Howard Goldblatt (Editor) - Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused – Fiction From Today

People familiar with the history of Fritter Hollow do not have to be reminded of the following list of village chiefs:

Dog Killer Li 1948-1952 Nine Changes Li 1953-1959 Rich Furs Wu 1959-1965 Good Stuff Wu 1965-1967 Defend the

East Liu

1967-1976 Talented Wu 1976-1986 Wheatie Liu 1986-

And now the rest of you know that Talented Wu was village chief for an entire decade. People who emerged from their mother's womb in 1942 are, for the most part, considered to have been born in the year of the horse, but some who arrived on the scene a little late might well be considered a sheep. Talented Wu was born in the year of the horse, making his appearance in the twelfth month. He was a soldier for a time, serving in the western province of Qinghai, where there's a whole lot of salt; Talented Wu once said he had frequent nosebleeds. From there, he went to Sichuan to repair a cavernous pit that was dark as pitch and wet as an underground spring. After that, he came home, where his ability to use a gun got him elected head of the local militia, and his subsequent experience as militia head got him chosen village chief. That, more or less, is Talented Wu's story. But it is necessary to describe him physically, his good looks, as it were: of medium height, he had an oblong face with fair skin and dark, bushy brows. He was so good-looking that he managed to bring a sloe-eyed Sichuan girl home with him. There was talk that he had got her pregnant up on the Sichuan mountain where he was working, and sure enough, not long after she arrived in Fritter Hollow, she lay down one day, and out popped a baby boy.

Everybody called the girl the Sichuan dolt. If she had been from the northeast they would have called her the Northeast dolt; if from Hunan, they would have called her the Hunan dolt; and so forth. Easier that way.

Altogether, the Sichuan dolt presented Talented Wu with two sons: Golden Oil (the elder brother) and Silver Oil (his younger one). Both inherited their father's good looks. The older boy enjoyed his share of conquests in the corn patch, including one with the wife of Greater Principle Zhou. But now both boys are tasting the bitterness of prison life. How they keep themselves busy during the day is not documented, but at night they hunt for lice. As a rule, rather than pop lice between their thumbnails, people in prison set them free to find a new home elsewhere in the cell. While in prison, Golden Oil and Silver Oil exhaustively debate the question, Do lice eat grass?

People familiar with the topography of Fritter Hollow and its surrounding area would never overlook the Tatar Cemetery at the western end of town. A mound of earth where nothing grows, it looks like a big steamed bun, which is why it is also called Bun Hill. It's too flat to resemble a corn muffin, which is pointier; but if you travel west from Tatar Cemetery just a little ways, you'll come across a place actually called Muffin Hill.

For generations, people have spoken of all the Tatars, they with the light-brown hair and beards, who are buried in Tatar Cemetery; this fact, it goes without saying, is not unrelated to murder. Apparently, back then, people baked great big dough figurines in which they hid weapons so sharp they glittered, although most were less than imposing: daggers, even women's scissors. The people 'were ruled by a truly benighted government, which decreed that in the name of security, only one kitchen knife was allowed for each ten families. The people were not happy. (If you history buffs ponder for a moment, you will recall the one regime that instituted that particular measure: the Yuan dynasty of the Mongols; that narrows the time frame for this part of my story.) So the people baked dough figurines in which they hid their weapons; as a result, many unfortunate men whose beards were not dark enough paid the price. The slaughtered Tatars were then tossed helter-skelter into a pit, like so many pigs or dogs. This is one of Fritter Hollow's tales of murder.

If there is a kernel of doubt anywhere, it is why in the year 1981, people suddenly decided to go to Tatar Cemetery and dig up the remains, then sell pile after pile of bleached bones to the county pharmacy. Small Stuff Wu, who was still alive at the time, dug up a leg bone bigger than anyone had seen before, and people wondered how their ancestors could have been so much larger than they. Had their forefathers passed on defective genes? But then somebody informed the others that it wasn't a human bone at all; strangers in spectacles came, then concluded their investigation, announcing that these were dragon bones.

That being the case, Fritter Hollow did not have a history of murder after all.

Good! Now I feel free to relate a murder that did happen.

Most murder stories are set in the dark of night. On the twenty-eighth of March 1986, light snowflakes fell on Fritter Hollow. Local men usually settled down with a bottle on such nights, which was just fine with their womenfolk, since that meant two things: the men would stay home and, after the lamps were put out, would perform much better than usual. Fritter Hollow's birthrate during this period outstripped that of all the neighboring communities; the women stretched their midriffs to the bursting point, and the babies just kept coming. Official investigators concluded that alcohol had increased the local men's vigor, and not until much later did they admit that alcohol was not the culprit. The high birthrate was a result of nonelectrification. Precious Li of the Family Planning Commission and Talented Wu once had a discussion that would be quoted often afterward:

"How the fuck can you people have so many babies?" Precious Li asked, his face dark.

"What do you expect people to do at night when there's no electricity?" Talented Wu was smiling.

This brief exchange was reported to the higher-ups, who received it with such hilarity that the chairman of the meeting had to call for order.

It was on the night when light snowflakes fell that Talented Wu and his sons, Golden Oil and Silver Oil, forced their way into Wheatie Liu's yard. Talented Wu carried a knife that sent sheep to their maker on New Year's; Golden Oil brought a hammer with a redwood handle; and Silver Oil came armed with a spade. As they neared Wheatie Liu's gate, Golden Oil snatched the knife out of his father's hand. "I'm younger than you," he said; "I should have the knife. Nothing scares me, certainly not that motherfucker!"

Simply put, the gate wasn't bolted. When Talented Wu and his sons entered the yard, they spotted Wheatie Liu and his wife laughing loudly in the pigpen off to the left, where their sow was delivering a litter of piglets. Golden Oil leaped into the pigpen, knife in hand, and attacked Wheatie Liu, who didn't even have time to stand up. Instinctively, he raised his right arm to protect his head. The arm quickly sustained seven cuts, so he raised his left arm over his head; that arm sustained five. Silver Oil, meanwhile, raised his spade over Wheatie Liu's wife. "Don't harm my wet nurse!" Golden Oil shouted. Silver Oil lowered his arm. As a baby, Golden Oil had suckled at Wheatie Liu's wife's breast. At that moment, Wheatie Liu's daughter, Maple Leaf, heard the commotion in the yard and came charging into the pigpen. Having been in the middle of making bean dough at the time, her arms were covered with bean powder to the elbows. Seeing what was happening, she shrieked and turned to run. Talented Wu, the murderer, sneaked up behind her and attacked with his hammer. Another shriek- from pain this time-and Maple Leaf was writhing on the ground.

Golden Oil resumed the attack on Wheatie Liu, whose arms were torn and bleeding, turning his fury on the buttocks, which sustained five cuts. Then came the pigs: the sow suffered nine cuts; each member of her litter suffered one. The sky resounded with screams-human and porcine; the ground ran red with the blood of people and swine. Right about then, someone vaulted into the pigpen and reached down for Maple Leaf, who was still writhing in the muck; he wondered what that thing swinging back and forth across her cheek was. Once he had her in the house, he held her up to the lamp, where he discovered it was her eyeball.