Andy

Andy overhears his American colleagues at lunchtime discussing some vampire outbreak in Briarwood. He wants to know more, but seeing him shuts them up, so he proffers a weak smile, refills his coffee, and retreats.

His friends don’t care much for vampires. They don’t care for America either, less so the surroundings of their engineering campus—miles and miles of vast, lonely landscape that reflects back their indifference. Back in Taipei, Andy was a horror-movie-loving goofball, but here, he’s an interchangeable worker drone. How’d anyone assign personality, even humanity, to people they can’t even tell apart from one another?

He doesn’t expect anyone to remember Yu-Chien Tsai, but “Andy” hasn’t proven particularly memorable either. English has a relatively small cache of names. All his friends picked theirs—Charles, Emily, Jackson, Nathan—but that doesn’t prevent them from receiving mixed-up orders when they go out to eat. Not even at Frankie’s Roadhouse, where they dine three days a week.

Nobody in America notices that on Friday nights Andy drives an hour to Briarwood, where the old cinema screens a midnight horror feature. Post movie, like clockwork, he heads to Frankie’s for their special pot roast with extra gravy.

“Bit late for dinner, eh?” Frankie brings up his plate. “Say, you a vampire or summin’?”

“Isn’t this gravy loaded with garlic?” Andy retorts. “Barely taste of anything else.”

That’s the deal with vampire stories, though. Some popular trope turns out to be wrong; that’s how they get you. What bites Andy harder is that Frankie still has no idea who he is.

The white-mustachioed roadhouse owner laughs. “Used to be vampires loved this place, y’know? Back when only ’em blue-blood boys came to Briarwood College. All’of’em needed a spot outta town to sneak in their girlfriends . . . or boyfriends. Best business we ever done!”

It’s the most conversation an American has ever made with Andy.

“But now the vampires aren’t coming?”

“Tell ya what, I’m not crazy ’bout all this new vampire talk.” Frankie scowls. 

“When’d all the hobos and junkies and refugees go an’ become vampires?”

Andy grins. “You thought I was one.”

“You’re not a homeless junkie, are ya? Geez,” counters Frankie. “My youngest, Manny,  married himself this Filipino boy. First college graduate in the family, go figure. So why can’t you guys be vampires, right?”

“I’m not Filipino. I’m Taiwanese.”

He regrets saying that immediately. Frankie’s smile disappears. Whatever movie the roadhouse owner was riffing off, this line clearly isn’t part of it.    

“Alright, young man.” He gets up to leave. “Enjoy yer dinner.”

How will he befriend Americans if he can’t even engage in their banter? To Americans like Frankie, vampire is far more relatable than Taiwanese. Would it really be so different from playing “Andy,” invisible in broad daylight? Not like he hasn’t devoured a couple hundred vampire movies in his life.

He’ll be the best vampire this town’s ever seen, Yu-Chien Tsai decides over his half-eaten pot roast. And America will finally love him.