Bald New World

by Peter Tieryas Liu

  “I hate myself, I hate myself,” he kept on repeating. “I’m so ugly, I’m so ugly.”

  “What happened?” I asked the designer.

  “He tried to cut up his face, but the others stopped him,” she told me.

  They’d called the medics who arrived a few minutes later to roll him away. As they did, I saw his eyes. There wasn’t fear or regret or even pain. Only self-loathing and repulsion aimed at himself. Acid reflux wasn’t just limited to the physical.

  4. Divine Humor

  I.

  “Hey, mister. That’s quite a rod you got there. You know what would make a girl like me even happier?” I snapped awake to see a buxom nurse in a skimpy outfit talking to me. “An even bigger one. They have a special going on for penile enlargement at—” It was one of those 3D advertisements and I tried to ignore it. “Possible side effects include erectile dysfunction, severe hypotension, photophobia, prolonged erection, heavy migraines, stroke—” It’d been a long night. Magus, the model who mutilated himself, was in the surgery unit. Normally, it would have been a quick patch up, but this was the eighth time he’d had surgery in the past year and insurance was balking at paying. “—and sudden death. But isn’t it worth it to get with a girl like me?”

  Waiting here in the lobby, I was half-awake, half-asleep. More advertisements played and I tried to shut them off but was kindly told, “If you opt out of advertisements, there is an hourly fee for waiting in the lobby. The—”

  I rubbed the mucus out of my eyes and fought back yawns. “Are you tired of having to watch your diet? Well, now you can eat all you want if you sign up for our specially bred tapeworms that can be fully financed—”

  There were ads about the new fashion trend, “man-boobs.” A few marketing dentists pointed out things I didn’t need to protect myself against possible cancer if I didn’t floss three times a day and coat my teeth with protective sealant. I’d already had enough work done on my teeth to last a lifetime and I still wasn’t sure if any of it had been necessary. I hated the thought of spending even a cent more on them.

  They finally approved Magus’s insurance and took him in for image facilitation. “I want to look different this time around,” he said and was told, “You’ve used your premiums for the year. Wait until next year.”

  I slept in the lobby, drowning out the ads. They used subcortical rays to invade my dreams. I was all right with that even if I dreamt of surgeries I didn’t need just as long as I could sleep. Around eight in the morning, the doctors wrapped up and Magus looked like a brand new man. He gave me a fist pump and asked, “So when’s the next shoot?”

  II.

  Outside the factory grounds of Chao Toufa, fifty protesters were keeping vigil. None of them wore wigs as they were a religious cult that believed wigs were immoral and encouraged sexual deviancy. I wondered if the bribes to the Ministry of Religion were late this month for them to allow this rally.

  Security was extensive with tall walls, guard drones, and personnel around the perimeter to protect against people trying to steal wigs. There were fifteen gates and each required an eye scan, fingerprint key, voice identification measuring throat ululations, olfactory substantiation, and credit report. I didn’t know why I was rushing. I was supposed to meet Larry at ten a.m. but he was nowhere in sight and wasn’t picking up his phone either. No big surprise there. Fatigue overwhelmed me and I took a nap in one of the bunks, trying to get the subconscious images of dancing nurses pleading with me to get a “physical upgrade” out of my mind. I hated the way the hospital marketing department scrambled my neurons.

  My phone rang late in the afternoon with a message from Larry that he would arrive shortly. Larry arrived at 5:32 in a custom-made sports car that was so exclusive, it wasn’t even part of a brand. I’d never actually seen it before but I knew it cost him millions and was too expensive to get insured. It was sleek and aerodynamic, a titanium coat that gave it the appearance of a stealth jet on wheels.

  “Can I take a picture of this thing?” I asked.

  “Absolutely. You wanna go for a ride later?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course.” As he got out, I saw the bounce in his step, his joy pronounced in his beaming smile. “How’d it go?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “She was a goddess in bed,” he replied. “You have no idea how incredible she is. She’s everything I could have hoped for and more. Just the way her body moved. It was the perfect shape.” He placed his hands against his heart. “If I were to die right this moment, I’d die content.”

  “Everything worked out then?”

  Larry gleamed. “I don’t want to bore you with details of our debauchery, but it was a wild night. We’re heading out to Xi’an later. She hasn’t seen the Terracotta Warriors yet and she also loves lamb and they have that lamb at that specialty house I love. Her terracotta pie was incredible, best I ever had.”

  Vulgarities aside, I laughed too. “I guess that means no filming?”

  “Just a slight delay. Work has got me depressed.”

  “Aren’t you worried about her associates?”

  “She wanted to come clean, but I told her not to bother, that I didn’t care. You want to do an early dinner? I had a huge brunch, but I’m still starving. How do crab legs sound?”

  We went to the private restaurant near the western lakes. The lakes were filled with ducks and swan. Larry pointed out the mandarin ducks who, according to folklore, always lived in pairs as they were monogamous. When one died, the other would die soon afterwards. I could see four of the factory buildings from our seat and many of the workers were leaving early as it was Friday, general policy set by his father so that they could get some rest as long as there were no pressing deadlines.

  “She speaks seven languages fluently, man,” Larry said. “Never made love to a woman who could start a sentence in French, continue in Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, English, then finish in Korean. She’s been trained you know, so she’s learned advanced techniques to multiply pleasure. I’d heard rumors, but man, I—” and he started giggling.

  “Calm down, you’re scaring me,” and I laughed as well.

  Several old Chinese women brought out the crab in spicy sauce that was mixed in garlic, lemon, and a whole lot of Cajun pepper sauce. Gumbo soup was served on the side as well as buttered rice that was steaming hot. Larry got up and hugged one of the old ladies. A rotund woman with a ruddy face, she was in charge of the kitchen. Larry affectionately called her Laolao and told me, “When my dad used to send me to bed without dinner, Laolao sent me up sweet honey biscuits that were the best I ever had.”

  She giggled. “When you have a son, I’ll make the same biscuits for him.”

  The crab legs were huge, hard-shelled, and juicy. I doused them in the sauce and ate them with the rice. My tongue burned, but it was culinary heaven.

  “Did you know king crab leg fishing used to be one of the deadliest professions in the world?” Larry asked.

  “Are they dangerous animals?”

  “That’s not why it’s dangerous. But yeah, they are to each other. If you leave them in a tank together too long, they’ll cannibalize each other. And if one dies while it’s held, it’ll release toxins that’ll kill the other crabs.”

  “I thought people were bad to each other.”

  “Nature is brutal. But not as much as hypothermia and drowning in the ocean.” Larry cracked apart a shell and bit into the white meat. “These are so amazing. The best ones used to only be in Alaska. But these days, crabs can only be raised in farms. Did you know we own a farm in Shanghai? They’re hellishly hard to maintain. But the crabs taste so good.” Larry took a sip of wine. “I used to hate crab when I was a kid. Hated seafood in general.”

  “Me too. Especially sushi. I thought it was gross.”

  “Same here,” Larry answered. “How’d you get over it?”

  “Linda. She loved seafood and we ate it every chance we had.”

  He waved his crab leg at me.
“Mine was a girl named Venus.”

  “You told me this one.”

  Larry laughed. “Well I still don’t love sushi. I hear fish used to be fresh, but these days, all the farm-raised stuff tastes terrible raw.” He snapped apart some tough shells. “On the way here, some show host was talking about how the galaxy is getting bigger faster than they thought. And I wondered, what if the galaxy weren’t getting bigger, but we’re actually shrinking? I mean our entire planet, and we just didn’t know it.”

  “I think it’d make for an interesting film.”

  “You remember we were thinking about making a universe shot in 58 Random Deaths?” 58 Random Deaths and Unrequited Love was the first film Larry and I worked on. He wanted to make parallels between the death of galaxies and the death of random individuals.

  “I still think we should have put it in.”

  He nodded. “I can’t believe how many films we’ve made together. You know what all of them have in common?”

  “We made them?”

  “They all failed.”

  “How do you define failure?” I asked.

  “They failed to make back the money they cost and they failed to get critical acclaim,” Larry answered. He put his food down. “Do you ever wonder if maybe I don’t got what it takes to be a filmmaker? These days, it’s all about multiple choices, sexual encounters, and virtual scenarios. I loved films back when they were just on a screen and the director made the story and camera choices.”

  “Some of our films did get critical acclaim,” I said, knowing Larry was his own harshest critic. “And even if they weren’t box office successes, at least you got to tell the stories you wanted to.”

  “Yeah. Isn’t it ironic? Chao Toufa provides the hair for all the stars that are gonna show up at the GEAs (Global Entertainment Awards), but none of my films have even been up for a nomination. I mean, literally, we provide the wig for Jesus Christ.” He took sausages out of his gumbo, chewed on two shrimp. “Shinjee’s only 21 years old. You should have seen the way she acted. She was just a kid to me. I’m about to turn 40, man, and I’m trying to act like I’m 21.” He scratched his forehead, his temples taut with wrinkles. “Did I ever tell you my dad sent me to a high school in Sweden?”

  “No.”

  “I’d been kicked out of eight schools already. He wanted to teach me a lesson. He took away all my privileges and sent me to this poverty-stricken school without anything. It was a brutal six months man. Kids bullied me. I got my rib bones broken three times. I lived in this old apartment and the toilet used to break all the time. That was when I caught that rare strain of typhoid that nearly killed me. Before that, I used to be so picky about food. But then, my mouth got puffy with blood and all my shit was bloody and I was feverish for two weeks. I learned to appreciate even the cheapest food. The nurses finally got to me and saved my life. I tried to reach my dad, tried to reach anyone, but there was no way to get out. He would have left me there to die. I learned my lesson, man.”

  “Without money, life can be pretty shitty?” I guessed.

  He shook his head. “Don’t let others have any say where you go. That’s why I got sent to the army. My dad wanted to teach me another lesson.”

  A part of me wondered what exactly had transpired between him and Shinjee.

  “I’ve spent all this money and have nothing to show for it,” Larry continued. “My friends are secretly happy. They all pretend to support me, but deep down, they want me to fail. You know why? Because none of them followed their dreams and they’re stuck doing dreary business jobs they hate. Yeah, they’re rich, but they can’t even enjoy it because they always want more. They don’t even watch my movies. The other moviemakers want me to fail too. They think I’m just an upstart trying to buy my way in. Which is true to a certain extent, but I don’t care. They’re so snobby. How many millions did they spend going to film school instead of just getting out there and living life, you know? All of them kissed my ass when things were looking good but as soon as the critics turned on me, none of them returned my calls until they needed financing and then it was like, ‘Your films are brilliant.’”

  “It’s not personal, man,” I answered. “You said yourself there was a Chinese general who lost 99 battles but won the hundredth one which was the one that counted.”

  “How many generals lost everything because they didn’t know when to retreat?” he pondered. “Chao Toufa has been having lots of problems over the past year. Maybe I should be more involved here.”

  “Did that girl hit you in the head or something?”

  “Why?”

  “Yesterday, you were saying you wanted to leave everything behind to Russ.”

  He seemed puzzled. “Was that yesterday?”

  I nodded.

  He laughed. “Maybe I’m being a touch melodramatic. Beautiful women always do that to me. Let’s give it one more shot. This new film I was mentioning. It’ll be the biggest ever.”

  “Can you give more details?”

  “At first, I thought maybe I’d do a documentary about my family. Or maybe I’d make it into a film about a rich family with an idiot son who squandered everything. Would that be too cliché? I don’t want to be that idiot,” he said. “I’m starting to settle on one idea.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’ve always wanted to do an epic about the Baldification. Maybe call it Bald New World. Do a film about the people in it. It’ll be massive. I guarantee you. This’ll be the film that everyone notices.”

  “No one’s figured out what exactly happened yet.”

  “That’s what the businesses would like people to think,” Larry said. “What if I told you people like my father knew exactly what happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well—”

  Behind us, one of the factories exploded, blowing the plates off the table and knocking us both back. A second factory blew up, the fire blasting against our faces. My ears were ringing and the smoke made everything hazy. I heard a third boom but couldn’t tell where it was from. Sirens were ringing.

  “Larry!” I called. “Larry! Are you all right?”

  Larry got up, his face smeared with Cajun sauce. He looked at me, then at the factories. He wiped his face and ran to his car. I followed and saw him change into a white uniform that clung close to his body. It appeared plastic, a shiny post-modern sheen about it that made me think of a futuristic punk rocker.

  “Does it look cool? It’s fire-resistant,” he said.

  “We should get out of here,” I replied.

  “There might still be people stuck in there. Get somewhere safe.”

  Larry hopped back in his car and I jumped in the other side.

  “I don’t have an extra suit,” he said.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  Both doors shut and he switched the car to manual control as we sped towards the factory.

  “See how smooth it drives? She’s a thing of beauty. How is it Germans build the best cars in the world?”

  The first factory to explode was still partially standing, though the conflagration had consumed most of it. The heat was scorching and the smoke was drowning the building in debris. The doors were sealed shut and several people were outside, wailing and crying. One of the women had heavy burns and her face was a sooty mask.

  “Why are you all still here?” Larry demanded as he stuck his head out the window. “Get away from the fire!”

  “There’s still people inside.”

  The factory doors were sealed shut and the fire was preventing people from getting too close.

  “Get out of the way,” Larry ordered the people standing about. Then to me, “Get out.”

  “You can’t go in there.”

  “This is not a discussion. Get out!”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  He looked at me. “You want to die?”

  “Maybe I want to get some footage for our new documentary.”

  He turned to me. “
What would you do if I gave up the film business?”

  “Make seven more films that’ll fail at the box office. I’ll dedicate all of them to you.”

  He laughed. “Hold onto your seat.”

  He hit the accelerator, but before it hit the building, the car shut down. The AI notified us, “Safety protocols have overridden manual control. Please—”

  “Can you go to the back and deactivate the AI?”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Press the manual-override button on the panel,” Larry said. “I’ll pop the hatch.”

  I stepped out, but before I could ask where it was, Larry sped forward, crashing his expensive car through the front doors.

  Damn him.

  All three stories were burning and the throng outside watched helplessly. Various bystanders were trying to dial the fire department, but phones were offline. It smelled of burning machinery and the stench was hard to bear.

  “—was a big bursting sound. I turned around and the whole mechanical arm fell down,” a woman described the scene. “I ran for the door and right when I got out, the whole thing collapsed behind me. There was no warning anything was wrong and none of the machines detected overloads.”

  Billows of smoke fumed furiously up. Part of the building crumbled and all the remaining windows on the west side burst. I coughed from the smoke. A few people tried to push me back to a safer distance. I insisted on staying put. My eyes were glued to the door. Where’s Larry?

  Visibility was dampening. The fire was intensifying and it resembled a living force, devouring everything in its wake, gorging on itself and swelling with fiery cholesterols. I wanted to rush in, but the blaze was too strong. Segments of the roof caved in and the fractals within the fire bisected, sundered, and expanded. There was a raucous creaking sound. I forced myself to step forward, covered in sweat. My hands were sooty. I loosened my shirt, wiped my forehead. “Larry?!!!” I shouted. “Larry!”

  A speaker with a mellifluous voice declared, “Fellow brothers and sisters, please calmly head to the central building. Everything is under control, everything is well. We are suffering technical glitches that will be resolved shortly.” Soothing classical music from the automated emergency record was blaring to the image of decimation in front of me.