Peter Liu - Bald New World

“He was talking about making a big epic. Something to do with the Baldification.”

“Can I get a walk-on role? It can be something small.”

“Of course.”

“So, connections do matter,” she said.

“Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about,” I replied. “Drink more. Everything’s on me tonight.”

V.

I had a hundred questions, none of them explicable. If Larry were alive, why had Shinjee kidnapped me, even if she did give me a way out? I owed her a visit. I owed a lot of people visits. Rebecca was singing and dancing and I wondered why she was spending so much time with me. Was I incapable of reading signals? Was she interested in me? She was beautiful. Not as beautiful as Beauvoir, but still very attractive.

“They’re sending more colonists to Mars,” Rebecca said, pointing at the news.

Trillions of dollars were being spent so a handful of astronauts could live on an enormous red rock when millions of people were starving in Europe.

“I heard Venus used to be like earth until pollution wiped it out and made it into a big poisonous ball of gas.”

I used to love looking at stars with Linda. We’d make up our own constellations and draw imaginary patterns through the lights.

“I guess it’ll be okay as long as we don’t end up like that planet between Mars and Jupiter. Kaboom!” she yelled. “I think it’d be nice to live on Pluto.”

“Why?”

“Wherever you go, it can only get brighter.”

I stood up, then stumbled from the drink. She grabbed me before I fell. I was about to thank her when I saw her face right in front of mine. Her lips were just inches away. I could feel her breath on mine. I wanted to move my lips forward just a bit. We both hesitated. I wilted first. “I think I need to step out and get some fresh air,” I said.

“Don’t get lost,” she answered.

I rubbed my eyes and walked out. It was pouring rain and I had no umbrella. The thunder boomed and the skies were painted black.

I still can’t believe you’re alive, Larry .

“Why did you come back here?” someone asked.

I turned around and saw a teen in a black trench coat. He had a translucent umbrella and white hair that reminded me of Tolstoy, the cricket champion. But this guy had a much leaner nose, smaller eyes, and bulkier frame. When I tried to examine him more carefully, he withdrew. I was too drunk to persist.

“This is my first time at the convention,” I informed him, wondering if he’d mixed me up with someone else.

“They have such a nice arrangement now. You’ll ruin it for them, Nick Guan.”

How did he know my name? “Do I know you?”

“You’re going to disrupt their plans if you stay.”

“What plans? Who the hell are you?”

He laughed. “I know you’re confused. Don’t you get the joke?”

“No.”

“You should be laughing.”

“Why?”

“You’re the punch line and you don’t even know it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?” he asked. “I’m a brewer of storms and I’m going to show you a storm unlike any you’ve seen before. Make sure you get out of the rain.” He tossed me his umbrella, then ran off.

I went back inside and overheard Rebecca talking on a communicator to someone.

“—doing my best to keep him busy…What do you mean you gotta leave? You’re the one who told me to keep him here…I’m not gonna sleep with him just to — no, no. I don’t care how important it is. That’s your problem. He doesn’t know anything. At least not from what he’s told me…You’re just being paranoid.” Who was she talking to?

She spotted me and ended the communication.

“Larry’s manager called,” she said.

“Where we gonna meet him?”

“Larry had to cancel because of an emergency press junket in America he had to fly out to. I think it’s something related to presenting at the GEAs. He did ask if you’d be willing to go on a few press junkets in Europe.”

I felt disappointed. There was so much I needed to talk with him about.

“Come back inside,” Rebecca said. “I hate drinking alone.”

VI.

The teen’s words nagged me. Was everything going too smoothly? Maybe it was nothing, just all in my head. Rebecca had passed out and I carried her back to her place. Drunk and barely conscious, I helped her into bed, tucking her in. “It’s so hot,” she muttered, then wrestled off her shirt and bra to lay in bed. I saw her dark nipples clash against her skin.

“Larry,” she called. “Larry, come to bed.”

What the hell?

I forced myself to the bathroom and washed up; exited the apartment, flagged down a cab, and asked for the train station. I was taking the bullet train to Beijing. Maybe Rebecca’s slipup meant nothing. But I owed Shinjee a visit. I also needed to see George and see if I could procure some new gadgets.

As I boarded the train, I wondered if Rebecca was in love with Larry. Were they secretly lovers? It didn’t make sense. I thought about what she’d said about the planets. I felt like that shattered planet and I’d just gotten back from Pluto. Only I didn’t know if I was going to a brighter place or that oblivion beyond our solar system from which there was no return.

I.

I waited for George outside of his Beijing apartment in the morning. He smelled of bacon and beer. A group of people were practicing tai-chi outside despite the poisonous mist. Workers in gas masks were cleaning up the streets with traditional brooms. When George saw me, he quickened his pace and asked, “Vhat you doing here?”

“I came by to say hello.”

“Hello. Goodbye.”

He tried to walk past me. “George, what the hell, man?”

“I can’t be seen talking to you.”

“Why not?”

He looked up at the apartments, then down the street, a paranoid tension in his movements. “I can’t compromise my family.”

“It’s just me, George,” I said. “Do you not work for Larry anymore?”

He became extremely nervous, his eyes like tiny, scared slits. “Vhat you need?”

“I was hoping for light bombs and some other gadgets.”

“Vhat for?”

“I’m investigating something.”

George shook his head. “I can’t help you.”

He hurried forward, but as he did, he stumbled on the curb and fell. I immediately ran over to assist him. He whispered in my ear, “Go to Vudaokou Storage #301 and scan your fingerprints.”

He rose to his feet and hurried away.

In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him so scared.

I took the subway to Wudaokou Station. Vendors sold used shoes, oxygen refills, and bottled water. It was always busy and the subway was jammed with people rushing to work, home, their lovers, and wherever else they needed to have been an hour ago. The subway TVs were covering the Mars launch, the first joint expedition between China and Brazil. Space was pitch black from the frontal cameras and I wondered what the astronauts talked about between the long hours adrift. I thought of the cells within my own body, venturing into different arteries, traveling along the river of my bloodstream. Every organ was a sprightly city, every neighboring cell a potential neighbor or rival. Were there blood scientists that studied the physics of my body, a history of a universe that would one day come to an end upon my death?

“Dao le,” the automated voice told us as we arrived at the Wudaokou Station.

A flood of people rushed out of the train. Another flood filled it back up. After Linda and I had gotten married, a part of me wished we would have stayed in Beijing. Despite its cancer-inducing atmosphere, it was still the city we met in. Could love conquer tumors? Most people here had gas masks hooked into their noses, plastic tubes sticking out of their mouths. It was the capital city and smog wasn’t going to deter ambition. America’s capital was relatively clean when it came to air pollution, but it was infested with crime. Washington D.C. had been declared a war zone eight times in the past decade, struggling with poverty from the neighboring areas. I still remembered a visit for a photo shoot outside the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. We were staying at a hotel and both Linda and I were starving after a late release. We asked the concierge what restaurants he’d recommend and he told us, “I would recommend not going outside.”