2.
They approached the railroad tracks under a red morning sun. Even at that hour dozens of tractors were lined up ahead of them, all loaded down with garlic.
Their way was blocked by a zebra-striped guard rail on the north side of the tracks. A long line of carts pulled by oxen, donkeys, horses, and humans, plus the tractors and trucks, snaked behind them, as the entire garlic crop from four townships was drawn like a magnet to the county town. The sun showed half of its red face, oudined in black, as it climbed above the horizon and fell under the canopy of a white cloud whose lower half was dyed pale red. Four shiny east-west tracks lay before them. A green eastbound locomotive, belching white smoke and splitting the sky with whisde shrieks, shot past, followed by a procession of passenger cars and the bloated faces of the elite at the windows.
A middle-aged man holding a red-and-green warning flag stood by the lowered guard rail. His face was also round and heavy. Did all the elite people who worked for the railroad have bloated faces? The ground was still shaking after the train passed, and his donkey quaked from the terrifying shrieks of the train whistle. Gao Yang, who had been covering the animal’s eyes, let his hands drop and gazed at the flag-holding crossing guard as he raised the guard rail with his free hand. Vehicles poured across the tracks before the rail was all the way up. The narrow road could only accommodate double file, and Gao Yang stood wide-eyed as more maneuverable hand-pulled carts and bicycles squeezed past him and Fourth Uncle and shot ahead. The land rose quickly on the other side of the tracks, where their way was further hampered by the rocky surface of the road, which was undergoing repairs. Carts struggling to make the climb shook and rattled in agony, forcing drivers to jump down and carefully lead the animals along by their bridles to steady the carts amid the clay and yellow sand.
As before, Fourth Uncle led the way. Gao Yang watched steam rise from his body and noticed that his face was black as the business end of a skillet as he strained to lead his cow, the rope in his left hand and a willow switch in his right. “Hee-ya, giddap!” he hollered, waving his switch over the animal’s rump without actually touching it. Frothy bubbles formed at the corners of the cow’s raised mouth; her breathing was loud and raspy; her flanks twisted and wriggled, probably because of stones cutting into her hooves.
The red ball of a sun and a few ragged clouds were all the scenery the sky could offer; a chewed-up highway and lots of garlic-laden carts comprised the earthly sights. Gao Yang had never been part of such a vast undertaking before, and was so flustered he kept his eyes glued to the back of Fourth Uncle’s head, not letting his gaze wander an inch. His little donkey seemed to be doing a jig on hooves gouged mercilessly by sharp stones; its left hoof was already leaving a dark bloody trail on the white stones. The poor animal was pulled from side to side by the lurching motions of the axle, but Gao Yang was too intent on moving forward to feel much sympathy. No one dared to even slow down, fearing that the subhuman creature behind them might try to take advantage.
An explosion, as from a hand grenade, went off to his left, scaring the hell out of man and beast. He shuddered. Jerking his head toward the sound, he saw that a handcart had blown a tire, whose red inner tube was fanned out over the black rubber. Two young women, about the same age, had been pulling the cart. The slightly older one’s head was shaped like the bole of a tree and covered with the bark of acne scars. Her fair-skinned companion had an attractive oval face, with- lamentably-one blind eye. He sighed. Blind old Zhang Kou said it best: even a famous beauty like Diao Zhan had pockmarks, which proves that perfect beauty simply doesnt exist. The two women stared down at the flat tire and wrung their hands, as people behind them shouted and swore to get them moving again. So, stumbling and straining, they wrestled their cart over to the muddy roadside, as the others quickly closed up ranks.
That started an epidemic of blowouts; a fifty-horsepower tractor lost several in one deafening explosion that drove the metal wheels deep into the roadway and nearly tipped the tractor over. A cluster of officials stood helplessly alongside a mass of ruined rubber, while the driver-a young man whose sweaty face was black with mud-stood by holding a large wrench and heaping insults on the mothers of everyone who worked for the transportation department.
Up a gradual incline they went, then down the other side. Both the climb and the descent were hindered by the same stony roadbed- jagged teeth and wolfish fangs nipping at their heels. More and more blowouts caused a succession of traffic jams, and Gao Yang prayed silently: Old man up there, please look after my tires and don’t let them pop.
At the bottom of the last hill they moved onto an east-west highway, where a gang of men in gray uniforms and broad-billed caps stood waiting at a traffic light. Garlic-laden carts filling the highway were joined by a stream of latecomers emerging from the south. Fourth Uncle informed him that they and everyone else were headed toward the county’s new cold-storage warehouses east of them.
After they had traveled several hundred yards on the highway, their way was blocked by the carts ahead of them. That was when the gray-uniformed men, little black plastic satchels in hand, moved into action. Their badges identified them as employees of the traffic control station.
From experience Gao Yang knew that traffic controllers dealt with motor vehicles; so when one of them, an imposing young fellow in gray, blocked his way, black satchel in hand, he was unconcerned, even flashing him a friendly, if foolish, grin.
The stony-faced young man wrote out a slip of paper, handed it to him, and said, “That’ll be one yuan.”
Taken by surprise, and not sure what was going on, Gao Yang could only stare. The man in gray waved the slip of paper in front of him. “Give me one yuan,” he said icily.
“What for?” Gao Yang asked anxiously.
“Highway toll.”
“For a donkey cart?”
“It wouldn’t matter if it was a handcart.”
“I don’t have any money, comrade. My wife just had a baby, and that cost me every penny I owned.”
“I’m telling you to hand it over. Without one of these,” he said, waving the slip of paper in the air, “without one of these, the marketing co-op wont buy your garlic.”
“Honest, I don’t have any money,” Gao Yang insisted as he turned his pockets inside-out. “See-nothing!”
“Then I’ll take some of your garlic. Three pounds.”
“Three pounds is worth three yuan, comrade.”
“If you don’t think that’s fair, then hand over the money.”
“That’s blackmail!”
“Are you calling me a blackmailer? You think I like doing this? It’s state-mandated.”
Oh, well… if it’s state-mandated, then go ahead.”
The man scooped up a bundle of garlic and tossed it into a basket behind him-attended by two boys-and stuffed the white slip of paper with the official red seal into Gao Yang’s hand.
The traffic controller then turned to Fourth Uncle, who handed over two fifty-fen notes. He was also given a white slip of paper with a red seal for his troubles.
The boys picked up the nearly full basket and staggered under its weight toward the traffic control station, where a truck was parked. Two men in white, who appeared to be loaders, leaned against the rear bumper with their arms crossed.
At least twenty gray-uniformed men were busy handing out slips of paper from their black satchels. An argument erupted between one of them and a young fellow in a red vest who spoke his mind: “You bunch of cunt babies are worse than any son of a bitch I can think of!” The traffic controller calmly slapped him across the face without batting an eye.
“Who do you think you are, hitting me like that?” the young man in the red vest shrieked.
“That was a love tap,” the traffic controller replied in a level voice. “Let’s hear what else you have to say.”
The young man rushed the controller but was held back by two middle-aged men. “Stop it-stop it this minute! Give him what he wants, and keep your mouth shut.” Two white-uniformed policemen taking a smoke break under a nearby poplar tree ignored this completely.
What was that all about? Gao Yang was thinking. Of course they’re cunt babies. What did he think they were, asshole babies? Facts may not sound elegant, but they’re still the facts. He congratulated himself for not pulling a stunt like that, but the thought of losing all that juicy garlic nearly broke his heart. He breathed a heavy sigh.
By this time it was late morning, and Gao Yang’s donkey cart had barely moved an inch. The road was black
