Blacksmith Tongs shop was the kids’ favorite destination. Blacksmith Tong had his own cart, which was hugely impressive — much more so than owning a truck nowadays. Every week Blacksmith Tong would go to the junkyard and bring back scrap metal. Baldy Li and Song Gang liked to watch him pound the metal, turning scrap copper into mirror frames and iron into scythes and hoes. The flying sparks made the kids squeal with excitement, and Song Gang asked Blacksmith Tong, "Are the stars in the sky also made out of metal?"
"Yup," answered Blacksmith Tong, "I pounded ‘em myself."
Song Gang held Blacksmith Tong in the highest regard. He marveled to his brother that all the stars in the sky turned out to have been forged in Blacksmith Tongs shop and then launched into the sky! Baldy Li didn't believe this and said that Blacksmith Tong was bullshitting them, that all the sparks from Blacksmith Tongs pounding ended up as ashes right outside his door.
Even though Baldy Li knew that Blacksmith Tong was full of it, he still liked to watch him work. After learning from the middle-school students the scientific explanation for his love of rubbing, he felt justified in lying down on the bench in the blacksmiths shop. Previously, he would sit there alongside Song Gang and watch Blacksmith Tong, but now he took the bench for himself and made Song Gang stand to one side. Baldy Li spread his hands and shrugged. "Sorry, I need the space. I've hit puberty."
While watching the sparks fly off the anvil, Baldy Li wiggled and panted heavily, crying out along with Song Gang, "Stars, stars, so many stars …"
Back then Blacksmith Tong was still a young fellow in his twenties who hadn't yet married the woman with the fat buttocks. Thickset, with tongs in his left hand and a hammer in his right, he watched Baldy Li while pounding his metal. He knew what the boy was up to and marveled that such a little bastard would be getting off. He suddenly lost his concentration and almost smashed his own hand. Spooked, he threw away the tongs and cursed as he put down his hammer, asking Baldy Li, who was panting away on the bench, "Hey, how old are you?"
Baldy Li panted, "Almost eight."
"Damn," Blacksmith Tong swore. "You little bastard, you're not even eight and you already have a sex drive."
That was how Baldy Li learned what a sex drive was. He felt that Blacksmith Tong explained things better even than the three middle-schoolers. Blacksmith Tong was, after all, far older than they. Baldy Li no longer announced that he had hit puberty but, rather, used this new term. He smugly announced to Song Gang, "You don't have a sex drive yet, but your father does, and so do I."
Baldy Li refined his technique of rubbing the wooden electrical poles. Once he had rubbed himself until he was red in the face, he would start climbing up the pole. When he reached the top, he would then slide back down again. When he reached the bottom, he would sigh with contentment and say to Song Gang, "It feels so good!"
One time, just as he had climbed to the top of the pole he saw the three middle-school students walking toward him and hurriedly slid down. This time he didn't bother telling Song Gang how good it felt, because he called out to the three students, correcting them, "You got it all wrong. Its not because I've hit puberty that my weenie gets all hard from the rubbing. It's that I feel my sex drive coming on."
CHAPTER 8
AFTER THEIR tempestuous honeymoon, Song Fanping and Li Lan s life became a slow stream of contentment. They left the house together to go to work, then came back together at the end of the day. The school where Song Fanping taught was close to home, so after work he would walk to the bridge and wait for three minutes until Li Lan arrived. Smiling, they would walk home shoulder to shoulder. They bought groceries together, cooked together, washed clothes together, slept together, and woke up together. There was hardly any time when they were apart.
After a year, Li Lan s migraines returned. The bliss of newlywed life had temporarily suppressed this old problem of hers, but now it was as if the pain had been accruing interest — when it struck again, it was more agonizing than before. Li Lan would no longer just whimper; instead, tears of pain would gush from her eyes. With a white cloth wound tightly around her head, she would rap her temples with her fingers all day like a monk striking his prayer counter. The knocking could be heard throughout the house.
Song Fanping became seriously sleep deprived. Often in the middle of the night he would be awakened by Li Lan s cries of pain. He would get up and bring a pail of water from the well, then soak a towel in the icy water, wring it, and place it on her forehead. This provided Li Lan with some relief. Song Fanping attended to her as though she were a patient running a high fever, getting up several times a night to bring her cool washcloths. However, he was convinced that she should enter a hospital and get treatment. He was completely dismissive of area doctors, so he sat at the dining table and wrote his elder sister in Shanghai. He would write a similar letter almost every week, urging her to help find a suitable hospital there. He peppered his letters with countless phrases like extremely urgent and dire emergency, and each time he would conclude with a string of exclamation points.
Two months later his sister finally wrote back, announcing that she had located a hospital but would need a referral from a local clinic. This news further increased Li Lan s awe of her husbands abilities. Song Fanping requested a half days leave from school and accompanied Li Lan to the silk factory at the end of her lunch break. He wanted to talk to her factory director and ask his permission for Li Lan to go to Shanghai to treat her migraines. Li Lan was the sort who did not even dare ask for a single day off, and therefore, after leading Song Fanping to the directors office, she told her husband that she didn't dare go in and pleaded with him to go in alone. Smiling, Song Fanping nodded and, as he walked in, told her to wait outside for the good news.
Song Fanpings earth-shattering dunk had made him a legend in Liu Town. As he introduced himself the director interrupted, saying, "No need, no need, I know who you are. You're the dunker." Then the two began chatting like old pals. They talked for more than an hour — so long that it seemed as though Song Fanping had forgotten that his wife was waiting outside. Li Lan was entranced by this conversation, and even much later, whenever she thought of her husband, she would sigh and think, He had such a gift for gab!
Song Fanping walked out with the director, who not only agreed to let Li Lan go to Shanghai to see a doctor but repeatedly told her, "Don't worry about anything after you get to Shanghai. Just get better. If you encounter any difficulties, let us know, and the factory will solve them for you."
Song Fanping then took his impressive gift of gab and worked the same magic at the hospital. He and a young doctor there chatted about everything from astronomy to geography, jumping from one topic to another and somehow finding agreement on everything. The two chatted until their spittle flew and their faces were flushed while Li Lan sat to one side, dumbfounded, forgetting even the pain of her migraines. She gazed upon Song Fanping with delight, having had no idea that the man she had lived with for the past year had such talents. After giving them the referral, the young doctor followed them all the way to the front door, gripping Song Fanpings hand and saying he had finally met his equal. He said they had to find time to get a jug of wine and some snacks and shoot the breeze all night long.
All the way home Li Lan was filled with joy. She would gently tug at Song Fanpings hand, and when he looked over at her, he saw that her eyes were blazing like hot furnaces. When they got home, Li Lan pulled him into the inner room and shut the door. She gripped him tightly, her head on his broad chest and tears of happiness soaking his shirt.