Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen.
I limp past a yellow Home Inn and signs for some sports complex left over from the ’08 Olympics, and I can see a line of tall, straight trees in an empty field at the side of an expressway, maybe a ring road, but I don’t know which one, because I’ve hardly ever been to Fengtai before, except for the Beijing West Railway Station, a place I hate that’s hard to avoid: ugly Soviet mainframe built like a cheap brown suit topped with Chinese pagodas. I’m a lot deeper into Fengtai than that, though, right at the edge where it turns into crumbling old villages and farmland.
A taxi, I think. I need to find a taxi.
Either that or a drink.
I buy a bottle of Nongfu Spring water at a newsstand and take a Percocet.
I need them, I tell myself. It’s not like I’m some addict who just wants to get high. I’m in pain most of the time. The Percocet takes the edge off. I mean, what else am I supposed to do? I’ve tried acupuncture. It helps, sometimes. So does exercise, sometimes. Tried smoking pot or hash, which helps, too, but, you know, it’s technically illegal, and with the rising tide of shit I’m already in…
I feel like the little boat that’s about to get swamped.
I sit in the back of the taxi and tell myself to think about something else. Something that doesn’t make my heart pound and me break out in a cold sweat.
Like, what am I going to do when I run out of the Percocet stash that my mom brought me from the States? That’s really gonna suck.
Another good reason to leave the country.
If they’ll let me.
I stare out the window at the barely crawling cars on the Third Ring Road, at banks of skinny high-rises, whatever colors they once were bleached by smog, their rusting balconies crowded with laundry.
Well, at least they let me out of that cheap-ass hotel.
Another reason to leave: the fucking construction in my neighborhood.
This big stretch of Jiugulou Dajie is torn up, with temporary walls and those blue-trimmed white construction dorms and giant machinery pounding away at the earth, and I swear I feel like I’m living inside a fucking drum sometimes. Another subway line that’s going to hook up with Line 2 at my stop, Gulou, and while I’m totally in favor of subways, this is really starting to suck. All my favorite snack stands are gone, swept away for no real reason that I can see. I mean, they aren’t digging the line down there, I don’t think-they just decided to knock a couple blocks down because… I don’t know why. No one does. Shit like this happens constantly, and you mostly have to guess at the reasons, because no one is going to tell you or ask for your opinion.
’Cause if they had, I would have said, Whatever you do, keep that yangrou chuanr guy! He makes the best mutton skewers in Beijing! I used to love to watch him work, carefully dusting the chunks of meat with red spices, rotating them just so, and it was good meat, not some tiny, gristly hunks of who-the-fuck-knows-what animal. It was weird, because he was so into it, so happy doing this simple thing, it seemed like. I would stand there sometimes, waiting for my skewers, wanting to ask him, So what’s the secret of life? Because I was pretty sure he had the answer. Something to do with taking pride in doing simple things well or some bullshit like that.
Now he’s gone, and I don’t know where. I never had a chance to ask. No warning. I just walked down the street one day and all those guys were gone-all the stands in front of grey old hutong buildings, all those blackened metal grills, the little signs for chuanr made from tiny red lights on twisted wire frames. The old buildings, too. All gone. Replaced by temporary metal fencing, with slapped-on billboard murals of high-speed trains and the Temple of Heaven.
Fuck this, I think, unlocking my apartment door. If I can’t sell Lao Zhang’s artwork, I’m not going to make enough money to pay for this place anyway.
There’s an explosion of happy barks and yips. My dog, Mimi.
I open the door and she’s dancing around: a medium-size, long-haired yellow dog with a dark muzzle and a feathered tail. She sees me and puts her paws up on my hips, but gently, looks up at me with this Omigod, I love you more than anything! expression.
She needs a walk. I can tell. And in spite of the fact that there’s major serious shit I need to deal with, in spite of the fact that what I really want to do is drink two or three large Yanjing Drafts (because that’s what it takes to get any kind of buzz off the weak-ass beer here), what I decide to do is take the dog for a walk.
First things first, right?
We walk around the hutongs behind the Bell Tower a little while, past the community hospital and the police station hiding in the narrow alleys, by the industrial-looking grocery and butcher where everyone’s lined up at a window to buy fresh baozi, past a trendy-looking bar/restaurant where you still have to use the public toilet across the alley. Finally Mimi does her business (a two-bagger). “We’ll go to the Drum Tower later, okay?” I tell her. Lots of people in the neighborhood like to bring their dogs out to the plaza between the Drum and Bell Towers, but not until after dark, when all the tourists have gone. It’s a big problem here, finding any kind of open space where your dog can run around a little. Another reason to leave, I think.
But where would I go? This is the question that always stops me.
I’d better think about what’s on my plate right now, I tell myself.
So while Mimi sniffs at some interesting stains on a grey brick wall, I get out my iPhone. Stare at it. I don’t exactly want to send this email. I’m really not ready to deal with the person on the other end.
It’s not really a choice, I tell myself.
I launch the VPN on my phone, open up my email, and type: “Do you have time to meet?”
Chapter Four
★
“So where is it you’re going?”
“Just to visit a friend.”
My mom pauses in the middle of her chopping-chicken, for tacos. “And you don’t want dinner?”
I shake my head, even though I love my mom’s tacos and she’s making three kinds tonight (“Chicken, potatoes y rajas, and I thought I’d try mutton”) and even has enough ripe avocados for guacamole.
“How much pepper for salsa?” Andy asks.
“Oh, throw in a few more of these little ones and another bunch of that cilantro.”
He nods and starts chopping. Their knives fall into rhythm. He’s not much taller than she is, and they’re both a little stocky.
If I were a better person, I’d think it was kind of cute.
Zhou Andian, “Andy,” lives next door. My mom’s boyfriend. I mean, no point in pretending otherwise. She spends as much time over there as she does here, but she likes our kitchen better for cooking. I figured the thing with Andy would end up being one of her typical flameouts, which would have been all kinds of awkward, given that we’re neighbors, but five months in, it shows no signs of fading.
Andy’s… not bad. He’s into this weird Christian house-church, but it seems pretty harmless-they’re not setting themselves on fire in the middle of Tiananmen Square anyway. My mom shares the whole Jesus fixation, so it gives them something to talk about.
Otherwise he likes to help. He’s quiet, even-tempered.
Added bonus: he’s not a drunk or a meth addict or an asshole.
And he really likes my mom.