+

In Frankenhooker The Man With 2 Brains it took just two scenes for Doc Hfuhruhurr to find one whose brain he could replace, very fast, very efficient, and, okay, Hong Kong couldn’t fight 80’s Vienna on creeping gothic fade, but it was still human-based and full of sleaze, so I shadowed what Doc H did and went looking for a prostitute who a] didn’t know science, b] was local, and c] wouldn’t put up much of a fight when I drugged her and said, it’s okay, I’m not a perv, I just wanna transfer your language core to my brain and, because you speak Cantonese and won’t be listened to, it has to be you. Sorry.

Yau Tsim Mong had lots of them, some Chinese, some Russian, all sitting on plastic bedsheets or killing time in the park.

How you could psyche yourself up to suck off those old guys from Yau Ma Tei, I had no idea, but I figured I wouldn’t need to worry about that even if I did have their brain.

Language grab not memory switch, swore the propaganda.

Yeah, that made sense.

Cos if it didn’t then what the fuck was I doing?

+

+

Alternating between hood up and hood down, I picked out a quiet stairwell with pink neon sign, vetoed the first five floors due to a weird vibe then got off on the sixth and said hey to a real perv coming the other way.

Guy had a hiking rucksack, the fuck?

Was that normal?

 The dick with a sword graffiti on the wall opposite didn’t know. Neither did the strip bulb that had suddenly decided to start flickering as if this were some kind of giallo-horror scheme I was attempting.

Horror of what? Language learning?

With an eighty-nine per cent survival rate?

Where the victim got residue English skills and a new-…something different…than this?

That’s horror?

Irritated at my own self-interrogation, I sucked in a meditation breath, tucked the syringe behind my back, soaked up the static buzz from the lights then knocked ghost-like on the second door down.

Behind me, the flickering bulb made an abrupt popping sound, blowing out a whole section of the corridor’s light.

Fuck…

But then a new source flowed in as the door opposite opened up and a woman in a tight black top began spurting out ragged Mandarin. Mumbling, ‘wrong door,’ I moved on to the next one. Which was pretty much the same story. And the one after that, and the one after-…

A minute later and I was sliding down the wall, my head stopping next to the poorly sketched dick warrior.

Eight doors on the whole floor and not one of them spoke Cantonese.

My eyes drifted back down the corridor, counting off the failures, wondering if I should try another building, or just settle for one of those-

A creaking noise to the left. Ah, the first door, the one I’d ignored cos the hiking guy had come out of it.

‘… … … … …?’ asked the young and surprisingly non-jaded face poking out, in definite Cantonese.

‘Yes,’ I replied, pushing off the wall, the action so fast and oblivious that I almost forgot I was holding the syringe. Luckily, at least one part of my brain was still plugged in, forcing me to pull my right hand back while pointing at her Deleuze t-shirt with the other.

‘You know him?’

‘… … … … …’

‘If it is actually him, I’m not sure. Face looks similar.’

‘America?’

‘Me? No. Slovenia. Si-lok-man-lei-ah. Lei sik ng sik lei gaw…place?’

She tilted her head, opened up the door. ‘… … …’

 I thought I’d heard lei, which was come, but even if it wasn’t, even if she’d said castle politics or infinite Nick Stahl, the door was wide open, so I walked in and let her lead me through the strangely erotic, red-lit bedroom into a very compact shower space, all the while trying not to look too closely at her face.

Do that and the fantasies would start up.

Me and her together, going for walks, delaying sex, trying to make sense of Anti-Oedipus in the café that the Lust, Caution director went to sometimes, standing up to her pimp, having gentle sex, braining her pimp, running away to Ljubljana and-

‘… … … … …?’ she cut in, putting a hand on the sleeve of my jacket and then slowly peeling it off.

‘Yeah…’ I said back, eyes on the Deleuze print.

‘… … … … … … …’

‘Okay.’

She tilted her head again, possibly her alternative to smiling, then pulled down the shower head. ‘… … … … …?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Shower…wash body…okay?’

I nodded, repeating shower like an infant.

‘… … … …?’

‘My clothes?’

‘… …’

There was no way I could strip and keep the syringe secret, and the red lighting was so warm and encouraging that I thought, yes, don’t draw this out, inject, put the poor, kind-of-alluring thing out of her-

 ‘… … … …’

I blinked, absorbing the Cantonese whine, realising slowly that I was staring at the syringe sticking out of the prostitute’s neck.

‘Did I-…’

I did, I had, and it was no use getting moral now. The serum was already swirling into her blood, changing things. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to say sorry.

Guiding her to the bed [and taking a few arm spasms to the face], I whispered in kindergarten English that it was okay, there’s only a twelve per cent chance of brain death, and then tagged on a clipped sorry at the end.

‘… … … … …’ erupted back in prison Cantonese, probably not hmm, twelve per cent, seems reasonable.

Though you never know.

She was wearing that Deleuze t-shirt.

Or was it James Caan?

+

+

It took nearly two hours for the transfer to end, just like Avon said, and then, without any kind of adjustment period or stuttered awkwardness, the miracle happened; I quickly began to speak fluent Cantonese. Well, gutter Cantonese initially, things like do you like it, do you really like it, are you sure you like it, time’s up etc, but it was okay, other words would filter in eventually. Perhaps when the environment changes, I thought, looking up at the Argento red bulb.

Or when the body’s been dealt with, another voice said.

‘Body…’

I leaned against a damp, green blotch on the wall and stared at her thighs. The tiny shorts that were barely worth putting on. The Deleuze t-shirt I’d refused to take off [too tight]. Her koala-like face, peaceful and comatose. The dried up lines of green and red on her neck. Her oddly round kneecaps. The body in full totality. The brain…no, the soul…beyond her scalp. The twelve per cent chance that she was-

I pushed away from the wall and did a lap of the living room-stroke-bed chamber. Looked back at the green stain I’d been leaning against.

Not dead.

Not dead.

Not-

There was a knock on the door, which I narrated out loud in Cantonese, still amazed that I knew door, ignoring the limp arm hanging off the mattress.

It was one of those old fuckers from Shek Lung Street. He looked at me and wanted to know where the other one was, the prettier one, so I told him she was resting on the bed and it was still my hour anyway so he could just fuck off back to the packing alley in Yau Ma Tei. He didn’t like that, but he was already unconscious on the plastic sheets before he could whine about anything else. No idea how I’d knocked him out, I just had – maybe it was my Cantonese power, maybe the prostitute knew how to box – either way I’d deal with him later cos first I had to check on the other body, see if she’d woken up yet.

Avon’s theory: I’d copied her brain, she’d got mere wisps of mine. And definitely hadn’t died.

The reality: ??

I sought out the wall again, leaned against the non-green part.

After a few more minutes, she started to come round, rubbing her neck, mumbling, ‘who are you, where am I, what’s that syringe doing on the floor?’ Then, after some head jabbing, an erratic jump cut to, ‘don’t care, I’m going back to To Kwa Wan … … … shower … … … … Star Trek.’

‘Star Trek?’

‘Help me … … … you?’

‘You know that show?’

She held out her hand so I took it, helping her up off the bed.

‘… … you … … …door…’

‘Sorry, what?’

‘… you … …door.’

‘I don’t-…your voice, it’s-…what did you say?’

She rubbed her neck again, then squinted at the dry flecks of green left behind on her fingertips. ‘… … … …kind of … … …green … … thing?’

I stared back, gormless.

Like Goldie Hawn in Overboard, I’d lost my brain speed. And some of my memory. And, unless she was mumbling, a lot of my original vocab base too. But that couldn’t be right. The transfer was supposed to be one way, not a trade-off…not reductive on my side. Yet…the English parts, even inside my head…I couldn’t-…

Fuck.

I crouched down, stared at a spiral rug, repeated, ‘fuck.’

The prostitute bent down next to the same rug, patted me on the head and said she could take me away from this place if I wanted, and, what’s more, she would do it for free, as a moral act, she would never try to fuck me as a reward for her goodness, no matter how much I said I wanted it cos that would be bullshit, a sad little trick of power dynamics.

At least I think that’s what she said.

It’s what I would’ve said, if I were her.

Maybe I just needed to explain things, tell her what was what.

‘Look,’ I said, pulling her hand off my head, ‘I’m not a prostitute, I’m an English Teacher.’

‘I’m … … English teacher,’ she replied, switching to a gentle caress of the spiral rug. ‘I … … you … … … this mess, … … worry.’

‘I think the green juice messed something up…inside our brains.’

‘It’s … … … …way to … … … this?’

‘Really. I don’t understand most of what you’re saying.’

‘Sorry … … lost. My Cantonese … baby … … …or worse.’

‘Do you understand me?’

‘… … you speak … … English?’

‘Or do you remember any Cantonese?’

‘You … … understand … … … … … saying, do you?’

‘Fuck, you don’t.’

‘… … going home.’

‘This is pointless then,’ I muttered, glancing first at the stain on the wall, which seemed about an inch bigger now, and then the door. ‘Might as well go home.’

‘Come … … you want.’

‘Wherever that is.’

+

+

I couldn’t fully remember renting the place but

this green-walled block on

a shitty street in

To Kwa Wan was home for me, I was sure of it, and home for her too it seemed as she knew the code to get in and the floor we were going to, and, as we walked in silence through what some people might call a lobby, with walls painted the colour of a sad envelope, the security guard smiled at us both and said, ‘have you eaten yet, was it good, what did you eat?’

‘Mong Kok,’ I lied, forcing a half-smile. ‘Japanese buffet place next to Dundas Street.’

His face dropped, like Malcolm McDowell reading the first draft of Auto-Muff.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Your Cantonese has improved, wah, like a native speaker.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You understand me? Wah, so clever, I want your brain when you’re done with it.’

‘Fast learner,’ I lied again, following his eyes to the prostitute, who was already standing over by the elevators, arms folded tight.

‘Is this your friend?’

‘Kind of.’

The security guard clasped his hands together and spoke in rapid fire Cantonese, asking her head on if she was from around here, and if she was the one who’d taught me my new skill.

‘Sorry, I … … understand,’ she answered, using my English.

The guard smiled and asked the same thing in Mandarin.

‘Sorry, I … …’ She paused, looking at me. ‘… … he … …?’

‘Is she not Chinese?’ asked the guard, hands meshed together awkwardly.

‘No, she is.’ I nudged the girl and got a reflex [green] fingernail in the shoulder. ‘He wants to know if you’re Chinese or not.’

‘I … … … speak Chinese … … … … … …’

The number of words I could catch was quickly decreasing, and the throbbing greyness of the walls was getting louder, so I went slower in Cantonese, using easier words. ‘He wants to know, are you Chinese?’

‘I … … … … …’

‘What?’

‘Meh? … … … … … means what … … it?’

‘Means what…’ I repeated in bad English, trying not to look at the frozen face of the security guard. ‘Sorry, I can’t catch what you’re saying. Do you know Mandarin or-…’

‘Come on, … … … … five minutes … …. I do … … know … … … saying. Understand?’

‘Or how about learning Cantonese?’

‘… … … you speak … … English?’

‘Just a few words would do.’

‘No English … … …?’

‘We are in Hong Kong after all.’

‘International city, my … … … …’ She rubbed her head and looked at the guard. ‘Why is he … … … … … … us?’

‘Okay, maybe we should just go.’

‘… … … fucker.’

+

+

‘Urgh, I … … … like … … guy,’ she said in the elevator, ‘before he … … … looking … me like a  … … …’

I nodded, wondering what urgh meant.

‘He’s … … … … … good … you,’ she said, opening up the cage door, leading me into my own bedroom, patting the mattress like I was a little dog, then, after running through random sci-fi book covers for half an hour, putting cold hands on my waist and slowly working her way up, a little mechanically, towards my chest.

‘I know what you’re doing,’ I said, making no move to stop the advance.

‘Nothing … …’

‘I used to do the same thing.’

‘I love … … … … … here …’

‘At least I think I did. It’s all a bit misty now.’

She moved onto my neck, half kissing, half biting, then pulled back and smiled in complete ignorance of the green shit leaking out of her needle wound.

‘Fuck…’

‘… … … … …’

‘You’re leaking.’

‘… … … … … … … … … …’

‘Can’t you feel it?’

She smiled and, for some reason, said, ‘WAH.’ Then peeled off her jacket and threw it on the floor.

‘No?’

+

+

By morning, she’d got what she wanted, three times, the last two being something I had to be talked into. In fact, near the end of the third go, her face had looked kind of like Edward Furlong in the M remake, but I didn’t wanna dwell on that.

Was it coercion?

I didn’t know.

I really didn’t.

But there was no fourth time as she quickly got up and took a shower, mumbling something I didn’t understand as she went. Maybe it was, ‘time to wash off this green neck stain,’ cos when she came back it was gone. Completely vanished. Almost like it’d never been there to begin with.

+

+

There was no breakfast.

Just water.

Which was lukewarm and okay as far as water went – not sure if she’d boiled it the night before or got it straight from the tap – and it was awkward sitting on the couch cross-talking two languages, but she showed she wasn’t the cynical type by opening an English textbook and telling me how to say In Iran, it is forbidden to watch Frasier.

Yeah, the textbook helped.

Even though I had the nagging sense that I knew this stuff…had known this stuff…at some point.

Hadn’t I?

+

+

Despite the coalescing fog, we persisted with the English study for the next four days, morning and afternoon, taking breaks every now and then to watch a show about lizard alien fascists on TV – a show that felt strangely familiar, in spurts – then fucking at night along with her words, ‘I like you, you’re smart, we should go on holiday sometime.’

On some level, it was productive

and then hazy again as

each time I looked at the textbook, I thought, hmm, I’ve seen these words somewhere before, known them even. But that can’t be right cos I speak Cantonese, not English.

And when I tried to dig deeper, to explain the haze, a black hole appeared, dressed as an old gothic maid, spilling out the most erratic, impossible images from the inside of a large black pram. Naked uncles, a giant syringe, aliens with ridged foreheads, kids in box-sized classrooms, a French guy grabbing my hair, ordering me to shriek like Sailor Mars, the syringe again, leaking green ooze…

What was this?

Dementia?

+

+

On day six, my English was at lower intermediate level on topics like Star Trek, giallo, Pushkin, all the things she liked, while, in Cantonese, the only thing she could say was, I like Hong Kong, very safe, and even then the tones were wrong.

I tried to tell her about the imbalance, but she didn’t understand.

Didn’t even try to understand.

‘I’m too tired,’ she kept saying, ‘I’ll try tomorrow.’

‘Okay.’

‘I promise.’

‘Okay.’

She said, ‘I promise,’ again then bit me on the cheek before slowly guiding my head between her thighs.

+

+

On day nine, I was sent to buy milk & cigarettes for post sex and when I came back the locks were changed and no one answered the doorbell.

‘Fuck,’ I said, accurately in Cantonese.

She didn’t hear me.

Or if she did, she didn’t open the door.

I stayed there two hours more and, when the door still didn’t budge, decided to go somewhere nearby where I could think about the last six days, confusing childhoods, sex work etc., and, exiting downstairs, I told the guard I’d be back later then walked round the corner to Dai Gah Lok and opened the worse of the two textbooks and drank the milk and tried to learn how to say, please open the door, I don’t have a key, or my ID, or anywhere else to go, but I couldn’t find the word for key, a whole textbook and not one section talking about locked doors, so I went back to the shitty green block round the corner, got the guard to buzz me in, told him I’d left my pass card upstairs, ignored his praise for knowing the slang for upstairs, took the lift up and, when there was no answer, waited outside in the grey-tiled corridor as the two little kids from next door stared out from their cage. ‘Why is the ghost waiting outside?’ they asked their gran, but she was too busy watching TVB inside, which was loud enough that I could hear every word, understand every word, even the idioms, which wasn’t that weird as-

Hang on, what ghost?

Where?

+

+

Four hours later, the traitor floated back with McDonalds under one arm and, when she spotted me, just said, ‘sorry about the locks, my landlord made me do it.’

‘Landlord?’

‘Owner of the flat.’

‘Owner?’

‘You don’t know owner?’

‘I know this in Cantonese.’

‘Yeah? Well done, Copernicus. I know it in Spanish, French and Romanian.’

Some part of my brain, trace memory perhaps, told me that was bullshit, she didn’t know anything in any of those languages, especially not Romanian, no one did, but I didn’t say anything, I just stood back and waited to see if she’d let me in.

Luckily, she did, flicking at my neck as I walked past, then seizing my hand and leading me straight to the bedroom and then the bed, which, according to her, was way more interesting than that grotty couch with the weird green stain on it.

‘My couch,’ I said, retreating to the bedroom doorway.

‘What?’

I repeated the line in my head, confused.

‘What did you say?’ she asked, moving over, picking a nail at something on my neck.

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re not staying?’

I pushed away her hand. ‘Will you close the door again?’

‘Close? You mean lock?’

I shrugged.

‘No, I told you already, that was the landlord, he made me do that.’

I still didn’t know what a landlord was, but I knew defensive so I let it go and walked into the room and, as she loaded up something called The Man With 2 Brains, tried to figure out a way to become more interesting to her.

Maybe talk about depression or

Star Trek or

other stuff she liked

but

would that work?

She’d know it was fake, that I didn’t really know who was who or what they were doing flying about in a spaceship or why the aliens were-…no, it was pointless, it’d be like her talking to a clone, a defective clone, who would wanna do that?

‘Are you gonna stand there all night?’

‘What?’

She reached over and closed the curtains, patted the vacant space on the bed next to her thighs. ‘Come here. I wanna peel that green stuff off your neck…’

‘Green?’

‘…and bite you.’

+

+

The next morning, she tried to leave early, but I got up first and made her coffee and when she said it tasted like shit, I pretended not to understand, even though we both knew she’d taught me shit after watching the first half of Star Trek Generations.

‘Look, I feel kinda bad about last night, so how about I buy you breakfast?’

‘Dai Gah Lok?’

‘What?’

‘Okay.’

She took me to Dai Gah Lok, or I took her, and she ordered for both of us, murdering the tones, but not bad enough for the staff to misunderstand what she was trying to say.

As she devoured toast like a famished wolf, I told her it would be good if we could go to the cinema sometime, or a jazz bar, or hit the beach, or do language exchange with more emphasis on Cantonese, or watch more movies on her bed, or wash off that green stain on the couch, anything that might keep her interest, and she said, ‘yeah,’ to all of them, promising with crumbs spilling out her mouth that she’d call when she was free, maybe next week, and then, before I could tell her she didn’t have my number, and I didn’t have hers, the trickster was gone, evaporated into the muggy haze outside.

I sat there, surrounded by old people, understanding every single word they said, thinking, never mind, I know where she lives, she’ll let me in.

Besides, I took her bank card…my bank card…she’s got no choice.

+

+

There was nothing to do for the rest of the day except the vague idea of going back to Yau Ma Tei and showering old men, but I didn’t want to do that, not if there was a chance of doing something else, something better.

So I walked around To Kwa Wan, to places I’d been to once before – the Cattle Depot [closed], the small park [dead trees], the basketball courts [empty], the old airport [demolished] – killing time with grey nothingness until my legs started to feel faint and my brain pushed me back to my old, yellow-signed friend, Dai Gah Lok.

The lunch time sets were already up, more or less the usual shit, but I didn’t have enough cash to pay for anything, so I told the woman behind the till I’d be back in five and went round the corner to the ATM. The card worked okay, though it did take me a while to think of the pin. Would it still be there the next time? The time after that?

Maybe I should write it somewhere? I thought, sitting down with my three cheese meat something, flinching a little when I saw my reflection in the mirrored wall opposite.

Wah, more green stuff?

I touched my neck, taking off something sticky. Wiped it on my jeans without looking. Then grabbed a tissue and rubbed away the rest.

The mirror prodded, begging me to check.

No.

Go away.

You fucking liar.

+

+

Two and half weeks of no contact, constant headaches, bleak rooms, a cancelled bank card, and I was back outside the flat with a new English textbook. This time she answered the door on the first knock, smiled at the language aid and said, ‘good to see you, card thief, I’m busy packing.’

‘Packing?’

‘Going to Japan for six months. New job.’

‘Japan?’

‘English centre, Tsunashima. You heard of it? Me neither. I think it’s near Yokohama.’

‘I’m confused,’ I mumbled in Cantonese.

‘So, yeah, maybe I’ll see you when I get back. If I come back. Haven’t figured it out yet.’ She paused, pulling out a $100 note. ‘You probably don’t have much left. Go get some food. On me.’

I took it and started to say, in Cantonese, ‘actually, all that money in the…’

‘Okay, bye.’

‘…bank is not-…’

She’d already shut the door by the time she said, ‘bye,’ but I stood there a few minutes longer, waiting for her to invite me in for sex.

It didn’t happen.

Maybe she had someone else in there?

Someone who spoke English?

I put my head against the cage and tried to listen for noises, but it was quiet, deathly quiet, as if she’d rather suffocate herself than listen to me say, hey, I know what landlord means now.

Diu.

Maybe I should leave?

Should I?

The grey tiles didn’t respond.

Nor did the cage.

Fearing another migraine, I walked back down the stairs, headed round the corner to Dai Gah Lok, ordered something Thai and sat down near the only other man in there, a guy with no shoes, no hair, shouting, ‘fuck your mother’s cunt,’ at his chopsticks. After the thirteenth time of hearing it, I moved to the other side of the restaurant, nursed my pea-green curry and thought, Pushkin was right, once it’s fixed, you’re done, and once you’re done, she’s never gonna have a very rushed breakfast with you ever again.

Especially with this green fucking goo on your neck, I added, looking in the mirror to the left and barely controlling the reflex jump as I saw HER staring back at me.

‘You’re…eating here?’ I stuttered, half getting up.

She didn’t reply.

Just kept staring at me, dead-eyed, the skin on her face a pale tint of green.

Unless that was my eyesight glitching?

I checked other customers to be sure, picking up a distinct glow from the lighting, which meant…her skin really was sickly green?

Pivoting back to her table, I did genuinely jump this time as now she was standing only a few inches away. Still green, still not blinking.

‘Are you okay?’

She put out a hand [also kind of green], and tugged at my sleeve. Gargled something similar to human speech. Then let go and walked with a slight tilt out of the restaurant.

+

+

Refusing to second-guess myself, I decided that she’d had a change of mind and wanted me to follow her back to the flat, and that theory held up for about half a street until she turned left and headed up the slope towards Ho Man Tin.

Nothing else to do but pursue, I told myself, tacking onto her trail and keeping a distance of about three metres all the way to Mong Kok, where she turned onto Dundas Street, ignored all the uncles asking how much, and disappeared up a familiar pink-light stairwell.

‘Her old flat…’ I muttered, pushing past an uncle licking the rim of a beer bottle, chasing her up.

When we got to the sixth floor, she stopped outside the door of her old flat and looked back, nodding at me like a broken toy.

‘You don’t have the key?’ I asked, moving forward, frowning at the bulb further down that still hadn’t been fixed.

She didn’t answer, just pressed her hand against the door and waited for it to swing open.

‘Wah…how’d you do that?’

Again, no response.

Walking into a very dark flat, I was about to ask her a second time when the walls intervened. The green stain that had been there before…almost a month ago now…had spread all the way across, with some parts dripping onto the plastic sheet, the pillows, and even the floor beyond.

‘This can’t-…’

‘… … … … … …’ she said, in no language I’d ever heard, pushing her spine against the infected wall and doing absolutely nothing, not even squinting in confusion, as strips coated with murky green paint detached and wrapped themselves with swamp-like squelching noises around her body.

In my head, I screamed RUN, but in reality lost all will to act in any kind of rational way, instead letting my legs guide me over to the bed and my body to lay itself down flat on the plastic.

From my neck, I could feel the green pus leaking out again.

But I didn’t care.

Let it flow out.

Let all of it just-

A burst of muffled static above.

Pulsating green paint.

I looked up, my neck spilling out more infected goo.

The thing that had previously been the prostitute, or a clone of her, had abandoned the Cronenbergian mess on the wall and was drifting down…softly onto the top of my chest, my thighs, my crotch…then pushing on…cracking the surface of my bones, suffocating disobedient arteries and veins and blood vessels with green, ecstatic sludge that, at the very last second, in a whisper from the loneliest fucking void, announced itself not as death but something else, something-

+