Brothers (70 page)

Song Gang again assumed the position of Liu Towns chief sub. After his lungs were ruined, he wouldn't sleep in the matrimonial bed anymore, afraid that Lin Hong would catch his illness. He asked to sleep on the couch, but Lin Hong refused, saying that if Song Gang wasn't willing to sleep in the bed with her, then she would be the one who would sleep on the couch. As a result, Song Gang had no choice but to sleep at Lin Hong's feet. On the days that he had a job, he would leave wearing a face mask in order not to pass his lung disease on to others. Song Gang was the only person in Liu who wore a face mask all year long, even during the hot summer, and even the town's youngest children recognized him instantly when they saw him slowly walking down the street, hailing him: "The chief sub has arrived."

CHAPTER 56

B
ALDY LI
had put Song Gang out of his mind. He held up two fingers, saying that during the day he raked in the money while at night he raked in the women. He said that he was insanely busy and apart from money and women he didn't know anything about anything. Baldy Li never did get married, and slept with so many women that even he couldn't keep count. When someone asked him exactly how many women he had slept with, Baldy Li pondered for a while, calculated, and finally responded, not without regret, "Not as many as I have workers."

Baldy Li not only slept with the local women; he also slept with women from all over the country, from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other overseas Chinese communities, including more than a dozen foreign women. He slept with all sorts of women—tall and short ones, fat and thin ones, beautiful and ugly ones, young and old ones. Everyone said that Baldy Li was very broad-minded: that as long someone was female he wouldn't reject her, and if a sow was led to his bed, he would probably sleep with it as well. Some of the women slept with him on the sly and also accepted money from him on the sly, while others would sleep with him and then take his money and brag openly. They bragged not about the fact that they had slept with him but, rather, about how fabulous and amazing he was in bed. They said that he was an animal in the sack, like a machine gun firing endless rounds, and that he would screw you until your legs went into spasms and you could barely walk the next day, leaving you amazed that you made it off the bed alive.

The salacious rumors concerning Baldy Li were more numerous than explosions on a battlefield. Some of the women he slept with had their eyes on his wealth. The first to make a move was a young woman in her twenties who had come from the countryside to find work in Liu Town. She brought her newborn baby to Baldy Li's office and asked him happily what they should name it. Baldy Li stared at her blankly but couldn't place her. He asked skeptically, "What the fuck does this have to do with me?"

The young woman started bawling, asking how a father could fail to
recognize his own son. Baldy Li looked at her and pondered for a moment, but for the life of him he couldn't remember ever having been with her. He asked, "Did you really sleep with me?"

"How could you even ask that?" The woman brought the baby over for Baldy Li to take a look. Still bawling, she said, "Just look, he has your eyebrows, and your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your forehead, your chin…"

Baldy Li glanced at the baby and decided that, other than looking like a baby, it really didn't look like anyone in particular. The woman then pulled down its diaper, saying, "Even his penis looks just like yours."

Baldy Li was furious that this woman would have the gall to speak of his enormous member and this baby's tiny, soybean-size penis in the same breath. As he howled in fury several of his assistants helped usher the hysterical woman out the door.

This young woman then started demonstrating outside the main gate of Baldy Li's company headquarters. Every day she would sit there, holding her baby, sobbing as she told everyone who would listen how Baldy Li's sense of compassion had been snatched by a dog, eaten by a wolf, chewed by a tiger, and shat out by a lion. Several days later, another woman arrived with a baby, claiming that it was Baldy Li's daughter. She tearfully recounted how Baldy Li had tricked her into bed and had gotten her pregnant. Crying even more tragically than the first, she sobbed that when she gave birth, Baldy Li didn't even come to see her. Then a third woman arrived, with a four- or five-year-old boy in tow. She was calmer than the previous two and didn't cry as she sternly accused Baldy Li of going back on his word—claiming that it was only after he had sworn they would marry and live happily ever after that she had agreed to go to bed with him. She pointed to her son and said that, based on his age, he would be Baldy Li's firstborn and heir. As soon as she finished, a fourth woman appeared with a seven- or eight-year-old boy and insisted that
her
son was Baldy Li's firstborn and rightful heir.

Women claiming to have slept with Baldy Li kept arriving with their children, until finally there were more than thirty of them, all crowded into the street in front of Baldy Li's company headquarters. Day in and day out, they would cry and complain about Baldy Li's philandering. They chattered noisily amongst themselves, transforming the street in front of Baldy Li's headquarters into a small marketplace. They would
get into spectacular fights jockeying for position, spitting and pulling one another's hair, scratching one another's faces, and clawing at one another's clothes. From dawn till dusk, the street was full of women's curses and babies’ cries.

There were so many women protesting outside that Baldy Li's employees couldn't make it in to work, and enormous traffic jams developed in the street outside his headquarters. The director of the local branch of China's Women's Federation and all her underlings appeared in full force to exhort the women to go home and trust that the government would work out an equitable solution to their disputes with Badly Li. The women, however, adamantly refused to budge and instead entreated the federation director to have the Women's Federation come and force Baldy Li to marry them. The director didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this, reminding them that the law only permitted a man to have a single wife and therefore there was no way for Baldy Li to marry them all.

The county's director of transportation called up Baldy Li and said that the county's most important street had been completely blocked for more than a month, and as a result the county's economy had taken a huge hit. County Governor Tao Qing also called him up, saying that Baldy Li was now the most influential person in the county and that if this matter was not resolved satisfactorily, not only would it be a blow to Baldy Li's image but, furthermore, the entire county's reputation would be severely impacted. Baldy Li chuckled on the other end of the line and said to just let them continue demonstrating. Tao Qing argued that already more than thirty women were demonstrating, and if they didn't act now, there soon could be even more. Baldy Li replied, "The more the better. As they say,
the more fleas you have, the less you are afraid of being bitten."

Among the protestors were some who had indeed slept with Baldy Li, some who knew him but hadn't slept with him, and others who had never even met him. Among the women who had slept with him were some who genuinely believed that he was the father of their children, and they were naturally bolder than the others. They discussed matters among themselves and decided that, rather than being tired, thirsty, and hungry demonstrating outside all day, they might as well take Baldy Li to court.

Once Baldy Li was named as a defendant, a vast crowd congregated inside and outside the courthouse. He appeared in court wearing a suit
and patent-leather shoes, with a little red flower pinned to his lapel, since he was just coming from the opening ceremony of one of his new companies. Beaming like a groom, he made his way through the crowds into the courthouse and then proceeded to the defendants seat as though he were about to present a report. He sat in court listening to the women testify, as attentive as a child listening to a story. When they tearfully described their beautiful experiences with him, he blushed and repeatedly asked in astonishment, "Really? Was it really like that?"

After about two hours he began to grow weary. The testimony was becoming increasingly repetitious, and the majority of the women hadn't even testified yet. Baldy Li decided that he had had enough and requested permission to speak. After the judge acknowledged him, Baldy Li reached into his breast pocket and very carefully pulled out his trump card: the hospital record of his vasectomy from more than a decade earlier.

He handed the vasectomy report to the judge, who read it and then proceeded to laugh uncontrollably for more than two full minutes. Finally regaining his composure, he announced that Baldy Li was innocent, explaining that Baldy Li had had a vasectomy more than a decade earlier and therefore could not possibly have fathered any of these children. Everyone in the courthouse fell into stunned silence, but after a few minutes they exploded into laughter as well. The thirty original plaintiffs stood there in shock, looking at one another with expressions of astonishment. When the judge informed Baldy Li that he could countersue the women for slander and fraud, a dozen or so of them turned pale, a couple fainted, four burst into tears, and three tried to sneak out but were promptly nabbed by the crowds and brought back. Meanwhile, the women who had actually slept with Baldy Li declared that they would challenge the judge s decision and would continue to press their cases on the ground that, even if Baldy Li hadn't fathered their children, he had still slept with them and destroyed their hymens, which were more valuable to them than life itself. If they didn't succeed in the city's middle court, they would appeal to the upper court. If they still didn't prevail, they would appeal all the way to the Supreme Court in Beijing. If they didn't succeed there, they would take their case all the way to the World Court in The Hague.

The crowds retorted, "If you sue Baldy Li for having slept with you, Baldy Li could also sue you for having slept with him. If you want him
to compensate you for your lost hymens, he could demand that you compensate him for his lost virginity."

The courtroom became as cacophonous as a chicken farm, with the crowds siding with Baldy Li and taunting the female swindlers, asking the judge to arrest the lot of them. No matter how hard the judge pounded his gavel and how loudly he shouted for order, it was of no use. It was only after Baldy Li got up and bowed respectfully to the crowd that they finally began to calm down. He said, "Fellow townspeople, thank you, thank you…"

Baldy Li emotionally dabbed at his eyes and then continued, "The fact that I have my current career is due entirely to your support. Today I want to speak to you from my heart. It is true that I, Baldy Li, have slept with a great number of women, but the truth of the matter is that I am actually quite miserable, insofar as I've never come across a single hymen in all these years."

The townspeople burst into riotous laughter, slapping their bellies and shouting, "Excellent!" Baldy Li gestured for them to quiet down, then continued: "The reason I decided to have a vasectomy was because the woman I loved decided to marry someone else. From that point on, I fell into despair and lost all scruples, or why else would I have slept with so many women? If a man chooses to sleep around, all the women he comes across will of course also be loose. Today I have reached an epiphany and realized, to put it coarsely, that not until you've slept with a woman with her hymen intact can you say that you've really slept with a woman. Or, to put it more elegantly, it is only after you have slept with a woman who genuinely loves you that you can be said to have really slept with a woman. The sad truth of the matter is that there hasn't been a single woman who has genuinely loved me. And so it doesn't matter how many women I've slept with. I might as well have been sleeping with myself."

The townspeople were now laughing so hard they couldn't catch their breath, and the sound of their delirious gasps and guffaws resonated throughout the courtroom. Displeased, Baldy Li cried out, "I'm not joking!"

After everyone had quieted down, Baldy Li patted his chest earnestly and said, "I am speaking from my heart." He dabbed at his eyes and then continued to share his heartfelt sorrows. "To tell the truth, I am no longer able to court a woman. I once tried courting a few
young women, but it didn't work out. Why? Because I am already debauched."

He tried to explain. "In courtship, women are always likely to get emotional, and sometimes they'll throw a minor tantrum or two. Whenever that happens, I can't help cursing and shouting at them, ‘Damn it, what kind of attitude is this?’ After I shout out a few times, the nice ones always run away!"

Baldy Li paused, then smiled bitterly. "Why? Because I have already become used to paying for sex. Naturally, women who are sleeping with me because I have paid them have better attitudes. For me, sleeping with women is like doing business and has nothing at all to do with love. I am no longer able to respect women, and since I can't respect them, I therefore can't court them. That is my tragedy!"

Amid the laughter of the townspeople, Baldy Li concluded his speech. After wiping his eyes, he then pointed to the thirty plaintiffs and said magnanimously, "This hasn't been easy for them either—they protested in front of my company for an entire month." He turned to one of his underlings. "Tell my CFO to pay each of them one thousand yuan, and we will treat it as one month's wages."

The townspeople shouted their approval. The former plaintiffs each relaxed and put aside their anger, thinking that although they hadn't succeeded in stealing a chicken, at least they hadn't lost a fistful of rice in the process, and furthermore, they did come away with enough money to buy another fistful. Amid everyone's shouts of approval, Baldy Li walked out of the courthouse, beaming with satisfaction. Before stepping into his Santana sedan, he turned around and waved to the cheering crowd; after getting into the car, he rolled down his window and continued waving at them, even after the car had driven off.