clothes as best he could. If he found work today, he would buy soap, even a little bottle of shampoo. He couldn’t believe he wanted anything more than food, but he did. He wanted to be clean.
In the meantime he pulled his lucky Bulls hat over his greasy black hair and away they went. Song had heard of a new job site, an apartment building being demolished downtown, with plenty of work.
THE SUN WAS JUST VISIBLE when they reached the entrance to the Guangzhou subway. With no money for the fare, they skipped over the electronic turnstiles instead of buying a ticket. In theory the cops could arrest them, but in reality they’d just be shoved off the train at the next stop if they were caught; the police didn’t want anything to do with them.
Fifteen minutes later they reached their stop. Jordan felt himself sag as he walked up the steps to the street. The world went gray and he stumbled backward. Song wrapped an arm around him and gently set him down.
“Jiang?”
“I just need a cigarette.”
“A roast pig too, by the looks of it,” Yu said. He dug into his pocket for a coin. “Come on, Song, let’s get the boy some bread at least.”
They found a vendor and bought Jordan a small ripe orange. He wanted to force the whole sphere into his mouth at once. Instead he peeled it slowly, offering slices to Song and Yu. Though he knew he ought to share — they’d bought it for him, after all — he felt a pang with each piece he gave up. The vendor watched him eat and when he was finished handed him another orange and a pear too. He waved aside Song’s fumbling effort to pay. Usually Jordan didn’t like taking charity, but today he didn’t mind. The fruit filled his belly and gave him a jolt of energy.
“Feeling better?”
Jordan nodded.
“Now let’s win this job.” They cut through a narrow pedestrian mall hemmed in on both sides by concrete apartment buildings. Some stores were already open. Inside a butcher shop, men in dirty aprons shooed flies away from slabs of meat strung from ceiling hooks. Next door, in a store filled with glass jars that brimmed with crumbly green tea, two old men haggled over a plastic bag of leaves. Farther down, the aroma of honey-filled dumplings wafted from a pastry store. Jordan forced himself to look away from the pastries before he spent the last of his money, the emergency money in his Bulls hat.
Two blocks down, they turned left onto a crowded avenue. Song looked at the signs. “This way,” he said. A dozen or so equally dirty men were walking in the same direction. They made a right, and after a short block, turned onto a street blocked by police sawhorses.
“Dammit,” Song said. Scores of men, a hundred or more in all, milled around. So much for finding easy work.
“You woke me for this?” Yu spat onto the pavement. On their right, the steel skeleton of a half-finished sky-scraper rose, the construction site blocked by barbed wire, its gates locked. The other side of the street held the apartment building slated for demolition. Two giant cranes stood beside it, wrecking balls poised to tuck into the eight-story brick building like hungry men slicing up a steak.
But the building wasn’t empty, Jordan saw. On the fifth floor an old woman leaned out, shouting to the street. “Don’t do the capitalist roader’s work! We poor people must stay together!”
Yu laughed. “Capitalist roader? That old missus probably thinks Mao’s still alive. Didn’t anyone tell her we’re all on our own these days?”
“See, Jiang?” Song asked. “They want us to clean everyone out so the cranes can knock down the building. It’s dirty work, but we’ll eat tonight.”
“Dirty work,” Yu said. “Yes, it is.”
A Mercedes sedan and two police cars rolled past the sawhorses and onto the street, forcing the men to make way. A stocky young man in a black T-shirt and slacks stepped out of the Mercedes and raised a bullhorn.
“Ten yuan”—hardly more than a dollar—“for every man who rids the building of these squatters,” he yelled.
“Ten yuan?” Song said. “He must think we’re desperate.”
“He’s right,” Yu said.
“You snake!” the old woman yelled down. “We’re not squatters. I’ve lived here longer than you’ve been alive.”
“And now it’s time for you to go.”
The woman disappeared. When she came back, she held a metal pot.
“Swine!” she yelled. She lobbed the pot at the Mercedes. The men scattered as the pot shattered the sedan’s windshield.
“Crazy old bitch!” the man yelled. Another pot flew out of the window and smacked the hood of the Mercedes, denting the shiny black metal. Two police officers stepped out of their cars and ran into the building.
A low rumble passed through the crowd. “Dirty work,” a couple of men said. “Dirty work.” More faces appeared in the building’s windows. “You can’t throw us out,” voices shouted. Sirens screeched, at first distantly, but growing louder.
“Twenty yuan!” the man in the black T-shirt yelled. “I’ll pay twenty!”
“It’s blood money,” Song said. Jordan felt light-headed at his words. Blood money. His father had died for blood money. “Don’t be afraid,” his father’s spirit said to him, not in his head but for real on the street. He looked around, but the spirit was gone.
“Are you all right?” Song said to him.
“Fine, Master Song.”
“You should leave. You don’t need to be involved in this.”
“Not unless you come too.”
“Then let’s all stay and see what happens. We’ve been pushed around too long.” Song’s eyes were hard and shiny as pebbles. “Dirty work!” he yelled at the Mercedes.
“It’s honest work,” the man yelled back. “If you don’t like it, starve.”
FOR A FEW MINUTES, not much happened. The man in the black T-shirt raised his offer to thirty yuan, and a couple of the laborers stepped toward the building. But the other men on the street blocked them from going inside and they gave up. Then three more police cars appeared, sirens screaming. A dozen cops stepped out, tapping nightsticks against their thighs. A paddy wagon blocked off the street from the other direction. More migrants had shown up, and the street was thick with men now, milling around the police cars.
From the fifth floor the old woman yelled, “Leave me! Leave me!” as a policeman dragged her from the window.
“Leave her!” a laborer yelled.
Holding bricks and rebar rods, trash from the construction site, the migrants surged toward the police. A police officer grabbed the bullhorn from the man in the black T-shirt.
“Get out now or we’ll arrest all of you roaches.”
Song stepped forward. “We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Not another word from you.” The officer raised his truncheon.
“Let him alone,” Jordan said.
The officer smirked. “And who are you? Skinny little migrant.” The cop shoved Jordan and grabbed his Bulls cap.
“Officer—” Song put a hand on the cop’s shoulder. Without a word, the cop swung his nightstick, catching Song in the ribs. As Song doubled over, the cop brought the stick down on Song’s skull. Song’s eyes rolled up and he dropped like a sack of potatoes.
“Murderer!” an old man shouted from the apartment building. “You killed him!” A clay pot flew out of the building and smashed on the roof of a police car.
