Outside, the predawn sky was still dark. The dozen hanging lights in the waiting room were mere decorations; the little bit of light inside was supplied by a pair of low-wattage wall lamps. The ten or so black benches were monopolized by trendy youngsters who lay there snoring and talking in their sleep, one with his knees bent and his legs crossed, his bell-bottom trousers looking as if they were made of sheet metal. Hazy morning sunlight gradually filtered in through the windows and lit up the place, and as Jintong examined the clothes of the sleepers arrayed around him, he knew that he had reentered the world in a new age. In spite of the patches of spittle, the filthy scraps of paper, even the occasional urine stain, he could see that the floor was constructed of fine marble. And even though the walls provided rest for plenty of fat but weary black flies, the wallpaper pattern was bright and eye-catching. For Jintong, who had just emerged from a rammed-earth hut in the labor reform camp, everything around him was fresh and new, completely alien, and his unease deepened.
Finally, the early-morning sun lit up the foul-smelling waiting room, and passengers began to stir. A pimply-faced young man with a mass of wild hair sat up on his bench, scratched his toes and feet, closed his eyes as he took out a flattened filter cigarette, and lit it with a plastic lighter. After taking a deep drag, he coughed up a mouthful of phlegm and spat it on the floor. He slipped his feet into his shoes and rubbed the sticky mess into the floor. Turning to the young woman lying beside him, he patted her on the rear. She moaned seductively as she squirmed herself awake. “Here’s the bus,” he said louder than he needed to. Slowly she sat up, rubbed her eyes with her reddened hands, and yawned grandly. When it finally occurred to her that her companion had tricked her, she gave him a few symbolic thumps and moaned once more, before stretching out on the bench again. Jintong studied the young woman’s fat face, her stubby, greasy nose, and the white, wrinkled skin of her belly, which poked out from under her pink shirt. With an air of impertinence, the man slipped his left hand, on which he wore a digital watch, under her blouse and caressed her flat chest, eliciting a feeling in Jintong that he had been left behind by time, and it gnawed at his heart like a silkworm feasting on mulberry leaves. For the first time, apparently, a thought occurred to him: My god, I'm forty-two years old! A middle-aged man who never had a chance to grow up. The young man’s display of affection reddened the cheeks of this covert observer, who looked away. The unforgiving nature of age spread a layer of deep sadness over his already gloomy mood, and his thoughts spun wildly. I've lived on this earth for forty-two years, and what have I accomplished? The past is like a hazy path leading into the depths of a wilderness; you can only see a few feet behind you, and ahead nothing but haze. More than half my life is over, a past utterly lacking in glory, a sordid past, one that disgusts even me. The second half of my life began the day I was released. What awaits me?
At that moment he spotted a glazed porcelain mural on the opposite wall of the waiting room: a muscular man in a fig leaf was embracing a bare-breasted woman with a long ponytail. The looks of longing on the faces of the young couple — half human and half immortal — gave rise to a sad emptiness in his heart. He had experienced this feeling many times before, while lying on the ground at the Yellow Sea labor reform camp and looking up into the vast blue sky. While his herd of sheep grazed in the distance, Jintong often gazed up at the sky, within sight of the row of red flags that marked the inmates’ boundary line, and patrolled by mounted armed guards who were followed by the mongrel offspring of army dogs belonging to former soldiers and local mutts that interrupted their lazy rounds by howling meaning-lessly at the foamy whitecaps on the sea just beyond the dike.
During the fourteenth spring of his imprisonment, he became acquainted with one of the grooms, a bespectacled man named Zhao Jiading who was incarcerated for attempting to murder his wife. A gentle man, he had been an instructor at a college of politics and law before his arrest. Without holding back any of the details, he related to Jintong how he had planned to poison his wife: his well-conceived plan was a work of art, and yet his wife somehow survived the attempt. Jintong repaid him by relating the details of his case. When he finished, Zhao said emotionally, “That’s beautiful, sheer poetry. Too bad our laws can’t tolerate poetry. Now if at the time I'd … no, just forget it, that sounds stupid! They gave you too heavy a sentence. But of course you’ve already served fourteen of your fifteen years, so there’s no need to complain about it now.”
When the labor reform camp leadership proclaimed that his time was up and he was free to go home, he actually felt abandoned. With tears in his eyes, he pleaded, “Can’t I spend the rest of my life right here, sir?” The official who had given him the news looked with disbelief and shook his head. “Why would you want to do that?” “Because I don’t know how I’m going to survive out there. I’m useless, worse than useless.” The official handed him a cigarette and lit it for him. “Go on,” he said with a pat on the shoulder, “it’s a better world out there than in here.” Never having learned to smoke, he took a deep drag and nearly choked to death. Tears gushed from his eyes.
A sleepy-eyed woman in a blue uniform and hat walked past him, lackadaisically sweeping up the cigarette butts and fruit peels on the floor. The look on her face showed how much she hated her job, and she made a point of nudging the people sleeping on the floor with her foot or broom. “Up!” she’d shout. “Get up!” as she swept puddles of piss onto them. Her shouts and nudges forced them to sit or stand up. Those who stood stretched and yawned, while those who remained sitting on the floor wound up getting hit by her dustpan or her broom, and they too jumped to their feet. And the minute they did that, she swept the newspaper they’d been lying on into her dustpan. Jintong, who was huddled in a corner, did not manage to escape her tirade. “Move aside!” she demanded. “Are you blind?” Employing an alertness tempered over fifteen years at the camp, he jumped to the side and watched her point unhappily at his canvas traveling bag. “Whose is that?” she snarled. “Move it!” He picked up the bag that held all his possessions, not putting it down until she’d passed her broom across the floor a time or two; he sat back down.
A pile of trash lay on the floor in front of him; the woman dumped the contents of her dustpan on the pile, then turned and walked off. The mass of flies resting on the garbage she had disturbed buzzed in the air for a moment before settling back down. Jintong looked up and spotted a line of gates along the wall where the buses were parked, each topped by a sign with a route number and destination. People were lined up behind some of the metal railings waiting to have their tickets punched. By the time he located the gate for bus number 831, with a destination of Dalan and the Flood Dragon River Farm, a dozen or more people were already in line. Some were smoking, others were chatting, and still others were just sitting blankly on their luggage. Studying his ticket, he noted that the boarding time was 7:30, but the clock on the wall showed it was already 8:10. A touch of panic set in as he wondered if his bus had already left the station. Tattered traveling bag in hand, he quickly joined the line behind a stone-faced man carrying a black leather bag and took a furtive look at the people in line ahead of him. For some reason, they all looked familiar, but he couldn’t put a name to any of them. They seemed to be observing him at the same time, their looks running from surprise to simple curiosity. Now he didn’t know what to do. He longed to see a friendly face from home, but was afraid of being recognized, and he felt his palms grow sticky
“Comrade,” he stammered to the man in front of him, “is this the bus to Dalan?” The man eyed him up and down in the manner of the officials at the camp, which made him as anxious as an ant on a hot skillet. Even to himself, let alone others, Jintong saw himself as a camel amid a herd of sheep, a freak. The night before, when he’d seen himself in the blurry mirror on the wall of a filthy public toilet, what had looked back at him was an oversized head covered with thinning hair that was neither red nor yellow. The face was as mottled as the skin of a toad, deepl
y wrinkled. His nose was bright red, as if someone had pinched it, and brown stubble circled his puffy lips. Feeling the man’s eyes scrutinizing him, he felt debased and dirty; the sweat on his palms was now dampening his fingers. The man’s response to his question was limited to pointing with his mouth to the red lettering on the sign above the gate.
A four-wheeled cart pushed by a fat woman in a white uniform walked up. “Stuffed buns,” she announced in a childishly high-pitched voice. “Hot pork and scallion buns, right out of the oven!” Her greasy red face had a healthy glow, and her hair was done up in a tight perm, with countless little curls like the backs of the woolly little Australian sheep he’d tended. Her hands looked like rolls straight from the oven, the pudgy fingers like sausages. “How much a pound?” a fellow in a zip-up shirt asked her. “I don’t sell them by the pound,” she said. “Okay, how much apiece?” “Twenty-five fen.” “Give me ten.” She removed the cloth covering — once white, but now almost completely black — tore off a piece of newspaper hanging on the side of the cart, and picked out ten buns with a pair of tongs. Her customer flipped through a wad of bills to find something small enough to give her, and every eye in the crowd was glued to his hands.
“The peasants of Northeast Gaomi have done well for themselves the past couple of years!” a man with a leather briefcase said enviously. Zip-up Shirt stopped wolfing down a bun long enough to say, “Is that a greedy look I see, old Huang? If it is, go home and smash that iron rice bowl of yours and come with me to sell fish.” “What’s so great about money?” Briefcase Man said. “To me, it’s like a tiger coming down from the mountain, and I don’t feel like getting bitten.” “Why worry about stuff like that?” Zip-up Shirt said. “Dogs bite people, so do cats, even rabbits when they’re scared. But I never heard of money biting anyone.” “You’re too young to understand,” Briefcase Man said. “Don’t try that wise old uncle routine on me, old Huang, and you can stop slapping your face to puff up your cheeks. It was your township head who proclaimed that peasants were free to engage in business and get as rich as they can.” “Don’t get carried away, young man,” Briefcase Man said. “The Communist Party won’t forget its own history, so I advise you to be careful.” “Careful of what?” “A second round of land reform,” Briefcase Man said emphatically. “Go ahead, do your reform,” Zip-up Shirt shot back. “Whatever I earn, I spend on myself —eating, drinking, and having a good time — since true reform is impossible. You won’t find me living like my foolish old grandfather! He worked like a dog, wishing he didn’t have to eat or shit, just so he could save up enough to buy a few acres of unproductive land. Then came land reform and — whoosh — he was labeled a landlord, taken down to the bridge, where you people put a bullet in his head. Well, I’m not my grandfather. I’m not going to save up my money, I’m going to eat it up. Then, when your second round of land reform is launched, I’ll still be a bona fide poor peasant.” “How many days since your dad finally had his landlord label removed, Jin Zhuzi?” Briefcase Man asked. “And here you are, acting so pompous!” “Huang,” Zip-up Shirt said, “you’re like a toad trying to stop a wagon — you overestimate yourself. Go home and hang yourself! You think you can interfere with government policy? I doubt it.”
Just then a beggar in a tattered coat tied with red electric wire walked up with a chipped bowl holding a dozen or so coins and a few filthy bills; his hand shook as he held the bowl out to Briefcase Man.
“How about it, elder brother, something for me … maybe to buy a stuffed bun?” The man backed up. “Get away from me!” he said angrily. “I haven’t even had my breakfast yet.” When the beggar glanced over at Jintong, a look of disdain shone in his eyes. He turned away to seek out someone else to beg from. Jintong’s depression deepened. Even a beggar turns away from you, Jintong! The beggar walked up to the fellow in the zip-up shirt. “Elder brother, take pity on me, a few coins, maybe a stuffed bun …” “What’s your family standing?” Zip-up Shirt asked him. “Poor peasant,” the beggar replied after a brief pause. “For the last eight generations.” Zip-up Shirt laughed. “Coming to the rescue of poor peasants is my specialty!” He tossed his two remaining stuffed buns and greasy paper wrapping into the bowl. The beggar crammed one into his mouth, the greasy paper sticking to his chin.
Suddenly there was a commotion in the waiting room. A dozen or so obviously jaded ticket-takers in blue uniforms and caps emerged from their lounge with ticket punches, the cold glare in their eyes a sign of their loathing for the waiting passengers. A crowd fell in behind them, pushing and shoving their way up to the gates. A man with a battery-powered bullhorn stood in the corridor and bellowed, “Line up! Form lines! We don’t start punching tickets till there are neat lines. All you ticket-takers, please note — no lines, no tickets!” The people crowded up to the ticket-takers anyway. Children began to cry, and a dark-faced woman with a little boy in her arms, a baby girl on her back, and a pair of roosters in her hand loudly cursed a man who pushed up against her. Ignoring her, he lifted a cardboard box filled with light bulbs high over his head and kept forging his way up front. The woman kicked him in the backside — he didn’t so much as turn around.
Jintong wound up getting pushed backward, until he was last in line. Summoning what little courage remained, he gripped his bag tightly and plunged forward. But he had barely begun when a bony elbow thudded into his chest; he saw stars and, with a groan, slumped to the floor.
“Line up! Form lines!” the man with the bullhorn bellowed over and over. “No lines, no tickets!” The ticket-taker for the Dalan bus, a girl with crooked teeth, pushed her way back through the crowd with the help of her clipboard and ticket punch. Her cap was knocked askew, sending cascades of black hair out. Stomping her foot angrily, she shouted, “Go ahead, shove away. Maybe a couple of you will get trampled in the process.” She stormed back to the lounge, and by then the two hands of the clock came together at the 9.
The people’s passion cooled off the minute the ticket-taker went on strike. Jintong stood on the fringe of the crowd, gloating secretly over this turn of events. He felt sympathy for the ticket-taker, viewing her as a protector of the weak. By then, the other gates had opened, and passengers were pushing and shoving their way along the narrow passageway between two barricades, like a rebellious waterway forced between sandbars.
A muscular, well-dressed young man of average height walked up carrying a cage with a pair of rare white parrots. His jet black eyes caught Jintong’s attention, while the caged white parrots reminded him of the parrots that had circled the air above the son of Birdman Han and Laidi decades earlier on his first trip home from the Flood Dragon River Farm. Could it be him? As Jintong observed him closely, Laidi’s cold passion and Birdman Han’s resolute innocence began to show in the man’s face. Jintong’s astonishment led to a sigh. How big he’s gotten! The dark little boy in a cradle had grown into a young man. That thought reminded him of his own age, and he was quickly immersed in the doldrums of a man past his prime. Listlessness, that great emptiness, spread through him, and he envisioned himself as a withered blade of dry grass rooted in a barren land, quietly coming to life, quietly growing, and now quietly dying.
The young man with the parrots walked up to the ticket gate to look around; several of the passengers called out greetings, which he acknowledged in a cocky manner, before looking down at his watch. “Parrot Han,” someone in the crowd yelled out. “You’re well connected, and you’re good at talking to people. Go tell that young woman to come back here.” “She wouldn’t punch your tickets, because I hadn’t arrived.” “Stop bragging! We’ll believe you when you get her out here.” “Now line up, all of you, and quit shoving! What good does shoving do? Line up, I say, line up!” He ordered them around, half in jest, forcing them into a straight line, all the way back to the benches in the waiting room. “If I catch anyone pushing and shoving, disrupting this line, well, I’ll take his mother and … understand?” He made an obscene gesture. “Besides, everyone will
get on, early or late. And if you can’t get inside, you can climb up onto the luggage rack, where the air is fresh and the view is great. I wouldn’t mind sitting there. Now wait here while I go get that girl.”
He was as good as his word. She came out of the lounge, still angry, but with Parrot Han at her side peppering her with sweet talk. “Dear little aunty, why get upset over the likes of them? They’re the dregs of society, punks and sluts, twisted melons and sour pears, dead cats and rotten dogs, rotten shrimp paste, all of them. Fighting with them just brings you down to their level. Even worse, getting angry leads to physical swelling, and poor uncle would die if he saw that, wouldn’t he?” “Shut up, you stinking parrot!” she said as she rapped him on the shoulder with her ticket punch. “No one will ever try to palm you off as a mute!” Parrot Han made a face. “Aunty,” he said, “I’ve got a pair of beautiful birds for you. Just tell me when you want them.” “You’re quite the smooth talker, like a teapot without a bottom! Beautiful birds, you say? Ha! You’ve been promising that for a year, and I haven’t seen so much as a single feather!” “I mean it this time. I’m going to show you a real bird for a change.” “If you had a heart, you’d forget about your so-called beautiful birds and give me that pair of white parrots.” “I can’t give you these,” he said. “These are breeders. Just arrived from Australia. But if it’s white parrots you want, next year I’ll give you a pair, or I’m not your own Parrot Han!”