Peter Liu - Bald New World

Rebecca laughed. “You’re like a hundred times bigger than him.”

“I hate roaches.”

“No matter how scared you are of him, he’s a thousand times more scared of you.”

“I’m not scared,” I said.

“Uh huh.”

“Can we shut his cage?” I asked.

“Makes him really grumpy. How about you just sleep on the bed?”

I turned to her.

“You afraid of me too?” she asked.

I got in the bed, turned away from her, and said, “Good night.”

“Good night. And point your ass the other way. I heard what a deadly weapon it is.”

IV.

I had a hard time sleeping, thinking about Larry and everything that had happened. In the morning, we took a cab to the convention center in Nanjing Road as parking was nearly impossible without paying a small fortune. Nanjing Road was the biggest shopping street in the world and got bigger every day. There were hundreds of thousands of pedestrians and all kinds of stores assembled as a honeycomb of merchandising. I saw massive 3D billboards of female actresses selling watches and hundreds of watch stores below, profiting from subjugating time into whimsical measures. The solar watch from the Han Dynasty was right next to the dictionary from a forgotten dialect as well as a series of multicolored video-game consoles from an age when you needed cartridges to play them. All the advertisements of beautiful Asians made sex blasé by their ubiquity even though they were designed to make women feel insecure and men lust after digitally enhanced women that didn’t really exist. There was still haggling, vendors selling people things they didn’t need.

The convention center blended in with the rest of the tall buildings, a structure meant to pay homage to the Summer Palace in Beijing with its classical Chinese architecture. Thousands of guests were waiting, many dressed in costumes from their favorite TV shows. Banners for the Global Entertainment Awards (GEAs) were everywhere, urging audiences to watch in two days. There were tables filled with vendors selling paraphernalia from the shows; posters, recordings, toys, artifacts from the filming, and green stand-ins for guns and props that were replaced digitally. Many walked around in the purple hoods of an old show, Project Circumstance , revolving around a sect of Chinese kung-fu fighting monks who also used laser beams. There was Man-Boobs , a reality show about obese men who fought hard to take part in bikini contests around the world, only to receive the scorn of those who wanted to see buxom women. Star Force 22B used to be one of the most popular shows in the world, creating a universe where humanity transcended its violent past to establish a society based on nobler virtues. They harnessed a black hole to propel a fleet of ships throughout the galaxy. I watched them growing up, inspired by their sense of honor to conduct myself in a manner that would make humanity proud. The crew of the original show was signing autographs and selling digital images of themselves for 100 SC. They looked so much older in person and even though it had been fifteen years since the show had been popular, it was depressing seeing them charge money for their images. They stopped attendees from taking their picture without paying via a digital scrambler and scowling assistants informed people to put their cameras away. The show used to represent the most egalitarian of futures, a universe where man was not inherently a brute bent on exploiting his neighbor. And yet, here they were, nickel and diming everyone. I knew they had to make a living. But seeing the thousands in line for an autograph made me realize what I’d always known; this was show business with an emphasis on the business part.

“You going to stand in line?” I asked Rebecca.

She laughed. “They’re so old, I don’t even recognize them anymore.”

“You can pay 3000SC for a photo with the whole group.”

“Is it that much?”

“Yeah.”

“I think I’d rather pay my rent.”

I felt worse for the extras, the actors who played aliens people had forgotten about. They sat in the corners, ignored, nary a visitor at their booth. They were trying to look busy scanning their holopads, assembling their goods on their table to make them tidier. Even if the main crew of Star Force came across as greedy, at least they didn’t reek of desperation.

There was a huge image of Rodenticide playing on the big screen above. “The Number One Movie in the world!” the bombastic narrator declared. Rebecca tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and saw Larry thronged by fans, a fedora secure above his head.

Emotions overwhelmed me — I never thought I’d see him again. All the suffering I’d endured for the past few weeks withered.

“Larry!” I shouted. “Larry!”

Larry looked at me and grinned. “Where the hell have you been?”

I didn’t understand how Larry could be living in front of me. I knew for a fact that I’d seen his lifeless body. And yet, here he was, breathing. “I thought you were dead.”

Larry burst out laughing. “That’s a nice way to greet me. You disappeared for almost two months.”

“I–I was kidnapped by Shinjee’s friends.”

“Where did they take you?”

“I can tell you about it later,” I said, noticing all the people staring at us. “Can we talk in private?”

“Absolutely. Can we make it later? I have a big crowd waiting for me.”

“Yeah of course.” I hesitated. “Larry, I hope you don’t take offense at what I’m about to do.”

“What do you—”

I grabbed his shirt and lifted it up to check his stomach. Sure enough, there was a tattoo of a frog and even the misspelled Mandarin. It was Larry alright. I couldn’t believe it.

“There’s a lot we need to talk about, man,” I said to him.

“You can start with where you’ve been. But we’ll talk more later. Unless you want to join me? I’m sure they’d love to drill my DP about my films.”

“I’ll leave it to you.”

He was whisked away by a big crowd. I felt happy for him, seeing how much acclaim the movie was getting from fans.

“You okay?” Rebecca asked.

“I feel like I’ve seen a ghost,” I answered. “Except the ghost came back to life.” I put my hand on her arm. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“F-for everything.”

“You look like you need a drink.”

“I could use one. In fact, I wouldn’t mind getting drunk.”

She smiled. “There’s a million bars right outside the convention center.”

We hit up one that was welcoming fans of Japanese gangster movies and they had all sorts of saké on sale. The waitresses were dressed up as white-masked geishas and the waiters had plastic guns strapped to their belts. We ordered a sampler of ten different sakés and guzzled them down.

“Am I crazy?” I asked her. “Did I even see anyone dead? Maybe I got it all mixed up.”

I tried to recollect the specifics of that night, but it was blurry in my head, aggravated by the fact that my world was spinning from the drinks.

“Mistakes happen,” she offered.

“You ever hear about a guy who mistook his best friend for a corpse?”

“No.”

I looked at my empty glass and pointed at the bartender who filled it up. “Did you see all his fans? Larry was worried nobody would care about his movies. But looks like people do care.”

“I love them,” Rebecca said.

“We were making movies we believed in. I didn’t care if anyone watched them or not.”

“Is that just something all you artist types have to say? Because I don’t believe you.”

I chuckled. “I guess I did care a little.”

“You guys can get back to making more movies.”