Chapter Twenty-Seven: I Am Impotent

The following spring, I finally bought that apartment. The money was borrowed from Ke Zhi, but he told me, “No need to pay it back. It was always yours to begin with.”

Following the traditional almanac, I selected an auspicious day—one marked as favorable for travel and moving homes—to “migrate” both myself and Yang Bo into our new place.

I thought that once Yang Bo was free from the “patchwork family” life she once mentioned, our relationship would improve. I was wrong.

The trouble started, once again, with money. One day in April, as I was at home discussing with Yang Bo how to go about having a child and the art of acting with “brotherhood loyalty,” Wang Dong appeared. “Big trouble, Brother,” he said. “The transport authorities have impounded our trucks, said we were operating illegally and plan to confiscate them. What now?” I had overlooked this. Before the New Year, Kuai Bin had warned me—he’d been drinking with Director Liang from the transport bureau, who’d made oblique comments: “Your partner Zhang Kuan isn’t very sociable. Some things, you need to give him a nudge.” Kuai Bin said, “He’s just out of prison, not familiar with the industry.” Liang said, “Those two trucks of his are scrap vehicles—not a big deal, but the paperwork is incomplete.” I thought, after the holidays, I’d get the paperwork in order and overhaul the trucks. But I let it slip my mind.

What now? I didn’t know. I called Kuai Bin—he was in Hainan, couldn’t come back soon. He said he’d call Director Liang and see what could be done. Soon after, Kuai Bin called back: “Official business, nothing personal.” I was stunned, felt like the sky was collapsing.

Those days, I wandered like a headless fly, but it was useless. By the end of May, LuLuKuan Trucking was shut down for good.

Out of work, I didn’t even have the heart to “pick fights” with Jia Guan, and my temper became increasingly volatile, sometimes unreasonable—snapping over the slightest thing.

Wang Dong lingered at my place all day, keeping me company in my gloom. Every time Yang Bo came home to this scene, she was furious—plates and bowls decorated the street below more than our dining table.

I told Wang Dong to leave. He tossed back, “I’ll see you rise again,” and left, heading for Ma San’s “Blacksmith Shop.”

One summer day, a plane crashed into a building in America. The TV showed billowing smoke—a spectacular sight. I stared blankly at the screen, telling myself: See? Even a country as mighty as America, even the World Trade Center—so strong—can be destroyed. Who am I, an ant on the frontlines of petty street hustling? If I have food and haven’t starved, that’s winning big. I think it was that very day Wu Zhenming called me, saying he’d been looking for me, thought I’d be out of jail sooner, but couldn’t find me so he’d joined Butterfly’s crew. Now Butterfly was finished, so he wanted to come back and work with me.

I said, “Brother, watch TV these days. When you think I’m tougher than Bush, you can come find me.” Wu Zhenming thought I was losing it, and sang a lyric in a falsetto: “When the wind is strong, be brave; when you’re tired, come home, bring my blessings with you…”

Boring days actually passed quickly, and before I realized it, another spring had come. Yang Bo had turned into a full-blown shrew, often standing hands-on-hips, lion’s roar style, raging at me for squandering money and threatening to battle me three hundred rounds. I had no strength to fight her—I’d grown thin as a monkey, stooped and scruffy, listless as a shriveled cucumber fished from a chamber pot. Life drifted on in its noisy, flavorless way.

When spring came again, I “rose” once more—as “manager” of a new nightclub Kuai Bin had opened. Manager—what a title. I often laughed to myself; it was just like Lan Slanty-Eye’s old role.

Yang Bo remained keenly interested in “brotherhood loyalty,” often bouncing on my body when I was half asleep, her cake-like form jiggling atop me.

I had lost all “brotherhood emotion.” Often, as she clamored to “fly,” I’d respond with a dull snore.

Then, suddenly, Yang Bo lost interest in “brotherhood loyalty” altogether, always complaining of exhaustion when she got home, as if she worked for a slave driver.

Over time, I found my own interest rekindled. Sometimes, when I presented my “weapon” to her, she’d clamp her thighs and sigh, “I’m tired,” and my spear would go limp as a strand of yarn. I suspected she was seeing someone else, but I didn’t have the energy to investigate. I thought, let it be—if I can’t even support my own wife, isn’t it easier if someone else takes care of her? Still, I couldn’t help feeling rough and raw inside, a lingering sense of insult and injury.

One night, when she was sound asleep, I took her phone to the bathroom. The inbox was full of messages from someone named “Brother Zhen.” One nearly made me faint: “Bo’er, my little treasure, after all these years you’re still so wild, so passionate—you still give me the greatest pleasure a man can know.” Well, isn’t that just wonderful, Brother Zhen… I was sure this so-called “Brother Zhen” was Xi Zhen—he always did have a way with words. Yang Bo, you’re too brazen. If you’re going to cheat, couldn’t you at least be discreet? Why flaunt it in my face, stabbing at my eyes, wounding my heart?

Those days, I kept busy, prowling like a hungry wolf, contacting every woman I could remember—casting a wide net with little expectation. Most of the women I’d known responded, and plenty of “loyalty” was spent.

It was during this period that Mao Raorao ended up in my bed, poking my forehead cheerfully and calling me an old scoundrel.

I tried to contact Lin Meimei, but she was out of reach—rumor was she’d gone to Korea to make baby bibs in a factory.

I realized something was wrong with me. That night, after much drinking, I steeled myself to “serve” Yang Bo, but no matter what I did, my body wouldn’t respond. Yang Bo grew frantic, trying everything, but I couldn’t be a “man.” As dawn approached, my heart and lower body contracted with no sign of expansion. At last, an enraged Yang Bo threw her bra at me: one cup landed squarely on my nose, making it hard to breathe, like a dying man with an oxygen mask—only this mask suffocated, not saved. I don’t remember how I got it off; I just remember that under her resentful gaze, I felt no guilt at all—only numbness. I fled as she cursed me for having someone else outside.

Staggering onto the street, I realized I had left my own home, a place I shouldn’t have abandoned.

I crept back inside and lay alone on the sofa. When I opened my eyes, the house was empty; Yang Bo had gone. We’d become so in tune that words were unnecessary—we could read each other’s thoughts. I opened the window; it was raining. I checked the umbrella stand—her umbrella was gone. She must have left recently, after dawn, as the rain had started later; that reassured me.

When the rain stopped, the morning air on Lower Street was anything but fresh—rank and stifling. The sky was oppressively gray. Suddenly, I felt the urge to get on my battered mountain bike and ride somewhere high for a view. But I knew I was no longer the daring rider I’d once been. I wondered—others at least get a warning before impotence: first, trouble staying hard, or not lasting, or premature release. But for me, it came on all at once, with no sign.

Back on the sofa, I quickly grabbed my phone to ask Kuai Bin what was happening to me. As I searched for his number, a message from Yang Bo arrived: “Go to hell—even if you rip your little thing out by the roots, you still wouldn’t qualify for the Paralympics!” Damn it, if my “third leg” doesn’t work, and I break another, at least I could qualify for the games.

I went to see Mao Raorao, wanting to test myself—but still, I couldn’t perform. Under her suspicious gaze, I kissed her as quickly as I could, cutting off her breath, hoping to leave her dizzy and escape.

The alleys were muddy after the rain, fallen leaves scattered and musty, making my mood worse. I cursed at the sky, but my voice was weak—the sky seemed to tremble, the earth wilted, the echo in the alley buzzed back, “With what do you curse? With what?” Once, at the mouth of the alley, a fox-eyed girl grabbed me, saying she’d do everything—sing, play, ride, shoot—for just two hundred yuan. I said, “I don’t have a little thing.”

Walking home, I suddenly remembered an old poem: “How much sorrow can one have? Like a patient with impotence visiting a brothel.”

Scenes from the past flashed before me—Yang Bo’s face was so clear in my mind, down to the length of her eyelashes. Even my body was impotent.

This is sleepwalking season—not fit for memories. Memories sap the body’s strength, especially when recalling my current state; I’d feel faint, my limbs heavy. Thinking of my former vigor, the anger that had been building inside gathered in my arms, but the strength was only enough to count the passing years before I sighed, “No more, damn it, no more!” The only cure for chronic memory is drink—the first cup is as bitter as memory, the second as sweet as grace, and by the third, the past fades like a breeze. In those drunken days, I could almost believe my “illness” was better.

One night, I came home very late—around two in the morning. Before going upstairs, I glanced at the window: the wall lamp inside glowed a soft yellow. Yang Bo was pretending to be asleep. I undressed and slipped into bed. We lay back-to-back, tense, for a long time. Eventually, she moved, her hand resting on my hip. I pushed it away; she didn’t move again. I wanted to keep ignoring her and then talk, but I was exhausted and drifted off.

Who knows how long later, the light came on. Bleary-eyed, I saw her face streaked with tears. I thought to hold her, but as I sat up, I changed my mind—there was no end to always comforting her. A while later, the light went out, and by moonlight, I watched her ghost to the sofa, stand there for a long time, then slowly dress—first a sweater from the armrest, then pants from the floor, buttoned and zipped without a sound. She bent to put on her shoes, tears dripping onto her feet. I heard her cry as she washed her face and brushed her hair, then the soft beeps of her dialing her phone. I pulled the blanket over my head, thinking: Call whoever you want.

Dressed, Yang Bo returned to the bedside, standing and staring at me—her eyes behind the tears sharp and cold as nails.

I sat up, wanting to pull her to me, but she didn’t move, her teeth clenched, jaw trembling.

I felt afraid, my whole body shaking. “What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Her face seemed to shatter, fangs growing from her bleeding lips… I woke with a shout, drenched in cold sweat.

Just a dream, but her leaving was real. She left my home that moonlit night.

On New Year’s Eve of 2002, Yang Bo and I officially divorced. I left her the apartment, taking only a pair of shoes—the soles were worn through, with a hole scuffed by the pavement. I planned to have the old cobbler downstairs patch them up; I couldn’t bear to part with them—they’d been with me since my earliest days on the streets. I’d kept them all these years.

Standing at the end of Lower Street where the wind cut through, I kept thinking: perhaps all my efforts were not in vain. Yang Bo and I had spent eighteen years proving one truth—damn love, it’s just a joke. In the end, it’s nothing but a grand hat perched on top of “brotherhood loyalty”—deceit and betrayal hidden beneath, invisible to outsiders, while those inside laugh.

The wind whipped my hair, chilling my scalp, the cold sinking to my feet.

Someone sat outside, strumming a guitar—badly, but singing with such feeling it moved me to tears:

Let me walk with you,
Since you say you can’t stay,
The road back is dark,
And I worry for you alone,
Perhaps I’m not gentle enough,
Cannot share your sorrow,
If I can’t say it aloud,
Let regret dwell in my heart,
Let my sadness stay with me, and let you take your beauty away…

On New Year’s Day, I called Yang Bo at the table: “Darling, are you well?”

Her voice was calm, carrying a hint of jasmine: “Zhang Kuan, I still miss you.”

I said, “I have a girlfriend now, Wang Hui—you know her. She’s beautiful.”

Yang Bo laughed, her voice ringing, accusing me of being disloyal—moving on so quickly.

I hung up and said to my father, who was drooling and staring at the ceiling, “Who talks about loyalty in this world? If you have the energy, you might as well play with yourself.”