Hour of the Rat

CHAPTER TEN

THERE’S NO WAY I’M going to be able to sell Mom and Andy on a vacation where I need to go next.

We’re having dinner at a rooftop Italian restaurant in a prosperous village in the shadow of Yueliangshan-Moon Mountain-about a half hour by taxi from the Ancient Village Artist Retreat. I’m burned out on beer fish, so I figure why not ravioli and red wine for a change?

This was one of the first villages in the area to start farmers’ restaurants and take advantage of the tourist trade. Now a lot of the farmers have made some money, which they show off by adding upper stories to their skinny cement homes, a third and then a fourth or fifth that no one actually lives in.

Andy sips the wine. Wrinkles his forehead.

“Do you like it?” my mom asks him, a little anxiously.

“I…” He turns to me. “Ni zenme shuo, ‘wo buxiguan’?” How do you say…?

“You’re not used to it,” I tell him.

“Yes. I am not used to it.” He takes another sip. “But I think I can learn to like.”

He and my mom smile at each other. He lifts his wineglass. My mom blushes and raises hers. They clink.

This all makes what I need to say next so much easier.

“I’ve got some bad news. I have to leave Yangshuo. For business.”

“Oh, no!” my mom exclaims. “Really? Can’t it wait?”

“I wish… but… it’s kind of time-sensitive. So…”

“Where must you go?” Andy asks.

“Um… near Shantou.”

“Shantou.” Andy frowns. “But that is… factory area. Not very much art.”

“True,” I say. “But there’s this… emerging artist working there who’s doing some really cool stuff. With… recycled electronics. And stuff. And…”

I really should have thought of a cover story before I started drinking wine.

“If I go there now, I have a chance to represent him. If I wait, someone else might sign him. And I hear that he’s really good.”

My mom sighs. “I know that you need to take care of your business. But…”

“I can try to catch up with you later,” I say. “I don’t know how much time you have, Andy. Before you have to go back to Beijing.”

Andy takes in a deep breath as he appears to consider. “Maybe three days.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” my mom says.

Truth is, I can’t tell whether she’s upset or relieved. She sounds upset, but maybe she’d just as soon have Andy to herself for a few days, without me in the way.

Well, fine, Mom, I think. Here’s your chance. Have a blast with Anal Andy. Go ahead, do what you’re gonna do.

She always does.

I push that out of my mind. I have a mission, you know? I’ve got something to do. I’m going to find Jason because I told Dog I’d try, and any problems I have when compared to Dog’s seem pretty fucking trivial.

Even if he does have a wife who loves him. And kids he adores. I mean, so what if I don’t have any of that?

I can walk. I’ve got two arms and two legs. I can talk without having to fight my own brain to come up with the words. I can work, and I have a good job. I get to represent Lao Zhang’s art, which, even though I still don’t know that much about art, I know it’s good art, and important, and means something.

Except of course that I can’t sell it and the DSD is on my ass waiting for me to fuck something up. To lead them to Lao Zhang. To arrest me if they want to prove their point. That they have the power and I’m nothing.

Okay, so let’s not think about that right now. Let’s think about the mission. Operation Find Jason.

“Honey, you okay?” my mom asks.

“Sure. Fine.” I raise my arm to call the waitress. “Fuwuyuan! Zai lai yi ping hong putaojiu.” I’ll have some more wine.

Forget about all this shit until tomorrow. What else can I do?

I WAKE UP THE next morning, and I’m kind of hungover, but I try to pretend like I’m not. Especially when Mom comes in after her early-morning tai chi session with Andy, all rosy-cheeked and serene, and I’m still lying in bed clutching my pillow and wondering if I have the energy to get up and make a cup of Starbucks instant coffee.

“Do you want to get some breakfast?” she asks.

“Yeah. Sure. Maybe.”

Mom sits down in the chair by my bed. “I’m just wondering… Do you want me to go with you?”

“No!” I blurt, and then realize that probably sounded harsh. “It’s not a nice place, seriously. You should hang out here and have some fun.”

“I just don’t want you to go running off because Andy came along,” she blurts back. “I guess I shouldn’t have told him about the trip. I should have said no when he wanted to come. It’s not… it’s not really fair to you. The whole idea was for you and me to spend some time together and have some fun, and it hasn’t worked out that way at all, and I feel really bad about that.”

Hah. If she only knew. I don’t have a fucking clue what I was thinking when I asked her to come along in the first place. I mean, that was a stupid idea, right?

It’s totally better if I do this on my own.

“That’s not it at all,” I say. “I just have to take care of business, and I won’t have time to hang out, and this is a way nicer place for you to be. I mean… I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

This is, actually, mostly true. I haven’t even gone down a river on a real bamboo raft yet.

My mom sits there, eyes downcast.

“I was just wondering…” she says. “Does it bother you that… well, I like having sex?”

So totally not what I need to hear when I’m hungover and undercaffeinated.

Or maybe ever.

“I, uh… no.”

“Because that’s what’s led me to make some pretty bad choices,” she continues earnestly. “I just… you know, I really enjoy it. Always have. It’s not about needing a man to pay the bills, because God knows the men I chose mostly sucked at that. That always fell on me, and you know I always tried my best, don’t you, honey?”

“I… yeah… you worked hard,” I manage.

“I wanted to make a good life for us.” Now she’s getting teary. “I really did. And I didn’t do a very good job. And I’m really sorry.”

I clutch my pillow, because this is seriously freaking me out.

“Andy seems like a nice guy,” I finally say. “If you like him… you know, that’s cool.”

She gives me an odd look. Shakes her head. “Well, I’m glad you think he’s nice anyway.”

Getting on the train to Guangzhou is a major relief.

I PROBABLY SHOULD’VE FLOWN. There’s no direct train to where I need to go. The train leaves in the early evening, from Guilin, and I’m facing an eleven-hour ride to Guangzhou and then a transfer after that.

But I’m actually looking forward to the train. I just can put everything on hold. Get my head together. And I’m not in a hurry, right?

I spring for a soft sleeper, so I can climb up and sack on the upper bunk, drink a beer, watch a movie. I don’t have to talk to anybody if I don’t want to.

But it’s kind of tough, because on the one hand I want to relax. On the other, I don’t know if I want to spend too much time thinking about all the weird-ass shit my mom’s laid on me.

This is why I climb up to my upper bunk with a big bottle of Liquan premium beer and a Percocet.

Just let me sleep for a few hours.

Operation Find Jason. Oh, yeah. It’s on.

SO I FALL ASLEEP in my bunk, and I have this dream that’s part dream, part memory.

I’m wandering around in this church place, and in my dream it’s Sunrise, even though it doesn’t look anything like the actual Sunrise. Instead of bland, dentist-office decor inside of fake adobe, it’s this bombed-out collection of tents and weird little condos, almost, with shag rugs like in some of the apartments where I lived when I was a kid. There’s a service that I’m trying to find, except I keep getting lost in the tents and the condos, and there’s all these people just sort of lying around on the floor. I don’t know what they’re doing, and they just ignore me.

Then Trey, my ex, is there, and we’re holding hands, and that part almost seems real-I can feel his hand in mine, the way it used to feel-and I can’t believe we’ve gotten back together, and I’m happy about it. All the stuff that happened, the bad stuff, it didn’t happen or it doesn’t matter, and as soon as the service is over, we can be together, the way we used to be, and I want to get naked with him so bad that I can already feel his body against mine.

But first we have to go to the service.

Then we’re in the auditorium where the services are held, which instead of being an auditorium is a big tent, like the Morale, Welfare and Recreation tent in the Sandbox where I met Trey. Except instead of soldiers, there’s all these Chinese people, including some of the artists I know, and Reverend Jim, the head preacher at Sunrise. Reverend Jim looks exactly like he did the last time I saw him, Hawaiian shirt and all. “Are you reporting for duty?” he asks me. “Are you reporting for duty?”

I run away. The only good thing about this dream is that I can run like I used to, before I got blown up. But I run into this dark room, with orange shag carpet, and it’s someone’s living room, but not anyone I know, and the room gets smaller and smaller, and then there’s no place left to run.

JUST TO BE CLEAR: There is no fucking way I want to get back together with Trey. Signing the divorce papers was one of the few smart things I’ve done in the last… I don’t know, decade or so. I’m not even sure if what we had was ever love. But there was a time I felt something, you know? I wanted him. Then I hated him.

Now? I don’t feel much one way or the other. I guess that’s an improvement, right?

GUANGZHOU AT 6:00 A.M. The third-largest city in China and the biggest city in the south. The train station is your typical China nightmare, magnified. It’s huge, run-down, and there are so many people shuffling and pushing, carrying their ridiculous huge rolling suitcases, boxes tied with string, overstuffed cheap duffels, striped plastic bags. I elbow my way up the platform, up the stairs, trying to find the subway entrance so I can get to the Guangzhou East train station, a babble of Cantonese washing over me in an unintelligible roar.

I’ve never been to Guangzhou, but the subway part is easy enough. Line 2 to Line 1. Not as crowded as it’s going to be in a couple of hours. I exit at the Guangzhou East stop, thinking I have it wired, except I’ve somehow gotten off at this gigantic underground mall that’s at the same subway stop. Popark, it’s called. Most of the stores are still closed. It’s the usual luxury shit. Gucci. Coach. A fancy Japanese supermarket. A Starbucks.

Which is open. I go inside.

“Hello. What can I get for you?”

I look at the barista, a slight guy with spiky hair, bright eyes, and a big smile.

“A cup of coffee, please. Medium.” I don’t bother to order in Mandarin. Who knows if this kid even speaks it?

He brings me my coffee. I sip it.

Different city. Different day. Same Starbucks.

It all starts to look the same after a while. The Guangzhou East Railway Station? Blocky granite. Blue mirrored glass. I could be in any big city in China.

I FIND MY TRAIN. I’m going to a city called Shantou, in Guangdong, on the southeast coast. One of the original special economic zones, but it never caught on like Shenzhen or Xiamen. This, however, is where Daisy has somehow ended up, and with her, I’m hoping, Jason. Alice gave me her cell number and the address of the place she’s working. A toy factory. I guess Shantou is known for its toy factories.

I tried texting Daisy in Yangshuo. Said I was a friend of “David.” No response. Alice said she was sure Daisy was still in Shantou. Maybe she was busy. Maybe she just doesn’t want to have anything to do with a supposed friend of David’s.

It’s a six-and-a-half-hour ride from Guangzhou to Shantou. I have a soft seat by the window. No point in getting a sleeper, I figure. I shoulder my backpack up onto the luggage rack and sit. Stare out the window at the passing city, the endless glassy towers, high-rise housing complexes, clusters of shorter apartment blocks, cream and redbrick.

Sometimes the black moods come over me like someone dropped a giant load of sand on my head. It hits me hard, drops me to the ground, but it’s soft at the same time, molds to my body almost, and I don’t know how to shake it off. I’m weighed down, like I’m drowning in it.

Just because you feel this way now, that doesn’t mean you’re always going to feel this way. The army shrink told me that. “Feelings are transient,” he said. I think he was some sort of weird military Buddhist.

“You let yourself feel them, observe what they are, let them go. And you think of a time when you used to feel different.”

I try. I don’t have to go back too far, just to when I was riding the bike in Yangshuo. That felt good-that is, until I went riding after crazy Russell and he pulled a knife on me.

I go back further. Think about being with Lao Zhang. Lying there curled up against him on his old couch in his studio. Or sitting there watching him paint. That used to feel like home, almost.

But it’s not home anymore, and there’s no point in thinking about it. His studio is gone, smashed into rubble like all the artists’ spaces at Mati Village. He’s gone, and I don’t know if he’s ever coming back. And if he did?

Sometimes I want to pretend like it was some great love, you know? But it wasn’t. I don’t think I even know how to feel that kind of big emotion. If I ever did, it got blown up, along with everything else.

We were friends, that’s all.

I just want to hole up somewhere and get loaded.

Not an option, I tell myself.

I need to call Daisy again. Set up a meeting if I can.

After that I’m going to go to my hotel, watch some stupid TV, and drink beer. Try not to tip over the edge.

My Shantou hotel, the Brilliant Star Inn, is close to the factory where Daisy works, and it also advertises “convenient traffic.” Far from the city center of anonymous skyscrapers and broad avenues, out in a suburb of beat-down concrete slabs stained with dark mold. The hotel is a five-story box painted yellow, topped with tinted glass. It has free Internet, and that’s the main thing I care about.

I get there a little before 4:00 P.M. No answer from Daisy when I call.

So I do some more research on Daisy’s employer, Furong Wanju Zhizaochang, which means something like “rich prosperity toy factory.” Of course they’re on the Web. Engaged in the manufacture of “model cars, airplanes, model action figures, lucky chicken, the fashion doll, small farmer series toys, main bubble gun toys, and the UFO maze.” Their clients supposedly include Mattel and Disney. “We have always persisted in the business philosophy of first-class quality, sincere services, persistent innovation, leading ideas, nonstop progress, effective integration, humanistic harmony, sustainable development. We sincerely hope to become friendly with all walks of life partner, welcome customers at home and abroad to visit, guidance, and seek common development! Let’s join hands to create mutual glory!”

Sounds like a sweatshop to me.

“I think Daisy works till six,” Alice had told me. And she swore Daisy was still working there, “in the office. I talk to her a few days ago.”

Okay, so I’ll just go there, station myself near the entrance, and wait for her.

Alice showed me a photo of Daisy, of the two of them grinning behind the reception desk. Daisy is taller than Alice, has longer hair, a knowing smile.

Alice is cute. Daisy is beautiful. At least that’s how it looks in the photo.

THE FACTORY IS SURROUNDED by a concrete wall with an entrance gate of green-speckled tile pillars, shiny gold characters spelling out the factory name fixed on a green-speckled tile arch spanning the pillars. Racks of bicycles and mopeds flank it on either side.

I position myself across the street where there’s a little market and a tiny restaurant serving “dry noodles” and tea. They have several outdoor tables, with red-and-white umbrellas possibly swiped from a McDonald’s that say I’M LOVIN’ IT! I sit at one of those. Order some noodles and tea. And wait.

I’m not there too long before a shift lets out. A steady stream of workers, wearing some kind of factory uniform, red-and-yellow polo shirts that remind me of what the Chinese team for the Beijing Olympics wore. They are almost all young women. Shit, they look like fucking teenagers, most of them.

They come across the street, exhausted and giggling. Mob the market, chatting in dialects I don’t understand, buying snacks. Water. Phone cards. A few come to the restaurant and order tea. Linger under the shade trees that break up the concrete monotony. Others go up the block, to the beauty salon, to the little storefronts selling spangled T-shirts, hacked DVDs, maybe even to a suspect karaoke dive-whatever they do to pass the time for not a lot of money.

I sit. Sip my tea. Wait.

Before too long a number of the girls in their red-and-yellow polos go back into the factory grounds. To their dormitories, I’m guessing. Or to the dining hall, where they get to eat their rice and boiled chicken feet that come with the job. Or, who knows, maybe to work a second shift.

I really want a beer.

Later, I tell myself. Later. I’ll wait a little while longer, and if Daisy doesn’t show up, I’ll go back to the hotel, drink a couple beers, get some sleep, and check out in the morning. Head back to Beijing.

Or maybe just go someplace else. Like Tibet. Or Inner Mongolia. See some monks. Ride a fucking pony.

I lift my hand to call the waitress. “Fuwuyuan. Zai lai yihu cha.” Bring me some more tea.

And I don’t even like tea.

Seven o’clock. It’s dark. Starting to get, if not exactly chilly, cold enough for me to zip up my hoodie. I’m thinking it’s about time to call this. Tell Dog… well, you know, I tried.

That’s when Daisy exits the factory grounds.

It has to be Daisy. Even in the dim fluorescents marking the gate, she stands out. Taller than average for a southern girl. Long, thick hair. Dressed in inexpensive office clothes-a blouse, skirt, and little sweater-that she wears like a designer outfit.

She stands there for a moment, checking something in her purse-her cell phone maybe-then glances at the street. Is she waiting for someone?

I get up. I’ve already paid. Pull the hood over my head, my hand shading one eye, fingers spread so I can see between them, and limp across the street, dodging a few cars and electric scooters.

She doesn’t notice me. As I get closer, I see that she’s texting, the screen casting a blue-white glow on her face. If anything, the photo doesn’t do her justice. This girl is gorgeous. No wonder Kobe’s obsessed. Poor Alice doesn’t stand a chance.

“Daisy?”

She starts. Looks up.

“Alice gave me your number,” I say in Mandarin. “I’m-”

“I don’t have time to talk to you.”

“I don’t need much time. Just a few minutes.”

I can see the struggle on her face. Talk to me or not? She looks more irritated than anything else.

“Okay,” she says, tossing her head. “I can talk for a few minutes.”

WE GO UP THE block and turn onto a street that’s almost pleasant, tree-lined, narrow, one- to two-story storefronts that are kind of cute in spite of the white tile facings on some and the bland concrete of others. Couples stroll, vendors sell snacks, old women sit on a stoop playing mah-jongg.

There’s a little place Daisy likes, one of those Taiwanese style boba houses, all bright plastic and cheerful green-and-yellow graphics, weird manga sprites on skateboards trailed by icy lightning bolts, holding up cups of product, which are iced teas and shakes served with giant straws so you can suck up the tapioca balls that float in them like chewy shotgun pellets. I really don’t like boba, but whatever. They have the local beer, Zhujiang. Works for me.

“David and I aren’t together anymore,” she informs me in English, leaning over her boba. She sips. I watch the tapioca balls shoot up the straw, like red blood cells pumped through an artery in one of those biology videos we had to watch in school.

“Right,” I say. “Well, I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter to me. He is not a serious person.”

“I don’t really know David,” I say. “I’m friends with his brother. They haven’t heard from him in a while, and they’re worried about him.”

“Humph,” she says, sounding like every young heroine in every bad Chinese comedy I’ve ever seen. “They should not worry. I think he is fine.”

“Do you know where he is?”

She shrugs again.

The thing I’m starting to figure out is that sometimes people will just answer your questions, tell you what you need to know. Other times they want to tell you their story first.

So ask for the story.

“Why do you say David isn’t serious?”

She sucks up a noisy strawful of boba balls, then stares at me over the plastic cup, chewing on the last few pellets.

“We come here because he say he has business,” she finally tells me. “He say we do the business and leave. We stay in this… in this cheap guesthouse. Noisy. Dirty. Okay, I can put up with this. I know worse places. Then he say he has to go to Guiyu. He don’t know when he comes back. He don’t know where he wants to go after. I don’t want to go to Guiyu.”

“Guiyu?”

“Bad place. Dirty place. Nobody wants to go there.” She abruptly shoves her empty drink aside. “Okay, I tell him, I wait for you here. I get some work. When you finish, you tell me.”

She tucks a lock of her glossy hair behind her ear, like none of this matters.

“He doesn’t come back. He doesn’t have real business. He just has stupid dreams.”

“Sorry,” I say, and I’m not sure what to say after that. I want to know what happened to Jason, but that’s not the rest of her story.

“So you’re working at the factory,” I say.

She smiles at me. “Yes. They are always looking for girls.”

Now she takes a package of cigarettes out of her purse. Marlboros. Offers me one. I haven’t smoked in years, but I’m tempted.

“No, thank you.” I have to hold the line somewhere. She taps one out, lights it, inhales.

“It is a silly job,” she says. “I sit on a stool all day, painting toys. Silly. Every day, ten hours, on a stool. Sometimes more. It smells bad, from paint and things. My back hurts. My hands. My head. I hate it.”

“But you’re not doing that now.”

She laughs. “No. One of the bosses from the factory, he watches me. Says he can give me a better job. In the office. So I do that now.” She takes a long drag on the cigarette. “He gets me an apartment, too. Not so nice. But better than, than…” She frowns. “Better than sushe, how do you say that?”

“Dormitory.”

“Yes. Better than dormitory.”

Not quite two months and she’s gone from the factory floor to the office.

I don’t need to ask what the rest of the deal is.

“Sounds like you’re doing okay,” I say.

She gives me a look. Draws on her cigarette, holds it between her fingers, palm up, the smoke curling around her face. She looks like a movie star.

“I can do better,” she says. “And I will.”

I ASK HER IF she has “David’s” cell-phone number, and she shakes her head. “Old one won’t work. He must have new one.”

“Do you know if he’s still in Guiyu?”

She looks at me like I’m pretty stupid. “How can I know?”

Fair enough.

“When was the last time you heard from him?”

“Maybe… a month ago.”

I try to think of a nice way to ask, So did he dump you or what?

“Did he say… anything about his plans or…?”

“He say a lot of stupid things,” she snaps. “He say what he does is important. He say he can’t come back right now. It’s not safe. He say he loves me but he is no good for me.” She laughs again. “Maybe that second thing is true.”

Not safe. Great.

“Why isn’t it safe?”

“I don’t know,” she says, playing with her straw, sounding like a sullen kid.

“Look, I just want to help his family. Is there anything you can tell me? Anything at all? Just so I can let them know something?”

She sticks her finger on the top of the straw, then lifts it up, watches the liquid drain out. I want to reach across the table and smack her.

Instead I take a deep breath. There’s no point in me getting all worked up over Daisy and her bullshit, over Jason/David and whatever he’s been up to. I don’t have to be doing this. Nobody’s forcing me. I’m trying to do a favor for a buddy, and if this is as far as I get, no one’s going to accuse me of being a Fobbit slacker.

While I’m thinking all this, Daisy’s apparently doing some thinking of her own.

“Okay.” She reaches into her purse-a fake Gucci. Gets out a wallet. Opens that and from an interior pocket pulls out a piece of folded paper.

“This,” she says. “This is what he give me.” She holds on to it for a moment, smoothing the creases, keeping it neat. Then she puts it on the table in front of me, careful to avoid the ring of water left by my beer.

I pick it up. Unfold it.

There are three names, written in pen, in messy, back-slanted print-

“Modern Scientific Seed Company, Dali

Bright Future Seed Company, Guiyang

New Century Seed Company, Guiyu”

– and what I think are the Chinese translations next to them.

“So what is this?” I ask.

She rolls her eyes. “Names of seed companies.”

I am so wanting to smack this girl. “Yeah, I see that, but why did David give it to you?”

“Don’t know,” she says, doing her best to sound indifferent. “Just something he is interested in. You know, he’s always talking about these… these bad seeds.”

Bad seeds?

“He ask me to keep this paper,” she continues. “And if the right person comes, to give it to him.” She shrugs. “I guess that person is you.”