Chapter 6 three

The window of Room No. 25 on the second floor of Yaotai Hotel is facing the night market on the other side of the circle.Human laughter, waves rolled up, and occasionally a long small horn suddenly rose up, broken and hoarse, someone was selling sea dog pills in the night market.On the opposite side, the neon signs of Tuberose and Xiao Penglai flashed into the window in red and green.The room was extremely hot, and the old fan by the bed shook his head back and forth.The wind, blowing over, is also hot and dry. In the dark, we lay naked together, shoulder to shoulder.In the darkness, I could also feel his twinkling, green eyes, like two balls of fire, rolling around my body, eagerly searching and seeking.He was lying on his back next to me, with a bony body, when he turned over, his sharp elbow accidentally hit my side, I felt a burst of pain, and I let out a cry.

Hurt you, little brother?he asked. It doesn't matter.I answered vaguely. You see, I forgot, he stretched out his long and thin arms in the air, his fingers spread out like two rakes, there are only two hard bones left in these arms, and sometimes it hurts to poke himself It wasn't like this in the past. My arms were as thick as yours. Believe it or not, brother? I believe. how old are you? eighteen. That's right, I used to be your age, and I was about the same age as you.However, in one summer, which lasts only three months, a person's body will suddenly be exhausted, leaving only a layer of skin and a handful of bones.one summer, one summer only

His voice came from the darkness, distant and erratic, as if faintly emerging from a deep crypt. Often in the middle of the night, in the darkness, in a hidden hotel loft, on an old bed, we were naked, two strangers who kept their names from each other, lying side by side, suddenly, there was a burst of distress. With the impulse of regret, we will confide to each other the most secret and ulterior things in our hearts.We can't see each other's faces clearly, we don't know each other's background, we will temporarily forget our shame and scruples, dig out our naked hearts, hold each other in our hands and watch each other for a while.The first time I came to Yaotai Hotel with me was a middle school physical education teacher, a northerner, with two abdominal muscles as hard as iron plates. He drank a lot of sorghum that night, muttered and talked drunk all night .He said that his Mrs. Peiping was a good woman who was very considerate to him, but he just couldn't love her.What he had a crush on in his heart was the captain of their school's high school basketball team.The captain of the school team was trained by him. He has been with him for three years and loves him like a father and son.But he couldn't express his feelings to the child.That crush drove him crazy.He carried his sneakers and sweatshirt for him, and wiped his sweat with a towel.But he dared not approach the child.Waiting until graduation, the last ball game between their school and other schools, the game was fierce that day, and everyone was nervous.The captain had a conflict with him for some reason.In a burst of rage, he slapped the child until he sat on the ground.For all those years, he had longed to touch, to hug that child.However, for some reason, he lost control and punched five red fingerprints on the child's face.Those five fingerprints, like brand marks, have been deeply engraved on his heart, causing a dull pain from time to time.As the physical education teacher was talking, a burly man from the north began to weep, crying so frightfully.It rained heavily that night, and the rain was flowing on the window panes.The neon lights of the tuberose on the opposite side were blurred with red and green.

Five days ago, my father was buried. Um?I didn't understand him. Five days ago, my father was buried in Liuzhangli Jile Cemetery. He was smoking a cigarette, and the end of the cigarette lit up a red fire in the dark. It is said that the funeral was very grand. I saw in the autograph book that there were many government dignitaries name.But I don't know where the six plows are, I have never been there.Do you know what, little brother? You go straight down Xinyi Road, and you will arrive at the Bliss Cemetery on Liuzhangli Mountain. Do you go down the fourth section of Xinyi Road?The streets in Taipei have been changed so much that I don’t recognize them all. I haven’t been back for ten years. He smoked a cigarette and let out a long breath. I just came back from the United States the night before and walked to 12 Nanjing East Road. Our old house in Twelfth Lane was surrounded by high-rise buildings. I couldn't even recognize my own home.There used to be a paddy field behind our house.Guess what's in the field?

rice. Of course, of course, he shook a bony arm and laughed, I mean egret, boy.In the past, the paddy fields along the roadside in Taipei were full of egrets, and when people walked by, white ones flew up.In all these years in the United States, I have never seen a single egret.There are all kinds of eagles, seagulls, wild ducks, but no egrets.Brother, there is a Taiwanese nursery rhyme called <白鹭鸶>, can you sing it? I've heard it, but I can't sing it. Egret Car waste bin Car to Xi Chai Hang He suddenly hummed softly in Taiwanese dialect, "White Egret" is a naive and sad song, and his voice became childish and gentle.

how do you rememberI couldn't help laughing. I forgot it a long time ago, but I somehow remembered it when I got back to Taipei.This was taught to me by a friend of mine who was a Taiwanese kid.The two of us often went to the paddy field on the other side of Songjiang Road behind our house, where there were hundreds of egrets.From a distance, it looks like a wild lily blooming in the field.That Taiwanese kid kept singing that nursery rhyme, and I could hear it too.But this time when I came back, all the egrets in Taipei were gone. Are you an American student?I asked. I'm not going to study abroad, I'm going to escape His voice suddenly became heavy again, ten years ago, my father bought me a British passport from Hong Kong, sent me to Kaohsiung, and boarded a Japanese cruise ship , the boat was called Baihewan. I still remember that I ate pickled melons for a month on the boat.

He took two puffs of cigarettes, was silent for a while, and then said seriously: Before my father left, he said to me: If you leave, you will not come back for as long as I live!So, I waited until my father passed away before returning to Taiwan. I was in the United States and waited for ten years. Little brother, do you know?My passport has a strange name: Stephen Ng.Cantonese people pronounce Wu as um, so those Americans call me um, um, um, As he said that, he laughed himself first. I heard it was funny, so I laughed too. In fact, my surname is Wang, he breathed a sigh of relief, Wang Kuilong is my real name.That Kui character is really difficult to write. When I was a child, I always made mistakes.It is said that Kuilong is an evil dragon in ancient times, which caused natural disasters and floods when it appeared.Not sure why my father would give me such an inauspicious name.Where's your name, brother?

I hesitated. We never reveal our real names to strangers. Don't be afraid, little brother, he patted me on the shoulder, you and I, we are all fellow travelers.In the United States, I never refused to tell others my real name.But it doesn't matter now, now that I'm back in Taipei, I'm Wang Kuilong again. Stephen Ng, what a ridiculous name is that? Stephen Ng died, Wang Kuilong came back to life! My surname is Li, and I finally revealed my identity. They all call me Ah Qing. Then, let me call you Ah Qing too. Are you in San Francisco, USA?I tentatively asked, there is a second chef from Wufu Building in our park who applied to go abroad to work as a chef in a restaurant in San Francisco's Chinatown.He wrote back and said that the streets of San Francisco are full of our fellow travelers.

San Francisco?I was not in San Francisco. He took a deep puff on his cigarette, sat up, threw the cigarette butt into the spittoon in front of the bed, put his hands behind his head, and lay on his back on the bed. It's New York. I landed in New York. His voice became erratic again, causing the electric fan to reverberate. New York is full of skyscrapers with dozens of floors, hiding under them, out of sight, and no one can find them. looking at you.I've been hiding in the shadow of those skyscrapers for ten years, often in Central Park, the darkest place in New York, have you heard of it?

Are there any parks in New York? How not?The Central Park there is dozens of times larger and darker than our new park, right in the center of the city, as black as a bottomless abyss.There are a lot of dark forests in the park, one after another. Walking in, it is like a maze, and you can't get out for a long time.When it was dark, people in New York dared not even enter the gate of the park.There have been many murders in it, and one man's head was chopped off and his body was hung from a tree.There is another person, a young child, who was stabbed with more than thirty knives He said with a sigh:

America is full of lunatics. Are there any fellow travelers in Central Park?I asked quietly. Alas, too many, I went ashore, and on the third night, I broke into Central Park.Just behind the bandstand in a forest, a group of people dragged me in. I can't count, there must have been seven or eight.There were a few blacks, and I touched their heads, their hair was like a tangled piece of wire.Their voices were panting in the darkness, like a group of furry hungry wolves gnawing on a piece of meat and bone.In the dark, I can also see their dark white teeth.It wasn't until dawn, until the sun came down from the top of the tree, that they suddenly became alert, and slipped away one by one with their tails between their legs. Only one old and ugly black man was left, kneeling on the ground and stretching out his hand tremblingly. , grabbed my trousers.I walked out of the woods, the morning sun was so bright that I couldn't open my eyes. He stretched out his long, thin, rake-like arms into the air, and scratched them twice. After one night, I felt the pain on my arms. The meat, as if they had eaten it off, was red and purple, with patches of bruises.That summer, like those Americans, I also went crazy, very crazy.I looked at the flesh on my body, like dandruff, falling off in pieces, just like those lepers, but I didn't feel it at all.One day, I was sitting on the street, holding a razor blade, and was cutting my own calf, the blood flowed from the knife oh why?I asked, and he spoke so comfortably, as if he was cutting chickens and ducks. I'm going to try it, do I still feel it? Doesn't it hurt? It didn't hurt at all, all I could smell was blood. Hey, I yelled ambiguously, I felt the fan blowing on my body, hairy. Several women cried out in fright when they saw it.The police came and took me to a madhouse.Have you ever been to a lunatic asylum, Ah Qing? No. The madhouse is also interesting. how come? There are many beautiful male nurses in the madhouse. Is it?I laughed and became curious. The lunatic asylum I entered was by the Huxon River. There were many white sailboats on the river. I sat at the window and counted the sailboats every day.I most remember that there was a male nurse named Dawei who was astonishingly beautiful, with shiny blond hair and eyes as green as sea water.He was at least six-foot-five, and the male nurses in the asylum were all big men.He took two sedatives and coaxed me to swallow them with a smile. I grabbed his hand and pressed it to my chest, shouting: "My heart, where is my heart?"My heart is gone!He misunderstood that I was violent to him, and used the grappling method to push me to the ground.Guess why?I speak Chinese and he doesn't understand! Speaking of which, we both laughed. They let me out, the summer was long gone, and the trees in Central Park were all leafless.I bought a bag of rusks and fed the pigeons for a day in the park He suddenly fell silent, I turned my head to look at him, in the darkness, his green eyes floated there.The fan beside the bed was blowing a gust of hot air.My back was soaked in sweat.Outside the window, on the other side of the Yuanhuan Night Market, the sound of people talking and cars rushing over again.The broken trumpet that sells sea dog pills played very vigorously, but for some reason, such a hoarse trumpet kept playing the song "June Jasmine", a very warm Taiwanese tune, When I was a child, I often heard it, but now I let these broken horns whine, it sounds funny, and there is an indescribable sadness. Where are those lotus flowers, Ah Qing? What?I was taken aback. After being silent for a long time, his voice suddenly rose. I mean those lotus flowers in the park, where are they? Oh, those lotus flowers?I heard that the city government sent people to pull them out. Alas, what a pity. They all said those lotus flowers are very beautiful. The new park is the ugliest park in the world, he said with a smile, only those lotus flowers are beautiful. It is said to be a red water lily, right? By the way, bright red and bright red.Once upon a time when lotus blossoms bloomed, I counted them.At most, there were ninety-nine flowers.Once, I picked a red lotus and put it in the palm of a man. He held the red lotus as if holding a fire.At that time, he was your age, eighteen years old, I felt his rake-like hands, sharp fingers, stretched into my hair, gently combing, his eyes jumping like wildfire , began to roll on my body again, begging so eagerly and strongly, I felt an inexplicable fear. Mr. Wang, I have to go.I sit up. Can't you spend the night here?He saw me getting dressed and asked disappointedly. I have to go back. Can I see you tomorrow, Ah Qing? Sorry, Mr. Wang, I have an appointment tomorrow. I leaned down to tie my shoes, I don't know why I told this lie.I don't have a date, but tomorrow, at least tomorrow, I can't see him.I was afraid to see his eyes, his eyes seemed to be asking for something from me, so fierce and so painful. So when shall we see you again? We're in the park, we'll meet again anyway. When I got to the door, I turned around and said.In one breath, I ran down the dark, creaking wooden stairs of the Yaotai Hotel, ran out of the wet, smelly and smoky narrow alley, and plunged into the noisy and crowded area of ​​the ring, full of hanging trees. In the night market of squid, cuttlefish, and greasy pork head meat.I stood at the door of a small food shop called Zuixian, looking at the row of sesame oil ducks dripping with oil, and suddenly, I felt a violent hunger.I ordered half a fat and big sesame oil duck from the proprietress, and I also ordered a steaming cup of angelica chicken soup.Gudu Gudu, all of a sudden I poured down the boiling hot chicken soup with medicinal taste, it was so hot that my tongue was numb, and the sweat on my forehead dripped down, I didn’t even wipe it off, I just kept my hands together Only a piece of fat leg was pulled, and each wing was torn apart. After a while, half of the fat duck was left with only a pile of bones, and even the duck's brain was sucked out.My stomach is swollen, but my stomach is still like a bottomless hole, and it can never be filled.I asked the proprietress for another plate of fried rice noodles, and it was rustling, like the wind sweeping away the broken leaves, and there was not a single root left.Check out, a total of one hundred and eighty-seven.I took out the roll of bills in my breast pocket, five hundred-dollar bills, and I had never been given that much money.Just now he took out all the banknotes in his wallet and gave them to me, and said regretfully: "I just came back, and I haven't exchanged many Taiwan dollars." Leaving the circle, I strolled back to my residence on Jinzhou Street.On Zhongshan North Road, there were no more pedestrians, and the purple-white fluorescent lights were shining quietly all the way.I was alone, walking on the sidewalk alone, and the nailed leather boots on my feet made the cement on the sidewalk crack, crack, crack echo in silence.I undid my trouser belt, pulled my soaked shirt over my trousers, and unbuttoned it.Finally, there was a cool morning breeze on the road, blowing my wet shirt up.The hairs on my whole body were slightly covered, and I felt a burst of stagnant satisfaction, and a numbness after oversatisfaction.