Pow! (39 page)

The workers lined up their charges in two rows at the door, an impressive column of forty head of cattle. I've never been someone to shout his successes from the rooftops but watching my vision being transformed into a reality was a proud moment indeed. The first man up was Yao Qi, which only made me prouder, as I recalled how he'd brought my father that bottle of fake Maotai, which Mother had then given to Lao Lan. He'd also said filthy things about Aunty Wild Mule, including that he'd like to take her to bed. A perfect example of ‘Ugly toad wanting to eat swan meat’. I had no reason to treat a bum like him with kid gloves. I was hostile to anyone who slandered Aunty Wild Mule. Joining as an ordinary worker at the meatpacking plant—was it a sign of a wise Yao Qi toeing the line? Or was it more a case of enduring hardships in order to seek revenge? This could be a problem, I thought to myself. But not Lao Lan, who stood in front of me. He nodded to Yao Qi and smiled. Yao Qi smiled back. The nods and smiles hinted at a unique relationship between the two men. Lao Lan was a broad-minded man, and someone like that cannot be taken lightly. Yao Qi was a man who could demean himself in front of others. Someone like that cannot be taken lightly either.

Yao Qi was holding the leads of two brown Luxi cows, the best-looking animals in the pens. I'd been present when they were sold to us. Father's eyes had lit up as he circled them, examining them carefully, and I could imagine how the legendary Bo-le must have felt when he discovered a fine steed…‘Too bad,’ Father sighed, ‘what a pity.’ ‘Lao Luo, you can stop the phony dramatics,’ the cattle merchant snickered. ‘Do you want them or don't you? If not, I'll take them back with me.’ ‘No one's stopping you,’ replied Father.
‘Go ahead, take them.’ The cattle merchant gave an embarrassed little laugh: ‘We're old friends. If the goods die at the wharf, that's where they stay. You and I will be doing more business in the future…’

Yao Qi wore a pompous smile as he stood at the head of the line with the two handsome cows and I must say I was impressed. To be at the head of the queue he must have raced to the cow pens, forced halters onto the two most powerful animals and then walked them over, no easy task for someone that fat. That he had beat all those younger and stronger men to the first spot was testimony to the power of a man's will. The Luxi cows’ eyes were clear and bright and their muscles rippled beneath their satiny hides. They were in their prime, at an age when they could pull a plough with speed and power—a glance at their shoulders was proof enough. The West County cattle merchants were cattle thieves, part of an organized gang that stole cattle for others to sell. They had a special arrangement with the train station that promised a worry-free delivery of stolen cattle to our village. But things had begun to change. The cattle we bought from West County for the plant came not in cattle cars but in trucks, long semis covered with green tarps, gigantic, intimidating vehicles that could have been transporting anything, even military hardware. The animals emerged from the trucks on such unsteady legs you'd think they were drunk. The merchants were pretty unsteady too, and they were most certainly drunk.

Yao Qi entered the station with his Luxi cows, followed by Cheng Tianle, a one-time independent, conservative pig butcher. In the 1960s, butchers in our village began to skin the pigs they slaughtered because the hides were worth more, pound for pound, than the pork—they could be turned into fine leather. Cheng Tianle was the only one who refused to do so. He kept an oversized cook pot in his kill room, covered by a thick plank; the sides of the pot and the plank were covered with pig bristles removed the old-fashioned way. He'd cut a hole in one of the rear legs and open several passages with a metal rod, then put his mouth up to the hole and blow, puffing the carcass up like a balloon and creating a space between the hide and the flesh. Then he'd pour hot water over the skin causing the bristles to simply fall off. This method produced the best-looking meat; it was sold still enclosed in its shiny skin and looked so much more appealing than stripped pork. Blessed with
powerful lungs, Cheng Tianle could inflate a whole pig with a single breath. His meat was popular with those who enjoyed the crunchy texture and appreciated the high nutritional value. But now, here he was, a man uniquely skilled to produce fine, crunchy meat by blowing air under the hide, looking as mournful as can be, leading two head of cattle into the building. It was as sad as putting a master shoemaker on a shoe assembly line. I'd always had a soft spot for him, a good and decent man who remained true to his ways. Unlike so many craftsmen who liked to show off in front of the young, Cheng Tianle, a modest man, treated me with kindness; he greeted me warmly whenever I dropped by in the old days and sometimes even asked if there was news of my father. ‘Xiaotong,’ he'd say, ‘your father is an upright man.’ And when I went to buy his bristles (I resold them to make brushes), he'd say: ‘You don't have to pay for those, just take them.’ Once he even gave me a cigarette. He never treated me like a child but always with respect. And I intended to repay his kindness within the limits of my authority.

Cheng Tianle led a big black local animal—it had a sagging belly that swayed from side to side, like a sack of ammonia. It was long past its working age, and either its owner or a merchant who specialized in old animals had fattened it up with hormone-laced feed. No good meat with high nutritional value could come from that. But the taste buds of the city-dwellers had deteriorated to such a point that they could no longer distinguish good meat from bad. There was no sense in giving them high-quality meat—it was wasted on their inferior palates. They were easy marks too. If we told them that the meat of a chemically fattened animal came from one raised on grazing land, with an abundance of spring water, they'd smack their lips and say how good it tasted. I had to agree with Lao Lan, who had nothing good to say about the city-dwellers; he said they were evil and stupid, and that gave us the right to feed them as full of lies as we wanted. We weren't happy about that; but they didn't want to hear the truth and were prepared to take us to court if we so much as tried.

The second animal Cheng Tianle led up was a milch cow with a spotted belly, also well up in years. Since it was too old to produce milk, the dairy owner had sold it as a beef cow. Beef from a milch cow is as poor as pork from a breeding sow—tasteless and pulpy. The sight of those loose, dried-up teats
saddened me. An old milch cow and an old draft cow, two animals that had served man and served him well. They should have been put out to pasture to live out their lives and then been properly buried, with a marker if possible, perhaps even a headstone.

There's no need for me to describe all the animals that followed. During my tenure, thousands of cows made their death march through the meat-cleansing building, and I remember each of them, body and face. As if a set of drawers in my head contains each of their photographs. They are drawers I don't like to open.

The men knew the drill. So after leading the animals into the enclosures, they barricaded them in, with steel rods in the rear, to keep them from backing out during the treatment. If we'd set up a trough in front of the cages, our meat-cleansing station would have looked like a bright, spacious feed building. But there were no troughs in front of these animals, and they were not there to feed. I doubt that many of them knew what lay in store—most were blithely ignorant of their imminent death (which is why they stopped to graze before entering a slaughterhouse). It was time to inject the water, so I reminded the men to keep at their jobs. To dispel any misgivings, I reminded them that we were cleaning the animals’ inner organs—not pumping them full of water.

The workers began by inserting rubber hoses up the animals’ noses, down through their throats and into their stomachs. The animals could shake and twist their heads as much as they wanted but the hoses stayed in place. The job required two men, one to raise the animal's head and the second to insert the hose. Some of the animals reacted violently to the invasion, others remained docile. But all resistance ceased once the hose was in—perhaps they finally realized it was too late. Hoses inserted, the men stood in front of the cows and awaited my order.

‘Start the water,’ I said, unemotionally.

The taps were turned on. Two hundred and fifty, give or take ten, gallons over twelve hours.

The system still had a few defects, as we discovered that first day. Some of the cows collapsed after taking in water for hours, others had coughing fits and vomited. But, whatever the problem, I always found a solution. To
keep the animals from collapsing, I had the men insert a frame of steel rods under their bellies. And to keep them from vomiting, I had the men cover their eyes with a black cloth.

The cows released a watery mess from their rear ends during the entire process. ‘Look!’ I said proudly to the men, ‘That's what this is all about. Our water is cleaning the filth inside them. Every cell in their bodies is being washed. Now you see why I said that we're not filling them with water—we're cleansing their internal organs. Filling them with water ruins the meat but what we're doing improves it. Even meat from sick and ageing cows will be tender and nutritious after such a thorough cleansing.’

Finally, they were happy. I'd won them over. I'd taken the first major step in establishing my authority.

The animals were to be taken to the kill room once the cleansing was complete. But the long hours spent standing in the cages caused their legs to buckle after only a few steps and then they collapsed like bulldozed walls. There was no way in which they were going to be able to get back on their feet. The first time that happened, I asked four men to lift the animal off the floor. They struggled until they were gasping for breath and sweating profusely but the animal hadn't budged an inch. It just lay there, panting, its eyes rolled back in its head and water shooting out of its mouth and nose. I called over four more men, then stood behind them and shouted: ‘One, two, three—lift!’ They bent, arses raised and lifted with all their might. The cow was finally upright. It took a few unsteady steps and promptly fell down again.

I was embarrassed—this was not something I had anticipated. The workers began to smirk again. But Father came to my rescue. He told the men to go into the kill room and bring back some of the logs. Once they were laid out on the floor, he sent a man to get some rope, which was then tied round the animal's horns and legs. One lot of men were ordered to pull while two of the strongest were ordered to use a level on the animal's rump and push with all their might. As the animal moved forward, those who were fast on their feet picked up the logs that had been passed over and then placed them up at the front. And so, with this primitive method, we rolled the cow straight into the kill room.

I fell into a funk.

‘Don't let it get to you, youngster,’ Lao Lan said, trying to make me feel better. ‘You did fine. What happened after the water-injection—no, I mean, the meat-cleansing—wasn't supposed to be your responsibility. So let's figure this out together. We need to come up with a simple, convenient means of transporting water-treated cows into the kill room.’

‘Lao Lan,’ I said, ‘give me half a day.’

He glanced at my parents. ‘Xiaotong's afraid we'll steal his thunder.’

I shook my head. ‘I'm not worried about who steals who's thunder. I need to prove myself.’

‘All right,’ Lao Lan said, ‘I trust you. Come up with a bold idea, and don't worry about the expense.’

Accompanied by his staff, the lieutenant governor walks to the street and climbs into his Audi A6. With a police car leading the way and a caravan of a dozen or so Red Flags and VW Santanas, he speeds away to attend a banquet filled with imagination. As they leave the temple grounds, the worker suffering from toothache runs over to the outer wall. Retrieving Mayor Hu's hairpiece, he claps it onto his head. The change is startling. ‘I'll never be a mayor,’ he says, ‘but this makes me look like one.’ ‘More like a hapless fool, if you ask me,’ his short co-worker mocks. ‘The more hapless the official,’ the first fellow says confidently, ‘the better off the people. Now, is getting hold of a stinking rug any cause to be so pleased with yourself?’ With that, the short one reaches under his jacket and—presto change-o—brings out a fine black satchel. ‘Look what I've got!’ he says, waving it proudly. He unzips it and then empties it of its contents, one object at a time. First out are a little red notebook and a brand-name gold pen. Next, a cellphone, and then a white vial. Finally, two expensive condoms. The worker unstops the vial and shakes out some light blue, diamond-shaped pills. ‘What's this?’ he wonders aloud. The fellow who's stayed out of the conversation thus far, a young man with the look of a rural schoolteacher, sneers. ‘Those are one of the two magic items all venal officials never leave home without. They're called Viagra.’ ‘What's Viagra?’ The young fellow smiles. ‘Selling Viagra in front of the Wutong Temple is as foolish as reading the Three Character Classic in front of a Confucius Temple.’ ‘Big Brother Lan,’ a bald fellow says conspiratorially as he hands a small white vial to Lan Laoda, ‘this is something I brought back from the US as a humble gift for you.’ Lan Laoda takes the vial. ‘What is it?’ ‘It's more effective than any Indian Magic Oil or Thai Invigorates,’ the bald fellow replies. ‘A golden spear never tips over, they say.’ ‘What am I supposed to do with something like this?’ Lan Laoda says as he throws the vial to the ground. ‘I can go non-stop for two hours,’ he boasts. ‘Go home and ask that sister-in-law of yours how many times she came. I can make a stone maiden go wet.’ ‘Big Brother Lan is an
immortal,’ pipes up a red-faced man, ‘who does as he pleases, comes and goes at will, the last man who needs something like that.’ The bald fellow picks up the vial and tucks it away. ‘If you really don't want it, Big Brother,’ he says, ‘I'll put it to good use.’ ‘Take it easy, Baldy,’ warns the red-faced man. ‘Too much of that can make you nearsighted.’ Baldy doesn't miss a beat. ‘Nearsighted? I don't care if they made me blind.’ A desk clock in the corner chimes two, and a pale-faced woman comes into the main room followed by a trio of tall young women. ‘They're here, Mr Lan,’ she says softly. The young women, faces devoid of expression, follow their leader into the bedroom. ‘Showtime,’ announces Lan Laoda. ‘Anyone want to watch?’ ‘Who wouldn't want to watch the finest show in town?’ laughs Baldy. ‘You're all welcome,’ says Lao Lan, also laughing, ‘no tickets necessary.’ Then he steps into the bedroom and, in a matter of minutes, come the sound of flesh pounding flesh and a woman's moans. Baldy tiptoes to the bedroom door and peeks inside. ‘That isn't a man in there,’ he says to the red-faced fellow, ‘that's the legendary Wutong Spirit
!’