Wild Kids: Two Novels About Growing Up

While out in the streets I could genuinely sense what day of the week it was; moreover, the day in my mind would always be completely different from the day printed on the calendar. The first time I left my family and school was on a Monday—not only did the calendar say it was Monday, but even my class schedule, which read ENG, ENG, CHIN, CHIN, MATH, MATH, GYM, told me it was Monday. As I walked the streets, all I had was thirty-four NT in my pocket, the roads were soaked, and every couple feet I would step in a puddle reflecting the glare of the streetlight on its surface. The whole time I felt that it was a Saturday—which is because every day after that was like a Sunday. Later, whenever I would think back to that day, I would always remember the sound of my new gym shoes trampling the shadows of the streetlights reflected in the puddles. I would recall the fresh scent rising off the streets after the downpour had rinsed away all of the dirt and grime. It felt like a Saturday.

I walked down more than a dozen, or perhaps it was several dozen, broad and narrow roads, and each time I came to an intersection I went whichever way there was a green light—there was always at least one green light. In the beginning I thought I was walking in circles, but the circles seemed to get larger and larger until I barely recognized the streets and main roads. Something else was strange: before I knew it, even the people I saw on the street looked very different from the kind I was accustomed to seeing. I’ll just continue walking on like this, I thought, and who knows, perhaps if I diligently forge ahead I’ll eventually run into an alien.

Finally I came to a gambling parlor called Bingo Wonderland. I went in and watched people playing Super 8. I watched for over a half hour and not a single machine had paid out, so everybody was really starting to get irritated. There was one guy with a perm that made him look like a poodle, and he said to me, “What the fuck are you looking at? Get lost!”

I took a few steps toward the door and saw an empty slot machine beside me—excellent. Once I sat down and put in twenty dollars, that poodle left me alone. I only had two coins to lose, but for some reason I kept winning. Only after I won seven thousand dollars did I lose a little bit, but then my winnings jumped to nine thousand. And then a strange, ghostlike voice from behind me made its way to my ears: “Pull the lever once more and you’ll really be down on your luck.”

I spun around and what I saw almost made me fall off my barstool. The character talking to me was a little punk—this kid couldn’t have been much older than me. He had one big eye and one little eye—the larger one looked like a bottle cap, the little one resembled a nostril. I hastily turned to avoid looking at that face of his, but he continued, saying, “Go cash out. I’ll be waiting for you at the entrance.”

As I picked up my money, the bingo boss craned his neck to look outside for a second and then eyed me. He then suddenly laughed and said in Taiwanese, “Kid, you really don’t have a clue how things work around here, do you? There’s no need for you to cash in so much. Come on, I’ll cut you a break. Take three thousand and two cartons of Marlboros and get lost. Okay, scram!”

The guy with the weird eyes, who was waiting for me outside the automatic door, asked me how much I got. I took out those three large bills. He seemingly didn’t think anything was wrong and conveniently took two of the bills for himself. At the same time, he asked me if I smoked. When I said no, he nodded and extended the hand holding the money to take the cigarettes, saying, “Come with me.”

I unwillingly followed him. After we had walked a few blocks, it again began to rain—for some reason, though, it didn’t seem like he realized it was raining. Only as we were passing through two extremely narrow alleys that reeked of fish did he stop for a moment and say in an extremely faint voice, “It’s okay! Get going!” After that, he picked up the pace and continued ahead. It wasn’t until several months later that I finally realized he wasn’t talking to me.

I don’t know if it was because I walked so much that night or what, but I felt like I had been walking for a hundred years. I felt like I could have walked all the way to the moon, or even America, but he was still roughly two or three steps ahead of me, continually moving forward to an even more distant place. His small and lanky frame almost allowed me to forget that he had a set of eyes even more terrifying than a visitor from outer space. We continued walking, and just as I was about to collapse from exhaustion, we finally came to a 7-Eleven. He threw one of the cartons of Marlboros to a fatso sitting on the steps of the 7-Eleven and said, “He never showed up.”

I then continued to follow the weird-eyed alien into another alley, and it felt like we walked for another hundred years. I don’t even remember him stopping, turning around, or saying anything, but then all of a sudden he hit me in the face. It didn’t really hurt; my eyes just lit up for a second and my elbows and ass hit the ground. Weird Eyes turned into a dark shadow. Behind him was a public phone booth and across from the phone booth was a blinking neon sign.

“You motherfucker!” The foot that had been pressing upon my stomach moved up to my neck. With one foot on the ground and one on my neck, Weird Eyes carefully squatted down and, once he was balanced, grabbed hold of my right hand. Then, dragging me into the illumination of the neon light, he let out a “Huh?” Right after that, the foot on my neck eased up a bit. He stood up and with one sudden jerk pulled me to my feet. But he didn’t stop there; he forcefully slammed me against a hard, damp wall. I didn’t dare look him in the face, all I could do was close my eyes—but even then I could still smell the stench like a cockroach nest that emitted from his hair.

Only then did Weird Eyes finally begin to ease up on me. But he still used the carton of Marlboros that I had won to hit me on the head—it just happened that he chose the same spot to hit me as Mr. Hippo.

“You have no idea what you’re doing!” he screamed, looking as if he still wanted to hit me with the carton of Marlboros. But in my hand was his Rambo knife and the blade was pressing right against his stomach.

This is how I met Zeng Ahzhi. Later he told Old Bull, Little Horse, Little Xinjiang, and the chicks that the very day we met, he came a hair away from getting iced by me. I said that was far from the truth. He asked how it could be far from the truth. I said it could never happen. Then Little Horse said, “That’s because you didn’t have any experience in the streets.”

Only much later did I learn that in the streets, if a guy’s got a knife pointed at your belly, he has absolutely no need to say, “Give the money back,” let alone say it twice. It is also common knowledge that after someone coughs up two thousand dollars, you don’t instantly return their Rambo knife, let alone grab hold of the blade with your bare hand and demand, “You’d better give it to me straight. Why did you make me stop playing that slot machine?”

He returned his knife to the carved leather sheath that was hanging on his belt. “Do you know what day of the week it is?” he asked, his eyes glaring at me. “Do you know who was supposed to come sit at the machine you were at?”

It was then that he told me his name was Ahzhi. The name of the boss at Bingo Wonderland was Yan Xiong. It was a Monday, and on the last Monday of every month, the guy in charge of the neighborhood comes to collect the “protection money.” That guy’s name is Young River. Young River usually shows up sometime between ten and ten-thirty. When he gets there, he sits himself down at that slot machine and waits for it to pay out—that machine must pay out. But since I was sitting there, Young River wouldn’t have been able to go about his business. Since things went down like this, Yan Xiong would face a most unpleasant fate; if I had still been hanging around when Young River showed up, there is no doubt that I also would have met my maker in a very bad way.

“Nosy motherfucker! What’s with all the questions?” Ahzhi’s expression suddenly turned hostile. At the time I thought this Ahzhi character was really one strange fellow. That’s because I still hadn’t learned that changing one’s expression is a method used to buy time. After getting his thoughts together, Ahzhi seemed to warm up a bit. As he started walking back the way we came, he asked me, “Just what clique do you run with anyway?”

“I don’t run with anybody,” I answered, and just like before I followed Ahzhi. Only this time I had learned my lesson: I didn’t follow as close as before. Even if he suddenly spun around and swung a bat at me this time, he wouldn’t touch me.

Then for a long time, with him in the front and me in the back, we just walked. The wind blowing through the streets was so strong that it made an empty plastic bag dance around, twirling. I thought I heard Ahzhi faintly mumble something strange like, “I beg your pardon.” I figured, this guy’s got to have a screw loose someplace. Not until we came to a road brightly lit by streetlights did he turn to me and say, “It’s hopeless. This is how the streets are, a chaotic mess.”

Even though I had no clue what he was talking about, I didn’t ask him anything. I suspected that he was the kind of person who didn’t take kindly to questions. If this type of guy doesn’t want to open his mouth, no matter how hard you try, you can’t get shit out of him. But if he wants to tell you, he’ll always fill you in.

“So I think it’s best you head home. It’s better if you’re not always hanging out in the streets; otherwise, you’ll end up dead and won’t even know it. If I see it, it most definitely won’t be a pleasant sight. Got it?”

I said I didn’t have a home. Ahzhi said, “Funny, that’s what everybody says.” I told him my dad ran off after getting over his head in debt and my mom went abroad until the whole thing blows over, so there’s no home for me to go back to. Ahzhi then told me, “Don’t give me this bullshit, if no one’s at your place, we’ll move in, you stupid motherfucking dropout-runaway.” I told him that if he didn’t believe me there was nothing I could do. “Then where do you normally sleep,” Ahzhi asked. I said, “I don’t know, maybe a hotel. I just moved out today so I haven’t figured it out yet.” Ahzhi asked if I was willing to help the hotel make money, how come I didn’t help my brother make an extra buck? I said okay.

Without even looking to see how much was there, Ahzhi stuffed the wad of cash into his pocket; then, with quick steps, he led me back to the 7-Eleven. That nasty fatso from before was still sitting on the front steps by the entrance. As Ahzhi approached him, he called out, “Old Bull.” Ahzhi lowered his head and whispered something in his ear. Old Bull nodded, stood up, and beckoned me with his finger. As soon as I walked over to him, he gently pushed me to one side. We walked off shoulder-to-shoulder like two old friends. Ahzhi called out from behind, “You give the smokes to Apricot?”

I didn’t know where Old Bull was going to take me, nor did I know if I would have a place to crash for the night. I still had a faint aching pain around my stomach and it felt like something was stuck in my throat. But oh, how I loved their tone and attitude as they spoke those words: “In the streets.” I wondered if I had already become one who could make it out in the streets.