Leave Me Alone (25 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

There were two sorts of business trips in our company: ‘profit’ and ‘non-profit’. A non-profit trip meant there was no chance to make money. The standard rate of travel-expense remuneration was low — no more than 100 yuan a day for food, accommodation and travel included — and anyone going on this kind of trip would actually end up out of pocket. ‘Profitable travel’ was a different story, an opportunity to cash in; you could routinely net a few thousand yuan. Everyone wanted to go on this type of business trip, but no one wanted to go on the ‘unprofitable’ trips. This was one of the main reasons why Zhou Weidong and the others had to keep in with me — I had the right to decide their business travel.

The sales fair was a supreme example of profitable travel. The company gave us a one per cent discretionary expense fund, which we could ‘disburse according to requirements.’
‘disburse according to requirements’ was a beautifully subtle phrase and everyone understood this and secretly made money. Even Fatty Dong dropped his habitual fake-righteousness, loudly shouting that he was going in person to the Chongqing fair. Fuck, just for that tiny rake-off? I wasn’t greedy; I’d settle for just thirty per cent of that one per cent. This meant that if 3 million yuan of goods were ordered, I would make 9000 yuan. It was simple to avoid difficulties after the event: you just needed to take back a big bunch of hotel and dining receipts. The clients would help you arrange everything so there was no trouble back home.

My most recent trip to Chongqing arguably belonged to a third kind: it was hard to say whether it was profitable or unprofitable. When Liu Three went he’d lost over 1,000 yuan and got a slapping. In my case, I spent plenty on food, drink and Old Lai’s Young Lover, but finally lined up a profit of 50,000. All the same, this was in question now because that damned Old Lai had recently repaid the company 150,000 but still hadn’t given me the 50,000 as promised.

As soon as the sales fair was over, I resolved that I would go to Chongqing and urge Old Lai to pay up. At the same time I’d ask the company to file a suit against him. If he dared try and cheat me, I’d make him cough up the full 250,000.

I was in charge of the Dachuan, Nanchong, Neijiang and Zigong sales regions. After returning from a circuit of my territory, I had made more than 10,000. Zeng Jiang from Dachuan, a new client this year, had courteously given me
a big parcel with a carton of Zhonghua cigarettes, two bottles of five-grain spirit, and several packets of lamp shadow beef. He’d made at least 150,000 yuan, and the bridge of his nose almost collapsed from smiling. I felt pretty good by the time I got on the train home. Sat by the window, I struck up a conversation with two girls in the lower bunk. They were of the new generation: one was dressed in what looked like a net curtain and the other could have stepped out of the canvas of an old master. First I flattered them that they looked cute, and then praised their great bodies.

They laughed and one said, ‘You’re smart enough not to just say we’re cute.’

After careful questioning, I discovered they were fresh graduates of Chengdu University and were looking for jobs.

‘Come to my company!’ I said. ‘I need two secretaries.’

They asked me what I did, and I said I was an independent director of the Pan-Pacific Sweaty Foot Group and CEO of the Chinese Smelly Tofu company.

They both laughed. ‘No way. You’re smelly enough, don’t make us stink as well.’

This banter aroused lecherous thoughts in me. The taller one wore a mini skirt, and sat cross-legged. Her black panties were just visible, which made my heart flutter.

Throughout this business trip I hadn’t been with any women. The last night, in Dachuan, I tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. I browsed all the TV channels from beginning to end until my mind was full of commercials. Soft drinks that sounded like the urine of the gods. Some western medicine disguised as a Japanese tonic pill; it could
cure any disease you had, and just a sniff would prevent constipation. The funniest were the commercials for sanitary napkins: you could move whichever way you wanted without any leakage, and the way they described them made them sound like a respirator. Just when I was feeling unbearably bored, the hotel sauna called to ask if I needed a massage. When I asked the price, they said it was 100 yuan plus a 300 yuan tip, which seemed reasonable. I asked them to send up some girls. The first girl had freckles, which was a turn-off for me, so I declined her services. The second was too skinny, which would definitely be uncomfortable, so I said no. The third was too old, the fourth too short, and the fifth had a cigarette burn on her arm. In the end I didn’t choose any of them. When I’d rejected the lot, the sauna boss made a furious phone call.

‘Bastard. If you’ve no money, then why don’t you make love to yourself.’

She said she hoped that I’d wank myself to death. Not knowing whether to laugh or be angry, I hung up the phone.

The problem wasn’t really the girls, the problem was me. In the past few years I’d copulated so much I’d gradually grown weary of it. Chen Chao said that the Yellow Emperor had slept with a thousand women and ended up a god. He complained that he’d almost caught up with our ancestor, but instead of becoming a god he had got the pox. When I thought about it, whoring was really very dull. You spent 400 yuan just to do push-ups, and then when it was over you parted company and never got to know the other person. It was a profitless business. I was becoming more and more
afraid of the empty feeling that came after ejaculation, when a world that had lost its desire would gradually turn grey. Where was my life? My ambitions? I had no enthusiasm for anything, and negativity flooded my mind. A voice in my head kept asking: Chen Zhong, is this what you wanted?

It wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted kisses, hugs, and staring gently into each other’s eyes. I even wanted lies that would eventually be exposed, rather than merely a piston movement. I’d developed a dread of the night. The slightest sound could wake me up. When I opened my eyes in the darkness, everything I looked at seemed distorted. The lamplight was a dead man’s eyes, the curtains were a murderer’s overcoat. Once I hung my leather belt over the bed headboard. When I woke in the night it had become a snake wriggling towards me. I was terrified. At such times, I really did wish that a certain person was beside me, her hands on my chest, or lying in my arms chatting away about something. Ordering me to get her some tea. When it was dawn, she would kiss me and tap my head. ‘You pig, if you don’t get up now you’ll be late.’

I hadn’t heard from Zhao Yue after that night at the Golden Bay. I’d assumed she would call and interrogate me, and had worked out responses to anything she might say. I might call her stupid for not realising I was setting her up. Maybe I wouldn’t even answer the phone, just let her stew.

But she didn’t call, and this gave me a sense of loss. It was as if I’d punched at thin air. The day she got married I’d planned my words of congratulations to her: ‘The adulterers finally make it legal’. Then I’d spit loudly. When I called
however, I found that Zhao Yue had gone so far as to change her mobile number.

The morning after Zhao Yue’s wedding when I woke up in Neijiang, my head hurt as if it was about to split open. But while my limbs felt weak, my mind couldn’t have been more awake. When I thought about the twenty-eight years during which I’d squandered everything and struggled without ever catching hold of anything, I felt like shit. I guessed Zhao Yue and Yang Tao were probably still in bed right now and I wondered whether she was giving him a blow job, gagging as her head moved backwards and forwards. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I kicked the quilt off the bed. Fuck! It’s not over yet.

After sleeping the whole night on the train, my mouth was foul. I had also woken with an erection and had to recite some of Chairman Mao’s quotations before I dared get off the bed. This technique was learned from our department head who’d said famously: Politics results in impotence, while literature cures impotence.

So to be safe I receited two more lines of poetry:

The two girls rocked with laugher, saying, ‘General Manager Stinky, we didn’t expect you to be a poet!’

Ever since I’d told them my made-up job titles, they’d
addressed me as General Manager Stinky. I smilingly invited them to eat lamp shadow beef with me. As I handed it round, I casually touched the taller girl’s arm. She blushed, but she didn’t shrink away and I felt a jolt of happiness. The more I looked at her, the more beautiful she seemed and the more I felt that she was my type. Despite my depressed mood, I couldn’t help laughing happily.

After we’d chatted for another thirty minutes, the train arrived in Chengdu where the sky was overcast and, as always, the north railway station was rowdy. The crowds at the exits were like ants after a flood, biting, ripping and pulling at each other to be first to crawl into this dangerous city. They would dig holes into every small alley and house, then creep in and bury themselves, never to emerge again.

I insisted on seeing the two girls home. They said there was no need so I looked serious and warned them about the dangers of society. ‘There are bad guys everywhere. The way you look will have a negative influence on society — everyone will stare at you. As a responsible citizen, how can I stand aside and do nothing about a soaring crime rate?’

They both laughed. ‘You’re the one most like a bad guy,’ one said, ‘and you’re warning us about others?’

Girls these days all loved a bad guy. As long as you had a smooth tongue and weren’t easily daunted, you could have your way. You had to make sure you didn’t talk yourself up too much though. People were contrary. The worse you said you were, the more they concentrated on your strong points.

Li Liang had never understood this. In the days before his diagnosis, there was a time when he wanted to study from me
how to chat up girls. We went to most of the bars in Chengdu, and I always pulled a girl while he left empty-handed. Making a detailed analysis of our tactics, I discovered that the biggest difference was this: as soon as I opened my mouth I admitted I was a bad guy, while Li Liang always talked to girls about life, philosophy, and even communist morality. Oh, Li Liang!

Li Liang wasn’t dead, he’d just paid a visit to our old university. He called one day, just as I was leaving Chengdu on a business trip. That movie
All about Ah-Long
was playing in the bus, the scene when Chow Yun-fat’s character takes part in a motorbike contest and then has a crash causing a big pile-up. Chow Yun-fat thuds to the ground and rolls around, while Sylvia Chung and her son cry beside the track. You can see Chow’s abnormally calm expression beneath his helmet as he staggers along and the soundtrack tells of his distress: