by Da Chen
Sen took out his old bike, splashed it down with water, and sent a little boy to call me at home, respectfully keeping a distance from my strict mom.
“Your friends sent the messenger to call you,” Mom said. He had apparently spilled our plans. “Be careful when you are in Putien. There is a lot of traffic there.” To my surprise and delight, Mom gave me half a yuan for the trip.
Sen’s bike was a museum piece. It rattled in places where it shouldn’t have and was mute where it should have made noise. It was, nonetheless, mounted with a long backseat. There were five of us; we rode that bike the acrobatic way. One pedaled, two straddled the backseat, and one sat sideways on the handlebars, barely giving the pedaler room to see. The fifth passenger ran behind and helped push the heavy load uphill. Every two miles we changed seating arrangements, so that both runner and pedaler would get a rest. It was pathetic to see the old bike groaning under all that weight, slogging through the rough, muddy road with almost flat tires.
It took us a good three hours to reach Putien. We were covered with sweat and a layer of sand when we dismounted at the bridge, which looked like the entrance to the ancient city, and walked the rest of the way. Had a cop seen us riding so precariously, he would have thrown us off the bike for riding so dangerously in heavy traffic. He might even have taken the bike away, since Sen had never gotten a license for it.
As we walked single file along the crowded street, I told them about the time my brother had lost me here when I was five. I had had to hitchhike home. When my brother got back later, crying, he almost peed in his pants when he saw me. My friends hit my head and kicked my butt for being so naughty at such a young age, and we laughed loudly and happily.
Siang whipped out a new pack of cigarettes. Here, in this big city where nobody knew us, we each smoked a cigarette and walked around with the butts hanging from the corners of our mouths like grown-ups.
“Hurry,” I urged, “it’ll be hard to find tickets for such a hot movie.”
“Don’t worry, we could always go to our old friend Three Foot Six, if we can’t buy them at the ticket booth,” Siang said.
“We love the guy. He has everything we want,” Mo Gong said.
“Hey, how come I don’t know him?” I said.
“We might have to go to him anyway,” Sen complained.
“I heard the lines yesterday were incredibly long for today’s show and that they had even sold out all the standing-room tickets,” Siang said.
Soon we were in front of the county’s largest movie theater, pride and excitement gripping our hearts. We stared at the tall iron fences, the thick columns, and the fashionably dressed young people wearing their long, greasy hair ducktail style and skintight, bell-bottom trousers. The girls wore colorful nylon skirts that flew above their creamy white knees as the sea wind whirled over the dusty ground. Since most women in China usually wore standard blue pants just like their men, this was a rare sight.
“Mo Gong is a little lost for words here. I bet he likes those white thighs,” said Siang, the known cosmopolitan who had traveled far and often. He hit Mo Gong’s head with the side of his hand.
“You’re absolutely right, Siang. I’d love to lick every inch of those white legs for the rest of my long and boring life,” he said with his eyes glued to a particularly tall and leggy girl. “Tell us who these angels are, Siang.”
Siang took a long draw on his cigarette, narrowed his eyes like an old sailor, and said, “Those are the children of Chinese families who came back after they were kicked out from places like the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia when those places turned against the Chinese. Those foreign countries were all anti-China. Can you imagine?
“Now they live on a farm especially set aside for them by the government with a special supply store. They’re rich people, with rich relatives back in their home countries who send them money monthly. A postman covering that area said that at the New Year he had to carry money to the farm in large canvas sacks.”
The five of us stood there admiring the youthful crowd as they rode around on fancy scooters, their girlfriends holding on to their waists. It didn’t seem too bad a fate.
“And there’s a lot of free sex going on on the farm,” Siang commented casually.
“Free sex?” Mo Gong exclaimed.
“What’s free sex?” I asked.
“You’re too young to know that sort of stuff.” Siang hit my head with his hand. “I don’t think your mom entrusted us to teach you things like free sex.” They all laughed.
“Free sex means you don’t have to pay,” Mo Gong said rather thoughtfully.
“Nah. Free sex is fucking your fiancée before a wedding without a marriage license issued by the commune,” Sen said.
“Free sex is screwing someone without the danger of being called a pervert and being put in jail,” Yi said after a long silence.
“No, you’re all wrong,” Siang said. “Free sex means you can have sex with both people and farm animals.”
It was a terrible joke. The four of us flipped Siang to the ground and kicked him some before helping him back on his feet. Even after that, he still chuckled over his joke.
“I’m sure some of them are screwing the animals on the farm. Just think, there are more men than women. What are they going to do?” Mo Gong said.
“That’s why they do it with different people, with no fixed partner. That’s the real spirit of sharing.” Yi summed it up so well, we all applauded.
“Shit! Tickets,” Siang reminded us. We were at the deserted ticket booth. A large sign read, TICKETS SOLD OUT FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS OF The Sea Lady.
“I told you they would be sold out. There’s a lot of corruption going on inside the ticket booths, you know,” Siang said. ’80 percent of the tickets were sent to the cadres, the county administration and other interest groups such as the electric companies, and meat or fruit stores, and department stores. It’s a hot movie with limited showings. They’re only showing it for a few days, then it moves to another town. They take care of one another.
“As for us, we better get our fat asses out of here quickly, before the cops bother us. Right now, we’re just a bunch of ticketless hoods from another town.”
We saw a blue uniform moving our way and rushed out.
“Good thing you know all this stuff, Siang,” I said gratefully.
“This ain’t nothing. You should go to Fuzhou. That’s a big city,” Siang said.
We all nodded in agreement, since none of us had ever been there.
“Let’s go to Three Foot Six now, before it’s too late for the three o’clock show,” I said.
Sen rode his bike by himself and we all ran after him, obeying the city’s “No Riding Double” law.
Breathless, we stood in front of a tiny store in a dead-end lane so narrow two fat guys would have stuck if they’d walked abreast along it. Chickens ran around noisily, scratching at the cobbles.
And so I met the infamous Three Foot Six, the biggest city trader in the history of Putien. To say he didn’t measure up to his larger-than-life reputation would have been an understatement. Only three feet, six inches tall, he was a dwarf with a huge watermelon head. It took me three long minutes to finally close my mouth, which had dropped open at his incredibly comic appearance. Yi stepped on my right foot to make me stop the stupid stare.
“So, what can I do for you young fellows?” a high-pitched voice came from behind the counter. The dwarf smiled professionally, knowing that no one visited his crummy store for nothing. People said that he could persuade even curious onlookers into becoming willing buyers.
“We want some tickets to The Sea Lady,” Siang said smoothly.
“Uh-huh, I just knew it. What a beautiful lady she is. I have seen the movie three times, and she would be worth seeing a fourth time, ha, ha, ha, maybe even a fifth time. Tell you the truth, I’d love to have her as my wife if I wasn’t married to three women already, ha, ha, ha.” The little man rocked in his seat,
laughing his pants off.
“My son swam in the same pool with her when they were making the movie near his training camp. You know, Sonny is a swimming champion of our country.” He pointed at a framed picture behind the counter of a little fellow in a dripping swimsuit holding a gold cup.
“Not your son again, mister,” Siang protested. “I’ve heard of him each time I’ve been here. Last time you said he shook hands with our Premier Chow, and now you say he swam in the same pool with the most beautiful star.”
“It’s true, it’s true. He was in there, I swear.”
“Okay, okay. What’s the price of the three o’clock show?”
“Shhh…you’re talking too loud. You know the last time they did that here I had to call up my son at his training camp and have him call the party secretary of Putien, who in turn called the bureau of commerce to release me from detention. It’s tough out here. I swear I won’t be in this business in my next life, that is if I am a little taller and have some muscles like you fellows. I could be a violinist or even a professor—”
“We really gotta have the tickets,” Siang interrupted again.
“I’m not quite sure I got any.”
“We’re going if you don’t,” Sen said curtly.
“Wait a second, wait a second, young man. What’s the hurry? Show me you have money,” the dwarf said.
Siang pulled out three ten-yuan bills and laid them on the counter with a flourish.
“Young man with money, very admirable, very admirable. I happen to have just five tickets for you, and come in here, I’ll show you other things that you might fancy, tapes of love songs from Hong Kong and a lot more. Real sexy stuff.”
“How much are the tickets?” Sen said.
“For you, two yuan each,” he said seriously, shrinking all the smiles out of his face.
My heart sank like a sack of wet sand. It was robbery. The original price was only ten fen.
“I hear silence? These are the only tickets left for the show in town. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Whadda beautiful face. I still dream of her every night when I’m in bed with one of my wives. You young men should go see what real beauty is before you marry someone ugly. Then you’ll have the same problem I do, and have to keep marrying until you find a better one. And guess what? It never gets better, only worse. They all live under the same roof now and, boy, is it noisy there. I don’t mind staying here in the shop all day long.” He paused. “Yes or no?”
“One yuan each,” Siang bargained.
I felt Sen push Siang to stop him. He pointed to the clock. It read 2:45. In ten minutes the little man would be on his knees begging for us to take the tickets off his hands.
“No, I think we’ll just wait for the next show,” Sen said.
“Listen, kids, one yuan each, for the sake of Buddha. I’d really love you to see it, how about that?”
“We could wait.” Sen started pushing us out the door as he saw the merchant soften.
“Wait, don’t go. Don’t make a poor old man get down on his knees to beg you.” As he said it, he slipped nimbly from the chair and stood, a sorry three feet six, at our feet. He held on to our legs and started weeping. “Don’t go, you can have them, just name a price.”
“Ten fen each,” Mo Gong said.
“You’re killing me. Double that, and I will call you all grandpa.” No sooner had he said that, he was on his knees calling us all grandpa to humble himself.
“Give it to him, guys.” I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the little man, kneeling on the ground calling us his ancestors.
“He’s a tricky guy, Da.” Sen shot me a cool look.
“Fifteen fens.”
“Done deal, Grandpas,” he said. He got back up on his seat, having wiped his teary face on our trousers.
We all fished out change. He took the money, smiled, and said, “How about five more fens for calling you grandpas on my knees. Just let me keep the change.” Mo Gong grabbed the dwarf’s fist and forced it open, taking back his five fen change.
By the time we got to the theater, it was filled with smoke and the hallways were packed with people holding standing-room tickets. Kids hung from the windows trying to get a better view. On the platform stood a wide screen, with loudspeakers on either side. There were even children sitting behind the screen, looking up. They were going to watch the movie in reverse. We had to push and shove to get other viewers off our seats in the last row against the wall.
The place smelled like sweat and felt like an oven, but it was well worth all the trouble we’d been through to come here. The plot of the movie was run-of-the-mill Cultural Revolution stuff. The story took place in a seaside village. A landlord was plotting against the local Communist party, whose leader was the gorgeous goddess of curvy contours. In the end, the landlord was trashed and the good guys won. Throughout the movie, I could hear Mo Gong and Sen ooh and ah with each close-up of the star. Siang was so drawn into the plot and carried away by the beautiful goddess that he forgot to smoke and almost burned his fingers.
When we finally walked out into the afternoon light and joined the rest of the crowd in the cold street, Sen said pensively, “It’s kind of sad, you know. She makes us all look ugly.”
“You’re ugly to begin with,” Mo Gong replied. “Someday, guys, I’m gonna marry someone just like that.” He shook his head and stuck a cigarette in his mouth.
“In your wet dream,” Siang replied.
“You don’t have to fucking put me down each time you get the chance, Siang. I know I don’t have a revolutionary grandpa like you. You think you could marry someone like that, right?”
“Maybe.” Siang smiled naughtily, just to annoy Mo Gong.
“Go take a look at yourself in the Dong Jing River. You got an ugly nose, big mouth, and a pair of roving eyes. You look like an idiot 90 percent of the time.”
“Calm down, you guys.”
“Yeah, calm down. I thought the movie was supposed to make us feel good. Why the fuck are we fighting?”
“You started the whole thing.”
“No, you did.”
As we were riding and running home, I saw Han riding on the backseat of his skinny father’s new Phoenix bike. He tried to hide his face with a paper fan as his father overtook us on the bumpy road. I was sitting on the backseat, hugging Mo Gong’s waist, at the same time lighting a cigarette for Sen, who was pedaling. I hoped Han didn’t see me do that. It was quite dark already. I really hoped he didn’t recognize us at all, but it was hard to miss an acrobatic show like ours on the deserted road. The old fear appeared only briefly before it was replaced by the warm companionship of my friends, who by now had become more like my brothers. I wasn’t going to let that fly spoil my mood this time, not on the afternoon when I had seen the most beautiful creature in the world with my own eyes.
We got home at nine in the evening, hungry and tired. Mom had cooked a pot of delicious noodles with vegetables and had kept it warm for me. With her approval, I took it to Yi’s workshop and shared it with my buddies. First, there was surprise that my mom had allowed me to do this, then there was a fight among my hungry friends to scoop up portions into their bowls. We slurped those long noodles silently. When we put down our chopsticks, full and relaxed, a warm feeling of being together like a family swept over us. We celebrated the good time with loud and long burps, laughing until our stomachs hurt. Though we sat in a humble mud hut with a flickering kerosene light, it felt as if we had the whole world within our hearts.
“OPEN YOUR SCHOOLBAG,” Teacher Lan demanded.
“Why, Teacher? There are only books in it,” I protested, sensing the eyes of Han, Quei, Wang, and the rest of the class searing into my back like the hot summer sun.
“Someone saw you smoking outside school,” Teacher Lan said. “I think you’ve got cigarettes in your bag.”
I held on to my bag and shot a long, cold stare at Han, who sat with his feet on his desk, smiling with acknowledgment. His cronies flanked hi
m, grinning and showing their unbrushed teeth.
Teacher Lan snatched the bag from my hand. At the bottom lay an unopened pack of Flying Horse. I’d used the half yuan Mom had given me to buy them from Liang, the cigarette merchant, on my way to school. I had planned to share them with my friends over a good story at Yi’s workshop.
“What is this?” Teacher Lan waved the pack in front of the whole class. “I helped you come back to school and make all that progress and now you want to throw away everything you have achieved. You are very stupid. You do not realize how people around think of you. Some of them still want to throw you out of school. You just gave them good reason, and to tell you the truth, I am beginning to see their point. Those hoodlums will drag you down to the bottom again, even lower. Do you realize that? To the bottom.” He threw the cigarettes on the floor, spat on them, and stomped them with his feet until they were totally crushed.
I had never seen the mellow, awkward Mr. Lan so forceful or so angry before, and I was shocked. He knew everything about my friends and me. I felt torn with pain at having our wonderful friendship trashed in front of my classmates and enemies. My head was becoming numb and my temples throbbed, but this time instead of the old fear, I felt anger, anger at my enemies, who still picked on me at every opportunity, whose mission in life seemed to be my complete destruction.
They were ignorant of the beautiful, honest friendship those “hoodlums” offered me and would never be able to fathom the depths of our devotion to each other. Nor could Teacher Lan. He did not know how hellish school had been for me for so many years. I wanted to yell back at him and make him understand, but he had gone back to his podium, opened his book. Class had begun.
As my fury receded into a trickle of dull pain, I tried to digest what Teacher Lan had tried to tell me. There were people out there who were still trying to get me. Why didn’t they leave me alone and let me just be like the rest of the kids? Who were they?
I walked home under a cloud of gloom and went directly to the gang at Yi’s workshop. They had been helping Yi slice some new lumber with huge saws that had long and ugly teeth. Sawdust covered their faces.