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!”
When the narrow gate opened, the crowd immediately tried to squeeze through. Parrot Han, cage in hand, stood beside the ticket-taker. “You see, aunty,” he said. “How can anyone dispute the poor quality of the Chinese? All they know how to do is push and shove, even when that actually slows things down.” “The only thing your Northeast Gaomi Township can produce is bandits and highwaymen, a bunch of savages,” she said. “I wouldn’t advise you to try to catch all the fish in the river with one net, aunty. There are some good people there. Take, for instance -” He stopped in midsentence as he saw Shangguan Jintong walking bashfully toward him from the end of the line.
“If I’m not mistaken,” he said, “you’re my little uncle.”
Timidly, Jintong replied, “I… I recognized you too.”
Parrot Han grabbed Jintong’s hand and shook it eagerly. “You’re back, Little Uncle,” he said, “finally. Grandma has almost cried herself blind thinking about you.”
The bus was by then so packed that some people were actually hanging out the windows. Parrot Han walked around to the rear of the bus and climbed the ladder up to the luggage rack, where he drew back the netting, secured the caged parrots, and then reached down for Jintong’s traveling bag. Somewhat fearfully, Jintong followed his bag up to the luggage rack, where Parrot Han pulled the netting over him. “Little Uncle,” he said, “hold tight to the railing. Actually, that’s probably unnecessary. This bus is slower than an old sow.”
The driver, a cigarette dangling from his mouth and a mug of tea in his hand, walked lazily up to the bus. “Parrot,” he shouted, “you really are a birdman! But don’t blame me if you fall off there and wind up as roadkill.” Parrot Han tossed a pack of cigarettes down to the driver, who caught it in the air, checked the brand, and put it in his pocket. “Not even the old man in the sky can handle someone like you,” he said. “Just drive the bus, old-timer,” Parrot Han said. “And do us all a favor by not breaking down so often!”
The driver pulled the door shut behind him, stuck his head out the window, and said, “One of these days this beat-up old bus is going to fall apart. I’m the only one who can handle it. You could change drivers if you wanted, but then it wouldn’t even leave the station.”
The bus crept out onto the gravel road to Northeast Gaomi Township. They met many vehicles, including tractors, coming from the opposite direction, carefully passing the slow-moving bus, the wheels sending so much dust and gravel into the air that Jintong didn’t dare open his eyes. “Little Uncle, people say you got a raw deal when they sent you up,” Parrot Han said, looking Jintong in the eye. “I guess you could say that,” Jintong said mildly. “Or you could say I deserved it.” Parrot handed him a cigarette. He didn’t take it. So Parrot put it back in the pack and glanced sympathetically at Jintong’s rough, callused hands. “It must have been pretty bad,” he said, looking Jintong in the face again. “It was okay once I got used to it.” “There have been a lot of changes over the past fifteen years,” Parrot said. “The People’s Commune was broken up and the land parceled out to private farmers, so everyone has food on their table and clothes on their back. The old houses have been torn down under a unified program. Grandma couldn’t get along with that damned old lady of mine, so she moved into the three-room pagoda that used to belong to the old Taoist, Men Shengwu. Now that you’re back, she won’t be alone.”
“How… how is she?” Jintong asked hesitantly.
“Physically she’s fine,” Parrot said, “except for her eyesight. But she can still look after herself. I’m not going to hide anything from you, Little Uncle. I’m henpecked. That damned woman of mine comes from a hooligan proletarian family, and doesn’t know the first thing about filial piety. She moved in, and Grandma moved right out. You might even know her. She’s the daughter of Old Geng, who sold shrimp paste, and that snake woman – she’s no woman, she’s a damned snake temptress. I’m putting all my energy into making money, and as soon as I’ve got fifty thousand, I’m kicking her ass out!”