Peter Liu - Bald New World

“Everything okay?” she asked, sidling up next to me. Her hip brushed against my arm. She smelled like apricots.

“Yeah, perfect,” I answered. “I was expecting worse.”

I tried calling Larry but his communicator was off.

“Mr. Chao will be in Shanghai tomorrow,” Rebecca said.

“For what?” I asked, still unable to get my head around the idea that he was alive.

“Attending a convention to show his latest movie.”

“Rodenticide?”

“It’s been huge a hit since the explosions. Everyone’s been raving about it. Number-one hit all over the world.”

I thought about how depressed he’d been over the lack of attention the film had initially received. Then reminded myself that I’d seen his corpse. I checked all the different links and pages. Reports, video, and photographs of Larry were everywhere. I was perplexed. Had I hallucinated his death?

“Dr. Asahi told me about the convention a week ago and said I should check it out as long as I was in Shanghai,” Rebecca interjected. “A real-life big explosion is all he needed for fame.”

I brooded on it, confused.

“How do you rank Rodenticide?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean among the movies you worked on.”

It took me a second to register what she was asking. “I’m not sure.”

“What was your favorite movie to work on?” she asked, and I realized she was trying to get my mind off the situation.

“58 Random Deaths and Unrequited Love.”

“Why?”

“W-we wanted to make a movie showing how pointless everything was,” I answered.

“You think everything is pointless?”

“I could have died out there and no one would have known. The overwhelming motivation for me to come back was to avenge Larry. If I’d known he were still alive, I probably would have just waited for him to come to the rescue.”

Rebecca filled my cup with wine and took a long draught herself.

“Would you still make the same movie if you went back in time?”

“No one would ever make the same movie they did when they were younger,” I replied and finished my cup. “What kind of movie would you make if you could make one?”

“I don’t know if I’d ever want to make a movie.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to spend a year of my life suffering just so I can make other people happy, then wait to hear what critics say, hoping they’ll like it enough so people can watch it. Why don’t you make your own movies?”

“You already know the answer to that. I’m a ‘follower’.”

Rebecca chuckled. “My ex was a follower who wanted to be a leader. He never could accept that he didn’t have what it took to be a leader. He eventually divorced me so he could meet other women.”

“He cheated on you?” I wondered, surprised.

“He was honest enough to separate with me before sleeping with any other women. I respect him for that. Do men always want more?”

“I don’t know very many that want less.”

“What about content with what they have?”

“That takes a humility and a level of awareness that isn’t much valued in our world,” I said, knowing how hollow it sounded.

“Do you have that level of awareness?”

“I used to until I got married.”

“She pushed you?”

I shook my head. “I wanted to give her the world for all she’d done for me.”

“Why?”

“She gave me something no one else ever had.”

“What?”

“Family. Even now, I’d give up the world for her.”

Rebecca laughed. “I didn’t know you were such a romantic.”

“I like to pay my debts.”

“So she’s a debt to you?”

“At our wedding ceremony, her family had hundreds of people. You know how many my side had?”

She shook her head.

I made a big zero with my thumb and index fingers.

“It was humiliating,” I admitted, thinking back to the day. “But she didn’t care. Her family treated me like their own even though I had nobody. I’ll never forget that.”

“Why did you guys separate?”

“I was an insecure asshole who pushed her away,” I answered, the drink making me more honest than I should have been. “I was pretty terrible to her near the end.”

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Unrequited love is my theme song.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” she said. “Maybe you just like it that way.”

“Everyone likes to make up movie versions of themselves in their mind.”

“You have no other family?”

“Larry’s the only other person I consider family.”

“Did he come to the wedding?”

I shook my head. “He got entangled in a menage a trois with two sisters he’d been chasing for four years. I was pissed at him, but at the same time, I couldn’t blame him. Still, he was supposed to stand in as my honorary brother. I was disappointed.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Is there a way we can get hold of Larry now?”

“If he isn’t picking up, I don’t know any other way. But we can see him for sure at the convention tomorrow. Plus, I think the cast of Star Force 22B is going to be there and I’ve always wanted to meet them.”

III.

It felt nice being able to use a real toilet. I’d taken these bowls for granted in the past. No longer. There was a noise muffler to mute my flatulence which was loud after exuberant usage. Gastronomic bombs, you called them, Larry . My stomach, unable to handle so much food, banished 80 % of it out my ass. I cleaned meticulously, wiped my hands, and looked in the mirror. My cheeks had sunken in and I looked like half the man I’d been. I checked my weight and saw that I’d lost 60 pounds.

Rebecca was asleep on her bed. She’d set up a mattress on the ground and I lay down in her white sheets.

“Is it uncomfortable?” she asked which surprised me as I thought she was sleeping.

“Most comfortable bed I’ve slept on in ages,” I answered her. I lay on my side, rustled back and forth, scratched an itch.

She burst out laughing.

“What?” I asked.

“You fart really loud,” she said.

I was embarrassed. “I had the muffler on,” I offered weakly.

“Don’t worry. I fart loud too.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said, laughing at me. “Do you like fruit juices?”

“Apple a day keeps the doctor away, right?”

“Organic apple a day,” she corrected me.

“Why do you ask?”

“That’s going to be our breakfast.”

“Apples?”

“Fruit juice.”

The window was open and I heard a woman singing a song in Mandarin. Cars honked and a couple drunks were causing a ruckus. Shanghai was always bustling, even in the middle of the night. L.A. had a different kind of noise. Linda and me used to hear people screaming, homeless people in vituperations against one another. There were constant gunshots, sirens blaring, and drones warning citizens to stay indoors while they searched for criminals.

“If you see a big roach running around, don’t hurt it,” she suddenly said. “That’s my pet cockroach, Kafka.”

“What?!” I exclaimed and got up. “Where?”

“He should be back in his cage, but he gets curious when strangers visit.”

“How big?”

She appeared amused. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a tiny little roach.”

“Where is it?”

“Check his cage on my shelf.”

“If he’s not there?”

“Check your bed.”

The glass cage was damp and home to an ebony roach fatter than my thumb.

“He’s been genetically modified to be smarter than your regular roach,” Rebecca said.

“He’s not tiny,” I said.