Su Tong - The Boat to Redemption

She was loaded down with purchases, and I wondered what that was all about. A green nylon mesh bag over her shoulder was crammed full of sweets, biscuits and bottles of orange soda, while in her hands she was holding a thermos flask and a sack of apples. I stepped aside and held the door open for her. She smiled; I returned the smile. As we looked at each other, her smile froze. One after the other, she laid her purchases on the floor by my feet. Not sure what was coming, I stepped over the vacuum bottle and bag, but she grabbed hold of my shirt to stop me.

‘Let’s settle our accounts.’ It sounded like a casual comment, but the look in her eyes was anything but casual. ‘You said you didn’t want money or ration chits, right? Well, I broke one of your thermos flasks when I was a little girl, and I ate a lot of your food — biscuits, sweets, orange soda, things like that. I’m paying you back now. These are the only things I remember, but if I’ve forgotten anything, just tell me.’

Who’d have thought this would be how she’d decided to call it quits with me? I was on the verge of tears as I looked down at all those things. What could I say?

‘I know I’m acting like a spoiled child. Go ahead, take this home with you. Now we’re even.’ She walked away, heading towards the boiler room, but stopped after a couple of steps and said, ‘Are we quits now, or aren’t we? I don’t want to make you mad, Ku Dongliang. I haven’t forgotten where I came from. You may not care about the future, but I do, so please stop coming here to pester me. If word gets out, it’ll look bad for me.’

The tension in the shop was palpable. The twisted expression on my face must have frightened them. I picked up the flask and flung it to the floor; the glass lining shattered with a bang, sending the plastic case rolling on the floor as broken glass spread quickly. Then I picked up a soft-drink bottle and aimed it at Huixian. ‘Don’t you dare!’ she shrieked.

That stopped me, but only for a moment. I spun around and aimed it first at Old Cui and the woman he was working on, then at Little Chen. They’d never shown me any respect, but none of this was their fault, so I turned again and flung the bottle at the shop’s mirror. ‘We’re quits!’ I shouted. ‘That makes us quits!’ The mirror shattered. Then I aimed at the second mirror, which merely cracked. So I threw a third bottle. ‘We’re quits!’ I was crying by the time the third bottle was in the air. Hot tears ran down my face. Old Cui and Little Chen rushed up to grab me. Raising another bottle over my head, I swung at Old Cui’s face. Little Chen grabbed my left hand, so I hit him in the head with a bottle in my other hand.

Chaos ensued. Huixian and the woman in the chair screamed, blood and orange soda stained Old Cui’s face, who glared at me with disbelieving pain in his eyes.

‘Are you out of your mind, Kongpi?’ A trickle of blood oozed from Little Chen’s scalp. Boiling with rage, he picked the last bottle of soda out of the nylon bag and flung it at me. Dropping whatever was in my hand, I turned and ran, but too late. I’d barely made it to the door before I was stopped by people who had quietly sealed off my escape route. I felt like a ball that had banged into a wall, as fists and feet slammed into me, driving me back inside the shop.

A trio of young men surrounded me like three gloomy bombs. One was a powerful fellow with a goatee who went by the name of Old Seven of Li Village; a distant relative of Wang Xiaogai, he’d killed a man during his youth. I knew that Xiaogai had sent them to the barbershop; what I didn’t know was what they planned to do.

At first I just stood there to get a good look at them. They were all younger than me, in their late teens, and were dressed alike, with white bell-bottomed trousers and similar checked shirts. They wore fashionable digital watches, and Old Seven had a leather pouch hanging from his belt; something gleaming was sticking out of the top — an electrician’s knife. I wasn’t scared, not at first, because they merely had mischievous looks in their eyes; I even saw them wink at the barbers. But then Old Seven did something that put me on my guard: he spat in his hand and reached down towards my crotch. I jumped back and shoved him. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

He responded with a sinister grin. ‘What am I doing? I hear you’ve been a bad boy, letting that thing act up in public. Well, we’re here to see it doesn’t happen any more.’ Now I knew what they had in mind, and I broke for the door, but again not in time. One of them grabbed me around the waist, another held my legs, and I heard Old Seven shout, ‘Pull his trousers off!’ All three bombs exploded at once. They were stronger than I’d given them credit for. Suddenly, I felt like a sack of rubbish being thrown to the floor.

As they were taking off my belt, I looked through their legs and saw Old Cui standing against the wall, covering his face with a towel. I wanted to yell for him to come and help me, but I couldn’t, not after hitting him in the face with a bottle. Besides, it wouldn’t have done any good, not with those three ganging up on me. So I sought out Little Chen, who was sitting to one side, enjoying the show. When our eyes met, he jerked his head away and I saw the blood where my bottle had hit him. As I lay there, the person I really wanted to help me was Huixian, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. Someone was choking me, so I couldn’t even call out her name. I lay there, unable to move. I was like a pig under the butcher’s knife.

I saw a glint from Old Seven’s electrician’s knife, which was moving back and forth in front of my privates. ‘Get hard! Stick up! Hurry up, so we can carry out the procedure!’ There in front of everyone in the barbershop he began teasing my genitals with his knife. I felt a sharp, cold pain. I forgot that I was lying on the floor, and saw myself lying in my bed on the boat. The faces of my three tormenters swayed in front of my eyes, all a blur, but the face of my father appeared in the space behind them, the crows’ feet at the corners of his eyes and the age spots on his cheeks clearly discernible. There were tears in his eyes, but the trace of a smile floated on to his aged face. ‘Go ahead and cut it. Then I won’t have to worry any more.’

I was paralysed with fear. Who were these men? And who had sent them? Was it Wang Xiaogai? Or was it my father? With my eyes opened wide in despair, I waited for my salvation. Now it was all up to Fate. I couldn’t stop them from molesting me, couldn’t keep them from humiliating me. ‘Can’t get it up, is that it? You can’t get it up when you ought to and can’t keep it down when should. Without a hard-on, you lose big time. If we can’t get a good measure, we might remove the whole thing, and then you’ll be worse off than your old man, who at least has half a dick.’ Then, with rising excitement, he said, ‘Bring Little Tiemei over here. That’ll give him a hard-on for sure!’

A hush fell over the barbershop. The hands and legs that were pinning me to the floor went slack as Huixian emerged from somewhere, angry as a hen. I heard a string of vile curses burst from her mouth, mixed with tearful howls. ‘Here I am! I’ll give you all a hard-on! Get it up, get it up!’ She swung a hairdryer at Old Seven’s head. He ducked, and the dryer hit one of the other men in the arm. ‘What do you think I am, a sow, a bitch, a whore? Don’t you dare think I’ve fallen so low that the likes of you can take advantage of me! The person who can do that hasn’t been born. I know who you are. You might feel like hot shit today, but tomorrow I’ll call Commander Wang at Division Headquarters and have him send a squad of riflemen to take care of all three of you!’