Year of the Goose

by Carly J. Hallman

  SUPPORT THE COMMUNITY AND THE COMMUNITY WILL SUPPORT YOU

  WITH STRICT TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR OVERSIGHT AND CONTROL, THE quality of our product improved tenfold, and we were racing to keep up with orders from the province’s finest salons.

  One morning, after I’d successful harvested Kai’s latest crop and as I was packaging it for shipment, I heard footsteps by the front door. I went to check and found taped to the doorframe a letter from the local neighborhood committee demanding to know what was really going on in my “shadowy” business and threatening to have me shut down for crimes of “spiritual pollution.”

  My blood, it boiled. Intuitively understanding the importance of transparency from an early age, I raced over to the table where Kai and the twins sat slurping oatmeal and showed them the letter. We ranted together, commiserating: Shadowy?! Spiritual pollution?! Shouldn’t those old coots with nothing better to do than attempt to shut down flourishing new businesses go after someone who was actually doing something wrong—say the malpractice-y plastic surgery clinic next door, out of which at least one terrifying, Michael Jackson-esque woman exited every day?! Truly an insult to aesthetics! Or what about that damn blueberry product shop, which was so obviously a front for money-laundering at best and some horrible child-trafficking pit stop at worst! With all of that real spiritual pollution in their midst, why in heaven’s name did these old bastards care about organic little us?!

  But the thing about most people is that they’re very nosy when it comes to things that don’t concern them and very bored with the things that do. I didn’t respond to the letter, and the next day another envelope appeared taped to the door. For one week, every day I found a new envelope containing a new letter, each more strongly worded than the last. On the eighth day there was no letter. There was a knock at the door. I excused myself, mid-jumping jack, from morning exercises to answer. Three old-timers—two ladies and one man, who, I’d come to find out, composed the neighborhood committee in its entirety—had blessed me on this sunny Saturday with an impromptu visit.

  I gestured for my Heads to make a quick escape upstairs—I didn’t want my crops to experience any growth-discouraging, cortisol-level-raising stress—and I turned back to the old-timers. “Come in please,” I said politely, albeit through gritted teeth.

  “You better let us in, you damn pimp!” the apparent leader, henceforth dubbed Old Cranky Lady, shouted, elbowing her way past me.

  “Calm down,” I said. “Please, take a seat.”

  She plopped her saggy ass down at the dining table, as did her partners-in-nagging, Old Mr. Wrinkles, who appeared to be half man and half shar-pei, and Old Sassy, a woman with a bad perm who swayed her hips suggestively when she walked and in lieu of speaking just made judgmental clicking noises with her tongue.

  I stood before this ragtag bunch, at the table’s head, trying despite my annoyance to maintain a stature of authority. This was, after all, my business, my company, my location. I’d signed the lease. I’d paid my quarterly rent installment. I had every right in the world to be there. “Now,” I spoke clearly, “what is it you—”

  “Whores! You’ve got a bunch of whores in here!” Old Cranky Lady cackled. “Some of us are trying to raise respectable families and quietly live out our wholesome lives while your cheap prostitutes just laze around in here, filing their nails all day waiting for johns to come poke their Viagra-hard pricks in them. What the hell kind of example does that set for our grandchildren? They’re going to grow up thinking, Why should I learn algebra when instead I could just open my legs and—”

  A slow, hearty laughter rose from my belly and dribbled out of my mouth.

  To Old Cranky Lady, my laughter only further implicated me. “Yes, you pimp daddy, laugh it up, we all know what goes on in here. No sign out front. Long-locked ladies lounging about. The gig is up.”

  Old Mr. Wrinkles piped up: “Your generation is always rattling on about women’s equality and whatnot, and yet, here you are, a young man with long hair yourself, trying to look like some American rock star, all the while exploiting young females—”

  “Well, that’s all well and nice,” I interrupted, “but there are no women here at the moment. Though beautifully tressed, all of my employees are actually young men.” I used their shocked silence as an opportunity to shout for the Heads to join us. My three pretties obediently marched down the stairs and stood at attention beside me.

  Old Cranky Lady slapped herself in the face. “They are men! A homosexual whorehouse! Well, fuck my mother in heaven!” Red marks rose on her cheek, and she clutched her heart as if in great agony.

  I bit my lip. “Look, I hate to disappoint you all, but this is no whore house.”

  Their already sagging faces fell—which, as you can imagine, was a ghastly sight.

  “This, my revered elders,” I said, with a dramatic sweep of my arm, “is an organic hair farm.”

  “What’s that?” Old Mr. Wrinkles barked. Strings of drool attached his upper lip to his lower one—I wanted to gag, but instead I launched into the explanation: the Heads, the process, the health, the care, the harvest, the profit. At first, the geezers seemed skeptical. I could read the doubt in their eyes. But I tried my best to predict their unasked questions and to provide answers. I spoke of the demand among the nouveau riche for beautiful hair. Of our nation’s burgeoning vanity. Of movie stars whose own silky locks just couldn’t cut it anymore in our high-definition world. A half hour later, when I finally stopped talking, the coots sat transfixed, as though under a spell.

  “Any questions?”

  “Yes,” Old Sassy spoke for the first time, and her tone was surprisingly measured, reasonable. “How do we get in?”

  Though I hadn’t been aware of it at the time I’d selected my store-front, the local community, though shoddy on its surface, was home to many wealthy old people with entirely too much time on their hands—there were only so many hours of the day they could spend shucking peas, watching soap operas, and nagging their grandchildren to do homework; only so many public dance lessons, games of mah-jongg, and bus routes to aimlessly ride. These were the sorts who had held on through all the bad China had to offer and, in exchange for blood shed and innocence loss, had been offered apartments in the 1990s when the housing sector was privatized. Hardly a fair trade, but property is property, and property is money, and money is money, and after a lifetime without…

  FINDING TALENT

  THESE OLD-TIMERS FORMED A UNION OF SORTS AND APPROACHED ME with their initial investment offer. Cash in hand, I was able to expand my housing units up onto the third and fourth floors of the apartment building. To fill the new beds, I placed ads all over the Internet seeking candidates willing to chop off their beautiful, thick hair and grow in its place new, organic strands. As compensation for their time and effort, Heads would be provided room and board, a modest monthly stipend, and a considerable lump sum each time a crop was harvested and sold.

  I received thousands of replies to my ad, e-mails and phone calls at all hours.

  Working now not only as a Head but as my head assistant, Kai helped me sift through thousands of digital photos—the ones that had obviously been doctored immediately went in the recycle bin. I wanted photos of roots and of ends, and I wanted to see their hair in action too—I received photos of applicants in front of Tiananmen, crouching on park paths beside cherry blossom branches, smiling in theme parks.

  Thousands of photos were soon narrowed down to hundreds. The applicants who made it through the first round were sent an e-mail inviting them to come and interview with me personally at headquarters. I looked carefully at the hair of each, an indication of future product quality, and, more important, at their scalps, which housed all potential.

  Of all the heads, a few stood out, and those few were hired on the spot. But no one stood out in the way that a pole star stands out against a dark night sky. That is to say, there were many who were good, good enough, but none who were great.

 
; None, that is, until late Sunday afternoon, the third and final day of interviews. Kai stepped out for a yogurt break. Alone in the interview room, working away, I registered footsteps approaching, but I didn’t look up from my stack of papers—there was so much to be done; here I was getting my first taste of what it was not just to be a leader, but to be a CEO. And then, still not looking up, I heard an unsteady voice asking, “Am I too late?”

  Into my stack of papers, I muttered, “No, it’s fine. Sit.”

  I could hear the applicant breathing as I continued to rifle through the stacks. I disappeared into a world of words and photos, but was jolted back when a bead of sweat dropped from my forehead onto one of the papers, smearing the ink. It was December, but there was an unmistakable warmth generating from somewhere in the room. I looked up, wondering if this weirdo had brought some sort of space heater with her—it hardly seemed unreasonable after some of the oddities I’d encountered over the past couple of days: there’d been a guy who wore a rainbow clown wig and very seriously claimed it to be his real hair, a teenage girl who wept the entire interview and told us she was planning on taking a lethal dose of sleeping pills if we didn’t hire her, a middle-aged woman who tried to sell her graying pubic hair, which she’d already cut and carried with her in a Happy Mart plastic bag. Eyes homed in on the ink-sweat smear, body soaking up that warmth, I was reminded of the flying disc I’d seen as a child standing atop the beauty salon.

  And now, as then, I couldn’t help but look up.

  There was no space heater, no shadow, no matte white disc, nothing strange. The girl who sat before me, whose footsteps I’d heard, whose voice quavered, wore a simple black T-shirt. She had a plain, symmetrical face, the kind of face makeup artists love to paint upon, a runway model’s face, the kind of face so nondescript that she just as easily could have had a career in crime. She wore no jewelry, no noticeable makeup, and she wore her hair down.

  Her glorious, glorious hair.

  MANAGING YOUR HUMAN CAPITAL

  ON DAY ONE OF OPERATION EXPANSION, I LED MY ARMY OF NEW recruits downstairs to our newly renovated first floor. I delivered a most rousing speech. I ordered their heads shaved, one by one. There were a few tears, but mostly there was excitement, the electric possibility of fresh lives to be lived, of new pleasures to be had. There was this palatable feeling that we, our feet rooted in the ground and our heads reaching toward an unknowable sky, teetered on the brink of something big…

  3.

  I STOP READING THERE. I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. ALL AT ONCE, I remember the hiccups, the power struggles, the growing pains. The move from Nanjing to Shanghai, the multimillion-dollar investments, the magazine covers, the fame, the glory. I remember it all quite clearly now. I do not need, or want, to read about it any further.

  My legs tingle, pins and needles. I stand up, shake them out, and flip through the proceeding chapters. I skim passages, sentences here and there. To think that I thought I was chosen! To think that I thought I had some New Age mandate of heaven! How arrogant I was then, how tragically optimistic! I stare down at the book, and I close it, and it seems to me now like someone else wrote this, a stranger to this self, and I wonder: How many selves are in the self? Are the possibilities finite, predetermined, or are they limitless? How many more versions of me might someday write the future stories of my life?

  I rub the cover printed with my name, and I notice the rain pattering on the roof, and I realize it must have been falling for quite some time and I feel tired because of it, so I yawn, and then I go to the bathroom. I relieve myself and wash my hands. I turn off the faucet and then I look directly in the mirror, at something I’ve been largely unwilling to face: I am losing my hair. No, that’s inaccurate. Here it is full-frontal: this hair mogul is going bald.

  It began to happen in the months that led up to my breakdown, though I now think it was a symptom and not, as many tabloids noted, a cause. I visited specialists, got second and third and fourth opinions. The verdicts were all the same: I’d exhausted all of my potential. Beyond synthetic options, chemical options, transplant options—options that went against everything I’d ever stood for and grew and knew—there was no hope. For many months, I refused to acknowledge this defeat.

  But burying things does not get rid of them; it just puts them temporarily out of sight. I cannot avoid this forever. I watch myself in the mirror as I stroke my hairless patches at my temples, and then I go for the large one on the top.

  Floating here in a purgatory state south of admiration and north of disgust, I hear a creaking sound behind me and notice a small flash of movement in the corner of the mirror. My heart skips and I turn around quickly, but there is nothing there. I go from one end of the house to the other, from the fireplace to my bed, but notice nothing out of place.

  I return to my computer, open it. There is a new e-mail from my mother. I wait for it to load. My mother is either enviably oblivious to current events or as mentally ill as I’m rumored to be. She writes every week or so as though she thinks I’m still on my way up in the world, that I’m still in my penthouse apartment at headquarters in Shanghai growing my hair and buying a new pair of Nikes every week, that I’m still at heart that same thirteen-year-old boy I was when I left her. I don’t have the heart to tell her that her son is in voluntary exile, don’t have it in me to shatter her delusion. As cold and distant as she may be, she’s still my mother, and my replies are always upbeat but vague, always “I’m doing fine” and “Business is business” and other such nonsense.

  Here her latest e-mail loads, and I’m expecting it to be more delusional crap, but as I read, I lean toward the screen, slouching, losing life force. “Your father and I, we spent our whole lives working toward the idea of you. When I was just a little girl I used to imagine someday having a child of my own. It’s funny how we’re made like that, isn’t it? Before we know anything worth passing on, before we have any of the money or resources to care for another human being, before our bodies are even equipped to make one. And then your father and I married because we had four parents total, all longing for a grandchild. He was my first and only boyfriend. It’s not so much romantic as sad. If you think we ever loved each other like they do in the movies, you’re wrong. We tolerated each other and now we’ve tolerated each other into an inescapable corner. We are too old and ugly to divorce, and what would be the point anyway? It’s alone together or alone alone. Some choice. But I’m sorry to write such a rambling message. All I’m really trying to say here is that many dreams and lives wove together to bring you into creation. Many were crushed. Whatever happens to you next, remember this.”

  I think about Jesus Christ. I think about Muhammad. I think about Lao-tzu. I think about Chairman Mao. They had earthly parents too. What did these parents think of them? I touch the bald spot atop my head. I tap my bare soles against the floor. So Mom must have finally heard the news, or realized she couldn’t keep ignoring it. I curl my toes. I read the e-mail another three times, unsure still of what tone to take away. I drum my fingers on the table. Does she think I did it? Does she actually think I’m a murderer? Is she saying that I ruined her life? That I ruined that of my father too? That my existence crushed their dreams? Or is she simply pointing out the sacrifice and saying it’s all been worth it? I bite my lip. Is she angry at me? Disappointed? Sad? Worried? I sigh and surrender my speculation. I notice the date on my mother’s e-mail and realize that I am set to appear in court in exactly one week. My nervous heart rattles in my chest. There is another knock. Flesh on wood. My rattling heart drops. I look out the window, but there is no car this time. I jump up and yank open the door. There is nothing on the step this time. I look around. There is no one there. I shut the door. I turn around, walk back to my computer, and that is when I see a new e-mail from an unknown sender. It contains only a link. I know it’s not a virus. I know this link. I remember this link. How could I forget?

  4.

  A MADMAN SPEAKS: THE VIRAL RANTINGS AND RAVING
S OF SUSPECT WANG XILAI

  NETIZENS, MY NAME IS WANG XILAI. YOU MAY KNOW ME AS THE founder and CEO of Hair Inc., our nation’s most successful hair extension corporation. You may know me as a bestselling memoirist and our nation’s most prominent openly gay figure. You may know me as inspiration to millions of marginalized young men and women, as a messenger of hope—I’ve said it in lecture halls across the country, and I’ll say it again now: With a little hard work and determination, riches are well within your reach! So reach for them, netizens, take what is yours!

  Yes, you may think you know me entirely, that you know all there is to know.

  But believing you have it all, isn’t this the surest way to fall?

  You may be surprised, netizens, to learn that I am writing this from a holding cell. That’s right: the man you thought you knew is but a stranger in metaphorical chains.

  The police confiscated my phone, yes, but as has so often been the case in my life, they underestimated me. Anyone with half a wit knows that a good businessman always carries a spare. Consider that some free advice, netizens—perhaps, if I’m ever set loose, I will include that nugget in an updated version of my memoir. It is practical advice, to be sure, not high or philosophical, but it is sound, and sometimes the words we need to hear the most are the words that reside closest to the ground: “Look both ways before you cross the street.” “Don’t eat anything bigger than your own head.” “Don’t accept rat-poisoned candy from child snatchers who cruise the streets in bread-loaf vans.” So on and so forth.

  But back to the issue at hand. This afternoon, I was minding my business, going about my day, watching a film in my apartment, when a gaggle of cops burst through the door, pounced on me, slapped handcuffs on my wrists, and hauled me in. I am now being held here on charges of conspiracy to commit murder and accessory to the murder of three individuals: an unmarried receptionist (33), a somewhat anthropomorphic goose (age unknown), and Bashful Goose Snack Company’s founder and beloved national figure, Papa Hui (58). Yes, this is the issue at hand.