Chapter 19 sixteen

They all say I killed him, don't they? In the darkness, Long Zi's voice seemed to be gurgling up again from a secluded world buried underground for a long time. What I killed was not Ah Feng, Ah Qing, what I killed was myself.That knife went right into my own heart, and just like that, I died, and I died for many years after I died The two of us, shoulder to shoulder, lay on a sofa bed covered with soaked rattan mats.At the bottom of an alley on the third section of Nanjing East Road, in the old mansion of Wang Kuilong's father from the Japanese occupation era, we were lying in Longzi's former bedroom facing the backyard.At the foot of the bed, a thick cake of mosquito-smoke incense was lit, and the cigarette curled upwards. Outside the screen window at the head of the bed, a few broad leaves of plantains had irregular black shadows, opening and closing, sweeping.In the yard, there were the chirping of summer insects, trembling and melodious, one short and one long.

For many years, I hid in Manhattan, New York, in the small attic of an apartment building on Seventy-second Street diagonally across from Central Park, and became a wild ghost who could not see the light of day.During the day, I holed up in a cellar bar on Broadway, working odd jobs for pocket money.In the middle of the night, in the middle of the night, I didn't show up, and I started wandering the brightly lit and deserted streets of Manhattan, from Forty-second Street to Eighth Street, until my legs were too tired to lift So, I sat down by the fountain in Washington Square, and sat there until dawn.Sometimes, I took the underground train and ran through the underground of New York, changing from one car to another, until I lost my way completely, and then I crawled out of the ground and stepped into a completely strange dark area. In the middle of those shadowy tall buildings, they turned around blindly.Once, in the middle of the night, I broke into the black area of ​​Harlem. That summer, the blacks rioted, and the police were fighting with the blacks every night. That night, I walked into the middle of a dark crowd and beat the police. Kick caught up with the police car and took him to the detention center.But then I didn't know how to be afraid, because I didn't feel it at all

One stormy night, I stood under a big elm tree in the park by the river, and the rain washed down from the leaves and branches, soaking my whole body, and my feet sank in the mud, sinking deeper and deeper, mud I poured it into my shoes, and my feet were numb from the cold. I kept looking at the lights of the Washington Bridge in the distance flickering in the wind and rain, completely forgetting that there was a person kneeling at my feet, gnawing looking at my body.On another snowy winter night, I fell asleep in the last row of an all-night movie theater in Times Square that specialized in male films.When I woke up, it was probably early in the morning. In a big dark theater, I was the only one sitting up and down. The body danced around on the big screen, but I completely ignored it, but when I looked down at the watch , the Rolex on my wrist that my father gave me as a souvenir when I was admitted to university in Taiwan disappeared without wings and was stripped away.In those years, I was wandering on the streets of New York, and I probably ate hundreds of beef patties before and after.But I never knew what beef patties tasted like. I lost my sense of taste, and everything I chewed was like sawdust.Once, I bought a beef patty in Greenwich Village. I bit down a piece of meat on the tip of my tongue. I didn’t know the blood in my mouth. I swallowed the beef patty together with my own flesh and blood. down to the stomach.But one day, I suddenly regained consciousness

It was Christmas Eve, the Christmas trees on the streets of New York were all lit up with red and green lights, and Christmas Eve was being sung everywhere.The snow fell early that night, at five or six o'clock, Manhattan had turned white, and people gathered indoors with their families for Christmas dinner.I was also with a group of people having Christmas dinner.There are more than one hundred of us in total. There are old people in their sixties and seventies whose bodies are slack like empty skins, teenagers whose limbs are just round and swollen, white people, black people, yellow people, and brown people. On that Christmas Eve , we fled from everywhere to 22nd Street and hid in a dark and old high-rise building. In a secret room filled with steam, we were naked and had dinner together, everyone was silent and fanatical Devouring each other's flesh.I left the three-story labyrinthine Turkish steam room and walked out into the street. It was already daylight outside, and the snow was blown wildly by the cold wind, and everything was white.I took the subway home and walked past the gate of Central Park. Suddenly, a group of dark shadows flashed out of the bushes and followed me closely.On normal summer nights, under the shade of the trees in Central Park, there are often crowds of people chasing each other there. In winter, sometimes there will be a few lonely ghosts left, wandering in the cold wind until dawn.That day, I was exhausted and numb all over, so I quickened my pace and walked to my house on Seventy-second Street.When I walked to the door of the apartment, the man who was following me chased after me, and shouted in a trembling voice: "Sir, do you have any change?"I'm hungry.I looked back and realized that it was a teenager.He was wrapped in a black wool overcoat with a cloak. The cloak covered his eyebrows, covering half of his face. He was hunched over and trembling.I told him I had hot cocoa upstairs, and he followed me up.Entering the room, he took off his overcoat, and he only wore a dark red shabby jumper under it, revealing his thin body.He has curly black hair that is piled fluffy on his eyebrows, a pair of surprisingly big black eyes, deeply embedded in his thin blue and white face, shining brightly.He looked about sixteen or seventeen, like a Puerto Rican kid.I made a cup of hot cocoa and served it to him, he took it, held up the cup with both hands, not afraid of the heat, drank it all in one gulp, and a trace of blood gradually appeared on his frozen pale face.He sat on the edge of my bed, looking at me with big eyes, expecting.I know what those children want, twenty yuan, thirty yuan, a week's food, a week's rent.I reached out and undressed him, and I wanted to send him away as soon as possible, so that he could sleep with his head covered.When I poked his chest with my fingertips, he suddenly let out a scream, I quickly retracted my hand, the child raised his head and smiled apologetically at me, but his brows were tightly knit , a pair of big eyes seemed to be throbbing with pain.He slowly took off his shirt, revealing his naked upper body.On his thin and bony chest, there were several scars imprinted horizontally and slantingly, each of which was the size of a finger, blue and blue, and red and red. At the intersection, there was a scar, the size of the mouth of a wine glass. It was pressing on his heart, and the wound was broken, inflamed, swollen, bright red, and dripping yellow slurry.The child told me that one night a few days ago, he was in the park and ran into a sadistic guy wearing a leather jacket and riding a motorcycle with clanging cupronickel keys hanging from his belt. He took him back and used a A long iron chain bound him and whipped him across the ground like a dog.It was tied too tightly and worn out. The child pointed to the scar on his chest the size of a wine glass, and there was an apologetic smile on the corner of his mouth. At that moment, at that moment, suddenly, I felt red in his heart. On the scar on his face, he saw the knife, the knife that was stuck in Ah Feng's chest.Ah Feng lay on the ground, covered in blood, looking at me the same way, his big eyes throbbing with pain, but the corner of his trembling mouth was also the same, with a helpless and apologetic smile.For many years, I completely lost my memory and lost consciousness.But at that moment, as if I had been touched by a high-voltage electricity, I was shocked suddenly, and there was a sharp pain in my heart, which made my eyes go black, and stars shot straight out.I grabbed the child's cold hands, held them in my palms, and rubbed them desperately.I knelt down in front of him, took off his dirty, wet and slush-covered boots, took his frozen and dirty feet, put them in my arms, and pressed my cheek against his instep , rubbing back and forth, stroking until his frozen feet were warm.The child was at a loss by me, and regardless of his objections, I carried him to the bed, took off his underwear, found a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, dipped it in cotton, and lightened the wound on his chest for him. Give him a light wash, then throw a thick blanket over him.I sat on the floor next to his head and watched him until he closed his eyes and fell asleep wearily.I stood up and walked to the window. In the central park diagonally opposite, the trees and the ground were covered with a layer of pure white snow. The sun had just risen, shining brightly and dazzlingly.I stood standing in front of the window, the blood all over my body was churning and burning, and the heat on my face was like a needle prick.The events of the past, scene by scene, are pieced together like a kaleidoscope.Raising my eyes suddenly, I caught a glimpse of a skeleton-like figure reflected in the window glass. It was the first time in many years that I saw myself

That child lived with me for more than three months.His name was Coles, and Coles was a Puerto Rican from San Juan, and his English was broken and full of Spanish.He told me that his family immigrated to New York three years ago, and his father was unwilling to bear the burden of the family, so he abandoned the house and left, and his mother went crazy like that, and was locked up in a municipal mental hospital.One day, we were walking by the East River, and Collus pointed out to me that a peninsula protruded from the opposite bank. At the tip of the peninsula, there was a red brick building surrounded by high barbed wire.My mother was shut in there.Gilles told me that he had been wandering on the streets of New York for more than a year, met a lot of strange people, and contracted a whole body of diseases, his genitals were covered with raised red spots , I took him to the hospital for treatment. He suffered from secondary syphilis and received many injections.His underwear was always stained with spots of yellow and turbid pus. When I changed it at night, I washed him clean with disinfectant.My single bed is small, we lie together at night, when I roll over, my elbow touches the wound on his chest, the pain always wakes him up from his sleep, so I make my bed out To sleep for him, I lay on the floor under his bed, in the dark, I could hear his snort evenly sleeping.For more than three months, I fed him eggs, milk, and strawberry ice cream every day. Gelushi is skinny, but his appetite is surprisingly large. He can eat a small bucket of ice cream every day. His cheeks gradually plump up, and the iron chains on his chest The trauma from the hoop also slowly healed, forming bright red scars.One day, Gilles told me he was going to visit his mother, but he never came back

However, Ah Qing, Gelushi is missing, but on those chessboard-like streets in Manhattan, New York, there are thousands of children like Gelushi, wandering day and night, day and night , fleeing, contracting disease, being dismembered in the park.So many, so many, come and go, from every big city and small town in the United States.Sometimes in the bushes of Central Park, sometimes in the toilets of underground stations, sometimes under the neon lights of Forty-second Street, I would suddenly see a pair of big twinkling eyes, those were Ah Feng’s eyes, painful Gotta jump in the big eyes.So I couldn't help reaching out to touch the child's cheek and asking him: Are you hungry?Once I took a thirteen or fourteen-year-old Jewish kid home in the middle of the night and he was curled up on a bench on the sidewalk outside the park and fell asleep.I let him sleep on my bed, but before dawn, he got up and rummaged through my things.I didn't make a sound, watching him take my wallet out of my trouser pocket and take away my pair of sunglasses.Another time, I brought home an Italian kid who was shaking with hunger. After I cooked pasta for him, he whipped out a switchblade and forced me to ask for money. I ran out of cash that day. up.He thought I was lying, and became furious. He stabbed me in the chest with a knife, but missed the point.I fell to the ground and didn't call for help, blood seeping out of my jacket.I could hear my own blood drop by drop on the floor, and gradually passed out.The next day, the landlady called an ambulance and took me to the hospital, where I stayed for a week and received a blood transfusion of 2,000 cc.Although my body is very weak, my senses are strangely sensitive, terribly sensitive, as if all the nerve endings are stretched, and it hurts when touched.On the day I was discharged from the hospital, it was a Sunday afternoon. When I walked out of the hospital, near the park on Eighty-third Street, there was an old black man sitting against the wall, a blind beggar with gray hair, blinking a pair of glaucoma, playing a broken accordion .The winter setting sun illuminated his wrinkled brow and blurred face red.The old black person was playing a black person ballad: .The sound of the accordion trembled in the cold evening wind.With the setting sun behind my back, I walked in my own shadow, and suddenly a strong desire surged in my heart: I want to go home, to Taipei, to the new park, to the lotus pond again.But I have to wait two years, two years later, my father passed away

Long Zi's gurgling voice suddenly stopped abruptly, as if it had dried up.The dark red moon outside the window was slowly sinking onto the fat banana leaves, and the summer insects in the yard were still calling out tremblingly with a short cry and a long cry.My eyes were so sore that I couldn't open them, and I covered them up. When I woke up, there was already a blue dawn outside the screen window.It was difficult for me to breathe, and it seemed that there was a heavy iron pillar on my chest. It was Wang Kuilong's rake-like arm, lying squarely on my heart. What color shirt do you like?Ah Qing?When Wang Kuilong brought me back, he asked me.

Blue, I said. Tomorrow we will go to Ximending to buy one for you. He hangs the shirt I took off on the back of the door. There is a big hole in my right elbow. Wang Kuilong asked me to move to live with him in his father's old house on Nanjing East Road. Give me another chance, let me take care of you. He begged me faintly in the dark, he said how could I have such eyes, eyes that throbbed with pain, he found it in the park the first night, he stretched out his thin The big and sharp hands are constantly combing and raking my hair.Leaving home for more than three months, during the wandering days without a meal, day and night turned upside down, there were several times when I suddenly woke up in the middle of the night, sometimes in a dirty hotel at the back station, sometimes in a hotel in Wanhua. There was a stranger’s bed in the dirty and hot attic. Once, I fell down on the steps in front of the museum in the park. The moment I woke up, I really longed for a long-term residence, but someone wanted When they took me in, I slipped away again with an excuse.I had only debuted in the park for a week, and then I met a kind-hearted man, a middle-aged man named Yan.He is the manager of Ximending Silver Carriage.He introduced me to the silver carriage as a younger brother, and took me in to his apartment on Jinhua Street.He told me that there is still salvation when I get out, but I will be lost forever if I sink.I put on the white and clean uniform of the silver carriage, carried coffee, black tea, sour plum soup, and mango ice cream, and spent ten hours non-stop circling among those guests who came to Ximending to watch movies and buy things.On the fourth night, I quietly took off my uniform in the toilet, changed into my own clothes, and slipped out through the back door while no one was looking.I ran straight from Zhonghua Road towards Xiaonanmen, faster and faster, back into the park in one breath, and jumped onto the steps beside the lotus pond.I suddenly had the idea of ​​running away, to escape from the old mansion of Wang Kuilong's father.Some time ago in Xinnanyang, I saw an American western film "The Two Owls in the Black Canyon", which was about the two brothers who fell into the grass-infested canyon, played by Henry Fonda.The two committed robbery all their lives, and were finally chased by officers and soldiers. The elder brother fell into the quicksand, and the younger brother reached out to save them, and they were dragged into the mud together. The two dragged each other, and slowly sank, until only four remained. Hands stretch out outside the quicksand, desperately grasping.I gently removed Long Zi's arm from my chest, his rake-like arm was pressing on my heart, it was so heavy, it sank straight down, I felt like the one stretched out by the robber brother in the black canyon It's like eager and desperate hands, as if they want to drag me into quicksand.I quietly got out of bed, put on my ripped shirt, and went out.The iron gate outside was locked, the iron gate was very high, and a three-foot-long black iron halberd protruded from the gate.It took me a lot of effort to jump out, and my calf was bleeding.