Notes of a Crocodile

by Qiu Miaojin

  I didn’t accept myself. There was no curing the me that had come forth. I’d ingested the poison long ago, and its origins were in the whole of humanity, who’d infected me with their collective chorus. Before I could ever reveal the real me, first I had to remove the label on me that read NEGATED and tear it up.

  Before my twentieth birthday, I never believed that you loved me, and as a result, I made a huge mistake. Without a doubt, it was my own wrongdoing. My self-loathing and defeatism made me see the world through shit-smeared eyes. Having only known unfulfilled yearnings, I thought that love was a long shot, that keeping my pride intact was a far safer bet. I didn’t think I was worthy of being loved. Though you showed me that you loved me, I assumed it was because you’d never experienced a man’s love, that you didn’t know the social disapproval we’d face, and that you couldn’t tell I was seriously fucked in the head. I thought that in the end, you’d still need a man, that you were just going through a confused phase, and that sooner or later, I’d be dumped so that you could move on to the next shiny new thing.

  The only thing left is to survive by means of the old substitute trick. I’ve tried everything in my quest to replace that source of sustenance. I managed to hide the void from myself, but as soon as my fast ended, I craved it anew. My aching desires, born of a hunger for love, sent tremors through my badly starved body. Having once tasted that sustenance, I’m reduced to a living death without it, tainted or not.

  Shui Ling, you probably have no idea that I’ve spent the past eighteen months in full-on avoidance mode. I don’t know how else to go on. I’ve been throwing myself into busywork that surrounds me with people, then escaping into alcohol-induced numbness, among other diversions. It’s a cycle that helps me put one foot in front of the other. It’s not much comfort, but it’s all I have.

  I’m doomed to my fate . . . and I can’t resist the temptation to look back. The moment you call, I turn around. That’s the punishment fate has chosen for me. You said I’d always be with you, even when you found someone new. How did you not expect me to come back needing you? You spitefully told me the news there was already someone new, that it was me who lost out, and it marked the end of us. What a cruel joke. I left you, this woman, hoping I’d leave no trace of me, this monster, that our connection would disintegrate and be buried in the darkest recesses of your mind, that you’d cross back over to normality—get married, have kids—and live within the boundaries of ordinariness. All of recorded human history, at least, seems to support that basic formula for happiness. How I wish you’d become part of that other world.

  When all is said and done, you and I aren’t quite cut from the same cloth. Society still considers you a normal woman. Your love for me was a feminine, maternal love that can just as easily be extended to any man. Basically, the only difference between you and other women is that your heart is more open. But me, our relationship left me fundamentally altered. You tore me open and exposed the man inside. That new me has no rightful place within humanity. I don’t think you’ve been cast out. You can still return to that place where I’m no longer allowed.

  I came back, but for what? Your choice of someone new is hard to take, even humiliating. In The Box Man, Kobo Abe wrote about a man who hid himself in a box wherever he went. One day, this man peeped out and saw another man peeping out from inside of his own box, which aroused the naked woman in front of him. It made the box man feel angry and ashamed of himself. Even if that isn’t quite the case here, it should give you a sense of my shame and the extremes I’ve been pushed to.

  In the days that have passed since we saw each other, I’ve tried to recall the details, but shame hinders me. As I have no image of your new lover’s face, the process has been a little like reconstructing the details of a mass shooting.

  So I succumbed to the temptation to turn around. And in doing so, I was ensnared in a new trap I never saw coming. My hand is growing cramped and is shaking as I write this. Until that moment, I believed you were still in love with me. It was the conviction that gave me strength when I was ready to die, when I was lost during those eighteen months of separation after the cord was cut. Why did you have to do this now? One of my oldest fears—being dumped for that shinier, newer thing—has come true. I’ll never be able to piece myself back together. While I was taken to the altar as a sacrifice, back home a stick of incense was already burning for someone else. What’s left of the world I once believed in?

  This dilemma leaves me with little recourse but to remove the box around me. It’s time I shed my unworthiness, let my feelings of shame and doom die away, and purge my self-hatred. I want to meet your pure embrace. Meaning that even if you were to choose an ordinary life of marriage, I’d still come see you. Like you were family to me. Is that will to love enough? Is it enough? Life is so much more complicated than I ever imagined, and nothing is as easy as it seems. We meet at the border of mutual attraction and repulsion, and between us is a row of thorns. The two of us (or perhaps three) have been ravaged, yet no one can walk away. Tell me, is love—along with honesty, patience, and determination—strong enough? Is it?

  4

  Let’s talk for a moment about the relationship between Derek Jarman and Jean Genet.

  Because this country is small and crowded, and life is monotonous, and each day filled with a never-ending stream of media, so-called Crocodile Fever had reached an all-time high. It was now the longest segment on the news, illustrating the public’s appetite for information. A high-level alert had been issued in the past few days (the government agency overseeing the hunt had taken out a million-dollar bounty for the capture of the first specimen), so the crocodile had no choice but to quit its job and hide out at home for the time being, living off its savings. It thought about how it had catapulted to the top of the nation’s most popular celebrities. Even the president had concluded his inauguration speech with the remark “I hope that one day all of you will love me the way you love crocodiles,” calling on citizens everywhere to partake in the chase. The crocodile licked its lips, suppressing its secret feelings of unworthiness. It felt honored. In fact, it was seized with the urge to go on national television and tell everyone in the country: “Hey, here I am!”

  In 1991, after I got my college diploma, I started reading Hemingway and Faulkner. Sensing that my gifts were yet to be realized, I hunkered down at home to pursue my dream of becoming a writer. After three months, that dream was shattered. I was kicked out of the house. I became a server at a teahouse (which, if you think about it, isn’t so bad—Faulkner said the best job for a writer is to work at a brothel since you can write all day and enjoy a rich social life at night, which pretty much describes a teahouse). One evening around closing time, just as the last customer was leaving, an ad was discreetly posted on the bulletin board across the bar:

  NOTICE: Calling all crocodiles! The next gathering is at midnight on December 24th in room 100 of the Crocodile Bar. We’re throwing a Christmas Eve masquerade ball. . . .

  Yours truly,

  The Crocodile Club

  When the crocodile discovered the ad, it was so excited that it didn’t sleep for days. It had never occurred to the crocodile before that there were other crocodiles, and what’s more, they had already formed a club! Could that possibly mean there was a place to go and others to talk to? The thought of it made the crocodile melt a little. As it sucked on the corners of its comforter, giant teardrops welled up in its eyes.

  On Christmas Eve, the crocodile showed up at midnight on the dot. At the entrance of the bar, two attendants in white tuxedos were helping the guests remove their coats. Unaccustomed to such amenities, the crocodile shrank back. The attendants asked the crocodile to write down an alias. The crocodile wrote Jean Genet, then whispered, “Is everyone here a crocodile?” The attendants nodded. When the crocodile saw that the name next to Jean Genet was Derek Jarman, it flushed. It wanted to crawl under the reception table and hide.

  Inside, the bar was already packed. Th
e space was enormous and the decor sumptuous. The crocodile felt as if it were home at last. Why did everyone else’s human suits fit so securely? it thought. It had never before dawned on the crocodile that everyone else was just as shy as it was. Suddenly, it imagined a scene: On that cold winter night, everyone was huddling together for a group hug.

  In the middle of the masquerade ball, the voice of someone on the sidelines came through the loudspeakers: “We’d like to give a big thank you to the Chemical Trust Corporation for supporting this tenth edition of the Crocodile Club. For nearly half a year, the corporation has been carrying out top-secret research on human suits to benefit humanity’s keen and longtime interest in crocodiles. Just a few days ago, it launched a new product, the Human Suit™ 3, designed to meet the needs of those who exhibit latent crocodile tendencies. We hope that each and every one of you will upgrade your current suit for a brand-new one. Now, since this next song is an uptempo dance number and we don’t want to see anyone overheat, when I yell one, two, three!, I want everyone to strip off their suits.”

  At the count of one, two, three!, the light switch was thrown, and the entire crowd shouted in unison: “Crocodiles!”

  A split second earlier, I’d distracted the stage manager and unplugged the lighting console, hurried back over to where the crocodiles were, and darted out the back exit, fleeing in a human suit. Moments later, everything came to a complete halt. Panic broke out, and the crowd made a mad dash for the door. With all the neighbors having crashed the party, it created a stampede. I was the one who’d gone by the name of Jarman. From the moment the crocodiles set foot in the room, I’d suspected that the guest of honor was none other than a corporate sponsor.

  Jarman was a British film director who died young. I saw his film The Garden at the Golden Horse Film Festival in Taipei. Around that time, a crocodile had arranged for me to hide out in a teahouse basement. The material that crocodile provided and Jarman’s cinematic techniques prompted me to write this novel. Upon receiving my degree, I had written: “Woe is me . . . I was so close to being able to meet people without having to wear a human suit all the time. Why’d I have to be dragged off?” The crocodile stretched out on some cushions from the teahouse it had strewn across the wood floor. It lay on its back with its feet propped defiantly against the wall.

  I waved.

  “Everyone wants to get a good look at me . . . at you. . . .” Then the

  crocodile added reluctantly, “Don’t you understand that?” Realizing that it had never before been in the company of one of its own, it stammered a little. “But how am I actually different?”

  I nodded. “Regarding Genet,” the crocodile began, “there was no greater luminary. Raised in a French penitentiary, he lived a dozen lives, always going in and out of prison. In the end, beloved for his artistic genius, he was granted amnesty by Saudi Arabia. . . .”

  Mounted in the corner of the room was an 8mm camera pointed at the crocodile. Keeping one eye locked on the viewfinder, I devoured a bowl of hand-pulled egg noodles topped with vegetables. The miniature crocodile in the frame was ecstatic as it delivered its soliloquy. Words streamed out of the crocodile’s mouth, faster and faster, like a high-speed film projection, until the very end, when there was only the sound of the film strip flickering. . . . The crocodile had talked nonstop for three straight days without sleeping. Though I was dog-tired by then, I remembered its last words: “I gotta pee!”

  5

  After the storm, a rainbow appeared. We stood together on the pier and bid farewell to our sorrows, which by then had sunk to the bottom of the sea. We’d reached the end of the road. As the renewal of desires sent us each searching elsewhere, we embraced the new-found freedom ahead, deeming the last experience a novelty and leaving its messy details in the past. Our desires guided us down a fogbound road marked by one sign after another: a triangle crossed out a circle, which concealed an arrow, which pierced a triangle. Then a right turn onto a one-way street led to a detour in unchartered territory. . . .

  I found a black leather-bound notebook pinned to the bulletin board in the Literature Department. The notebook was densely crammed with text, each page packed with the same hasty scrawl. The personal info page revealed Meng Sheng’s name, address, and telephone. Seeing his name, I couldn’t hold back tears, which dampened one of the pages. What was it about our bizarre relationship that made me so sad?

  “Hey Meng Sheng, I found your black notebook. I thought I’d return it, so I took a peek inside.”

  “What? You wanted to see me? Careful, or you’ll fall in love with me.”

  It’d been almost half a year since I’d last seen him. He had a flat-top haircut and was dressed in a wool suit, a cream-colored checked shirt, with a dark green silk scarf draped around his neck, hanging to his knees. He looked stately, aristocratic even. We met at an underground bar filled with smoke from floor to ceiling. A foreign act, a band of long-haired metalheads, was performing onstage. The bar’s ambience evoked the interior of a primordial cave.

  “Meng Sheng, let’s not play games tonight, okay? I think—”

  “Am I becoming important to you?” He raised his right hand, signaling for me to stop talking. Speaking in a low voice, he stared vacantly at the band.

  He’d become mercurial. As I leaned in closer to him, one of my arms was illuminated by the lasers that shone in all directions while the other retained its natural hue. The tiny space was virtually light safe. Our surroundings, including the customers sitting at the other tables, were as hazy as a charcoal sketch. We were sealed inside the bar’s gritty atmosphere as the metal band pounded away.

  “Do you see that? That big table with a dozen or so guys, all decked out in those crazy costumes? And there . . . that other table with those two women with their heads down? Those people are all genderless. Or maybe I should say, they’re opposed to being bound by simplistic signifiers of gender. And see those two other bald guys?” Meng Sheng pointed to the lead singer. “He’s the proprietor of this place. I call him Nothing. That’s the name of this place. See the scar on his face? That’s from twenty-some-odd stitches. He took a fruit knife to himself when he was twenty and made a blood oath: He vowed to cut through the other self that had been handed to him by other people. It wasn’t the real him. Then he traveled around the world with just a backpack and became his true self.”

  “Meng Sheng, I don’t want to hear about that. There’s something I have to talk to you about.” He was sitting on a barstool, hands gripping the edge of the seat between his legs, which were twitching to the rhythm of the music. There was an emptiness in his eyes as he stood up to join the crowd, which had been worked into a frenzy and was now a collective organism throbbing violently.

  The bald-headed Nothing was at center stage. Amid a wall of drumming that appeared to be an interlude, he looked over at Meng Sheng temptingly, then motioned with one finger for Meng Sheng to join him onstage. Taking his cue, Meng Sheng slipped off his jacket and leapt onto the stage. The room greeted him with a burst of applause. Then, in unison, the audience began pounding on the tabletops, stomping and shouting: Bony. Bony—Bony. Bony.

  Meng Sheng grabbed a microphone and unleashed a rapid string of words in English. He remarked that he hadn’t sung in a year and was surprised everyone remembered him. Tonight, because he’d come with a special friend, he’d be performing a special song.

  The band launched into a ballad. Meng Sheng and Nothing came together in a duet, a soul number. Meng Sheng’s scarf was draped across his chest, and he had a seductive glow about him. Turning to face each other, Meng Sheng and Nothing started grinding to the music. Their hips drew closer and closer, until they were almost brushing, and the audience went wild. The two men flicked their tongues at each other hypnotically. Just as the performance reached a climax, the band abruptly ended the song.

  “What, you can’t handle seeing this kind of thing out in the open?” Meng Sheng asked me through the door of the ladies’ room. While watchi
ng their performance, I had downed both Meng Sheng’s brandy and my own in one gulp. A second later, I bolted to the restroom, my stomach wrenching.

  “No, it’s not that I can’t take it. It’s just that my mind and my body are out of sync. . . .” I struggled to get the words out between mouthfuls of vomit.

  “Are you okay?” Meng Sheng lifted a hand, considering whether to open the door. “This place is lame. It’s totally gone downhill. Back when I was a fixture here, Nothing and I would find girls who were willing to do it right then and there. I even took a crap in the middle of a performance once. You’d have to be nuts if it didn’t make you want to puke!”

  “Meng Sheng, you’ve known all along about my issues, haven’t you?” Regaining my composure, I sat down on the toilet.

  “I took one look and saw right through you.” He sat down too and peered at me through the slits of the vent in the bathroom door that separated us.

  “I’m screwed, just like you and Chu Kuang. I’m trapped in a destructive cycle and I can’t break out of it.” Saying those words aloud, I felt, for the first time, emancipated from the strictures of humanity. I whimpered.

  “Holy fucking Mother of Jesus, is that a vote in favor of God’s existence!” Meng Sheng slammed his fist against the door. “We come from a long line of deviants throughout history, all with the same final destination in the celestial order: death. But not every death is a life fully realized, nor is there any guarantee you’ll make it to the age of ninety. Any history that says I can’t live forever is bullshit. Since I was five and as far as I can remember, really, I’ve hated every breath that I’ve ever taken. But gradually I started to understand. Do you know what I hate most? It’s time. Heh. How can you defy time and space? What does heaven hold for those who do? Hey, we’re the chosen ones!”