“If he isn’t picking up, I don’t know any other way. But we can see him for sure at the convention tomorrow. Plus, I think the cast of Star Force 22B is going to be there and I’ve always wanted to meet them.”
III.
It felt nice being able to use a real toilet. I’d taken these bowls for granted in the past. No longer. There was a noise muffler to mute my flatulence which was loud after exuberant usage. Gastronomic bombs, you called them, Larry. My stomach, unable to handle so much food, banished 80 % of it out my ass. I cleaned meticulously, wiped my hands, and looked in the mirror. My cheeks had sunken in and I looked like half the man I’d been. I checked my weight and saw that I’d lost 60 pounds.
Rebecca was asleep on her bed. She’d set up a mattress on the ground and I lay down in her white sheets.
“Is it uncomfortable?” she asked which surprised me as I thought she was sleeping.
“Most comfortable bed I’ve slept on in ages,” I answered her. I lay on my side, rustled back and forth, scratched an itch.
She burst out laughing.
“What?” I asked.
“You fart really loud,” she said.
I was embarrassed. “I had the muffler on,” I offered weakly.
“Don’t worry. I fart loud too.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said, laughing at me. “Do you like fruit juices?”
“Apple a day keeps the doctor away, right?”
“Organic apple a day,” she corrected me.
“Why do you ask?”
“That’s going to be our breakfast.”
“Apples?”
“Fruit juice.”
The window was open and I heard a woman singing a song in Mandarin. Cars honked and a couple drunks were causing a ruckus. Shanghai was always bustling, even in the middle of the night. L.A. had a different kind of noise. Linda and me used to hear people screaming, homeless people in vituperations against one another. There were constant gunshots, sirens blaring, and drones warning citizens to stay indoors while they searched for criminals.
“If you see a big roach running around, don’t hurt it,” she suddenly said. “That’s my pet cockroach, Kafka.”
“What?!” I exclaimed and got up. “Where?”
“He should be back in his cage, but he gets curious when strangers visit.”
“How big?”
She appeared amused. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a tiny little roach.”
“Where is it?”
“Check his cage on my shelf.”
“If he’s not there?”
“Check your bed.”
The glass cage was damp and home to an ebony roach fatter than my thumb.
“He’s been genetically modified to be smarter than your regular roach,” Rebecca said.
“He’s not tiny,” I said.
Rebecca laughed. “You’re like a hundred times bigger than him.”
“I hate roaches.”
“No matter how scared you are of him, he’s a thousand times more scared of you.”
“I’m not scared,” I said.
“Uh huh.”
“Can we shut his cage?” I asked.
“Makes him really grumpy. How about you just sleep on the bed?”
I turned to her.
“You afraid of me too?” she asked.
I got in the bed, turned away from her, and said, “Good night.”
“Good night. And point your ass the other way. I heard what a deadly weapon it is.”
IV.
I had a hard time sleeping, thinking about Larry and everything that had happened. In the morning, we took a cab to the convention center in Nanjing Road as parking was nearly impossible without paying a small fortune. Nanjing Road was the biggest shopping street in the world and got bigger every day. There were hundreds of thousands of pedestrians and all kinds of stores assembled as a honeycomb of merchandising. I saw massive 3D billboards of female actresses selling watches and hundreds of watch stores below, profiting from subjugating time into whimsical measures. The solar watch from the Han Dynasty was right next to the dictionary from a forgotten dialect as well as a series of multicolored video-game consoles from an age when you needed cartridges to play them. All the advertisements of beautiful Asians made sex blasé by their ubiquity even though they were designed to make women feel insecure and men lust after digitally enhanced women that didn’t really exist. There was still haggling, vendors selling people things they didn’t need.
The convention center blended in with the rest of the tall buildings, a structure meant to pay homage to the Summer Palace in Beijing with its classical Chinese architecture. Thousands of guests were waiting, many dressed in costumes from their favorite TV shows. Banners for the Global Entertainment Awards (GEAs) were everywhere, urging audiences to watch in two days. There were tables filled with vendors selling paraphernalia from the shows; posters, recordings, toys, artifacts from the filming, and green stand-ins for guns and props that were replaced digitally. Many walked around in the purple hoods of an old show, Project Circumstance, revolving around a sect of Chinese kung-fu fighting monks who also used laser beams. There was Man-Boobs, a reality show about obese men who fought hard to take part in bikini contests around the world, only to receive the scorn of those who wanted to see buxom women. Star Force 22B used to be one of the most popular shows in the world, creating a universe where humanity transcended its violent past to establish a society based on nobler virtues. They harnessed a black hole to propel a fleet of ships throughout the galaxy. I watched them growing up, inspired by their sense of honor to conduct myself in a manner that would make humanity proud. The crew of the original show was signing autographs and selling digital images of themselves for 100 SC. They looked so much older in person and even though it had been fifteen years since the show had been popular, it was depressing seeing them charge money for their images. They stopped attendees from taking their picture without paying via a digital scrambler and scowling assistants informed people to put their cameras away. The show used to represent the most egalitarian of futures, a universe where man was not inherently a brute bent on exploiting his neighbor. And yet, here they were, nickel and diming everyone. I knew they had to make a living. But seeing the thousands in line for an autograph made me realize what I’d always known; this was show business with an emphasis on the business part.
“You going to stand in line?” I asked Rebecca.
She laughed. “They’re so old, I don’t even recognize them anymore.”
“You can pay 3000SC for a photo with the whole group.”
“Is it that much?”
“Yeah.”
“I think I’d rather pay my rent.”
I felt worse for the extras, the actors who played aliens people had forgotten about. They sat in the corners, ignored, nary a visitor at their booth. They were trying to look busy scanning their holopads, assembling their goods on their table to make them tidier. Even if the main crew of Star Force came across as greedy, at least they didn’t reek of desperation.
There was a huge image of Rodenticide playing on the big screen above. “The Number One Movie in the world!” the bombastic narrator declared. Rebecca tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and saw Larry thronged by fans, a fedora secure above his head.
Emotions overwhelmed me — I never thought I’d see him again. All the suffering I’d endured for the past few weeks withered.
“Larry!” I shouted. “Larry!”
Larry looked at me and grinned. “Where the hell have you been?”
I didn’t understand how Larry could be living in front of me. I knew for a fact that I’d seen his lifeless body. And yet, here he was, breathing. “I thought you were dead.”