standing on all four sides pissing at the same time. The clearing around the opening of the pit was dubbed “the precipice,” the innermost portion of which was shiny from the boys’ feet. Sleek black weeds and red rushes grew on the far edges, alongside purslanes, with their tiny yellow flowers.
“Hey, everybody, don’t pee right away! Hold it, and we’ll see who can drink his own,” Wang Tai said from the precipice.
Since the boys from grades one through five couldn’t squeeze up to the precipice, they watered the weeds and flowers on the outer edge, making them rustle loudly.
“Who’s first?” Wang Tai asked. “Gao Yang, give it a try.”
Gao Yang and Wang Tai belonged to the same production team. Wang Tai’s father was the team leader, while Gao Yang’s was a former landlord assigned to work under the supervision of poor and lower-middle-class peasants.
“Okay, I’ll go first!” Gao Yang responded happily.
A quarter of a century later, he still recalled the incident.
Gao Yang had been only thirteen at the time, and even though their family had never had enough to eat or decent clothes to wear, by scrimping and saving, his folks kept him in school through the sixth grade. His father was a landlord, his mother a landlord’s wife. With that kind of background, all the talent in the world couldn’t help Gao Yang avoid the only path open to him-straight to Gaotong Production Team Number 2 as a worker under the supervision of Wang Tai’s father, and very soon. Gao Yang was pretty sure he’d never pass the middle-school entrance exam, even if he got perfect scores in every subject, which was impossible in any case. So naturally he was eager when Wang Tai gave him the chance to drink his own urine. Back then being noticed by others, for whatever reason, made him happy.
When he said he’d try, he was confident he could do it. So he aimed his taut little pecker skyward and shot a stream of yellow piss straight up, way over his head. Quickly sticking his lips into the watery column, he took a big mouthful and swallowed it. Then he did it again.
Wang Tai roared with laughter. “How’d it taste? How was it?”
“Kind of like tea,” he lied.
“Who else wants to try?” Wang Tai asked. “Who’s next?” No takers.
Some of the smaller kids ran out onto the athletic field and shouted, “Come over here, quick! The sixth-graders are seeing who’ll drink his own pee!”
Wang Tai turned to another of the sixth-graders. “Li Shuanzhu, go out there and take care of those little pussies.” Then he lowered his voice. “Hey, guys, do you know how girls pee?”
They said they didn’t.
Wang Tai spread his legs, squatted down, and made a hissing sound with his mouth. “Like that.”
The sixth-graders shrieked in delight.
Then Wang Tai lined them up on the west edge of the precipice. “Now we’ll see who can piss the highest,” he said. “The winner gets a prize.”
A dozen or more students lined up, with Wang Tai at the head, and launched that many watery columns-some yellow and some white, some clear and some murky-into the air. Most crashed down on the wall dividing the boys’ and girls’ lavatories, but at least two landed on the other side. By far the most turbulent stream belonged to Wang Tai himself-Gao Yang was absolutely certain of that.
A shriek erupted from the girls’ lavatory, followed by curses.
Gao Yang couldn’t believe it when Wang Tai put the blame on him.
The principal dragged Gao Yang into his office and smacked him in front of the teachers. “The sons of heroes are as solid as bricks, the sons of reactionaries are all little pricks,” he announced, before turning to one of the younger teachers. “Liu Yaohua, go to Gaotong Village and tell Wang Tai’s and Gao Yangs fathers I want to see them.”
Gao Yang burst out crying, afraid his father would suffer again, all because of him.
The old inmate scooped the bun out of Gao Yang’s piss and squeezed it with both hands; it made a bubbling sound as the gummy urine dripped through his gnarled, grimy fingers. After he’d squeezed it dry, he wiped his hands on his pants, then tore off a chunk and popped it into his mouth.
“See, buddy, he’s eating it. Now, go on, drink up. It’s your own piss, so it can’t hurt you,” the grinning middle- aged inmate said, softly enough so the guards wouldn’t hear him.
Gao Yang glared at the would-be murderer, feeling morally superior to someone for the first time in his life. Killer! Thief! Incestuous old bastard! When the poor and lower-middle-class peasants made me drink my own piss, I did it. And when the Red Guards made me drink it, I did it. But for common criminals like you? “I won’t do it!” he announced defiantly,
“Are you sure about that?” the middle-aged inmate asked with a thin laugh.
“I’m sure,” Gao Yang replied as he glanced at the old man, who was gobbling up the piss-soaked bun; he felt a wave of nausea rise in his throat.
“You’d better do as he says, if you know what’s good for you,” the young inmate urged him.
“If the guards ordered me to drink it, I’d have no choice,” Gao Yang replied. “But I’ve done nothing to offend any of you.”
“Maybe not,” the young man said sympathetically. “But rules are rules.”
“Go on, drink,” the old inmate added his encouragement. “People have to learn how to deal graciously with humiliation. Look at me-I’m drinking your piss, aren’t I?”
“I’m not the tyrant you think I am, friend,” the middle-aged inmate said earnestly. “Believe me, it’s for your own good.”
Beginning to waver, Gao Yang was actually touched by the man’s apparent sincerity.
“Go on, Little Brother, drink it,” the old man croaked, his throat filled with pieces of steamed bun.
“Do as he says, Elder Brother,” the young cellmate urged him with watery eyes.
Gao Yang’s nose began to ache-he was about to cry-and when he looked at the three criminals who shared his cell, he felt like a man whose loved ones were coaxing him into taking a dose of bitter medicine.
“I’ll drink it… I’ll drink it…” His throat tightened until he couldn’t string together a complete sentence.
“Good boy-that’s what I like to hear!” the middle-aged inmate said with a friendly pat on the shoulder.
Gao Yang sank slowly to his knees on the cement floor in the middle of his own puddle of piss, which retained the enticing odor of garlic. As he closed his eyes, images of his father and mother drifted into his mind. Father wore a tattered conical rain hat, a scrawny tuft of hair peeking through the hole at the top. He was hunched over and was wheezing badly. Mother, struggling on tiny bound feet, was hauling a wagon uphill in the snow. Gao Yang quickly flattened his feverish lips against the cold cement floor. The smell of garlic-ah, the smell of garlic! He sucked up a mouthful of cool urine, and another, and a third… ah, the smell of garlic!
The middle-aged man grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted him up. “Little Brother,” he said, “you can stop now.”
After being led over to his cot, Gao Yang sat on the edge as if in a trance, not saying a word for about half as long as it takes to smoke a pipeful. A gurgle rose in his throat. Another long pause before his lips parted and he blurted out tearfully, “Father… Mother… today your son… drank his own piss… again.”
Father wore his tattered conical rain hat, and wheezed badly. He held a switch in his hands as he stood in the school office, looking pitifully into the face of the nearly apoplectic principal. “Mr. Principal, sir, the boy didn’t know what he was doing.
“What do you mean, he didn’t know what he was doing?” the principal barked as he banged his desk. “He’s a little hooligan!”
“A hoo… ligan?”
“He peed on the girls in his class! Was that your idea?”
“Mr. Principal… sir… I’m a lifelong reader of the classics… benevolence, justice, rites, knowledge, trust… no contact between boys and girls…” Father was wailing before he finished.
“You can put away that bunch of feudalistic crap,” the principal snarled.
“I had no idea he could do something as shameful as that,” said Father, who was trembling from head to toe. He raised the thick willow switch in his hands. “I… I’ll kill him… I’ll beat you to death You let me down, you good-
