Tweedy Impertinence

Peace Corps volunteers have a habit of flipping through calendars and imagining where they'll be in six months' time. In a year's time. In two years' time. And physically, of course, they'll probably be exactly where they're at, wherever the Peace Corps sent them in the first place. But psychologically, there's no telling where you'll find yourself after two years in a strange land, no telling how your mind will bend and warp along the way.

Oh, the places you'll go ...

After six months, you'll be half-crazy. After a year, you'll be fullblown batshit crazy. After two years, you'll finally be sane and adjusted. Just in time to return to America. Then you'll be batshit crazy all over again.

All of this is to be expected. It's what you sign up for. It goes with the territory. And it's a bit scary to think about. So we don't think about it. We don't think about the hard times we're bound to face. We don't think about reintegrating into an America we no longer understand. We don't think about that shit. No, in times of tedium, we fast-forward to the good parts. We anticipate days off. We plan vacations years in advance. We mentally apply for jobs that don't exist and grad school programs we could never afford. We get ahead of ourselves.

And no Peace Corps China volunteer peering into his or her crystal ball last winter could have failed to notice that this year's three-day Mid-Autumn Festival happened to fall on a Wednesday, which linked it ever so elegantly to the following Saturday and Sunday. This is what the Chinese refer to as a "bridge," and what we in the English-speaking world call a five-day weekend. So, slobbering at the prospect of getting out of town for five full days, we mentally booked flights to Malaysia, mentally bought train tickets to Shanghai. We got ahead of ourselves.

But sometime last spring, a cabal of elite bureaucrats sat down in a banquet hall somewhere out East and made the command decision that all school vacations must be atoned for, and that right soon. Sometime around 4 AM, the bureaucrats hoisted their shot glasses and sealed the deal - and in the wake of that sodden evening, holidays, as we knew them, were gone.

The bureaucrats decreed that we, the teachers, must atone for our holidays by slogging through seven straight days of teaching. For every three days of vacation the calendar grants us, there are two days of work waiting for us on the weekend. Saturday and Sunday classes. Then, Monday through Friday classes. And this isn't just me and my fellow laowais. This applies to the Chinese professors, who are already teaching thirty or forty-odd hours a week as it is. And this applies to the students, who no longer want to be anywhere near a classroom by day three of a grueling seven-day week.

To my mind, the smart thing to do would be to stack all the missed classes at the end of the semester. That way, neither the teachers nor the students would notice a thing. Human beings are gullible that way.

And to my mind, it would be even smarter to plan out the semester in advance. Set a start date and an end date. Simple as that. Perhaps this surprises you. How can a university function if nobody knows when the semester begins? Or when it ends? Beats you. Beats me. But for reasons beyond my intellectual pale, nobody - not the students, not the teachers, not the deans - nobody knows when the semester is going to start until 24 hours before it begins. And nobody knows when the semester will wrap up until the week before it ends. So it goes. This is the way of things. This is the game, is the game, is the game - and this is what I have gotten used to. I hate cellphones, and I use mine primarily as a multipurpose doorstop/paperweight. But I keep my phone plugged in the week before I think the semester will start, and I plug it back in the week before I think the semester will end. Because otherwise, I wouldn't know when to show up.

The lunar calendar doesn't change on a whim. It doesn't change at all. It's astronomy, yo. Some Ancient Chinese sage from the Shang Dynasty could've told you when Mid-Autumn Festival 2010 would fall. But the holidays here always seem to come as a surprise. As in: surprise, you have to teach this weekend. I'll get a phone call somewhere between Friday night and Saturday morning, when I'm somewhere downtown and already well swaddled in three sheets of the Irish wind. HEY. HEY. WHAT? SORRY. WHAT? YEAH. NAW. I'M COOL. WHASSUP? Class tomorrow. Saturday. 8 AM. You had better not be late. And Sunday, too. 8 AM. You had better not be late. I'm very polite about it. But after I've hung up, it's all I can do not to stomp my phone out like a cigarette. I walk back inside to tell my people that I have to go. It's suddenly become a school night. The autumnal equinox snuck up on us this year.

The next morning, I show up and do my job. And I ask my students, aren't you annoyed? Aren't you irked that it's Saturday morning and you're here in class with boring ol' Mr. Panda? They shrug. That's just the way it is, Mr. Panda. But it's the weekend, I rage. You're on vacation. You're college kids. You should be sleeping, or outside with your friends. And you're in here with me. Doesn't that, you know, piss you off? They shrug. That's just the way it is, Mr. Panda. The game is the game.

I teach eighteen hours of the exact same class every week, and seven straight days of that starts to take its toll on my existential well-being. My teaching suffers. My sanity suffers. Every day, I teach the same material. I show the same Powerpoint presentation. I crack the same jokes. Seven days in a row. During my smoke break, I get the eerie sensation that if I were to play two different tapes of two different classes at the same time, the videos would sync up perfectly. I shudder. The bell rings. Ah, Christ. And I snub my cigarette out under my toe. And I walk back in there to do it all over again.

I should've been clinically dead by Thursday morning. But for whatever reason, I woke up feeling frisky. Feeling playful. Feeling flippant, if that is the right word. I felt the way dogs do after you've given them a bath. You towel them off and they spend the next two hours running laps around the house, tearing up the furniture, chasing squirrels that don't exist. I felt like that. Like a wet dog. I was feeling mischievous, if that is the right word.

I hit a traffic clusterfuck on the bus ride to work, so I showed up a little late to class. I walked up six flights of stairs and swaggered down the hall in my chalkstained suitcoat and jeans. All beard and baggy eyes. Armed with my tweedy impertinence. I nudged the door open and strode into the classroom. My students gasped, as they always do whenever I show up more bearded than the week before. On my way up to the podium, I tripped over a computer cable. A torrent of coffee shot across the room.

"Fuck!" I shouted.

Oops. I covered my mouth.

My students are big on call and response, so they responded.

"Fak fak fak," they repeated.
"Aw, shit," I said to myself.
"Shit shit shit shit shit -"

A hand shot up in the front row.
"Mr. Panda. Fak. What is the meaning?"
"Yes. And shit. What is the meaning?"
I grinned a bit. Did I mention I was feeling flippant?

"You really want to know?" I asked.
A resounding YES from the class.
"Aight," I said. I bent down to soak up the spilled coffee with a stack of papers. Then I walked across the room, shut the door and deadbolted it. "Hey yo, can somebody close that door in the back? Thanks."

I fired up the computer and switched on the projector screen. I looked out over the sea of black-haired, bespectacled heads and said, "How y'all doin'? Long time, no see."
"No," said a girl in the front row, "short time, yes see."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yes. You are teach us two days before."
"Jesus," I said. "You're right."

I use the projector these days because nobody can read my handwriting, not even me. I opened Microsoft Word and typed out the word "fuck" in 28-point letters.

"So you want to know about this word, do you?"
A resounding YES.
"Okay. Alright. So it was written," I sighed, "so it shall be done."

I paced the stage a bit.

"First of all," I said, "you are never to use this word around anyone other than me. You are certainly not to use this word around the foreigners you see on the street. Because they will get angry. You are not to use this word around Professor Xie. Because he is delicate. But if you do use it around Professor Xie, and if he asks you who taught you this word, you are to tell him - "
"Mr. Panda!" the class shouted in unison.
"No," I said. "Don't say that."

I paced. I felt the urge to light a cigarette. Or a cigar.

"You are not to use this word as a noun or as a verb. That will only get you into trouble."

Here, I swatted the air and made a SLAP sound. And then I molded my hand into a pistol and made a gunshot sound. Much laughter from the crowd.

"As a noun or as a verb, this is a very serious word. We only drop it in emergencies. For that reason, we call it the f-bomb," I explained, "and I don't want to hear any of you saying 'f-bomb you.' Because people don't like it when you say that. People kill people for saying that."

I took my coffee from the desk and slurped down what little bottom-feeding sludge remained.

"But," I said, "the f-bomb is very useful otherwise. It is the spice of Oral English. It is the air that we, as English speakers, breathe. Your teacher, Mr. Panda, is a gentleman. But gentlemanly as he is, he drops the f-bomb - "

"Once a month!" interjected a student.
"Once a week!"
"Once a day!"
"Once a sentence," I said.
The crowd oohed.

"I'm not teaching you this word because I think it's funny. And I'm not teaching you this word because I want you to use it. I'm teaching you this word," I said, "because we drop it all the time in English. In real English. Not the English you study in your - in your ... fucking books." Laughter. "But in real English. The English you hear in movies. The English you hear in music. The English you'll hear me using when I'm outside of class. Without understanding the f-bomb, you can't begin to understand Oral English. The f-bomb is the key that unlocks the whole ... fucking thing."

My students had fallen silent. For a moment, I was afraid that I had offended them.
"... or we can talk about something else. If you like."
A resounding NO!
"Alright, then. First of all - "

I paced some more.

"Do not say fuck," I said. "Never say fuck. Fuck is a bad word, and I do not respect people who use it as a noun or as a verb. But in the West, we use it very often as a - as a ... "

I paused. I racked my brains for all the English grammar I'd learned in Mexico, but nothing came. I typed out the words "very good."

"Your grammar is better than mine," I said. "What is 'very'? Is it an adjective or an adverb?"
"ADVERB!"
"So it's an adverb," I agreed. "And the adverb form of the word 'fuck' is 'fucking.' 'Fucking' is safe. 'Fucking' is your best friend. It's very useful. Check it."

I typed "40%" on the screen.
"What do you say about something that's not very good?" I asked.
"Not bad," the class replied in unison, with such indifference that it gave me chills.
"Good. Great. Thank you for remembering that. And what about something that's kind of good, but not very good?"
I typed "60%" on the screen.
"Not bad," they said, with a little perk at the end.

I allowed myself a secret smirk. Just three weeks before, these kids were saying so-so. And fine. Everything was so-so. Everything was fine. Now I had them dropping things like "not bad" and "not too shabby." I finally had them speaking English like they could actually speak the damned language, like they'd been studying it for eight years or something. You done good, Mr. Panda. You done good.

I typed "100%" on the screen.
"What about something that's really, really good?"
"Great!"
"That's right. Great. Now look here, kids."

I typed "110%" on the screen. And then I typed "fucking."
"You put 'fucking' before any good adjective, and it makes it even gooder," I said. "Even better, I mean."
"Fucking great!" shouted a girl in the back.
"Exactly. What else?"
"Fucking deliciurs!"
I winced a bit.
"Delicious. Not deliciurs. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. You got the right idea, though. What else?"
"Fucking amazing!"
"Really fucking wonderful!"
"Fucking fantastic!"
"There it is," I said, and cackled a bit. "Shit. You kids are fucking sharp."

I covered the opposite end of the spectrum, where things are "fucking awful" and "fucking terrible," where things "really fucking suck." Then my students, thankfully, led me into less profane territory.

"Mr. Panda, how to say gua wa zi?"
A barrage of laughter. Ah, yes. Gua wa zi: idiot.
"A million different ways to say idiot," I said, "but here are the best ones."
I typed "dumbass" on the screen.
"Dumbass isn't such a bad word. You can use dumbass with your friends. When your friend does something stupid, you call him a dumbass," I said. "Like when Mr. Panda comes into the room and spills his coffee all over the fucking place. You can say - "
"Mr. Panda, you dumbass!"
"You got it. Then there's moron. Same thing. Mr. Panda shows up to class ten minutes late - "
"Mr. Panda, you moron!"
"Right. Now, sometimes, your friend is a specific type of dumbass. A specialized moron."
I typed the words "nerd," "geek," and "dork."

"A nerd is somebody who studies too much," I explained, "a bookworm. Somebody with big glasses and no muscles and no fashion sense whatsoever. Like Mr. Panda when he was 13. Like Mr. Panda when he was 27."

A giggle from the kids.

"A geek is somebody who knows about one thing, and one thing only. A geek only ever talks about that one thing. A geek is someone who is obsessed with something," I said. "A computer geek, for example. A computer geek only talks about computers. He's not interested in girls, or movies, or sports, or music, or a cold beer on a Friday night. He's interested in fucking computers. That's it."

My students were taking notes with such ferocity that I could hear their pens scratching a symphony.

"And then we have dorks. A dork can be anybody. We are all dorks some of the time. A dork is not necessarily a nerd or a geek, though nerds and geeks are unquestionably dorks," I stopped for a moment to make sure I'd gotten my facts straight. I nodded. "A dork is someone who looks a bit silly. Or acts silly. Or does something silly. For example, Mr. Panda walks into class looking all raggedy - "

I folded my collar up on one side, tucked half of my shirt in, rolled my pantlegs up, and waltzed around the room wearing my most dignified face.

"What a dork!" a girl shouted.
"Exactly. Or maybe a dork starts singing to himself on the street. Mr. Panda's walking around downtown with his friends and all of a sudden, he goes, doop be doop boop boo - "
"What a fucking dork!"
"Yes. What a fucking dork."
I smiled. I wanted to high-five someone.
"Anyway, you call someone a dork because of something they do. And usually, being a dork is only temporary. But being a nerd. Being a geek," I said. "That's a full-time job."

I walked over to the window and peered outside. It had started to rain, and a piebald cat was booking it across the wet, gray square.

My students are big on the words "what a pity." Your cat dies. What a pity. You get hit by a motorcycle. What a pity. You show up two minutes late for class. What a pity you are so late. It's enough to make you want to throw yourself in front of an oncoming motorcycle. So I have endeavored to eradicate those words from the Chinese English lexicon. To banish them to the land of wind and ghosts, as it were. I have worked painstaking hours washing those words out of my students' brains. And now, finally, I have them saying, "that's too bad." And "bummer, dude." And "sorry to hear that." So my impromptu lecture on profanity tied in quite nicely with my ongoing anti-pity crusade.

"That sucks," I said.
"That sucks," my students echoed.
"When my cat dies, you can tell me - "
"That sucks."
"Right. And when I get hit by a motorcycle and the driver refuses to pay my medical bills, you can tell me - "
"That really sucks."
"And when I lose my job for teaching you bad words, you can tell me - "
"Mr. Panda," chimed a sweet little bespectacled girl in the back, "that really fucking sucks. Dude."
I slapped my thigh.
"Yes! And when your friends ask you about Mr. Panda's class, you can say - "
"Mr. Panda's class really fucking sucks."

We covered a lot of ground for a Thursday morning, the kids and I. By the time the bell rang, I found that I didn't really want to leave, though I was officially on vacation by then, after six days of teaching. But I didn't want to leave. This was too much fun. I felt, for the first time in a while, that I was doing some really good work. But the bell had rung. It was over. My students clattered up and out of their seats.

"Before you go," I called out. "You have homework."
"Fucking A," someone groaned.
"Your homework is this: I want you to watch as many Western movies as you can and listen to as much Western music as possible, and I want you to - "
"Translate!"
"No," I said. "Don't translate. I don't want you to translate anything. I want you to sit there with your notebook in your lap and see how many of these bad words you can pick out. Because I didn't teach you all this shit for no reason. I taught you all this shit because it's important."

My students were standing, watching me, hovering over their desks with their books pressed to their chests.

"Because I know that when you watch a Western movie and you can't understand it, you get frustrated. And you give up. You think, I've been studying English for eight years and I can't understand a single fucking thing. What's the point? But I'm telling you that it's easier than you think. When you can't understand an American movie, it's not because the people on the screen are saying complicated things. It's because they're saying simple things in ways you're not familiar with. They're using language that you won't find in your fucking books. Language that you won't find on your fucking exams. They're using language like this. This is real English."

I scrolled through all the variations of fuck and shit and ass and bitch and suck. Color words. Flavoring particles. The spice of life.

"So don't forget all this shit," I said. Then I grinned. "And have yourselves an awesome fucking vacation."
"You too, Mr. Panda!"
"I'll see you in a couple weeks. Two fucking weeks," I said, shaking my head. "I'm gonna fucking miss you guys."
"Bullshit!" the sweet bespectacled girl shouted at me. Much laughter.
"Music to my ears," I smiled. "Now get out of here. Be safe. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

They filed out of the room. I stood there at the podium watching them leave. Peace out, Mr. Panda! Catch ya later, Mr. Panda! See you on the flip side! They knew none of this three weeks ago. Three weeks ago, it was all BAI-BAI and SEE YOU. You done good, Mr. Panda. The last student shut the door behind her. Then it was just me and the whirring fans and the whirring computer and the whirring buzz of successful teaching. It was just me.

"Fucking A," I said.

Dog Days (Part I)

Late July. Dazhou, Sichuan Province, People's Republic of China. A restaurant.

"Goddamn. I say, goddamn it's hot."
"Yeah," said Moose.
"Mind if I roll my shirt up?"
"Whatever."
"I'm joking. But these Chineses is smart," I said, indicating a chainsmoking Buddha across the way, whose drenched polo shirt was tucked up under his manboobs to showcase his proud and sweaty beer baby. "They've got the right idea. Comfort before glamor, is what I say."
"Yeah."
"I mean, I'd like to do it, too. In a heartbeat I would do it. I certainly don't look down upon it. But I can't bring myself to, y'know, roll it up like that. I'm uncomfortable with my midriff. I'm hopelessly American in that way. The whole Protestant work ethic package. Prudence. Modesty. Tightwadism. All that Ben Franklin shit. A penny saved is a penny - "
"Yeah."
"I mean, I just can't bring myself to flaunt my ... self around like that. For reasons I don't quite understand. Does that make any sense?"
"Yeah."
"I mean, does it?"
"Yeah."
"Well. Yeah. I mean. Anyhoo."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
I checked my watch and suddenly remembered that I've never owned a watch in my life.

"Man, I got a bad feeling about this thing," I said.
"What?"
"I said, I got a ba-a-a-a-ad feeling about this thing."
"What thing?"
"The party. Picnic. Thing."
"Yeah," said Moose.
"Two hundred Chinese people. Nine Americans. Open bar. 3:30 in the goddamned afternoon," I said, shaking my head. "Ain't gonna be pretty."
"Nope."
"They're gonna make us sing, Moose. All of us. And dance. Christ. They're gonna make us dance, Moose! And they're gonna make us take pictures. And drink more than we want to. You realize that. Moose."
"Yeah."
"Like I said, it ain't gonna be pretty. I have a feeling that the whole thing is going to be, as the Mexicans say, a total desmadre."
"Yeah."
"Man. Are you ever fucking talkative today."

There came a sudden blast of ammonia from the restaurant restroom and I coughed violently. I rubbed my eyes and coughed some more. Despite myself, I even hawked a loogey into the street. Then I lit a cigarette.

"Un pinche desmadre," I said.
"Yeah," said Moose. "Un desmadre total. You wanna pregame it?"
"Don't you think it's a bit early for that?"
"Naw. It's noon somewhere."
I checked my nonexistent watch.
"Dude. It's noon here."

The beers were unexpectedly cold.

"Hey yo! Katie!"
Emma and Katie happened to be passing by. Small world. They came and joined us. Katie was the first to spot the bottles we'd stashed under the table. She shook her head.
"Boys, look at you! Already!"
"Yo, we got that thing in a couple hours," said Moose. "The picnic. Party. Thing. Lots of Chinese people gonna be there."
"Open bar," I said. "Singing and dancing."
"Oh yeah. Shit," said Emma. "In that case, get me a beer."
"Hey yo, laoban!"

We ordered the numbing pepper tofu, the kung pao chicken, the sauteed swamp cabbage, and the fishy-flavored eggplant.

"Damn, this shit is good," I said, pointing with my chopsticks towards the swamp cabbage. "How do you say it again?"
"Kong xin cai," said Moose.
"As in, 'empty heart vegetable?'"
"Yeah."
"So, wait. You know how the Chineses be," I said. "Women eat pigeon eggs to make themselves fertile. Men eat penis-shaped vegetables to make themselves virile. Blind people eat fish eyes, the better to see you with. Does that mean this so-called empty heart vegetable is going to make us all jaded and indifferent and shit?"
"I dunno," said Moose. "Gee. Great question."
"Don't look at me that way, man. I was just asking, is all," I said. "Hmm. Maybe I should bring back a doggie bag for Kevin. For his troubles."
"What that dude needs is something to shrink his head."
"True. A little formaldehyde beer might do the trick," I said, and drank. "Dude's got lady problems, though."
"My guess would be man problems," said Emma, "the way he's been following you around."
"That's the thing. Dude was in a bad way. So I helped him out. Gave him a little advice. And now I see him everywhere. Around every corner. On the face of every child. In the depths of my - "
"Keith. Keith."

And there he was. Kevin. My handler. His head, by then, had inflated to the size of a Voit™ brand kickball. He pigeontoed his way over to the table and gripped me by the bicep.
"I have something to talk to you," he said.
"Cool. Hit me up after lunch."
"Yes," he said, glancing at the beers under the table. "I can see that you are very busy."
"Business meeting," I said. "Just doing a little networking, is all."
"We had better talk after lunch."
He gave me a look - a sultry look - then squeezed my bicep again and pigeontoed his way on down the road.

"Creepy," said Emma.
"Kind of," I said. "I mean, he's harmless. But why do I get the feeling that I've created a monster?"
"Because you have created a monster."
"Yeah. I'm good at that."
"Hey yo! Jacob!"

I squinted into the distance and saw a very dark, very built, very smooth-looking fella coming our way. But the squintier I squinted, the less it looked like Jacob.

"Dude, I don't think that's him."
"Isn't it, though?"
"Naw," I said. "Where's his Superman hat? Where's his triple-XL Batman muumuu?"
"You're right. It isn't Jacob."
"Then who the hell is it?"

The man's features came into focus. He was wearing a derby hat. And a black suitcoat over a black t-shirt. And some black trousers rolled up around his ankles. And a pair of beat-up leather shoes. And he was smiling. We stared.

"... the hell?" I said. "That dude is too cool for school."
"Shit yeah he is," agreed Moose. "Is he Chinese?"
"Can't be. Can't possibly be. But - it looks as though he appears to be."
"Damn. You're right. He is Chinese. How did that happen?"
"Beats you," I said. "Beats me."
"Holy shit."
"Goddamn."
"Will you look at that."
"He's just so fucking ... smooth."
"Look at that hat."
"Check out that strut."
"Dude's a fucking pimp."
"It's Chinese Jacob," said Moose.

And so the man would come to be known. So he would come to be revered. And so he would go down in the annals of Peace Corps folklore - a Bigfoot, a Loch Ness Monster, a Thomas Pynchon: yet another mythical deity who probably never existed in the first place.

Chinese Jacob sat down at the table across from us. We were starstruck. We couldn't help ourselves. We stared, and he shot us the selfsame look I shoot the people who stare at me when I'm eating lunch. A pencil-necked Chinese dweeb pulled up a plastic stool and sat down across from The Man. The dweeb, apparently, had come in to the restaurant with The Man. But we hadn't even noticed the dweeb until that very moment, blinded as we were by Chinese Jacob's R. Kellyesque aura.

"Okay, we should probably stop staring," said Emma.
"But I can't," said Moose.
"Neither can I."
"He's just so fucking - ..."
"And he's Chinese!"
"Look at that hat!"
"And that smile!"
"Is that a gold tooth?"
"By God, I think it is!"
"What a pimp!"
"He's just so fucking - ..."
"He's not even talking to that dweeb."
"He's, like, talking above him."
"I guarantee he's going to pay for lunch."
"And leave a huge-ass tip."
"Chinese Jacob's gonna make it rain!"
"What a fucking pimp."
"Dude, you got American Jacob's number?"

But American Jacob was off playing basketball with The Children, as he refers to any of his students under the age of forty. He didn't pick up the phone. We called a couple more times, then gave up. We waited and watched. An hour went by. We had long since finished lunch, had killed any number of beers, and still we lingered. Because here was Chinese Jacob, the coolest man in all of China, a real one of a kind, a man who belonged in West Baltimore or Southside Chicago or North Omaha, but had somehow wound up reincarnated in, of all places, Dazhou County, Sichuan Province, People's Republic of China.

Emma nudged me.
"You should go talk to him," she said.
"I can't. Any other Chinese dude, no problem. But Chinese fucking Jacob? I'd only humiliate myself. He's the kind of dude you have to pay a cover just to talk to."

The Man was eating and smoking, smoking and laughing, laughing and laughing over the head of his dweebish Chinese ward. Untroubled, indifferent, Chinese Jacob smiled and his gold tooth gleamed in the sadistic Dazhou sun. He downed his formaldehyde beer in one fell gulp and spilled a bit of it on the tiles for some long-since fallen homie. Then he fixed his hat and rolled up his trousers still further. Then he called for the check, pitched a walletful of bills onto the table, stood up and swaggered out of the place with a gangsta lean. The dweeb trailed behind him, struggling to keep up.

"Damn," said Moose.
"There he goes."
"What a pimp."
"Look at that swagger."
"He's just so fucking - ..."
"How is that even possible? How did he get to be so smooth?"
"One in 1.3 billion, I guess."

By the time we'd trickled our way back to campus, the handlers were setting up for the party-picnic-thing in the main square. Balloons. Streamers. A baby grand piano. Hors d'oeuvres. And a forebodingly well-stocked bar. We ducked past the square and sneaked into the hotel. In the second floor hallway, we ran into American Jacob. Or rather, he ran into us. He was jogging up and down the hallway.

"Hey yo, Jacob. You have competition."

Jacob, already well aware of the fact, said nothing and kept running.

"Dude. Why are you running indoors? In the hallway?"

He kept running, said nothing. I shrugged and went to my room. I flopped down on the bed and drifted into the tipsy disputed regions of consciousness for a wonderful half hour. Then Katie knocked at the door and came in.

"What's up, Pands?"
I moaned some gibberish into my pillow.
"Whoops. Are you asleep?"
"No," I said. "I'm just unawake."
I sat up in bed and scratched myself in various places.
"Sorry, Panda."
"Naw. It's alright. Have a seat."
She sat.
"How are you?"
"Hmm." I really thought about the question, because it was Katie who was asking it. "Actually, my cat is being put to sleep today, back in the States, and I have mixed feelings about that."
"Aww," she said, and really meant it. "I'm sorry to hear that."
And she really meant that, too.
"Moose mentioned that your dog died a couple weeks ago," I said. "He told me he laughed at you about the whole thing. But I won't laugh at you. Because I'm not Moose. Really, I'm curious as to how you dealt with it."
"Well," she said, and thought about the matter. And really thought about it. "It was hard. I cried for a couple of weeks. I'd be sitting around my apartment with nothing to do, and it would just hit me all of a sudden. And I'd cry for hours. But it gets better. It gets easier."

I pondered this. Crying for two weeks? It was hard, but it gets easier? Katie was describing the sort of grief I had always thought reserved for members of your immediate family, or for your spouse, or for David Foster Wallace, or for Hunter S. Thompson, or for a deeply beloved character from HBO's The Wire. But a dog? A cat? A gerbil? Well, I wasn't sure whether I was even in the same dorm room as Katie anymore.

"But this isn't about my dog," she said. "It's about your cat. How old was she? Or he?"
"He."
"How old was he before he - "
"Twenty, I think. It's hard to remember. He'd been around a while. I suppose I have been, too, by now."
"Oh, wow. So he was really a part of you."
"When you put it that way," I said, "I guess he was. Like a piece of furniture. Like a pillow. Or an ottoman."
"But more than that, right?"
"Yes, certainly. I never used him as an ottoman."

Katie laughed a bit, then sniffled a bit.

"What was his name? Or her name?"
"His name was Tibbets," I said. "He was an orange tabby. A Garfield, basically. We named him after the man who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Which is a pretty loaded cat name, I guess."
"Twenty years," she said. "You must've given him a lot of love."
"Yes, plenty of love. And mostly indifference in return. Whiny bastard. Meowed when he was hungry. Meowed when he was full. Meowed when he was constipated, and he was seldom that. Meowed in the evening. Meowed at 4 AM. Meowed when he wasn't meowing. Dude loved to purr, though. Never one to refuse affection," I said. "Tibbets. The man, the cat, the legend. The end of a long line of Petit Family Tabbies. And what a long line it was."

I cleared my throat and took a long swig from the road beer I'd judiciously smuggled home from the restaurant.

"We got Wally so long ago that I no longer remember how young I was when we got him. Found him on The Land, some empty space we used to own out in rural Missouri. Found him hunkered there over a bunch of scattered chicken bones, mewing and purring, just begging to be adopted and neutered. Good cat, Wally was. But he contracted explosive diarrhea after a couple of months in the city, so he was shipped off to the feline equivalent of Guantanamo Bay."

I sipped and brooded.

"Then came Ollie. Another orange tabby. He was big. Meaty. Ballsy, up until the operation. At any rate, an outdoor cat through and through. He used to stalk small game in the hard gravel alleyways of Olde Towne Bellevue, which is a pretty rough spot as far as suburban Nebraska goes. He'd bring home dead sparrows every night. And we'd find them in the toilet every morning. He'd come back with squirrel tails in his mouth. He'd drop them in the toilet, too. Possum noses. Chicken beaks. Skunk entrails. All manner of odd bits of animal. Then, early one morning, he showed up with the tail of the neighbor's Scottish Terrier. He threw his forepaws up on the toilet and dropped the fuzzy black stub into the bowl. It took us a while to deduce what the stub belonged to, exactly. But once we'd deduced it, that's when we knew Ollie was finished. Our neighbor was one of those reclusive dog-in-lieu-of-husband types. We didn't want a law suit on our hands. So Ollie had to go."

I felt around under the bed, produced a stray bottle of baijiu, and took a long, steady swig.

"After Ollie came Manfred. An orange tabby of the floofy variety. A longhair, I guess you'd call him. Manfred was a tender soul, but he had a bit of a wild streak in him. He liked to go out nights. Castrated though he was, he still had a whisker for the ladies. But whatever it was he did after the cathouses closed, he always came home in the morning. Except for this one time, when he didn't come home at all. A week passed. We'd already given him up for dead. But eventually, he turned up in our neighbors' garage. He'd gotten himself trapped in there, and had subsisted on drainwater and crickets for an entire week. Then, a cruelly short time after that, when I was about six or seven, Manfred turned up on Gregg Road, squashed. An anonymous pile of orange fuzz smashed into the kerb. Some old lady was nice enough to call the number on his dogtags. My parents woke me up at 6 AM to tell me what had happened. And I no longer want to talk about that."

Another swig. Another brood.

"After Manfred, finally we arrive at Tibbets. He was an outdoor cat like the rest of us. But as he grew older, he just kind of gave up on the great outdoors. He acquiesced, I guess. He settled. Like the rest of us. For the first ten years, Tibbets tried to escape, and often succeeded. If you neglected to close the garage door all the way. If you didn't shut the front door behind you quickly enough. On windy days, the doors would fly open on their own accord and Tibbets would go shooting out into the suburban wild. Search parties were launched. All four Petits went trolling through the bushes, peering under parked cars, calling Here, Tibbs! Ti-ibbs! Mr. Tibbs! and making that little scroonch-scroonch noise that cats the world over, even Chinese cats, never fail to respond to one way or another. But around his eleventh birthday, March something-or-other, Tibbets stopped trying to escape. He no longer even wanted to. There's a quote from The Shawshank Redemption, but I done gone and forgot it. By then, Tibbets was content with staring out the screen door for hours on end, watching the squirrels. Watching the birds. Watching the neighbors. Watching the outdoor cats. And by the time I'd come home from college, nothing about the outside world seemed to interest him. He ate. He shat. He whined. Otherwise, he just kind of curled up there in his basket by the window and slept off the last five years of his life."

I winced a bit. I choked something back.

"Damned good cat, though. Fucking great cat. Bit whiny in his old age, but - "

"Did you get to say goodbye to him?" asked Katie.
I could see she was crying.
"Hmm. Mind if I - "
"Oh, not at all! It's your room! Go right ahead!"

I lit a Hongmei and smoked it. I took a swig.

"Did I get to say goodbye. Well, it's funny you ask," I said, "because the night before I left, after I'd broken up with the what have you at 4 AM and what have you, after I'd navigated my way home in the ol' motor vehicle ... and what have you ... after all that, I started packing for China. And well, Tibbets, once we got the dogs, he never came upstairs. He was terrified of the dogs, and their scent. He was so old that you could hear his joints creaking when he walked. He hardly ever left his basket by the window. But that last night, while I was cursing and breathing poison all over the bedroom, while I was crushing Mead notebooks in half and stuffing them into my American Standard wheelie bag, the door pushed open and - I shit you not - in came old Tibbets. He mewed a bit and stared at me. His pupils were like little black moons. I stood stock still. He approached cautiously, his tail slightly poofed. I froze there and watched him. He hadn't come up to my room in years. He hobbled his way to the foot of my bed and squatted there, unsure of whether he could make the jump. I gently hoisted him up and deposited him into a pile of blankets. He curled up in a little C-shape, the way that cats do. I packed the last of my boxers, watching him all the while to make sure he was real. Then I climbed up into bed with Tibbets for the last time and whispered sweet somethings in his infected ear, pet the hell out of him for a while, kissed him on the nose ... and did he ever purr. The moment could've been a moment, or it could've been three hours. I no longer remember. But well before the moment was finished, the alarm I'd set the night before went off. I had to go to China. The alarm scared the shit out of poor Tibbets; he scrambled out of the room. I could hear him hobbling and creaking his way downstairs. I'll never see him again."

By then, Katie was bawling. And hell, before I'd had time to have any say in the matter, I had started to cry a bit, too. I sucked it up. Frantically, I managed to stuff the tears back in my pocket a moment. Then, a deeper part of me, a part of me that I will never have access to - that part of me said: fuck it. I started weeping. Bawling. I couldn't even finish my smoke or bring my next drink to my lips, so thick were the tears.

"Well, shit. I loved him," I warbled. "He was a fucking cat. But I loved him."
"I know,"t wept Katie. "My dog was a fucking dog. But I loved him, too."

We cried like a couple of recently widowed widows. And we cried that way for a long time. The sun cast a pale pattern of blind-fractured light into the room. My door was still open, and I could see the maids scrubbing all hell out of the wainscoting across the hall. I dropped my cigarette into the nearest empty bottle and it hissed. I coughed a bit. Katie blew her nose.

"Jesus," I said. "Who saw that one coming?"
"Yeah. I know."
"I swear I'm not this much of a bitch. Most of the time."
"You are, though. At least some of the time."
"True."
"We have to go to the thing pretty soon," she said.
"Yeah. The picnic-party-thing."
"But I'm sorry for your loss. Just remember that Tibbets loved you. And you loved him - to the best of your ability. And that's all that matters."
"Stop it. I don't want these Chineses to see me crying."
"Me neither."
"My makeup is running. Get out of here. But before you go, is it okay if I ask you for a hug?"
"Of course it's okay. C'mere."

We hugged.

"Thank you," I said. "I'm sorry. I didn't expect myself to do that."
"Well, you got to let it out once in a while. Or you'll drive yourself crazy."
"Funny. That's exactly what I told Kevin a couple days ago."

Katie laughed, and left. She shut my door behind her. Then the door pushed back open again. And Kevin entered. My right eyelid twitched for some reason.

"Keith. Keith. It's me, Kevin."
"I can see that."
"I was listening. Your cat died."
"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves," I said. I checked my nonexistent watch. "Cat still has another six hours on death row. A lot can happen. The President might intervene - "
"You cried for a very long time."
"Yes," I said. "So I did."
I ripped a pack of Hongmeis out of my pocket and lit up another one. I smoked it hotly.
"And Katie cried, too. About her dog."
"Yes. She cried about her dog."
"Pets must be very important to you Americans."
"Depends on the pet. Depends on the American."
"You like to smoke cigarettes," Kevin observed.
"Yes. In times of great duress."
"What is dress?"
"Duress basically means stress," I said. "When you're really annoyed with something."
"Your face is still wet."
"Oh, is it?" I asked. "That's odd. I must have been crying about something very important to me. In my room."
"Yes. Is it normal to be crying in America?"
"Everything is normal in America."

Kevin sat down on my bed. I saw that he was holding a notebook. He produced some earbuds from his pocket.

"I need your help."
"Did your cat die, too?"
"No," he said. "I do not own a cat. I like a song. It is a very colorful song. But I do not understand the meaning. You can write the words for me. Because your listening skills are so great."
"You're a pretty good listener yourself, Kev," I said.
I put out my cigarette and sat down next to him. He brushed my hair back and inserted one earbud, then the other. He handed me the notebook. He handed me the pen.

"I will play the song now. Please write."

I had expected a chintzy three-minute Chinglish song, one of those saccharine four-to-the-floor jams pumped out in bulk by the Chinese Ministry of Pop as a crude sonic levee against the unstoppable deluge of American Culture. And I had wanted that. I wanted to be done with it. I wanted to be left alone. But lo: Kevin impressed me with his taste. The song was an indie singer-songwriter dirge, and it wasn't none too good. But I'd never heard it before. Which is saying something in this country.

I wrote. I rewound. I crossed some words out. I wrote some more. A snarl spread across my lips as the song dragged into its fourth minute. And then into its sixth. My cat is being escorted to the gallows, Kev. Couldn't this wait? Kev? At the eight minute, 53 second mark, the song tucked its tail between its legs and faded out with a whimper. Kevin removed the earbuds for me.

"What is the meaning?"
"It's about a 27 year-old American living in China. He finds himself in a strange city in the east of Sichuan, teaching teachers how to teach. Somebody, the American suspects, should be teaching him how to teach. Meanwhile, in America, his cat is about to die. And he finds himself crying about it. Which is something he hadn't planned on. And then, as he's toweling off his face with the dirty shirt he's going to wear tomorrow, the door to his dorm room opens and - "
Kevin was taking notes.
"I'm joking," I said.
"Oh. That is not the meaning." He crossed everything out. "What is the meaning?"
"Well, Kev. The thing about meaning is, it's different for everyone. I can't tell you what this song means. I didn't write it. And I'm not you. I can write the words down and give them to you. But you have to figure the meaning out for yourself."
"Yes. But what is the meaning?"
"Okay. In that case. My guess is that the dude in question is in love with a girl who is batshit crazy. He wants to marry her. She wants to marry him. But he knows things would never work out with her. Because she's a couple tiles short of a mahjongg set. A couple jiao short of a kuai. A couple Hongmeis short of a pack. A couple laowais short of an English Department. A couple - "
"Yes. I understand now," he said, his eyes widening. "So it is about my problem."
"I guess so. But it's really up to you. I don't know much about your situation," I said, "but it certainly sounds like your lady friend is a couple bricks short of the Great Wall."
"Yes. She is not the Great Wall."
"Few women are," I sighed.

Kevin shut his notebook and stood up. I stood up, too.
"I watched you embrace Katie," he said.
"Yeah. People do that sometimes."
"Can you embrace me?"
"Two embraces in twenty minutes," I said. "Can it be done?"

Kevin hugged me. He curled his twiggy arms around my neck like a novelty-sized praying mantis. His lymph nodes weighed heavy on my shoulder. I clapped him on the back.

"It gets better, Kev. It gets easier. It's like when your cat dies - "
"Yes," he said, and pulled away. "Now you had better prepare for the gala."
"The gala?"
"Yes. The gala."
"Oh, right. The picnic. Party. Thing."
"At this gala, there will be a penis."
"Er, um. A penis?"
"Yes. Very talented penis."
"Ah. Yes. A pianist. In that case, I'll be there."
"You had better not be late."

He pigeontoed his way out to the hall and I shut the door. I waited a tic. Then I picked up the bottle of baijiu on my bedstand, opened the door, walked down the hall, and knocked on Jacob's door.

"Is that for me?" he asked.
His shirt was bearded in sweat.
"I dunno, man. On second thought, you might cramp up," I said.
Jacob took the bottle and tilted it back. He coughed, nearly vomited.
"That's fucking terrible."
"Isn't it, though?"

Freeze The Gorillas

Skinner: Well, I was wrong; the lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
- The Simpsons

I just named my laptop a couple hours ago. I guess people do that nowadays. What with The Internet. And The Googles. And shit. I named her Adell. Because, dude - she's a Dell.

I've had Adell for four years now. During that time my spine has warped under the dull weight of her increasingly obsolete body. I have lugged Adell around in my backpack for four years. Taken her to coffee shops and bars. Taken her to the park. I took her out to Dennys for dinner once, because I was feeling generous. I have lugged Adell all over the world by now - or at least, all over the parts of the world nobody really cares to visit. I lugged her from the United States to Poland, to Darmstadt, Germany, and back to the States - across the Pacific, to a swarming, metallic Korean metropolis, to Japan, to China, and back to the States - over the Atlantic, to a cheerless mining town in Poland, to a soiled mattress in Berlin, and back to the States - to a wartorn Mexican city, and back to the States - and finally, to China again. I'm surprised she's made it this far. Hell, I'm surprised we've made it this far.

And I remain loyal to her, as I remain loyal to all things old and valuable that I nevertheless treat like utter shit. I don't want a new computer, though I perhaps need one. Over the years, Adell and I have bonded. Have fused ourselves together, as it were. We are one. Patiently and meticulously, I have trained this computer, this Adell, to be as scatterbrained and forgetful and occasionally drunk as I am. I have programmed her in my own image. Any writing that I have done over these past four years, I have done on Adell's dust encrusted, Cheetoh powdered, hair imbroglioed keyboard. Or at least, that is what I would have her believe.

But I waited until a couple hours ago to name her. It seemed like the right time. Before it's too late, I suppose. I'm rather worried about the ol' girl these days. I'm worried about Adell because her cooling fan has stopped spinning. On the plus side, that means she's running a whole helluva lot quieter than she used to. But now she's got these wicked mood swings, you see. Hot flashes. The whole shebang. It's all motherboard menopause up in this bitch.

After ten minutes of typing, Adell gets hotter than doing the Macarena in the summer of 1995. I could cook stir fry on her touchpad. Her home row keys brand my fingertips, her space bar scalds the prints right off my thumbs. She makes writing much more of an adventure than it ought to be. When I start to heat up, she starts to heat up, and just as I'm splicing my last comma, just as I'm hanging my very last participle up to dangle, Adell decides to shut down. Six thousand words vanish from the screen. Those words may as well have never been written. There they go: into the void. I tap at Adell's monitor: darkness there, and nothing more. I exhale and church my hands in my lap. And then my eyes glass over and I sit there real quiet-like. Somewhere in the distance, a loogey is hawked. A moment later, there comes a deafening pronouncement from the laowai's fourth floor apartment. The cicadas scatter. The children scream. Moped alarms go off. Meanwhile, my next door neighbors are sitting around the coffee table taking notes. Fawk, the dad says. Fawk, fawk, fawk chants the kid.

Like many another great innovation, my temporary solution to Adell's little overheating problem came to me serendipitously. Late one Friday night, I discovered that a strategically placed ice cold beer kept Adell at room temperature for just the right amount of time necessary to write a half-ass blog post. As long as I had a beverage close at hand, I could type myself crosseyed. But in this country, a cold beer is hard to find. And the thing about cold beers is, they have a curious way of disappearing.

I needed a more permanent fix. So I began to dabble in feng shui. I pushed my desk into the far left corner of the room so that the computer was sitting directly under the AC unit. Then I cranked the AC all the way down to a couple goosebumps above absolute zero. In short, I turned the room into a meat locker. I'd write for hours at a time that way, hunkered there in the steely breath of the artificial Arctic, teeth chattering all the while, and then I'd step out into the Sichuanese summer and sweat like a hunk of microwaved chicken.

Operation Freezer Burn worked out well enough, for a month. And if I gave Adell a cold beer or two on top of that, why, she ran as briskly and as smoothly as the fastest Atari on the block.

But by meddling with the primal forces of nature, I had unwittingly incurred the spitting wrath of the ancient Chinese Gods of Interior Design. Feng shui translates to "wind and water," in English. And in the weeks that followed, there would be wind. And there would be water. The AC started leaking. At first, it merely dribbled. Then it started raining. Then it started hawking loogeys across the room. I often had to shield poor Adell from the barrage. For a time, I hid us behind a crude protective wall of cardboard and aluminum cans. But eventually, after one too many loogeys in the face, I caved: I moved the desk back to the other side of the room so that me 'n Ms. Adell were out of spitting distance. Better an overheated Adell than a drowned one.

Still, she wouldn't even boot up without a little climate control, so I kept the AC on, despite its relentless slobber. This presented yet another problem: the AC started slobbering so much that the floor was beginning to puddle. So I solved that problem by blanketing the floor with dirty towels. But I'll have you know: dirty towels soaked through with AC runoff don't, as a general rule, smell terribly inviting after the third or fourth day of writing. So I had to wash the towels. But my washing machine leaks, too. So I had to use still more towels to soak up the washing machine runoff. And eventually, I had to wash those towels, too.

Jesus. If Adell were cool enough to let me open PowerPoint, I'd show you a flowchart. It's hard to explain. I'm a complicated man, and I lead a complicated Sino-Bohemian existence. Lots of ins, lots of outs. But in sum, what I do every day is this: I use a bunch of towels to soak up the water left behind by the washing machine, which I use to wash the bunch of towels that I use to soak up the water left behind by the washing machine, which I use to wash the bunch of towels that I use to soak up the water left behind by the AC unit, which I use to cool my laptop, Adell, who has an internal fan that doesn't turn. And I use Adell to write blog posts: sloppy little snippets of my mind that I send tottering out into the world on their tiny little matchstick legs.

And I smoke in order to write. And I overdose on Nescafe in order to write. And I drink a bit of formaldehyde beer in order to write. And all of these are bad habits. Well, then. Maybe I should give up writing. That might just solve everything. That might just freeze the gorillas. As it were.

After The Flood

I rolled my pantlegs back down on my way up the stairs. One of my students darted past and bid me HAH-LOO. I waved. I felt around in my pocket to see how many cigarettes I had left. Not enough. Never enough. I kicked open the wrought iron security gate with graceless ease. And there on the second floor of the Laowai Projects, I found Jacob, Andrew, and Micah sitting out in the hallway with their laptops, well, atop their laps, as it were.

"Dude. Dudes," I said, "y'all should come check it out. The campus is flooding."

No reply.

"I mean, the water is climbing the stairway to campus. It was almost to the top, last I checked."

Jacob laughed into his monitor and slapped his thigh. Micah grumbled to himself. Moose belched, then lifted up his laptop to scratch his junk.

"Guys, I don't know how to tell you this," I said, biting my lower lip, "but I'm thinking about getting a sex change."

Nothing. I shrugged and lit a cigarette. I walked down to the end of the hall and blew my exhaust out the window. Then I snubbed the cigarette on the windowsill and flicked it over the edge. And then I walked back down the hall and stood there watching the three of them watch whatever they were watching.

"What the hell is this?" I asked. "A fucking teleconference?"
"Naw, man," said Jacob. "The hallway's the only place we can get internet."
"Oh. That's cool. Hey. Look. I gotta take a piss. But in the meantime, the campus is flooding, dude." I tipped my hat. "Dudes."

I stepped over the three of them one leg at a time, found my door, and pressed my keycard against the lock. Nothing happened.

"Fuck," I said. "My keycard's broken."
"Naw, man," said Jacob. "They all broken. You gotta get the Missus to let you in."
"The Missus?"
"Yeah. She's in there."
He gestured towards a half-open door at the end of the hall.
"Yo, Keith. Before you go in," said Moose, "would or wouldn't?"
"Would or wouldn't what?"
He nodded towards the Missus' door and raised his eyebrows.
"Oh. That," I sighed. "Well, how the hell would I know? I haven't even seen the Missus yet."

I found the Missus cross-stitching in her office. Or her apartment. Or whatever it was. I cleared my throat. She looked up. I looked down. Then I looked back up. And I blushed a bit. True. The Missus was not exactly an eyestrain.

"Qingwen," I said. Excuse me, I said.

But she already knew what I wanted. She swept a jangle of keys off the table and followed me to my room.

"Xie xie," I said as the door scrolled open. Thank you. And I bowed, however slightly.
"Bu yong xie," she said. You're welcome.

I smiled. The Missus didn't smile back. But she did give me a look. Or was it a look? Yes, I decided, it was a definite look. A sultry look. Or was it really all that sultry of a look? Yes, I decided, it was definitely a sultry kind of look. Or was it? Then the Missus turned away without a word and jangled off down the hallway while I stood there wondering.

My room was bare and dark and unusually clean. For lack of a filth to wallow in, I returned to the teleconference in the hallway.

"You guys work for Google or something?"
"You never answered me," said Moose. "Would or wouldn't?"
"That's a complicated question," I said, gazing towards the Missus' room.
"What's so complicated about it?"
"The question."

Moose was watching Youtube footage of a turtle humping a rock. Jacob was watching the Thrilla in Manilla. Team Leader Micah was lesson planning for tomorrow.

Moose giggled girlishly.

Micah groaned.

Jacob cackled and stomped his feet.

"Damn! Goddamn! Get it, Clay! Get it!" he shouted at the screen. "Goddamn, Muhammad!"

A bell rang. End of Round Six.

"Hey yo, Keith - beer run!"
"What? Dude, I went on three beer runs last night."
"You were late. Dude."
"I know I was late," I said, "but it wasn't even my fault this time."
"This time is right."

I half-sighed, half-grumbled.

"Man, no more beer runs for me. I'm done," I said. "I think I pulled a bicep last night. I'm not lugging another 16-pack of shitty Snow all the way across town for you inglourious basterds."
"I think I pulled a bicep last night," whined Jacob, throwing his voice up a few octaves.
"Fuck off. And anyway, I'm broke."
"Bitch, I'm broke," rapped Moose.
Then he balled his fist and beatboxed, poorly.

He was referencing an obscure Cody ChesnuTT track by the name of "Bitch, I'm Broke" - an absurd, obscene, charmingly lo-fi, delightfully lowbrow hip-hop jam that that only Moose and I and maybe four other people in the entire world knew about at the time, a jam that the other seven volunteers would come to know and hate altogether too well before the end of the two-week Dazhou Experiment.

"Hey, where's Katie?" asked Moose, after a beat. "She'd probably go get us some pijius."
"I haven't seen her since lunch," said Micah. "At the cafeteria. I mean, the canteen."
"Yeah, where she at?" asked Jacob. "That girl owes me Oreos."
"Oreos?"
"Yeah. Told her to go to Wal-Mart and get me some Oreos."

Then the power went out.

"Fuck!" said Moose.
"Shit!" said Jacob.
Micah shrugged and resumed typing.

The hallway was dark. Moose's turtles were frozen in mid-hump. Muhammad Ali was suspended in mid-punch like a pinned-down butterfly.

"Told you," I said. "The campus is flooding. It's the end of days. The Rapture, and what have you. Moose - beer run!"

Moose paid and I carried. In the meantime, Micah, as Team Leader, ran down to the store and bought nine flashlights and a shit ton of candles. We set up shop in Moose's room. Twenty-four hours into the Dazhou Experiment and the dude's clothes were already strewn all over the floor. But the candles lent the place a kind of churchy ambiance. A Catholic grotto mystique. Everything reeked of feet and booze. But it was an awfully romantic venue nonetheless. With the candles and what not.

While the rest of us shot the bullshit, Moose lay there in bed in front of his laptop. Gunshots rang out and police sirens wailed from across the room.

"Yo, Keith. You ever played this?" Moose asked.
"What is it?" I asked, peering over his shoulder. "Grand Theft Auto?"
"Naw, man."
"Jesus," I said. "Is that who I think it is? The guy in the car?"
"Yeah. Probably."
"No. Wait. Wait," I stammered. "Wait. You're telling me that's _____?"
"Yeah."
"And you're shooting him."
"I guess so. If you want to put it that way."
"There's no way to put it," I said.
"That's just how it is," followed Jacob.
And Jacob and I fist-pounded, having tag-team quoted the one movie we can both agree on. But nobody noticed. They just thought we were weird.

"Where the hell did you get this?" I asked.
"The internet," said Moose. "You can find it online. But that's the only place you can get it. The company went out of business a while ago. For some reason the game didn't - fuck!"
"What?"
"I just shot ______ in the crotch, but I didn't finish him. Goddammit. That goldbricking sonofabitch."
"Jesus," said Jacob.
"Christ," I said.

The door creaked open and Kevin, my handler, peeked his normal-sized head into the room.

"Keith," he said, all wispy-like. "Keith."
"What's up?"
"What are you doing right now?"
"I can't tell you what I'm doing right now," I said. "I am currently an accomplice to a historical tragedy that I want no part in."
"Let me see," he said, and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

"Booyah!"
"Jesus Christ, Moose," said Jacob. "You are a depraved human being, you know that?"
"Who is he? The man with the head blood?" asked Kevin. "Is he Jesus Christ?"
"Far from it," I said. "That's _____. Moose just assassinated him."
"Ass-ass ate him?"
"More or less."
"Who is _____?" asked Kevin.
"He was a great man," said Jacob, "until Moose ass-ass ate him."
"Plus four bodyguards," said Moose, "plus the driver. 750 points total. Like I said: booyah."
"You are shooting him? For pleasure?" asked Kevin.
"Don't look at me," I said. "Moose is the lone gunman here. It's his game. I'm just watching it."

Round after round, replay after replay, Kevin stared at the screen until I could see the ocular fluid glazing his eyes like a pair of glutinous rice balls. Then he embraced me, stood up and left.

The rest of the volunteers trickled in eventually. They came bringing frankincense and beer. And it was good. We bullshat by candlelight. The night progressed. Then it digressed. Then it regressed, as nights are so wont to do.

"What the hell is wrong with you? It's a Terrible. Fucking. Movie!"
"But you just admitted that it was a great performance," I countered.
"I never said that."
"You just did! Thirty seconds ago!"
"Actually, I don't usually agree with Keith," said Moose, "but Jacob, you did say that it was a great performance. In a terrible fucking movie."
"Okay, so what? Maybe it was a great performance. From a fucking psychopath. Who actually believed that he was an oil tycoon from the 1900's. A great performance, maybe. But that doesn't un-make it a terrible fucking movie."
"Look, man," I said, "I watched it again the other day and - "
"You been watchin' it six times a day ever since I gave you the DVD! Which you never returned, by the way."
"That's not true. I only watched it six times a day when you first gave it to me. I've been cutting back - "
"And when you gonna give it back?"
"Why do you even want it back? I thought it was a terrible fucking movie."
"It is a terrible fucking movie! My God, it's the worst movie ever made. But it's still my property. I bought it. For twenty dollars. In America. The light of the world."
"I'll give it back. I promise. Once I'm done with it."
"Yeah. Done jerking off to it six times a day."

An "ooh" from the crowd. I rolled my eyes.

"Anyway," I said, "I watched it a couple nights ago. For the first time since January, I'll have you know. And I realized something. For a long time, I thought about the film in terms of Capitalism vs. Christianity. But then, the last time I watched it, I realized that I was looking at everything the wrong way. The film is actually about - "
"Yo, where's Katie?" asked Moose.
"Last I heard, she was going to Wal-Mart," said Jeesun.
"Yeah. Girl owes me Oreos," muttered Jacob.
"Oreos?"
"Yeah. Oreos. What? You don't know what Oreos are? Girl, you call yourself an American? Fuckin' Oreos. Damn."

A tense silence. Then Jacob started giggling.

"Right," said Team Leader Micah. "I'm gonna see if I can get a hold of Katie."
He called. No answer.
He called again. Still no answer.
"Weird," he said, and put his Team Leader cellphone back in his Team Leader pocket.

A few minutes later, the IT Guy sent me, of all people, a message telling us that we were, under no circumstances, to leave the dorm that night.

"Water is everywhere," he wrote.
"And not a drop to drink," I said to myself.
"What? Who the hell are you talking to, man?" asked Jacob.
"Nobody. Hey. The handlers say we're not supposed to leave the dorm tonight."
"Cool. We still got time for one more beer run though, right?"
I said nothing.
"Hey yo! Moose!"

Moose bought and I carried. It was like the Day of the Dead outside. A morbidly festive occasion. The weirdly dark streets were crammed with people holding candles. One end of the main drag was cordoned off and sandbagged, and a crowd had gathered there. The Chinese riffraff wandered about, carrying candles in their palms, gawping at the raging river, chattering about the flood, smoking, hawking loogeys. Street vendors were hawking candles for five kuai a pop. Candles. Get yer candles. A good day for the candle men. I lit a cigarette and instinctively offered one to Moose. He took it.

"... the hell? You smoke?"
"Yeah," said Moose. He produced his own lighter. "Fuck it, man. It's China."

The flickering candlelight lit our way to the Gettin' Place.

"It is apocalypse season," I said to Moose. "Maybe we should stock up on bottled water and ramen noodles. And firearms, while we're at it."
"I know, right?"
We bought beer.
In the dark, I stumbled over an embankment and the bottles clattered in their case. Then I stumbled over an abutment and regained my footing.
"Panda, if you drop my fucking beer, you're not even gonna live to see the apocalypse."

When we got back to Moose's room, the freeloaders snatched up our beers, but we managed to sneak a couple for ourselves. I sat down next to Jacob. And the night progressed. And digressed. And regressed.

"What is wrong with you? You're saying that hearing and sight are the same fucking thing? You're saying that ears and eyes are the same fucking organs?"
"They're not," I said. "I'm just saying that the way a bat perceives reality, well, I don't know. Because I'm not a bat. I'm just saying that bats probably see sounds and hear sights, so to speak. I don't think the organs involved really matter. Sound and vision come from the same waves at different wavelengths, so whether it's eyes or ears, it doesn't really matter. It's not about the senses, or the wavelengths. It's about perception - "
"But sound waves and light waves are different," said Moose.
"Are they?" I asked.
"They are."
"Two completely fucking different things," agreed Jacob.
"I didn't know that. I'll have to look it up. I don't know shit about science. I'm kind of a hack," I said.
"Yes," said Jacob. "You are."

"Mind if I smoke up in here?" I asked Moose.
"As long as you don't ash on my floor."
"I won't. I promise." I lit up. I coughed. Ash flew everywhere. Moose glowered. "My bad. But look. Anyway. What I'm saying is this: when a bat processes sounds, it can't possibly be hearing them the way we hear sounds. Bats fly around in dark caves for a living. And they fly really fucking fast. They find shit to eat in the dark. They find mates in the dark. They get it on with she-bats. In the dark. So they can't be hearing in the same way we do. Bats must have evolved the ability to form mental pictures very similar to the ones we see when we see things, only they use sound waves to form those pictures. Otherwise they couldn't - "
"Pictures? Pictures? But pictures are sight, man! You can't hear pictures! You're contradicting yourself! What is wrong with you?"
"I mean mental pictures, dude. Images. Like when you listen to a baseball game on the radio. Or when you're reading a book. You can't see the players, you can't see the story, but you form a - "
"Hey yo," said Moose, "where's Katie?"
"Lemme call her again," said Micah, who had been watching our conversation the same way you watch your dog lift its leg on a lamppost when you're taking it out for a late night walk.

The bat debate raged. The night regressed. Nobody had an opener, so Moose uncapped everyone's bottles with the butt-end of a lighter, a skill I admire but have yet to master. And then Micah started jumping up and down and shooshing us. He had found Katie. In the sudden silence, the digitized sound of a weeping female was audible.

"You're where? ... Where? Okay. So you're okay. You're at a hotel. ... A nice hotel. ... With room service. Sweet. ... Are you okay? ... Good. Good. That's good. ... You what? ... You what? ... You wanted to swim across? The river. Jesus. You would've died, Katie. I mean, I've seen the river. You wouldn't have made it. ... No. No, you wouldn't have. ... I know you're a good swimmer. ... Look, class is important. But it's not that important. ... No, it's okay. No need to apologize. ... Okay. As long as you're okay. We'll see you tomorrow, alright? ... Okay. Okay. Hang in there. And don't worry about the - "

"Ooh," said Jacob, and he was so excited that he actually raised his hand. "What about the Oreos?"

Despite ourselves, we laughed. And laughed hard.

"Oh. ... Nothing. Jacob's just being ... Jacob. Yeah. Sleep tight."

Micah hung up. We giggled.

"You assholes," said Micah.

And we giggled some more.

We went to sleep at 27 AM and woke up the next morning at seven. Baggy-eyed and foul-breathed, I donned my glasses, brushed my teeth, and sucked down a pitcher of Moose's coffee. Katie had returned. The school had trucked her in from the other side of the river. She had teachers to teach, after all. The show must go on, after all.

I went outside to patrol the riverside promenade. There were no crowds. The sidewalk was a bit damp, but the campus had not flooded as prophesied. Students were flocking to class. I had to teach in ten minutes. Business as usual. The show would go on. The Rapture had not come, not just yet. The waters had risen, had left their filthy mark on the sodden grass of the floodplain, and then they had receded, overnight. The waters had returned to the river, where they belonged. I lit a cigarette. Beneath me I saw an innocent brown stream murmuring slowly past, a stream that rippled and waved but had not even the slightest intentions of overflowing its banks. A well-behaved, obedient river. Yes, sir. No, ma'am. Domesticated. Tranquilized. Etherized. Nature. Good nature. Good, good nature.

I taught my classes. I did my job. Then I skipped lunch and went back to my room for a three-hour nap. After that, I caught a cab downtown and took a walk along the other side of the river.

"See those restaurants?" an old fart peasant said to me. He pointed with his pipe to a row of hot pot joints nestled against the neck of the levee. "All of them were flooded last night. You can see it. Nothing left inside. All gone."
"And the bridge?" I asked.
"The bridge flooded, too. Couldn't cross it. The cabbies would tell you, 'No way.' Then they'd take you to an expensive hotel on the other side of the river. That's just what I heard. And that was last night, of course. Not a problem anymore."

It was hard to believe. The bridge arched a good fifty feet above the river as it stood then. But the bridge had flooded. Everywhere I walked that evening had been filled in with water only eighteen hours before. And now, life was going on as it usually does in China. Street vendors and cabbies. Mahjongg and Fight the Landlord. Shish-kebab stands and bang bang men. And assholes like me were coming in droves to walk along the river, to imagine the disaster that might have been. It was hard to believe. But the evidence was there. And quite a bit of water remained. I had to leapfrog my way to the riverfront along a trail of cinder blocks set down in the murky bog that the flood had left behind in its wake. The restaurant signs had been erased, and extra large Chinese hieroglyphics went coasting down the street in a shallow stream of dull brown sewage.

I parted the crowds on my way up to the bridge. Laowai, they said. Laowai. Foreigner. Foreigner. I stopped and leaned against the balcony overlooking the river, and I smoked. The pillars holding up the bridge were marked with Chinese characters, and I recognized the characters as "low," "medium," and "high." I could see the greasy smear left behind by the flood, and it was way higher than high. But there the dirty river lay, mumbling, muttering - it looked hungover. Now, it was way lower than low.

I crossed the bridge. I wandered until I was suitably lost. Then I stopped by an internet cafe. I checked my email and read from my parents that Tibbets, my twenty year-old tabby cat, was going to be put to sleep in a couple of days. I allowed myself to laugh. Twenty years of Mr. Tibbs. The lazy orange bastard. About time, I said. Lived a full life, I told myself. A lazy life. A good life. America's Favorite Fat Cat, I chuckled. Then I caught a cab back to campus. The party broke up at 27 AM and I got up at seven the following morning.

I walked to school. I smoked a quick one in the bathroom. In the hallway, Kevin, my handler, came out of nowhere and gripped me by the arm.

"Keith," he said. "Keith."
"Yeah?"
"Keith. I have something to talk about to you."
"Oh. Jesus. Is it the video game? Ah, Christ. I mean, look. It's not my game. I didn't download it. Hell, I have nothing to do with it. It's Moose's game. And let me tell you: Moose is kind of a douchebag. A goddamned lovable douchebag for sure, but - aw, Jesus. I'm sorry. Do you know what a douchebag is? No? Well, literally speaking, it is a hygienic implement that women use to - "
"Brother. It is not about dooshy bags," said Kevin. "It is about this: I feel I don't want to live anymore."
"What? Wait. Wait. What?"
"I feel I can't go around living any longer."

I chuckled a bit and clapped Kevin on the back.

"Aw, hell," I said. "Buddy, I feel like that every day. And yet, here I am!"
"No," said Kevin. "It is more reality than that. I am dying. Every day I am dying."
"Well, then. Ahem. Well. I am very sorry to hear that. Are you sick?"
"Yes. Very sick."

I looked Kevin over and noticed - how had I missed it? - that his head had almost doubled in size since the last time I'd seen him. Its newly acquired breadth was concentrated primarily in the lymph nodes. The man was quite literally gaining face.

"Now that you mention it," I said, "your head is looking pretty big these days."
"That is something else," he said. He took my hand and held it to his jaw. "Feel it? I have a cold. My head is swell."
"Swollen," I said.
"Swallow?"
"Swollen."

Kevin took out his language notebook, jotted something down, and closed it. The bell rang.

"Well, I hope you get better," I said. "It's just a cold, right? It's not serious or anything?"
"Yes. It is just a cold."
"Good. That's good. I mean. I got some aspirin. Or actually, it's Un-Aspirin. I'm not sure what the difference is. The Peace Corps gave it to me. But it seems to work. Cures hangovers, at least. Check it. I got some right here in my pocket. You need some water to chase it down with? I can run to the store and - "
"No. Aspirin will not work. Water will not work. I feel like death. I want to die. Because of her."
He sighed until his body had all but deflated. It was then that I understood. I clapped my hands together.

"Oh! So it's lady troubles, is it?"
"Yes. I guess so," said Kevin.
"So you're not actually dying," I probed.
"Yes. I am. But not with disease."
"Good. Good. That's great news, Kevin. I am not a doctor. But women. Women I can deal with. What exactly went down, Kev?"
"I broke down with her."
"Broke up," I said.
"What?"
"Broke up with her. We say break up, not broke down."

Kevin scribbled some more in his language notebook.

"Why did you break up with her?" I asked.
"We are always breaking down. And I wanted to stop breaking down with her."
"How long have you been dating?"
"Two years."
"And how often do you break up?"
"The number of instances is uncountable."
I nodded.
"I'm familiar with that one," I said. "That's bad news bears, right there, brother. Did she want to break up this time? Or was it your decision?"
"It was my idea. But now I am fear that I will regret it. For the rest of my life."
"Yeah. Regret is a bitch. But look," I said, "you have to stick to your guns. Stick to your guns - write that down. It means, you have to make a decision and - "
"Make a decision and don't ever look back."
"Exactly. You got it. And this is a big decision, my friend. And you've already made it. So you gotta run with that shit. Or else you'll drive yourself crazy."
"Thanks, man," he said, and there was a kind of glint in his eyes. "Now I feel - I feel that I can live."
"Right on. You gotta talk about these things. Or you'll drive yourself crazy. Plenty of ways of driving yourself crazy, and very few of them are very much fun at all."
"Yeah, man. Thank you. Can you hold me?"
"Er. Yeah. I mean. Sure. That's what brothers do, right? Hug it out."

I gave Kevin a hug and he cradled his baggy jaw on my shoulder. Then he pulled away.

"Now you had better go teach your class. You are already late," he said. "And we had better talk about this after class."
"Right on. Sounds good, man. Don't die. The prospect is tempting from time to time. But it's good to stay alive. See you in the cafeteria! I mean. The canteen!"
"No, man. I am coming with you."
"Oh, you're gonna - oh. I see. You're watching my class today?"
"Yes. I will watch your class every day. Now on."

I held the door for Kevin. He took a seat in the far back of the room and immediately put his head down and went to sleep. I'm not sure, I said to myself, if that counts as watching my class, Kev. But have it your way. I bid my students a good morning. We talked about the flood, but not for very long. They didn't seem interested in it. Then I popped open my lesson plan and remembered that the title of my class that morning was "Love Connection."

Vocabulary: break up (v.), split up (v.), heartbroken (adj.), get over (v.) ...

I peered across the room at Kevin, who was actually snoring by then. I shut my folder and stuck it back in my backpack. Then I took out the American Accent Training textbook and held it up in the air.

"Alright, kids. I mean. Adults. Open your books to page ... er ... ah ... um ... ah, yes. That's the one. Open your books to page 69."

And I allowed myself to giggle.

You Are Here

I woke up this morning to the tune of a heavy metal nightmare. A demolition crew was sledgehammering the nape of my skull in the name of Progress, and I could not regress into sleep. I groaned and cursed my way into consciousness. Who, and where, was I? Neither question yielded an immediate answer. "Hungover" was the first word that sprang to mind. So I popped the VHS cassette labeled "Friday Night" into my memory and rewound the tape to see if I could count just how many formaldehyde beers I had imbibed the previous evening. When I got back to around 10 PM, I pressed Play. I fiddled with the tracking knob and trolled through the night's festivities scene by scene. Then I rewound some more. And then, shaking my head, I rewound even further. When I finally arrived back at lunchtime yesterday, having found naught but sobriety, I pressed Stop and ejected the tape. Jesus. I hadn't had anything to drink at all last night. Why, then, the demolition crew? Why, O merciful Christ, the hangover? That was when I sat up, parted the curtains, and remembered that I was still in China.

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning. I'd hammer in the evening. All over this land.

Peter, Paul, and Mary: you could've written goddamned national anthems. China hammers in the morning. It hammers in the evening. And it hammers, and ball-peen hammers, and jackhammers. All over this land. People and Republicans alike, beware: the People's Republic, until further notice, is under construction.

The clock on the bedstand told me that it was 9 AM, and it's never been one to lie. I held my eyes open until they stuck that way. The sun was up. The Chinese destruction workers were up. So I figured that I might as well get up, too. It was well before my out-of-bed time, but there is no sense in even trying to get back to sleep when somebody somewhere is simultaneously renovating and annihilating the very apartment building you're sleeping in. So I wrestled myself out of bed, put on today's t-shirt and yesterday's jeans, slipped on 1967's shoes, fixed 1984's hairdo, and sauntered off into the mildly carcinogenic mist of 21st Century China.

I walked for several hours, walked from the sunblasted flats of the new-and-improved campus, across the murky, undeveloped netherlands, along the shoulder of the highway, over the dusty bridge that gracelessly hurdles the drooling river, through the exhausting haze of industry, past the gaping maws of gawpers, between the catcalls and heckles and beckons and leers and sneers and jeers and HAH-LOOs that are the bread and butter of my Chinese existence, and finally, into the throbbing, stomping twelve-cylinder heart of downtown Nanchong.

I was on a mission of sorts, you see. After a grueling three-day work week, I was on a mission to stamp my own passport and check out of China, if only mentally, if only for a couple of hypercaffeinated hours. I was on a mission to sit down and write. And I was on a mission to find Holly's Bakery, a coffee joint downtown that my Mennonite neighbor had opened sometime over the summer, while I was so busy stiffarming floods. There would be coffee, or so she had told me. Real coffee, or so she had reassured me. The only trouble was, I possessed not even the scantiest idea of where in the hell to find the place. And what with my nonsense of direction, what with Nanchong's labyrinthine streets, what with the daredevil taxis and kamikaze mopeds playing scotch whiskey hopscotch all over those gibberish roads - what with all that, I began to doubt that I would live long enough to pound that elusive espresso at the end of the doubleshot rainbow.

I drifted for an hour. The city tied me in double windsors. It made a balloon animal out of me. Eleven AM rolled around and, right on schedule, a rough-and-tumble crew of caffeine-withdrawn destruction workers set to work jackhammering my prefrontal cortex. I lit a cigarette but it did nothing for me. You cannot smoke coffee. Coffee cannot be smoked. In the streets I was descended upon by a flock of shrouded women belonging to a nondescript religion, and they made me sign things that I wouldn't have agreed to in English. And just as I'd given up hope, just as those dreaded Nescafe DTs started to kick in, I chanced to trip over a stream of pee, ejaculated by a nearby Chinese toddler, which sent me tumbling over a guardrail, which sent me hurdling towards an unusually western windowframe, and so it was that I stumbled across Holly's Bakery - nearly stumbled into it, in fact. I mashed my face against the glass and saw that the place was open, and empty. I went inside.

And I could smell it. Coffee. Real coffee. I need not describe the aroma. No description would suffice.

Coffee. I had arrived. I had awoken from a long, sweaty Nescafe nightmare and ascended into a finely ground Columbian wet dream. After wandering for forty days and forty nights through the freeze-dried desert, I had staggered and stumbled, clambered and crawled and finally collapsed at the pointed toes of a pair of Bogota snakeboots, had gazed slowly upwards, following the endless khaki to a golden belt buckle that segued into a sky blue button-down that collared a scruffy neck that reset its watch to a five o'clock shadow that spread into a lush Latino mustachio that just begged a sombrero - and there he was, the man himself: Juan Valdez, standing there proudly, austerely, alongside his loyal donkey, saying something rather congenial in Spanish, a bottomless pot of brew extended in his caffeine-palsied hand.

I had arrived. Holly's Bakery. The place reeked of coffee. But still I had my doubts. Odors can be deceiving. Especially in China. Trembling there at the counter, flipping through the one-page menu, teetering on the ledge between heart-palpitating hope and decaffeinated woe, I ordered a double espresso. The nice Chinese girl with the hipster glasses said hao and disappeared. I sat down in the darkest nook I could find. I tried to read, but the sentences kept repeating themselves. I fidgeted. I twitched. I paced while seated, if that is possible. And then, from the kitchen, came the soothing wail of an espresso machine. I allowed myself, then, to hope. Ever so slightly.

I sat waiting for a stranger to approach and ask me for English lessons, for my phone number, whether I could use chopsticks. But there was no one in the cafe except for me and the hipster barista, and she didn't seem like the type. I watched the binge-shopping Chinese masses scroll by in the street, and they every so often stopped to watch me - sitting there, doing nothing - through the window. I felt like a goldfish. So I puffed my cheeks out. And then the barista came with the coffee. She set the cup down upon the table, and the cup steamed. Then she handed me a goblet of real cream. And two packets of real sugar. I thanked her. No thanks, she said. Then I mixed the stuff together with a junkie's abandon and drank it all down in a single esophagus-razing gulp. And it was good. And my soul rejoiced. I sighed and sank into my loveseat like it was a Jacuzzi. I jittered around a bit from the shock. Then I pulled myself back up to my feet so I could order an Americano.

I had come to Holly's Bakery to escape, to drink myself walleyed on real coffee, and eventually, to write. I suppose that at any given time, I am meaning to write. But existence has a way of getting between me and the nude, white, college-ruled page. I appreciate existence for that reason. It gives me material to work with. It fills in the blanks for me. It dissolves my writer's block. I welcome the interruptions of the world, its distractions, its non sequiturs, as long as they don't involve a stranger asking me for English lessons, or my phone number, or whether I can use chopsticks, and so on. Before my Americano had arrived, before I had time to even think about uncapping my pen, the bell jangled, the door opened, and in came Meghan, my new Nanchongmate. An odd coincidence, but a perfectly welcome interruption. Shortly thereafter, Shelley, wearing a Vietnamese rice paddy hat for some reason, arrived, along with Christy, Jacob's successor. I put my notebook away, brushed the bohemian dust off my shoulders and assumed my role as Peace Corps mentor.

Which is a strange role for me. After a year in China, I feel like I know less about the place than I did before I got here. Thankfully, The Force is strong with these young Peace Corps acolytes. I am sure that they will do wonderfully without my help. They have already learned most of the things I was supposed to teach them in the first place, have learned many things that I do not know myself. So the less I explain, perhaps, the better. They are curious, of course. They have questions about China. And when I do shoot off at the mouth, I'm surprised at how much I have learned, and how much I've adjusted to over the past year. But I can well remember what it was like to arrive in Sichuan - naked, as it were; how new everything felt at first, how bizarre it all seemed. And I enjoy reliving those sensations, albeit vicariously. Because they remind me that I am still in China, that I can never assume anything, and that I can never quite be sure what, exactly, is coming down the pipe next.

We talked for a long time, the four of us, then we paid our tab and left. Out in the street, we were suddenly laowais again. Points, stares, laughter. The other three foreign devils went their way and I went mine. I had a cab to catch and a tutor to pay. As I approached Medical School Avenue, I ran up against a crowd of people. I pressed my way through the crowd until I collided with a pack of police officers shoving us all back. The police were waving their arms at us and shouting. It took me a moment to figure out what they were saying, and after I'd understood it, I wasn't sure how to react. Probably, I should have turned and run for my life.

"GET OUT OF HERE! GET OUT OF HERE! GO! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!" the police were shouting. They were shoving us away from the street. A second later, I heard women screaming, and saw a handful of people running in the opposite direction, away from the police. And a second after that, I saw even more people running towards the street, towards the police, to check out whatever calamity was about to take place. And then I heard a high-pitched hissing and glanced up to see that a massive electrical transformer some twenty feet above, some ten feet away - and nestled ever so cozily against the wall of a four-story apartment complex - was spitting bright blue sparks into the air. It was then that I understood. Ah, yes. Death. So I backed away, but not very quickly. I was still interested, still rubbernecking. I took a few steps and turned to look back, not quite sure what the magnitude of the situation was. Then there came a shrill scream from the crowd as the sizzling transformer splashed fireworks against the sky. Everyone started to run. So I ran, too. After I'd put about fifty smoker's lung yards between myself and the pending explosion, I ran into Meghan and Christy.

"You again, eh?"
"Yeah!" I gasped, panting. "Yo, check it. That transformer over there is about to - "

BAM!

" - explode."

I should stop apologizing for my Chinese existence. Unbelievable, bizarre, and horrific things happen in this country every day. And every now and again, I am lucky or unlucky enough to witness them. And I write about those things when I can. I just hope that you don't disbelieve them. I do switch insignificant events around so that they read better, and sometimes I airbrush them so that they look prettier. But that's part of my job. Otherwise, you couldn't bring yourself to read it. For all that, there are certain things that I do not and cannot bullshit. And the above sequence of events went exactly as it reads. Yo, check it. That transformer over there is about to - BAM! - explode. And it did. Anticlimactically, I thought. I had turned my head just in time to see it burst. It blew out in a bright blue box of fire. And that was all.

A minor disaster. Thankfully, not a major one. But you dodge minor disasters left and right in China. And up and down, for that matter. Every cab ride is a five-slug game of Sino-Russian roulette. I often forget the existential caprice you sign up for when you decide to live in China. I'm used to it by now. But life anywhere is worthy of a million-page waiver. No day is a sure thing. The morning promises nothing to the night. Even within the stumbling distance between man and coffee house, nothing is certain, nothing is guaranteed. So don't you let me forget that. I am here. In China. And as long as I'm here, I might as well just cozy up to that fact.

There Will Be Flood

When the rains come softly in Sichuan, you can hear the big fat individual drops dropping like nails on the rusty aluminum overhangs of the buildings. When the rain comes down hard, you can hear nothing but the rain. It whooshes. It washes. The rain whispers loud enough, even, to drown out China. The sound of the rain envelops you like a cloud, and only the most violent of loogeys, hawked by the most pneumatic of old men, is loud enough to cut through the sonic fog.

The rain was coming down hard the night I arrived in Dazhou. And not surprisingly, I was without an umbrella. I roved the campus like a forgotten dog. It rained until my Pumas turned to sponges, and I sensed that it wasn't the kind of rain that would stop. The rain had already flooded the sewers, and would soon flood the river. And while an unseasonably boisterous tributary of the Yangtze was creeping ever closer to campus, a foul-smelling flood of considerably higher proof had already inundated the second floor of L'hôtel des Laowaix, in the French Quarter of Dazhou County, Sichuan Province, People's Republic of China. The moment I checked in, I knew I was in for a long and liver-curdling couple of weeks.

It was round about ten PM and my fellow Peace Corpses, from the sounds and smells of things, were well into post-banquet mode. I set my hobo bindle down beside my bed and followed the eye-watering fumes to a door at the end of the hall labeled "Andrew Moose." I made my belated entrance and bowed, gracefully and apologetically, there in the doorway.

"Panda!" shouted Moose. "Beer run!"

I suppose I deserved it. I was eight hours late, after all. But that, for once, was not my fault. Nanchong had flooded, the power had gone out, my alarm clock had shut off, the bank was closed, the barber shop wouldn't shave me, et cetera. Perhaps, I grumbled internally, these laowais should be buying me beer. Then I thought of Kevin, my Chinese handler, and what he would say given the circumstances. "What a pity you are so late. What a pity. You had better go on a beer run." No. In the land of passive-aggression, I'll take good old aggressive-aggressive American douchebagism any day of the week. So I duly bowed there in the doorway of Andrew Moose's room, and then I duly ran down to the convenience store, and then I duly opened my lint-clogged wallet and duly bought my fellow running dogs of capitalism the next round, and the next round after that. And the one after that. Because I'm nice.

So it began. And so it went. For two whole weeks, night after night, beer upon beer upon regrettable baijiu. Under the fleeting spell of formaldehyde and conversation, time seemed to stand still from time to time. But in spite of our sodden efforts - and perhaps, indeed, because of them - the second and minute and hour hands of the present inevitably groped their way into the unimaginably hungover future. Midnight begat 2 AM, and 2 AM spawned the bastard child of 4 AM, and 4 AM did unspeakable things to 5 AM, and that unholy hour presented the lot of us like a pile of stray kittens to the loathsome dawn. Still, the urge to remain awake, and to keep bullshitting, and arguing, and insulting these wonderful Western minds - in English! - persisted. Hence it would prove a long and liver-curdling couple weeks.

We weren't juvenile (twentysomething) delinquents the whole time. Far from it. During the daytime hours, we were model volunteers. We gave all, and we did some damned good work, I think. But given the circumstances, and given the living arrangements, and given the personalities involved - given all that, some amount of delinquency was inevitable. And I firmly believe that our late night delinquency was for a greater good. Perhaps I am the only one of our group of nine who will admit it, but we damn well missed each other by the time the Dazhou Experiment finally rolled around. For months, for an entire lunar year we had been working our hairy foreign hides off. And during that time, we had (at least publicly) restricted ourselves to Chinese goodthink. Can you use chopsticks? Yes. Do you like China? ... Yes. Do you have a Chinese girlfriend? ... No, not to my knowledge, no. Et cetera.

Cue the Dazhou Project. Suddenly, here were nine Type A American personalities who wanted to talk, and really talk; who wanted to drink, and really drink; who disagreed with me about everything, and really disagreed; who called me out on my bullshit; who caught my Simpsons references ... and there we were, arranged coed-wise on the second floor of a Chinese dormitory, sans-RA. So, understand that we weren't striving for delinquency - not exactly - but that the whole situation was trouble to begin with. I knew in advance that I wouldn't see most of these people ever again, and neither would they ever see me again, so we all felt the need to sneak our jabs in while we could.

Each and every night of the two-week Dazhou Experiment would prove a long night for me. Most of the other volunteers, save for a couple, were more responsible than I. Micah and Allison were generally the first to leave, but they are de facto married, so I don't fault them in the least for retiring early to their own private boudoir in order to perform their nightly duty to The Party. Jeesun would take off shortly thereafter; she has a boyfriend back in Philly to attend to, albeit virtually. Katie, as Moose's attorney and caretaker, would linger a bit, but only just long enough to make sure that Moose didn't asphyxiate on his own bullshit. Emily has managed to woo a Chinese boyfriend, and now that I know all about him and the work he does, I will refrain from saying anything else about their torrid Sino-Navajo affair - at any rate, she would receive a long-distance phone call from Chengdu around 1 AM and leave shortly after Katie. Emma, a Brit-Lit major, always hung around much longer than she ought to have, for as heated and perverse and decidedly un-Victorian as the conversation inevitably became. But even she gave up after a while. By 3 AM, the room had pretty much cleared out, leaving the unholy trinity of Moose, Jacob, and Panda to sort the universe out - until four, until five, until six AM. If there existed a 27 AM, I am sure that we would have discovered it, planted our flag in it, and stayed up 'til then.

But we had to get up at eight every morning. So there were chronological limits to our delinquency. And we pushed them. There were several nights where sleep seemed more joke than biological necessity. To sleep for one hour? Or to continue hashing out the parameters of the known and unknown universe? Both possibilities were absurd, but the latter possibility was much more fulfilling, so sleep always lost. Our conversations ranged from the banal - Super Mario 3, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, Howard Cosell - to the otherworldly, and we made our conversational leaps unpretentiously and - or so it seemed to me at the time - seamlessly. But not always peacefully. There were tense moments where a three-man battle royale seemed on the verge of breaking out. But cooler heads always prevailed. And at the end of the night, fistpounds were exchanged. And on more than a few occasions, awkward three-way manbraces were shared. I learned much from those firewater-side chats, and in retrospect, I certainly wouldn't trade them for eighty hours of sleep that, as it turns out, I wouldn't need anyway.

And I'd love to transcribe some of those firewater-side chats for you. But anyone who has heard one's own voice on a tape recorder, or who has seen oneself on television, or who has watched someone else's impersonation of oneself is familiar with the extreme discomfort involved in retelling an inside joke, or reenacting a conversation, or replicating a personality. The microwaved, leftover result is unpalatable, to say the least. So, try as I might (and try I won't), I cannot and will not regurgitate any of the conversations that took place over the course of those two long, liver-curdling weeks. At this point, I'm not sure I can even remember them, though they changed me in such a way that long-term memory is insufficient and unnecessary. I suppose I will resign myself to saying that those two weeks were pseudointellectually significant for me, and then I will resign myself to finally getting on with my Great Flood of Dazhou saga, which may or may not be pseudointellectually significant for you.

That first night, I went to sleep at 27 AM. And then I woke up at 8 AM and taught teachers how to teach. As an icebreaker, I had my students (teachers) interview each other. They chatted in English. Pleased as hell, I walked around the room and constructively eavesdropped. Then I asked for a few volunteers to introduce their partners to the class. After a surreal two-minute standoff where nobody was quite able to muster the cojones to speak, I called on a fortysomething gentleman in the front row.

"Would you mind telling me about your English partner, Mr., er, ah, Zhang?"
"Sorry, teacher. But I cannot speak," said Mr. Zhang.
"Don't be shy! We're all friends here," I rejoined.
A round of applause from the studio audience. I felt, briefly, like Tony Robbins.
"No. Really I cannot speak," said Mr. Zhang. He slid his cellphone out from his pants pocket. "My father's hometown is flood and I must telephone my father. To see if he is still living."
"Jesus," I said. "Christ. No. Go. Call your father."
Mr. Zhang bowed slightly and ducked out of the room.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I announced, "if any of you are concerned about the existence of your relatives, please do not ask to leave my classroom. Just go."
My students took notes.

Somewhere along my errant way to Dazhou, I had drawn the short end of the chopstick, so I not only had to teach four hours that first day, but I also had to give a two-hour lecture on American Culture at 2 PM sharp. I raided Moose's stores of Nescafe and spent the early afternoon pacing the narrow, moldy perimeters of my hotel room, practicing my delivery, perfecting my timing, stiffarming my hangover. Then, well before I was ready, it came time to perform. What follows, I am sure, will seem like hyperbole. Because what follows will seem mostly unbelievable. And I realize that I have a habit of exaggerating or rearranging events in such a way that they make pseudoliterary sense. But what follows is what happened, more or less, as far as I can remember - and Moose as my witness, to the best of my ability, I have refrained from distorting these next five or ten paragraphs. Though I haven't written them yet, I know they will be very hard to write. It is easy, in my experience, to make the mundane interesting. It is infinitely more difficult to render reality believable.

It was a hot day and it had finally stopped raining. I swaggered into the lecture hall at 1:30 PM, unfashionably dressed but fashionably early. Kevin, my handler, embraced me against my will and asked if I wanted some water. Sure, I said. Give me two kuai, he said. Grumbling, I forked over twopence of my Peace Corps blood money, then I dished my USB stick to the IT Guy and stepped up to the podium. I checked out the audience. Hundreds of Chinese English teachers sat before me, fanning themselves, hawking loogies, toggling through the ringtones of their thousand-dollar Nokias. Check one two, I mumbled into the microphone. Check one two.

My American Culture 101 Powerpoint opens with the oldest trick in the Powerpoint book. A picture of Samuel L. Jackson. A picture of Daniel Day-Lewis. A picture of Khalil Gibran. A picture of Francis Fukuyama. Which of these individuals, I ask, is American? I cringe. I shudder. I drink more Nescafe. The Rest of the World would laugh me out of the lecture hall. But I have given this lecture all over Sichuan Province, and always the response has been the same.

Samuel L. is, at first, not American. An overwhelming NO from the audience. Then a murmuring ensues. Followed by a ruckus. The NBA is cited. LeBron and Kobe are cited. China loves basketball, and American basketball players are almost always black, so maybe, the audience figures, just maybe Americans can be black. After much heated debate, black people are agreed upon as perhaps, possibly, maybe Americans. Samuel L. Jackson is possibly, maybe, perhaps American.

Daniel Day-Lewis is unquestionably American at first, but my audience is clever and they sense a trick. So they shout a muddled yes/no that sounds something like "sysonooayshuysuesnoysy." Which I interpret as: maybe yes, maybe no. Daniel Day-Lewis is maybe American, maybe not American.

Then comes Khalil Gibran. Bearded, olive-skinned, Middle Eastern. The oldest Powerpoint trick in the Powerpoint book has been suddenly and completely forgotten. This man is not American. He is a Muslim. He is Osama Bin-Laden. He is a terrorist. NO, shouts the audience, NO NO NO. An overwhelming NO.

And then, Francis Fukuyama, who has been proclaiming (albeit absurdly) the end of history for several decades in unaccented English, he cannot be American, either. Because he is Chinese. He is one of us. NO, shouts the crowd, NO NO NO. An overwhelming NO.

I take a long swig of Nescafe. Next slide, I murmur. And cue the punchline: all of these people, but one, are Americans. Samuel L. Jackson is an American, Khalil Gibran is an American, and Francis Fukuyama is an American. But Daniel Day-Lewis, if he were in character, would pummel you with bowling balls for calling him American. He happens to be Irish, and he happens to have starred in one of my favorite films of all time, There Will Be Blood, a film that Jacob, my fellow volunteer, happens to hate with a fiery passion that will never die, and so on.

So it goes with my college kids: Americans are white and blue-eyed and yellow-haired and they are rich and they don't love their families and they can only eat beef and bread. And so it went, at first, with my teachers in Dazhou, who had been studying English for a quarter-century, who had (for a not insignificant amount of time) been steeped in some warped interpretation of American Culture. Disappointing, of course. Frustrating, certainly. But such is my work. By now, I am no longer fazed or unfazed by it. Neither jaded nor gilded. By now, I am merely determined.

I ruthlessly guzzled from my Thermos of Nescafe, and then I gave my students (my teachers) some hard statistics. True, America is mostly Caucasian, but it probably won't remain so. Cue pie chart. True, America was once rich, but it doesn't currently appear to be so. Cue line graph. True, America was born a Christian nation, though it certainly is not so today. Cue anecdote.

"My students often ask me if I am a Christian," I said. "'Teacher, you believe in Jesus, yes?' And I tell my students that, no, I do not believe in the Christian idea of god -"

I was so startled by what happened next that I did not appreciate the timing. Only much later did my fellow volunteers inform me (laughing their asses off) that my last words before the blackout were, "I do not believe in the Christian idea of god." So I hope their testimony contributes to whatever credibility I have as a narrator. It really happened this way, and I suppose that I am burdened with the responsibility of proving it.

I do not believe in the Christian idea of god, I said, period. And then, suddenly, all was dark, or slightly dimmed. My microphone was dead. The projector screen had gone black. My Chinese handlers sprung into action, were scrambling all over the place, fumbling with cords, unplugging and replugging electrical wires. Only after a full minute of total chaos did I begin to entertain the idea that the impending flood might have had something to do with anything. My audience, meanwhile, was caught up in an old-timey courtroom uproar. What's the big idea?, etc. I stood there at the podium, looking around for a gavel to bang.

My handlers in the front row gestured for me to keep going, to keep lecturing. But speaking over an audience of 300 Chinese adults, even with the aid of a PA system, is an exercise in ... well, it's really too much exercise to be worth anyone's while. My vocal cords were no match for the loogey-hawking masses. I knew that much from experience. So I tightroped the ledge of the stage and cleared my throat several times, then I paced back and forth and hawked a false loogey - perhaps this might summon their attention - and then, finally, I stood stock still behind the podium, scratched my head like the fop I am, and surveyed the scene. And as my eyes searched the audience for an audience, I spotted Moose a few rows back and saw that he had collapsed into his desk, and that he was laughing so hard that a Rorschach blotch of sweat had formed on the back of his shirt. And that set me off. I started laughing and I could not stop. I faceplanted into the podium and laughed into my elbowpits until there were no more laughs to be laughed. And then I hooted to myself, took a swig of Nescafe, and wandered off to the bathroom to take a much-needed piss. Eventually, I wandered out to the balcony for a much-needed smoke.

My students (teachers) had assembled there to watch the gathering flood. And after I'd lit my ciggie and recovered from the divine relief it afforded, I grew as entranced as my students were with nature's bubbling wrath. The raging brown waters of the pseudo-Yangtze were ten feet beneath us and rising. According to my neurotic calculations, the lecture hall would flood well before the end of my two-hour lecture. Meanwhile, traditional Sichuanese debris rafted past. A hot-pot table coasted by and my students shouted out the English word, "table!" The carved wooden fringes of a Buddhist temple floated past and in unison, my students said, "pagoda." We were learning vocabulary. Improving our Oral English. At one point, a vague, yellowish blob bobbed along downstream and several of my students murmured, "body." For the life of me, I couldn't tell how serious they were.

Katie, who was scheduled to follow up my lecture with something far more educational and informative, came out to the balcony and, unperturbed by the pending rapture, started playing with the roly-polies on the banister. She pinched one of them between her fingers and held it up, legs writhing, for all to see.

"This is a roly-poly," she said to my students, in her delightful sing-song teacher voice. "We have them in America, too!"
"Roly-poly," my students chanted. "Roly-poly!"

Though I love all creatures great and small, I would never lobby Congress on the behalf of insects, which I find terrifying and disgusting and insulting to all humanity. But Katie, bless her South Carolinian heart, right there and then set about crushing one unsuspecting Chinese roly-poly after another in the vain attempt to make them roll in the Western mode. And I could not abide.

"Jesus God. You're killing them!" I shouted.
"But they're roly-polies," she said, squishing one between her fingers. "They're supposed to roll!"
"No. They're Chinese roly-polies," I said. "They're Confucian. Who knows what they will do when provoked?"

And what they did was this: they died. En masse. Feebly, I tried to stop Katie, but she was on a mission. A crusade. She aimed to convert these heathen, anti-roly polies with the sword. To Katie's mind, these lightly armored Chinese insects were roly-polies, whether they knew it or not, and she would teach them how to roll by force, if necessary. It got ugly real fast. She killed at least eight of them before I could stop her. Meanwhile, my students (teachers) were murmuring the words "roly-poly" and "dead." I tried to disrupt Katie's Inquisition by pointing out a daddy long legs that happened to be high-stepping its way up a nearby wall. And I was genuinely excited. I hadn't seen a daddy long legs in years, not since I lived in Missouri, and was amazed to find one in Dazhou, of all places.

"Daddy long legs!" I shouted.
"Daddy long legs," repeated my students.
"House," a few of them murmured, as somebody's living room tumbled past.
"Daddy long legs," I said.
"Car," they agreed.
"Roly-poly," they remembered.
"Dead."
"Bicycle."
"Daddy long legs."
"Dead."
"Tire."
"Roly-poly."
"Tree."
"Dead."
"Table."

Katie reached for the daddy long legs and I smacked her hand.

Then Kevin, my handler, embraced me from behind and dragged me back into the lecture hall.

"Good news. We have a generator," he said. "The power is on. You had better finish your lecture now."

Evidently, my Powerpoint would continue, even as our lives were transitioning ever more ominously towards the final slide.

I reassumed the stage. Check onetwo, I said into the revived microphone, check onetwo. A round of applause. I opted to skip over the blasphemous segment of my lecture and said, hastily, "Not everyone in America is a Christian. Moving right along -" And then there came a deafening pop from the PA system and the lights went out again.

More scrambling. More plugging and replugging. I paced the stage. I took a swig of Nescafe. Then, outside, the flood sirens went off. Which did much in the way of convincing me that I was not merely neurotic, that I hadn't overdosed on Nescafe, that in fact there was a very real natural disaster about to take place. And who was I to lecture on diversity in the face of the all-devouring apocalypse? That, or something like it, was the modest appeal I levied against my handlers, in Chinese and in English, but they were not to be persuaded. The show must go on, after all. My handlers did not seem aware of any conflict of interest, not even of that one interest we are all interested in as humans, as living things, as organisms: that of survival. Out of politeness, I fought the urge to run for the hills. Then I conquered that urge and stood there on stage like Merriam-Webster's definition of an oaf. Though my audience was, by that time, either half-panicked or half-asleep, my handlers insisted that my lecture must proceed, and that my audience must remain. In the moments that followed, my handlers spontaneously generated a generator that regenerated the generator which revived the electrical system of the lecture hall in which I was supposed to complete my lecture while the gathering flood threatened to dampen the whole damned party, and that right soon.

The projector screen fired up again. The microphone screeched, a banshee of feedback. I took a long swig of Nescafe - my last, I wondered? - cleared my throat and proceeded.

"Anyhow. America is a very diverse place. Diverse. Many different kinds of people. And some of them don't believe in - "

The speakers popped, the screen went black. There was a kind of finality about the third blackout that pleased me. I was free, and I knew it. My heart rejoiced for its renewed prospect of beating and thumping and stumbling into the indefinite future. The crowd got up to leave. I stepped down from the stage. My handler negotiated with his handler for a time - perhaps there was a third meta-generator in the broom closet? - then he slowly approached, gripped me by the bicep, and told me that my lecture had been postponed until tomorrow.

"Sweet. Will there be a tomorrow?" I asked, as a matter of journalistic interest.
"Yes. Always," my handler said.
"Cool. Thanks for the water," I said, and took a grateful swig from my bottle of Nongfu Springs, even as the undrinkable, unfishable, unswimmable springs of Dazhou County began to trickle into the lecture hall. I rolled up my pantlegs, and so did everyone else. Then, right on cue, hordes of barechested Chinese peasants entered stage right and started loading the amplifiers, the computers, the podium, et al, started hauling everything out of the auditorium. Much panting, much chanting, many loogeys were hawked. Exit Panda stage left.

I ran into Jacob on the way to the hotel. He was sweaty and short of breath, dressed in Marvel Comics-themed athletic attire.

"Aren't you supposed to be lecturing, man?"
"Canceled," I said, "due to apocalypse. Whatchoo doing?"
"I was just playing basketball. With the children," he added dismissively. "You had lunch yet?"

We went to the cafeteria, or what Chinese students refer to (in their delightfully Orwellian English) as the "canteen." The food wasn't half-bad, but it wasn't half-good, either. Moose joined us after a bit. We laughed a lot, as we are wont to do, and our laughs echoed. Aside from the three of us, the canteen was empty. But before we'd had time to give up on our food, the canteen began to fill up with shirtless peasants. They lingered around for a while and smoked, spat on the floor, shouted at each other. It wasn't clear, at first, why they were there at all. Then they sprung into action. They smoked and spat their way outside, and under the command of some derelict peasant captain, started hauling in tables, desks, chairs, sound equipment, computers, et al. They were at work. They were preparing for the flood. They deposited all the heavy, valuable stuff in the back of the canteen. A questionable move, I thought, given the proximity of the canteen to the very flood waters they were trying to avoid. These gnarled old men were moving tens of tons of equipment up a single flight of stairs, while the river, from the looks of things, appeared quite capable of washing Dazhou right off the map. Rearranging rickshaws on the Titanic, or however the idiom goes.

I couldn't bring myself to finish my undercooked twice-cooked pork and I was in desperate need of a nap, so I bid zai jian to my 27 AM partners in absurdity and left the canteen.

In China, crowds will gather around just about anything worth watching - a fatal car accident, a cellphone promotion, a Tibetan junk vendor, a laowai - and the crowds had turned out in droves for the Great Flood of Dazhou. As a foreigner, I tend to avoid crowds, because if I'm not careful, I will become the center of their attention. But I happened to be passing by. Happened to have nothing better to do. And I happened to be very curious about the horde of people standing outside the canteen, because they weren't talking much, weren't smiling, were unusually sullen for a pack of Chinese rubberneckers. So I wormed my way into the crowd and got up on my tippy-toes to see what, exactly, they were looking at.

There were two attractions, I suppose. First of all, there were the peasants: the lao bai xing, the bang bang men. These men are the beauty of China. They represent all that is good. They carry burdens for a living. And there they were, hauling the Dazhou University Music Department pianos up and out of the flood zone. Impossibly old men carrying pianos. They say an ant can lift 50 times its own weight. The bang bang men worked in crews of eight. Eight scrawny old, wiry old shirtless men, lifting a baby grand out of the muck and up an uneven flight of stairs, then collectively lugging it twenty feet before setting it down with a gentle thump! in the rear of the students' canteen. Fascinating, inspiring, horrible to watch. The coxswain would bark - HEAVE! - and seven oldsters would chant, HEAVE HEAVE HEAVE. HEAVE! HEAVE HEAVE HEAVE. HEAVE! HEAVE HEAVE HEAVE. These men were old enough to be your great-grandpa, if not greater. I stood there and watched. I couldn't believe that these oldsters, scrawny and malnourished as they were, were up to the task, and there were moments where it seemed the piano would slip from their fingers, tumble end over end, and smash with a splash and a Thelonious Monk discord at the flooded foot of the stairs. But the bang bang men persevered and got the job done without fail. They delivered twelve baby grands to the canteen without so much as a scratch, while they, the scarred, bruised, battered lao bai xing, were already well beyond repair.

But the main attraction was the river itself. It flowed and it raged. It thundered. It muscled along like an unimaginably large serpent snaking past in the gathering gloom. It rumbled. It breathed. It held us under its spell. The old men weaved their legs into the balcony and sat, smoking cigarettes and watching the river. Here was nature, our old nemesis, our one-time adversary, now strapped down to the bed, etherized, tranquilized, subdued. Long ago we conquered it, put signs all over it, made it a tourist attraction. Were awfully smug about all that, and justifiably so. But now, the river, on a whim, had reduced us all to ants. Reminded us that yes, we had defeated it, but could nevertheless be washed away, erased, obliterated with a careless shrug of the shoulders. The river. I couldn't take my eyes off it. The power there. I thought nothing, felt nothing. I was not afraid. Understand, I fear petty things, and fear them deeply. I am afraid of insects, Styrofoam, flying in airplanes. I fear chalkboards and advanced mathematics and swimming pools. But I did not fear the river right then, or the annihilation it promised with a mudshot wink as the smog-blurred sun fell down behind its back. I was interested in the river. I studied it. I was, I suppose, learning from it.

One month before I set out on my Dazhou adventure, well before much of western China flooded, I wrote the following:

One day the river will march single file, overflowing its banks, and it will inundate the world in its uniform earthtone, reflecting itself and itself and itself, on and on forever, and it will wash all the dirt away like a glass of lemonade spilled onto an anthill.

I wrote those words with a lot of caffeine in my system, and I wrote them about a thoroughly domesticated creek in Chengdu. That creek will never flood. I imagined it could at the time, that it was capable. But I did not mean for those words to be prophetic. I didn't foresee the Great Flood of Dazhou. At the time, I foresaw another cup of coffee, and that is all. But I do find those words rather apropos when I think back on that uncertain evening in Dazhou, watching the waters tumble past in the background, even as they seeped and inched their way into the foreground. Wondering how to react, wondering whether I should panic, whether I should laugh, whether I should feel anything at all. Wondering whether I ought not to call somebody important and cancel the whole Dazhou Experiment straightaway. But no, I have always found that the best course of action is inaction, especially in times of helplessness. Past a certain point, you have to let go and recognize your role as an ant, as a pebble caught in the flood of history, of physics, of nature, and all the rest. We are pebbles, I suppose. No more, no less. And once you let go, the whole existential shitshow is tremendously fun to watch, free will be damned. Let go. Enjoy. Laugh. And try to write about it, if you have time. Over the years, I have come to accept my place as an observer, as a pebble, as a somewhat intelligent ant. There remains much to overcome, much to be fought for, much to rebel against, and humanity needs a great deal of help in that direction. But I am no longer interested in hauling baby grands up uneven staircases. That job, perhaps, belongs to other, more courageous pebbles. That task is beyond me. I like to watch, and to think, and to laugh, and to write about the shitshow as it unravels. Why are we here? What is human destiny? What does it all mean? I have my guesses, but I don't know. Nobody knows. And I don't suppose anyone ever will. But isn't it pretty to wonder about?

Down by the river, while I gawked, a couple of college girls hovered in my hairy midst. They giggled about me, chatted to each other about me, worked up the courage to talk to me. And after a while I preemptively struck: I talked to them. They were from Zigong, but had come to Dazhou to study. They were freshmen.

"Do you live on campus?" I asked in my motley Mandarin.
"Yes," one of the girls said. "We live here."
She indicated the dormitory in front of us.
"We live there."
"That's awfully close to the river," I said. "Aren't you worried about the flood?"
"Yes. Very much so," she said. "If the water gets any higher, we're going to have to move all of our things."
"Where will you move them?" I asked.
"We don't know."

The girl giggled, blushed. Her accomplice was silent, giggled a bit. I was the first foreigner they had ever spoken to or giggled with. The flood seemed like a serious enough dilemma to me, but the girls were more shaken by their first conversation with a laowai than they were by the looming deluge.

The sun went down. It floated for a moment like a mandarin orange on the surface of the river. Then it sank beneath the waters and the light vanished. The world dimmed, the shadows spread, and only the immediate foreground remained visible: the flooded shops, the climbing waters, silhouettes, cigarette ends that blossomed and faded into the darkness. I took out my battered cellphone and sent a quick message to Jacob: "The river is climbing up the steps to campus. Ought to come see it." I waited, but Jacob didn't answer, and he didn't come out to watch. Meanwhile, the river inched and centimetered its way up the stairs. The same stairs the oldsters had climbed an hour before, chanting and spitting, with pianos on their backs. The brown waters made their way up the stairs, stood poised halfway for a moment like an asthmatic old man, and then they climbed further - subtly, almost imperceptibly, like a tedious argument of insidious intent, to borrow a quote.

I bid farewell to the college girls, wished them luck, and walked back to the hotel. I lit a cigarette along the way, smoked it for a bit, but stubbed it out before I could really enjoy it. I waved to the desk clerk and went upstairs. Perhaps, I hoped, Moose would buy me the first round. And perhaps life would proceed as normal in spite of the flood. I would sleep at 27 AM, wake up at 8 AM and teach teachers how to teach. There will be a tonight and there will be a tomorrow. This is the assumption we all must make. It's no leap of faith in my book. It is a necessity. What else do we have? Life will resume as it always has. The show must go on. Eventually, I suppose, it won't. But isn't it pretty to think so? And isn't it unpleasant to think otherwise?