The policewoman blushed. She spat at him.
The old woman was still sobbing. “Aunt Fang,” Whiskers Zhu said, “keep it down. You have to face the music sooner or later, and crying wont help.”
“If you don’t stop,” the policewoman threatened, “I’ll sew your damned mouth shut!”
The old woman looked up and screamed hysterically, “Go ahead, sew it up! You little cunt, no one should be that heartless at your age! Keep it up and you’ll have a baby with no asshole!”
As her colleagues roared with laughter, the policewoman walked up to lack the old woman again, but the one called Zheng stopped her.
Gao Yang knew the woman who was crying and making such a fuss-it was Fourth Aunt Fang. She didn’t realize that her hands were manacled until she tried to wipe her tear-streaked face, and the sight of the shiny bracelets set her off again.
“Comrades,” Zhu piped up, “all this has put you to a lot of trouble. Come have something to eat.”
The delivery boy from a local restaurant was riding up to the station house on his bicycle, clutching a food basket with one hand and a bundle of beer bottles with the other, letting the bike steer itself. He screeched to a halt at the gate and jumped off his bike with the food and beer.
“He sure knows how to ride that thing,” Zheng said.
Whiskers Zhu turned to greet the delivery boy. “What took you so long?”
“Too many parties today. Five at your township offices alone, plus one at the supply and marketing co-op, one at the bank, and another at the hospital. I’ve had my hands full here, not to mention the villages down the road.”
“Quite a gold mine you ve got there,” Zhu said.
“For the boss, maybe, but I could run my legs off and he wouldn’t give me a cent more than I’m getting now.” He opened the food basket, which was filled with meat, fish, and poultry. The tantalizing smells started Gao Yang salivating.
“Put the lid back on till I can tidy up the room,” Zhu said.
“Make it quick. I still have to go to Secretary Wang’s home in North Village. He called to ask where his order was.”
“Find an empty room for the prisoners,” Zheng said.
“Where am I supposed to find an empty room?” Zhu asked.
“P-put them in the truck,” the stammering policeman suggested.
“Who’s responsible if they get away?”
“Handcuff them to a tree,” Drumhead said. “That way they’ll get some shade, too.”
“Get up, all of you!” one of the young policemen ordered the prisoners.
Gao Yang was the first to stand up, followed by the horse-faced young man. Fourth Aunt Fang stayed on the floor and sobbed. “I’m not getting up. If I’m going to die I’ll do it with a roof over my head.
“Mrs. Fang,” Zheng said, “if you keep acting like that, we might have to get rough.”
“So what?” she shouted. “What will you do, beat me to death?”
“No, I wont beat you to death,” Zheng said with a sneer, “but if you refuse to obey orders and create a disturbance, I’m within my rights to use force. You may not know what electricity feels like, but that second son of yours knows well enough.”
Zheng took an electric prod out of his belt and waved it in front of her. “If you’re not on your feet by the time I count to three, I’ll let you have it.”
“One…”
“Go ahead, let me have it. Pig!”
“Two…”
“Go ahead, let me have it!”
“Three!” Zheng shouted as he stuck the prod up under her nose. She shrieked and rolled on the floor before scrambling to her feet.
As the other policemen laughed, the one named Guo pointed to the horse-faced young man. “This son of a bitch is in a world of his own,” he said. “Not even an electric shock fazes him.”
“You re joking,” Zheng said.
“Try it, if you don’t believe me.”
Zheng pressed the switch of the prod, which spat green sparks of crackling electricity. “I don’t believe you,” he said, touching the young man’s neck.
Not a twitch; just a contemptuous smile.
“That’s weird,” Zheng marveled. “Maybe it’s busted.”
“There’s one sure way to find out,” Guo suggested.
“Impossible,” Zheng mumbled, then touched his own neck with it. He shrieked, dropping the prod; holding his head in his hands, he crumpled to the floor.
The other policemen roared with laughter.
“That’s what we call testing the law on the lawman,” Guo remarked sarcastically.
They walked about fifty paces down the broad compound path, Gao Yang led by the stammering policeman, the horse-faced young man in the custody of one of the young policemen, and Fourth Aunt Fang being dragged along by Zheng and the policewoman. The path led to the county road, which was lined with a couple of dozen tall poplars, each as big around as a tub.
The handcuffs were removed and the prisoners pushed back against the trees, their arms forced back around the trunks so their police escort could snap the handcuffs on. “Ouch! Damn it, you’re breaking my arms!” It was Fourth Aunt Fang.
“J-just to be on the safe side,” the stammerer said to the policewoman, Song Anni.
Her response was a lazy yawn.
The police all went inside to enjoy their food and beer, now that their prisoners were standing shackled to the trees; but they soon slid slowly down the trunks until they were sitting on the ground, arms wrenched behind them.
The shade kept shifting eastward, until the late-afternoon sun shone directly down on the prisoners. Everything turned black for Gao Yang, whose arms felt as if they had floated away, leaving a burning sensation in his shoulders. The horse-faced young man beside him was puking loudly. Gao Yang turned to look at him.
The drooping head at the end of the man’s long neck forced his shoulder blades straight up. His chest heaved violently, and there was a sticky, nasty mess on the ground, a mixture of red and white; bottleneck flies were already swarming over from the toilet. Gao Yang jerked his head around, as his stomach lurched and a pocket of air rushed noisily to his throat. His mouth flew open and out gushed a yellow liquid.
The wailing of Fourth Aunt, who was on his left, had soon turned to sobs, and now even they had faded away. Was she dead? Alarmed by this thought, he turned to look. No, she wasn’t dead. She was gasping for breath, and if her arms hadn’t been pulled so tightly behind her, she would have been sprawled facedown on the ground. One of her shoes had fallen off, revealing a dark, pointed foot stretched out to the side, where ants swarmed over it. Her head wasn’t touching the ground, but her white hair was.
I’m not crying, Gao Yang muttered to himself. I’m not.
Summoning all his energy, he got to his feet and pushed his back against the tree trunk as hard as he could, in order to take some of the pressure off his arms. The policewoman, Song Anni, came up to survey the scene. She removed her cap, smoothing her lush black hair, but kept her sunglasses on as she wiped her moist, shiny lips with a handkerchief that quickly covered her mouth as her glance landed on the horse-faced young man’s mess. “No problems here?” she asked in a muffled voice.
Gao Yang didn’t feel like answering, and Fourth Aunt was incapable of it, so it was up to the horse-faced young man: “No p-problem, even if I f-fuck your old lady!”
Terrified that she was going to hit the young man, Gao Yang spun around to look at him. But the policewoman just turned and walked away, her mouth covered by the handkerchief.
“Worthy brother,” Gao Yang said, struggling to get the words out, “don’t make things any harder on yourself.”
The young man just grinned. His face was as pale as a sheet of paper.
The policewoman returned with Zhu and Zheng in tow. Zhu had a metal pail, Zheng carried three empty beer
