Brothers

Nodding, Baldy Li wailed, "This is Papa…"

The two children knelt on the ground in front of the bus depot and wept loudly. Their mouths agape, they sobbed toward the sky, their wails ascending into the heavens. But like broken wings their cries would suddenly plummet to earth as the children wept open-mouthed, soundless, tears and snivel having closed up their throats. With great effort they swallowed all of it down, and again their wailing exploded. They tugged at Song Fanping's body and wept, "Papa, Papa, Papa …"

Song Fanping gave no response, and the children were at a loss as to what to do. Baldy Li wailed to Song Gang, "He was still fine this morning. Why is he deaf and dumb now?"

Song Gang looked toward the crowds that had gathered around them and cried, "Save my father!"

Snot and tears flowed down the children's faces. Song Gang wiped some from his face and hurled it away, accidentally hitting the pants leg of one of the spectators, who immediately grabbed Song Gang by the collar and started swearing at him. Baldy Li wiped the mucus from his face and splashed the mans sandals. The man then grabbed Baldy Li by the hair and, with one boy in each hand, thrust both of them to the ground, demanding that they use their shirts to clean up the mess they had made. Still weeping, Baldy Li and Song Gang began to use their hands to wipe up the man's pants and sandals but ended up smearing him with even more tears and snot. The man, initially furious, became merely annoyed, and said, "Quit it! Damn. Just stop wiping."

But Baldy Li and Song Gang held on to the man's legs, as if they had finally found a savior and were clinging to him for dear life. As the man backed away the boys hung on, crawling forward on their knees. They begged him, "Save our father! Please, save our father!"

The man pushed them away and raised his foot to kick them off of him, but they still clung on. After dragging the children a dozen yards, he found them still clutching him, beseeching. The man, now out of breath, stood there wiping away his sweat. He complained to the crowd, "Look at this! My pants, my sandals, my socks. What the fuck is this?"

Mama Su from the snack shop walked over and stood in front of the gathered crowd. The wailing of the children had reddened her eyes. "They're just kids."

Furious, the man responded, "What do you mean kids? They're two little fucking demons."

"Then do a good deed," Mama Su responded, "and help these two little demons collect their father's body."

"What?" the man roared. "You want me to carry that filthy, stinking corpse?"

Wiping her eyes, Mama Su replied, "I didn't say you needed to carry the body yourself. I have a cart here that I can lend you."

Mama Su went back to her snack shop and returned with a cart. On behalf of the two children, she begged the bystanders to help lift Song Fanping onto the cart. The crowd started dispersing, and Mama Su, losing her temper, singled out a few of them for the task: "You, you, you, and you."

Mama Su pointed at Song Fanping lying on the ground. "No matter whether this was a good man or not, now that he's dead, we have to bury him. We can't just leave him lying here."

Finally four people walked out of the crowd and squatted down, grabbing hold of Song Fanping's arms and legs. Shouting "One, two, three," they hoisted him up. All four were red in the face from the exertion, remarking that the dead man was as heavy and cumbersome as an elephant. They placed Song Fanping next to the cart, and, with another "One, two, three," they heaved him onto it, as it creaked under the weight of his large frame. The men dusted off their hands. One of them raised his to his nose, sniffed, and told Mama Su, "We want to go wash our hands in your shop."

"Then go." She nodded. She turned to the man who was still being grasped by Baldy Li and Song Gang. "Do some good, and take their father home for them."

Looking down at Baldy Li and Song Gang, he grimaced. "Looks like I've got to haul the dead man away."

He yelled at Baldy Li and Song Gang, "Let the fuck go of me!"

Only then did Baldy Li and Song Gang finally loosen their grips. They got up from the ground and followed the man to the front of the cart. Hoisting the end of the cart, the man barked at them, "Quick! Where's home?"

Song Gang furiously shook his head. He pleaded, "Take him to the hospital."

"Fuck." The man threw down the cart. "He's already dead. What fucking hospital would we go to?"

Song Gang didn't believe him and turned to Mama Su. "Is my father dead?"

Mama Su nodded. "He's dead. Go home, child."

This time Song Gang no longer wailed but, rather, bowed his head and quietly wept. Baldy Li also bowed his head and wept as they heard Mama Su tell the man pulling the cart, "You will be rewarded in the next life."

The man took up the cart and walked on ahead, snarling, "Fucking reward, yeah. Eighteen generations of my descendants are now going to be cursed along with me, is more like it."

So that was the afternoon Baldy Li and Song Gang held each others hands and walked home, weeping, with a bloodied and battered Song Fanping lying on the cart behind them. The children wept until their hearts broke. They stumbled along, weeping and sobbing, until they choked up, but after a while their wails exploded again like grenades. Their wailing overpowered the revolutionary singing and slogan-shouting on the streets. Like the flies that had earlier swarmed around Song Fanping, the parading crowds and assorted idlers all came swarming up to them, crowding around the cart as it trudged forward. The man pulling the cart scolded Baldy Li and Song Gang, "Quit your crying! You've brought the whole damn town over. Now everyone is watching me pull this corpse."

A good number of people came over to ask who it was lying there dead on the cart. At least forty or fifty people approached the man pulling the cart, putting him in an even fouler mood. At first he responded that the dead man was named Song Fanping and was a teacher at the middle school. But as more and more spectators continued to inquire, he got tired of explaining and instead told them to use their eyes and figure it out for themselves: Whoever is crying nonstop must be the relatives of the deceased. After a while he felt that even saying this much was too exhausting, so when another person asked him, he simply said, "Don't know."

The man was drenched in sweat from pulling the cart under the fierce sun. Plus, he was pulling a cart with a dead man, and on top of that his lips were parched from answering so many questions. He was, therefore, seething when an acquaintance came up and asked him, "Hey, which of your relatives has died?"

The man pulling the cart exploded: "You're the one with the dead relative!"

The acquaintance was stunned. "What?"

He yelled again, "You're the one with the dead relative!"

Now the acquaintance's face turned black. Without a word he stripped off his shirt, revealing all his muscles, and raised his right hand to point at the man pulling the cart. "What the fuck did you say? Say it again and I'll have you lying on the cart, too."

He added, quite pleased with himself, "I'll turn this flatbed into a double bed."

The man pulling the cart threw it down and retorted, "Well, it'd be a double bed for your bedroom!"

He walked right up to the other man and screamed in his face, "You fucking listen well this time — I said every last person in your family is lying there dead!"

The other man threw a fist right into the cart pullers mouth. The cart puller staggered back a few steps, and just as he managed to steady himself, the other man followed with a kick that landed him onto the ground. He then leapt on top of the cart puller and started punching him in the face.