Naked City

[Lotus Eater]

Last night while dark-alley urinating, up against a wall,

And back in Oz you'd have been arrested for this!

But if her face the last time I saw her was testimony then she had been betrayed and that was nothing new. Proud, in her own way.

Women all over the world have this same face. Ask me.

[joe]

Silence.

Silence. The shadow that casts a shroud over all things. The closing of mouths. For such a loud country it is the consigning of ghosts to darkness that is the key. Silence is stronger than my manly whine.

Is the core of silence a well of secret things or things forgotten?

I can't be sure, because silence isn't my way. Though I also believe silence is necessary, it is an earned respite when talk is done. Not a replacement.

But I do have to respect a good silence. In class I do. I'll rail against it for a while, but in my heart I know it isn't my right. I can't speak the language.

It wasn't even my right to tell any story. These observer's anecdotes have only one voice, my own.

[solongtinik]

am just curious...joe started the "prostitution" thread and now the "naked city"...wuz up pal?

[joe]

I had been getting out of the house and meeting new people.

[solongtinik]

and you're meeting these kind of people? eh! not judgin 'em just havin fun! lol!

[joe]

Judging them? Assigning moral categories?

Frankly, during a time when I was fit neither for woman nor beast, I set up faux relationships.

And I edited out a whole pile of philosophical crap just now. I was just meeting new people.

[con's fly is open]

Damn good writing (mine's dull these days). I'm in a grey mood lately myself, so I can't think of anything helpful to say.

[joe]

Silence II.

As selected from writings scribed by sophomores in Hunan yesterday.

The Girls:

"China is a civilized country with a long history of more than 5000 years. So maybe it is hard to make full understanding. A lot of people are confused by the way to show love -- keep silence. I can't say that China is a conservative country, but we have our own morality and virtue. people have different characteristics. So they show love in different ways even cause misunderstanding. but it is sure that the one whom cares really can feel the love from the inmost heart. except keep silence, beating, scolding also can express love. I know that when my parents punish me, they also suffer a lot of pain, so it is easy for us to understand."
-- Ashley.

"Unlike foreign countries, Chinese never show their love bakedly. They often express themselves in a indirect way. In family, parents often pulish their children when they make some mistakes. They think punishment is a way of love, and they never say `I love you' or some baked words to the family. The way children express their love is to study hard and enjoy the delicious food. Chinese people especially living in rural area, their way to show love is the most original. they hardly call their children `honey' or `darling'. Instead, they often give them ugly nickname. In the countryside parents often build their house in the late age, because they have saved enough money and prepared house for their son for marriage. If they love their son, they must rebuild their home for their son."
-- Sophie.

"Chinese people not express their love in words, they put their love in heart anhd prove it by behaviour. For example, Chinese children seldom say `I love you' to their parents, but that doesn't mean these children don't love their parents. They express their love by helping their parents. Husbands and wives also seldom to say `I love you' to each other. They express their love through eye contact or some other words, such as `Don't be too tired' or `You should have a good rest'. As to parents, it is almost impossible for them to say `Dear, I love you' to their kids. There is an old saying `If your parents love you, they will beat you and scold you when you make mistakes'. Maybe it is impossible for westerners to accept this kid of love. However, this is a way for people to express their love."
-- Catherine.

A Boy:

"A boy and his girlfriend was riding the motorbicycle on the strret. the girl sat on the back of the motorbicycle and felt very happy. Then the boy said to the girl, `Honey, do you love me?' The girl answered it with a smile `Of course, I do!' The boy also smiled `I love you, too!' And the boy gave a helmet to the girl and told her to wear it. Several hours later, people found the boy and the girl, but the boy was dead and his motorcycle was serious broken, the girl was alive but in tears and looked very sad. In fact, the boy knew they rided so fast, but there was something wrong with his motorbicycle and he also knew he couldn't stop it. But he knew his girlfriend must be safe.

"The boy loved his girlfriend, was willing to keep his girlfriend safe but lose his life. This was the style he showed his love to the girl."
-- William.

[solongtinik]

joe, i didnt say YOU were the one judging them..i said u might misinterpret me judgin them...got some pinklights friend from my town...

they're nice and kind...

[joe]

Lizard Joe.

When I arrived I nearly cried. I don't cry, I nearly cry.

And when I started making friends I had an edge like a ragged razor blade.

I still had the shakes from where I'd been. And it was still hot, summer. Drinking weather. On the cigs, so smoking weather too. A quick shower before I went out. I used to think it wiped off the stink. At least I could wash out the metal from under my arms.

Civilians.

Tears in a spiffy new luxury van. Sunglasses. Seven grown adults and a kid, all breathing the same air-conditioned carbon, all yawning the same yawn, all high-speeded along a highway with a driver one-handed driving, grabbing at a bottle of green tea and a box of stomach something.

I powered down my window a notch one time and the roar of the wind woke everyone up. I sucked in air, real live dust and force-fed oxygen.

They'd all been to the capital, coincdentally picking me up at the airport. I game-showed them: "So, I guess it's changed?" meaning the burg we were all going back too. They'd never left, but I had, for three years, and I was coming back.

Riding shotgun I had to twist around to talk. They nodded. I twisted back and shifted my sunglasses into place, and messaged. She was still at work.

I moved into the best house I've ever lived in. Time for a drink.

I met Xiao Xie later. A week, two? We lay on a palet upstairs at her shop. As far as I knew it was a good conversation.

"Ni shi nali de?"

She said she was from China. I said, yeah, but "Shenme difang de?"

Yunan, apparently.

A small girl with an hourglass figure and an incongruously pleasing boxer's nose. Some small girls squeak. She lilted when spoke. A kind of flute with the wind held back. Short blue jean shorts, some t-shirt.

I tugged lightly at the hem: "Keyi ma?"

Climax isn't what this is about. Climax means game over: clean up, pay up, go home. That wasn't what I wanted.

My name is Lizard Joe. I drink to excess. And I wanted the game to go on.

[joe]

A Chinese Love Story.

It's too cold to go out whoring. I've lost the passion for it.

But a girl will declare her love for me some time soon. I've been getting those overheated SMS messages again. About the long time good mood she had from a chat on the phone. About the plan she made when she first saw me, that she would be the best student for me. A tall girl, tallest in her class, with the tallest girl's ability to curl her shoulders and make herself short. She's spring-loaded sometimes, sitting up, crouching down.

It's disappointing I can see it coming. Chinese are the least inscrutable people on the face of the earth. They run on relentless rails. If I could see it coming, the other old men that picked off young girls saw it coming too.

But I can't take it. "You should wear more clothes." "Have a good rest." "Make a nice dream." Displays of concerns like these work fine in a culture of external relationships. Where what you should do is what someone tells you to do. But if your soul is locked up tight inside your chest?

So I walk around the grounds, greeting and greeted, inside my own mistrust of what I see. I recognise most of the people who say hi to me, and I even know a few names. But everywhere I see the chasm, the bridgless gap between what I know and what they expect.

Outside of class the girls dress like prostitutes--fitted jeans, spike heel knee boots, short coats with big fur ruffles. They are simple people, and hang out with shell-suited boys. When they age they'll become harder, more avaricious. They'll make simple crude plans for their future and they'll use the simplest of tools to make plans come true: force. They use it even now. What else is behind those SMS messages, uh?

[joe]

Wound.

I have a weeping wound on my knee. I haven't had one since I was a boy. I've run out of bandages, so I will have to wash my long underwear, because it's cold now. Three days later, after I had washed my jeans in cold water shampoo--it takes out the blood--the split was patched. Three yuan just up the street. Shampoo washes out the blood, not that there was so much, just a stain around the split, but there's a drop on the floor I can't account for.

I know the street well. It was here when I was here before. A long diagonal road out of town. Large, full trees run its length. They did before, until one day every second tree was loped, making them giant, burred toothpicks stood upright, and opening the street to too much burning sun.

Now they shade the light again, even the midnight yellow street lights. Before I got lost I walked off a sidewalk into space and torn open my jeans at the knee. I know that now. At the time I was just walking, and then I wasn't. I was on my knees. I stood up and walked on.

The quilt on the sofa will have to be washed too. More likely just thrown out. It stinks of cigarettes, and is stained by the dirt the plastic bag I packed it in didn't keep the removers from adding.

Finally I caught a taxi home. I told the guy the nearest place to where I wanted to go. "Ni he zui le?" he asked, because I'd told him to stop before we got to where I said we were going.



There is, like, seven or eight stories in the Naked City. I think I've told them all.

[Lotus Eater]

The other side of the story

She looked at the length of his white body against her tea coloured skin. The strange colour of his hair - a soft red. His pale skin and, for now, blue eyes closed against the darkness within him. She ran her hand over his body, feeling once again the confusion of hair. It covered his chest, ran down in a straight line past his navel, and further. So much hair.

Strange that he wanted her.

If he came to see her regularly it would be good. She would be able to keep her brother at school.

He groped for a cigarette and she touched the lighter to it. Smoke curled from his mouth, drifted on the still air. He stirred, rose and began to cover his loss and loneliness.

She watched as he reached the door. He went as he came in - looking quickly across the road to the windows, up and down the street. How many eyes were watching him? He slid, quietly, quickly, from her door. Not strong, not confident for the moment.

She closed her door, reached for the red thermos in the corner. The towel she wiped herself with was greyed from age and washing. Rubbed briskly at the alien smell that covered her body.

There was still more work for tonight.

[George61]

Oh Gooody!! A Literary Competition. I like the sex bits, but Joe has slipped in a tiny touch of violence here. Hitting the road with a knee and drawing blood! Not sure I like that. Get back to the sexy stuff.
I read these stories and I think of books that I have read where the hero is an alcoholic, determined to stay dry, leading to much angst, etc. I just wish the author hadn't done that, but let him enjoy a good night on the booze, now and then.

[joe]

We ain't no geishas round hyere.

I don't look at him, don't want to see his eyes. He stinks. The `morning after' smell of cigarettes and alcohol. "Chou xiao yi dian ba."

"Hao le-ah" he says in his baby Chinese. "Xie xie lao ma."

"Wo bu shi ni mama! Ni shi shei?" I laugh.

"Ni shenme shihou yinggai hui qu?"

I tell him I'm going now. "Wo xianzai hui qu" I smile. I'm going. I'll call him again later tonight.

"Deng yi xia, deng yi xia, hao ba?"

Hungry. Yao shang cesuo. Get up. I bounce off to the shower. Sing a song and work on my hair in front of the mirror. He's still lying there when I come out.

"Wo wan le, ni de mingzi shi shenme?"

"George," he tells me.

When I woke up it was time to go. "Wo fui qu." He watches me dress. "Dong ma?"

"Wo dong."

"Wo fui qu."

He gets up, naked. "Dong le." No need to look at anything. We stand there.

"Fui qu. Dong ma?"

"Hao le, hao le," and he goes over to where he left his pants. 200 yuan handed over in two hands. I look at it, keep chatting, and take it.

It'll be cold tonight. We'll bundle up for warmth under one big quilt slung over a short table with a small brazier underneath and watch the big front window, the television and the phones. We'll scan for movement, stand up, beckon, and let them walk on. If he's there, they'll complain to the boss.

The foreigner walks me to the gate, babbling baby Chinese. I've missed lunch. The others will have cooked upstairs and yelled and laughed at each other, eating. They're not my friends.

In a week I'll go back and put money in my mother's hands and criticise her. What should she be feeding my son.

"Wo fui qu Fubei."

"Hao wan ma?"

"Hao wan." I tell him we'll all sit around a big table and eat food.

"Uh?"

I laugh. I tell him, "Hui Fubei huaiyun, hui lai mei huaiyun."

"Ni?"

"Bu shi wo."

There's a taxi at the gate and he wants to hug me.

Turn on a hard face for the driver, because he'll know where I'm going when I tell him. None of his business.

"Bye!" Wave. Call the foreigner again later.





Language Key:

"Hui lai" means "Come back."
"Hui qu" means in these instances "Leave here."
"Fui" is "Hui" but only when dialect overruns putonghua.