Isham Cook's Blog: Isham Cook, page 6

The Kitchens of Canton, a novel. Ch. 19: New Gary

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Ganja haze hung in the air and Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy blared on the stereo when the buzzer rang. Delilah turned the music down. Gunther entered with a strange woman. “Leroy dropped her off. He said to take care of her.”

“Hoc est lupanar?” the woman asked.

“Who is she?”

The woman walked around the room as if looking for something. She went up to the stereo and pointed to the speakers. “Ubi musici?” she asked, peeking around and behind the speakers.

“What’s she doing?” asked Gunther.

“I don’t know.”

The woman then noticed the spinning record on the turntable and grabbed the tone arm, making a blood-curdling scratch.

“Oh, fuck, you just ruined my record!”

She looked up at them in confusion, the tone arm still in her fist. “Ubi musici?”

“What’s the matter with her? Is she retarded?”

Delilah pulled her away from the stereo and sat her down on the bed. “Who are you?”

“Quis es tu?” Pointing to Gunther, she asked, “Ille aquariolus est?”

“What’s that, Spanish?”

“She doesn’t look Mexican,” said Gunther.

“Do you know any Spanish?”

“Not much. I hate Spanish class.”

“You must know something. Can you ask her where she comes from?”

“Donde something—oh, yeah, donde es? I think. Donde es?”

“Non intelligitis,” the woman said.

“Are you a pedophile?”

“Quid est?”

“Pedophile. You know, child molester.”

“Obviously, she doesn’t understand, Delilah.”

“Pedo—?”

“Pedo. Phile.”

“Ohe! Pedo?” she said, embarrassed, pointing to her buttocks.

“Well, that’s one way they do it.”

She pointed to Delilah. “Pedere te amo?”

“No, I am not a pedophile. I mean I’m not into that.”

“Quid me rogas?”

“What’s that in Spanish?”

“I don’t think it’s Spanish.”

“Pedere,” the woman reiterated, pointing again to her buttocks.

“Oh, gross, she farted,” said Gunther. “Stand back!”

Delilah laughed. “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere.”

The woman pointed to her stomach. “Esurio.”

“You’re hungry?”

A bowl of tortilla chips and salsa was fetched. She took one in her fingertips, crunched into it and chewed it slowly with a scowl.

“Well, now we know she’s not Mexican,” said Gunther.

“Hey, do you think she’s Jeff’s friend? Maybe he met her in that fake Ancient Rome in China with all the Italian slaves and she somehow got teleported here. Is she speaking Italian?”

“Doesn’t sound like Italian either.”

“I wonder where he is.”

“Perhaps he’ll show up later.”

“Ask her if she knows Jeff.”

“I can’t remember how to say that in Spanish.”

Delilah stood up and mimed a much taller version of Gunther. “Do you know Jeff? He was also wearing a tunic just like you’re wearing.”

“Yef? Est adhuc in carcere,” she said.

Gunther passed her the burning joint.

“Quid est hoc?”

Imitating Gunther, she took a toke and coughed it right back out. Delilah turned the music back up. The woman stared around nervously. She pointed to Delilah’s macramé lantern hanging from the ceiling. “Quod est lucerna? Ubi flamma est?”

“It’s my lamp.”

“You were there in that fake Rome. Don’t they have modern technology?” said Gunther.

“They do.”

“Let’s go get something to eat. I’m hungry too. Maybe she can find something she likes there.”

When they arrived at the cafeteria, Deshondra confronted them. “Ain’t she the one in the toilet stall with that whitey wear the dress?”

“Yeah, what she doing back here?” said Akeeshea.

“Leroy dropped her off at my place and we don’t know who she is.”

“We don’t neither. All we know is she can’t speak English and your old honky friend was caught with her in the ladies room.”

“Jeff Malmquist?”

“Yep, that’s the one.”

“Where is he?”

“They both got hauled off to the station.”

“That’s what she was trying to explain,” said Gunther.

“Then we’d better get back to my place right after lunch in case he’s released.”

They brought their food to the table. The woman had examined all the offerings and on her tray were servings of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, fish, bread rolls, pickles, grated cheese, and honey. Tasting the gravy, she wrinkled her brows and asked, “Garum non est?” Receiving no response, she mashed up the fish with a spoon, stirred the gravy into it with added salt and spread the mixture on the bread. Then she chopped up the pickles into tiny bits and mixed it with the cheese and honey into the mashed potatoes. She ate that with the spoon in one hand, while spearing the leg of chicken with a knife and eating it directly off the knife in the other. Delilah and Gunther stared.

Malmquist was waiting outside Delilah’s building when they got back. “Hurry up, man, I can’t stand out here forever in this tunic. I’m getting suspicious stares. How’s Attica doing now? Has she calmed down?”

“Who is she?” asked Delilah.

“She’s from Rome.”

“That’s what we thought. But it doesn’t sound like Italian she’s speaking.”

“No. Ancient Rome. As in 2,000 years ago. She speaks Latin.”

“Holy shit.”

“Do you have any idea of the hassle we got ourselves into?” said Malmquist once they were inside. “We were teleported to your good old ladies room in the cafeteria where you yourself disappeared. We found ourselves inside a toilet stall with a female customer in it! She freaked and we next found ourselves in the slammer. Luckily Inspector Melynchuk was there to come to our rescue. Then Attica threw a shit storm when they locked in her a cell. She took her tunic off, rolled it up and whipped the guards with it when they opened the door. Of course, she had no idea what was going on and nobody could explain. They didn’t know what to do with her because she doesn’t have a chip in her and her origin is unknown. So they let her go. But I had to get pulled through a bunch of paperwork before I got out due to the ladies room incident.”

“Why did you bring her here anyway?”

“I’ll get to that. Let me lay out what I need you to do first. I was detained in Chicago in the future, the year 2115, a suspect in your disappearance—”

“What?”

“Just trust what I’m saying for now. We can’t find you anywhere. I escaped from there and am reluctant to go back again until you’re found.”

“But I’m right here.”

“Your 72-year old self. I want you to go there and try to locate yourself. Using Attica’s tunic I’m going to try to send you there, I mean here, on the assumption you’re still in New Gary 55 years from now. Can you give her something to wear? You have to put on the tunic you’re now wearing on top of that tunic and then we write ‘New Gary’ on it. But wait. That won’t get us very far. The Chinese have taken over by then. We have to write it Chinese. Shit. How do I do that?”

“Maybe someone at the police station knows?”

“Oh, yeah, that android cop, what’s his name, might. He said he couldn’t recognize Attica’s language in his ‘database.’”

Malmquist wrote the following on his tunic: “MELYNCHUK, WHAT’S NEW GARY IN CHINESE? ASK THE ANDROID.”

“When you arrive,” he continued, “check your apartment here and the cafeteria and the police station. Ask around if necessary. Oh, right, you can’t. They’ll all be speaking Cantonese. Anyway do your best. If you find yourself, great. You’re then going to take her up to Chicago to see a female cop named Wingyee. You’re going to go there anyway even if you don’t manage to find yourself. There’s a restaurant called the Heartland Café way up in the north part of the city. Look for an old man named Cornelius who’s a regular there. He always goes naked and has a huge rainbow-tattooed cock he likes to show off, and a parrot on his shoulder. He speaks English and knows Wingyee.”

“How do I find this place?”

“I’ll draw you a map. Now, if you do find your 72-year old self, you’re all set and I can go back there no longer a suspect. But if you don’t, I have another idea. I want you to convince Wingyee to go with you to Chinese Rome. That’s the only other place I can think of where you might be hiding. She’s eager to find you as well, so it shouldn’t be too hard to convince her. You’ll need to pick up one of these travel tunics at the Heartland Café gift shop. They’re free. She puts that on and you hold hands as she writes the words for ‘New Rome’ in Chinese on your tunic, just like what we’re going to do now to send you to the future.”

“What do I do if we still can’t find her?”

“You come back. I want you to keep me updated by sending me messages on your tunic. I hope you can do this fast. I’m stuck here with Attica in the meantime. I’m planning to take her to New Rome—the New Rome you’ve already been to—but can’t do that until you’re back with her travel tunic, so she can use it again.”

“It sounds so complicated. Why didn’t you take her there first before coming here?”

“I’m a suspect there as well. I got this new tunic soaked in that powerful hallucinogen again and they want it. They’ll take the tunic away and I don’t know if I’ll be to get another one if they confine or arrest me. Then I’m fucked. So when I finally go back there with Attica, I want all my other business taken care of and out of the way. I also want Wingyee to go with me for my protection, and that can’t happen until we solve your missing person problem.”

“Hold on a sec,” said Delilah. “You said the writing goes on the tunic of the person who is traveling. But as soon as the Inspector writes the Chinese words for New Gary on your tunic, won’t you be sent there instead of me?”

“Oh, yeah. You’re right.”

“He just wrote back.”

Malmquist looked down at the Chinese on his tunic:

新加里

“Fuck, I gotta get this off me before I’m sent there.”

“No. You would already have been sent there.”

“Oh, I guess we have to directly write it on the tunic with our finger or it won’t work.”

Malmquist pulled off Attica’s tunic.

“Quid agis?” she said, confused.

“Wow, do you ever have a great body. Here, put these on,” said Delilah, who handed her a T-shirt and a hippie skirt. She took off her tunic, put Attica’s on and her own back on over it.

“By the way,” said Malmquist to her, pointing to Gunther, “you don’t walk around naked all the time with him here, do you?”

“Nah,” said Gunther. “She can’t scandalize me. She’s well behaved.”

“What do you mean?”

“She only takes her clothes off when others are present, like you. She’s an exhibitionist.”

Malmquist drew a crude map of Chicago with the Heartland Café’s location. “Don’t lose this,” he said, folding it and sticking it in Delilah’s tunic pocket. He then took off his own tunic and asked Gunther to hold it up next to Delilah. “Sorry for our little exhibitionist show here but I have to see how to write these characters.”

As soon as Malmquist traced the three characters on Delilah’s tunic, she was gone.

“Great, it worked.”

“Quo abiit?” said Attica. “Et misisti ea ad Romam?”

“She thinks I just sent her to Rome.”

“That would be cool. I want to go there.”

“I don’t think you’d like it. It’s a pretty rough place. Filthy. You’d be employed as a slave boy hauling around basins of water in the brothels to wash the prostitutes with. You know who really needs to go there? Danny. Without his guns. For good.”

“He’s the one who has a bounty on you?”

“Yeah.”

“You can never go back to Chicago, then, until that’s over. Way too dangerous. They can blow you away with impunity.”

“I was just there! Teleported right into the basement of his house. I got out through a tunnel into a neighbor’s house across the street. They thought I was a pedophile sent by Danny to molest their little daughter! They put me in a cage and I escaped from them too just in time with the tunics.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Which means I could go back there and escape again, though it’s risky and dangerous. Hey, I have an idea. You said you know a secret route out of New Gary.”

“Yeah, why?”

“Show me. We’re going back there.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Don’t you have to wait for Delilah to come back before you can go anywhere?”

“She’s not going to be back right away. She may need some time. But I don’t know when I’ll be back here again. Let’s go.”

“You’ll be tracked by your chip.”

“I know. But there’s a window of opportunity to act before I’m caught. This may be my only chance.”

“What about her? You can’t leave her alone here, can you?”

“She’s coming with.”

“Quo vadimus?”

Gunther took them a few blocks south to a hole in the fence not far from I-94 and out of range of the guns. Once on the other side of Highway 912, Gunther hired an aircab. He had Malmquist speak the address into the dash and they took off across the city in the self-flying vehicle.

“Amazing. How fast do these go?”

“About 150 miles per hour.”

“Why don’t more people fly in these things? I still see a lot of cars on the roads.”

“Lots of people are afraid to fly.”

“Do these crash?”

“Yeah.”

“A lot?”

“As often as regular cars do. She’s not afraid? I doubt they have these in Ancient Rome.”

“She was at first when Leroy brought us over to Delilah’s. But she quickly became fascinated and called it—what was it you called this, Attica?”

“Currus caeli et terrae.” She looked up to the sky and intoned, “Ore trahit currusque suos candescere sentit.”

“What’s that, poetry?”

She smiled proudly and continued, “Hic situs est Phaethon currus auriga paterni quem si non tenuit magnis tamen excidit ausis.”

After ten minutes in the air, they landed at 666 West 26th Street. They walked up to the house across from Danny’s house and knocked. The man with the blond Afro opened the door.

“Hello, Marvin,” said Malmquist. “Can we come in?”

“Where the hell did you go to? You escaped right in front of our eyes! The police are after you and you’re not going to get away this time if I can help it. Who’s this? A new boy you seduced?”

“This is Gunther. I have no intention of seducing him. He’s going to help us capture Danny.”

“And who’s the gal?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“He’s back!” said the wife and daughter in unison as Malmquist and Gunther entered. “Get the pedo cage!”

“Yep, we’ll need that,” said Malmquist. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Gunther, you’re going to run over to Danny’s house across the street and knock on his door in a panic, saying Marvin and I molested you—”

“Don’t you go accusing me of molesting anyone!”

“It’s a ruse, dummy. Make sure you announce my name, Jeff Malmquist. Tell him Marvin is guarding the first floor entrance and he’s well-armed, so you’ll lead him into the house via the basement tunnel. They’re having a birthday party for their kid and I’m in the basement molesting the children. I’m not armed so he can easily capture me. Danny already knows I don’t know how to use a gun.”

Gunther ran over to Danny’s, and was seen from the living room window being let in the front door by Slim. Down in the basement, Malmquist placed himself in the cage, which was positioned before the tunnel entrance, the basement lights turned off. Mere minutes later, a light could be seen approaching from the far end of the tunnel. As Danny, and Gunther after him, got closer, the daughter as instructed shouted, “Stop doing that to me!”

A flashlight helmet emerged from the tunnel entrance. Danny was met with a more powerful beam, blinding him. The wife and daughter pressed gun barrels against him as Marvin snatched away his AR-15. They pushed him into the cage—right between Malmquist’s legs. They wedged him in further so that he was trapped against Malmquist inside his tunic, and shut the cage door.

“What are you fucking doing!” screamed Danny as he struggled. As Malmquist wrote the word “ROMA” on his tunic, Danny managed to remove a pistol from his pocket. Malmquist grabbed his arm and thrust it away from him just as Danny got off a couple shots. Then both vanished from the cage.

*      *      *

Previous chapter: Ch. 18: Zigaago

Next chapter: Ch. 20: Roma

Chapter 1: New Gary, IN

[image error]Forthcoming January 2018:

The Kitchens of Canton, a novel

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Filed under: Fiction Tagged: China expat fiction, Dystopian satire

The Kitchens of Canton, a novel. Ch. 18: Zigaago

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“Where the hell am I?” Delilah whispered to herself.

She was seated on a toilet in what should have been a toilet stall except there was no stall, only exposed toilets projecting from a wall. The seat next to hers was occupied by a black female. To one side sinks, to the other urinals, one being used by a white female facing forward, tunic hiked up over her hips. The only thing separating the so-called restroom from the noisy space on the other side was a screen. Then a white male came up and grabbed the toilet on Delilah’s other side. “Neihou,” he said to her.

She jumped up and went over to the sink. The black woman was soon at the sink next to hers, washing not only her hands but her face and chest as well, sticking her hand through the sides of her sleeveless tunic to get under and between the breasts. Delilah stared.

She emerged from around the screen and recognized the restaurant yet didn’t recognize it. It had the same layout and black-and-white checkerboard floor and metal-banded retro tables, and that was about it. All the customers were wearing patchwork tunics like she had on, so she wasn’t noticed until a waitress saw her confusion and asked, “Yatwai?”

“It’s the public cafeteria but it’s changed. Where’s the counter?”

“Me wah?”

“What language are you speaking?”

“Ngo ng ming.”

“Chinese? But this is New Gary. I’m so confused. Jeff was right. It’s really the future.”

“Nei mousi aa?” the waitress asked, looking concerned. She led Delilah to a table. “Ngo cing nei jambui je?” she asked, miming a beverage.

“I’m hungry.”

The waitress returned with a bowl of soup and steamed greens.

“Wonton soup? That’s it?” She looked around. “Why is everybody eating the same thing? That’s all you have? Hey, how can I get to the Heartland Cafe from here? Is there public transportation?”

“Me?”

Delilah brandished the map of Chicago Malmquist had drawn for her. “Look. Now we’re in New Gary, but Jeff didn’t include it on the map. So we’re about here and I want to go to this place here.” She drew her finger from a point on the table and across the paper.

The waitress stared at the map. “Taai jyun,” she said, shaking her head and drawing her hands apart. “Joekmou jatmak gungleoi.”

“I know it’s far, but there must be a way to get there.”

Other customers had turned around. “Ji jau neje mantai?”

“Houci ji dongsat lou liu.”

They conferred a bit. The black female seen in the restroom was just finishing up her meal and said to Delilah, “Gan ngo loi.”

“Oh, great, you can help me?”

They got on public bicycles outside the restaurant and road toward the city center.

“Oh, my god! What happened to the residential buildings? They’re all painted over in so many colors and trees are growing out the windows.”

They took a left on Broadway, crossed under I-90 and headed out to the lake, stopping at a crowded pier where a ferry was docked.

“That’s how we get to Chicago from here? Aren’t there any cars? No aircars either? I haven’t been to Chicago in years. This is so exciting.”

The girl wrote down Delilah’s stop on the map to show to the attendant.

“How do I pay?”

“Ng sai maai piu,” she said, pointing to the line.

“But I don’t have a ticket.”

“Heoi!” she pointed. “Nigo hai minbei ge.”

“How can I ever thank you? Oh, let me give you this.” She pulled out a spare coin from her tunic, US mint 2060.

The girl examined it with interest. “Nei hai zinbai sauzonggu me?”

Once on board Delilah climbed to the upper, open deck. There were no seats. The passengers sat right on the floor, carpeted with fake grass—no, real grass. She found an empty space next to two twenty-something couples, who were laughing and smoking a blunt.

The ferry made several stops along the great length of the Chicago shoreline but oddly bypassed the city center. The skyline was still there: the starkly looming Aon Center, and in the distance the eerie black edifices of the Willis Tower and the John Hancock, now as old as the Eiffel Tower was when she was born. But something was wrong with the skyscrapers. They looked darkened, damaged, until she had a closer look. Their glass skin was gone and objects were protruding from the windows: trees.

“Why aren’t we stopping at Navy Pier?” she mumbled. “Oh, I remember Jeff saying something about slaves not being allowed downtown.”

“Nei syut ge hai neje jyujin?” asked one of her neighbors. They were sitting next to her cross-legged, their genitals exposed beneath their tunics. They passed her the ganja.

“Oh, thanks. I can really use this now. Sorry, I don’t speak Chinese.”

“Yingman? Nei hai bindou leige?”

“Nei gwai sing aa?”

“What?”

“Mason,” said a guy with a shaved head and a long red beard, holding out his hand.

“Oh, I’m Delilah.”

“Hou hoisam jingsik nei.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

Mason introduced the others—Billy, Jo, and Steph. They invited her to sit with them and open her legs. When she had inched closer, Mason gave her pubic hair a tug and sat back, waiting. She looked confused. He guided her hand to his cock. She yanked her hand away. “Oh, no, this is too weird for me.”

Jo, a mixed-race black Asian with micro braids, tried next and successfully got Delilah to reciprocate on her pubis.

“Oh, I see what’s going on.”

Jo then leaned over and looked more closely at Delilah’s groin. “Keoi hou hausang,” she said to the others.

“You guys sure have some strange rituals.”

“Nei heoi bin?” they asked her.

“Oh, you mean, where am I going? Yeah, can you help me? I want to go to the Heartland Cafe,” she said as she pulled out the map.

“Aa, zidou! Heartland Gafei. Ngo jan gonggwo daan haimou heoigwo.”

“I need to meet with an old guy named Cornelius. He speaks English.”

“Bingo?”

“Cornelius. He’s old and tall and has a huge cock.”

To illustrate these concepts, Delilah stood up on her toes and raised her hands as high as they would go, before stooping her shoulders and trudging with an imaginary cane. Then she pulled out of her groin Pinocchio-style an infinitely long penis, betraying embarrassment at its length.

The others were laughing.

“Oh, his cock is tattooed, and he also has a parrot.”

Pulling up her tunic to show them her Led Zeppelin runic tattoos, she pretended to peel them off and transfer them onto Mason’s member, grabbing it by the head with one hand while she pressed the imaginary tattoos firmly onto the shaft with the other. She tried to depict a parrot but this only made them laugh harder.

After two hours on the boat, the “Loyulaa” stop was announced. The couples disembarked with Delilah and walked down Sheridan Road until they reached the entrance to Loyola University.

“Oh, you’re all university students? I wish I could go to university. But most of the students are Chinese!” she said, looking through the gate at the campus.

Mason, Billy and Steph waved goodbye and were let in the electronic gate. Jo continued on with Delilah up the street. “But why are all the students Chinese? And why were your friends allowed in?” she asked.

“Keoidei hai noudai. Hoksang hai keoidei ge zyujan.”

Jo brought Delilah not to the Heartland Cafe but to a police station. A youngish female officer appeared. Delilah again tried to explain that she was looking for an old man named Cornelius who could be found at the Heartland Cafe.

The cop dismissed Jo and conferred with a superior officer, noting with evident curiosity that Delilah was wearing one tunic over another. She fingered the outer tunic’s fabric. Next, she had Delilah lie back on a couch with her legs spread. She applied lubricant to a latex glove and gently inserted her fingers in Delilah’s vagina and pumped her until she grew wet, before scooping up a bit of her lubrication in a digital spoon and announcing the reading to the superior. They then got on bikes and the cop escorted Delilah over to the Heartland Cafe Museum a few blocks away.

“Neihou Wingyee,” said Cornelius. Turning to Delilah he asked, “Nigo houzing ge hausang jyuhai bingo aa?”

“Oh, so you’re Cornelius?”

“I’m your man. English! Well, if this isn’t—“

“And you’re Wingyee?” she said to the cop. “You’re the one I’m trying to find. Jeff said Cornelius could help me find you, and you’re both here!”

“Yes, I’m here. Be here now. Well, that must explain how you’re able to speak English. It’s that drug, man. The STP he told me he was on. It’s so potent it can make you speak another language. Where can I get some of that shit? Jeff is the trippy guy?”

“Yeah. He said he met you.”

“Where is he? She’s looking for him.”

“He’s back in New Gary. I was sent here from there. The past. I’m his emissary.”

“Where do you two hang out at anyway? I thought he was taken into custody. Nei miu zoeng go gong yingman ge jan keoilau hei ma?”

“Haige daan keoi zaulatzo. Ngodei ng zidim,” said Wingyee, who appeared as confused as Cornelius.

“I’m telling you I’m not from here, and he isn’t either.”

“Keoi gong neje?” said Wingyee.

“Keoidei taaigu sik.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Delilah Power. They’re looking for me here, when I’m 72. I go by the name of Ray then.”

“You must be her granddaughter.”

“Whose granddaughter?”

“Ray’s.”

“No. I am Ray. Her younger version. Look. Do you recognize these tattoos?” She showed Cornelius the Led Zeppelin runic symbols on her belly.

Cornelius stared hard at Delilah. The waitress Belinda came up, suckling her baby, Cornelius’ parrot on her shoulder. “Jau mei hou sanman?” she said.

“Keoi waa keoi hai aak Ray.”

The three stared hard again at Delilah.

“Keoi sang dak houci.”

“You’re the spitting image of your grandmother,” said Cornelius.

“That’s because I am her.” Turning to Belinda she said, “You’re so beautiful. Just like an—”

“Angel,” chirped the parrot.

“Can I hold the baby?” She took the baby from its mother’s nipple and into her arms.

“Keoi waa nei houzing,” Cornelius explained to Belinda.

“Nei dou hai,” Belinda responded, smiling at Delilah quizzically. “Daanhai butsang zo neje si aa? Ngo ng ming.”

Once again the three stared hard at Delilah. “Keoidei zyudeoi hai hyutjyun gwaanhai,” said Wingyee.

Cornelius considered for a moment before asking, “Tell me something about Ray.”

“How can I tell you about her if I’ve never met her?”

“You haven’t met your grandmother?”

“No, I mean I haven’t met myself—my older self. I haven’t gotten there yet. Well, I have now, but I’m missing.”

“She never told us she had a granddaughter. So she must have taught you English. But why would she have brought you up in secret?”

“I am not her granddaughter. I am her. We’re the same person. You guys still don’t believe me?”

“Keoi waa keoitung hai tungjat go jan,” Cornelius said to Wingyee.

“Keoi jaume zinggeoi aa?”

“What evidence do you have?”

“What evidence do you have that I’m not her? Oh, let me try this.” She wrote on her tunic: “JEFF, THEY DON’T BELIEVE I’M FROM THE PAST.”

Shortly the words faded and were replaced by an incoming message:

NO NEED TO SAY MUCH

ONLY YOUR PASSIONATE GAZE

WILL DISSOLVE EVERYTHING

“No, he’s not online now.”

“Yes, he showed me that. The STP is so strong it seeps out of your skin and gets your clothing high.”

“If you wait till he gets back online I’ll prove it to you. I can get him to repeat any conversation you had with him. Damn you, Jeff, where are you?”

A new message now appeared:

THESE FEW WORDS

CONVEY THE GREETINGS

FROM A FRIEND AT A DISTANCE

PLEASE TREASURE THE OLD DAYS

“I’ve got an—”

“Idea,” said the parrot.

“Your parrot is—”

“Funny,” chimed the parrot.

“And annoying.”

“Have you been to Ray’s place before?” Cornelius continued.

“No, but Jeff told me about it.”

“Let’s go there now, the three of us.”

“Cool! I want to see what my place looks like in the future.”

The bird was returned to Belinda, and Cornelius and Wingyee took Delilah over to Ray’s. Deliberately they slowed their pace and let her take the lead, but she appeared not to know the way. Once inside the basement pad, Delilah walked around in wonder. “These are my old black light posters!” she exclaimed. “These ones here. Those ones I must have acquired later.”

“Do you recognize any of your old records?”

“Oh, yeah, my record collection. But it’s so much bigger.” She quickly picked out several. “These are some of the first records I ever bought. Antique rock, 1970s vintage. Jethro Tull, Thick as a Brick. Deep Purple, Machine Head. Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy — the greatest album cover ever, until thousands of people were arrested and sent to New Gary for owning it.”

“What was wrong with it?” asked Cornelius.

“Child porn. But I seriously scratched mine and it’s no longer playable. Look.” She pulled the LP out of its sleeve and showed them the scratch. “Hey, I have an idea! Can she test for fingerprints? These records will have my fingerprints all over them and no one else’s. I made sure of that. I never let anyone touch my records. If I’m not the same person as Ray, you’ll see two different people’s fingerprints on this record.”

“Good idea. Hoji caksi ziman maa?”

“Hoji,” said Wingyee. “Daan ngo jigging zidou keoi gongge hai satwaa.”

“Me? Nei dimzi ni?” said a startled Cornelius.

“Ngodei hai cogun deoi keoi zouzo DNA gimcaa. Keoi hai Ray.”

“She said they already genetically confirmed you’re Ray at the police station.”

“Then why did you go through all this trouble if you knew I was her?”

“Ngo jathoici ng seon, jiu zeon jatbou kokjing,” Wingyee explained.

“She couldn’t believe it at first and needed more proof.”

“Okay, so anyway, now that I’ve enlisted you, we need to get to work,” said Delilah. “I’m to take Wingyee with me to Chinese Rome and see if we can find me there.”

“Run that past me again.”

“We have to go back to the year 2060 where I’m from. But not New Gary, where Jeff is. We need to go to the fake Ancient Rome in China, where we think Ray might be hidden.”

“Why do you think she might be there?”

“Jeff thinks she might be there.”

Cornelius explained all this to Wingyee.

“She says that if she accepts you’re from the past,” he told Delilah, ”she has to accept you can take her to the past. And it’s her only lead.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

“She needs to go back to the station first to prepare a few things.”

Cornelius and Delilah returned to the Heartland and waited for Wingyee over an ale. “Do you always go naked?” she asked him.

“Six months out of the year. The air is me clothes. Nothing more comfortable to wrap around you than a warm breeze.”

“What about in cold weather?”

“A parka. Sometimes I wrap myself in a big old American flag.”

“I love to go naked myself but where I’m from it’s not — Wow, what happened to your boobs? They’re so much bigger.”

Wingyee had arrived. She lifted up her tunic. A Bowie knife and a gun were strapped in a holster under the breasts.

“Oh, I see.”

“Ngo jau siusiu ganzoeng. Zau zicin ngo jiu jatbui bezau. Keoi ngoncyun aa?”

Cornelius ordered another round of ales. “She says she’s a bit nervous and needs a drink first. And she wants assurance from you it’s safe and she’ll get back here all right.”

“I’m sure she’ll get back. We’ll find a way. Oh, but she needs to wear a travel tunic. Jeff said you can get them at this restaurant for free. Or maybe not. Let’s first try using the police tunic she has on. All I do is write the name of the destination on my tunic. Oh, shit! I just realized I don’t know how to write the name of the place. It has to be written in Chinese, right? How to write ‘Rome’ in Chinese?”

“How did you get here, then?”

“Jeff got help in writing the Chinese word for ‘Chicago’ but I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Keoi waa nei jiu yong zungman sezyu lomaa ni go ci,” Cornelius told Wingyee.

She downed her ale at one go and started to write the word for “Rome” on Delilah’s tunic in Chinese.

“No, wait! We have to hold hands. With your other hand. And it wasn’t just ‘Rome.’ We don’t want to end up in the wrong Rome. Oh, I think it was ‘New Rome’—I remember Jeff saying. How do you say ‘new’ in Chinese?”

Cornelius conveyed this to Wingyee.

“Sanluomaa? Houlaa, ngo si.”

As Delilah grabbed her by the hand, Wingyee tried out the following characters on the tunic: “新羅馬”

They disappeared.

*      *      *

Previous chapter: Ch. 17: Xinluoma

Next chapter: Ch. 19: New Gary, IN

Chapter 1: New Gary, IN

[image error]Forthcoming January 2018:

The Kitchens of Canton, a novel

You might also be interested in:

Reset, a play

Newsex, a play

Lust & Philosophy, a novel

Filed under: Fiction Tagged: China fiction, Dystopian satire

Facebook, rococo vulvas, and the pornographic imagination

A rococo vulva, which apparently violates Facebook’s ads policy.

Authors who publish independently on the subject of relationships and sexuality are soon acquainted with the industry’s strictures. They boil down to two: 1) If the content of your book contains graphic descriptions of sex, it will likely get involuntarily pegged as “erotica,” even if you thought you were writing something literary. 2) If the cover of your book is even slightly sexually suggestive, it’s also likely to get pegged as erotica or simply turned down for distribution altogether. An exception to this is Facebook, which is not less but far more comprehensive in its family-friendly guidelines and requires a considerably steeper learning curve. But first a few observations on book content before moving on to our primary concern, book covers, and finally Facebook.

Book content is inherently a foggy territory about which either very much or very little can be said. Basically, it’s at the book retailer’s sole discretion to censor you or not should certain red flags get picked up by their filters. Anything involving underage sex is of course flagged and can get you into serious trouble, as I believe retailers and publishers are legally obliged to contact the FBI if they stumble upon content or images containing child porn. But censorship can be much broader than that, even with government protection of free speech. Short of speech that marks you as a public menace or threat (pedophilic or terroristic language), you can say or write pretty much anything you want and may not be prosecuted by the state. This does not apply, however, to book retailers and publishers, or the mass media generally, which are private entities. Companies and corporations are not bound by the Constitution and tend to operate more like little authoritarian regimes than democracies, with their own rules and not much accountability toward the subjects under their purview.

A case in point is one of the retailers that my ebook publisher distributes to, Kobo. I discovered Kobo had, without informing me, withdrawn my book The Exact Unknown and Other Tales of Modern China from circulation. I was quite mystified, as I had written nothing I could think of that had crossed any obvious line. My publisher was also mystified and contacted Kobo. They responded that I had in fact crossed a line, in writing about “robot rape.” That much was correct. Yes, I had written on the topic in my play “Reset,” included in the book. Not only am I not ashamed of it, I wholeheartedly welcome interested readers to take this occasion to learn more about robot sex. And why not? Is there something unacceptable or unlawful about the topic? It’s not as if I’m marketing the book to teenagers or children. The book had upon publication already been classified as “adult,” a stupid category that lumps together literary fiction with frank sexual description, erotica and trash porn. But I had no choice; it’s required of all fiction containing graphic sexual description. But were they suggesting that even that wasn’t enough, and the subject of robot rape was inappropriate for their entire adult-reading audience?

I’m sure one could compile a lengthy list of sexist language, harassment, assault and rape in fiction published over the past several centuries. There always has been and always will be in storytelling lots of unwanted, coerced sex, as there is all kinds of crime. To prohibit rape would be the equivalent of prohibiting murder in fiction. Fans of mystery novels surely wouldn’t be happy about that. Or perhaps it is precisely rape that is indeed the problem, while murder and every other human degradation up through genocide and ecocide can be celebrated in bestsellers and blockbusters without raising an eyebrow. Perhaps my play fell under the broad rubric of “hate speech,” specifically of the sexist variety. True, anything that could conceivably piss anyone off by virtue of the group they belong to or identify with could be construed as hate speech. But then what’s the point of being a writer unless to challenge this and launch a revolution against censorship?

My publisher protested. Kobo then reconsidered and decided to restore the book after all. Well, gosh, thanks guys. Looks like we’re not living in an exclusively algorithm-dominated world quite yet; there are humans making these decisions — with all the messy subjectivity that entails. You have reassured me. I still have faith in the system.

Now on to book covers. Apple’s iBooks has one of the stricter policies in the industry, but they also have clear guidelines: no breasts with nipples, no genitals, no butt cracks. So while Amazon and other retailers will allow you to sell your book with some nudity on the cover, Apple won’t. Here are the two versions of the Chinese edition’s cover of my novel Lust & Philosophy. The original cover (left) is allowed on the Amazon website, but it had to be altered for sale on Apple iBooks (right), the frightening butt crack removed (the Chinese text on the panties which I added states that the cover was censored):

[image error]Censored cover allowed by Apple.
[image error]Uncensored cover allowed by Amazon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I feel special affection for this cover because I happen to know the woman on it personally. She too is proud of the cover; her husband was the photographer. I was not happy about the cover’s alteration, merely to appease the so-called family-friendly half of the country, not even a minuscule fraction of a fraction of which would ever lay eyes on it. But at least the guidelines were unambiguous. By the way, now that we’re on the subject of China, you may be surprised to learn that this communist country has a comparatively more relaxed attitude to book covers than the US. Pornography is banned there across the board but all you have to do is label it “art” and it’s allowed. They have this cheesy but startlingly frank niche genre known as “nude art photography” (人体摄影), with full-frontal nudity on the cover, openly displayed not only in bookstores but supermarket checkouts and display windows as well. Supermarkets. Not all supermarkets mind you, but you can still see such books haphazardly displayed in the occasional store; barring that, the art section in any major bookstore or the big online booksellers in China, which is where I pulled the following two examples.

[image error] [image error]Now let’s turn to Facebook. Not long ago I launched a Facebook author page devoted to my books and my writing. The company kept pestering me to take advantage of their ad campaigns. Each item you post can be promoted for a fee, but you can calibrate all the details (audience, length of ad run, etc.). It’s quite fun. Until I tried promoting my five published books. All were rejected, and all for the same reason:

“Your ad wasn’t approved because the URL being used in it doesn’t comply with our Adult Products Policy. We don’t allow ads that show nude images/videos (ex: medical diagrams, memes, tattoos on someone’s breasts/bottom, breast surgeries, nude art, breastfeeding with nipple showing). Such ads lead to negative user sentiment and we have zero tolerance towards such advertisements. This policy applies even if your ad is targeted to an 18+ audience. This decision is final and we may not respond to additional inquiries about this ad.”

Their Adult Products Policy further states: “Ads must not contain adult content. This includes nudity, depictions of people in explicit or suggestive positions, or activities that are overly suggestive or sexually provocative.” “Sexually Suggestive Content” includes: “Nudity or implied nudity, even if artistic or educational in nature”; “Excessive visible skin or cleavage, even if not explicitly sexual in nature”; and “Images focused on individual body parts, such as abs, buttocks or chest, even if not explicitly sexual in nature.”

Thus two reasons were given for my rejection: the URL linked to my post and the image itself. It’s not just what the viewers of my ad would have seen at first glance (the image), but where the ad would have taken them upon clicking it. However, in all five of my ads, I used a dead URL link. The link did not go to another website or online bookstore; it didn’t go you anywhere. It just linked to itself, the image. So I could not be accused of sending unsuspecting viewers to any undesirable websites. Now as for the image, we need to consider them one by one, as the reasons why they were deemed offending differed in each case. Let’s begin with the more obvious cases, starting with the cover of my novel Lust & Philosophy (please note that the link I’ve attached here doesn’t send you to a store but tells you more about the book).To Facebook, the offending nature of the book needed no explanation. Here’s the upper half of the cover, containing the offending imagery:

[image error]

You do see partial nudity and female body parts, but no fully exposed breasts, nipples, genitals or butt cracks. Well, you can make out a bit of butt crack in the first letter “H” (oops, they missed that one). Still, the cover made it past Apple’s security gate. But not Facebook’s, and the reason follows from their catchall policy cited above, which applies to any images of a “sexually suggestive” nature. Fair enough.

Another example is the cover of my book Massage and the Writer. Here they were kind enough to attach an image of my cover to forestall any possible confusion on my part, which is overlaid with a grid highlighting the offending section by blocking out the rest:

[image error]

I admit the image of the hand on oiled flesh is raw and intense, as the book itself is, and possibly disturbing for some, despite no sexual body parts being revealed (everything except the immediate flesh around the fingers has been artfully removed just to create this intense effect). In fact the body part which the hand is massaging is a lady’s butt, but again this is not patently evident from the image alone. That’s why this cover satisfied Apple’s requirements. But not Facebook’s, as the image remains sexually suggestive. Again, fair enough.

Regarding two of my other book covers, however, the situation gets more complicated. Here are the offending covers of The Exact Unknown and Other Tales of Modern China (mentioned at the start) and At the Teahouse Cafe:

[image error] [image error]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I dare you to find anything remotely sexually suggestive on either cover (the word “sex” does appear in the Kirkus Reviews quote on the Exact Unknown cover, but that’s text not image). So I was at a bit of a loss. Again, thankfully, they provided me with attachments by way of explanation. In both cases, the attached image was the same:

[image error]

I was shocked. Not at the sight of the naked breast, but because they had somehow associated the covers with this image, which had nothing whatsoever to do with either book. It’s a painting by a female friend, and features at the head of an essay of mine on this website entitled “Three bodily rights.” Although my website is listed in and linked to my Facebook author page, this essay was not; it has only been published on my website (ishamcook.com). There must have been some mistake. I experimented by temporarily removing the breast painting from the post, substituting another image with nothing sexually suggestive. Then I resubmitted the two book covers for ad approval. This time Facebook simply turned them down without explanation.

Facebook is perhaps the most technologically advanced social-networking company in the world, at the cutting edge of not only internet technology but also artificial intelligence. Just last week they made a major announcement, featured prominently in the news, of their research into mind-controlled computers, which they hope to roll out in a few years. They have some pretty smart cookies working for them in the race to develop AI. With competitors like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Elon Musk, they have to, not to mention other countries investing vast sums of money into AI, China for one. So you’d think they would have mastered simpler computer skills like attaching an image in an email, but it seems the crème de la crème of the technogeek world turn out to be technically challenged. To be frank, I have no idea whether the entity pulling my friend’s breast painting from my website seemingly at random and emailing it back to me was a human or an algorithm. If an algorithm, it has to be one of the clumsiest ever devised; if human, he or she needs to be retrained. Or was the reality more nefarious, with someone actually rummaging around my website for a graphic image to implicate me with? It does raise interesting issues of unauthorized use. Did Facebook seek permission of the copyright holder of the painting to use her image as evidence I had violated their ad policy? No, they certainly did not.

Now for the final cover that was rejected, from my book American Rococo. This time they correctly attached the cover’s image, with the graph highlighting the offending portions along the left and upper parts:

[image error]

Try as I might, I couldn’t find anything offensive in the surrounding blank space. It must have had something to do with the flag image at the top. Let’s look at it more closely:

[image error]

In line with the theme of the book, my cover designer had substituted for the stars and stripes of the American flag typical rococo motifs, a design popular in France in the seventeenth century (you’ll have to read the book to see why I was drawn to the Rococo era). I had not instructed her to alter these motifs to make them sexually suggestive, and I know her well enough that she would never have done anything of the sort. But on closer inspection, I realize some visually sensitive people might read obscene formations in these floral images, specifically the female vulva; after all, flowers are sex organs. Take one of these rococo designs on the left of the flag, which I’ve extracted out in black and white:

[image error]

If you adjust your eyes a bit (as when viewing those figure-ground optical illusions) and look dead center you’ll see three small dots. They’re actually a simplified version of the fleur-de-lis, the French heraldry symbol based on the lily. With a more elastic vision, you might see it and the leaf-like shape immediately surrounding it as forming not only the pistil of a flower but a hole, a vagina. Once you do this, the entire design blooms into an elaborate, splayed vulva, replete with labia and pubic hair, suggested by the variety of stylized leaves. There is even a clitoris (the three white dots repeated in the upper part) and an anus (the egg-like shape centered below).

Now I can no longer look at my rococo flag without seeing vulvas, and I have a pretty good idea why the cover was rejected (I won’t tell my cover designer, though, not wishing to plant the upsetting idea in her head). I doubt the person (or algorithm) at Facebook responsible for flagging the image was personally put off by it. It’s enough they had grounds for presuming it to be universally offensive and liable to cause “negative viewer sentiment.”

Lest you doubt Facebook’s impressive capacity to ferret out all potentially offensive imagery posted on its site in order to shield its now two billion users from distress, we’ll revisit another item that came up in the news recently, the case of the “napalm girl.” If you know anything about the Vietnam War, anything at all, Kim Phúc’s photo will probably come to mind, the naked screaming nine-year old girl running from a napalm attack (as photographed by Nick Ut at Trang Bang on June 8, 1972). It’s the single most iconic image of the war. I’m not including it here due to uncertainty about “fair use” of copyrighted material in this case, but you can call it up on Wikipedia and countless other news sources. But not Facebook. After a Norwegian news organization put the image on its Facebook page, it was removed.

The photo remains disturbing all right, above all to Americans, in that it captures the face of the US military on the receiving end, the lopsided devastation experienced by a much smaller and comparatively defenseless country, in a single stark horrifying image. To refresh the forgetful, three to four million Vietnamese along with Cambodians and Laotians were killed by American forces, at least half of whom were civilians. In contrast, Americans suffered a mere sixty thousand military deaths and no civilian casualties (as there were no attacks on US territory). Wrap your head around these figures for a moment.

It’s understandable why the average American doesn’t want to see a photo of the napalm girl and be reminded of its government’s enormous capacity for armed violence. But what’s interesting is that this was not the reason the photo was censored. Facebook censored it because they regarded it as child pornography. A widespread outcry then forced them to do an about-face and they relented:

“An image of a naked child would normally be presumed to violate our community standards, and in some countries might even qualify as child pornography,” Facebook said in a statement on Friday. “In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time.” (“Facebook restores iconic Vietnam war photo it censored for nudity,” New York Times, Sept. 9, 2016).

At a time when the Vietnam War is rapidly receding from the American public memory, the gap is being filled by a new collective terror much closer to home. Attributing a perverted sexual intent to a war image is quite ingenious actually. What better means of wiping out the memory of the war altogether than by replacing it with a different symbolic significance, that of pornography and the violation of community standards? Perhaps the day is not far off when the only thing that causes offense to the American community is the pornographic image.

*     *     *

Related:

The 1.3 billion-strong temper tantrum: Review of Arthur Meursault’s Party Members

The literature of paralysis: The China PC scene and the expat mag crowd

Macau and the writer: A photo essay

Filed under: Miscellania Tagged: Facebook censorship, napalm girl

The Kitchens of Canton, a novel. Ch. 17: Xinluoma

[image error]

“Poxie! Chou biaozi!” cursed the naked man as he punched and kicked the prostitute. “Ni ge jianbi! Ni die wo yijing ba ni bi cao lan le!”

“Bie da wo le!” she begged him.

Malmquist was just as startled by his sudden appearance in the attic brothel as they were, but he recognized the man and the man him. Dispensing with formalties, he knocked the wind out of the man with his fist, put his head in an armlock and bashed his face against the wall until he grew limp.

“Shenme yisi?” said the startled proprietor as Malmquist dashed down the ladder and out of the eatery.

The prostitute appeared on the steps to announce while pointing at Malmquist, “Nage nanren feichang ouda keren le. Kuailai ba!”

He had already disappeared down the lanes across the Palatine in the direction of the Circus Maximus.

At Zhang’s domus, he knocked on the door and was let in. Zhang stepped backward. Lounging in the atrium were three Chinese police officers. They too were surprised to see Malmqist.

“Jiu shi ta ma?” one asked Zhang.

“Shi de.” To Malmquist she said, “You came back.”

“Yes, I’m back. They’re here for me?”

She nodded.

The officers exchanged more words with Zhang in Mandarin. They seemed in no hurry, regarding Malmquist with contemplative expressions.

“They want to know about the poison you put in big bath,” Zhang said to him.

“You mean the drug? It’s not poison. It’s a hallucinogen. It bends your mind but is physically harmless. It got into my tunic in Ancient Rome and it was an accident.”

“They say you no cooperate, you can be executed.”

“How can I cooperate?”

“They want more.”

“More what?”

“The drug.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But you get more drug, you not executed. How you can get more?”

“It’s in the tunic I gave to Delilah, and she’s back in the US.”

“Yeah, how you know that?”

“They told me. I told you I’m from there.”

“Where you get the drug before you put in tunic? You got from there?”

“It’s from here.” He pointed to Zhang’s groin.

“What? Why you talk nonsense?”

“That’s where the drug comes from.”

“Ta shuo shenme?” another officer asked.

“Wo ye bu zhidao. No time for nonsense,” she reiterated to Malmquist.

“Let me try, okay? I can’t promise it will work. And if it doesn’t work, I have to go back to ancient Rome to try to get it.”

“Old Rome? No more old Rome. You crazy? Ta shuo ta dei qu guluoma zhaodao dupin.”

“Shenjingbing,” said the third officer scornfully.

“You say drug in my pussy, then you say in old Rome. What’s the matter with you? You took the drug now?”

“If it doesn’t work with either of you, I will need a woman in Ancient Rome, maybe the same woman I originally got it from there. Let’s try first with Giulia.”

He removed his message tunic and lay it on the floor and motioned her to the couch. Putting his arm around her, he said, “Giulia, do you want to go back to your origin, your roots?”

“Che cosa?”

“Real Rome. Roma.”

“She go with you to old Rome?” said Zhang.

“We’ll bring back some Roman coins as proof.”

He lifted up her tunic over her hips, shifted her thigh onto his lap and began tugging at her pubic hair and teasing her labia.

“Ah? Cosa fai? Non capisco,” she protested.

Malmquist paused to mime his intended actions. He drew his hand from her groin over to the tunic on the floor as if drawing something out of her. With his fingertips he wrote the word “Roma” just over the tunic without touching it. Standing up he warned her, “Don’t breathe in the fumes.”

“Cosa?” said Giulia.

He moved his hand upward from the tunic toward his nose, shaking his head with a “No!”

“Ta juede wode weidao buhao, wo hui dedao nage changpao zang?” she asked Zhang.

“She think you criticize her body smell.”

“No, not at all. Explain to her the tunic can release the drug if I write on it with her pussy juice. But it’s very important not to breathe in the fumes or the drug will get into her brain.”

Zhang relayed this to Giulia, who complained, “Wo buneng fangsong.” Glancing at the officers she then said to Malmquist, “Non riesco a rilassarmi.”

He ran his nose over her hair, arms, breasts, belly, and pussy with devotion, inhaling her smell, as he worked his fingers into her vagina. She rocked her hips, slowly at first, her face scrunched in concentration. Before long she suddenly grew very wet. Malmquist took his dripping fingers and wrote on the tunic.

But there was no smoke. No chemical reaction.

“Non riesco ancora a capire cosa diavolo sta succedendo,” she said blankly.

“Well, time for Plan B.” He grabbed the tunic off the floor and put it on over his travel tunic. From his pocket he handed Giulia the other travel tunic. “Take yours off and just wear this one. I want to make sure it works.”

As she pulled her tunic off her upper body her breasts flopped out. There was no display of self-consciousness, yet she answered the officers’ gaze with a noble posture, as if they could hardly boast anything better.

“Now write the word ‘Roma’ here,” he said, once she had the travel tunic on.

As she wrote on Malmquist’s chest he held her other hand. They vanished.

“Ta yiqian zuoguo,” Zhang told the stunned police officers.

There was a knock at the front door. Zhang went to open it. “Dilaila! Why you come back?”

“Hi, Ms. Zhang. Can we come in?”

“And who is this? Ni shi nawei a?” Zhang said to the Chinese woman accompanying Delilah.

“Gwai sing aa?” she said to Zhang.

“Yueyu a! Xianggangren?”

“Nei hai bindou lei gaa?”

“She speaks Yueyu, you know?” Zhang said to Delilah. “Hong Kong Chinese. I only understand little.”

“You can’t understand each other?”

“We speak correct Chinese here, Putonghua. She speaks dialect, almost different language. Who is she?”

“Um, she’s a police officer.”

Wingyee entered the domus and starting looking around.

“Nihao,” the officers addressed her.

“Neihou,” she replied.

Zhang escorted Delilah by the arm over to the officers and said, “Ta shi wode meiguo pengyou.” Pointing to Wingyee she added, “Ta shuo ta shi jingcha.”

The officers burst out laughing. “Ta shi ge jingcha?” one said, his jaw agape.

Wingyee approached the officers with a steely gaze. “Ngo jan cyunjyut sihung dou zeleoi cung 2115 nin dik sihau.”

“Shenfende zhengming?” one of them asked.

“Zingming?” She took off her tunic. She was naked underneath except for double-harness shoulder holsters, one with a Bowie knife and the other with a sleek unidentifiable gun. The holsters were joined in front by a belt under her breasts, in the center of which a badge with her photo and identification in Chinese characters was affixed.

“Wasai!” the officers said, as they came up to examine her identification. “Shi 2115 nian! Zenme keneng? Ni jiao Yuan Yongyi shi ba?” they asked her, reading out her name.

“Yuen Wingyee.”

One of the cops stuck out his hand toward Wingyee’s gun, requesting it. She avoided him and walked over to the veranda facing the Circus Maximus, presently resounding with a chariot race. Pointing at the race she asked, “Gogo hai me?”

“Xiaojie,” said the cop, gesturing again at her gun, “Gei wo qiang.”

“Bit haaujim ngo,” she responded sternly.

“Ni shuo shenme?” he asked, not comprehending.

She wrote out the words she had just spoken in the air.

“A, mingbaile. Bie kaoyan ta,” the cop said with a smirk, repeating Wingyee’s remark in Mandarin to his partner.

“What’s going on?” asked Delilah.

“She draw the characters with her finger, make them understand. Chinese characters same for all Chinese people,” said Zhang.

“What are they talking about?”

The cops got up and approached Wingyee. Thereupon she aimed her gun at the Circus Maximus, lowered it and placed it back in her holster. The crowd’s roar suddenly hushed. All except Wingyee looked out the veranda.

“Oh, my god!” exclaimed Zhang. “Fangjianbei bei cuihuile. Qiao, shangban bufen yijing meile, quandou sui bei cheng zhale.”

“What happened?” said Delilah.

“The tower—what you call fangjianbei?—is destroyed. See, in the center, like the same tall tower at the end.”

“You mean that obelisk?”

The chariots were unaffected and kept their course, but there was commotion around the collapsed obelisk. The cop took advantage of the moment to make a move on Wingyee’s gun. To get at it he grabbed her breast, which was draped over the gun. He found himself flipped upside down, his back slammed against the marble floor and her knife against his throat. He stretched out his arms in surrender. She dropped the rest of him on the floor, aimed the gun at the Circus again and back at the cops. “Zezi coeng deoi zezo taap zouliu neje, to wui deoi neimun!”

“Her gun destroyed that obelisk? No way,” said Delilah.

“Buhui ba!” Zhang said to Wingyee. “Ni qiangle qiang ma?”

“Gikgwong coeng makmakdeng jikgik.”

“Jiguang qiang ya! How do you call, electric gun?”

“A laser gun? But there was no beam.”

“She fired it. No sound gun. You can’t see or hear.” Then turning to everyone Zhang clapped, “Hao ba! Women dou shi pengyou. Wo qing dajia yiqi chifan. We will have a meal together now.”

Everyone sat down on the Roman-style sofas, Wingyee included, her tunic now back in place, while the servants got to work preparing the meal. The cop who had made contact with the floor was rubbing his shoulder in discomfort.

“Nei mouje me?” Wingyee asked him.

Zhang ordered a female slave to massage the cop. The slave straddled his lap and pulled off her tunic. “Bu yongle ba,” he said, dismissing her. He said to Wingyee, “Ni weishenme lai zheli?”

“Ng hiu,” she said, uncomprehending.

“He wants to know where she come from. Where you find her? Why you bring her here?” Zhang asked Delilah.

“It’s a missing person case, and the suspect was last seen here.”

“Who is missing person?”

“Me.”

“You? What you mean, you?”

“They’re looking for me when I was 72 years old.”

“What kind of nonsense you talking? You just like Jiefu. Always talk nonsense.”

“You saw her police identification. We just came from the year 2115. I was 72 then. I mean I will be 72 then.”

“So now you should be—17. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is they think I got lost in the past—now, that is. We’re trying to find me here when I was 72.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either, frankly.”

“Who is suspect?”

“Jeff. Jeff Malmquist.”

“Jiefu? I know he suspect. That’s why they are here,” Zhang said, pointing to the cops.

“I don’t mean that case. He’s a suspect in my case. Even if we can’t find me, we can question him when we get back to New Gary.”

“He’s in US? No. He just here but he left with Zhuliya. They went to old Rome.”

“Ancient Rome? No, he just came from there. He brought a Roman woman named Attica with him to New Gary. It was his idea to send me to Chicago in the future. But I didn’t know he was a suspect in my disappearance until Wingyee told me. So we came here first to see if I’m here.”

“No old lady like you here. Maybe you go check old Rome too.”

*

“Non capisco cosa sia successo,” said Giulia as she mashed the warm loaf of bread in her mouth while staring wide-eyed at Malmquist. “Cosa sta succedendo!”

“Relax. We’re in the past, Giulia. Roma. Your roots.”

“Delizioso,” she said to the baker.

“Scilicet,” he smiled. “Celebre sumus.”

“Che cosa?”

“In pistrino eum ventus imperatoris.”

“Dell’imperatore? Non capisco.”

“Unde venistis? Daciam?”

“Non capisco.”

“Panis est bonum?”

“Il pane è buono? Molto bene!”

“You can understand each other?” asked Malmquist.

Syria, who had just approached from across the street, landed Malmquist a mild smack on the face. “Redisti!” she said, while staring at Giulia. “Oramus, si forte non molestum est, demonstres ubi fuerint tuae tenebrae. Argi nempe soles subire Letum? Et ea? Unde nanciscere haec puella pulchra?”

“This is Giulia. She’s visiting from China, but she’s actually from Italy. From here. Rome. She knows her way around.”

“Julia. Veni, Julia.” Syria led Giulia and Malmquist into the brothel.

“Wait, I didn’t bring her here to work for you.”

Syria lifted Giulia’s tunic and cast scintillating eyes over what she saw. “Pulcherrimae papillae quidem,” she said, tweaking a nipple and stroking her hair. “Facies et ingenue.”

“È un bordello? No, non lavoro come prostituta,” retorted Giulia.

“Unde venisti, carissima?”

“Vengo? Vengo dal futuro.”

“She comes from the future, like me,” said Malmquist, pointing at Syria’s sundial watch.

“Futura? Postera?”

“Yeah.”

“Vobis ab posteris? Incredibili.”

“Et est etiam ab extremis terræ?” said Attica, joining them.

“Sì, veniamo dalle estremità della terra – dalla Cina.”

“Volo ire est.”

“Hey, why don’t you two guys switch? Giulia, you stay here and you can explore the real Rome, and I can take Attica to Chinese Rome, which she’ll find just as fascinating. No, wait. We’ll have to take a detour first.” Turning to Syria, he said, “I promise I’ll show Attica Chinese Rome and eventually get her back here safe and sound. You take care of Giulia in the meantime. Be nice to her.”

“Quid dicis? Non capio.”

“Anche io non capisco,” said Giulia, also at a loss.

“Trust me. Giulia, give Attica your tunic and put on her body necklace. Oh, wait. I almost forgot. We need to try the drug thing.”

“Voglio ancora un po ‘di questo pane,” said Giulia.

“What?”

“Questo pane.”

“Panem. Et magis volt panem,” chimed in Attica.

“Oh, you want more of this bread. I don’t have any Roman coins with me now,” said Malmquist, feeling in his tunic pockets. “Must have lost them.”

“Posso usare questo denaro?” asked Giulia, producing a coin of Chinese Rome.

“Quid est quod pecuniam? Non est denarius,” said Syria. “Sestertius?”

“Hic nummus est plane rotundus. Est magicus!” said Attica, fingering the coin. “Volo ire ad hoc dicitur quod terra ‘Futurum.’”

“The coin is newly minted. See the year 2060? Oh, what would that be in Roman numerals?…MMLX? Yeah, that’s it.” Malmquist wrote out the numerals with the dust on the floor and repeated to Syria and Attica: “Me. Her. A.D. MMLX. I remember that much Latin at least. You understand A.D., don’t you, Anno Domini?”

“Anno domini?” said Syria.

“Vestri imperator est hoc?”

“Non l’anno dell’Imperatore, ma l’anno di Dio,” Giulia clarified to them.

“Vestri imperator deo est?”

“No. Il nostro imperatore non è un dio.”

“Ah! Intelligo,” exclaimed Attica. “Vestri imperator magus est. Magus potest facere nisi ex nummo plane rotundum.”

“They’re talking about magic?” asked Malmquist.

“Pensa che il nostro imperatore sia un mago perché solo un mago potrebbe rendere questa moneta perfettamente rotunda,” said Giulia, running her finger around the coin’s edge.

“Oh, I get it. They think your leader is a god because only a god could make the coin perfectly round.”

Attica ran across to the bakery and back with another loaf of bread for Giulia. Malmquist then got Attica to lie back on the bed and placed his outer tunic between her legs. He instructed Giulia to stimulate her. As both were already experienced at this, Attica quickly came and squirted onto the tunic. The fabric smoked and crackled. “Great, it works. Stand back.”

He grabbed the tunic and patted it on the floor upside down to stop the burning, covering his mouth to avoid the fumes, and then fanned it in the air outside before putting it back on. Giulia was too curious about her new environment to put up any protest as Attica guided the tangle of gold chains around her limbs, like some exquisite shackles. As soon as Attica had worked Giulia’s tunic over her hefty hips, Malmquist grabbed her hand, wrote the words “New Gary” on his own tunic, and they were gone.

*     *     *

Previous chapter: Ch. 16: Chicago

Next chapter: Ch. 18: Zigaago

Chapter 1: New Gary, IN

[image error]Forthcoming January 2018:

The Kitchens of Canton, a novel

You might also be interested in:

Reset, a play

Newsex, a play

Lust & Philosophy, a novel

Filed under: Fiction Tagged: China fiction, Dystopian satire

The Kitchens of Canton, a novel. Ch. 16: Chicago

[image error]

“Haidou dangzyu ngo,” she said.

“What’s going on? You’re putting me in a jail cell full of guns,” Malmquist said, grabbing her by the arm.

“Ng!” She pulled away.

“Wingyee, please don’t leave me.”

She was already gone. The cell’s bright lighting dimmed and all that remained was the glare of a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. It was a basement. Industrial steel shelving housed a comprehensive gun collection and stacks of ammunition. Dug out of one wall was a hole big enough for a person to go through. Malmquist went up the basement stairs and placed his ear against the door at the top. Fragments of a conversation were audible.

“….What’s bandage head’s name again? Heard he’s in the area….”

“….Set the sick fuck on fire….no trace….blow him away.”

“….Lemme get the….”

One of the voices grew louder and closer. “What’s he got to do with it, rectum face?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“You stupid cum-eating dumster mouth feedbag fucktard!”

The door opened. From behind the stairway where he had hidden himself just in time, Malmquist could see someone’s legs trotting down through the steps. They stopped halfway, then headed back up.

On a table Malmquist recognized one of the guns, the Matador. He grabbed it along with a flashlight helmet also on the table and disappeared into the hole. He worked his way along the tunnel, which stretched as far as the light illuminated. When he heard the steps again he switched off the flashlight and pointed the gun at the entrance. He saw Danny pass by the hole and back again and heard him running up the stairs. Breathing a sigh of relief, Malmquist switched the helmet back on and proceeded down the tunnel, Matador in hand. A few minutes later he came up against a dirt wall where the digging had stopped. Exhausted, he extinguished the lamp and fell asleep.

A shovel punching through the wall jolted him awake. He scrambled for the Matador and the flashlight as the wall collapsed in a pile of dirt, revealing the man on the other side with the shovel. Both screamed, lurched backward and readied their guns.

“Back off, pedo! One move and you’re dead!”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“So it’s true. You guys are trying to invade my property!”

“You’re invading this property too.”

“I’m taking preemptive action against that boy pedo who’s been stalking my little girl. You must be his father. And you’re wearing a dress! You’re in it together. I swear one move and I’ll blow you the hell out of this tunnel!”

An AR-15 was poised mere inches from the Matador.

“Let me explain something, sir,” said Malmquist. “We can blow each other the hell out of this tunnel all right and you won’t be a father anymore. Is that what you want for your girl? And this gun will take out not only you but the foundation of your house as well.”

“What are you doing with an anti-tank weapon anyway?”

“It’s Danny’s collection. I stole it. Moreover, the commotion will bring Danny back down and he’s got enough weapons to start a revolution. If that happens and I’m still alive, I will have to take out Danny. We don’t want that, because the munitions packed in that little armory of his will blow up this house, your house and this tunnel sky high. Let’s talk this out calmly.”

“How could you steal it if you’re his father?”

“Who said I was his father? Do I look like his father?”

“Then who are you?”

“Wait a minute. You’ve never seen Danny’s father?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know he has a father?”

“You’re right. He could be an orphan. Orphans are born pedophiles.”

“He doesn’t have a mother?”

“I haven’t seen one.”

“So a twelve year-old is living here by himself?”

“I guess. How do you know he’s twelve?”

“He told me.”

“Ah, yes. Of course. I know all about you, Jeff Malmquist. You’re a wanted pedophile. You snuck into that boy’s house and abused him and now you’re trying to escape into mine! Don’t you even think about making a move. I’ve got my sights trained on you and the police are on the way.”

“How do you know my name? A second ago you thought I was Danny’s father.”

“Just got an update in my viewfinder. You’re notorious. And I get a bounty for capturing you, Jeff Malmquist.”

“I won’t deny it’s me. Now listen. If you trust me, I will explain how I found myself here. But first we need to get out of this tunnel where we are both currently in extreme danger if Danny comes back. Take me inside your house. I will prove to you I am innocent, and you will believe me. I will also show you how we can get rid of Danny for good—cleanly and without guns, and without either of us being implicated in his disappearance.” Malmquist set his weapon down behind him and held out his hand. “Deal?”

“How can you possibly do that?”

“Trust me. I am at your mercy. But wait. Don’t go calling the cops on me. All they will do is send me back to Indiana. Once I’m in New Gary, I’m safe.” He added pointedly, “I know how to get back to Chicago. Next time I won’t be coming round to help you out again. This is your only chance.”

“I told you the cops are already on their way.”

“No, they’re not.”

“All right. Turn your gun toward you and hand it to me. Slowly now.”

Malmquist crawled after the man down the tunnel and into his basement. They were greeted by his wife and daughter.

“Oh, wonderful, Marvin, you’ve caught him,” said the wife. “My God, he’s wearing a dress!”

“Is it a real pedo, daddy? Is it? I’ve never seen one before.”

“One hundred percent grade-A pedo.” He handed his wife the Matador. “Here, honey, take this gun and watch him.”

“It’s not a dress but a tunic,” said Malmquist, dusting himself off.

The girl lifted the tunic, exposing Malmquist. “Oh, no, he’s naked underneath!” she squealed.

“Jesus,” spat the wife. “Look what you’ve brought in here, Marvin. He has to be apprehended and fast! Where’s the pedo cage?”

“Over there.”

They ordered Malmquist into a cage barely large enough for him to squat in.

“Jesus, this is completely unnecessary. Would you all please calm down? By the time I’ve explained everything to you over dinner we’ll be great friends.”

“You’re delusional if you think we’re inviting you to dinner.”

“Fine. Sorry I asked. But you really have nothing to fear from me. I’m harmless. I have zero interest in your daughter. But I do have a lot to tell you guys. If you’re interested.”

“Can you tell us more about the boy pedo in that house?” asked the girl.

“Yeah, how did you get to know him?”

“Danny thinks you are a pedo who’s stalking him. Now, are you going to keep me in this cage or can we go upstairs where it’s more comfortable? No, wait—I can’t be seen from your front window or that will be the end of us. We’d better stay put here.”

The father was a fat white man with a pale face and a huge sandy blond afro, as if there was something fashionable about it. The wife had the aspect of a deeply aged teenager. The daughter looked about ten and wore a dress coincidentally not all that dissimilar from Malmquist’s tunic. She trained a Glock 22 on him, while the parents took seats across from him on folding chairs next to a card table.

“Okay,” said Malmquist. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to make a few upsetting points of clarification at the outset. Please bear with me. And stop pointing those guns at me.”

“How’d you sneak across? It’s impossible.”

“I’ll explain all that in due course. First, I am not a pedophile. I have been wrongly implicated. I was wrongly apprehended in Chicago and they put the nanochip in me even though I’m innocent. Second, believe it or not, most convicted ‘pedophiles’ in New Gary have been wrongly convicted. Third—”

“Don’t believe a word of it, Marvin.”

“Third, this is not a dress but a man’s tunic from a gift shop in a fake ancient Rome in China. It’s a replica of the tunics traditionally worn by slaves. I’m a slave there and my master bought it for me. It’s a magic tunic. It can be used to communicate and it enables me to be teleported back and forth between here and China. And I have another magic tunic which can teleport me fifty-five years into the future and two thousand years into the past.”

The three were laughing. “He’s a total basket case.”

“By the way, what’s that ridiculous outfit you’re wearing?” Malmquist asked the father. “A one-piece T-shirt for the whole body?”

“It’s a T-suit,” he said proudly.

“It looks like some toddler’s pajamas. Okay, do you want to know your future? This is what’s going to happen. In a few years, the USA will collapse into paranoia and anarchy. Everyone will suspect everyone else of being a pedophile and start shooting and killing each other indiscriminately. It looks like you and Danny are on the verge of doing so now. The Chinese, who are presently running this country—not sure if you already know that—will have had enough. They will take over and rid the USA of all the guns and the violence. In fact, they will rid the USA of the USA.”

“What?” The family stared.

“The entire Western Hemisphere will be turned into a huge slave colony called AMSAR. The former USA will cease to exist and you will wake up one morning to discover you’re living in China. It will all take place quickly. By the time you’ve realized what’s happening you will already be slaves. Within a generation, everyone will be speaking Cantonese.”

“Over my dead body!”

“Marvin, relax. This is what pedos do. They’re wily and clever and know how to spin tales of deception to confuse us.”

“If you dare try to make a sudden move on my daughter while you’re distracting us—”

“Don’t worry daddy, I’ve got him covered.”

“Are you crazy? How could I make a move on her in this fucking cage?”

“You can seduce her. Hey, wait a minute. If what you say is true that all our guns will be taken away, how can we protect ourselves? The pedos will soon overrun us. What will the Chinese do about all the pedos?”

“New Gary will be freed. That’s all I can tell you.”

“How did you sneak into Chicago?”

“I was teleported here.”

“I’m losing patience with your shenanigans. How did you really make it over here?”

“Let me prove to you this is a magic tunic. See, watch. I’m writing the words, ‘MELYNCHUK YOU THERE?’ on it. He’s the chief inspector in the New Gary Police Department. He knows I’m innocent and is watching out for me. He has one of these tunics too and he’ll respond as soon as he sees my message. I can’t promise he’ll write back immediately but he eventually will, if you’re patient. Oh, great, he’s there now. Look.”

They watched as words mysteriously traced themselves out on Malmquist’s tunic:

YES WHERE ARE YOU?

Malmquist replied: “TRAPPED IN CAGE IN FAMILY’S HOME IN CHICAGO. OPPOSITE 666 WEST 26TH.”

CAN YOU USE TUNIC TO ESCAPE?

“This is wild. I’m about to turn you in, and you’re turning yourself in,” said Marvin.

“Not exactly. Now watch me write ‘ZHANG IS BACK IN CHINA,'” he said as he spelled out the words vocally.

DELILAH POWER IS BACK TOO

“TELL MY CAPTORS NOT TO SHOOT ME.”

JEFF MALMQUIST

IS NOT DANGEROUS

“Did you pick up his profile, Marvin?” said the wife.

“Yeah, that’s his name. This messaging system of yours is pure jazz,” he said to Malmquist, lighting some cannabis.

“Now, can you let me out?”

“No. Where can I get one of these tunics? How does it work?”

“HOW DID DELILAH GET HOME? SHE HAD WRONG TUNIC,” Malmquist wrote back.

He took the joint offered by Marvin. “We just write to each other. Next time I’m in fake ancient Rome I’ll pick one up for you. What kind of bud is this? It has a skunky smell.”

“Plane Crash.”

“That’s what it’s called? Skunk was going out of fashion back in 2015. It’s odd this stuff is still around. The dead animal smell.”

“Buds is buds,” said Marvin, his face relaxing for the first time.

“What the hell?” said Malmquist, when he noticed Melynchuk’s reply:

SHE FLEW BACK

“You still haven’t explained how it works,” Marvin said.

“There are two kinds of tunics, active and passive. This is a passive tunic. It’s used for sending and receiving messages—wow, is this shit ever strong. Weed strains have definitely increased in potency over the past half century. That’s why you guys are so paranoid about all this pedophilia shit—so anyway, active tunics are used for teleportation. Except that I can shift back and forth from China with this passive tunic, and the first time I didn’t have a tunic. Come to think of it, the first time I went to the future I didn’t have a tunic either.”

“Maybe you haven’t traveled anywhere, but the places have,” said the kid, as she took another toke on the joint.

“You let her smoke this shit?”

“You’ve always been in Chicago. You’ve never left,” she added.

“I’ve already thought about that. Or I’m in all of these places at the same time. But in fact that’s not correct. Hard to explain. Especially as I don’t yet know how to control where I’m sent to next.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

CAME AND SEES

“What’s that all about?” said the wife, pointing to Malmquist’s tunic.

“It’s communicating in pedo code. We’ve been warned about these kinds of messages at school,” said the daughter.

“No. It means the inspector just went offline. When he’s offline the tunic shows random nonsense language.”

“It changed again.”

THE THING WHICH IT WANTS

TO DO FREELY IS ONLY DONE

“This is too cool,” said the father. “It’s like one of those AI poetry machines. Hey, maybe it’s code for where you’re going next.”

“I’ve thought about that too. But there’s no pattern to the language. Sometimes it’s grammatically correct nonsense, other times it’s just ungrammatical. Like what it’s saying now.”

SINCE WEARA BRAND

THE SPIRIT THAT WEARIT

“I’m a semiotician by profession,” Malmquist continued, “and even I can’t see any patterns or codes. What I do know is I can’t go back or forward in time with this tunic.”

“What about your other tunic? Does it show messages?”

“No.”

“Where is it?” said the wife.

“I have two of them. Here in these pockets.”

“Can we see?”

Malmquist pulled one out of his pocket and gave it to the girl. “Don’t put it on or you’ll disappear and may never come back,” he warned her.

“Will it send me to a pedo colony?”

“Didn’t you say you could help me get rid of that boy Danny? You could try putting the tunic on him,” said the father.

“That’s what I was getting at. But I don’t know where he’ll end up.”

“Hey, what if you wear the two different tunics at the same time?” said the kid.

“It doesn’t matter where he ends up. If you go together, you can steal his tunic so he’s stuck there forever and you just come back yourself,” said the father.

“How in the hell am I going to get him to put it on with all his guns?”

“We could lure him here and trap him and force him to put it on at gunpoint.”

“And what if nothing happens? What do we do next? You could be charged with kidnapping a child, and all of you will soon end up in New Gary yourselves.”

“Yeah, let’s go there. I’ve heard so much about it. I’m really curious,” exclaimed the girl.

“I can tell you one thing,” said Malmquist. “It feels safer there than here. Everyone’s unarmed.”

“Why does it feel safer?”

“I’ve just never understood the mentality of people like you who only feel safe if you have a gun.”

“We need our gun for everything, even buying things.”

“What?”

“We pay with our guns.”

“You mean, like, scanning a bar code?”

“You hold your gun up at the cashier and they hold theirs up and you ping each other.”

“Unfuckingbelievable.”

“It’s also a fashion statement. See my matching banana Colt revolvers,” said the wife, proudly tapping the pistols in her open-carry holster, whose handles resembled the fruit.

“I like your kid’s idea of wearing both tunics at the same time. But I don’t think it’s going to work. Let me try.”

Malmquist put on a travel tunic over the message tunic. “Nope, nothing.”

“It must be because you can’t see the writing now. The writing tunic needs to go on top,” said the kid.

“I can’t reverse them unless I strip naked.”

“Darling, you go on upstairs, now.”

“No! I want to watch,” said the daughter, stamping her feet. “I’ve already seen him naked anyway.”

“What’s that noise?” said Malmquist, glancing toward the tunnel. “I hear voices coming through.”

As the family peered into the tunnel, Malmquist switched the two tunics. When they turned around he was already gone.

*     *     *

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Previous chapter: Ch. 15: Zigaago

Next chapter: Ch. 17: Xinluoma

Chapter 1: New Gary, IN

Forthcoming (September 2017):

The Kitchens of Canton

You might also be interested in:

Reset, a play

Newsex, a play

Lust & Philosophy, a novel

Filed under: Fiction Tagged: China fiction, Dystopian satire

The Kitchens of Canton, a novel. Ch. 15: Zigaago

[image error]

The old hippie sat facing Malmquist, his rainbow-tattooed penis proudly displayed. “It’s like this,” he said, an imaginary sphere poised on his fingertips.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

“That’s what I was getting at.”

“Haven’t we had this conversation before?”

“All conversation is the same. What’s different is the man.”

“Cool. Here’s to Ray.” Malmquist clinked glasses with Cornelius. “Damn this ale is good. Why did I just toast to Ray?”

“That’s just what I was getting at.”

“One minute I was talking to her, then I’m talking to you. I don’t remember you coming back.”

“I never left, man.”

“But you clearly did.”

“Yeah, I left for a moment, but I didn’t really leave. I’m always here. Ray left.”

“I don’t remember that. Didn’t I already leave and come back?”

“You did. You two left together before I returned.”

“I know as a fact I left because I’m still frying from the acid I ingested in Ancient Rome. But I didn’t know I left with her.”

“You’re on acid now?” asked Cornelius, perking up.

“Yeah, can’t you see my eyes are dilated? Actually I’m not even sure it’s acid. It’s worse than acid. It’s already been a good twelve hours and showing no signs of subsiding.”

“It’s been a long time. The only thing you can find these days is 2C. You sure it’s goofy and not something else?”

“When we toasted glasses just now, my arm stretched at least three yards over to yours. My legs are as long as a giraffe’s. What color is my tunic?”

“Psychedelic. Patchadelic, we call it.”

“Are the colors lit up like a neon sign?”

“You do enough goofy, and everything is lit up like a neon sign.”

From the patchwork tunic’s pocket Malmquist unfurled his gift shop tunic. “What about this one?”

“That’s got writing on it. Is that Italian? What does it say?”

“Witches’ underwear party.”

“Where’d you get that? I haven’t seen a tunic with writing on it since Liberation. It’s not allowed.”

“China.”

“This is China. Where in China? AMSAR East?”

“Mainland China.”

“You mean Canton? You’ve been to Canton? Nobody who goes to Canton ever comes back. Incredible. You’re the first to come back?”

“No. New Rome. Chinese Rome. I went there fifty-five years ago.”

“You’re saying you’re still high from something you took fifty-five years ago? You must indeed be on something stronger than acid. Really strong.”

“No, I got high in Ancient Rome. I got the tunic in New Rome.”

“This is too trippy for me, man.”

“What could it be?”

“The only dope I know that lasts more than twelve hours is DOM, and you can’t find that anymore. Heard that shit could mess you up for twenty-four hours. Some people for days. But not fifty-five years.”

“More like two thousand years. But I haven’t been high that long. I time-traveled here. What’s DOM?”

“It used to be called STP back during the legendary 1960s. Serenity, Tranquility, Peace. That’s what it stood for. Never did try it myself, but it’s all part of the lore. A century and a half ago.”

“How do you know this?”

“It’s history, man. Aren’t you interested in history?”

“Do you think that’s what this drug could be?”

“How about the visuals?”

“You know that colorful New York-style graffiti on building walls with all the interlocking letters in the shape of balloons and arrows?”

“Yeah, sure, you can still find that stuff on a few old crumbling buildings from last century.”

“I’m seeing that graffiti now everywhere. In the sky, on the street, in the grass, in your hair. The graffiti is so sharp and vivid it’s on the verge of dissolving reality. Like have you ever seen those old films where the celluloid catches fire as you’re watching it? By the way, your face has turned into an elephant’s.”

“You just need to chill.” Cornelius offered Malmquist a blunt.

“No, thanks. If I were to smoke some weed now, you’ll be escorting me to the local clinic with full-blown paranoia. I would not even call this hallucinogen or whatever it is a drug. I need a drug to deal with it. It’s something much more basic, a deeply emotional experience. I have to say it appears to have solved my anger problem, though. Gone. Poof. No more anger. I need another ale.”

“Belinda, honghoji zoi gei ngo pangjau jatbui beizau aa?”

“Anyway, I escaped from New Rome just in time. I accidentally turned on a thousand bathers in the Diocletian Baths and they’re after me.”

“How did you do that?”

“Another one of these Italian tunics, which I gave to Delilah before I came here.”

“Who’s Delilah?”

“Ray. Don’t you remember? When she was fifteen. She later changed her name to Ray. Anyway, you know how to make a woman squirt?”

“No.”

“Well, you can make a woman excited, right? Get your fingers dripping wet and write on this tunic, and the fumes from the chemical reaction will get you high. We can try it. All we need is to find a woman to wear it and make her horny.”

Belinda brought Malmquist his ale. Cornelius’ parrot was perched on her shoulder.

“Oh, there’s your — ”

“Parrot,” chirped the bird.

Cornelius presented the tunic and translated for her Malmquist’s proposal. “Keoigong, jyugu nei saujam gozan zoeksoeng nigin pouzi, faahok faanjing mouceo ge jin wui bei ngodei hao hai. Nei soeing si maa?”

At first she was confused and lifted up her own tunic, exposing her thick red pubic muff, before the bizarre remark registered and she responded with a smirk, “Nei tung jicin jatjoeng gam so.”

“Her face has turned into a lemur’s. You two really don’t want to inhale this drug,” said Malmquist. “But if I could see that gorgeous policewoman again I’d happily teach her how to squirt. On the other hand, it would be the end of me if she were to ingest this drug. What’s her name, again? Ingmon? No, Ray told me another name.”

“Oh, you must be thinking of Wing-yee, the lass in our ward. Everyone is after her. But you’re right, you wouldn’t want to do that. You can do anything with her if she likes you, but they don’t have the same drug culture we do.”

“Yes, Wing-yee. That’s the name. Where is Ray anyway?”

“Just as I was trying to explain. Let’s go to her place now.”

“Yeah, I’d like to see it. I want to know what such a strange person’s home looks like.”

“But you’ve been there before.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You truly are a trip. I’ve been there with you.”

“That can’t be.”

“Maybe you just forgot. Once we get there, it will jog your memory.”

“The only other possibility, which I’m gradually suspecting,” he said as he scratched his head, “is I went there in the future and I haven’t gotten there yet.”

“Yes,” Cornelius considered. “That’s quite logical and you may be right. Except that I have already gotten there. Well, we’ll see what happens when we get there.”

On the way out, past the Buffalo Bar, Malmquist noticed something in the General Store. “Wait. I want to buy a new tunic. How much do they cost? Can you lend me the money?”

“They’re for free. Just take one.”

Malmquist fingered the patchwork on one and compared it to his own. “Seems the same. Are they of the same quality as the one I was originally given?”

“They’re all the same. Standard issue, hand-made by the community.”

“I think I’ll just help myself to this one, thank you,” he said as he stuffed the tunic in his other pocket. “Why doesn’t it advertise the ‘Heartland Cafe’ on it, like the old Heartland Cafe T-shirts that used to be sold here? Isn’t this supposed to be a gift shop in this so-called museum?”

They headed out of the restaurant, the parrot back on Cornelius’s shoulder, and over to Ray’s place around the corner on Morse Avenue.

“No way!” said Malmquist as they arrived at Ray’s building. “The Record Exchange! I thought it closed down. I came here all the time in the 1980s, in the heyday of secondhand record shops and it was on my rotation list. Can we have a look inside?”

“Sure.”

“It’s just as packed with records as ever. People still play records?”

“Records are all we have.”

“What happened to the digital universe? Did it collapse? Oh, no, they’ve got Blue Öyster Cult on! Spare me. I’m into classic rock but please not them.”

Malmquist flipped through several stacks of records in the bins. “Holy fuck, they’ve even got the categories in the same sections as the old store! How the hell did they figure that out?”

“Keoi soeng gong ne?” the clerk at the front counter asked Cornelius, nodding at Malmquist.

“Yep, mostly twentieth century. I guess that makes sense,” he continued. “But the covers are all really old and faded and brittle. No wonder. Reminds me of when my mother once bought up an old Edison cylinder machine and a bunch of music cylinders from an antique store when I was a kid. But I can’t tell if the colors on the covers are my hallucinations or the original artwork. Okay, that’s enough for now. I’ll have to come back here later to have a closer look. Maybe I might even find some of my old records I traded here. Let’s go see Ray. We’re going down there?”

“Ray owns the store.”

Malmquist followed Cornelius down a stairway into the store’s basement. It had been converted into a bedroom, a large space with gold shag carpeting and a king-size futon in the center with a purple velvet bedspread.

“Wow, talk about totally retro seventies! But of course. Delilah had all that down as a teenager in her New Gary pad.”

“Ray has the largest collection of black light posters in Chicago.”

A woman with shapely hips in tight striped police slacks was standing with her back to them at the far end of the room, looking through the owner’s record collection.

“Ray?” asked Malmquist.

“Ngo jatzik haidou danggan nei aa,” the woman said, without moving. Then she turned around to face Malmquist, a shock of wavy black hair obscuring her thick brows and parted lips.

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “It’s…Wing-yee?”

“That’s what I was trying to — ”

“Say,” chimed in the parrot.

“You look different. You cut your hair. Why are you wearing a uniform? Where’s Ray?”

Cornelius conveyed these questions to Wing-yee in Cantonese. She turned back to the records. “Ngodei dou soeng zi. Waake nei honghoji bong ngodei.”

“She says she’s hoping you could help.”

“What, Ray’s missing?”

“Nidou jau hungtiu aa?” Wing-yee asked Cornelius, approaching him and fanning her face. “Tai mun laa.”

“We’re looking for the fan. Couldn’t live in a place without windows myself,” he said.

“”There’s no air conditioning?”

“What’s that?”

Since there was no place to sit down except on the futon, Wing-yee sat at the head and invited the two to join her on the bed. She unbuttoned the upper half of her uniform and wiped the perspiration between and under her breasts, and her forehead, with a handkerchief. “Soeng tung Ray haimaai jatzi hai geisi?” she asked Malmquist.

“She wants to know when you were last here.”

“I don’t remember ever being here.”

Cornelius translated back to Wing-yee. She arched her torso, squeezing her neck with one hand and prodding her lower back with the other, before lying face down on the futon. She lifted her face to Malmquist. “Dahp — ”

“Gwat,” said the parrot.

“What?”

“She wants you to massage her.”

Malmquist got on top of her and began kneading her back side. “I can do a better job if I can use oil.”

Cornelius relayed this to Wing-yee. She got up, went in the bathroom, returned with a bottle of massage oil in one hand and her police shirt in the other, and lay back down.

“I need to loosen these as well,” he said, tugging at her pants. She reached under to unbuckle them and he slid them part way off her hips.

“Waabei ngo zi nei zi keoi sojau ge si,” she asked him, as Cornelius interpreted.

“I first met her in Gary, Indiana, when she was fifteen,” he said as he glided his taut fingers up her paraspinal muscles. “We reminisced about that time when I last saw her here. Cornelius, you recall our conversation at the Heartland, don’t you? She told me the future. I mean, she told me what would happen soon afterward at the time. Danny was going to kill Gunther. She told me how she got out of New Gary and a bit about the collapse of the United States and China’s takeover. But nothing since then. Naturally, that wouldn’t mean anything to you guys, half a century later.”

Malmquist worked his hands further down her buttocks and inner thighs. She arched them up in evident satisfaction, and he removed her slacks.

“Nei zeoikan mei jingwo keoi?” she asked.

“I did see her recently, in Chinese Rome. She somehow got teleported there, wearing this very tunic I’m wearing now. And she’s trapped there until we can find a way to get her back to New Gary. Again, I mean her younger self, Delilah, the fifteen year old. Not Ray. But you know what’s odd, come to think of it? Why didn’t Ray ever mention anything about getting stuck in Chinese Rome? Or how she was finally able to get back? Surely she would have remembered that. And it would help me get her back now if I knew.”

Wing-yee turned over. Her breasts swam across her chest and her legs were parted. “Bei ngodei gonggong jigu,” she said.

“You have the finest pubic hair formation I’ve ever seen, like black lace,” said Malmquist by way of response, as he lifted up her legs and dipped his mouth in her pussy. “Salty and — ”

“Sweet,” said the parrot, Cornelius having bent forward to watch. “She wants to talk about your relationship at present with Ray,” he said.

She breathed heavily. Then lifting up her head she remonstrated, “Nei jicin leigwo dou. Dimhaai ng singjing?”

“I truly do not remember ever coming to this place. I don’t deny it. I just haven’t arrived here yet. The fact I’m now talking to you about it means I must have jumped ahead in time to get to this point.”

Wing-tee lay back again.

“I’ve discovered some flaws in this masterpiece of nature,” Malmquist announced to Cornelius. “Her breasts are flat on her chest and droop along the sides. They’re too loose. And her hands are rough and stubby, suitable for a policewoman, I guess. Her nostrils are upturned and too prominent. The outer edges of her ears are irregular and not smooth and elegant. Her ankles aren’t thick but they’re just okay, not finely turned. She tastes great but like the durian fruit has a strong smell, the kind that penetrates the entire room, a smell of coffee with a sweet tinge of shit. She’s far from a masterpiece, in fact, and that’s good, because she’s so beautiful she needs these flaws to anchor her or she’d float away into the ether.”

He crawled up, pulled at an earlobe with his teeth and whispered in her ear, “I love you.”

“Nei tung keoi jatzi fangwo?” she whispered back in Cornelius’ ear, who had crawled up on her other side.

“Have you slept with Ray?” Cornelius asked Malmquist.

“Not that I remember. At least not in her current incarnation. But what’s going on with Ray? I’m really confused. Hey, I have an idea. Let me put the Chinese Rome tunic on, and we might be able to communicate with her if she’s online. I mean Delilah. Even if she’s still fifteen.”

He took off his patchwork tunic and put on the tunic adorned with the Italian words “LA FESTA DELLA STREGHE IN MUTANDE.” As soon as he put it on, it read:

EXISTENTIAL

EMERGENCIES

ONLY

“See, the writing changes when I wear it. But it’s nonsense messages until I get online. And then I can communicate with someone else who’s wearing the same tunic, by writing on it. As soon as detective Melynchuk or Delilah puts on the tunic we can conference.”

“Ray went missing.”

“Since when?”

“We don’t know exactly. The last person seen with her was — ”

“You,” said the parrot.

“Ngo heoi zoeng keoi daai japlei,” Wing-yee told Cornelius, as she got dressed.

“You’re the prime suspect in her disappearance.”

“What?”

“She wants you to go with her.”

“Where?”

“To the station.”

*     *     *

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Previous chapter: Ch. 14: Roma

Next chapter: Ch. 16: Chicago (upcoming)

Chapter 1: New Gary, IN

Forthcoming (September 2017):

The Kitchens of Canton

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The Kitchens of Canton, a novel. Ch. 14: Roma

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ALMIGHTY

TRUTH IS ON THE MARCH

NOTHING CAN STOP IT NOW

Malmquist slammed the straw pillow with his hand. “Fuck!”

Attica walked in. “Quid agis? Esne bene?”

“Do you have a candle? I can’t see the writing clearly in here. It’s too dark,” he said as he responded to the message on his tunic.

“Quid est?”

“A candle. You know, light. Fire. A candle.” He depicted a candle with his fingers.

“Mentula sagittandi?” She masturbated an imaginary cock.

“No! I don’t mean a hand-job. I mean a candle, with a flame.”

“Candela?”

“Yeah. Candela.”

She returned with a candle. The grimy cubbyhole illumined, the tunic now spelled out:

I’M NOT EASY

BUT WE CAN DISCUSS IT

“I’m fucked. I’ve lost the connection and it now seems to be mocking me. Oh, of course, you wouldn’t understand.”

She pointed to her sundial watch. “Hora est.”

“I want more time.” He fished a coin out of his pocket.

Her warm hips expanded into his as she sat down on the bed next to him. She reached under his tunic to stroke him. “Ne quid tibi vis?”

“Pertundo tunicam,” said Syria, poking her face through the doorway. She pointed at Malmquist’s erection.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, stroking Attica’s hair. “The problem is I can’t deal with shaved pussy. I need hairy.” He reached over and pulled Syria into the room by her skirt. He lifted it up and ran his fingers through her thick black pubic hair which creeped up to her belly button and down her inner thighs. He gave Syria a big thumbs-up. “Now that is a fucking forest.”

Syria laughed. “Futuitur cunnus pilossus multo melius quam glaber.” She gestured to the bed with her eyebrows. “Agamus?”

“No, you’re too lanky for me. I prefer Attica. But I need a condom. Who knows what flesh-eating STDs are lurking in there that I don’t have any immunity to. You guys have condoms?”

“Quid est?”

“You know, a condom.” He mimed pulling a condom over his penis.

“Aha! Vagina. Vagina sua ovium?” said Attica.

“I do want your vagina, but not without a condom.”

“Est pretiosa.” She left the room.

Syria pointed to the latest message on Malmquist’s tunic:

SPREAD BEAVER

SHOWING THE VAGINAL AREA

“Mutata verba. Quid est hoc? Vagina?”

“Don’t pay any attention to that.”

Attica returned with a lamb-intestine condom dangling between her thumb and forefinger. “Vagina.”

“What? That’s not a vagina. That goes in your vagina.”

She pointed to her groin. “Vulva.”

“Yeah, your vulva. The condom goes onto my cock and into your vulva and your vagina.”

“Pone vaginam in vulvam,” she gestured at the condom.

“The vagina in the vulva? Yes, the vagina is inside the vulva, but you put the condom, not the vagina, into the vulva.”

“Vagina,” she repeated, pointing to the condom.

“Whatever. Anyway, we can buy these natural condoms too. At least I used to see them at Walgreens but not anymore for some reason, probably because they don’t protect against HIV. But then you don’t have AIDS here yet.”

“Unus denarius.”

“A whole denarius for that? That’s ridiculous.”

“Habes pecuniam.”

“Look, I only have this.” Malmquist pulled out another coin.

“Non satis.”

“How about we exchange. I give you massage, you give me condom? I can massage you,” he said as he pushed the air with his hands.

“Frictio?”

“Oh, I have an idea. Do you know how to squirt? Female ejaculation. I can teach you.”

“Ejaculatio?”

“Not me. Female ejaculation. You.” He pointed to Attica’s groin. “Here, lie back. But I need to clean my hands. Water. Aqua.”

“Aqua?”

“I have two millennia of highly evolved bacteria on my hands that’s going to seriously fuck her up unless I wash it off. Yes, aqua.”

“Aqua!” Syria shouted in the hallway.

A dirty little boy dressed in rags appeared in the doorway with a basin of water. He looked confused. “Lavo?” he said, pointing to Attica.

“Who’s he?”

“Aquariolus.”

“Now I need soap,” said Malmquist, presenting his hands. “Soap.”

“Sapo? Non habemus.”

“No soap? I have to wash my hands.”

Syria produced a glass vial containing oil. He removed the stopper. “What’s this? Perfumed oil? You can’t use oil to wash off bacteria! They don’t understand this at the baths either but at least they have soap.”

He scrubbed his hands with the water and wiped them off on his tunic. The boy was dismissed. He applied a few drops of oil to his hands. Lying next to Attica, he opened her legs, played lightly with her vulva until it was damp, and inserted four fingers. He stimulated her rhythmically until her hips began to buck in sync with his hand.

“Vah!” she yelled as a burst of lubrication sprayed out. “Eximius! Quomodo facere quod?”

“Aqua!” stared Syria in amazement.

Another boy appeared, a tall teenager, also dressed in rags and bearing a basin of water. “Aqua vis?”

“Ah, cara!” said Attica, who sat up, startled.

“Nolumus,” said Syria to him. “Vide.”

“She’s so beautiful,” said Malmquist, spellbound.

His face was heavily made up. The garishly drawn eyebrows failed to sully his eyes, which were of the clearest azure, piercing even in the dull light. Blood — or something the color of blood — glossed his parted lips. Rich blond curls protruded from his shawl. “Quis est?” he asked.

“Credimus ex Germania.”

“Aut Britannia,” said Attica.

The boy stared at Malmquist in silence, before kneeling before him and intoning respectfully, “In vestras potes ducere sedes, quae tibi jucundo famularer serva labore.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Te amo,” he said as he caressed Malmquist’s cock.

“Cara, ipse pauper servus,” Syria told him.

“Tace!” he snapped at them, his calm eyes still fixed on Malmquist. Then he pulled up his tunic to reveal an erect penis, pierced with fine gold chains and gems embedded in rows along the shaft. “Solis putas esse mentulam tibi,” he cooed.

“Oh, no, you’re male. Who the fuck are you?” said Malmquist.

The boy pursed his lips in a pout and sniffled, before yelling at Syria, “Ut hic et nunc e!”

“Exi hic nunc!” Syria commanded Malmquist. As he exited the brothel she whispered a warning, “Imperator.”

Malmquist returned to the Caracalla baths and his job in the massage room.

“Plumbarius redibat,” his fellow slaves remarked in startled amusement.

“Ubi eras?” the boss yelled at him.

“Mind your own fucking business. Who’s next?” His hands were at the ready for a female customer.

“Ah, ipse est ille?” said a naked middle-aged woman being attended to by another slave. The gold bracelets on her wrists and ankles presumed wealth, and she spoke with authority. “Volo.”

Malmquist replaced her masseur and began working on her, spiralling his hands up her thighs toward her groin.

“Ego iam exspectat. Audivi peritus es,” she told him. Pointing to his tunic, she asked, “Quid enim dicit? Quid est lingua?” It now read:

THE WAY BACK INTO ONLY

YOU THERE MALMQUIST?

WE HAVE IN CUSTODY

CHINESE LADY ZHANG

“Oh, great, I’m back online. It’s English. How would I say that in Latin? Anglicus?”

“Anglicus? Non audivi praeter hodie.”

As Malmquist worked one hand close to her groin, inserting his fingers as the vulva dilated, he wrote back with the other on the tunic: “WTF IS SHE DOING THERE?” The woman pulled her legs back, and her hips rolled in sync with his hand. “O, mi deus!” By now quite practiced, he was able to maintain a steady rhythm on the woman while glancing at Melynchuk’s response, which came back promptly:

TELEPORTED BY TUNIC

WE WANT TO DISCHARGE

BUT CHICAGO WON’T TAKE

HER WITHOUT NANOCHIP

He made the mistake of writing back on the tunic with fingers dripping with the woman’s lubrication. There were sparks and smoke and the fabric disintegrated where he touched it. The acrid smoke jolted his nostrils. “Fuck!” he shouted, wiping his hands off on a rag. Now the others were curious about the changing script. One slave went up to him.

“No! Don’t touch it. Please.”

Two others held Malmquist’s arms while the slave wrote on the tunic. The entire room, boss included, burst out laughing at the words: “PEDICATUR QUI LEGIT.”

“Resume!” the woman ordered Malmquist.

As he returned to the massage, he found himself pushing the air. The table had shifted. They were still laughing at him. The woman was again looking at his tunic, which now read:

MALMQUIST YOU THERE?

WHO WROTE THE LATIN?

He replied: “HALLUCINATING WORDS EVERYWHERE, NOT JUST ON TUNIC. JUMBLED MULTICOLORED ENGLISH, LATIN.”

The massage table shifted once more and he staggered backward. “Tu aeger,” said a slave to him who took over the lady’s massage. Losing his footing, Malmquist grabbed onto an empty massage table and scribbled back another message before the table disappeared: “I’M ON ACID. SOMEHOW INGESTED LSD. NO IDEA HOW. STRONGER THAN ACID.”

“E tu chi sei?” asked another slave, one he didn’t recognize.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed. All the tables had shifted, and gone was the Roman lady. Those on the tables had moved as well, no longer the same bodies as a moment before but a whole new room of patrons.

He dashed out of the room and briskly made his way out of the Caracalla grounds and along the Appian Way to the Forum, and then on to the Diocletian baths. In the gift shop there, he tried to purchase a new tunic with his Roman coins. The cashier shook her head as she fingered the strange coins. “No.”

“Look,” he said. “Do you realize what these are? Real coins from Ancient Rome.”

“Antica Roma?” the girl said. She grabbed the coins and in a whisper bid him leave.

“Not so fast. Look. A denarius.”

“Non è il denaro.”

“Yes, it’s a denarius. Silver,” he said as he bit the coin.

“Argento?” a coworker chimed in.

“A real denarius.”

“Non il denaro. Falsi monete.”

“Penso che significhi un denario, non denaro,” the coworker said.

“Denario?”

“Yes, denario. Denarius. Your ancestors’ money. Now give me some money for it.”

Reluctantly she handed him a few coins and waved him away. “Fuori!”

He left the shop and entered the baths, depositing his new tunic in a locker in the changing hall and himself in the tepidarium, changing spots from time to time in the pool so as not to draw too much attention his way — an unaccompanied slave. He soaked his dirty tunic in the water and draped it over his head like a towel, further obscuring his identity from anyone among the thousand or so present who might happen to recognize him. Yet it wasn’t all that long that the dynamics of the bathers altered. Some looked upset, some pained; others looked around in a confused state. A general murmur grew louder and one by one people left the pool. He could hear the same few Chinese phrases being repeated — “Shui bei toudule”….”Ren zhongdule”….”Shui you du.” Whatever their meaning something was happening, and whatever was happening spelled trouble.

He got out of the water, disappeared into the vast hall’s crowd and slipped into the laconicum, wearing his tunic in the sauna to dry it off. The large sauna was crowded with naked men and prostitutes and slaves attending to their masters, though the steam obscured the space and made it intimate. He could see one Chinese male glaring at him, while another sitting next to him with a blandly obscure face stared at his groin and laid his hand on his thigh. Soon the man bent forward and fellated him. Malmquist took off his tunic, draped it over his head and closed his eyes. Then he took his turn with the man. The man shuddered, and cleaned up Malmquist’s face with a towel. “Wo ai ni,” he whispered. “Ni shi shei de nuli?”

Pretending to be deaf, Malmquist signaled his desire to leave together with the man. They went to the changing hall, where he retrieved the new tunic from his locker, departed the bath block and made their way out of the grounds in silence.

“Ni buhui shuo zhongguohua ma?” the man finally said.

“I don’t speak Chinese.”

“You speak English?” said the man, surprised. “Not Italian?”

“Yes.”

“Why you speak English? Where you from?”

“America.”

“What’s your name?”

“Jeff. What’s yours?”

“Julius.”

“That’s a Chinese name?”

“You call me Julius. You are not slave?”

“I’m slave to a rich woman named Zhang.”

“I want nice big man slave like you,” he said with a placid smile as he brushed against Malmquist. “Come stay with me tonight. Not safe for you here now. You heard trouble?”

“What trouble?”

“Big pool poisoned.”

“Poisoned? How? With what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t use big pool today. Somebody in sangna said.”

“What’s sangna?”

“We just in sangna.”

“Oh, the sauna. Who poisoned the pool?”

“Must be angry slave.”

“What kind of poison? I was in the big pool. Am I going to die?” said Malmquist in a rising panic.

“Make people crazy poison.”

“What do you mean?”

“People screaming, afraid, act like mad people. Jingshenbing, you know? Look, see cars take people to hospital?” He pointed at the convergence of police vans and ambulances at the outer gate, where they had now arrived. Hundreds of Chinese bath patrons, many crying, were being attended to by medical personnel, Italian soldiers in Roman army outfits and higher-ranking uniformed Chinese police. “I’m so glad I don’t go in pool. You seem okay, no? You okay?”

Malmquist was pale.

“Hei!” a Chinese officer shouted at them. “Ta shi ninde nuli ma?” he asked Julius.

“Jiushi a.”

“Women zhengzai xunzhao yige wuren peiban de nanxing nuli.”

The policeman kept looking at Malmquist’s tunic as they spoke. Malmquist managed to glance at it but was only able to make out the words “ZHANG” and “OPERATION” before his paramour whisked him away. “Zanmen zou ba! We leave now. We stay here trouble.”

“What will happen to the slave if they find him?”

“Oh, he be killed immediately.”

Julius lived alone in a small apartment near the baths. Malmquist sat with him on the couch as he turned on the TV, a holographic display a few meters in front of them, and pulled out cans of Coke — they still had that — and snacks, seeds. Julius bit the shells off the seeds with little machine-like movements. They watched the news in Chinese. It was all about the Diocletian pool poisoning.

“Have they found the person who poisoned the pool?”

“They now review security cameras for suspicious slave.”

“How did he manage to poison so many people at once?”

“Some kind of drug. They don’t know what kind of drug. They say no any drug so strong. New drug. How long you stay in pool?”

“An hour at least.”

“Why you not with your master? Where you live?”

“Palatine Hill. She’s temporarily out of the country.”

“Balading? Yes, rich slave have more freedom.”

Malmquist spent the night with him in bed. Early in the morning, Julius was already up and nudged Malmquist awake. “You must leave now. Police go house go house, you know? Check every house. You go back to your house. You not in your house with your master, very serious. Go now.”

Malmquist quickly crossed the city in his new tunic, which presently read:

EVERYONE FELL IN LOVE

WITH SNOW WHITE

I IMMEDIATELY FELL FOR

THE WICKED QUEEN

Upon reaching the Palatine Hill he sped up his pace, sensing someone following him. He checked the tunic once more in case a new message from Melynchuk was forthcoming. The writing remained gibberish.

THEY SAY THAT WE ARE

OVERMEDICATED

BUT I SAY WE ARE JUST

BORED WITH REALITY

He knocked at the door of Zhang’s domus. A minute went by with no response.

“Hei!” someone shouted his way. Down the street a pair of Chinese men in togas were approaching and pointing at him. Then the door opened and a sleepy-eyed Zhang let him in.

“You’re back? I thought you were stuck in America. New Gary.”

“Just got back.”

“How?”

“I fly back.”

“How did they let you go?”

“Oh, they let me go fast. Chicago police. Chinese Consulate find me just in time. They want to give me operation, put device in my brain. You imagine that? Chinese Consulate tell them they do that we send them all to Xinluoma to be slaves. They put me on plane right away.”

“My god, Jeff, what happened to you?” said Delilah, who had appeared as well.

“I don’t have time to explain. Here, take this damaged tunic and repair the holes. Whatever you do, don’t wash it in water. It’s contaminated with some kind of extremely potent psychoactive LSD-like substance but stronger. I’m still fucked up from it. I wore it in the big pool at the Diocletian baths and thousands of bathers are now tripping and have no idea what’s going on. I’m a suspect and if they catch me I’m dead. You’ll probably be okay if you wear it, just don’t get it wet. Don’t masturbate with it on. Now give me the other tunic you wore here.”

“She won’t give it to me. She won’t let me go back.”

“I need her tunic,” Malmquist implored Zhang. “They’re looking for me. If they catch me they’ll take me away. They’ll kill me.”

There was a loud pounding on the outer door. Zhang looked at the security monitor. “It’s the police. A lot of them. Why they come here?”

“They’re coming for me. I’ll explain later. The tunic!” he implored.

She quickly fetched it and handed it to him, and glanced again at the monitor. “What do I tell them?” she asked.

He was already gone.

*     *     *

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Previous chapter: Ch. 13: New Gary, IN

Next chapter: Ch. 15: Zigaago

Chapter 1: New Gary, IN

Forthcoming (September 2017):

The Kitchens of Canton

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Filed under: Fiction Tagged: China expat fiction, Dystopian satire