Demon Box

Nor was I discouraged by all the blank stares the name produced. I had learned of the missing doctor only a couple weeks earlier myself, on the trip down from Oregon. Instead of flying down to San Francisco to catch our China Clipper, I decided to drive. I had some back issues of our little literary magazine, Spit in the Ocean, that I hoped I could maybe unload in the Bay Area. A whole packed trunk and backseat full of back issues, to be honest. My swaybacked Mustang whined and hunkered beneath the weight so I left Mt. Nebo a good two days before our plane’s departure in case the big load or the long haul should delay her. But the old rag-topped nag covered the 600 miles of dark freeway nearly nonstop, like a filly in her prime. When the dim swoop of the Bay Bridge came into view I still had more than a day and a half before our flight, so I swung off at Berkeley to visit an old minister pal of mine that I hadn’t seen since Altamont.

I had a tougher time locating his church than I expected. I found what I thought was the right backstreet and corner but with the wrong building; that, or the defunct woolen mill which had always seemed so suited to the shaggy flock that my friend shepherded had been completely changed. Instead of a drab cement block there was a cute little church fronted with bright red brick. Wire-mesh factory windows had been replaced with beautiful stained glass, and where a grimy smokestack once angled up from the roof there was now a copper-spired steeple shining in the morning sun. I wasn’t sure it was the same place at all until I walked around back: the tin-roofed garage that served as the minister’s rectory was the same ratty rundown trash pile from five years ago.

The vine-framed door was ajar and I went in. When my tired eyes adjusted to the messy gray gloom I saw the man sound asleep and completely naked on a raised waterbed. The huge plastic bladder was as much a mess as the rest of the room, a Sargasso Sea of clutter, with my friend floating peacefully amid the rest of the flotsam. I gave a bare patch of the gray plastic a slap that sent a shimmying swell coast to coast. I saw consciousness slowly rising to the surface of the bearded face. Finally he raised up on a wobbly elbow, causing books and bottles and beer cans and pizza boxes and tarot cards to undulate around him while he squinted at my face. His hard night had left his eyes redder than my long haul had mine. At length he grunted hello, then flopped right back down and drew a turtleneck sweater sleeve across his brow. I pulled up the nearest orange crate and set down to fill him in on all the Oregon gossip. None of my news got more than an occasional grunt out of him, not until I mentioned the reason I happened to be passing through. This heaved him sitting full up like a seismic wave. “You’re going where to cover what?”

“To Peking. To cover the Chinese Invitational Marathon.”

“To Beijing China? Why Godalmighty, mate, you can find out what has become of Fung Yu-lan!”

“Who?”

“Dr. Fung Yu-lan!” the minister cried. “Master Fung Yu-lan! Merely one of the most influential philosophers in the modern mother world! Or was…”

He waited a moment for that shock wave to subside, then began Australian crawling his way toward the shoreline.

“I’m not exaggerating. Twenty-five years or so ago Fung was considered the brightest star in the East’s philosophical firmament, a beacon for panphenomenalistic voyagers for fifty years! Then, one day, suddenly—foof! nothing. Not the dimmest glimmer. All trace of him blotted out, buried beneath that black cloud known as the Cultural Revolution.”

I told him that it was supposed to be my primary task to cover a live race, not uncover some buried fossil. “At least this is the opinion of the shoe manufacturers who own the sports mag that’s sending me to China. I better stick to their schedule. They are footing the bill, so to speak.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to toe their line every step of the way, does it?” he demanded. “You can work it into your story. A little extracurricular shouldn’t give them any gripe. If it does, tell the capitalistic shoemongers to go bite their tongues. Tell them to look to their soles. Tracking down Fung is more important than some bourgeois bunion derby. And this isn’t just any old fossil, this is a rare old fossil! He, he’s a—wait! I’ll show you what he is.”

The minister released my hand and stepped back up into his waterbed. He waded through the swell to the bedside wall of orange crates he had nailed up for shelves and bookcases. He began pawing among the books, hundreds of books, checking titles, tossing them aside, all the while keeping up a running rap over his shoulder as he searched.