Peter Liu - Bald New World

“You all have real hair,” I replied as the car began driving.

“Which was harvested to make the best wigs,” Voltaire said. “You lived a tough childhood?”

“Tough childhood is relative. You?”

“I will show you my childhood. Soon. When we arrive in America. Let’s get back to the Colonel and Russ and why he wanted an impostor Larry.”

“Because he wanted to move into garbage?”

“You really have no clue?”

“No,” I answered.

Voltaire laughed and shook his chopstick at me. “I’m almost tempted not to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

He tapped his chopsticks on his knees, musing on a thought.

“Larry had no family,” he said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“That’s why he willed his entire fortune to you.”

“He doesn’t control his will,” I replied, knowing that super computer of his, set up by his father, controlled everything.

“He did control it.”

“It’s some computer that his father created.”

“It’s a lie,” Voltaire said with wide eyes. “He seemed like an idiot, and he always told that lie, but no such machine existed. He was in charge all along. And he willed control of his entire business and all of his fortunes to you. You are one of the richest men in the world. There, there, close your mouth. That’s why the Colonel blames you. She thinks you’re in control. And that’s why Russ wanted a fake Larry installed until he could figure out a way to change the will in his favor. Unfortunately, the will is locked by law and can’t be changed without express approval from you.”

I couldn’t register what Voltaire had said. It felt so surreal. “Is this what this is about? This is why you saved my life?” I asked. “You can have all his money. I don’t want any of it.”

Voltaire nodded as though he approved of my words.

And then it came back to me, how Larry invited me along to the business meeting before his death, the mysterious pieces of advice he alluded to. Was he trying to prepare me to take his place? But me? I was the worst possible candidate to leave all of this to. I was always a follower, always a person who supported those in charge. I never aspired to more. Voltaire’s revelation was so crazy, I couldn’t believe it. The only thing I ever wanted in life was a family.

“A lot to mull over?” he wondered.

“I don’t get it.”

“Neither did anyone else. I didn’t expect it.”

“I don’t want any of it. I just want out.”

“That’s what Larry said when he found out about us.”

“About you?”

“The crimes his father committed,” Voltaire said. “But when it came down to it, he couldn’t leave it behind.”

“What kind of crimes?”

“You’ll see. But for now, we have other matters to discuss.”

“Other matters?”

“Do you like the GEAs?”

Why was he asking me about the Global Entertainment Awards? “I’ve never watched them.”

“Why not?”

“Not interested.”

“My whole life, I grew up watching them. We were forced to. You see, we were told our hair was being shorn off to make hair for the rich and famous. We were told our lives were worthless apart from making the wealthy look more beautiful and handsome than they were. So every year, we had to watch these celebrities show up with hair cut from our own heads. I was envious of them. So envious.”

We watched footage from the GEA opening ceremony, the stars arriving on the red carpet. We arrived at the airport shortly afterwards, driving around the side to Larry’s private airplane in his private landing strip.

Voltaire went off to talk with his brothers and sisters. Another member of his family let me into the airplane, a huge jumbo jet with two floors. Larry often used this plane to ship his film crews. Multiple compartments had been installed for his private parties. It was a slick silvery color, a hybrid between a commercial plane and a military space jet. I was given one of the bedrooms and lay down to rest.

I wished I could have talked to Larry, asked him what was going through his mind. It was strange to think of myself as one of the richest men in the world. Memories from my childhood flooded me. I thought of my biological father beating my sister and me. My mother would scream, “Shut up! Shut up! You both deserve to die for crying so much! You idiots! You’ll be killed and no one will care. Do you think anyone will miss you? No one will care!” More blows, blood spilling everywhere. We’d both be punished by having our meals taken away for days at a time. I remembered competing with my sister to see whose stomach could make louder grumbles. It was always a happy event when my biological parents went traveling for business. Cousin Baochai would bring cans of Spam and we’d cook them, pretending they were a grand feast. Spam pizza, Spam steak, Spam burgers; we imagined what the food would be. We paraded around the house and made all sorts of noise, not having to be afraid of waking anyone. I used to be jealous of other kids who’d get nice lunches packed for them. I’d be even more jealous of the students who could afford to buy whatever they wanted at the school cafeteria. There were so many things I wanted when I was younger. I pretended like I didn’t care about anyone or anything, hiding behind the camera, recording all the things I’d never been able to enjoy. It was my only comfort.

Gene Liang was the name I was born with, the name I cursed. That name came to represent everything I hated and despised in my life. I wanted to shed it. When I joined the army and they gave me a chance to input any name I wanted, I picked Nick Guan, mainly because Guan Yu, a hero of Chinese literature, was one of my favorite characters. According to history, Guan Yu formed a new family with Liu Bei and Zhang Fei and swore a blood oath in the Peach Garden to become brothers. He was a warrior who valued loyalty and honor above all.

I swore to myself that I would start over, make my own way in the world and never look back on the past. That was the beginning of the end of my relationship with my sister, Kelly. But the onus of shedding the past became an albatross in all my relationships. I’d gotten so used to family members treating each other horribly, I had no idea how to do it properly myself. Even when it came to eating, I’d greedily eat as fast as I could, afraid someone else might eat it. Little kindnesses could be seen as vulnerabilities. As for hugs and warm embraces, they were absent and I had a hard time showing affection to women, even Linda. She basically had to retrain me in the art of family, what it meant for people to love each other rather than be at each other’s throats.

I struggled so hard to make it in the world. Working on Larry’s movies took up too many hours. But when I turned to a company job, I found out climbing up the corporate ladder and becoming a good automaton was beyond me. I couldn’t get used to the instability of it all and hated the miniscule cubicles with managers who’d yell at us for every infraction. “You think you deserve a job. There are a million people out there who would kill for your job!”

I failed at being a husband and a worker. I was laid off like all the other employees, hired and fired at the whimsies of corporations that didn’t care. Rather than opening up to Linda, I hid in a shell, got petty and cruel, argued with her over nothing instead of being grateful for what I had. Linda was a saint. I was so thoughtless, so unnecessarily mean in my verbal attacks. It was what I’d grown up with and I latched onto it as a defense mechanism. Poverty brought out the worst in me. Where Spam had been a welcome boon in my childhood, when we resorted to artificial meat under different brands, I got sulky. How could it be that after all these years, Linda and I couldn’t eat whatever we wanted? The travesty of it made me angry and I refused to eat anything she cooked. She couldn’t understand, thinking she’d done something wrong. I felt too petty to tell her what I was feeling. The misunderstandings compounded.