Chapter Thirty-Six

Below Lil’s balcony, the basketball courts glisten with the day’s third rain. I’ve spent this entire Sunday in Lil’s bathrobe, sitting unshaven at the American Teacher’s Computer, a pilled acrylic blanket wrapped around my legs. In early March, we have back-tracked to midwinter.

“It wasn’t our time yet.” That’s what Tree said about the Three-three-three.

I told her that was my feeling, too.

“I tried to find your energy,” she told me yesterday over Korean barbeque, “but I hit a firewall. I saw you surrounded by—I don’t know what it was. Almost like an electrified fence. I never did find you.”

“Mmm,” I replied. It was something to say.

“We were met,” said Tree. “Every time you attempt to do something powerful, you are met by the Opponent, and we were met. Don’t worry about it. Another day’s coming, and we’ll be ready. Four-four-four, Five-five-five, whenever it is.”

I told her that was my feeling, too.

If not for the rain, I’d have run a load of laundry through Lil’s refrigerator/clothes-washer this morning. The first and only time I’ve felt practically Chinese was when I hung my first load of wash on the balcony. There are metal pipes along the ceiling over which you hook your clothes-hangers with the aid of this odd broomstick-looking thing. My above-dumpster flat has one, too. I asked Bellamy what it was for. He could’ve really sent me up. Ah, this Chinese rectum device. Wow. Really?

These people hang their wash everywhere—trees, street signs, fences. Stand still long enough, and they’ll hang it on you. But they’re at their best decorating balconies. On a windy day, you can go through the bushes beneath the tenements and find anything you want. Never have to buy clothes in this country.

Hong Kong just passed an ordinance against attaching aluminum clotheslines to your windowsill. You buy them at the supermarket. They unfold and unfold till you say wow I can hang everything I own on this thing. Problem is, wet clothes are heavy, so, with the aid of a gust of wind, they tend to break away and start laundry avalanches that can take out a city block. Here’s poor Chen Chan Chang walking along the lu, evening paper beneath his arm, and—what’s that curious sound? Chen’s final worldly act is to look up into the maw of fifty-seven floors of poly-cotton. All of which is a way of not saying what’s really on my mind.

Ana called to say she’s tired, so let’s not do anything tonight after all. For this I’ve waited four days. She wouldn’t even book our next date. I’ll call you, she said.

I’d really like to check another book out of the library.

My hand goes to my throat where the moldavite pendant should be. I guess somewhere between the fracas on the turquoise sofa and the fray on the satiny bed, it came off my neck. I’ll do well to get that little green stone back before Tree finds out. Anyway you measure a good sexual experience by how long it takes to find everything you’d been wearing. If it’s four days before you have both your shoes, you know you probably had a really swell time.

I wish I could stop thinking about just how swell. That blue/green-eyed woman has got me so tore open that I keep checking to see if I still have my entire transverse colon. It’s probably all this newly discovered emotional availability that’s got me spooked. Whatever, there’s not one hell of a lot I can do about it except wait until Ana Manguella decides to pick up the phone. Four-four-four, Five-five-five, whenever.

Tree won’t admit it, but she’s really shook about the Three-three-three. Girl had her head loaded all wrong. Absolutely nothing happened on March third, and now she’s saying she can’t trust her intuition. Hell, I knew that all along. “I feel the need for a serious retreat,” she said as we finished the last of yesterday’s barbeque. “I need to get out of my apartment, out of this city, just get out of my head for a while. I’ve asked my school for two weeks off, and I think they’re going to give it to me.”

“And go where?” I asked.

She smiled dimly. “Mr. Xu has been telling me about China’s seven sacred mountains. I’m reading about them online. Any one of them would be great. What I’d really like to do is make a pilgrimage to all seven.”

You might want to stick with one, Tree. Pilgrims walk up China’s sacred mountains.

Meanwhile I needn’t expect any fresh pages from Truman/whomever. Tree is burning them as fast as they come.

“I can’t trust anything I’m getting anymore,” said Tree. “I’ve gotten off-track somehow.”

“Tree,” I said, “I think you can, like, really trust these pages.”

I’m, like, really starting to talk like Itsy.

Tree shook her head. “I took a close look at the last page that came through. I sat down and traced the handwriting with my finger and let that guide me back to the mind that created it and—Julian, that novel is not from who we thought.”

I blinked, waiting.

“I followed that handwriting back to an old friend of ours.”

“What’s so bad about an old friend?” I said. “I’ve never been all that attached to Truman, if you really—”

She shook her head again. “This is an old friend I was really hoping not to see again anytime soon, least of all now.”

“Could have been something you ate,” I suggested.

“I burned the page,” said Tree, “and I burned the two that came after it. If another one comes tonight, I’ll burn that, too.”

“You’re burning my Pulitzer,” I informed her calmly.

“Jules. If you have a Pulitzer in you, it will come out. You do not have to bring it in from some other galaxy, and I will not jeopardize our work for the sake of your vanity.”

Girl’s right. She has gotten off-track. I’m not sure all seven sacred mountains will do it. Then again, that last page from Truman was a bit odd. Maybe he’s finally figured out how to order martinis up there.

My hand keeps going to my throat. I never realized how much I’ve depended on that ugly interstellar road-kill for… whatever I’m depending on it for. My abiding sense of the absurd, I suppose. Isn’t much of a neck-warmer.

Here on Lil’s computer is an article that says Operation Iraqi Freedom has already cost us twenty-five million gallons of jet fuel and sixty-five million gallons of gasoline. All I can say is, if we didn’t go over there to grab their oil, we might begin to give it some little thought. Otherwise it may be necessary to borrow a gallon-can to get back home.

China’s operation against the deadly SARS virus, meanwhile, is going as one might reasonably expect. Rumors have people dropping like flies on city streets, especially here in Guangdong Province where the disease first emerged. The Chinese government is still completely mum despite growing protests from the World Health Organization. Here at Shenzhen High School of Electronic Excellence, they’re swabbing everything in sight. All day Friday, there was a huge cauldron of black medicinal tea simmering in the courtyard, beside it a ladle and a stack of nested cellophane cups. I even saw a bar of soap in one of the boys’ restrooms. Next thing you know, they’ll have toilet paper.

I also found a couple of articles about ma huang this morning. Seems it’s very, very, very bad for you, and what isn’t that’s even remotely enjoyable? The article calls it ephedra, labels it “herbal speed,” and cautions chubby Americans not to get strung out on the stuff or they may find their knees speaking to each other in Brazilian Portuguese. A word to the wise is sufficient.

The rest of us will require a little more information.

Lil paid me a visit last night. I was lucid dreaming that I was sitting atop the pyramid in downtown Memphis—it’s not as sharp as you might imagine—when Lil appeared mid-air with angel wings. She was wearing all white. “You totally blew the Three-three-three,” she said.

“I really like the little harp,” I replied. “Do you take requests at all?”

“Do you have any fucking idea,” said Lil, fluttering furiously, “of the enormity of what you have just undone?”

“Tree says it wasn’t our time.”

“It wasn’t our time because you were too busy getting your brains fucked out by that woman. Who is she anyway?”

“Taller than Adrian, for one thing,” I replied. “Beyond that, she’s none of your business.”

“Does she know about our work?” demanded Lil. “She does, doesn’t she?”

“What work, Lillian? Nothing happened on the Three-three-three.”

“And why was that, Julian? I’d really like to know. I’d also like to hear how you intend to make up for this.”

“I’ve had enough of your abuse. I’m waking up.”

“Don’t you dare. How else am I supposed to talk to you? You never meet me in the glow anymore.”

I adjusted my posture. The point of the pyramid was a little sharp.

Fluttering a little closer, Lil said, “Tell me if this sounds the least bit strange to you. A beautiful young woman suddenly appears in your life and throws herself at your dick—”

“It was more of a soft lob.”

“—just before the Three-three-three.”

“That was a coincidence.”

“Right,” said Lillian. “I suppose it was also a coincidence that she snatched your moldavite?”

My hand went to my throat. “It fell off.”

“And now that we’ve missed the Three-three-three, she’s suddenly dropping you.”

My voice became a growl. “You have never been able to deal with my relationships.”

“That woman is working for the other fucking side, Julian.”

“It’s been so nice talking to you, dearest.”

“You get that moldavite back. You hear me?”

“I’m waking up.”

Lil fluttered to within an inch of my nose. “Do, Julian. Do wake up. That would be really swell for Tree and me because we’re just a little bit tired of cleaning up behind you.”

A burst of sunlight knifes though the gap in Lillian’s curtains. I think the rain has stopped again. I don’t know what this spell of damp weather is about, but I can tell you it plays hell with knitting bones. There’s an outbreak of black mold on the ceiling of the American Teacher’s Bathroom that’s threatening to make SARS look like a fingernail fungus. Thought you’d want to know. At least my menacing little red mushrooms are regenerating. They’ve grown two inches the past two days. Meanwhile I’m covering the top of the aquarium with a grill of hardware cloth topped by a sauce pan. Rodent extrusion device.

Unable to bear this chair a moment longer, I rise and the acrylic blanket pools at my ankles, causing electric sparks all about the groin area. I needed that. Stepping around the American Teacher’s Mattress, I throw open the door to the balcony and gaze out at the fracturing cloud cover.

Marilyn caught me yesterday weaving in the general direction of Studebaker Supermarket. It was a straightforward conversation as I reconstruct it. Nothing at all about armpit sex or German-made number-two pencils—I’ve found a stationer in Hong Kong who carries them. Afterward I walked away with the troubling realization that I’d just agreed to have dinner with Marilyn tomorrow night in Shikou. Whatever. She’s paying.

The sky does seem to be clearing a bit. I decide to leave the balcony door open to gather a bit of cheer. Taking a deep breath, I head for the bathroom to duck beneath the black mold and pee in the general vicinity of the toilet. It’s the intention that counts.

Lil has always maintained that I should have a housekeeper, but I’ve never quite seen the advantage in paying a stranger to wander through my apartment with a vacant stare and a squirt-bottle of chlorine. Lil’s maid is a Honduran immigrant with multiple personality disorder. Her name is Rosita. And Lupe. And Maria Luisa. I tried her at my place for one week, at Lil’s insistence. But on Friday all three wanted to be paid.

I use my left foot to flush the toilet. Returning to the front room, I’m surprised to discover that the balcony door I left open is now closed. Even more surprising is the presence of a petite amber-hued human kneeling on the mattress. She is facing away, her blue trousers and pink panties down around her ankles and her face buried in the covers.

“Rui Long,” I say. “So nice to see you.”

“Come fuck my crack,” she says.

I sigh. “Exactly how many people saw you walk into this apartment?”

“Nobody noticed,” Rui Long’s voice replies. “Anyway, it’s done. You might as well get the good out of it.” A small hand appears between the two thighs, palm up, fingers imploring.

A jolt of greed shoots through me. I can’t quite pull my eyes away from those honeyed little hams. Rui Long hikes her hiney a little higher, and the perfect dot at its center beckons. Someone has been reading my fantasies.

Or. Maybe she’s been reading the letter of the law. Didn’t this sweet child recently offer to obtain the services of an attorney? And might this little conjugal visit be, in fact, a forensic-evidence-gathering foray? Helpless schoolgirl sodomized on school grounds by substitute teacher. Actually I kind of like the ring of it.

“Pull your pants up, Rui Long,” I say, despite the ring of it. “I’m not buying. And just for the record, I require a little more foreplay than this.”

The young woman spins around, and her long hair flies. “What? You’re turning this down?”

I’m reconsidering, in point of fact. But Rui Long is now on her feet, kicking her trousers and panties into my face. Now she’s throwing Lillian’s smiley-face mug at my head, and I’m doing my best to duck.

“Uh… ?” I say.

Rui Long lifts a ceramic ashtray but before she can hurl it, her face closes in a tight grimace. The ashtray slips from her fingers onto the mattress, where Rui Long now falls to her knees. Lifting her face to the ceiling, she begins to howl like an adolescent Norwegian elkhound.

“Noo-ooOOOoo-body wants me,” she cries.

“Uh… ?” I say.

“My life is over,” howls Rui Long. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life cleaning ashtrays at the Chinese phone company. I’ll never find anyone who loves me.”

Rui Long crawls forward to hug my ankles. “Doo, you’re the only person I can talk to. Please, please don’t send me away.”

“Uh… ?” I say, as a wet little face burrows into the opening of Lil’s bathrobe. “Rui Lon-NNNNN-nng?”

By the time I’m able to pull away, her blouse is unbuttoned. She shakes free of it. “We can run away together,” she says.

“You’re completely insane,” I tell the slightly outturned right breast.

“We’ll start a new life,” she pants. “No one can stop us.”

With this, Rui Long spins around, jacking her ass again. “I’ll give you anything you want.”

“Jesus,” I say miserably. We’re getting really close to enough foreplay now. Unable to resist the itsy golden body an instant longer, I turn and flee into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. “Rui Long?” I shout through the door, glancing uneasily at the killer black mold above my head. “You have to leave. Do you hear me?”

Silence.

“Rui Long?”

More silence. I’m just about to place my ear against the door to listen when I hear a throaty scream that approximates the distress call of a wounded civet cat. The blade of my newly purchased hatchet crashes through the hollow wooden door and stops an inch from my face. I fall backward over the toilet seat and land with my feet in the air.

“Rui Long?”

After three yanks, the hatchet comes free and a dark eye appears in the ragged hole. “Herrrre’s Itsy.”

A moment later I hear a dull thud against the door followed by a loud clatter on the kitchen floor. “Oww-ww,” sobs Rui Long.

“Doo? Are you okay?” I ask, trying to rise from the floor.

I hear breaking glass followed by more breaking glass. Rui Long is smashing everything in the kitchen. I think that last crash was the gin bottle, nearly full.

“I can’t stan-nnHHHnnn-nd it any longer!” comes a shuddering cry.

I think I just heard the sound of a window sliding open. Struggling to my feet, I open the door just in time to see a naked bottom exiting the kitchen window. I lurch forward to grab Rui Long around the ankles, but she yanks free and kicks me squarely on the bridge of the nose. There’s a terrible cracking sound, and I slip in the puddle of gin.

“God in heaven,” I say to myself, seated on the floor holding my shattered nose. An instant later, I’m screaming and scrambling to my feet, as the shards of broken glass beneath me are soaked in alcohol. The moment I’m back on my feet, both my nostrils begin gushing blood.

“God in hea-ggggh-ven,” I say, leaning over the sink, blood bubbling from my nose. I catch sight, meanwhile, of Rui Long’s naked body standing on the narrow ledge.

“Rui Long-ggggh?” I say.

“I can’t stand it any longer,” she gasps, looking down terrified. The excitement is giving her a woody.

I hear the sound, four stories below, of a woman’s scream. The itsy schoolgirl was right. I should have gotten the good out of it.

“Don’t do it, Rui Long-ggggh,” I bubble. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of yo-ggggh.”

“With a dick,” she whimpers, “and a crack ho mama, and a daddy who hates me.”

More screams erupt. People in neighboring buildings are coming out onto their balconies and pointing.

“But you’re the new human,” I say, my eyes going to the chocolate Buddha at Rui Long’s feet.

“It’s too much,” she gasps. “I can’t deal with it.”

I’m still looking at the chocolate Buddha. “Actually, since you’re out there…”

Rui Long teeters for a moment. Panicking, she tries to right herself but overcompensates. The next thing I know, she has launched herself through the air, screaming as she executes a near perfect flip and crashes through the fiberglass roof of Madam Wu’s balcony below.

I stick my head out the window. Through the shattered fiberglass, I see that Rui Long has landed on her back on a deck lounger. The chocolate Buddha, spinning through the air, comes to rest seated on her belly, his silent laugh directed at her groin.

I think this may be a good day to give my two weeks’ notice.