Driving For Mr. Chen

This story was a finalist in the Vocal+ Fiction Awards

It was after the break up of his 17th band when Aaron Villenivue started working for Mr. Chen. Aaron really was in seventeen unsuccessful bands before that; ranging from middle school (when he first learned drums) to present day. No one seemed to share his aspiration for musical greatness when it came down to it (even when the latest band had seemed iron solid in promise). The break up of the 17th band had resulted in the destruction of one guitar, a washboard and a seven year relationship (not his). Having barely left the chaos with his psyche intact; Aaron decided to find a more steady job -although the trust fund; which was left from his great aunt Lucinda, and was running dry, might have also been a factor.

Mr. Chen ran a Asian grocery/ Karate School. The left side of the building was where Mr. Chen -a 9th Dan Black Belt- gave instruction to a sparse handful of students. The right side of the building contained a small grocery store (also run by Mr. Chen). The building could be entered from two different doors outside (corresponding to both businesses) with a highly decorated Chinese door separating them inside. The karate school often had a mysterious, yet pleasant smell that drifted over from the grocery store, which Aaron could only describe as "eastern." The grocery store was almost always empty, except for a few regulars; which were clearly Mr. Chen's friends, who would hang around to talk to him, and then buy things out of courtesy. How Mr. Chen kept both these business open was a complete mystery to Aaron. After working there for a while, Aaron stopped asking about the issue (or trying to subtly coerce information form Mr. Chen) and just learned to go with it. Aaron had to drive to the other side of town in Mr. Chen's van so that he could pick up shipments for the grocery store. Much to Aaron's amazement, the van previously belonged to a metal band and still had a vivid painting of a bikini clad goddess riding a dragon and wielding a sword made out of lightning on the side. Mr. Chen hadn't taken the time to get the van re painted and Aaron suspected that he didn't want to.

The delivery service that usually supplied Mr. Chen's monthly shipments of Chinese food brands (from overseas) had become legally prohibited from delivering the goods directly to his business; as being half a karate school made a business legally exempt from being a grocery store. This led to Mr. Chen needing to pick up the groceries himself (on the other side of town). After just one week of having to rush back and forth, Mr. Chen realized he needed someone else to do it, which is exactly how Aaron got his job.

Mr. Chen didn't exactly interview Aaron; so much as he scanned Aaron's entire body up and down for twenty long seconds and then shook his hand, while acknowledging in Chinese that Aaron had the job. Mr. Chen's exceptionally attractive granddaughter Rebecca usually translated when Mr. Chen spoke Mandarin. Mr. Chen spoke perfect English, but would often switch to Chinese Mandarin depending on his mood. Besides Rebecca and Mr. Chen, the only other person who worked there was Niles; a British burnout from Liverpool ( who was born only two blocks from where John Lennon grew up) who did all the janitorial duties. They also had a cat named "Felix" who Aaron was certain belonged to Rebecca. He eventually found out that not only did the cat not belong to her, but that she didn't know Felix existed at all. Aaron had concocted an entire narrative in his mind, believing that Felix had grown up with Rebecca since she was a little girl and that she had a special connection with the cat. This wasn't an unusual experience for Aaron throughout his life; although on occasion his vivid extrapolations turned out to be true. Aaron almost always ran into Mr.Chen the moment he realized something or when he was on the tail end of a philosophical maelstrom. Mr. Chen would always seem to be around, no matter where Aaron was in the business at the time, and would simply walk up to Aaron and tap him on the head, as if indicating it was all in his mind. Aaron asked his friend Lee (who was also Chinese) if he thought Mr. Chen had magic powers. Lee's only reply was that the question was "racist," leaving Aaron with only himself to deduce a conclusion.

It was a Thursday when Aaron was driving back from the Asian market (which was called "Asian Market") with Mr. Chen's weekly supply of seafood, Chinese food brands, noodles, large amounts of meat and other items that were a complete mystery to Aaron. Aaron loved driving to the Asian Market, as it was on the very end of a pier by the ocean. Aaron had always loved the smell of the ocean, and liked to fantasize that he was a pirate who was both ruthless and kindhearted, in another life. He turned the radio's dial knob as a black car blasted by and someone yelled "ROCK ON MAN!" Aaron was surprised to hear the song "Swing, Swing" by The All-American Rejects; which immediately activated a slew of memories and emotions.

He was taken back in time ten years to when he was a high school freshman and lived the scene kid life style. He owned three pairs of tight jeans (which he rotated day by day) a collection of ironic t-shirts and seven sets of aviator sun glasses (which were always lined up perfectly even on his dresser). The look was completed with Aaron's long, unwashed hair; with which he fought a constant battle keeping looking like a lions mane. He had never felt more confident. His girlfriend since seventh grade broke up with him around that time; offended by the number of sunglasses his owned. She was followed immediately by Aaron's next girlfriend Layla, which marked Aaron's full conversion to the scene lifestyle. He began listening to Sum 41, Fall Out Boy, Armor for Sleep, The Fray, Hawthorne Heights, Jimmy Eat World, My Chemical Romance and all the requisite musicians of the past decades. He also secretly listened to Wilco when no one else was around. Layla was very beautiful and queen of Myspace during it's peak years. Aaron was only able to see her at shows on the weekend, due to her popularity. She would die of a drug overdose in college; which brought a dramatic end to Aaron's scene phase.

"Wake up idiot!" Yelled someone from a compact car as they cut around Mr. Chen's van. Aaron was immediately spit out of his trip back in time as he sharply pressed the breaks. The tires made a loud screeching sound as he regained his focus.

Aaron unloaded the entire van in record time that day (with the theoretical help of Niles, who did more cigarette smoking than unloading). Mr. Chen was most likely aware that Niles was lazy and that he did the minimum amount of work, but as Aaron learned more and more; Mr. Chen had a mysterious way of doing things. Rebecca was there as well, which was unusual for a Thursday. She cut past Aaron swiftly near the karate school's front desk; in the midst of an important phone call for her grandfather. She was wearing her red jeans and blue blouse; which made it likely she was partying with her friends later.

"Hey Aaron!" She said while talking into her cellphone simultaneously. "Thank you!"

There was no greater vision of loveliness in the entirety of San Diego County.

Rebecca was 22 (two years younger than Aaron) and had always been very close to her grandfather. She was the first person in the Chen lineage to be born in America. She was given the name Daiyu at birth, but always went by Rebecca since she started preschool. Aaron started to fantasize about forming his 18th and most successful band. They would be a five piece; bass, drums, two guitars and piano. Aaron would sing his original songs as the lead singer (plus only the most inspired covers). They would possess the secret magic all great bands possessed and would quickly rise to the top in popularity and recognition within the local scene. That's when Rebecca would fall in love with him; leaving her current boyfriend for the rock star life of beauty, passion and adventure. She would start wearing black clothing and-

Mr. Chen slapped Aaron on the chest (he could always feel it in his heart when Mr. Chen did this), quickly aborting Aaron's fantasy. He looked Aaron in the eyes with a smile, almost like he could read his mind.

"Did everything go okay?" Mr. Chen asked Aaron.

"The guy at the dock with three teeth and the green sweatsuit gave me a hard time again," Aaron explained. "But they loaded everything in -eventually. They finally had that crab meat you were obsessing about, so I just went ahead and added it to the order. I took an invoice back so you can pay the extra amount and-

"Perfect!" Said Mr. Chen, clapping his hands together.

Mr. Chen was still wearing his karate instructor uniform and some black gloves. The class must have ended early that day, as Mr. Chen was usually already back in his typical tan Khaki pants and decorated button up shirt. Mr. Chen owned a collection of button up shirts with unique designs that he would rotate throughout the week. Some had solid colors, others had floral designs and a couple had Chinese dragons on them. One of the shirts was clearly a McDonald's employee shirt from the 90's, which always made Aaron laugh to himself. He had yet to tell Mr. Chen about it.

"And-" Aaron continued, eager to address the issue of Mr. Chen's heavy metal van getting lots of on-highway feedback.

"That's fine," Mr. Chen interrupted.

Aaron just stared at Mr. Chen for a moment; realizing they were caught in an infinite loop in regards to the van. Although Aaron appreciated the artwork, he thought it would be more professional to have the van painted a solid color. Mr. Chen slapped Aaron on the chest again and looked him in the eyes. Every time this happened; Mr. Chen had a perplexing appearance Aaron could only explain as "more real."

"If you like a girl," said Mr. Chen. "Why not just have a conversation? It's not good to live in your head."

Aaron really wanted to think of something equally philosophical in response, but it was too late; Mr. Chen had pleasantly walked out the front door of the business and into the light.

Of Mr. Chen's three karate students, only one was left in the building. Terrence, a thirteen year old boy, was still sitting on a intricate, carved wooden bench on the edge of the huge blue mats where Mr. Chen instructed. He was taking off his sparring equipment, which always seemed to take him an eternity. It was becoming increasingly apparent to Aaron that Terrence's parents were leaving Terrence at karate class for a long as possible to have time for themselves. Despite this; Terrence had a very positive attitude about his karate instruction and always trained hard. He often assailed Mr. Chen with every question he could think of about karate and it's history. Mr. Chen's response was always "just keep it coming."

The two other student's were Karolyin (actual spelling), who was a fifty seven year old recent divorcee looking to find something new in her life; and Vernon, who was most definitely stoned all the time. Mr. Chen most likely knew this too; and whether he didn't care or was just being tolerant, Aaron wasn't sure. What Aaron did know was that the hardest he had ever laughed was the time Mr. Chen looked Vernon dead in the eyes during class and asked Vernon if he had mastered the "high arts" yet.

Aaron was going to try to coax some information out of Terrance to see what was going on with his parents; in an attempt to help him, but Terrance seemed unusually disinterested in him that day.

"You know there is a faster way to do that," Aaron said to Terrance as he crossed across the mats through the center of the classroom.

Terrance didn't say anything in response as he finally finished getting his sparing gear off.

"New Pokemon!" Terrance exclaimed as he charged away from Aaron towards the front door.

"What the hell was that?" Aaron wondered.

"Well...," he continued to think.

Aaron dreaded (at least on a subconscious level) the moments when the world around him gave him no choice but to do nothing. The main reason for this, was that every occurrence of having nothing to do inevitability resulted in him remembering the same thing. The memory in question was an incredibly depressing experience he had with his roommate when he was a college freshman at San Diego State University. The roommate in question was named Lucas Bevellen, who was an enthusiastic "psyconaut" or in other words, he took N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (or DMT) three times a week. Perhaps Lucas's psychedelic excursions had started as a sincere and adventurous investigation into the mysteries of the universe; but they must have taken a dark turn around the time they had both become college students. Lucas would often just state at a plastic sculpture of the character "Crash Bandicoot" (from the video game of the same name) and list as my expletives as he could. After two weeks of growing accustomed to this, Aaron just gave up and started talking to Lucas like he was a depressed house cat. He tried to contact Lucas parent's one night, but their response was incredibly vague and gave the impression they were wealthy and uninvolved with their son.

The incident that left such a dark mark on Aaron's soul was the time Lucas decided to randomly speak a long dialogue to Aaron while lying on the floor at 3 AM.

"It's all fake you know," Lucas began to say in a bizarre and Kafkaesque monotone. It was the first words Aaron had heard from him in a week.

"I'm sleeping now," Aaron replied.

"Trust me Aaron; I reached the final boundary of the universe and all I saw was crap."

"There's no way you reached the 'final boundary of the universe."

"You can, you just keep going beyond and beyond, and then you just...do."

"Alright..."

"It really just is bad, it's like that. People don't want to admit it, even in the safety of their own mind. The inevitability of meaninglessness; so they build their whole life around avoiding it. The idea that all the love or happiness or contentment they feel is really just a fleeting distraction. So they grasp and grasp, and the further they have to reach the more they get stretched thin. I've dared to accept that, and I assumed in the process I would find something that makes it all worthwhile. Some kind of understanding, however plain or unremarkable. But there wasn't anything there...at all. Just the same terrible rift, looking back at me, magnified a thousand times...now that I had run out of borders to cross. I was left feeling like an equation without a solution, like an infinite question mark with no response. I'm a comedian with no audience."

"Maybe you should talk to your doctor about Cymbalta."

"Why? So I can trick myself for a couple weeks before I'm victimized by time and space again. I remember the first time I went beyond, Aaron, there was already no explaining what I had seen. I was so eager then...and ready for freedom and knowledge; but that's just not how it works out. The answers always come with two more questions attached, and those questions have answers with two more questions attached. When you get to those answers they have two more questions attached. I think you get the idea Aaron...that's why I exist like this now. A being of suffering and lament that perceives it's own hopelessness at the same rate it grasps for answers. I'm trapped in a cycle without any escape. In every moment I reemerge like a wave, and that wave flows on an ocean of desolation."

Aaron felt confident that Lucas's rant was mostly a bad case of what Aaron liked to call "Acid Reflux," and believed he could easily laugh it off; but some part of the speech always seemed to be lodged in his mind like a thorn. He was often haunted with the possibility that Lucas was right. He had never told anyone about Lucas's grim prophecy; so the experience stayed with him like a bad dream.

Aaron looked around for Mr. Chen in hopes of finding something to do; but Mr. Chen was strangely absent for this time of night.

"Hey can you help me with this?" Asked a voice from behind him.

It was Niles holding Felix the cat and shaking him up and down like he was dancing.

"I don't think he likes that," Aaron replied.

"It's fine," said Niles, spinning the cat in a circle. "It gives the cat a rare chance to engage primordial instincts"

"Couldn't he just do that in his free time?" Aaron replied.

"He's on my schedule now," said Niles.

Aaron looked across the hall at the mop and mop bucket Niles had casually begun to ignore. It was leaning against the half painted purple wall. Niles indiscernible relationship with the cat only increased Aaron's feeling of isolation. Niles walked off in the other direction, still holding the cat tightly to his chest.

"What was the point of that?" He wondered, still remembering the bizarre monotone Lucas talked in that night.

Aaron leaned against the half painted purple wall and dragged himself across it all the way towards Mr. Chen's office. He was surprised to find him there. The door was wide open and Mr. Chen was glued to a television from around the turn of the century (year 2000). Even more surprising was the plain, grey first generation PlayStation sitting on the floor neatly tucked under the metal stand the T.V was on. The controller cord ran all the way up to Mr. Chen, who was holding the later generation, vibration option controller tightly in his hands.

"Mr. Chen," said Aaron. "Are you playing Final Fantasy 8?"

Mr. Chen didn't respond to Aaron's question at all and stayed glued to the screen. Mr. Chen was in the midst of unleashing Squall Leonhart's Renzokuken limit break on one of the fearsome T-Rexaur enemies near the futuristic, Utopian city of Esthar. The Renzokuken meter's activation gauge moved from right to left as Mr. Chen expertly timed his attacks. Squall could be seen flying through the air amazingly as he landed blow after blow. In a grand finale, the finishing move "Fated Circle" began to play it's animation. Squall charged a beam of powerful energy to his blade and released it over a wide distance, thoroughly annihilating the enemies.

"That was perfect," said Aaron

"Why are you depressed right now Aaron?" Mr. Chen replied, not shifting his gaze from the T.V.

"When did you start playing Final Fantasy?!" Aaron replied.

"We are not going to talk about that," said Mr. Chen, adjusting his Hawaiian button down shirt and slowly turning to the right to look at Aaron. "What are you depressed about?"

"I'm depressed because Niles is lazy."

"Nice try, Niles is super lazy...but that's not why you're depressed. It's that thing again."

"I'm depressed because one time in college my drugged out roommate told me the universe was meaningless."

"Do you think the universe is meaningless?"

"I don't know..."

"You sound like me when I was your age. Really think about it, do you think the universe is meaningless?"

"No."

"Well there you go Aaron!" Said Mr. Chen, pausing the game in a dignified manner while setting down the controller and then standing up. He did that thing again where he hit Aaron in the chest.

"It sounds like your friend did too many drugs Aaron. You had it right the first time."

"I did?" Aaron said, starting to feel better.

"If people use the wrong methods with intense things they got lost fast," Mr. Chen explained. "It happens all the time. It happened to me when I was young and thought I was the best martial artist in the world."

"Mr. Chen how do you keep these businesses open?"

"That's not important."

"Aren't you sad that you only have three karate students?"

"Real harsh Aaron; and no, if I can make one persons life better then I am a complete success."

"Anyway," Mr. Chen continued, casually unbuttoning his Hawaiian shirt. "You'll be a real man someday Aaron, you always do the right thing and you don't act fake. Maybe your 18th band will be a big success. You can leave work early tonight if you need to. I'll make Niles do some actual work."

Mr. Chen laughed to himself after he said that.

"Thanks Mr. Chen!"

"I'm going to fight the final boss now," Mr. Chen explained. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Aaron left Mr. Chen's office as he heard the PlayStation un-pause and the classic Final Fantasy battle music resume. He cut straight across the mats again and out towards the front of the business. Niles and Felix were nowhere to be seen. The sun had gone down and the night felt surprisingly cool as he walked out the front door. Aaron looked up at the sky and noticed the usual light pollution from the city was strangely absent from blocking his view of the stars. He suddenly remembered catching something about a meteor shower out of the corner of his eye on his phone when he left in a hurry that morning. A green Saab pulled up in front of him as it's car top retracted. It was Rebecca; she was wearing a green Chinese dress now and her hair was in a bun. She leaned out the window from the drivers seat and started to talk to Aaron. Aaron looked up at the stars again and they looked like a thousand glowing orbs swimming in a cosmic pool. Every single one had a billion year story that no author could ever dare to try and tell.

"Get in if you want to live!" Rebecca said with a smile.

There was no greater vision of loveliness in the entirety of San Diego County.