Year of the Goose

by Carly J. Hallman

  “No,” I said, my voice that of a small, manic child. “I need that hair.”

  “It’s her hair, and her choice.”

  “Don’t give me that philosophical bullshit. I supervised the hair, I grew the hair, I paid for the hair. It belongs to me.” I stomped my foot on the ground. I was six years old again, just with a more advanced vocabulary and more complex thought processes.

  Stefan bit his lip. “Your parents did all of those things for you, and you don’t belong to them.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Don’t you have enough money? Why does she matter?”

  “Everyone matters,” I said in a whispery voice, mimicking his own.

  “Cute,” he said. “But really. Are you in financial trouble or something?”

  I stared blankly at him again—me, in financial trouble? Please. I didn’t need the hair. I wanted it. There was a difference—or at least there used to be. I stomped my foot again.

  “If you love something, set it—” he started to say, but I interrupted, snorting, “Oh, come on. Don’t give me that. That’s a fucking stupid saying. So if I have a kitten, I should just set it free and let it get run over by a truck, and if it loves me, the breeze will blow its flattened corpse right on back to me? Or maybe a nice restaurateur will find the poor little bastard and serve its gamey meat up to me in a delicious soup? Set it free, yeah, that’s great advice.” I kicked a pebble, which flew into some old man’s bicycle tire spoke. He wobbled for a moment, shouted a curse at me, and then pedaled off, rode on as though none of it had happened.

  Stefan placed his hand on the small of my back and whispered, “A man who knows when enough is enough will always have—” But I didn’t want his touch and I didn’t want to hear it. I ran. I ran and I ran, scouring the city, making phone calls, bribing police, looking for my lost Head. But in a city of sixteen million, it’s easy, too easy, to just disappear…

  Why am I telling you all of this? What relevance does a runaway head of hair have to do with the brutal murder of a great tycoon? Well, relevance is relative. And everything has everything to do with everything else. Frankly speaking, I’m in jail for two reasons. The first is that heiress Kelly Hui is a jealous and vindictive young woman. The second is that I’m a mental case, and it’s easy to pin a murder on a mental case, isn’t it? Madness in the mind leads to madness in action, that’s what everyone thinks. Every day you netizens are posting and commenting on articles about crazy old ladies with unnatural strength who pluck innocent passersby up off the pavement and hurl them into polluted rivers, or knife-wielding men who burst into kindergartens and train stations, slaughtering innocent children and ticket-holders, respectively. Hell, even Lu Fun, our China’s most beloved writer, came to fame with a tale of a lunatic cannibal. We are a people, a country, a world who love to vilify the mad!

  But, I ask, is it not also mad to seek riches or stardom? Is it not also mad to hold up the rich and famous as examples of what it really means to live?

  Vilify, worship; villain, hero. Oh, these fine lines we draw.

  Coming out as gay, that was easy. But coming out as mad? How difficult! I can hear the police marching around outside, I can hear them giving orders, I can hear them going about their business, plotting their punishments—I don’t have long, I know, so I want to give you my all, you helpful netizens, to let it all out, whatever the repercussions might be. Here I am in a veritable cage, four concrete walls, crouched in a corner, typing my plea to the world on an iPhone I hid between my ass cheeks. If these aren’t the actions of a madman, well, then I just don’t know…

  Now enough with the confessions and back to my plea: after Lulu left, after my reputation was damaged by her flight response, you’d think it would all be over for me. But it was—is—hardly over. I still had—have—billions of yuan of inventory. I’m fine. The actress who was set to use Lulu’s hair, sure, she severed ties with us and wound up getting her extensions from some third-rate company in India, but she’ll get what she paid for with that choice. Village girls who have to sell their hair in order to pay for their abortions after they’ve been raped? Oh, that’s great, ethical, moral. Good call, Ms. Famous Actress, believe you me, the Western media is going to have a feeding frenzy with that one.

  After all that mess, after Lulu left, I asked myself: What would Papa Hui do? And the answer came easy: Keep up with his regimens, that’s what. Business as usual, that’s what.

  So I swallowed my vitamins. I drank my water quotas. I did my exercises. I supervised my remaining Heads in all of their routines.

  But maybe, if I’m being honest, that was actually when everything ended for me.

  You know, I never told anyone this, but I finally did find her—in the background of a terrible TV period drama set in the Qing dynasty. She played one of the emperor’s many concubines, a nonspeaking role, essentially an extra, and she stood there in her cheap polyester getup with an eager look on her face, desperately eager, and I knew then that a girl that eager never becomes anyone, and something in my mind unhinged—or rehinged—and suddenly I found myself on the other side of…

  What?

  Forgiveness?

  No, not quite, that’s an awfully strong word.

  I later heard she became some government official’s real concubine. What a waste of talent. Okay, sorry, so I’m sure that’s what you netizens were dying to know, right? About how I got into this mental state in the first place? How I went mad? Well, there it is, isn’t it? That’s how I lost my damn Head.

  Why did she leave me though? What exactly drove her to quit? Did I ever figure that out? Again, again, I don’t know. Maybe she became a Christian or a Muslim or whatever and adopted the belief that selling a part of your body is wrong. But then why was she on TV, selling her image? No use speculating though. In the case of such an outlier, it’s not the cause that matters, only the effect. It’d be worth trying to figure out if there were others like her, other traitors, cowards jumping ship, but—

  But back to the murder. I’m in jail. The police have locked me up, and they won’t let me speak to any of the aliens, and I have this feeling that there is a spaceship outside waiting for me, but I think they’ve sent the military in to attack it, and these officers won’t even come in and talk to me so that I can explain my side of the story.

  Oh, my story. My side. That’s why I’m writing this, isn’t it? So you want to know what I know about Bashful Goose? About the murder of Papa Hui? Well, I’ll tell you. Here it is, everything: How the hell would I know about that?

  Okay, okay, I’ll tell you what I do know. After Lulu took off, my world as I’d known it, as I’d built it, slowly collapsed. I kept up with things at first, but then, well. Every night, I was kept awake by voices. No, I don’t think my apartment was bugged. I think these voices were in my head, but that they were also coming from somewhere outside of me, do you understand my meaning?

  One morning, maybe a month or two ago, I was at headquarters, overseeing the exercise routine of a new set of Head recruits. Admiring their beauty, I ran my fingers through my own hair, the hair that launched a multibillion-dollar empire, and I almost leaped out of my skin. I kept my cool in front of the recruits, but as soon as I could steal a minute, I stepped out and into my executive washroom, where, inspired by the banquet, I’d had gold-plated toilets and sinks installed. I inspected my scalp closely in the mirror and noted that my hair wasn’t as thick, as luxurious, as it had once been.

  Lack of sleep—yes. Inability to muster up the motivation to properly exercise—yes. Insufficient exposure to sunlight—yes. I had been breaking all of my own rules, and now I was suffering the consequences. But it seemed to me more serious than that.

  The next morning, I donned a common-man disguise, and a hospital doctor—I was too embarrassed to have my on-staff physician perform this examination—confirmed my fears. “Well, kid, I’d say you’re going bald,” he said with a shrug, and then strode out like it was nothing. And maybe it was noth
ing. There were people in this same hospital fighting cancer, plagued with tumors—people who were truly physically suffering. Who was I to complain? Well, I was rich. And as the ancient saying goes, where there’s a condition, there’s a highly priced cure. But I’d made my fortune advertising and selling organic hair. Taking medicine or rubbing ointments into my scalp might yield me a crop, but it’d also render me a liar.

  I’d shot my ammunition off early, grown a whole lifetime of hair in only twenty-four years.

  It was a brutal diagnosis, and I wanted nothing more than to curl up and die. I put Kai, my number one assistant, in charge of the day-to-day operations of the company, and I hid out in my apartment alone, sucking sadly on Bashful Goose Red-Bean-Flavored Tongue-Tickler Ice Lollies and watching DVDs. Romantic comedies. Korean, American, French, British, quirky, straight-forward, poignant, prickly—they all had love in common, if not laughs, and they should have done something to lift my sinking spirits, but to be honest, the beautiful actors and actresses just gave me hair envy. I knew not everyone could grow the perfect head of hair—if they could, I wouldn’t be in business in the first place. But me? Not me. I was a pioneer of hair engineering. A trailblazer.

  This watching-crying-watching-sobbing routine continued up until a couple of nights ago, when I turned that particular movie off and, seeking something slightly less depressing for a change, turned on the news. This always cheered me up. Newscasters have notoriously bad hair: the spray, the gel, the fringe, the lumps, the frizz! As luck would have it, just as I flipped it on, the reporter with the very worst hair—resembling on one side the Eiffel Tower and on the other a misshapen octagon—was on-screen delivering a breaking story: Papa Hui of Bashful Goose Snack Company had been murdered, apparently by his own daughter!

  I did then what every selfish human does when someone he knows dies, and I thought back to the last time I’d seen him, replayed the last things he’d said to me over and over in my head, scrounging for some meaning or message in his words, but there wasn’t one, was there? Nothing is holy unless we grant it that power. Everything is inherently meaningless.

  To say I took the news of Papa Hui’s death hard would be like saying that China is a tad bit crowded, which is to say that it’d be a gross understatement. I was devastated. First, I’d lost Lulu. Then I received my diagnosis. And now my idol, the one who had inspired me in my youth, and whose onward attitude had given me the strength to push forward (if only for a time), despite the depths of my depression and despair, was dead. Not just dead, but slaughtered like a common chicken.

  I paced my penthouse, rubbed my hands on my balding scalp, whispered to myself, trembled. My phone rang. At first I wasn’t even sure if it was really ringing. What was real anymore, and what was delusion? Was there a difference? The phone—was it really a phone?—read that it was Stefan calling. I had no desire to speak with him. I’d fired him after the whole Lulu incident. Well, technically he voluntarily resigned, but given the opportunity, I would have fired him. I pressed Reject Call. He called back. I rejected again. Over and over, until I grew weary and bored and just answered.

  He opened with “You heard the news?”

  I choked back a sob. Was this really him on the line, or was it an alien? Were the aliens calling me home? Was my borrowed time on this polluted, messy planet finally over?

  “Congratulations,” the Stefan-Alien whispered.

  I must have misheard. I pulled the phone from my ear and then pressed it back again. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “I didn’t know you two were so close,” its voice said.

  I wobbled over to my desk and looked down at my computer, where I saw on the screen a new microblog entry: “Wang Xilai to Be Named Next Bashful Goose CEO?”

  My kingdom had come, the voice said, your kingdom has come.

  But was this an empire I was willing to inherit?

  I swear to you, netizens, that is how I heard the news of Papa Hui’s death, how I discovered that he had left the company to me. I did not orchestrate any of this; I had no prior knowledge or involvement. There was no master plan. I was just a bystander, as stunned by the events that transpired as any of you.

  It comes as no real surprise to me that Kelly Hui would tell police that I blackmailed her into killing her own father. That girl is a real piece of work. I hate to play this hand, but is she even really Chinese? She could well be an American spy. She has an American passport after all. Perhaps the CIA set her up to take me down. This kind of thing happens all the time. Look around you, netizens, at least one person you know is a CIA spy! At least. Look into this, netizens, look into Kelly’s background and perhaps you will uncover some pertinent evidence. I will reward with vast sums of money any and all of you who can prove this to be true.

  I never met Kelly in an alley—I hardly ever leave headquarters. For whatever time she claims I did, I have an alibi, I’m sure of it. Check the cameras in my building. Ask my employees. Ask Stefan.

  Yes, I will publish my phone records. I will publish all of my e-mails. I have nothing to hide! Here, I’ve bared it all anyway! I’m a madman who hears voices! I’m a madman who dances with aliens! I am utterly and completely mad! I don’t care. I don’t care. Just get me out of here. Wage war, netizens, wage a war against the powers that hold us down! The government is trying to kill all of us. Kelly Hui is a demon sent from the bowels of hell. I know all of this to be true. I could just prove it if these police officers would let me speak to the aliens. The aliens know everything. They want you to know that everything we think is true is a lie. But I can’t go talk to them because I’m here in this room, and also my iPhone is about to run out of battery so I can’t keep typing for much longer, but please, netizens, I beg you to beg for my release. Take to the streets! Call all the major global news networks. Ask NASA for help; they might be the only ones who can truly help us. Kelly Hui has the Chinese National Space Administration in the palm of her hand—don’t trust them. Call NASA for help, netizens, please!

  Let me make it clear again: I never told Kelly Hui that I’d give her a billion renminbi if she killed her father and that if she didn’t I’d kill her and her mother and expose their family secrets or whatever it is she’s telling the investigators. What do I know of their secrets? What do I care? I’m not a killer, and I’ve never even had a real conversation with Kelly Hui, except at that one banquet, and I told you everything we said. Yes, she wore my products, but Stefan was the one who outfitted her. I never had any other personal contact with her. And why on earth would I want Papa Hui dead? I’m telling the truth when I say that I didn’t even know he’d willed the company to me—how would I know that? How could I even dream that was possible?

  5.

  I HAD JUST PRESSED POST WHEN A TEAM OF PERHAPS TEN UNIFORMED officers burst into the holding cell. These brutes didn’t bother with an interrogation—though I supposed they, like the rest of the world, would read my account soon enough. Although the government quickly removed my original post, dismissing it as “spiritual pollution,” it was too late. Netizens had already copied and pasted. They circulated. They translated into dozens of languages. They laughed. They worried. They discussed. They didn’t talk about my innocence; they talked about my money, my madness, my mind. Hair tycoon on a rampage. This is what happens to the too rich. A cautionary tale.

  No, those police officers didn’t ask me anything. They beat me. Whacked me with clubs, with flashlights, with their fists. It hurt, well beyond any pain I’d ever experienced, and I moaned and I screamed and I flinched, until I lay still, silent, and it didn’t hurt anymore. Until I saw a white light and, in that light, the silhouettes of almond-headed figures. Voiceless figures. They came closer and closer to me, until they were no longer just silhouettes, until I could make out their features. Their nostrils. Their diamond eyes. A warmth enveloped me, held me tightly. I began to sweat. I wiped the sweat from my brow and then I held my hand out in front of me and saw that this sweat was red. When I looked ou
t again toward that light, there were no more figures, and then too there was no more light. Everything went black.

  I woke up in a white hospital room to mechanical beeping. How I survived, I don’t know. I wished I hadn’t. Broken ribs, bruises, blood. I was laid up in that bed for what felt like years. When I was released, the judge took pity and granted me permission to leave Shanghai for a brief period to “rehabilitate” and “rest” before the trial. I still don’t know why he didn’t put me on house arrest—anyone else in my position might have made a permanent run for it, might have sought refuge in a foreign embassy, might have fled to Singapore or the United States or South America. But not me. I kept my word. As soon as I could drive, I drove cross-country to Yunnan, bought a house, focused on healing and on forgiving. How is it possible for a man such as myself, who has been framed for murder, who has been beaten, who has lost his business, who has had to hide most of his remaining fortune away in overseas bank accounts; how is it possible, I ask you, for such a man, a man who perhaps has never loved another person, never even loved a clever concept or a turn of phrase, never loved anything at all but maybe the illusion of wealth; how is it possible for such a man to so blindly, so foolishly, love his own country? Well, to that I say: Anything is possible. Or is it this at all?

  I sit at the table, still reeling from my reading. It’s been a long time since I clicked that link, a long time since I remembered that particular chapter of my life. I put my arms on the table and then I rest my head inside my arms. This is how I might have napped on a desk as a child had I ever napped at a desk as a child, had I been not a tycoon-to-be but a regular ne’er-do-well. What moral, I wonder, can I glean from this blog post, from these sentences I once formed, these feelings I once experienced, this account I once gave? That I’m a sociopath? That I’m incapable of compassion? That I was selfish, greedy, and that I got what was coming to me? Will I ever gain enough distance, enough perspective, to feel like I’ve learned a lesson here? The moral is supposed to come at the end, but the problem with real life is that our stories don’t end. They go on and on.