Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh Read online

  The factory was dead; a factory with no workers was nothing less than a graveyard. His eyes burned, his heart was filled with a mixture of sadness and anger. As the evening deepened, an eerie gloom rose above the hilltop thickets, heralded by the shriek of a bird that startled him. He massaged his sore leg and stood up. He walked back down the hill.

  A cemetery occupied the area near the lake at the foot of the hill. It was the final resting place of over a hundred heroes from the life-and-death struggles of the city thirty years before. Lush green trees ringed the cemetery: there were pines, cypresses, and dozens of towering poplars. He walked over to the cemetery on a leg so sore he had to sit down on a stone marker. Crows saturated the night with caws from a nest in one of the poplars and magpies circled above as he massaged his leg. While he was rubbing it, his gaze drifted to the abandoned hulk of a bus on the ground beneath the poplar. No tires, no glass in the windows, and hardly any paint anywhere. Who, he wondered, left that thing here? And why? Occupational habit had him thinking how he could convert the thing into a living space. And at that moment he spotted a young couple skulking out of the cemetery, like a pair of specters, then slipping into the rusty bus. For some strange reason, he began breathing hard. One old Ding wanted only to get out of there as quickly as possible; a second old Ding couldn't tear himself away. While the two old Dings were engaged in a fierce battle of wills, a soft, lovely moan emerged from the bus hulk. That was followed by an irrepressible female scream, not all that different from the screech of a cat in heat, but distinct nonetheless. Old Ding couldn't see his own face, of course, but his ears were burning and even the puffs of air from his nose seemed overheated. There was a rustling noise in the bus just before the man popped out through the door. The woman followed a few moments later. He held his breath like a thief hiding in the bushes, not getting slowly to his feet until he heard a somewhat triumphant cough coming from the line of trees beyond the cemetery.

  The old Ding who wanted to leave and the more curious old Ding engaged in yet another battle of wills; on and on they fought as his legs carried him into the bus. The dark, murky interior was damp and musty smelling. Gray litter was scattered around the floor; he nudged some of it with the tip of his shoe and decided it was toilet paper.

  A husky voice called to him from outside:

  “Shifu — Ding Shifu — where are you?”

  It was his apprentice, Lü Xiaohu.

  He walked outside and took a few cautious steps forward to calm himself before replying:

  “Stop shouting, I'm in here!”

  5

  Lü Xiaohu was pedaling so hard he could barely talk:

  “Your wife was worried half to death, said you had a funny look in your eyes when you left the house, afraid you might do something foolish, try to end it all. I told her you'd never do anything like that, not somebody as smart as you. I told her I knew where you'd be, and I was right. Shifu, screw the factory, now that it's turned into this. If an earthworm in the ground won't starve to death, then neither will we, the working class.”

  He was watching his apprentice's back lurch from side to side from his seat in the pedicab and listening to him prattle, and while his heart was awash with feelings, he didn't make a sound. It felt to him as if a hot current were racing through his body, and in that moment, the gloom that had accompanied him ever since getting laid off simply vanished. His heart was like the sky after a rainfall. The pedicab turned into a busy street, where the flashing neon lights gave him an incomparable rush. Barbecue stalls lined the street, filling his nose with aromatic smoke. Suddenly a shout: Environmental cops! The peddlers jumped on their bicycles and pedaled off with their smoky barbecue stalls behind them, straight into the maze of neighborhood lanes. Their dispersal went off like clockwork, like a perfectly executed drill, no straggling, like a school of fish diving en masse to the bottom of a river, leaving not a trace.

  “Did you see that, Shifu?” his apprentice asked. “Chickens follow their ways and dogs follow theirs. After getting laid off, everyone comes up with his own brilliant idea.”

  As they were passing a public toilet, old Ding reached out and tapped his apprentice on the shoulder. “Stop,” he said.

  He walked up to the toilet, a building made of white ceramic tiles with a green glazed tile roof. A young fellow sitting in a glass booth rapped the glass with his finger, calling his attention to the red lettering on the window:

  PAY TOILET ONE YUAN PER VISIT

  He put his hand in his pocket. Empty, not a cent. Lü Xiaohu walked up and pushed two yuan through the crescent opening in the booth. “Come in with me, Shifu,” he said.

  A sense of shame welled up in old Ding's heart, not because he had no money, but because he hadn't known that he had to pay to use the toilet. After following his apprentice inside the brightly lit toilet, his nostrils were assailed by a strangely sweet reek that made his head swim. The floor tiles were so glossy he could see his reflection in them, and he faltered, nearly losing his balance. Master and apprentice stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the urinal and stared at the deodorant balls tumbling and rolling under the liquid assault, neither man so much as glancing at the other.

  “Who ever heard of having to pay to use a toilet?” he muttered.

  “Shifu, you're like a man from Mars. I can't think of anything you don't have to pay for these days,” his apprentice said with a shrug. “But it isn't all bad. If not for pay toilets, lower-class people like us would never have the privilege of relieving ourselves in such a high-class place, not even in our dreams.”

  The apprentice led him over to the sink, where they washed their hands; then he showed him how to use the blow-dryer. Their mission accomplished, they walked out of the public toilet.

  Back in the pedicab, old Ding kept rubbing his rough, blow-dried hands; they'd never felt so moist and smooth.

  “Little Hu,” he said emotionally, “I've just taken a high-class leak, thanks to you.”

  “That's funny, Shifu!”

  “I owe you one yuan. I'll pay you tomorrow.”

  “Shifu, you'll say anything for a laugh.”

  Just before they reached his house, he said, “Stop here.”

  “We're almost there. I'll take you to your door.”

  “No, I want to talk to you about something.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Any man who can't make a living and take care of his family is like a woman who can't have children. He can't hold his head up in society.”

  “You're right, Shifu.”

  “Which is why I need to go out and find some work.” “That sounds good to me.”

  “But there are laid-off workers everywhere you look, not counting all those people working on public projects. Just about every job you can think of is taken.”

  “That's about how things are.”

  “Little Hu, there's no such thing as a true dead-end, wouldn't you say?”

  “Shifu, those are the words of a sage, so they must be true.”

  “Well, I discovered a path to riches today. Now the only question is, should I do it or not?”

  “Shifu, as long as it's not murder or arson you're talking about, or highway robbery, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't.”

  “But what I'm talking about, well, it might not be legal….” “Shifu, don't scare me like that. You know I'm not a brave man.”

  But once he laid out his plan in detail, Lü Xiaohu said excitedly:

  “Shifu, no one but a genius like you could come up with a brilliant idea like that. Now I can see how you were able to invent a two-wheeled, double-shared plow in the 1950s. How could what you're talking about be illegal? If something like that's illegal, well… Shifu, this will be a rest stop for lovers, not only civilized, but humane as well. This may not sound good, but you'll be setting up a … a sort of pay toilet! Forget your misgivings and go to it, Shifu. Tomorrow I'll get a bunch of guys together to help you put it in shape!”

  “Don't tell anyone a
bout this. You're the only one who knows.”

  “As you say, Shifu.”

  “That includes my wife.”

  “Don't you worry, Shifu.”

  6

  He was sitting in the woods between the cemetery and man-made lake, leaning up against a poplar. A little path wound its way up the hill, disappearing from view from time to time. Every once in a while his gaze traveled past the woods up to the edge of the cemetery. He could only see a corner of his little cottage, but it was all right there in his mind.

  A few days before, he and Lü Xiaohu had gone back to the factory. After being let in by the gateman, he took advantage of a lifetime of “connections” to pick up discarded sheet metal, rivets, steel plate, and other items. The two men spent the next two days repairing and cleaning up the dilapidated bus hulk. They used the sheet metal to seal up the broken windows, then made doors out of steel plate, with locks on both sides. Once the repairs were made, Lü Xiaohu turned up a bucket of green paint and another of yellow. With the two men slapping on paint, this way and that, a broken-down hulk of an abandoned bus was transformed into something that looked like a military transport in a subtropical jungle. Master and apprentice stepped back to admire their work; the faint smell of paint made them happier than they could have expected.

  “Shifu,” Lü Xiaohu said, “it's done.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Should we set off some firecrackers to celebrate?”

  “Let's not.”

  “As soon as the paint dries, you're open for business.”

  “What do we do if there's trouble, little Hu?”

  “Don't sweat it, Shifu. I've got a cousin at the Public Security Bureau.”

  On the night before he opened for business Ding was so excited he didn't sleep a wink. His wife was so excited she couldn't stop hiccupping. They were both out of bed at four in the morning, and as she prepared his breakfast and lunch, she kept asking him what sort of job he'd found.

  “I already told you,” he said impatiently. “I'm going to be an advisor to some peasant entrepreneurs in the suburbs.”

  “I saw you and little Hu whispering back and forth,” she said between hiccups. “I doubt you were talking about being an advisor. Don't go getting involved in any shady practice at your age.”

  “Can't you find something good to say this early in the morning?” he replied angrily. “Come along with me if you don't believe me. You can let those peasant entrepreneurs feast their eyes on your esteemed countenance!”

  His comment took the wind out of her sails, and she shut up.

  From his vantage point under a tree, he watched a bunch of old folks hard at work on their morning exercises: airing caged birds, strolling, practicing Tai Chi, doing Chi Kung, some voice training. The sight of all those contented people depressed him. If he had a child — son or daughter, it made no difference — he wouldn't be here sitting under a tree early in the morning, laid off or not; he was like the fool who saw a rabbit run into a tree stump and break its neck, then spent his days after that waiting for a second rabbit to do the same. A layer of mist hung over the man-made lake as an orange glow appeared in the east. An old man doing voice exercises seemed to rock the woods:

  “Ow-ke — ow-ke —”

  Waves of melancholy washed over him, like the ripples on a breezy lake. But only for a moment. A new stage in his life was about to begin, and the new life, like the woman who bought the little pigs, filled his mind with too many lustful thoughts for him to get sentimental. In the hour or so before sunup, the woods were filled with the songs and chirps of birds; the air had a minty quality that cleansed his lungs and lifted his spirits. It didn't take long for him to see how wrong he'd been to come out so early. At this time of day, only old folks were out, and they preferred the area around the lake to the cemetery; even if they came to the cemetery, they weren't the clientele he was waiting for. But that's all right, he consoled himself. I'll count this as my morning exercise. After breathing the foul factory air for decades, it's time I gave my lungs a break with some fresh air. Picking up his camp stool, he strolled through the woods and around the cemetery to familiarize himself with the area. The discarded birth control paraphernalia he spotted on the ground made him more confident than ever that he'd chosen the right path.

  Around noon, several couples in bathing suits and large towels draped over their shoulders walked over from the lake, looking very much like lovers in search of a spot to get naked together. But when they passed by him, he suddenly became tongue-tied, and all those catchy phrases that Lü Xiaohu had created and that he had committed to memory stuck in his throat. Hearing the sounds the couples made in the dense woods, all roughly the same, but discernibly individual, was like seeing his own folding money swept away by the wind, filling his heart with a mixture of regret and despondence.

  That night he went to see his apprentice and, with considerable embarrassment, told him what had happened during the day.

  “Shifu,” Lü Xiaohu said with a laugh, “what's there for a laid-off worker to be embarrassed about?”

  He scratched his head. “Little Hu, you know I'm a grade-seven worker who's spent most of his life in the company of-iron and steel. I never thought I'd come to this in my old age.”

  “If you don't mind my saying so, Shifu, you still don't know what it means to be hungry. If that day comes, you'll know that in a contest between face and belly, your belly will win every time!”

  “I see what you're saying, but for some reason I can't open my mouth.”

  “It's not your fault,” his apprentice said with another laugh. “You're a grade-seven worker, after all. Tell you what, Shifu, I've got a plan….”

  At noon the following day, old Ding returned to the spot he'd picked out the day before, carrying a piece of wood on his back. Anyone entering the cemetery from the hill had to pass this way. Though it was a secluded area, it was surrounded by open space. From where he sat, in the mottled shadows of a tall poplar, he had a clear view of people swimming in the lake. With all the birds off somewhere, the only sound was the constant chirping of crickets, which sent their cool droppings down on him like raindrops.

  Finally, a couple came walking up the path. They were in full view: the woman was wearing a sky-blue bikini, her milky white skin glistening between the leafy shadows; the man wore a pair of stretch trunks and had a hairy chest and legs. Giggling as their hands roamed all over each other, they drew nearer and nearer; the sight of all that cleavage and the mole on her belly made old Ding feel like a voyeur. He also noticed with disgust that the man's belly button protruded instead of sinking in and that his trunks looked as if he'd hidden a potato in the front. When they were only a few feet from him, he picked up the piece of wood at his feet and raised it up high enough to cover his face, which felt as if it were on fire. The red lettering was aimed at the couple. He watched the woman's long, slender legs and the man's hairy ones stop in their tracks and listened as the man read the sign aloud:

  “A quiet, secluded, safe cottage in the woods. Ten yuan per hour, includes two soft drinks.”

  The woman giggled.

  “Hey, there, old man, where's this cottage of yours?” the man asked audaciously.

  Old Ding lowered the board to reveal the top half of his face. “There,” he stammered, “over there.”

  “Can we take a look?” The man grinned at the woman and said, “I am a little thirsty.”

  The woman gave him a seductive look out of the corner of her eye. “You can die of thirst for all I care!”

  With a sly look and a smile at the woman, the man turned to old Ding and said:

  “Take us over to see the place, old man.”

  He stood, noticeably agitated, picked up his stool, put the board under his arm and led them through the cemetery to the abandoned bus.

  “This is your little cottage?” the man exclaimed. “It's a damned iron coffin!”

  Old Ding unlocked the brass lock and swung the heavy door open.<
br />
  The man bent at the waist and went inside.

  “Hey, Ping'er,” he shouted, “it's goddamned cool in here!”

  The woman looked askance at old Ding, a slight blush on her face, before sticking her head in to take a look. Then she went in.

  The man stuck his head out. “It's too dark in here. I can't see a thing!”

  Old Ding handed him a disposable lighter.

  “There's a candle on the table,” he said.

  The candle cast its yellow light on the inside of the bus. He watched as the woman took a drink from the soda bottle in her hand. Her still wet hair streamed down her back like a horse's tail, nearly covering her high, jutting buttocks.

  The man stepped out of the bus and made a sweep of the area. “Say, old man,” he asked in a soft voice, “do you guarantee nobody comes around here?”

  “There's a lock inside,” he said. “You've got my guarantee.”

  “We'd like to take a nap,” the man said, “and we don't want any interruptions.”

  Old Ding nodded.

  The man went back inside.

  Old Ding heard the door being locked.

  After walking over to a little grove of locust trees, he looked at his ancient pocket watch, in its metal casing, like a coach on the sidelines. At first, there was no sound inside the bus, but about ten minutes later, the woman began to shout. Because the bus was sealed up so tightly, the shouts sounded as if they came up from under the ground. Old Ding was on pins and needles, as images of the woman's tender white skin swirled inside his head. He thumped his own leg and muttered:

  “Don't be thinking about things like that, you old fart!”

  But the woman's pale flesh had attached itself to his brain and wouldn't let go. Then the smiling face and cleavage of the woman buying piglets came to join the party.