Colors of the Mountain (38 page)

The four of them touched me with their greasy hands before leaving. Sen whispered to me, “Work hard, college man. Make us proud.”

I carried the empty basket home, feeling like a fugitive myself. My friends had vanished into the darkness. All I could hear was the clanking of the old bike.

THE FIRST DAY
back from New Year’s break, Dia sported a brand-new, army green Mao jacket. One of the pockets was already missing a button. He stood outside our door and looked as dopey as a new bridegroom.

“Hey, happy New Year, and how the hell did you make the girl marry you?” I faked a frown and crossed my arms across my chest.

Dia rubbed his reddened face. “This thing?” His hands smoothed the wrinkles on his jacket. “Mom made it for my elder brother and the stupid guy washed it in boiling water. It shrunk two sizes. Now, I gotta wear it. I took the button off to look more casual.”

I studied him a few seconds, prolonging his agony. “You look really stupid, but I love you, pal. Why didn’t you come out for a visit or something?”

“I was too busy. Mom wanted me to go to the temple with her to beg for luck with the college entrance exam. You know what I told her?”

“What? Something witty?”

“Yeah, I thought it was hilarious. I said that to get me into college, a decent one, Buddha himself would have to do the exam for me.”

I thought about the thousands of kowtows that I had done to beg for Buddha’s grace and felt a mild temptation to kick Dia’s ass for insulting my good old Buddha.

He slapped my shoulder and shouted, “What, you don’t think it was
funny? My dad still can’t get over it. He’s probably somewhere telling it to the villagers and smoking his huge pipe. Oh, and I went to a smoking contest.”

“Did you win?”

“Did I win?”

“Sorry. Did you win big?”

“I didn’t win.” He seemed disgusted at my poor judgment.

“Sorry, again. So who won then?”

“Who do you think won? Grandpa!”

“Grandpa?”

“It was amazing,” Dia said, warming to the tale. “Grandpa walked into this smoky, hazy spot, the oldest contestant. You know, a little wobbly. I sat at his side, sorta supporting him. The young, aggressive guys laughed at his shaky frame, but soon they began to fall outta the contest. Smoked out! Ha, ha, ha. Couldn’t take it. Grandpa just went on and on with his pipe like a busy chimney. His eyes were smiling, and I kept pouring him hard liquor to quench his thirst. In the end, he won first prize, a whole year’s supply of matches for him to burn.”

“Hell of a story, Dia. I think you should take him to the smoking Olympics every single year. Even when he’s blind and in a wheelchair, he’ll beat the hell out of those young craps.” I shook my head, swung my bag over my shoulder, and we were on our way to school.

“Well, Dad is a little concerned. He said smoking like that, Grandpa might die an Olympian during the contest one of these days.”

“I don’t think that’ll ever happen to any Dia man. You guys just wheeze a lot but never perish.”

“That’s the Dia men, you got it.” Dia patted his own chest with pride. “Hell, come to think of it, if he croaks, it would be another record to add to his long and glorious smoking life. To die smoking. Wouldn’t that be something to put on your tombstone?”

“Shut up, you.”

We chose the narrow path between two green wheat fields, still wet from the melting frost. The morning sun gleamed through the fog. The trees, road, and endless fields looked like an Impressionist painting, fuzzy.

“I feel ashamed walking beside you, you know,” Dia suddenly said.

“Why?”

“I heard that you locked yourself up in your room and banged your fucking head against the wall studying, and that you didn’t even take New Year’s Day off. You didn’t, did you, you son-of-a-gun?”

“That was pure rumor. I had a great time this holiday.”

“Not true. I have my source.”

“I wouldn’t rely on it entirely,” I teased him.

“Wait.” Dia ran in front of me. “I heard something you might wanna hear.”

“What?”

“About your friends.”

“What about them?”

“You haven’t heard anything?”

“No, I haven’t heard from them since they skipped town on New Year’s.”

“Don’t pull my leg.” Dia stopped me in the middle of the narrow road. His small eyes seemed to dangle from the midst of his sockets, radiating sincerity.

“I swear to Buddha,” I said. “Tell me what you heard.”

“Okay, here’s a clue. Money.”

“Money? What money are you talking about?” My heart sank. Even Dia knew about their fortune.

“You sure you don’t know anything about this? Okay, the rumor out there had it that Siang stole about a thousand yuan from the commune’s shoe factory his father runs. That’s why he’s been hiding out with his friends.”

The news hit me like a fist. Siang, a thief? On the run? I recalled the glee on my friends’ faces on New Year’s Day. They were so full of joy. That one thousand yuan had to have been money they’d won honestly. Siang wouldn’t steal. My sworn friends wouldn’t lie to me about where they had gotten the fortune. It hadn’t been in their eyes. There had been no fear. It was money that had come from courage, bravery, and their ability to take a calculated risk at the gambling table.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Dia asked.

“No, I don’t. They told me a different story.”

“What? They told you about the money?”

I realized my slip of the tongue. “Forget it, Dia. We didn’t have this conversation, okay?”

“Hey, slow down. I’m your best friend. Trust me. The commune is investigating the whole thing now and they can’t prove whether Siang really has the money that he was accused of stealing.”

Holy shit, I could have given the truth away. I was glad I was only talking to Dia, someone in whom I could confide my darkest secrets. “What else did you hear?”

“That he stole the money to gamble, but there’s another rumor that the shoe factory’s one thousand yuan might have been stolen by its bookkeeper or someone from the inside. Someone knew that Siang was in possession of a fortune and framed him. He was easy pickings. You know he hangs around the shoe factory and is good friends with the treasurer.”

My heart sank deeper. There was a scheme out there to frame and ruin Siang and his friends, and possibly me.

“Did you hear anything about me being involved in any way?”

“No, everyone knows you’re a born-again good guy who was recently honored with the Young Communist League title in school. You’ve been making quite a name as being a top contender for college.”

“How does your small village know so much about the things happening here?”

“My neighbor, the baldy. Remember, I told you about him. He’s the head of the commune’s militia command. He was drunk last night, boasting to my dad. I got the whole scoop. He’s heading the investigation.”

“What’s he doing now?”

“Nothing concerning you,” he told me. “Relax.”

I had never felt so relieved. I prayed a quiet thank-you to Buddha that I hadn’t followed them to the fields to gamble on New Year’s Day. I could have easily been implicated. Buddha had been watching over me.

A dark shadow clouded my mood. My friends were in trouble. I should do something about it, but I didn’t have a clue about what. I truly believed that they had gone to Putien and cleaned Yi’s colleagues out. They were self-made, rich men, unjustly put on a short list of suspects. It would have been easy. They were social outcasts. Someone had probably known about their money, swiped the cash from the shoe factory, and laid the crime on them, just in time to get away clean. The
whole town would believe it was Siang, of course. It was the holidays, gambling time, and he just happened to be back in town on the day the crime occurred. He probably went to see his dad at work and someone saw him and heard about the money they had won in Putien. Bingo. What better motive, what better timing!

“Wake up and have a thick one.” Dia stirred me from my troubled world and passed me a made-by-Dia stogie, the very thing needed to calm me down. I took the lifeline and inhaled a mouthful of dark blue smoke into my lungs. The nicotine made my blood race a little.

“I have to do something about it,” I murmured.

“No you don’t, pal. Don’t look for trouble.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Sit on your skinny ass and hit the books. Remember, you don’t know nothing.” Dia stared at me, sending a message with his eyes.

I swallowed my fear with the bitter smoke. “I know nothing,” I repeated a few times. It made me feel safe.

Dia was a street-smart, disillusioned, lazy guy. But he was loyal to his bones. In my book, that one virtue covered all his sins. He was a hero and a buddy to me, but he also annoyed the heck out of me. I grabbed his hair and roughed it up. He reached out and tousled mine, then we chased each other up the steep stairs of the school.

I heard Dia’s lungs wheeze with each step he took. He had to slow down a few times to catch his breath. I stopped and looked at him with sympathy. The pride of being a Dia man, smoking and wheezing, and living a long life. It was such a stupid belief. He would probably die young.

Inside the school, the Head walked by us with his nose up in the air. He sported a new jacket, as well as a new hat for his formidable pate. He hurried by, sneering and ignoring us as if we were a couple of stinking bugs he wouldn’t mind stepping on and grinding to death.

“That guy annoys the heck out of me,” I said to Dia.

“My feeling, exactly. Watch this.” Dia cleared his throat and shouted, “Hey, Head, there’s bird droppings on your new hat.”

The Head stopped without turning around. He knew where the voice came from. He thought for a second, then took off his new wool hat and checked the top quickly.

“Oops, I lied.” Dia laughed.

“You little rat.” The Head was angry. He rolled up his sleeves and walked up to Dia, who stood his ground.

I inserted myself between them and said, “There’s no reason to get angry here. Dia just wanted to see your head, that’s all. It’s a joke. Can’t you take a joke, big boy?”

“I can take a joke, but not from you two losers.” The Head gritted his teeth.

“Hey, watch your mouth.” I felt like shaking the guy. From the corner of my eye I saw Dia reaching into his bag, ready to do some serious damage to the self-acclaimed top intellectual of Yellow Stone High. I quickly put my hand on his arm.

“Why are you wasting your time in school? You guys belong in the fields. There’s no future for you two in school.”

“Says who? You?” I stepped closer.

“Says everyone. Haven’t you heard? Liberal arts is just a dumping ground for waste like you guys. Don’t think a few good scores will get you into college. No way.”

My anger was reaching its peak. You could insult my looks, my character, and my honor, but no one was allowed to tear apart my dream. I pulled back my right arm, ready to shove my fist down his throat. This time Dia dragged me back.

“Hey, Head, let me tell you something. This man”—Dia pointed at me—“is gonna be an English major at a top college in Beijing, while you, the engineering major, will end up in a corner of this freezing country, spending your miserable life sawing lumber in the snow. And you’re gonna get so lonely, you’re gonna start thinking about fucking a sheep while this man will be the translator for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, touring the beautiful western world. Wake up, Head, and think.”

My anger subsided at Dia’s rousing speech.

“In your dreams.” The Head put back his hat and walked off proudly.

We looked at each other and laughed. There was a reason why we liked each other. We worked well together, unrehearsed.

“How did you come up with crap like that?” I asked Dia.

“Well, that’s what I think is gonna happen to you, man. Don’t disappoint me. Work your bony ass off if you have to and do honor to our friendship. I have high hopes for you and low expectations for that creep. I don’t get it. How can such a big head be so stupid? I think the best thing for him to do would be to hand over his head to some scientist, who can study it and find out what’s wrong with it. That would be his biggest contribution to science.”

We had another good laugh.

“You know the way you reason and talk really impresses me sometimes. I think you could do well if you worked hard with me. You’re just too lazy and negative.”

“Thanks for encouraging me, pal. That’s why I like you, for thinking well of me when everyone else trashes me as if I’m a dog or something.”

“Hey, no problem. But think about what I said, okay?”

“I will.”

We slipped into our classrooms after promising to see each other at first break. Good friends were like family on the first school day.

The classroom was half full when I came in. There were some changes. The broken windows were fixed and the wall was repainted with rough white paint. There was a large slogan about studying hard, a quote from the dead Chairman Mao. Students buried their heads in their books. Some stuck their heads out of the window and puffed their tobacco rolls. There was a sense of seriousness that hadn’t been there before. A fellow was actually reading an English lesson out loud. Only a year ago, his teeth would have been knocked out for doing that. I sat in my old seat, in the corner of the last row. The corner was no longer for the convenience of jumping out the window whenever I felt like it. It was an island. It felt safe here; I could survey everything and everyone, yet no one could see me.