of the song thinking that by the end youll be all brand-new, but nothing. It gives you hope with a faint whisper through reeds, takes you on an impromptu journey to nowhere, and drops you right back off where you started with the same loop and a double dose of despair echoing over and over dun-dun-dun-bana-nana-nana-na-na-naaa-naaa.

This was the sound in my head as I watched Kevin Spacey delivering a monologue in House of Cards:

There are two kinds of pain. The sort of pain that makes you strong or useless pain. The sort of pain thats only suffering. I have no patience for useless things.

Was it useless, though? Before I could figure it out, I felt my heart stop, my face turn gray, and my body disconnect from my mind. I sat there on the couch at my friend Garys house in Houston, right across the street from the Galleria. And I realized I was dying.

I couldnt breathe, scared that the last thing Id ever feel on this earth before I became fish food was Kevin Spaceys politico-sexual-predator vibes. My face got stuck as I fell off the couch onto the floor underneath the coffee table, where Garys AR-15 rested.

How is it legal for Gary to watch Celtic games with an AR-15 around his neck? How is it legal for anyone to walk into a Walmart and cop a six-inch Subway meatball sub, an AR-15, and the Everything Is Awesome single in the same shopping cart? Somethings got to give.

It was my body.

It didnt make sense. This wasnt supposed to happen. Id just gotten my shit straight. I had my bills on autopay! I had to get to Evan. When everyone else in the family left me, there was always Evan. Emery was my ace, Mom was my heart, Dad was the judge, but Evan was my caretaker. I crawled slowly and deliberately. It took every neuron in my brain to communicate with my legs. It was as if rigor mortis had already set in, flesh stiff like upper lips. I had to fight.

I couldnt stand, so I kept grabbing at the ground and pulling myself forward with the little traction I could create against the floor. To the reasonable woman or man reading this, you have to understand that my body was gelatinous, I had achieved perfect rehydrated sea cucumber status and for the second time in my life, it occurred to me that my mother would be proud, a thought that kept me going as I pushed my body along by pressing my feet against the moldings at the bottom of the wall. Eventually, I got to the door of Evans room.

I could see Evan! I might not be dead! I grabbed the side of the door and pulled myself up with the last bit of energy I had.

EVAN! HELP!

He rolled over in his bed to look at me, unimpressed.

Dude, what are you doing? You look like a psycho leaning against the door like that.

EVANI just died.

What?

I just died, man. For real, my spirit left my body.

Your what? Left your what?

MY SPIRIT LEFT MY BODY! I DIED!

Evan realized this wasnt the garden-variety late-night self-realization. He jumped to his feet and stared me in the eyes.

EDDIE! What did you do? Your eyes are yellow!

I ate the indica hash beef jerky!

So did I! So did Gary! Stop being a bitch.

I ate all of it.

ALL OF IT?

And some of the weed cupcake.

He slapped me.

Wake the fuck up! You didnt die. Whats wrong, man?

My heart stopped. My face got stuck. I felt like gelatin and then everything went gray.

All the noise woke Gary up from his nap.

What are you guys doing?

Im dying.

BAHAHAHAHAHA, how are you dying standing in the doorway, you stupid fuck?

Its gone, Gary. My essence is gone. Im never going to be the same. The Matrix accepted me.

Oh my god, do we have to take this fool to the hospital?