Taipei by Tao Lin Page A

he’d become increasingly worried and hyperventilated a little and was still recovering. Daniel handed Mitch the bag and said “um, it was open, so I don’t know how much fell out,” with, it seemed, slightly averted eyes. Mitch put the bag in his pocket without responding and, with unfocused eyes, said he was going to the bathroom and went.
     
    After snorting cocaine in Paul’s room Daniel and Mitch moved into the kitchen, then into Caroline’s room. Caroline’s door, except when she was sleeping, was always partly open. Paul, whose door was almost always closed, listened from his mattress and when he heard someone say “chicken rings” stood without thinking and went to Caroline’s room. Daniel and Mitch were aggressively looking at Caroline’s shelves and walls, bending at their waists and craning their necks.
    “Hi, Paul,” said Caroline.

    “Hi. I heard someone say ‘chicken rings.’ ”
    “Chicken rings?” said Caroline.
    “I think I misheard,” said Paul. “Never mind.”
    “Caroline was telling us she went to a Fuck Buttons concert tonight,” said Mitch.
    “Someone was talking about them before,” said Paul vaguely. “I feel like . . . Daniel . . . you were telling me about them. Fuck Buttons.”
    “I don’t think so,” said Daniel.
    “Last night, maybe,” said Paul.
    “Where were we last night?”
    “Um,” said Paul looking down with unfocused eyes, aware he looked like he was thinking but wasn’t, an increasingly common deception for him. “I don’t know,” he said after a few seconds, then said “Shawn Olive” as a non sequitur and grinned and said “Daniel knows Shawn Olive” to Caroline, who had gone to school with Shawn Olive.
    “Who’s Shawn Olive?” said Mitch.
    “I don’t know,” said Paul immediately while laughing a little. “I mean . . . seems hard to just answer that.”
    “We’re good friends,” said Caroline. “He’s great.”
    “We saw Robin Hood last night,” said Daniel.
     
    Paul was alone, a few hours later, stomach-down on his bed, working on things on his MacBook—on 20mg Adderall—after eating most of his organic beef patty with an arugula salad containing flax seeds, alfalfa sprouts, cucumber, tamari, lemon juice, flax oil. He and Daniel, who’d left around 3:30 a.m. with Mitch, had been emailing steadily and were committed to meet at 9:30 a.m. to go to the Museum of Modern Art, where Marina Abramović was performing The Artist Is Present, for which she would be sitting in a chair for 736 hours over 77 days, staring at whoever was next in line tosit and stare back at her from an opposite chair. When Paul emailed Daniel at 9:22 a.m. that he was naked and hadn’t showered Daniel responded that he was also naked and also hadn’t showered. At 9:54 a.m. Paul texted “where the fuck are you.” Daniel responded immediately that he was still naked and hadn’t moved from his bed.
    They met, an hour later, at an intersection near the Graham L train stop. One of them said the museum would be crowded on a Sunday and, within seconds, both had strongly committed to not going. They went to the bookstore adjacent Verb. “Shawn Olive,” said Daniel holding the book with a black dot on its cover toward Paul and grinning. “Shawn Olive’s book has the same cover. Almost the same cover.”
    “We already showed each other that,” said Paul.
    “What do you mean?”
    “We showed each other this book. Are you joking?”
    “No,” said Daniel. “We talked about this book?”
    “We talked about it where we’re standing right now.”
    “Damn,” said Daniel looking away. “I don’t remember.”
     
    At Verb they each ingested 10mg Adderall. Daniel removed from his tote bag a glass jar with a peanut butter label and, with a neutral expression, not looking at Paul, poured around 4oz of whiskey into his iced coffee. Paul asked what Daniel was going to do about his financial situation. Daniel said Mitch, a week ago, had mentioned hiring him to