The Garlic Ballads (14 page)

The middle-aged man clenched his strong, discolored teeth and snarled, “Your old man must have died young, right?”

“Your old man died young!”

“Yeah, he did, the lousy bastard,” the man said, to Gao Yang’s puzzlement. How could he call his own father a bastard? “But I asked if
your
old man died young.”

“My old man’s alive and well,” the young inmate said.

“Then he’s a bad father, and an old bastard to boot. Didn’t he teach you it’s impolite to stretch and yawn in front of others?”

“What’s impolite about it?”

“It brings bad luck,” the middle-aged man said somberly. He spat on the floor, stomped three times on the gooey mess with his left foot, then three more with the right one.

“You’ve got a problem,” his young cellmate said as he rubbed his leg. “You should be shot, you killer,” he added under his breath.

“Not me.” The middle-aged man laughed strangely. “The ones who are going to be shot are on death row.”

After pushing the two enamel bowls into the corridor through the hole in the door, the old man licked his lips, like a lizard eating grease balls. Gao Yang was frightened by his rotten, misshapen teeth and weepy, festering eyes.

The stillness in the corridor was broken by the banging of a ladle against a metal pail. The sound was still quite a ways away. The stooped old man shuffled up and gripped the bars to look out, but he was too short, so he moved away from the door and began scratching his head and twitching his cheeks like a jittery monkey. Then he flopped down on his belly to peek through the hole in the bottom of the door. Most likely, the basins were all he could see, so he stood up, still licking his lips. Gao Yang turned away in disgust.

The banging sound drew closer, and the old man blinked faster. The other inmates picked up their bowls and walked to the door. Not knowing what to do, Gao Yang sat puzzled on his gray cot and stared at a centipede on the opposite wall.

The sound of the pail outside the door was joined by the voice of the guard who had screamed at them moments earlier: “Cook Han, a new man was put in here today—Number Nine.”

Cook Han, or whoever it was, pounded on the door. “Listen up, Number Nine. One steamed bun and a ladleful of soup per prisoner.”

The ladle banged against the pail, after which a basin slid through the hole in the door, followed by another. The first was filled with four steamed buns—gray, with a porcelain sheen—the second half-filled with soup, dark red, with globules of fat floating on the top, along with a few yellowed shreds of garlic.

The whiff of mildewed garlic thudded into Gao Yang’s awareness, causing immediate anxiety and nausea. His stomach gurgled like a restive pool; it seemed still inhabited by the three bottles of cold water he’d swilled down at noon. Spasms in his belly, a swelling in his head.

Each cellmate grabbed a steamed bun, leaving one, fist-sized and gray in color, with a shiny skin. Gao Yang knew it belonged to him, but he had no appetite.

The middle-aged inmate and his younger cellmate laid their bowls alongside the soup basin. The old man followed suit, then glanced at Gao Yang with his putrid eyes.

“Don’t feel like eating, eh, my man?” the middle-aged man said. “Probably haven’t digested all that rich food you had for breakfast, right?”

Gao Yang clenched his teeth to ward off the powerful feelings of nausea.

“Say, you old scoundrel, do the honors. And save some for him.” The middle-aged man’s voice carried the tone of authority.

The aging prisoner picked up a greasy ladle and buried it in the soup, stirring it for a moment. Then he lifted the ladle, taking care not to spill any, and with surprising deftness and balance filled the middle-aged inmate’s proffered bowl. He wore an obsequious grin. But the middle-aged man’s expression didn’t change a bit. The second ladleful was dispatched more quickly, with no attempt at deftness or balance, straight into the bowl of the youngest inmate.

“You old hooligan!” the young man yelled. “All I got was watery broth.”

“You got plenty,” the old man retorted. “So what do you have to complain about?”

The young man looked at Gao Yang as if seeking an ally. “Did you know that this old bastard was caught stirring the family ashes? When his son became an official in town, he left his old lady at home like some kind of grass widow. And so this one started sleeping with his own daughter-in-law—”

Before the young prisoner could finish, his aging cellmate threw the aluminum ladle at him, hitting him with such force that he grabbed his head and howled, as soup dripped down his face. The collision had chipped the ladle, which the old inmate picked up, standing as straight as his twisted torso would allow, his neck rigid, a venomous look on his face.

The young inmate, accepting the challenge, picked up his steamed bun, looked at it long and hard, then flung it at the old hooligan’s head, which was as bald as the steamed bun except for funny-looking tufts of hair along the sides. The bun landed in the middle of that broad, shiny head. The old man wobbled and stumbled backwards, wagging his head as if he were trying to shake something out of it. After careening off his bald skull, the gray bun bounced once on the floor in front of the young inmate, who snatched it out of the air and held it up to see if it had been damaged.

The entire episode made Gao Yang’s hair stand on end, but it cured his nausea. The rumblings in his belly also came to an abrupt end; as if a plug had been pulled, the water seemed to empty into his intestines and from there into his bladder. Now he had to pee.

When the old prisoner was finished filling the bowls with soup and a few wispy vegetables, a bit remained at the bottom of the basin. He looked at Gao Yang, then at the middle-aged man.

“Leave it for our friend here,” the latter demanded.

“Where’s your bowl?” the old inmate asked Gao Yang.

With his bladder about ready to burst, Gao Yang could barely stand straight, let alone speak.

The middle-aged inmate bent over and slid a wash basin out from under Gao Yang’s cot. Gray, with a red
“9”
stenciled on the side, it held a gray bowl for food and a pair of red chopsticks—plus the contrasting white of cobwebs and black of dirt and soot.

Gao Yang pressed his back hard against the gray wall to lessen the pressure on his bladder as much as possible. He observed that the middle-aged inmate was the only one who was confident about eating in front of him. The other two stood in separate corners, faces to the wall, bent over at the waist, necks scrunched down between their shoulders, holding their steamed buns with both hands against their abdomens, as if the buns were living objects that would scamper away if they loosened their grip. The would-be killer wolfed his food down, the young inmate chewed his food slowly and thoroughly, while the old man broke chunks off his steamed bun with trembling fingers and rolled them into doughy pellets, which he popped into his mouth and washed down with a mouthful of soup. His hands never stopped shaking, as if he were excited, or agitated, or nervous; and as he ate, a gummy liquid oozed from his festering tear ducts, under lids that no longer had any lashes.

The middle-aged inmate grunted between bites. The young one smacked his lips. By the time the middle-aged inmate had finished off the last bite of his bun, the old man was tossing the final doughy pellet into his mouth, and the young man smacked his lips for the last time. Then they exchanged hurried glances, lowered their heads, and slurped their soup.

The sounds produced a conditioned reflex in Gao Yang: the pressure against an invisible valve grew with each slurp, and the warm urine behind it seemed about to gush forth. His ears filled with garlicky soup sounds: slurping and tumbling inside his eardrums, straining against the walls of his bladder, swelling his urethra. For a brief moment he heard a fine watery spray and felt a warm liquid against his thighs.

After his cellmates had finished off their soup, the old one held his bowl in trembling hands and licked the bottom with his thick, purplish tongue, round and round. Then, still holding their bowls, all three men gaped at Gao Yang: his face was bathed in sweat—he could feel it puddling on his eyebrows—and he knew he must look like a wild man.

“Are you sick, buddy?” the middle-aged inmate asked crudely.

Gao Yang, too far gone to speak by then, concentrated every ounce of energy on an invisible valve that existed somewhere in his mind.

“There’s a jailhouse doctor, you know,” the man said.

Gao Yang doubled over and clutched his belly, then dragged himself to the door, where he was wracked by a urine shudder. He stood on his tiptoes, as if that could hold the valve in place, then banged the door with his fist. It clanged loudly.

Footsteps in the corridor—running—a guard. Gao Yang thought he heard the rifle butt rub against the guard’s pants as he ran. He kept banging on the door.

“What’s going on in there?” the guard yelled through the bars.

“We’ve got a sick man in here,” the middle-aged man replied.

“Who is it?”

“Number Nine.”

“No … not sick.” Gao Yang looked bashfully at his cellmates. “Have to pee … can’t hold it any longer—”

The middle-aged inmate shouted, intentionally drowning out Gao Yang’s complaint. “Open up, he’s at death’s door!”

The rattìe of keys, the bolt thrown back—
clang
—the door swung open. The guard held a rifle in his left hand and the keys in his right. “What’s the matter, Number Nine?”

Gao Yang bent over. “Comrade,” he said, “I have to pee … comrade

The guard, his face twisted in anger, kicked Gao Yang and forced him back into the cell. “Prick!” he cursed. “Who are you calling comrade?”

The door clanged shut.

Gao Yang banged his head against the door. “I didn’t mean ‘comrade,’” he wailed. “I meant ‘Officer,’ Officer Officer Officer—let me out, I can’t hold it back … can’t hold it back.…”

“You’ve got a chamber pot in there, you prick!” the guard shouted from the other side of the door. “Use it.”

Still holding his belly, Gao Yang spun around and, to the delight of his cellmates, flitted from one end of the cell to the other, searching for the chamber pot.

“Uncle … Elder Brother … Younger Brother … where is the chamber pot? Where is it?” He wept as he looked under all three cots; drops of urine oozed out each time he bent over.

His cellmates looked on and laughed.

“I can’t hold it back,” he sobbed. “I really can’t.”

The valve opened, releasing a blast of warm urine. His mind went blank as his legs began to quake and all the muscles in his body went slack. His legs felt scalded as that thing of his shuddered; he experienced the greatest sense of relief he had ever known.

The urine puddled at his feet, forming lovely patterns on the floor. “Hey, you, get the chamber pot for him, and hurry,” the iniddle-aged inmate snapped. “There’s probably more where that little bit came from.”

The young man dashed over to the wall, opened a tiny gray door beneath the window, and fished out a black plastic chamber pot. A foul stench filled the cell. “Piss in that, and be quick about it,” he said, giving Gao Yang a shove.

Gao Yang took it out with fumbling fingers and aimed it at the chamber pot. Revulsed by what he saw inside, he let go and made loud splashes as the stream hit. It was music to his ears. With enormous relief he closed his eyes, wishing he could listen to that sound forever.

A slap on the neck brought him rudely out of his trance. He had emptied his bladder in the chamber pot, its top now foamy.

“Go on, put it back inside,” the middle-aged man commanded.

He did as he was told, depositing the chamber pot in the wall and closing the little wooden door behind it.

Now, with the cell smelling like an outhouse and his cellmates glaring at him, he nodded apologetically and meekly sat down on his cot. He felt absolutely drained. His urine-soaked pant legs stuck uncomfortably to his skin, and the injury on his urine-spattered ankle stung painfully, bringing back memories of what had happened earlier that day: as he was walking out of the house, he spotted a clay-colored rabbit streaking out of the acacia grove; it stopped and, it seemed, looked straight at him. Unnerved, he recalled an old man’s assertion that if you see a wild rabbit the first thing in the morning, you’re bound to have bad luck all day long. The police came for him later that day…. These exhausting recollections seemed years old, not hours, and were covered by layers of dust.

The old man, licking his lips and blinking his eyes, came up and asked shrilly, “You don’t want to eat?”

Gao Yang shook his head.

That’s all the old man needed to fall to his knees and scoop up the last steamed bun, then crawl up against the wall, his shoulders and head quaking. He purred like a cat that had just caught a mouse.

With a sign from his middle-aged cellmate, the young inmate spun and leapt onto the old man’s back; his chance to avenge being hit by the ladle had arrived, and he pounded the old man’s ridiculous bald head with both fists. “You want something to eat?” he shouted from his perch on the old man’s back. “Here, I’ll give you something!”

The two men rolled around on the floor, slugging each other and yelping and growling. That brought the guards running. A square-faced guard appeared at the window, raking his rifle butt loudly across the bars. “Are you pricks tired of living?” he snarled. “Is this what we get for feeding you? Well, if you don’t break it up right now, you’ll be on bread and water for three days!”

Having made his point, he stomped noisily down the corridor back to his station.

The two prisoners, one old, one young, glared at each other like combatants in a cockfight—one with hardly any feathers left, the other waiting for the first ones to grow in—trying to intimidate each other during a lull in the fighting. Still clutched in the old inmate’s palsied grip was the steamed bun, his prize, and the cause of a number of cuts and bruises on his bald skull.

“Hand over that bun, you old scoundrel,” the middle-aged inmate said in a controlled, authoritative voice.

The trembling in the old man’s hands worsened as he pressed the steamed bun hard against his navel.