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Chuckie’s game is The Sword of Ill Repute, the same game Lao Zhang plays. That’s how I met Lao Zhang, actually, through Chuckie. Lao Zhang was throwing a party at this space off the 4th Ring Road, and he’d invited his online friends to attend. Chuckie hadn’t really wanted to go. He didn’t approve of Lao Zhang’s gaming style. ‘Too peaceful!’ he complained. ‘He don’t like to go on quest, just sit in teahouse and wine shop and drink and chat all the time.’
Me, I was tired of virtual reality and thought an actual party might be fun. I’d thought maybe I was going crazy, sitting in that apartment all the time. I was having a lot of nightmares, not sleeping well, and I needed to get out.
So we went to the party, which was at this place called the Airplane Factory (because it used to be an airplane factory). When we got there, a couple of the artists were doing a piece, throwing dyed red mud at each other and chanting slogans every time they got hit. A DJ was spinning tunes while another artist projected images on the blank white wall: chickens being decapitated and buildings falling down and Mickey Mouse cartoons. At some point, this fairly lame Beijing punk band played, though I had to give them points for attitude.
I wandered around on my own, not talking to anybody, because even though I’d wanted to come, once I got there I felt awkward and nervous, like I couldn’t have been more out of place. Eventually I saw Chuckie standing over by this installation piece, a ping-pong table that lit up and made different noises depending on where the ball hit. That’s where the beer was, iced for once, in plastic tubs.
Chuckie was talking to this big, stocky guy with a goatee and thick eyebrows, wearing paint-splattered cargo shorts, an ancient Cui Jian T-shirt, and a knit beanie. The guy had just opened a bottle of Yanjing, and instead of drinking from it, he gave it to me, eyebrow half-cocked, grinning. There was something about his smile I liked, something about how it included me, like we were already sharing a joke. ‘You’re Chuckie’s roommate,’ he said. ‘Chuckie says you’re crazy.’
That was Lao Zhang.
Now I’m thinking: talk about a pot/kettle scenario, ’cause here’s Chuckie, pacing around the living room, muttering about how some jiba ex-friend of his has ripped off his virtual sword.
Chuckie grabs his backpack and heads for the door.
‘Hey. Where are you going?’
‘Matrix,’ Chuckie mumbles.
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s where Ming Lu is.’
‘So, what are you going to do?’
‘Make him pay.’
‘Hey, Chuckie, wait a minute. Just … wait.’
He pauses at the door. ‘What?’
‘You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?’
Chuckie swings his backpack over his shoulder. ‘That Qi sword is worth 10,000 kuai! I’m going to make him pay me for it!’
‘You’re kidding.’
Ten thousand yuan is no small sum of money. It’s over fourteen hundred dollars. More money than I make in a month. More money than Chuckie makes a month doing his freelance geek gigs, I’m pretty sure. He’s a genius with computers, but he’s always getting canned for spending too much time online doing things he shouldn’t.
‘I don’t kid about this!’ Chuckie yells, wild-eyed. ‘I’m going!’
‘Hey, Chuckie, wait a minute. Deng yihuir,’ I repeat in Chinese for emphasis. ‘Was there anybody looking for me this morning? Some foreigners? In suits?’
Chuckie pauses by the door and frowns. ‘Oh. Some guys came by a couple hours ago. I said you weren’t around.’
‘What did they want?’
‘They didn’t say.’ He shrugs his backpack onto his other shoulder and opens the door.
‘Wait a minute,’ I say again. ‘What kind of guys?’
‘I don’t know,’ Chuckie replies, clearly frustrated. ‘Foreigners in suits, like you said.’ And he starts to leave.
‘Wait, I’ll come with you.’
I throw on some fresh clothes, replenish my backpack with clean underwear, which I always do in case I end up crashing somewhere else, which, objectively, happens kind of a lot. Then I grab my passport and retrieve the roll of cash that I’ve hidden in a balled-up T-shirt tossed in the corner of my tiny closet.
When I come out of my room, Chuckie is pacing in a little circle by the door, looking like he’s ready to bolt.
So am I. I don’t want to stay in this apartment. Not for another minute.
Matrix is a couple miles away, so we hop on a bus that’s so packed, I hardly move when it jerks and squeals and halts – it’s like I’m surrounded by human airbags.
Our destination is a couple of blocks from the bus stop, just east of Beida, short for Beijing University. Chuckie’s pissed off and walking so fast that I can barely keep up.
‘He’ll be there,’ Chuckie mutters, ‘that little penis shit. He’s always there right now.’
‘You don’t say “penis.’’’
Chuckie looks confused. ‘Penis means jiba, right?’
‘Yeah, but you should say, like, “fucking,” or “dickhead.” It sounds better.’
We pass the new Tech center covered with LED billboards and the latest weird-shaped mirror glass high-rise that resembles some gargantuan star cruiser squatting on a landing pad; practically everything they’ve built in Beijing the last ten years looks like part of a set in the latest big-budget science fiction movie.
Matrix Game Parlor takes up most of the ground floor of a six-story white-tile storefront that’s probably slated for demolition in the near future, since it must have been built way back in the eighties. It’s a maze of navy blue walls, computer terminals, and arcade games, and though most of the serious gamers are wearing headsets, a lot of the casual players aren’t, so there’s this cacophony of cartoon explosions and thumping bass lines and corny synthesized orchestras. Plus everybody’s cells are going off all the time with these loud polyphonic ringtones, and nobody talks quietly into their cells; they yell, like they don’t trust that the person on the other end will hear them otherwise, and I’m already thinking I want out of here. And even though they’ve passed laws in China against smoking in public places, everyone smokes in this place, so I’m following Chuckie through the maze and this blue smoke haze that’s lit up by neon screens and intermittent strobe lights, and I’m starting to cough. I always have a little bronchitis from the pollution here, and I just can’t handle the smoke any more.
I used to smoke. Everyone around me did back then. That’s what we’d do, me and my buddies, we’d smoke cigarettes and crack jokes to keep each other loose, just laugh at shit, you know? You had to laugh at all the shit sometimes.
Embrace the Suck, we used to say.
‘There he is!’ Chuckie hisses.
I recognize Ming Lu. He’s this short, fat guy shaped more or less like a dumpling with limbs and a head. Right now he’s sitting in front of a terminal littered with junk food, using a fancy joystick, probably his own, to manipulate his avatar. I figure he’s probably either killing or fucking someone, from the exultant expression on his face.
Chuckie grabs Ming Lu’s T-shirt by the collar and slaps him upside the head.
Ming Lu whirls around blindly, glasses askew, scattering his shrimp chips.
‘What –? Who –?’
‘You mother fucking dog’s bastard!’ Chuckie screams.
As I start to form a mental picture of that scenario, I lose track of the argument entirely. For one thing, the two of them are talking way too fast for me to follow, and Ming Lu has this Sichuan accent that gets pretty thick when he’s excited and being slapped around by somebody. For another, I glance over my shoulder and see, dimly through the smoke haze, two guys heading in our direction. Foreign guys in suits.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Ming Lu is babbling, ‘but I had to!’
I don’t think. I run.
I duck down an aisle, bumping into a couple of giggling teen girls with Go Gaiyuko backpacks. I turn a corner, slipping and sliding past a cluster of Dance Dance Revolution games, and I don’t even know why I’m running; I just don’t want to get caught.
Up ahead there’s a little hall where the bathrooms are. At the end of that, what looks like an exit. I run as fast as I can, praying under my breath that this isn’t one of those places where the emergency exits are locked so we would all die horribly if there were a fire, and hit the release bar on the door.
I’m blinded by daylight. I blink a few times. I’m in a little courtyard that serves mostly as a trash dump and a place to park bicycles and mopeds off the street. A few sad trees in crumbling concrete planters. An old-style six-story apartment building across the way. Laundry hangs from the cramped balconies; random wires crisscross limply from roof to roof. It’s oddly silent, except for a couple of chittering sparrows.
Then I hear a burst of dialog and music from one of the apartments; a guy bellowing about revenge against the Emperor, some cheesy historical soap on TV. ‘I’ll drink to his death!’ echoes in the courtyard.
That unfreezes me. I plunge into the apartment building, down the narrow corridor that leads past the stairwell, and out the other side.
I’m on a little street with no real sidewalks, a few small cars shoved up against the buildings amidst a tangle of bikes. An old man sits on a tiny folding stool by the nonexistent curb, mending a pair of pants, a few odds and ends for sale spread out on a blanket next to him: a fake Cultural Revolution clock, a couple DVDs, a blender. ‘You want?’ he says to me, holding up the clock, winding it up to show me how the Red Guard waves her Little Red Book to count off the seconds. ‘You want buy?’
‘Buyao,’ I say. I don’t want. I run down the street.
I don’t run that well because of my leg, but for once I’m hardly feeling it. I keep running. I pass more high-rises, Tsinghua University’s new science center, billboards, animated LED ads: giant stomachs, pills, and cars. Here’s the Xijiao Hotel. Okay. I know this place. I’m breathing hard and sweating. Now my leg really hurts, and my shoulders feel bruised from my bouncing backpack, which I should’ve cinched up, but I’ve gotten out of the habit. I slow down, wipe my forehead. I don’t see any foreigners in suits.
I’m by this little street leading into the Beijing Language & Culture University campus from the Xijiao Binguan that has small shops, restaurants, and stalls that live off business from students – places where you can buy cheap electronics, pirated DVDs, school supplies, tours to Tibet. And phone cards.
I stop and buy a hundred-yuan card for my phone, dial the number, scratch off the silver, and punch in the voucher code. I’ve got a string of messages waiting for me.
I’m still feeling exposed out here on the street. I decide to go onto the BLCU campus. I’m almost young enough to be a student. Besides, I dress like one: I’m wearing high-top sneakers, a long-sleeved snowboarding T-shirt decorated with flowers and snowflakes, and jeans, and I’m carrying a backpack. I blend in here, unlike foreigners in suits. I could be just another foreign student trying to better myself by learning Chinese. That’s what I was doing, not so long ago.
I head over to the Sauce, a coffeehouse that’s been on campus forever. It’s not bad. I stand in line behind a skinny white boy chatting up a cute Chinese girl, order myself a regular cup of coffee, and take a seat by the window. I stare down at the street, at the egg-shaped orange phone booths, at the newly green trees, and I check my messages.
British John, asking me if I can cover Rose’s shift for Karaoke Night. A bunch of text-message spam in Chinese, which I can’t read. Delete, delete, delete.
Then a message from Lao Zhang. ‘Yili, ni hao. I’m leaving Beijing for a few days …’ A pause. ‘I wanted to let you know.’ Another pause. ‘Anyway, see you later. Man zou.’
Go slowly. Be careful.
I start to delete the message, but my finger hovers over the key for a moment, and then I hit save instead.
Next message.
‘Hey, babe. It’s me.’
My heart starts to thud, and the bottom falls out of my gut.
‘Listen, I need to see you,’ he continues. ‘Right away. It’s important. Call me as soon as you get this. Okay?’
I stare at the phone. Fucking Trey. Why does he do this to me?
CHAPTER THREE
I call him, of course. I know I shouldn’t, but I do it anyway. I’m pretty sure I know what he wants, and I’m not going to give it to him. But I still call.
I hear that rich caramel voice in my ear. ‘Hey, babe.’
‘Hey,’ I say, trying to keep my voice flat. ‘What’s up?’
‘Listen, I need to talk to you. Can we meet someplace?’
I shrug. Like I don’t care. Like he can see me. ‘Talk to me now.’
‘Don’t be like that. Look, we need to get together.’ He sounds so sincere. ‘It’s important.’
‘I’m not signing anything, Trey –’
‘I know. It’s not about that.’
I let out a breath and stare out the window, look at the knots of students walking below me, talking, laughing. A couple arm in arm, the boy with spiked green hair, the girl carrying a stuffed toy backpack. They’re so cute. The little shits.
‘Okay,’ I finally say.
I’m making a mistake, I’m pretty sure.
We arrange to meet in a couple hours at a pub in Henderson Center on Jianguomen Dajie, in the heart of Beijing. I take the train, transfer to the Ring subway line, and get off at Jianguomen by the Ancient Observatory, this lopped-off pyramid of gray brick from the Ming Dynasty, now dwarfed by all the big buildings on Chang ’An Boulevard. ‘Vegas, with Chinese characteristics,’ British John calls it – glassy high-rises with green Chinese-style roofs perched on top, like somebody put tiny party hats on the heads of awkward giants.
Fucking Trey, I think, as I walk to Henderson Center. He’s probably lying to me. I’ll meet him, and he’ll try to talk me into signing.
He keeps threatening to file without me. Go ahead, I tell him. You do that, and it’s all coming out. Every bit of it.
You wouldn’t do that, he says. It’ll hurt you as much as it’ll hurt me.
At this point in the conversation, I generally laugh. Yeah, like I have as much to lose as you do.
But I know he’s right. I’ll never tell.
I would sign, though. I’d sign if he’d get me what I keep asking him for. But he won’t, and I don’t really get why.
Let it go, Lao Zhang keeps telling me. You don’t need him. You can figure something else out. You already crossed the river; why carry the boat up the mountain? Let it go.
But I can’t.
You could do it, I always say to Trey. Talk to your friends, the ones who can pull some strings. He just looks at me with those green eyes of his that shine like some kind of gem and says: I’ve tried, babe. I’ll keep trying, I promise. But we gotta get on with our lives, don’t we?
On this one point, I guess I’d have to agree with him. We really do.
It’s not like I want to be married to him any more.
Barton’s is the kind of expat place that’s pretty typical for Beijing, which is to say it looks like any chain place you’d find in the U.S.: a wooden bar with a selection of imported beer and liquor, red leatherette booths, high-def TVs playing sports. Today they’ve got a baseball game on, with promises of basketball to follow.
Trey sits in a booth by the window, taking in the view from the thirtieth floor, drinking a beer and eating fries.
I don’t like the way I feel when I see him. After everything that’s happened, I still feel it, and I can’t decide who I hate more for it: him or me.
Trey smiles when he notices me and half-rises to be polite. ‘Hey, Ellie,’ he says. ‘You look good.’
Bullshit, I want to say. I’m pretty sure I don’t look good. I’m sticky with sweat from my run through Matrix and coated with the general grime of Beijing. I slip into the booth across the table from him. ‘Hey, Trey.’
