If you were to one day ask me if I’d had any happy days since I hit the streets to drift, I would immediately respond: “Of course!” If you then went on to ask when those happy times were, I would probably have to think about it for a moment before I gave you my answer: “During the last couple of days just before the big negotiation, yeah, probably right around then!”
Everything that happened during that time was pure happiness—to give you an example, it was like when you get into a great big mess and your old man, old lady, and all those other old people in your life, like your teachers, still don’t know. But while this trouble you started leaves you with long-lasting memories to savor, you understand that sooner or later you’re bound to be discovered, and just thinking about being caught makes you terribly sad. At the same time, it is only during this period that you find it much easier to discover interesting and fun things, happy events, and adorable people. This is perfectly natural; before the ax falls you’re always as happy as a pig in shit.
Uncle Xu felt that if Horsefly really intended to “talk things out” then he probably wasn’t planning to set us up, so we could relax. I remember that when Annie patted me on the shoulder, we got up and started walking toward the junkyard. As we walked on and on, I kept turning around to stare at Annie. At that moment I felt she was the most beautiful woman in the whole world. I truly wished I could keep walking on with her into eternity.
“So you think living like this is fun?” she asked me.
“So far it seems pretty good.”
“More fun than going to school?”
I thought for a moment; tests, homework, standing in the principal’s office, Mr. Jiao’s voice lessons, and other terrifying images passed through my mind. But when I thought of trading stickers with Huang Munan and Li Ahji, and secretly locking Old Jiang, the school handyman, in the gym, or of when we all dumped the garbage can into the pond that the girls were supposed to be cleaning, I thought that school wasn’t so bad after all. So I answered by saying, “School’s okay too.”
“If my little brother were still alive he would be in high school by now—I wonder if he would end up running off like you and becoming a wild child.”
“Who said I’m a wild child?” I immediately protested.
“Don’t you know? Actually…” Annie shook my shoulders, saying, “You’re very different from us. Ahzhi, Old Bull, Little Xinjiang, those of us that have a home can’t go back, while the rest of us don’t even have a home to go back to in the first place.…”
“What about Little Horse? Doesn’t Little Horse have a family? Isn’t his father Ma Jianren that ‘despicable man’ who runs that hospital?”
Annie hesitated for a moment. After thinking for a while, she said, “Little Horse will probably explain his situation to you.”
“I’ve got my situation too, you know!” I instantly argued. Deep down I was truly a bit ticked off. How come whenever you’re happy and things have just started to go your way, somebody always manages to come along and throw you a curveball? I just don’t get it! In school, my teachers would always say, “Don’t tell me you’re going to be this mediocre and incompetent for the rest of your life!” At home, my mother would always say, “Don’t tell me you’re going to end up like your father, doing everything stop and go, never finishing a damn thing!” And now that I’d hit the streets, these guys were saying I was actually different from them.
“You shouldn’t follow our example and end up as useless as us,” Annie said. “Don’t you know that after seeing that newspaper article, everybody in the gang envies you?”
“That’s enough! I’m the one who envies you!”
“Me? You envy me? What have I got to be envious of?”
“You can operate that heavy-duty crane,” I replied.
For a moment, Annie was struck speechless by my reply. It was a long time before she finally burst out in laughter. Her laughter was marked with a happiness that exceeded even my own.
