Frog

I threw down the signboard and took off running, still screaming for help. Sensei, I’m embarrassed to tell you about my pathetic exhibition, but I don’t know who else I can divulge my sad tale to. I ran and ran, wherever my feet took me, my ears throbbing with shouts on both sides. I ran into the narrow street where light snacks were sold. A silver sedan was parked in front of a café. A black shop sign hanging in front of it was inscribed with two strange words: Pheasant Hen. Two women sat in the doorway, one big and fat, the other small and slim. They jumped to their feet, and I ran to them as if I’d seen my saviour, tripping and falling before I got there and ending up with a split lip and bleeding gums. What tripped me was a metal chain strung between two metal posts, one of which I’d knocked over. The women ran over, picked me up, and held me between them as they slapped and spat on me. But I was happy to see that the little punk had stopped chasing me. Then misfortune arrived, as the two women at Pheasant Hen stopped me from going anywhere. They said that when I knocked down their metal post, it fell onto their car and dented it. Sensei, there was a white ding on the car’s boot, but one not caused by the falling post. Refusing to let me go, they called me terrible names, drawing a crowd. Sensei, the little one was the worst. She wasn’t much different from the punk who was trying to kill me. She kept jabbing at me, damn near putting my eye out each time. Every word I uttered in my defence was drowned out by curses. Sensei, I wrapped my arms around my head and crouched down out of feelings of despair. The reason Little Lion and I had decided to return home was that we’d experienced something similar near the Huguo Temple in Beijing. It was at a restaurant called Wild Pheasant on a street near the People’s Playhouse. As we walked up to read a poster in front of the playhouse we tripped over a metal chain connected to a red and white post, which fell to the ground, not even close to the rear of a white car parked there. But a young woman with hair dyed a golden yellow, a pinched face, and lips as thin as knife blades, who was sitting in front of Wild Pheasant, ran over to the car, spotted a white ding on it and accused us of causing it. With wild gestures, she tore into us verbally, using all sorts of Beijing gutter talk. She said she’d lived her whole life in that lane and had seen every kind of person there was. But what do you out-of-town turtles climb out of your burrows and come to the capital to do? Embarrass the Chinese people? Fat, and reeking of haemorrhoid cream, she charged me, fists swinging, and bloodied my nose. Young men with shaved heads and bare-chested old men stood by shouting encouragement and showing off as old-time Beijingers, insisting that we apologise and make restitution. Sensei, weak as always, I gave her the money and said I was sorry. When we got home, Sensei, we wept first and then decided to move back to Northeast Gaomi Township. Since this was our hometown, I didn’t think I’d have to worry about being bullied here. But these two women were every bit as vicious as the woman on Snack Street in Beijing. What I don’t understand, Sensei, is why people have to be so horrible.

But there was an even greater danger, Sensei: the predatory punk was coming at me. By now the squid was gone, making the skewer even more deadly, and that’s when I realised that he was the son of the smaller of the two women, while her fat companion had to be his aunt. The survival instinct had me scrambling to my feet, and I knew it was time to put my asset — running — to work. After years of living in affluence, I’d forgotten what a fast runner I’d once been. It all came back to me now, when my life was threatened. The women tried to keep me from getting away, the punk was thundering his displeasure, and I began to howl like a cornered dog. With my face bloody, I bared my teeth to give them a momentary fright, since I’d seen a dazed look in the women’s eyes with my first howls; I’d always been deeply sympathetic to women who had that look in their eyes. I took advantage of the moment to slip between two parked cars and ran off.

Run, Wan Zu, Wan Xiaopao the runner — fifty-five-year-old Wan Xiaopao was running as fast as he ever had. I ran like a madman down the street, passing the smells of frying chicken, raw fish, lamb kebobs, and some I couldn’t name. My legs felt as light as grass, and every step bounced up as if the ground were a spring, which invested greater power in the next steps. I was a deer, a gazelle, a superman light as a swallow after landing on the moon. I felt like a horse, a fine Turkmenistan horse, a horse that steps on a flying swallow, powerful, unconstrained, no worries, no cares.