Actually, Old Bull wasn’t one bit as menacing as I had thought—his ferocity was just a front. However, on the way to the parking lot, there were more than a few times I wished he were a little nastier. That’s because he really couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
He told me that according to Ahzhi, anyone who could be taken “to the garage” to crash for the night was all right, you know, like a buddy. If, on the other hand, you were to “take someone to the junkyard,” that meant that you were going to get rid of him. If you had to “take somebody to the shipping yard,” that meant he needed protection but wasn’t injured. Those who were injured were taken to Ma Jianren Hospital. At first they said that Ma Jianren was truly despicable. But his son, Little Horse, was really a good guy. Moreover, Ma Jianren’s surgical skill was so amazing that in the end everyone forgot just how despicable he was. Besides that, if Ahzhi said they were “going for a midnight snack,” it didn’t mean they were going for a bite to eat. Old Bull said he couldn’t tell me what it meant—if he opened his mouth, he’d end up getting a beating. He got his ass whipped twice; each time it only hurt a little, but the next day he was in so much pain that he couldn’t even move. Not only is Ahzhi vicious, Old Bull told me, but he knows a strange kind of martial arts, and besides that he often goes without eating or drinking. Moreover, he can even see ghosts. Once, while he was at the far end of a suspension bridge, he saw Old Bull’s elder sister. She told Ahzhi that when her family was transporting her body they forgot to tell her that they had to cross a bridge, and in the end it cost her two years of aimless wandering. Old Bull verified all of this. Then he told me that his sister used to study at a technical school, but one day she suddenly disappeared. When she was found, her body had been burned a smoldering black, just like a piece of leftover campfire wood. The police medical examiner said that before she died she had had the habit of using drugs. Old Bull asked, what fucking drugs were they talking about, his sister didn’t even drink Coca-Cola. Only later did Young River tell them that if the cops could prove she was a druggie, they would hardly be under any pressure when dealing with the case. So probably nobody will ever know how Old Bull’s sister turned into a piece of charcoal. Old Bull, however, maintained that sooner or later he’d find out what happened. It had been two, almost three years since the incident, and for a period of time, he suspected everyone he saw on the street of being his sister’s murderer. He even considered going on a mass killing spree, and who knows, maybe one of his victims would be the guy he was after. But Uncle Xu advised him not to. “On the outside living and dying are of the least importance; revenge is of even less importance than that,” Uncle Xu said.
“So what’s important then?” This was the first time I had an opportunity to speak.
“There isn’t anything that’s important,” Old Bull said. Barely stopping for air, he continued, “What Uncle Xu said really makes sense, you know? All it takes is four seconds to rip off a car, three seconds for a car stereo. He’s only been caught a handful of times. Later—it didn’t matter where, it could be Taidong, Hualian, or wherever—anytime a car was stolen, they’d always say he did it. Once they even accused him of stealing three cars at Banqiao and Jiayi at the same time! Do you realize how ridiculous that is? After that, an automobile company hired him to research antitheft locks. They paid him several million NT, but he only worked for them for a year or so before he quit. When giving a reason for leaving, he asked how he could possibly design a lock that he couldn’t crack. And so, Uncle Xu took off. He said he really felt bad about taking their money. As if he was truly ripping them off.”
These days Uncle Xu runs things at the parking lot. The lot is about the size of two basketball courts. In front is a highway overpass, in back is a bowling alley, and on the two sides are a couple of buildings over ten stories tall. If you stand in the middle of the parking lot and look around, you’ll feel like you have fallen into a garbage can. The ticket box where Uncle Xu worked was like a miniature trash can within the larger one. As Uncle Xu scurried out of his box he looked really strange, peering around in all directions almost like a rat. Really, just like a little vermin. And between his nose and upper lip he had whiskers like a rat.
Old Bull told him that Ahzhi had given the okay for me to sleep there. Uncle Xu carefully examined me from head to toe twice over with a set of eyes just barely larger than two red beans before he asked, “Who’s he?”
“Ahzhi said he’s a Minzu Middle School dropout. What’s the big deal if you let him stay a night?”
“Minzu where?” Uncle Xu asked. “What, did you fly here?” From his pocket he pulled out some thin, black object, then after yawning he asked me, “Till what time?”
“What?”
“He asked what time you want to sleep till!” Old Bull rushed to answer.
“Umm… anytime,” I answered.
“What do you mean ‘anytime’?” Uncle Xu didn’t even bother to look at me, he just turned and walked in the direction of the bowling alley. Pointing to a Mercedes-Benz, he directed me: “Sleep here until six o’clock; they won’t come for the car until seven. At seven you can go sleep in that Volvo. If you want to sleep until eight, you can crash in that van over there in the back. If you don’t want to get up until nine—you know what, kids shouldn’t sleep that late. Here, just sleep in the van.”
As Uncle Xu opened the van door for me, I heard Old Bull whisper to him, “Ahzhi said that he never showed up.”
In the darkness it appeared as though Uncle Xu nodded. He then opened the window in the front for me, saying, “If you want to sleep, sleep. But no playing around inside!”
I knew that when he said “playing around,” what he meant was whacking off. When people a bit older, like Uncle Xu, talk about this somewhat embarrassing phenomenon, they always manage to use terminology that doesn’t sound quite as embarrassing. This really makes me want to puke. Already, I felt as if everything Uncle Xu said was completely without any logical basis. Like whacking off—he should just have said “whacking off.” What’s the big deal anyway? I would despise having to whack off in this van. This van smelled of something wretched.
Gazing out the window from behind the cardboard sunshade, I could make out the neon sign hanging outside one of the side buildings. It lit up one word at a time, TRUE LOVE IS ONE MOMENT OF PASSION, then 6F and the name of the hotel lit up together. My guess was that there had to be a whole slew of people getting busy inside. The scene must have been just like what I saw on the porn tape at Chen Xiaohao’s apartment: a dark-haired foreigner with a black beard riding a blond foreign girl with huge tits. He took his big sausage and stuck it in the girl’s mouth; then he popped it in below; finally he stuck it in her butt. After that, they switched and it was the girl’s turn to straddle the guy. After they finished their riding, they’d chat for a bit, go for a stroll, and then it would be time for the black-bearded man to screw a redhead with black nipples. Just like before, he’d take his sausage and stick it here, plug it there. All the while, the blondie with big tits from before, she would be getting it on with a big muscular guy with blond hair. Then after the two pairs were finished screwing, it was the girls’ turn. Finally, in the end everybody got busy. Lin Guoqing said he once saw two guys doing it. Chen Xiaohao said that’s nothing, he saw a tape where they didn’t even use condoms! Everybody thought what Chen Xiaohao saw was the coolest. So I imagined that that was what was probably going on inside TRUE LOVE IS ONE MOMENT OF PASSION. Actually, none of that was a big deal.
So the reason I couldn’t sleep had nothing to do with that flashing neon sign blinding my eyes; the reason I couldn’t sleep was probably because I had experienced so much in one day. Usually, at times like this, I take all the things I have experienced and recompose them in the same manner that a Transformer goes from robot warrior to car.
Imagine if Mr. Hippo had died from the fall when I rammed him in the gut, then the police would have chased me around for the whole afternoon. I probably would have taken the same route, ending up in these unknown streets. You can never tell—maybe I still would have run into Ahzhi. I would have told him: I just took out a middle-school teacher. He’d most likely respond: Not bad. Then he’d probably have Old Bull take me to the shipping yard. But I’m still clueless as to what exactly the shipping yard is like. It’s probably a place with a lot of shipping containers. Who knows, maybe the cops would still track me down. We would hide behind the containers, ducking here, dodging there, escaping only by the skin of our teeth. Then Uncle Xu would come pick up Ahzhi, Old Bull, and me in a stolen police car. As we made our getaway, the cops would still be playing hide and seek behind the shipping containers. The four of us would take the police car down to Bingo Wonderland to check out the scene there. Just as we arrived, Yan Xiong would run out yelling, “You’re here just at the right time! Young River went to catch an escaped convict. You guys take his seat!” Then we’d take our seats and play a few rounds of Super 8, play the slots, and then we would go for a spin on the virtual motorcycle. Before we left we’d tell Yan Xiong, “You can keep our winnings, all we want is to have a good time!”
This was my imaginary story for the day. It isn’t necessarily that much more entertaining than what really happened—even though what really happened wasn’t entertaining. But there was one scene from the story that I really loved, which was when Uncle Xu, Ahzhi, Old Bull, and I stepped out of the police car. The four of us, lined up side by side stretching across the entire alley, strutted forward in slow motion. In the heart of the night, we walked with style.
