Rickshaw Boy: A Novel (31 page)
The next evening he returned to the rickshaw shed with his bedding.
What Xiangzi had once considered the most fearful and shameful of things he now shared openly and jokingly with his friends: he could not urinate.
His friends eagerly gave advice on which drugs to use and which doctor to go to, none of them seeing anything shameful about his predicament. With plenty of sympathetic advice, a bit of embarrassment, and considerable pride, they related their own experiences with the problem. Several of the younger men had paid to get the disease; some of the slighter older men had picked it up free of charge. Some of those with monthly hires spoke of experiences that differed in degree but were similar in nature, while others, who had no firsthand experience, related tales of their employers that were worth telling. Xiangzi’s sickness caused them to open their hearts to him and treat him as one of their own. Forgetting his shame, but taking no pride in what had happened to him, he took his sickness in stride, treating it as if he’d caught a cold or suffered a bit of heatstroke. Regret set in when there was pain, but once that passed, memories of the pleasure returned. He was not going to get excited over this, for he had lived long enough to know how little life was worth, and getting excited over such matters never accomplished a thing.
The little bit of medicine and prescriptions cost over ten yuan but did not get to the root of his problem, since he quit taking the medicine as soon as he was a little better. On overcast days or during seasonal changes, when his joints began to ache, he would take a few more doses or tough it out, not caring one way or the other. Life was already unimaginably bitter, so why worry about his health? That was just the way things were. If even a fly can enjoy life in a privy, a grown man like him ought to be able to do at least as well.
After the illness had passed, Xiangzi was a changed man. He was still as tall as before, but his fighting spirit had died. He let his shoulders sag and kept a cigarette dangling from his drooping lips. He often stuck an unlit butt behind his ear, not because it was a convenient place to keep it but to make him look tough. He still wasn’t much of a talker, but when he did speak, he larded his speech with street slang, caring only about the effect, not his lack of fluency. As his will deserted him, his appearance and attitude grew sloppy.
And yet, he wasn’t so bad when compared to other rickshaw men. When he was alone, he thought back to what he’d been like before and longed to stop the downhill slide he was on. He knew he could be better, and while that might not do him any good in the end, there was nothing noble in self-destruction. At such times, thoughts of buying another rickshaw crept in. He had already spent ten or more of his thirty yuan on his illness, a waste of money. But with twenty yuan he wasn’t nearly as hopeless as the penniless men whose poverty had them firing a gun with an empty chamber. With that thought, he felt like throwing away the half-smoked pack of Yellow Lions and giving up smoking and drinking altogether. He’d tighten his belt and go back to saving money. Saving money meant buying a rickshaw, and that led him to guilty feelings about Fuzi. After leaving the compound, he hadn’t been back to see her, not once. And during all that time, he’d not only failed to better himself but had even contracted a shameful disease!
But when he was with his friends, he continued to smoke and, when he had the chance, drink with them, putting Fuzi out of his mind. He was never one to take the lead in what they did, but he didn’t shy away from joining them, either. Having a good time with his friends was the only way he could put the hard day’s work and the bellyful of grievances behind him, for a while, at least. That momentary pleasure banished his lofty ideals, which were replaced by a desire to have a bit of fun and then sleep like the dead. Who wouldn’t prefer that to a meaningless, painful, hopeless way to live? Only the poisons of tobacco, liquor, and women have the power to dull life’s toxic cankers. Fight poison with poison. Everyone knew that it would one day eat into the heart, but who could come up with a better way out?
A lack of will to do better only increased Xiangzi’s self-pity. Once proudly fearless, he now sought only comfort and ease. He stopped taking his rickshaw out on stormy days and took off two or three days at the first sign of soreness. Self-pity made him stingy, unwilling to lend out a cent of his savings, keeping it for a rainy day. It was all right to treat his friends to a cigarette or a drink, but he kept his savings to himself, since he was in greater need of coddling and pity than anyone. The more time he had on his hands, the lazier he grew, and the only way to lessen his boredom was to entertain himself with amusements or to treat himself to some good food. When it occurred to him that he was wasting time and money, he consoled himself with his latest mantra, culled from personal experience: “I tried to make something of myself, and what did it get me?” No one could dispute the logic or offer a reasonable explanation, so what was to keep him from sinking lower and lower?
Laziness can make a person hot-tempered, and Xiangzi mastered the technique of belligerence. No longer did he meekly knuckle under to his passengers or to the police or, for that matter, to anyone. He had never been treated fairly as a hardworking rickshaw man. Finally appreciating the value of his sweat, the less he shed, the better. No one had better try to take advantage of him. He’d park his rickshaw anywhere he pleased, whether it was legal or not, and if a policeman tried to get him to leave, he was quick to argue and slow to move. When it was clear he’d have to move on, the argument grew heated and vile. If the policeman argued back, well, why not let his fists do the talking? He knew his strength would not fail him, and after beating up the other man, a few days in the lockup was nothing to worry about. Fighting made him confidently aware of both his strength and his ability, and displaying his might on another man’s body made it seem as if the sun shone especially bright, just for him. Never in the past had he entertained the thought of saving up his strength to do well in a fight. But that’s what it had come to, and what pleasure he derived from it. That struck him as quite comical.
Xiangzi refused to be intimidated, not just by the policemen he encountered but also by automobiles that drove up and down the Beiping streets. He never made way for cars that roared toward him, sending dust flying, no matter how threateningly they honked their horns or how their occupants cursed and screamed. Only when they slowed down to avoid a collision did he move out of the way to avoid choking on the dust. The same held true when they came up from behind, for he knew they would never deliberately run into him. Why in the world, then, would he move to the side and eat their dust? The traffic police were concerned only about clearing the way for automobiles so they could raise as much dust as possible, but Xiangzi, who was not a policeman, had no interest in letting them roar by. He was, in the eyes of the police, a hard nut to crack, someone to be provoked at their peril. Sloth is the natural result of unrewarded hard work among the poor, reason enough for them to be prickly.
The passengers he hauled received no special treatment from Xiangzi. He took them where they wanted to go and not a step farther. If they said the entrance to an alley, then expected him to take them down the alley, not on your life! He was ready to meet his disappointed passengers glare for glare, and he always won, since he knew his nicely clad riders were afraid of getting their foreign suits dirty. He also knew how unreasonable and cheap these men—most of them, at least—were. All right, he was ready. The moment they popped off, he reached out, grabbed the sleeves of their fifty- or sixty-yuan suit coats, and decorated them with a big black handprint. It was not a free gift, for they still had to pay him. If they doubted his strength, their sore, skinny arms told them all they needed to know.
He still ran fast, but breakneck speed did him no good. If his passenger told him to speed up, he’d slow to a shuffle and demand, “You want speed? What’ll you pay for it?” He sold blood and sweat, not courtesy. No longer did he hold out hope that a generous tip awaited him at the end of a run. The price—what he thought was fair—had to be settled before he put his muscle to work.
A rickshaw was nothing to be pampered. No longer did he fancy buying one of his own, nor did he care about those owned by others. They were just rickshaws. When he pulled one, he ate and paid the rent; when he didn’t, he paid no rent, and as long as he had enough money to buy food, why worry about it? That was the relationship—the only relationship—between man and rickshaw. He was not one to deliberately damage one of them, but he saw no need to go all out to take care of one, either. From time to time, he was involved in an accident with another rickshaw, but he was no longer hopping mad when that happened. He’d calmly take it back to the owner’s shed, and if he was told to pay fifty cents for the damage, he’d hand over twenty. What if the owner demanded more? Easy—he’d threaten to settle the matter with his fists, and he was happy to oblige if the owner was up for it.
Experience is the soil of life; it determines what a man will become. A peony will not grow in the desert. Xiangzi fell into a rut, neither better nor worse than any other rickshaw man, just an ordinary member of the trade. Not only did that make for a more comfortable life, but it also gained him acceptance from his peers. All crows are black, and he had no desire to be the only one with white feathers.
Another winter arrived, bringing a yellow sandstorm from the desert that in a single night froze many people to death. Xiangzi reacted to the howl of the wind by burying his head under the covers and staying there until it stopped. With a reluctant grumble he got up, not sure if he wanted to go out or take the day off. Although he was deterred by the thought of grasping those icy shafts, his greatest fear was the choking, nauseating blasts of wind. Dusk usually calmed the gale-like winds, and by four that afternoon, they had died out completely, as patches of sunset pink peeked through the evening haze. He forced himself to take his rickshaw out, tucking his hands into his sleeves and pushing the crossbar ahead with his chest, plodding along listlessly, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Darkness fell, and he decided to haul a couple more fares before knocking off for the day. He didn’t even feel like lighting the lanterns until four or five policemen along the way finally got him to comply.
In front of the Drum Tower he stole another man’s fare under the street lamps and began hauling his passenger to East City. Without even taking off his padded robe, he loped along, knowing how pathetic that looked, but so what! Would he get anything extra by doing a better job of it? He wasn’t pulling: he was just going through the motions, and even when his forehead was beaded with sweat, he didn’t stop to take off his robe. What difference did it make? When he turned down an alley, a dog that must have reacted to the sight of a rickshaw man running in a padded robe nipped at his heels. Xiangzi stopped, grabbed his whisk broom, and took off after the dog. Even after the dog had run off, he waited, in case it dared come back. It didn’t. “Fucking cur!” he cursed spiritedly. “Think I’m afraid of you?”
“What the hell kind of rickshaw man are you?” his passenger asked angrily.
It was a familiar voice, and Xiangzi’s heart skipped a beat. The alley was pitch black, and the lantern beams, though bright enough, pointed down, making it impossible to see the man’s face. He was wearing a hooded winter hat that hid his features, all but his eyes. Xiangzi was still trying to recall where he’d heard that voice when the man asked, “Aren’t you Xiangzi?”
Now he knew. It was Fourth Master Liu! Stunned, he went hot all over and didn’t know what to do.
“Where’s my daughter?”
“Dead!” Xiangzi stood there glued to the spot. Did he say that, or was it somebody else?
“What? She’s dead?”
“Yes, she’s dead.”
“Anybody who falls into your fucking hands is sure to die!” Xiangzi suddenly found himself.
“Get down! I said get down! I’d knock you down from there if you weren’t so old. Now get down!”
His hands shaking, Fourth Master climbed down. “Where’s she buried? Tell me that.”
“That’s none of your business!” Xiangzi picked up the shafts and walked off.
After putting some distance between them, he turned to look. The old man—a big black shadow—was still standing there.
X
iangzi had forgotten where he was headed as he strode forward, head high, both hands gripping the shafts, eyes blazing, mindless of direction or destination. Happy and carefree, he felt as if he had disgorged all the bad luck that had come his way since marrying Huniu onto Fourth Master Liu. Disregarding the cold and forgetting to look for fares, he single-mindedly walked on, as if somewhere up ahead was the place where he would rediscover his old self, that happy-go-lucky, clean and honest, ambitious, hardworking Xiangzi. The vision of the old man standing in the middle of the alley made anything he might say unnecessary. Triumphing over Fourth Master was the ultimate victory. He hadn’t raised a hand against him, hadn’t given him the boot, but the old man had lost his only close relative, while Xiangzi remained free and perfectly at ease. No one could say that vengeance wasn’t sweet. If the news did not kill Fourth Master outright, it would surely hasten his death. He had everything; Xiangzi had nothing. But Xiangzi could happily pull a rickshaw, while the old man could not even learn where his daughter was buried. All right, old man, even with your piles of money and prodigious temper, you are no match for a poor rickshaw man who can barely manage two meals a day.
As his spirits soared, he felt like singing a song of triumph in a booming voice to let the world know that Xiangzi lived on and had claimed his victory.
Cold night air seemed to peel away the skin of his face, but to him it was bracing; chilling rays of light from street lamps actually warmed his heart. He was surrounded by light that brightened his future. Not having smoked for many days, he didn’t miss it at all. From now on, no more tobacco and no more alcohol. Triumphing over Fourth Master gave Xiangzi the desire to start life afresh, to once again strive to better himself. He’d beaten Fourth Master once and for all. The old man’s curses had the effect of highlighting Xiangzi’s sense of accomplishment and filling him with hope. Now that he had spat out that last malevolent breath, he would henceforth breathe in only fresh air. Just look at those hands, those feet. He was still young, wasn’t he? He would always be young. Huniu was dead, Fourth Master would soon be dead, but Xiangzi was very much alive; he was happy and he had ambitions. Yes, Xiangzi would live on. All evil people will die unmourned. The soldiers who’d seized his rickshaw; Mrs. Yang, who’d withheld food from her servants; Huniu, who’d deceived and oppressed him; Fourth Master, who’d been contemptuous of him; Detective Sun, who’d swindled him out of his money; Granny Chen, who’d made a fool of him; Mrs. Xia, who’d tried to seduce him…They would die, all of them, while faithful, honest Xiangzi would live on forever!