Lou 1/3
The summer months in Taiwan, Taipei especially, are as close to unbearable as I've ever known. If nastier weather exists on the face of this planet, I'd die a happier man remaining ignorant of it. The heat makes everything difficult. Walking, thinking, sitting. Everything. Sometimes I have these dreams, alright? In these dreams, I'm trying to walk, but I can't. . . nothing impedes me, as far as I can tell, and yet I feel like I'm trying to slog through some kind of molasses and cement mixture.. Taipei's summers are a bit like that.
Around the first of July, I was hoping to pick up a few extra hours. I was thinking maybe another class would open up, or maybe I'd get a few students to tutor privately. What I wound up getting was a kid from my one o'clock class. Lou. Two hours a day, with Lou. From ten a.m., to noon, it was all Lou. That's sixteen hours a week, with one kid. One kid named Lou.
Lou's name is supposed to be Louis. Some foreign teacher gave him the name "Louis" because "Lou" sounds too much like his given name, which is Lu Chun. But he doesn't look like a Louis. He looks like a Lou. What's the difference? Lousises are tall and skinny with wavy hair. They wear glasses and baby-blue button down shirts. Lous are short and stocky. They wear their hair in the blunted fashion. Lous wear silver watches and warm-up suits, weather permitting.
I'd had a pretty high opinion of the boy. He was no dummy. He had two faults, near as I could tell. The first being that he was really hungry for attention. The second was that he was too easily influenced by his peers. The second wouldn't be such a big deal if all of his peers weren't total dipshits.
So, I was offered this gig and I took it.