Shanghai Girl (37 page)

“
Trust me, Little
Kemaneiqi
!” -- Coach Long’s last words to me resounded in my ears. My tongue had suddenly gone dry. A piece of Wrigley’s chewing gum would have helped to alleviate the drought, but ...

As though my hands were no longer a part of my body, I tore open the red packet embossed with the golden Double Happiness character
Xi
. Eight pieces of fruit drops in clear cellophane wrappers scattered, the same type he had used to protect the newspaper clipping! There was no note, no contact information, nothing else.

One by one, I kicked the candies into the opening of a street gutter, aiming at the middle as if shooting a soccer goal, imaging the grates to be the gate leading to the realm of
Yin
– hell -- to hell with that so-called hero who had professed to love me the great beauty with brains!

Then, I simply stood and stared, transfixed.

Moments later I could hear myself sob
, right there on the sidewalk in open view of passers-by.
I was gripped by the fear that I could become a teenage mother myself just like my mother and her mother before her. The dreadful family history could repeat itself. I
sniffed uncontrollably
until my tears were drained and eyes swollen.

On the public bus ride back, an intellectual-looking man with a fountain pen weighing down on his chest pocket said, “Pretty girl, you need eye drops to prevent infection. Some swimmers urinate in that big pool, you know.”

I nodded in appreciation:
Yes, I know.
I also knew that one swimmer had pissed from a once gum-wrapped dick into the core of my heart.

I got off the bus one stop earlier and headed straight to the open stall vegetable market where I picked up a cucumber with the prickliest pimples and the most protruding veins. At home, I would break it up until it became a mash of seeds and pulping flesh. I would dump it on the existing human manure in our apartment building’s communal ladies room (we lacked indoor plumbing), where it belonged. In time -- during the few scheduled periods where the water tank was released but not before additional waste was piled on it -- it would be flushed down to the sewage system. Perhaps then my broken Shanghainese quarter- blood preteen heart, and hymen, would be on its long way to healing.

Excerpt copyright © 2011 by Vivian Yang