The Wangs vs. the World(103)
Only the land bordering the road appeared to be tilled. Charles kept walking until he reached a verdant open field dotted with tiny white flowers and climbed up a small rise. From there, he could see another rise in front of him, taller and a good bit farther away. Although each minute was costing him as much as that cheating cabbie wanted to charge, now that Charles was here, he had to see every inch that might have once belonged to the Wang family.
He plunged ahead.
The ground under him was damp, patches of mud hidden by the long grasses. One shoe got mired down, staying stubbornly behind when he pulled his foot up, so he took them both off, and his socks as well, and rolled up his pant legs. He marched forward, not minding that the mud was oozing over his feet. When he reached the next patch of dry grass, he wiped them off, liking the feeling of nature on his bare skin. Out of breath, sweat pooling under his armpits, he labored upward, scrunching his toes to get purchase on the slope.
By the time he got to the top, he was light-headed. He leaned over to take a full breath, and when he straightened, everything went white for a moment. Eyes closed, Charles let the blood drain downwards from his head and took several deep breaths. He opened his eyes. Everything was still a pulsing white. Was this it? The big stroke that he feared? He blinked. Shook his head. Bit down on his tongue to make sure that he could still feel things. And then he realized that it was the land itself.
Everything glowed. The fields were incandescent. The last of the morning dew caught the rising sun and sparkled, a tiny drop on the tip of each blade of grass, each drop a world in miniature. A slow breeze kicked up, rustling the leaves on the trees with their dark, elegant trunks that stood nearby. Pure beauty had never really moved Charles. He liked drama, he liked mischief, he liked luxury that bred desire.
But this, this was beauty.
Beauty.
Charles sank to his knees, then put his hands on the earth, not caring if the insolent driver saw him. He wanted to kiss the ground, to eat it.
Wiggling his fingers deeper into the dirt, he remembered a discussion he’d had with Nash once, soon after his friend had taken on a senior seminar populated mostly by second-generation Chinese immigrants. Nash had explained his students’ complicated relationship to the country their parents had left behind, finally convincing Charles that not everyone saw the world as simply and clearly as he did. For Nash’s students, there were many Chinas. There was the China that was against the world, the China that was the Communist government. The China that existed briefly in Taiwan. There was the China that covered things up and the China that was gradually making things free. And as many Chinas as there were, there were that many Charleses as well. Every immigrant is the person he might have been and the person he is, and his homeland is at once the place it would have been to him from the inside and the place it must be to him from the outside.
All of that was academic bullshit.
This, this was the only China.
This incandescent land that glowed all around him.
The mud caked on his soles and the flies that buzzed against his bare toes.
The mountains that rose like they did in ink-brush paintings by the old masters, rows of smoky gray ranges getting darker as they retreated. Charles plunged his fingers into the soil and wiggled them back and forth until he’d made a hole. He took out his father’s bone, porous and gray, and dropped it in, covering it back up with the displaced earth. This, this must be what he’d meant to do with it all along.
Charles plucked a piece of grass and put it in his mouth, chewing cautiously. It was peppery and green-tasting, and that was China, too. He licked a little mud off the edge of his thumb. It didn’t have much of a taste, just a rich, dirty essence. He could have made a meal of those things, could have lived on nothing else for the rest of his life.
This was the New World. He’d gotten it wrong. His father had gotten it wrong. Never mind the Communists, the Japanese, the murderous urchins of the Little Red Guard. This was China, and the Wangs, the great and glorious Wangs, never should have left.
Still half dreaming, Charles made his way to the far end of the stand of trees and unzipped his pants. He pulled out his penis and aimed a stream of urine against one of the tree trunks, then tilted towards another, reveling in the feeling of release. He would piss over every inch of this land, feeling more awake with every second that he continued to splatter the silvery bark. As he turned left, ready to water another tree, he saw a sign at the far edge of the clearing. Who dared lay claim to his land? Cutting the urine abruptly and shaking the end of his penis, Charles tucked himself back in and zipped up his pants.
The sign, when he reached it, was taller than it looked. He craned upwards, but still had to step back a few feet to read it.
APARTMENT CITY
NEXT SPRING: 3,000 LIVING UNITS
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New Orleans, LA
ANDREW SAT in the meager shade outside of the Greyhound station, eating a slice of pepperoni pizza. In the end, he’d let Saina buy him a ticket from New Orleans to Helios, but he’d insisted on taking a bus instead of an easy plane ride. The route wound through Alabama and Georgia before heading up through the Carolinas and stopping at the Port Authority in New York City, where he’d transfer. Maybe I should just stay there, thought Andrew. Maybe if I stay, I’ll end up on Saturday Night Live. He took another bite of pizza and chewed, happy.