Brothers (54 page)

When Blacksmith Tong saw the dust-covered Baldy Li, he invited him to sit in the recliner, saying, "You have finally returned. You must be very tired."

The others echoed, "You must be very tired."

"Not at all," Baldy Li said with a wave. "You can't complain when you're doing business."

Blacksmith Tong and the others chuckled and nodded enthusiastically. Baldy Li didn't take the chair but, rather, parked himself on the long bench, then placed his bag and the map on the bench beside him. Tong and the others insisted that Baldy Li sit on Yanker Yu's recliner, but Baldy Li shook his head. He winked at Blacksmith Tong and said, "I'll sit right here. It's a long story, but this bench and I go way back."

Blacksmith Tong laughed and said to the others, "As I was saying, Baldy Li is not one to forget his roots."

Seeing that his six partners were still standing, Baldy Li gestured for them to sit down. They all shook their heads, insisting that they were perfectly happy as they were. Baldy Li nodded and allowed them to continue standing. He crossed his legs, leaned against the wall, and, looking as if he were settling in to receive a work report, said, "I've been gone for more than three months. What kind of progress have you made over here while I was away?"

The six partners stared at each other, speechless, then everyone turned to Blacksmith Tong. Tong hesitated a moment, then stepped forward as if he were about to scale a mountain of swords. He coughed a couple of times, cleared his throat, and slowly began to speak. He described in detail everything that had transpired since Baldy Li left and concluded by saying, "There really was nothing else we could have done. We hope you'll understand."

After he finished listening to Tongs account, Baldy Li lowered his head. The partners watched him nervously, quite certain that as soon as he raised his head again he would begin cursing them. When he did finally look up, however, he surprised them all by saying graciously, "While there is life, there is hope."

The six partners let out six deep sighs of relief, after which they started to laugh. Blacksmith Tong promised Baldy Li, "It would only take us a day to rent the warehouse again and move the sewing machines back in. In two more days, we could call the thirty country girls back."

Baldy Li nodded and then said, "No hurry."

What did he mean by "No hurry"? The partners stared at him dumbfounded as Baldy Li sat there comfortably on the bench with his legs crossed. At this crucial moment, Zhang, Guan, Yu, Wang, and Su once
again looked, out of habit, at Blacksmith Tong, waiting for him to speak. Tong again stepped forward and inquired delicately, "You have been gone for more than three months. So what kind of progress did you make over in Shanghai?"

"Shanghai is a big place." Baldy Li immediately became very excited upon hearing the word
Shanghai.
"Opportunities to earn money are as plentiful as the hairs on a pig, and even saliva can be exchanged for gold."

Tailor Zhang cautiously corrected him, suggesting, "Don't you mean as plentiful as the hairs on a cow?"

"Somewhat less than the hairs on a cow," Baldy Li replied, trying to be as precise as possible. "But a pig has about the right number of hairs."

Seeing Baldy Li suddenly so animated, the six partners glanced at one another and flashed reassured grins. Baldy Li continued passionately, "Shanghai is a huge place, and if you walk a few steps in any direction, you will find a bank with a long line of customers depositing or withdrawing money, the ATM whirring away. The department stores are all several stories high, and climbing up and down in them is like scaling a mountain. Inside, everyone is packed in like at a movie theater, and we won't even mention how crowded the streets are. All day long, they are so crowded that people don't seem like people anymore, more like damn ants moving in anthills."

Baldy Li went on and on about what a big place Shanghai was, his spittle flying everywhere, including all over Blacksmith Tongs face. Tong wiped his face and noticed that the other partners were laughing along, not realizing that Baldy Li had completely digressed from the question at hand. Tong had no choice but to interrupt and carefully remind him, "You were going to tell us how your discussions with Shanghai's clothing companies went—"

"I had lots of discussions," Baldy Li interrupted, not waiting for Blacksmith Tong to finish his question. He proudly counted on his fingers: "I spoke with twenty clothing companies, of which three were foreign companies."

Little Guan exclaimed in surprise, "So that's why you look like Marx and Engels."

"What about Marx and Engels?" Baldy Li had no idea what Guan was talking about.

Tailor Zhang explained, "With your long hair and beard, we figured
you must have been speaking with foreign businessmen and therefore had begun to look like a foreigner."

"What do you mean, look like a foreigner'?" Baldy Li still didn't understand.

Blacksmith Tong saw that he was about to digress again, and immediately jumped in: "We were discussing your business negotiations. How did they go?"

"They went well," Baldy Li answered. "And not just business. I also reached an agreement with them on the question of the brand names—"

Mama Su shouted, "And that's why you sent me that telegram, saying that you wanted to change Meat Bun Brand to Dim Sum Brand?"

Baldy Li racked his brains as if trying to remember. Suddenly, eyes gleaming, he said, "Yes, yes, that's right."

Mama Su shot the others a triumphant glance, and they nodded. Blacksmith Tong realized that Baldy Li was about to digress again and quickly prompted, "Of the twenty companies you spoke to, how many did you reach an agreement with?"

Baldy Li sighed, and the sound of that sigh was like a bucket of cold water dumped over the heads of his partners. Their newfound excitement fell from their faces. Baldy Li gazed at each of them in turn, held up five fingers, and said, "Five years ago I went to Shanghai to drum up business for the Good Works Factory, and all I had to do was take out the family portraits of the handicapped workers, combined with my earnest attitude, and I could move every employee of every company, thereby raising an enormous amount of business for the factory. Five years later I took my world map and again went to Shanghai to drum up business, only this time for myself. This time I was even more sincere, even more earnest, and even more mature than before, but…" Baldy Li retracted his five fingers and mimed the act of counting cash. "Now we live in a different era. Society has changed, and it is necessary to offer large bribes in order to get business. I had never expected that these evil winds would have swept over the country so quickly." Baldy Li's fingers stopped counting his imaginary money. Instead he held up his fingers again and sighed. "In just five years’ time, those winds have blown over our entire country."

His six partners stared at him in shock. Blacksmith Tong nervously followed up, "So did you offer bribes?"

"No." Baldy Li shook his head. "By the time I finally figured out this
principle of offering bribes, I only had enough money in my pocket to buy a one-way bus ticket back to Liu."

"So that means," Blacksmith Tong deduced with a quavering voice, "that you didn't secure a single business deal?"

Baldy Li answered definitively: "Nope. Not a one."

As if struck by lightning, the six partners reeled from the impact of Baldy Li's answer. They stood staring at one another in stunned silence. Tailor Zhang was the first to recover and, trembling all over, he asked Baldy Li, "So our blood-and-sweat money has been lost, just like that?"

Blacksmith Tong was also shaken to the core. He glanced over at Tailor Zhang but couldn't make out whether he was nodding or shaking his head.

Popsicle Wang began to sob. "That was the money that was going to save my life!"

Mama Su also began to sob, but when she remembered that she hadn't contributed any money in the first place, she immediately stopped. Little Guan and Yanker Yu were completely bathed in cold sweat as they stared at Baldy Li in alarm, stammering, "You, you, how could you have lost our money?"

"You can't say that the money was lost," Baldy Li answered. Looking at their stricken faces, he said resolutely,
"Failure is the mother of success,
and if you can help me raise money for another hundred shares, I'll go back to Shanghai and give everyone bribes and promise that I'll bring you back a lot of business."

Popsicle Wang was still sobbing. He rubbed his eyes and said to Blacksmith Tong, "Well, I don't have a single cent left."

Blacksmith Tong looked at the disconsolate Yanker Yu and Scissors Guan, then at Tailor Zhang, who was trembling from head to toe. Finally, he shook his head, let out a deep sigh, and said, "How do you expect us to have any more money?"

"You don't have any more money?" Baldy Li looked very disappointed. He waved his hand, saying, "Then there is nothing I can do. We must accept this loss, and my own four hundred yuan is also lost."

When Baldy Li was finished, he couldn't help but giggle at the look of shock and distress on the faces of his business partners. Popsicle Wang pointed at him and asked Blacksmith Tong, "How dare he laugh at a time like this?"

"In life you'll win some and lose some, and you've got to take it like a man," Baldy Li lectured his partners. "The six of you are sitting there so depressed, like war captives. Can't you even handle this sort of minor setback?"

"Fuck you!" Blacksmith Tong roared. "You're the one who is like a war captive."

Blacksmith Tong raised his right hand and pounded Baldy Li's face as if he were hammering iron. With one blow he knocked Baldy Li off the bench, then roared, "I put up four thousand yuan!"

Baldy Li jumped up, holding his face, and said angrily, "What do you think you're doing?"

He sat back down on the bench and again crossed his legs, looking as if he was prepared to talk things over with Blacksmith Tong. Tailor Zhang, Scissors Guan, and Yanker Yu all cried out, "A thousand yuan!" and immediately launched themselves on Baldy Li, kicking him until he jumped onto the bench. He squatted there and shouted, "What do you think you're doing?" Zhang, Guan, and Yu had also accidentally kicked one another and were now crying out in pain. Popsicle Wang was the last to join in and, with the air of a martyr, launched himself toward Baldy Li as if he had been fired from the muzzle of a gun. Crying out "Five hundred yuan!" and swooping in like a kamikaze pilot making his last dive, he grabbed Baldy Li's shoulders and bit down hard, as if he were trying to bite off a five-hundred-yuan hunk of flesh. Screaming like a slaughtered pig, Baldy Li jumped down off the bench and shook himself violently until he was finally able to dislodge Popsicle Wang from his back. Seeing that things were not going well, Baldy Li took his travel bag and world map and ran out of the blacksmith shop. Standing outside the door, where he felt that he was now safely distanced from peril, he pointed angrily at people inside and shouted, "What are you doing? What are you doing? Even if business doesn't go well, we still have our principles. We should sit down and discuss things rationally."

Baldy Li had planned to continue arguing with them, but seeing Blacksmith Tong come out waving his hammer, he changed his mind and hastily added, "But let's not discuss this anymore today."

Recognizing that this was probably a good time to retreat, Baldy Li turned and sprinted away. Blacksmith Tong chased him with his hammer all the way to the end of the alley before finally stopping. He then hollered after Baldy Li as he scurried away, "You fucking listen to me.
The next time I see you, I'll beat you up, and every descendant of mine will beat up every one of yours!"

After uttering this heroic threat and heading back, Blacksmith Tong remembered his lost four thousand yuan and wilted like crops hit by a sudden frost. With a drooping head he returned to his shop. At the thought of how their money had been squandered, tears began to well up in the other partners’ eyes. Spotting Blacksmith Tong walking back with his hammer, Popsicle Wang began to wail and Tailor Zhang sobbed, "So all of our blood-and-sweat money has been lost, just like that?"

Upon hearing this, Little Guan and Yanker Yu also burst into tears. Blacksmith Tong threw his hammer down next to the stove and sat down on Yanker Yu's recliner, pounding his head with his fist. Pretending that his head was actually Baldy Li's, he pummeled himself with all his strength. "I'm a son of a bitch!" Blacksmith Tong cursed himself. "How could I have trusted that son of a bitch, Baldy Li?"

Little Guan and Yanker Yu also started pounding their own heads and cursing themselves, "We sons of bitches …"

Mama Su was the only one who hadn't lost money, and seeing her former partners beating and cursing themselves, she started to cry. She wiped away her tears as she murmured, "Fortunately, I went to the temple to burn incense…"

After Blacksmith Tong had nearly beat himself unconscious, he gritted his teeth and swore, "If I don't beat that bastard Baldy Li until he is completely incapacitated, then I don't deserve to be considered a man."

Upon hearing Blacksmith Tongs oath, Popsicle Wang wiped away his tears. With a look of steely determination, as if he were a heroic martyr off to assassinate the tyrant king, he raised his fist and swore, "I will make sure to beat him until he can't even move."

Little Guan and Yanker Yu also took oaths. Little Scissors Guan swore that he would snip off Baldy Li's dick, his nose and ears, and his fingers and toes. Yanker Yu swore that he would yank out every tooth in Baldy Li's mouth and extract every bone in his body. Still, they all remained choked with fury, so they continued to swear, and to slice and extract, until in their imagination Baldy Li was nothing but a human stump.

Tailor Zhang was more cultured than the others, but even he started swearing like a drunken sailor, vowing that he would cut off Baldy Li's
head. In order to prove that this wasn't an idle boast, he revealed that he had a Japanese sword hidden under his bed, and although it was a bit rusty, he would need just a couple of hours with Little Guan s whetstone and he could have it like new—sharp enough to lop off Baldy Li's head with a single stroke.