The Garlic Ballads

big around he couldn’t see his hands. He and the tree were one. Enraged by this turn of events, he banged his forehead against the trunk, sending leaves fluttering and cicadas flying, their chilled urine wetting the nape of his neck.

“Didn’t you say you were going to r-run away?” the policeman mocked. “Go ahead. P-pull the tree up by its roots and take it with you.”

As Gao Yang strained to move, a thorn pricked him in the belly- all the way to his guts, it seemed, since they chose that moment to knot up. To separate himself from it, he had to lean back as far as his arms would allow and let the cuffs dig into his wrists. Then, by arching his back and letting his head droop, he was able to confirm that the blackish-red thorn was no longer stuck in him. White fibers dangled from the tip, and a single drop of blood, also blackish red, oozed from the tiny puncture wound. Now that the crotch of his pants was nearly dry, he noticed the crusty edges of a urine stain that wound around the seat of his pants like a cloud formation. He also saw that his right ankle was swollen and discolored; dead skin had curled back to the edges of the swelling, like transparent sloughed-off snakeskin.

He shifted his body away from the thorn and glared with defensive loathing at the policeman’s black leather boots, which shone beneath spattered mud. If they had been wearing cloth shoes, he was thinking, my ankle wouldn’t be all puffy. He tried flexing it, but that only sent the bone-crushing pains shooting up his leg. Even as his eyes puddled he reminded himself, Gao Yang, your tears may flow, but you are not crying!

The policemen, one with his pistol drawn, the other holding a black prod, tiptoed up to Gao Mas yard, where the eastern wall had crumbled until the bricks stood no more than two or three feet high; they could nearly step over it. Inside the yard, a pair of ailanthus “trees of heaven,” with droopy leaves, stood at the base of the western wall, creating slivers of shade for a handful of chickens wilting under the scorching sunlight that settled upon piles of rotting garlic like molten silver. Nausea welled up inside Gao Yang. After the price of garlic plummeted the month before, he had begun to associate the long, sleek plants with maggots on a manure pile; the nausea refocused his mind in that direction.

A cracked iron pot lay upside-down beneath the window of one of the red-roofed houses, and he saw the policeman holding the black prod-the one with the stammer-stand on it and crane his neck to see Gao Ma sleeping on his kang. The village boss, Gao Jinjiao, leaned against a tree and bumped it rhythmically with his back. Chickens with mud-encrusted white feathers were squatting in a clump of grass under the blazing sun, stretching out their wings to soak up its energy. “Chicken wings absorbing rays, it’ll rain within three days.” That was a comforting thought. By craning his neck, Gao Yang caught a glimpse of sky through a fork in the branches. It was bright blue and cloudless; purple rays of sunlight streamed earthward, making the chickens stir and part the grass with their claws. The stammering policeman’s partner was right behind him, revolver at the ready, its blue metal glistening. His mouth gaped as he held his breath.

Gao Yang lowered his head, sending drops of cooled sweat sliding down the tree to the ground. The policemen exchanged glances; then the pushing and shoving began: You first. No, you. Gao Yang knew what that was all about. Then it was settled, apparently, for the stammering policeman hitched up his belt, and his partner clamped his hps so tightly that Gao Yang saw only a thin, shiny slit in his face. A long, languid fart fanned out under Gao Jinjiao’s tree. The policemen tensed like tomcats about to pounce on a mouse.

“Run, Gao Ma, run! It’s the police!” The moment the shout left his mouth he felt cold all over and his teeth chattered. It was fear, no mistaking that. Fear and regret. Squeezing his trembling lips shut, he stared straight ahead. The stammering policeman spun around, tripped on the rusty pot, and all but crashed to the ground. His partner, meanwhile, burst into the room, pistol in hand, the stammerer hard on his heels. A crash; then the clang of something hitting a wall.

“Hands up!”

“Put your hands up!”

Gao Yangs eyes were awash with tears, fm not crying, he reassured himself, I am not crying. He could all but see a pair of gleaming bracelets like the ones he had now encircling Gao Ma’s powerful wrists. His hands felt puffy and heavy, although he couldn’t see around the tree trunk to confirm that. The sensation was one of blood distending the veins until they were about to release geysers of the dark red liquid.

Following a brief but noisy scuffie, the window banged open and a shadowy figure burst through. It was Gao Ma, wearing only a pair of olive-drab underpants. He stumbled over the upturned pot but scrambled back to his feet. The linked actions were clumsy: with his rear end sticking up in the air and his feet and hands clawing at the ground, he looked like a baby that has just learned to crawl.

Gao Yang’s lips parted, and from somewhere deep in his cranium he heard a voice, similar to his own yet somehow different, say, You’re not laughing, did you know that? You’re not.

The rainbow vanished, the sky turned blue-gray, and the sun blazed.

Pow!

The stammering policeman jumped through the window and embedded his booted foot in the overturned pot. He fell to his hands and knees, one foot stuck in the pot, the other resting against it; one hand was empty, the other grasped the black prod. His partner ran out the door, pistol in hand. “Stop right there!” he screamed. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” But he didn’t shoot, not even when Gao Ma leapt over the crumbling wall and took off running down the lane, sending the sunning chickens scurrying from their grassy redoubts, only to close in behind him like a squawking shadow. The stammering policeman’s wide-brimmed cap, dislodged on his way out the window, perched precariously on the sill before landing on its owner’s upraised rump, and from there fell to the ground, where it rolled around until the other policeman kicked it ten or fifteen feet as he turned and jumped the wall, leaving his partner to bang on the pot with his prod, filling the air with slivers of metal and loud clangs.

Gao Yang had an unobstructed view of the man extricating his foot from the pot. An isolated image popped into his head: a policeman’s leg. The policeman scooped up his cap and jammed it on his head as he followed his partner over the wall.

Gao Ma tore through the acacia grove with such speed that Gao Yang nearly wrenched his neck following Gao Ma’s progress as he crashed and thudded his way along blindly, bumping into trees when he glanced over his shoulder; young trees swayed, old ones groaned. Gao Yang was frantic. Can’t you make those powerful legs and muscular arms go any faster? Move! They’re right behind you! His anxiety mounted. White and yellow spots shimmered gracefully on Gao Ma’s sunburned skin under the mottled shade of acacia trees. His legs seemed lashed together, like a great horse in fetters. He was flailing his arms. Why look back, you dumb bastard? With his bared teeth and long, drawn face, Gao Ma looked just like his namesake, ma, the horse.

As he followed his partner through the grove, the stammering policeman limped from his run-in with the pot. Serves you right! The pain in Gao Yang’s ankle was excruciating, as if it had separated from its moorings. Serves you right, damn you! The sound of gnashing teeth rose from somewhere deep inside his ears.

“Stop, damn you, stop where you are! One more step and I’ll shoot!” the policeman warned for the second time. But still he didn’t shoot. Instead he ran from the protection of one tree to another at a crouch, his weapon at the ready. The hunter was beginning to look like the hunted.

The far edge of the acacia grove was bordered by a shoulder-high wall topped by woven millet stalks. Gao Yang twisted himself around the tree just in time to see Gao Ma stymied by the obstacle. His pursuers had their weapons drawn. “Don’t move!” Gao Ma pressed up against the wall. Blood seeped through the cracks between his teeth. A steel loop dangled from his right wrist; attached to the other end was its mate, linked by a short chain. They had managed to cuff only one of his wrists.

“Stand right there and don’t move! You’ll only make things worse by resisting arrest!”

They approached him shoulder to shoulder, the stammering policeman’s limp as noticeable as ever.

Gao Yang quaked so violently he set the leaves of the tree in motion. He stopped looking at Gao Ma’s face as it faded into the distance. The policemen’s white backs, Gao Ma’s tanned face, and the black leaves of the acacia trees flattened out and were stamped on the yellow earth.

What happened next took both Gao Yang and the policemen by surprise: Gao Ma crouched down, scooped up some dirt, and flung it in their faces. The powdery soil covered them like dust clouds as they instinctively raised their arms to protect their eyes and stumbled backwards, regaining their three-dimensional form. Gao Ma spun around and climbed up onto the wall. Two shots rang out; two puffs of dust rose from the wall.