(Written in 1989 summer, translated in 1997 summer)
1
I hate the darkest time of the day right before sunrise, which is usually half an hour before the newsmen of the Central radio station start their daily roaring all over the campus from the omnipresent loudspeakers. Our campus is a civilian unit, but it preserves military-style ordinance used to torture young and innocent next generation. We are the hopes for the future…yeah right…Why can’t we get some more sleep so that we can all be healthy and happy and have enough energy to study? Sleeping late is not necessarily a sign of decadence and everyone knows the later it gets the more efficient we are.
After entering the college I developed this symptom of waking up too early, and I am afraid it is an early stage of insomnia. For the whole night I toss around in the bunk bed and I am haunted by all kinds of the weird dreams. When I wake up I always have an intense headache and feel like a shit in the hell. Our dorm room at this hour is usually deadly quiet except for breathes of various rhythms which orchestrated quite harmoniously, and I would be punished and vilified if I became the earliest one who got up and made the noise. Sleep, sleep, sleep…as if this is the best thing in the world. But I can’t sleep! I can not go back to my dreams, but the real world is still a big blur. My head is filled up with strange consciousness from the past and the present, with images overlapping and collapsing like some kind of hallucination made out of abstract collages.
This morning starts with a lousy prologue. For the whole night I was in a half-sleep state. When I wake up I feel terribly exhausted. When I think of the things I need to do, and count how many more hours I need to wait before crawling back to my bed, my heart sinks. The air is dead in the darkness. The snoring around me declares enviable happiness. I am probably the only one in the room who has this stupid consciousness…sometimes being conscious is a very miserable thing. But no matter how hard you try to get rid of it, it follows you and bites you and never gives up.
What is my consciousness about? Things flashes away quickly in the daytime but become redeveloped slow-movement movie scenes at this half-conscious half- hallucinating time. Don’t think that I am a pretentious spiritual modernist who quests for things such as who I am and where I am from, neither will I be an ‘angry young man’ who thinks he is the most miserable person in the world but trapped unluckily in the body of genius. Well, I do think I think deep at this hour. For example, I think about ‘SELF’. When I was in the junior high, I was once forced to write an essay to introduce myself. I concluded it with a slogan-like sentence ‘I am myself’, as if that sentence was so forceful that I became an immediate advocate of individualism (I would not know this concept in those days anyway, not until I read Whitman in the last year of high school). My exploits to the concept of ‘SELF’ always lead to a deep fear…. I am a fleshly live being who worships Van Gogh and sobs under the pillow after reading Thirst for Love, who is infatuated with Russeul’s musing intellectual grace, who is as sarcastic as the boy in Catcher in The Rye, who fantasizes himself as a cool KungFu warrior….’SELF’ is such a strange egg-first-or-chicken-first paradox. I often look in the mirror to find this ‘SELF’. Once I relate the freckled-nose sharp-chin with crude generous stupid smart and all the other adjectives, I am compelled by a horror that swallows me and sucks me out of the vivid image I can see. I even venture far enough to browse through big books from Jung and Freud. I doze off after two pages…what kind of shit they are…superman, superego…fuck them all they are just like some lunatic recording neural electronic brain waves. The other question I often think about is what may happen to me in the future. I know all the techniques I can use to dignify and romanticize myself in a futuristic picture…I am lucky enough to blow out these colorful bubbles in the darkness. If I even lose the privilege to hope and dream, what difference could there be between a dried fish and me?
2
I am in my self-indulgence routine when I hear some murmuring from the upper part of my bunk bed. Sometimes the dorm room could be a perfect place to collect and study secrets. Many of us can not wait to broadcast the dream talks we have heard the night before and congratulate to the one who has made these wonderful but incomprehensible night speeches. Although we often laugh at them, we still derive the type of excitement as if we have spread some good rumors. I can not resist my own curiosity but try to pick up the words.
Some unrecognizable sounds, I can not hear a single word.
Sighing in the dawn! Moaning in the darkness! My head quickly generates these poetic lines. I sit up and knock at the bed boards right above my head. No response. I lie down again and close my eyes…I do not know why ‘Kangaroo’, the guy lying above me, always depresses me. ‘Kangaroo’ is plain looking. Nose and eyes and ears of right sizes are mounted on his expressionless face with good disciplines. Although we can not find out anything comical from his look, he has prepared a perfect name to bring himself into our animal house – his real name is Dai Shu.
Kangaroo is a serious person. He gets up early and reads aloud in our yard, shows up punctually at classes, and always sits in the front row of the classrooms. After dinner he runs to the library and does not come back until it closes. This repetitive behavior has won our awe and consensual compliments. Aside from that, he is a good candidate for a perfect maid…he does his bed every morning, cleans up the dorm room and his desk is always in order. We vote him the white swan from the ugly ducks and the beautiful lotus flower from the dirty mud. Well, there is only one thing that prevents him from becoming the best role model, which is not supposed to be blamed after all –his grades are not that good.
In my taxonomy of personalities, Kangaroo is introvert. He is rather reserved, rarely joins our vicious jokes and night chatting. Although he and I sleep on the same bunk bed, we do not talk much to each other. In fact I despise him. I think he is a chunk of wood with no substance, boring as hell, and good puppet material. In my logical dictionary seriousness and pedantry share the same connotation.
I remembered one day he received a letter and looked uneasy after reading it. He asked me seriously, “Do you think I am a weak person?” I almost laughed. But I simply explained away: “How come? Aren’t we too young to be so introspective?”
He did not seem to be contented with my answer. He faltered: “I got this letter from an old female friend of mine.” He paused, and gathered some courage, “She said I was too weak.”
I burst out: “These women always make up their princes by ideals. They will always pick on us no matter how perfect we are.”
“Well, maybe.” Kangaroo did not want to join my crusade against our beloved-and-hated gender. I decided to continue with my speech: “I think she means shy when she says weak. You know, like you have no guts to chase the one you like. Weakness usually refers to the escape from responsibilities and challenges. Maybe she implies that you should make a move on her.”
Kangaroo still kept his head low, as if he did not hear a single word from me. I was still excited by my own pedantic and aspiring sentences: “You are always hard on yourself. Hey, relax and take it easy. Why do you always look around so much and think about yourself in the negative way?” Suddenly I thought I could be a self-healing guru and psychiatric counselor. We are always good at quoting or making up a set of cliché from wherever when we console someone else, as if we are so confident in the prescription that it actually makes ourselves much better people.
Kangaroo stood up, poured a glass of water, and took a few sips. He climbed up to his bed, and said to me: “I do not think you understand me.”
OK. Dear. There are way too many things I have not understood yet. Neither do I understand myself. Or do I care? Maybe you can tell me. I have my pity on Kangaroo, but I am more pitiful on myself. At least Kangaroo works diligently everyday and enjoys his laborious way of life while I am like an ass hole who does not want to do anything and denounce whoever as idiots if they are actually doing something. But maybe I am smarter. At least I have seen through it. I won’t sell out myself for social status money love career and other bunch of bullshits. How boring they are! Are we all going to be strangled by the same rope?
3
When I wake up again, the sun has already risen high enough to shed its light on my butt. I open my eyes and feel a bit dizzy. It is still quiet in our dorm room. I wonder why I can fall back in sleep again.
I look at the watch; it says ten minutes before the first class. Well, actually I do not exactly know whether this watch points out the correct time or not. It may be five minutes faster, or later. My college life does not need to be measured precisely by time. It is a routine from classrooms to dorm to dinning hall. We call that three-point-determine-a-straight-line. You never need to show up on time for classes. If the meeting announcement says the meeting starts at seven you may still need to wait if you get there at seven thirty. If you have a date and act too enthusiastically, you are doomed to “drink the wind from the north-west”. Don’t forget that these girls love the power to manipulate and test any love prospects.
I found this watch from a desk in some classroom and I have been very proud of this unexpected fortune. I detest those people who wears Rolex or some other fancy brands I have no clue about. And when I look at those people covered by famous names I am simply disgusted. A friend of mine saved for a month to get his new Nike. He even put that pair of shoes next to his pillow and sleeps with them. Yuck. I will blush whenever I think about this. I simply like the baggy military pants that nobody wants, crumble my shirt with wrinkle effects, and mess my hair enough to make it look like a bird nest.
I open the mosquito net and stick my head out trying to see who else is still in my six-person dorm room. Gees. All the beds are empty. These guys treat classes as some drill. They go to class in a mob and then come back as if they have lost everything in some battlefield. We know nobody really likes to go to class, but we all have to go since we owe something to the school to our aging parents to high school teachers to the great motherland. As we are still in the preliminary stage of socialism, the day has not arrived when we can live on material distributions and we can do whatever we want.
I sit on the bed in my solitary mood for a while, and feel like some unwanted garbage that has been scraped aside. The birds are singing too happily outside. I throw out the empty toothpaste case but they sing even louder. Almost twenty years in my life now and everyday still seems to be the same. Everyday I can think of peasants plowing field under the sun workers operating machines or soldiers protecting our borders. Everyday I think they all expect me to do something as if they all unite together in some glorious chorus to motivate me and ask me to become a useful a pillar for the socialistic course.
But the golden sunshine, however, has changed my mood. I jump out of the bed, comb my hair, and smile to myself in the half-broken mirror. I am about to walk into the mass and join the life.
4
Our first class is mathematical analysis. If I am asked to analyze some personality or books or historical event I may have some interest. But to analyze straight lines and the countless points and the weird-looking curves you need the best patience. I can never understand why there are so many lunatics would devout their whole life toying around these figures symbols with such excitements. I particularly hate the fact that they dump all the results from their own games into all these big books and force our youngsters to study them in such a chore. What a tragedy! Look at these pretty girls and energetic boys, they should be doing something more lovely. Why do they have to abandon the best time of their life drudging towards career future country all these distant and abstract stuff? Oh, well, I actually can not think of anything more lovely at this moment. What is worse is that they will never even use what they are learning now when they get out. Knowledge such as this does not cash out for them. China needs businessman rather than a bunch of geeks who can do mathematical analysis.
It was a mistake for me to end up in this department. I had no idea what major I should pick back in high school. When you study ten hours a day and can never finish the exercises the teachers keep pouring to you, you lose the appetite to life. After the college entrance exam I followed everyone else and put International Business as my first choice in the college application form. I overestimated my score on the exam and did not get a chance to enter the Business Department. Suddenly no one wants to study science anymore and everyone wants to be an international businessman…I became the victim of the capitalistic frenzy and had to be re-allocated to a major few people wanted to go.
I stand at the rear entrance of the classroom and sneak into the room when the professor is turning his back to the crowd. Nobody seems to be bothered by my act. If some girl were thinking that I overslept I would buy her ice cream.
Our professor, a sixty-something nerdy-looking small man, turns back and faces the classroom with some unasserted caution – a typical manner our movies like to use whenever a so-called intellectual comes out to the scene. I can imagine what he can see: Four or five girls are sitting in the front and copying the note diligently – these girls always copy everything the professor has written down on the board as if the note could be such a treasure, but it is always them who are the most disappointed ones after the exams. There are a few boys sitting in the back, chatting or making faces at each other. The majority, scattered around the classroom, pose quietly in their chairs in all styles as if they are all concentrating on the class. But you have to study their eyes carefully before you can figure out where exactly their attentions are. The most lovely ones are those who are dozing off. They heads are about to fall down like some ripe wheat.
I won’t know what our professor thinks about us. The muscles at his face do not contort to any other shapes except for the moment when he speaks. You can not read anything from his face, and he won’t make you nervous at all. Even when the whole class seems to be plunged into some collective hypnotic state, he won’t be bothered and still continues to disperse his confusing but highly effective sleeping pills. I feel sorry for him. Many times I am almost driven crazy by the boredom but I still try to resist the temptation of chatting with my neighbors. I hope he could have more temper…but more than often he only puts down the book and sighs when he notices that the class is not paying much attention to him. I once try to capture his eyes behind his thick glasses, but I simply find no anger at all.
There was once I went up to him and asked him for his notebook. On one of the pages I discovered two poetry lines. I could not quite remember the original words but they meant something like “never bend over in the poverty, hardship makes you resilient”. My second reflection system usually won’t react at all when I read these pretentious slogans but somehow reading them from our professor’s notebook upsets me. Not long ago our ‘student counselor’ mentioned our professor. “Sad!” He is Beijinese and speaks mandarin with lovely but hooligan-like accent, “What a bad life he had! He graduated from Princeton and came back right after the liberation and thought he caught the good time. He would never expect to become the people’s enemy in 1957 after he criticized some cadres in our department. He wasted most of his life in the countryside…by the time he got out he was too old to do research. This associate professorship is totally a title of mercy!” The counselor is not much older than us and considers himself as some genius trapped in the wrong place. He gives away way too much what he is not supposed to say.
“His many old friends stayed overseas and became prominent professors. Remember last week’s visiting professor?” The counselor likes to conclude his conversation with some deep thoughts, which may be used to guide our trivial and fragile life: “Be careful kids. One wrong step ruins the whole game.”
5
I open my books and decide to read the chapter taught in the class. Suddenly, I feel my back stabbed by some ball-pen head. I turn back and find ‘Turkey’ sitting behind.
“Do you know,” ‘Turkey loves to put on that elusive smile, “I found another pair of new lovers today.” Turkey seemed to be very proud of his new discovery. He is usually the origin of the gossips – whenever he has any new idea, it will be known to the whole class in one day.
“Who are they?” I pretend not to be too interested.
“Guess. I found them in the library.” Turkey’s usual strategy. Pull you out and hold you right there. I list a few names.
“No, no. What can’t you even think of them? Want some hint?”
“Please stop that. So boring. Just tell me.”
“The girl from your hometown…hehe…with the ‘Golden Boy’ of our dorm room.” Turkey is contented with his announcement and now becomes curious about my reaction.
“You mean, D and Sea Horse?”
“Yes.”
Strange. Unbelievable. Impossible. How come? Why could not I find any evidence before this? D….D….yes. D is the girl from the same town where I grew up but I did not get a chance to know her until we came to this same college. Maybe both of us identify with each other easily since our childhood environment establishes a common bond…but why didn’t she tell me? D and I are close (at least I tend to think so), and I thought this closeness is our privilege. Now someone is getting ahead of me. It sucks. D does not even belong to my department. How could she meet ‘Sea Horse”. Must because of me. Gees. I must be the connection between them and they goof around behind me.
Turkey is not able to observe the storm he has caused. “I have seen them sitting next to each other in the library. Last night they walk out together hand in hand showing enough affection to make me horny…”
These words are like some hydrogen bombs exploding in me. Yes, D probably is the only female I am close enough to the point that I am wondering whether I am falling in love with her. D is not that standard beauty everyone pursues. But she is smart, and her wit often amuses me. Although I am so much more of a bitter and sarcastic person, there is some unspoken connection between us. We love Erich Segal together, and we love Van Gogh too. Whenever I am bored, I find her and we go to ice-cream shop together. I think we are sort of like Oliver and Jenny, but there is a piece of thin paper between us I can never break. There are many times I thought about breaking through this but I hesitated…what is between D and me is a collaborative harmony. It may be precarious, but it is never obsessive and consuming. I am happy with what we have – to love someone means too much duty, but the companionship is what counts. Like flying a kite, I am keeping the distance and holding the string. This is my insidious plan.
D still has flied away. The dilemma is that you only realize its value when it goes away. I still can not admit the fact – if D can go away with anyone, it should not be Sea Horse! Sea Horse sleeps opposite to me in the dorm room and is the most distant roommate of mine. I can’t stand him just like he can’t stand me.
“Are you spreading rumor again? Watch out for your bloody mouth!” I am like a mad dog now and I bark to my own surprise.
‘Turkey’ was shocked by my reaction: “If you don’t believe me, go to the library and see it yourself. Why are you so nervous? Are you jealous? Hey, good horse does not eat the grass in front of him.”
I turn back and give him no more answers. Turkey knows when is the right time to throw the stone in the well. I stare at the formula-filled blackboard, and it is like some incomprehensible scroll from Tibet.
6
The bell finally rings and declares the end of the class. I walk out by myself and decide to be alone for a while. The sunshine is so bright that I have to close my eyes for a second to adjust to the light. Laughers, shouts, ringing of the bicycles, the roaring of the mixer from a nearby construction ground, all kinds of noise surround me and make me dizzy. I walk along the shaded road and see the national flag fluttering in the sky a baby sleeping soundly in the baby cart mower lying lazy on the grass. I see the library and I know that is my destination.
It has taken me a while to find a seat. Our library is always full no matter how many students actually stay in the dorm rooms and goof around playing cards or Mahjong. When you see all these hardworking kids in the library you will be quite optimistic about our country’s future. But, according to Turkey who is the expert in the cruising scene, library is also the best place to get a date…how come I have never had any luck? I usually look for seats next to potential targets but these targets are well shielded in their armors that I barely have any chance to start even eye contact. Chinese modernization should have first started from the modernization of college women.
I open my textbook and face the pages of Greek letters, English letters and Arabian letters. They all tumble and piece together D’s name. Suddenly the bell is tolling from our library tower. The sound creates such a stir that I lift up my head and watch outside the window…
….
The illusory rainy night. Pale street light. Ghostly tree shadows. D stands in the darkness when raindrops are dripping from her face. Her eyes are glimmering.
“Too late,” She lower her head with half of her face covered by her dark long hair, “Why don’t you tell me earlier, why?”
I stare at her through the rain and my own tears: “Tell me, I still have the chance!”
“No!” Her melancholy eyes are denying the last hope of mine, “What has been lost never comes back!”
….
“Sorry, I think this seat has already been taken.” My soap-opera-like daydream is interrupted by this fat boy who talks to me as if I am a wimpy nerd.
“Are you sure?” I am trying to repress the fury rising from the bottom of my temperament. “I thought it was free when I came here.”
“Please check out the bag right in front of you.”
Now I see the bag. Strange. I did not even see it at all when I first came in. I decide to leave. It would be a few seconds before a fight breaks up under this tension. The fat boy sits down at my seat when the chair squeaks to protest his unusual weight. I suddenly regret on my courtesy. Why should I put up with all these ass-holes?
I walk between bookshelves and find some peace I need at this moment. I hate to study but I love to read. From Chinese Warriors to Picasso to Kafka. I grab any book and read it with just enough digestion to engage in any pseudo-intellectual conversations popular in our current campus life. I have found a poem and liked it immediately:
You ride your bike
Suddenly you see the truck coming
Towards you
You immediately realize
This is inevitable
You are not panic at all
You even want to
Give it a smile
You do not want to
Hide yourself like this
Anymore
Cool. I lift up my head and imagine that big truck and open my month slightly and smile to the air. A girl in long-skirt is walking over and frowning on my doltish behavior. I am even more agitated and decide to give another version to the same poem:
You ride your bike
Suddenly you see the girl coming
Towards you
You immediately realize
This is inevitable
You are not panic at all
You even want to
Give her a smile
You do not want to
Live alone like this
Anymore
How sentimental! D would never know what a romantic person I’m. That’s all her loss. Before I can finish my ego-boosting self-indulging daydream, I spot D, and Sea Horse. I sneak behind the shelf near them and spy them through the chasm between the rows of books. Damn. They look so matched. I am jealous. Really jealous! Sea Horse is half a head taller than I am. He is that clean-cut well-dressed urban kid everyone adores. What am I? I may be able to entertain people with my special tricks but how charming that is. My pathetic self-esteem has completely collapsed under the glorified new cosmopolitism.
D is leaning her head and talking to Sea Horse, with a quite pleasant smile that is so characteristic of her. Her dark hairs, her eyes, her pale skin, are soaked with a tender and soft flavor. My Lord. Woman in love! Why do I suddenly discover her until today? Or maybe she never displayed such a manner to me.
They turn back and walk in the direction of me. I step back and hide myself one shelf behind.
“I have been looking for Irving Stone’s books. Have you read anything written by him?” It is D’s voice.
“No. Who is he anyway?” Sea Horse reminds me of this Chinese idiom ‘play the Qing to the cows’.
“He is an American biographer who just passed away a few years ago. Take a look of ‘Thirst for Love’. It is such a powerful book.” D is obviously selling what I have taught her.
“Sure!” Sea Horse sounds like a puppet dog. “Anyway, want to go to dim sum tomorrow morning? My treat.”
“Don’t spend that money. I am not too comfortable with that.” D is good at saying this.
“C’mon. No big deal. By the way, what is your blood type?”
“Type A.”
“Hm…let me look it up…”
“What are you reading?”
“Blood Type and Personality. A book written by some Japanese. But I do not even know my blood type.”
“You? Better be O. You can at least give blood to me when I need it.” I almost want to throw up.
…
D and Sea Horse walk away and leave me in the despondence. D is some alien woman from an outer space and I do not think I know her any more. I am wondering whether my depression comes from a loss of the opportunity or the out-of-place feeling I have been constantly fighting with. I am out of D’s life, and I am that small worm crawling in the mud waiting to be stepped on. Story of my life…what story is this?
7
When I get back to my dorm room it is near the noon. Donkey is sitting at his desk and snapping a big piece of bone he got from the cafeteria. ‘Peacock’ looks at himself in the mirror a hundred times and combs his hair fifty times a day, but when he sees the bones he becomes a starving dog.
I put down my backpack and take a glimpse of Kangaroo’s bed. He has not come back yet. There are two pieces of motto on his wall written in that Zen-styled calligraphy. One says ‘Resilience Leads to Security”, the other one says ‘Peace and Tranquillity’. I can never understand these stupid mottoes and how effective they can be to guide our arbitrary life. When we were younger we always had to write essays with titles such as ‘Someone’s words have inspired me’ or ‘My favorite motto’, as if we were some growing sprouts that absorbed all the good nutrition from the soil of mottoes. It is the end of eighties but Kangaroo still sticks to these old traditions so that he can be disciplined and well tamed. I won’t say he is conservative since that word is only used in our daily vocabulary in contrast with ‘reformative’ (The word ‘liberal’ has not been coined up yet). I would rather put on some pictures of sexy film stars – not for the sexual fantasy since we have already fantasized enough from our late night chatting in the dorm room. I simply want to be conventional.
Then inevitably I see the poster of this male singer Allen Liu on the wall near the bed of Sea Horse. I never understand why he puts this guy there since it is not so popular to have male singer’s poster at a man’s dorm room. Maybe Sea Horse looks like him. The hair style, the feature – manly feature. He probably sees himself in Allen Liu’s perfect pose and style that he is trying his best to copy him. Sea Horse has a great sense for fashion and knows exactly what is popular in our relatively progressive city. Although yuppies are still emerging as some privileged minority in our low-income society, Sea Horse is undoubtedly marching towards a class he firmly believes in, a class everyone looks up to. Yes, this sickens me. Sea Horse as the richest kid in our dorm room declares his twenty-first century manifesto and irritates me to the greatest extent. Although I believe in the free-spirited modern being unleashed from any dogmatic and commercial social norms, Sea Horse shows me that he is the one who can excel, who possesses the real key to success and status and represents the image of our new era.
I find the lunch tickets and walk out of the dorm and head towards the cafeteria. I bury myself in the crowd and fight my way to cut in the front. Everyone is rude and annoys me, and I am taking my revenge against the mass. Our university is forever in the budget cut and over-crowded state, and the food sucks so much that sometimes I wonder how dare they keep saying we are the flowers of the motherland. If they are scared of street protests the least they can do is to make the food better so that we are all fed well and then we won’t complain anything. Everyone says campus life is the best part of his life. OK. I agree if we compare that with the high school life. But at least when we were in the high school our parents pampered us so well in order for us to acquire enough energy to toil for the college entrance exam.
8
I come back to the dorm room and find Turkey is eating at my desk. He has no eating manner and when he talks and eats at the same time he spits over everywhere.
“Man, the beef is now seventy-five cents and one egg costs fifty-cents. But our financial aid never keeps up with the inflation. How can we live on like this?”
Nobody responds to his whining. Donkey is combing his hair, Kangaroo is reading a book in his bed, and Sea Horse is listening to his Walkman through his headset. I yell at him: “Get away from desk. Don’t try to ‘destroy the union and peace’.”
Turkey does not move. Instead he says: “ We should put up the ‘DA ZI BAO’ to the cafeteria. May be that will help lower the price.”
“This will never work. Remember the criticisms have to be channeled through our party organization.”
“I am not scared at all.” He finishes his words and suddenly jumps to the top of my desk. His maniac but spontaneous behavior usually enlightens our boring life although the content of his politically incorrect drama is usually not suitable to our country’s current situation (Guo Qing).
“I was at the street side and found a penny. I turned it to the police uncle…” He taps at his lunch box and sings the lines and jumps between the desks. ‘The uncle took the money and bought a bag of cookies. I asked for one piece but he pretends he does not know me…”
We all laugh. He kneels down on one of the desks as if he is Hamlet on the stage. His tragic tone is perfect to conclude his performance: “Nothing matters here except for the money.”
We all clap our hands. Turkey solutes to us and then jumps down to the floor. I take a brief glance at Sea Horse and say: “At least chicks go for money these days.”
Turkey does not seem to be paying attention to what I have just said. He simply turns back to Sea Horse and appears rather goofy: “Hey, man. You seem to be in a good mood today. Any love encounters?”
I am waiting for Sea Horse’s reaction although I pretend not to be listening at all. Sea Horse smiles politely and stalls Turkey off: “Where do I get that much luck? Don’t put the forks on me.”
“Anyway,” Turkey suddenly winks at me and walks to my bed: “Some people are always luckier than the others. Monkey, we have not seen D for a while. How is she lately? Why don’t you ask her to hang around us more often?”
I quickly get the prank Turkey is trying to play. “D? How would I know what has been going on with her? She is in not even that cute and I doubt she is worth of you guys. Can’t you find some better girls to talk about?” I notice that the Sea Horse’s face is turning into the cloudy sky just before a thunderstorm.
“I thought she was kind of cute in the beginning. But there is one type of girls, you know, it is like an abstract painting. It looks fine from the distance but when you get close it is a mess.” There can’t be any better partner than Turkey for our duet.
“That’s why she got dumped so quickly. But she still acts so inaccessible…maybe she needs to get fucked more….” There is such a deviant pleasure in my tone that even surprises myself.
“Shut up, guys!” Sea Horse can not stay quiet anymore. He is furious. He jumps out of his bed and comes over to me: “How can you say this to D? D thought you were her friend, don’t you know that? You must apologize for her.”
“Who are you? This is none of your business. I can talk about whoever in whatever way I want!”
“Oh, really?” Sea Horse must have loved this great opportunity to play the good guy, “But you can’t do this in front of me, dude. I am D’s boyfriend.” There is such contempt in his tone that makes me cringe. I am definitely at the worst position to defend myself. My pride is burning to ashes. Boyfriend…he claims his right in such a victorious way as if I am the laughable clown, the worthless villain. The humiliation is making me shiver and I immediately yell out: “Who do you think you are? You think you can get everyone you want? Fuck you!”
Sea Horse is still exhibiting his smile and good manner. He looks at me and says: “I like D, D likes me, it is that simple.”
Everyone in the room applauds together along with a long whistle made by Turkey. I hold my hand, lift up my head, clench my teeth, and throw my fist to Sea Horse’s belly…
9
I can no longer remember what has happened afterwards. We have been wrestling for quite awhile. Our roommates were enjoying a free boxer game and did not bother to interfere with us until the desks and chairs and mosquito nets all messed together.
The room is unusually quiet. Everyone is lying in bed either taking a nap or pretending to take a nap. I have a headache from the stormy emotions that just swept through me and left me in rumbles. I close my eyes and feel the heartbeat…panic, regret, relief…I can not tell how exactly I am feeling. Once again D confuses me. Why could I use the most vicious words to vilify her and even feel certain type of ecstasy for doing that? Love can lead to hatred, but I do not think I hate her at all. I don’t even hate Sea Horse. Maybe it is because I get the worst part of the game and the unfairness overwhelms me. Left out…I am left out and laughed at and my self-esteem is in damn crisis.
I suddenly have a strong urge to see D. I need to see her right now since I need her to assure something between her and me, or maybe just about me. Do I love her? I doubt it…I do not even seem to have that strong desire to fantasize her in any sexual way. But I need to hear her voice, see her face, smell her or even hold her, as if that pacifies me, makes me feel I am a complete person, a romantic person. Women possess that power that drags me out of the state of self-loathing and puts me in peace.
I get up. It is nearly one o’clock in the afternoon and those girls must be taking the noon nap by now. But my urge to see D has grown compulsive enough even though I do not know what we can talk about. I jump out my bed and walk out of my dorm.
The strong sunshine hurts my eyes. The golden light of the morning disappears completely, summer crickets are screaming loudly from the willow trees surrounding the campus. There are dust in the air, and some burning smell from the melting road.
First floor, second floor, I am approaching D and getting nervous. Knock. Slightly-opened door. Cautious eyes. I recognize D’s roommate but she appears as if she does not know me at all. “Who are you looking for?”
“D.”
“She will be out shortly.” She turns back and shuts the door as if she is a beauty of ice. Thank you, Madam. At least it is more visually comfortable to look at your back. I wait patiently in the outside. Going to woman’s dorm always requires patience. When they are finally ready to come out and face the public you won’t remember what you are going there for. The door reopens and D finally stands right in front of me. She looks bewildered.
I feel a little dizzy. My voice still trembles: “D, how are you?” I am like a first-grade schoolboy in front of an angry teacher.
“I am fine. What brought you here at this hour?” D always appears calm and retains her small-town grace.
“Well…” Courage. I need more courage, “I need to talk to you.”
She frowns and appears a bit edgy: “Can we talk later today? I am just about to take a nap and get ready for the afternoon.”
“There are things I want to tell you for a long time,” I falters, “But I never get a chance. If I do not tell you now, I probably will never tell you.”
D is surprised, but she manages to hide it. She says: “OK. I happen to have no classes this afternoon. We have not seen each other for a while. Wait, let me get my purse.” She goes back the room and reappears after a few minutes. She even managed to put some makeup on her face. “Let’s talk outside the campus, OK?” I nod and agree. What is she afraid of on campus? Gossips? Sea Horse? She is damn discrete.
10
We keep about 30cm distance and move along two parallel trajectories. D is keeping quiet and waiting for me to initiate the conversation.
“It is so hot today.”
“Yeah.”
“Your room is on the seventh floor and must be cooler.”
“Not really.”
“You know our room. It is packed up with six people. So hot at night.”
“…”
D does not respond to my last comment. I run out of things to say and feel terribly awkward. I pick up a heart-shaped leaf and crumble it in my palm. The leaf liquid dyes my finger green. D pulls out a pack of cleanix and pushes it to my hand: “You hand is dirty.”
I look at her. She avoids the eye contact and looks away. What a scene is this – I can not tell whether I am a character in a story or a person in the real life. “D…” I can not let this conversation to slip away like this, “Can we relax a bit?”
D smiles. “You look pretty weird today. And you said you wanted to tell me something…I do not know what all this is about. How do you want me to react?”
“Oh, well. I guess that’s just my trick to lure you out today. Hey, I have not seen you for a while.” I finally get myself together. D looks at me: “Monkey. You don’t need any trick to get me out. You know I always enjoy seeing you.”
“Oh, really? How so?” I am paralyzed.
“You know, I enjoy talking about everything with you…books, movies, old memories, stuff like that.”
“That’s it?”
“And, I do not like the guys in my Department. Guys studying literature are just bit too weird and pretentious…they talk big and think big. I find you science major guys a lot more down-to-earth and reliable.”
“Are you referring me or someone else?” My bitterness is obvious.
“I am making a statement based on my observations.”
“How many sample points have you got to come up with this statistics result?”
D laughs. “Can you stop this? Don’t talk in mathematical jargons with me. Sometimes I like your satire, but sometimes you overdo it.”
“I thought that satire was part of my wit.”
“Or ego-boosting anesthesia.”
That’s why I like D. You can hardly find any girl with her sense of humor. I hope she can confess a bit more about what has been going on between her and Sea Horse, but I do not know where to start with. D always has her way to shift the focus of the conversation to the other person. And she remains the one standing aside and giving the feedback. I do not think D is hard to read since she is not such an abrasive person-- her mystery lies in her frankness.
11
We are out of the campus and walking along the main street of the bustling city. Our city is euphoric in its continuous booming and expansion and you can never figure out where all these people in streets come from and how these high monsters spring up in such a short time. There are traffic jams everywhere even though it is only noon. I start my whining again.
“I am always upset when I walk around the streets in this city.”
“Why?”
“Look at these buildings. They are either crappy old houses that have not been renovated for years or the ugly concrete monsters who are competing with their heights. It is awful. I don’t know what Chinese architects are doing these days. And all these people, all these cheap-looking bulletin boards, all these noises, they drive me nuts.”
“I miss our town too…but what will you choose? Sleepy small town where nothing is happening or big city where there are more opportunities?”
“I do not know…Are you sure big city excites you? Everything is way too commercial these days. Everyone is rushing to make the money. I prefer somewhere quiet and remote, somewhere I do not need to be stressed out and feel left behind. Maybe I should find a temple and become a monk.”
“You don’t strike me as some solitary type. Maybe you should stay on campus. The ivory-tower fits you.”
“Ivory-tower? It shelters a bunch of hypocrites. Nobody wants to be scholar these days since you can barely survive with the money you make, and entrepreneur? I doubt there is a chance for me…my parents are school teachers and have no connection of whatsoever.”
“You don’t really always need connection to make yourself big. Just be practical and take one step at a time.”
“Yeah right…I will probably go back our town anyway. I don’t even know what kind of job I can get there…teaching high school or to be an accountant if I am luckier.”
“You can always give up the state job and join some private enterprise in this city if you are willing to give up the iron-bowl. You can always make better money this way.”
“My parents will be upset if I throw myself in that insecure position. Then there is the housing the city registry you have to worry about.”
“What really do you want to do?”
“Who knows? Maybe travel around the world?”
“After that?”
“Travel around the world for another time.”
“There is always an end to that traveling.”
“Then I’ll kill myself. ‘Dying young, and leave a beautiful body.’ Who says this?”
“You are kidding.”
“What else can I do? Get married, have one kid, stuck in a pigeon hole for years, bribe my boss, climb the ladder…I just can’t imagine all this. I know I’m asking for too much, but it is me and it is inevitable.”
“Face the reality, Monkey. You have to compromise with what you can get and make the most out of it. You can not predict your whole life!”
“But I am bored and I feel old.” I do not know why I sound so bitter. I am supposed to impress this woman but D has this ability to bring out the worst but the most authentic part of me. Maybe that is why I am attached to her.
“This is depressing.” D stops giving me more prescriptions. She proposes: “Let’s do something fun. Want to see a movie with me?”
“Are you sure? It is two o’clock in the afternoon.” My heart suddenly beats fast. I have never seen a movie with a girl in my life. I am surprised at her easiness of proposing this. Isn’t she dating Sea Horse now??
“Why not?” D does not seem to be bothered by my hesitation.
12
From the distance you can see the huge bulletin boards of the new films. “Night of Horrors” features a pair of bloody hands, and “Rocky” exaggerates Stallon’s cartoon-like macho body to a surrealistic style. To our luck the theatre is about to show Sofia Lauren’s “The last piece of golden color”. Golden – a color both D and I have loved.
The light fades away and the movie starts. For the first time I sit so close to D and her presence is so distracting that I do not know exactly what the movie is about. There is the fainting perfume smell around me. I take a deep breath. D seems to be concentrating on the screen, and I can see the light and shadow reflected on her face. There is a couple in front of us who are obviously showing enough intimacy to distract me. I take a furtive glance at D. She keeps herself straight in the seat as if there is a insurmountable wall between us.
A blind boy who does not know who his father is. A persistent single mother who is determined to have her son cured. The mother finds her old lovers and tells everyone that the boy is their son so that she can get the money for the operation. In the end the boy is cured and the single mother gets back to one of her old lovers.
A happy-do-lucky story that does not do much to me! But D sits so still for the entire time that she is completely ignoring me. When the movie ends, we walk out of the theatre and she still has not spoken a word to me. It is late afternoon already and the sunshine is turning golden. Suddenly she turns back to me:
“Isn’t Sofia great?”
“Yeah. So?”
“I like her character. Such strong emotion running behind but she hides it so well.”
“But I don’t get it. What does the color have to do with the plot?”
D seems to be searching for an answer for the same question that also bothers her. She finally says: “Maybe golden represents a strong will, a strong force of surviving. When the mother overcame all the difficulties motivated by her goal and will, she found her happiness.”
“Happiness of what? Love and child? How simple that is.” My cynicism knows the great timing,
D does not want to skip this opportunity to educate me: “Monkey, I think sometimes you are too cold-hearted. You live somewhere too high from the real life and laugh at everything around you. You won’t be happy this way.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be happy. A cheap happiness spoils my appetite. I need to brood to know I am alive.”
“Don’t tell me that. Sometimes happiness is just a quiet and safe harbor, or someone you really love.”
Her last sentence triggers my spark. I burst out in my sour words: “I see. Happiness such as spending quality time with Sea Horse in the library. Are you happy seeing a movie with me too?”
D is irritated. She stares at me and makes her claim: “Monkey, I thought we were good friends. Why do you put yourself between Sea Horse and me? Sea Horse and I are just getting to know more about each other. It is none of your business.”
“But why Sea Horse? He is so fake and plastic. I don’t see how you two match together.”
“How would you know? I do not think you understand him, or understand me.” D even uses the same sentence as Kangaroo did. I lift up my voice.
“Yes. I know. He is handsome, of course. Chicks all go for that. And he is rich too. And he is from this city. You can stay in this city easily if you follow him. Don’t fool me, D! I know why.”
“No!” She screams. She lifts up her head and her eyes are full of anger. Half of her face is covered by her dark hair. My God, my daydream?
“How can you accuse me like this? You have no right to insult me like this! Do you hear me?”
I do not know what else to say.
“Sea Horse is a nice guy. I feel happy and secure when I am with him. He is very sincere person.”
“Do you love him?” I ask.
“How would I know when we just start to go out?” She pulls her hair to her back and shows her eyes with a mixture of melancholy and anger, “I just don’t know. Love takes time.”
“Then you don’t love him.”
“As if you know what love is. Have you loved anyone? You even laugh at love.”
But D, I laugh at love is because I am not loved, and I can’t find the love I want, and I am incapable of loving anyone. How can I tell you all of this?
“If you talk about infatuation, I’m not infatuated with him. But how many times can you fall so quickly? I have been cheated and hurt before. I have learned to take things slowly…”
All the dreams become disillusion as one matures. I use my coolest tone and utter the following words: “You are being very practical with yourself.”
“Shut up.” D walks away from me, “I beg your pardon. I am very tired of this.”
What is left is silence. Burdened with our own thoughts and silence, the two of us follow the same parallel trajectories and move back to our campus,. It is traffic hour already and the streets are jammed with vehicles and bicycles and undisciplined passengers. The noises surround us and alienate us…who will notice us? Who will know this little drama between D and me? All these people who are toiling along the life are just like the comets that flash through the sky. They hardly leave any recognizable trails.
We finally reach the gate of her dormitory. She breaks the long silence: “Would you please not gossip about me and Sea Horse in your dorm?”
“No, I won’t.” I appear super cool; “You can trust me for that.”
“Thanks.” She smiles and turns back to her dorm. The smile is reluctant but still charming. I look at her back disappearing at the gate and then look up to her room. I see the blue window curtain blowing towards inside in the late afternoon breeze. The chrysanthemums at her balcony are blossoming. I realize I never loved D.
13
For the whole evening I was trying to avoid my roommates. After dinner I took a cold-water shower and went back to the library. I could only stand the place for half an hour before I sneaked out and languished in the garden. There were a few couples strolling around on the paved path or sitting in the benches. I secretly hope to bump into D and Sea Horse so that I can demonstrate my indifference to their affair. But then, I enjoyed the atmosphere and serenity…It is dark and there is hardly any moonlight. The sky is crystal-dark-blue and looks like an abyss with an infinite depth. The heat in this late September weather has been blown away by the breeze from the South China Sea. I walk between the plants and flowers and breathe the fragrance…relax, relax. I don’t need to think about faith, values, goals, destiny, etc. I am not enlightened no matter how deep I take my breath. How can I eliminate my desire when I even do not have a concrete desire? I certainly don’t desire D anymore after my own puppet show of the day. But why am I still thinking of her? Why am I thinking of her in such a nostalgic way as if she is something beautiful but forever gone?
I am fantasizing myself as the Homeric poet drifting among exotic places and singing of the great tragedy of the life, or searching for the tranquility and sentimentality in Zhu ZhiQing’s Moonlight on the Lotus Pond. There is something big and abstract that summons and haunts me, or at least I prefer to think so. But my transcending and uplifting experience lasts only five minutes before I feel a sudden pat on my shoulder from my back. I turn my head and find Turkey smiling in his goofy way. “Monkey, are you cruising here in the garden?”
“What are you talking about? I am just enjoying it while I am musing on the meaning of my life.”
“Yeah, right…I guess spying on these kissing-couples will make you feel life is quite promising.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I need a cigarette. By the way, I am just getting bored with my study. Do you know that Donkey is representing our department to compete for the speech contest? I am just thinking about stopping by and cheering for him.”
“What kind of speech contest is this?”
“I guess it is organized by the campus youth league. They do this every year. You know Donkey…he gets excited for any spotlight opportunity. Our political counselor must be really happy to have this type of volunteers. But, I have to say Donkey becomes so much more articulate when he gets on the stage.”
“No wonder he seems to be all excited this noon. Have you noticed the gel he puts on his hair? ”
“Give him some credits. Speech contest is always fun, and I heard the winner would get a hundred bucks. We should ask him to treat us if Donkey wins.”
“First, I doubt he can win. Second, he is so stingy. I am not going.”
“Come on. You can not study anymore tonight. Are you still brooding over D? Man, forget that chick. Let sea Horse have her. Tian Ya Wu Chu Wu Fang Chao (There are more flowers in the world)? Maybe I have some gals I can introduce to you. You like the liberal arts major ones, right? What about anthropology?”
“Don’t tease me. I am not desperate. You know I can not stand Sea Horse. These big city kids are so snotty.” I am dragging Turkey into my alliance since he is from small town too: “ They think they are superior to us. Can’t I have the right to be angry when my hometown girl pursues them?”
Turkey nods and says: “Pal, I understand you. But don’t let this bother you. I am sure there are girls out there eyeing on you. Hey, you may bump into some quality one in the speech contest.”
I agree to go with him, not because I want to meet some chicks. I suddenly feel I need more company after my solitary confinement. Male companionship has become a substitute if the sexual repression on this campus is too severe.
14
On the way to the restaurant, Donkey, Turkey and I spot Kangaroo and Pig from the distance. They call our names from the far and run over to us. Before we can say anything, Kangaroo rushes out the sentence while he is still panting: “Guys, you know what? Pig just got his visa to US!”
“Really? Congratulation!” We give Pig hugs and shove him around. Pig’s glasses almost fall down. Pig is a clean-cut nerd, with every attribute opposite to an actual pig. So, Pig will leave us soon and sail off. None of us seem to feel sad about this and Pig is still in his euphoric dumb state. His voice is trembling: “I have been nervous about this for a whole month. These days those American counselors have been very strict and they decline most of the applicants if you don’t have financial aides.”
“This is called Great-Power Chauvinism. We the second class-citizens from the developing countries are begging them to take us as if the American dream is the greatest thing in the world. How sad! ” Donkey must have felt left out of the center of attention or have not recovered from his earlier indulgence of making grand political statements. But this time it is his bogus patriotism that compensates for his own jealousy.
We all ignore him and focus on Pig. Turkey is proposing a night banquet to celebrate Pig’s good luck, and well, naturally it is Pig’s turn to take all of us out since it is such a good day for him. Pig looks at us and asks me: “Where is Sea Horse? Our whole household is here except for him.”
Turkey does not want to hide his sarcasm: “Sea Horse knows how to keep himself busy.” He winks as me, “He is probably having more fun now. Let’s spare him.”
We have already got excited enough for the night banquet not to care where Sea Horse is. In our collage life what can be more craved for than a luxury meal when cafeteria sucks so much and we happen to have the best appetites in our life? And, we Chinese certainly love the food and will not hesitate to splurge on the most enjoyable activity. The world is changing and the inflation is high. If most of us can’t afford to eat in restaurants, at least we can show off our greed bluntly and take advantage of other people’s good luck. Even though this is the preliminary stage of socialism, the desire for a more evenly-distributed fortune has taken a firm root in my generation.
We put our arms on each other’s shoulders and walk towards the rear entrance of our campus. Turkey is whistling some marching-band melody when we synchronize our steps with his rhythm. We definitely have attracted enough attention from the girls who pass by us after the night classes. They may think we are bunch of drunken idiots, but we have got quiet hyper just from that silly attention.
16
There are numerous small restaurants outside the rear entrance of the campus. They are mostly privately owned and only have kitchen booths. The table and chairs are scattered on the pedestrian area where people can sit near the street and enjoy the street scene. The business is always good at night when the students come out as groups and hunt for the last meal of the day. Yes, most of us are poor. But none of us is frugal on food when the first physiological need dominates our desire. Drinking is a popular way to demonstrate muscularity for guys and coolness for girls. It is the most rebellious thing we can do after we are unleashed from our dear parents. What are the other choices to vent our passion? Sex? Street protests? Forget them.
The glasses are all filled up by now. Donkey and Turkey ordered Er Guo Tou, I mixed the alcohol with the coke to make my own cocktail. Donkey and Kangaroo are sissy drinkers who can only venture far enough to beers. Turkey stands up with the glass in his hands and toasts: “Let’s toast for Pig. Let’s hope he becomes rich and finds a beautiful American wife.”
“Cheers!” We have made such a loud toast. Pig’s face has already turned red and his glasses are fogged from the steam of the hot pot right in front of him. “Eat, eat. Give me some face tonight and open your stomach for me. God knows when I can eat together with you guys like this again…”
Turkey never wants to stop talking even though he is still biting the pig ear he just ordered: “Pig. You are the smartest among us. After you get to US, don’t forget us when you become famous.”
Pig drops his glass and sighs: “Who knows what it is like in States? Everything is unknown and I am actually a bit scared.”
Donkey says: “What are you afraid of? I heard you could make at least six bucks an hour if you wait tables in Chinese restaurants. That’s sixty Ren Min Bi! You are at least better off than us…pretty soon you may even afford a house and a car. Gees, I can’t even dream of these things yet.” Where is his patriotism? Donkey does not keep himself consistent when he gets tipsy.
Kangaroo finally breaks his silence: “US has the most advanced technology in the world, and the school you are going is famous. I am sure your future is brighter than ours.”
“You never know, Kangaroo.” Pig shakes his head, “ China is changing fast and maybe there are more opportunities here.”
“As if…”I need to spill my cynicism again, “Not for those who have no connections and no backstage. I am planning to go back to my hometown and enjoy the beautiful mountains and rivers of our motherland. Maybe I am born to be a Confucian monk.”
Pig is obviously offended: “I believe it all depends on how much efforts you are investing for yourself.”
“I wish I could believe that shit. But can we really control our life? Haven’t we seen enough life ruined by other forces? This is China, man. I am learning to be happy wherever I am.”
Pig looks awkward and is just about to argue with me before Turkey interferes with us: “This is such a happy night…Come on, Monkey, can’t you stop preaching us? You are not as enlightened as what you sound. Anyway, Pig, don’t be too modest. You can beat all those foreign devils and bring us a Nobel…I see you are probably the only one among us who have some hope for that.”
“Can’t you guys stop flattering me and setting me up?” Pig is wiping his glasses, “I simply want to get out of this country and see what the world is like when I am still young…I don’t really care what I will turn into. Don’t expect me too much. ”
“Yes!” Turkey hammers the table and stands up to toast for another run, “Who cares about Nobel? We live because we want to be happy. Happiness is the utmost goal. Let’s drink, drink until we drop and feel happier.” He then takes the whole glass without a single breath.
After this run my head gets really heavy, but I am still sober enough to recognize Kangaroo’s red face. “Kangaroo, look at yourself in the mirror. You look like a Guan Gong.”
“If my face is red I won’t get drunk easily.”
“And then you will tell all your secrets in your dreams…do you know you talk a lot at night when you are in sleep?”
“Really?” Kangaroo is puzzled and plunged into a drunken introspective state. “Do I really talk loud in my dreams?”
“Absolutely, and you called some female names.” I am making up and hoping to bail something out of him.
“Don’t fool me, I don’t dream about girls I know.”
“Oh, yeah? So you dream about girls you do not know…isn’t that more exciting when you dream anonymous ones?”
Kangaroo’s face is turning redder: “You sound vulgar now.”
“Ha…” My tease can’t stop here, “What about D, the girl I brought to our room a few times? Do you think she is worth of your dream?”
“Monkey, I warn you. You are insulting your friend again, and you are insulting me. Do you want to make enemies with everyone today?”
“Oops, sorry.” Kangaroo can only take jokes that far, “I just want to know whether we dream same things at night…”
Before I can finish my sentence Turkey suddenly yell out in his prolonged tone as if he is a busboy in a restaurant: “Sea Horse and D! Welcome to our table.”
I look over and find those two standing there with perfect matching smiles. Turkey continues: “Now, everyone from our room is here. Let’s make this a true farewell banquet.”
17
D changed into the night outfit after she saw me. Black low-cut skirt, low-heel shoes, low-neck pullover plus the small necklace. I can even smell the different perfume she uses for the night. Standing next to Sea Horse, she appears lovely.
They sit together next to Pig and talk about Pig’s incoming trip to States. Sea Horse never even looks at me, and D has given me some occasional courtesy glimpses. I pretend to be cool, so cool that I am trying to find conversation with Donkey. But my ears are quite alert to D’s conversation with Pig.
She asks Pig what city he is going and tells him her elder sister is in the same city as he will be (how come I never heard of this?) And she appears quite knowledgeable on life in States even though she has never been there. She must have spent enough time to figure out all these…she must be fanatic on all the western culture. That is no surprise…When I see her earnest face when she talks about US with Pig, I am definitely taking more discount for her. Well, we once talk about Love Story together and I remember her envies on people who go to Harvard. Is this all she cares about?
We have ordered more dishes and emptied more bottles. D took some sips on Champaign, and Sea Horse has been attending her as if he is putting some happy-lover show. By now everyone of us (except for D and Sea Horse) have passed the tipsy stage and we are on the real journey to the happiness…D stands up with Sea Horse and nods to all of us: “We have to go now. You guys can continue with the drinks.” She uses ‘WE’, which sounds very piercing at this moment. She even looks at me for a bit too long than necessary.
“Don’t go…”Pig’s words are all tangled together, “Drink more. After I am gone, we probably will never meet together like this anymore…”
D insists: “Sorry, Pig. Our dorm will be locked soon and I have to get back. Anyway, when are you leaving?”
“Next week.”
“That’s really soon. Sea Horse and I will definitely see you off.”
“See me off?” Pig is quite spacey now, “Why? I do not want anyone to see me off. I am all naked alone and have nothing to worry about….Who says that? Chao Xueqing?”
D says good bye as if she does not hear what Pig just said. They turn back and get ready to go. All of sudden I get enough guts, “Sea Horse!”
He turns to me, and I stare at him and put on a mysterious and ambivalent smile I can possibly imagine: “You are a good man. I apologize for what happened in noon. And, take care of D too.”
Sea Horse must be bewildered by my good behavior or he could have believed that I was actually making fun of him. But he conceals his mood quite successfully. “Well, thanks. Good luck for you too.”
With my final statement I would rather think I have closed my D chapter and smoothed out things with Sea Horse. I keep on drinking and feel dizzier and dizzier. The images around me start to blur and all the sounds feel like whirl of winds. Am I really drunk? I am shaking my head and trying to justify my soberness. Someone has proposed singing, and Turkey is always the natural leader in the entertainment business.
I keep asking you
When you are coming with me
But you always laugh at me
Since I have nothing…
“I have nothing…” We start the shameless, coarse, super-macho but sad chorus.
We applaud for ourselves. After “I have nothing” we have sung a couple of other songs…songs from Red Sorghum. Our bathroom singers finally have a chance to sing together in public. Our voices echo through the night sky, mix with the traffic, the baby cries from the high-rises and the curses from the other tables. It creates an eerie sound effect. My eyes are full of tears, tears of happiness and sadness. Kangaroo is stilling drinking. I snatch his bottle over and laugh at him: “Wow, I thought you would never drink like this, Mr. Proper.”
Kangaroo does not pick up my sourness and grabs another bottle from the table: “Proper? You don’t know me, pal….Would you bother to know me?”
He is shivering and singing again:
Give me the space
Where no one ever walks through
I want to feel my own wound
I need my old self
I can’t tell whether he is singing or crying now. He is sobbing and making a scene: “I am fucking tired of all of you.” He turns to Pig, “Pig, you are the lucky one. Are you flying away next week? Man, I never even took a plane in my life…I want to get out of here too.” He opens his arms and flaps them as if he is a bird, “I always want to fly away…when my Dad died I was ten I wanted to fly away from my home. Now I want to fly away from this campus, from this city...I hate this city. I hate all of you. I know you despise me but I despise you all.”
We are all shocked to see Kangaroo act like this. I want to take the bottle off his hands but I can barely move my own hands.
Kangaroo starts to pick on me: “Monkey, I know D ditched you…right? You deserve it. I think you are the biggest coward yourself since you do not even know how to deal with your own shit. Who else do you want to make fun of? Don’t ever use me as some punch bag as if I have no temper. ” He then turns to Donkey: “You are disgusting too. Can you stop putting on the Cologne in the morning? It makes me faint!” Now it is Turkey’s turn: “Don’t think I am always nice…if you don’t shut up your vicious mouth I will let you know who can be more vicious here.”
Kangaroo’s hatred confession has left us in total silence. We are watching him as if we are watching an execution, or crucifixion of a saint.
“Now, do you hate me more now? Why don’t you beat me now? Please, please…”Kangaroo’s sobbing is turning into big wailing. He kneels down and crawls on the ground. Turkey looks around and says: “Guys, do something. He is a mess now.”
None of us moves. Pig is staring at the beer bottle in front of him in some deep meditative pose. Donkey is looking into the sky and spitting out smoke rings to the air. I am not sure where I am now…my mind is falling apart, and I feel I am falling down in the air…
