“Larry’s the only other person I consider family.”
“Did he come to the wedding?”
I shook my head. “He got entangled in a menage a trois with two sisters he’d been chasing for four years. I was pissed at him, but at the same time, I couldn’t blame him. Still, he was supposed to stand in as my honorary brother. I was disappointed.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Is there a way we can get hold of Larry now?”
“If he isn’t picking up, I don’t know any other way. But we can see him for sure at the convention tomorrow. Plus, I think the cast of Star Force 22B is going to be there and I’ve always wanted to meet them.”
III.
It felt nice being able to use a real toilet. I’d taken these bowls for granted in the past. No longer. There was a noise muffler to mute my flatulence which was loud after exuberant usage. Gastronomic bombs, you called them, Larry. My stomach, unable to handle so much food, banished 80% of it out my ass. I cleaned meticulously, wiped my hands, and looked in the mirror. My cheeks had sunken in and I looked like half the man I’d been. I checked my weight and saw that I’d lost 60 pounds.
Rebecca was asleep on her bed. She’d set up a mattress on the ground and I lay down in her white sheets.
“Is it uncomfortable?” she asked which surprised me as I thought she was sleeping.
“Most comfortable bed I’ve slept on in ages,” I answered her. I lay on my side, rustled back and forth, scratched an itch.
She burst out laughing.
“What?” I asked.
“You fart really loud,” she said.
I was embarrassed. “I had the muffler on,” I offered weakly.
“Don’t worry. I fart loud too.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said, laughing at me. “Do you like fruit juices?”
“Apple a day keeps the doctor away, right?”
“Organic apple a day,” she corrected me.
“Why do you ask?”
“That’s going to be our breakfast.”
“Apples?”
“Fruit juice.”
The window was open and I heard a woman singing a song in Mandarin. Cars honked and a couple drunks were causing a ruckus. Shanghai was always bustling, even in the middle of the night. L.A. had a different kind of noise. Linda and me used to hear people screaming, homeless people in vituperations against one another. There were constant gunshots, sirens blaring, and drones warning citizens to stay indoors while they searched for criminals.
“If you see a big roach running around, don’t hurt it,” she suddenly said. “That’s my pet cockroach, Kafka.”
“What?!” I exclaimed and got up. “Where?”
“He should be back in his cage, but he gets curious when strangers visit.”
“How big?”
She appeared amused. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a tiny little roach.”
“Where is it?”
“Check his cage on my shelf.”
“If he’s not there?”
“Check your bed.”
The glass cage was damp and home to an ebony roach fatter than my thumb.
“He’s been genetically modified to be smarter than your regular roach,” Rebecca said.
“He’s not tiny,” I said.
Rebecca laughed. “You’re like a hundred times bigger than him.”
“I hate roaches.”
“No matter how scared you are of him, he’s a thousand times more scared of you.”
“I’m not scared,” I said.
“Uh huh.”
“Can we shut his cage?” I asked.
“Makes him really grumpy. How about you just sleep on the bed?”
I turned to her.
“You afraid of me too?” she asked.
I got in the bed, turned away from her, and said, “Good night.”
“Good night. And point your ass the other way. I heard what a deadly weapon it is.”
IV.
I had a hard time sleeping, thinking about Larry and everything that had happened. In the morning, we took a cab to the convention center in Nanjing Road as parking was nearly impossible without paying a small fortune. Nanjing Road was the biggest shopping street in the world and got bigger every day. There were hundreds of thousands of pedestrians and all kinds of stores assembled as a honeycomb of merchandising. I saw massive 3D billboards of female actresses selling watches and hundreds of watch stores below, profiting from subjugating time into whimsical measures. The solar watch from the Han Dynasty was right next to the dictionary from a forgotten dialect as well as a series of multicolored video-game consoles from an age when you needed cartridges to play them. All the advertisements of beautiful Asians made sex blasé by their ubiquity even though they were designed to make women feel insecure and men lust after digitally enhanced women that didn’t really exist. There was still haggling, vendors selling people things they didn’t need.
The convention center blended in with the rest of the tall buildings, a structure meant to pay homage to the Summer Palace in Beijing with its classical Chinese architecture. Thousands of guests were waiting, many dressed in costumes from their favorite TV shows. Banners for the Global Entertainment Awards (GEAs) were everywhere, urging audiences to watch in two days. There were tables filled with vendors selling paraphernalia from the shows; posters, recordings, toys, artifacts from the filming, and green stand-ins for guns and props that were replaced digitally. Many walked around in the purple hoods of an old show, Project Circumstance, revolving around a sect of Chinese kung-fu fighting monks who also used laser beams. There was Man-Boobs, a reality show about obese men who fought hard to take part in bikini contests around the world, only to receive the scorn of those who wanted to see buxom women. Star Force 22B used to be one of the most popular shows in the world, creating a universe where humanity transcended its violent past to establish a society based on nobler virtues. They harnessed a black hole to propel a fleet of ships throughout the galaxy. I watched them growing up, inspired by their sense of honor to conduct myself in a manner that would make humanity proud. The crew of the original show was signing autographs and selling digital images of themselves for 100 SC. They looked so much older in person and even though it had been fifteen years since the show had been popular, it was depressing seeing them charge money for their images. They stopped attendees from taking their picture without paying via a digital scrambler and scowling assistants informed people to put their cameras away. The show used to represent the most egalitarian of futures, a universe where man was not inherently a brute bent on exploiting his neighbor. And yet, here they were, nickel and diming everyone. I knew they had to make a living. But seeing the thousands in line for an autograph made me realize what I’d always known; this was show business with an emphasis on the business part.
“You going to stand in line?” I asked Rebecca.
She laughed. “They’re so old, I don’t even recognize them anymore.”
“You can pay 3000SC for a photo with the whole group.”
“Is it that much?”
“Yeah.”
“I think I’d rather pay my rent.”
I felt worse for the extras, the actors who played aliens people had forgotten about. They sat in the corners, ignored, nary a visitor at their booth. They were trying to look busy scanning their holopads, assembling their goods on their table to make them tidier. Even if the main crew of Star Force came across as greedy, at least they didn’t reek of desperation.
There was a huge image of Rodenticide playing on the big screen above. “The Number One Movie in the world!” the bombastic narrator declared. Rebecca tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and saw Larry thronged by fans, a fedora secure above his head.
Emotions overwhelmed me—I never thought I’d see him again. All the suffering I’d endured for the past few weeks withered.
“Larry!” I shouted. “Larry!”
Larry looked at me and gri
nned. “Where the hell have you been?”
I didn’t understand how Larry could be living in front of me. I knew for a fact that I’d seen his lifeless body. And yet, here he was, breathing. “I thought you were dead.”
Larry burst out laughing. “That’s a nice way to greet me. You disappeared for almost two months.”
“I-I was kidnapped by Shinjee’s friends.”
“Where did they take you?”
“I can tell you about it later,” I said, noticing all the people staring at us. “Can we talk in private?”
“Absolutely. Can we make it later? I have a big crowd waiting for me.”
“Yeah of course.” I hesitated. “Larry, I hope you don’t take offense at what I’m about to do.”
“What do you—”
I grabbed his shirt and lifted it up to check his stomach. Sure enough, there was a tattoo of a frog and even the misspelled Mandarin. It was Larry alright. I couldn’t believe it.
“There’s a lot we need to talk about, man,” I said to him.
“You can start with where you’ve been. But we’ll talk more later. Unless you want to join me? I’m sure they’d love to drill my DP about my films.”
“I’ll leave it to you.”
He was whisked away by a big crowd. I felt happy for him, seeing how much acclaim the movie was getting from fans.
“You okay?” Rebecca asked.
“I feel like I’ve seen a ghost,” I answered. “Except the ghost came back to life.” I put my hand on her arm. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“F-for everything.”
“You look like you need a drink.”
“I could use one. In fact, I wouldn’t mind getting drunk.”
She smiled. “There’s a million bars right outside the convention center.”
We hit up one that was welcoming fans of Japanese gangster movies and they had all sorts of saké on sale. The waitresses were dressed up as white-masked geishas and the waiters had plastic guns strapped to their belts. We ordered a sampler of ten different sakés and guzzled them down.
“Am I crazy?” I asked her. “Did I even see anyone dead? Maybe I got it all mixed up.”
I tried to recollect the specifics of that night, but it was blurry in my head, aggravated by the fact that my world was spinning from the drinks.
“Mistakes happen,” she offered.
“You ever hear about a guy who mistook his best friend for a corpse?”
“No.”
I looked at my empty glass and pointed at the bartender who filled it up. “Did you see all his fans? Larry was worried nobody would care about his movies. But looks like people do care.”
“I love them,” Rebecca said.
“We were making movies we believed in. I didn’t care if anyone watched them or not.”
“Is that just something all you artist types have to say? Because I don’t believe you.”
I chuckled. “I guess I did care a little.”
“You guys can get back to making more movies.”
“He was talking about making a big epic. Something to do with the Baldification.”
“Can I get a walk-on role? It can be something small.”
“Of course.”
“So, connections do matter,” she said.
“Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about,” I replied. “Drink more. Everything’s on me tonight.”
V.
I had a hundred questions, none of them explicable. If Larry were alive, why had Shinjee kidnapped me, even if she did give me a way out? I owed her a visit. I owed a lot of people visits. Rebecca was singing and dancing and I wondered why she was spending so much time with me. Was I incapable of reading signals? Was she interested in me? She was beautiful. Not as beautiful as Beauvoir, but still very attractive.
“They’re sending more colonists to Mars,” Rebecca said, pointing at the news.
Trillions of dollars were being spent so a handful of astronauts could live on an enormous red rock when millions of people were starving in Europe.
“I heard Venus used to be like earth until pollution wiped it out and made it into a big poisonous ball of gas.”
I used to love looking at stars with Linda. We’d make up our own constellations and draw imaginary patterns through the lights.
“I guess it’ll be okay as long as we don’t end up like that planet between Mars and Jupiter. Kaboom!” she yelled. “I think it’d be nice to live on Pluto.”
“Why?”
“Wherever you go, it can only get brighter.”
I stood up, then stumbled from the drink. She grabbed me before I fell. I was about to thank her when I saw her face right in front of mine. Her lips were just inches away. I could feel her breath on mine. I wanted to move my lips forward just a bit. We both hesitated. I wilted first. “I think I need to step out and get some fresh air,” I said.
“Don’t get lost,” she answered.
I rubbed my eyes and walked out. It was pouring rain and I had no umbrella. The thunder boomed and the skies were painted black.
I still can’t believe you’re alive, Larry.
“Why did you come back here?” someone asked.
I turned around and saw a teen in a black trench coat. He had a translucent umbrella and white hair that reminded me of Tolstoy, the cricket champion. But this guy had a much leaner nose, smaller eyes, and bulkier frame. When I tried to examine him more carefully, he withdrew. I was too drunk to persist.
“This is my first time at the convention,” I informed him, wondering if he’d mixed me up with someone else.
“They have such a nice arrangement now. You’ll ruin it for them, Nick Guan.”
How did he know my name? “Do I know you?”
“You’re going to disrupt their plans if you stay.”
“What plans? Who the hell are you?”
He laughed. “I know you’re confused. Don’t you get the joke?”
“No.”
“You should be laughing.”
“Why?”
“You’re the punch line and you don’t even know it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you?” he asked. “I’m a brewer of storms and I’m going to show you a storm unlike any you’ve seen before. Make sure you get out of the rain.” He tossed me his umbrella, then ran off.
I went back inside and overheard Rebecca talking on a communicator to someone.
“—doing my best to keep him busy…What do you mean you gotta leave? You’re the one who told me to keep him here…I’m not gonna sleep with him just to—no, no. I don’t care how important it is. That’s your problem. He doesn’t know anything. At least not from what he’s told me…You’re just being paranoid.” Who was she talking to?
She spotted me and ended the communication.
“Larry’s manager called,” she said.
“Where we gonna meet him?”
“Larry had to cancel because of an emergency press junket in America he had to fly out to. I think it’s something related to presenting at the GEAs. He did ask if you’d be willing to go on a few press junkets in Europe.”
I felt disappointed. There was so much I needed to talk with him about.
“Come back inside,” Rebecca said. “I hate drinking alone.”
VI.
The teen’s words nagged me. Was everything going too smoothly? Maybe it was nothing, just all in my head. Rebecca had passed out and I carried her back to her place. Drunk and barely conscious, I helped her into bed, tucking her in. “It’s so hot,” she muttered, then wrestled off her shirt and bra to lay in bed. I saw her dark nipples clash against her skin.
“Larry,” she called. “Larry, come to bed.”
What the hell?
I forced myself to the bathroom and washed up; exited the apartment, flagged down a cab, and asked for the train station. I was taking the bullet train to Beijing. Maybe Rebecca’s slipup mean
t nothing. But I owed Shinjee a visit. I also needed to see George and see if I could procure some new gadgets.
As I boarded the train, I wondered if Rebecca was in love with Larry. Were they secretly lovers? It didn’t make sense. I thought about what she’d said about the planets. I felt like that shattered planet and I’d just gotten back from Pluto. Only I didn’t know if I was going to a brighter place or that oblivion beyond our solar system from which there was no return.
8. Machinations of a Prince
I.
I waited for George outside of his Beijing apartment in the morning. He smelled of bacon and beer. A group of people were practicing tai-chi outside despite the poisonous mist. Workers in gas masks were cleaning up the streets with traditional brooms. When George saw me, he quickened his pace and asked, “Vhat you doing here?”
“I came by to say hello.”
“Hello. Goodbye.”
He tried to walk past me. “George, what the hell, man?”
“I can’t be seen talking to you.”
“Why not?”
He looked up at the apartments, then down the street, a paranoid tension in his movements. “I can’t compromise my family.”
“It’s just me, George,” I said. “Do you not work for Larry anymore?”
He became extremely nervous, his eyes like tiny, scared slits. “Vhat you need?”
“I was hoping for light bombs and some other gadgets.”
“Vhat for?”
“I’m investigating something.”
George shook his head. “I can’t help you.”
He hurried forward, but as he did, he stumbled on the curb and fell. I immediately ran over to assist him. He whispered in my ear, “Go to Vudaokou Storage #301 and scan your fingerprints.”
He rose to his feet and hurried away.
In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him so scared.
I took the subway to Wudaokou Station. Vendors sold used shoes, oxygen refills, and bottled water. It was always busy and the subway was jammed with people rushing to work, home, their lovers, and wherever else they needed to have been an hour ago. The subway TVs were covering the Mars launch, the first joint expedition between China and Brazil. Space was pitch black from the frontal cameras and I wondered what the astronauts talked about between the long hours adrift. I thought of the cells within my own body, venturing into different arteries, traveling along the river of my bloodstream. Every organ was a sprightly city, every neighboring cell a potential neighbor or rival. Were there blood scientists that studied the physics of my body, a history of a universe that would one day come to an end upon my death?
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