Beijing Sprawl by Xu Zechen

Author:Xu Zechen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Two Lines Press

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The closest convenience store was to our west, but Baolai was heading east. I asked if he was going the wrong way, and he told me to hurry up—we’d jog, which would be good for my nerves. I ran alongside him, down an alley, around a corner. He slowed down in front of Blossoms Bar. The bar couldn’t seem to make up its mind about its décor: a bit Tibetan, a bit European, with some cartoon characters and scarecrows thrown in. A rotating pole by the entrance made it look like a barber shop. I’d been inside once, when my uncle Thirty Thou Hong was buying. He ordered me a glass of beer and told me if I didn’t step into a bar at least once, I hadn’t really been to the big city, and if I didn’t have a drink, I hadn’t really been inside a bar. The beer had tasted so-so, and I didn’t see what was so great about drinking it in a bar. When we’d left, Thirty Thou Hong had called my aunt and then my ba, loudly braying that we’d just been to a bar for a drink, and wasn’t that something…

Baolai looked at his watch, asking, “Is it six o’clock yet?”

“One minute to.”

“Let’s keep running.”

I followed him another block, then we turned back. Jogging always helped my head feel less painfully tight. We were back outside Blossoms Bar.

“And now?”

“Nine minutes past six.”

“Let me catch my breath.”

Baolai sat on some rubble at the foot of a utility pole kitty corner to the bar. Bigger people often sweat a lot, even if they’re just a little fat. Baolai fanned his chin. The pole was covered with ads that promised to cure sexually transmitted diseases, body odor, vitiligo, sleepwalking, and prostate cancer, all from unlicensed doctors claiming to be descended from imperial court physicians. I read all the ones I could see, then it was twenty past and I said we should go get the beer. Baolai said “Fine,” and then insisted on going to the supermarket to our west, since we were now nearby. He was talking complete garbage—it was at least 350 meters away. When we were done, we left the supermarket and walked past the bar yet again. I snapped. “Man, why’re we just going round and round in circles? Like a couple of beetles or something.”

“I just want to look.” Baolai’s face was blazing red. “Guess what I’d do if I made big money?”

I shook my head. For years now, I’d given no thought to any goal other than getting into college.

“I’d open a bar. A place like Blossoms. People would be able to write anything they like on the walls.”

I remembered that the walls of Blossoms Bar were complete chaos, covered in words and pictures in all colors. It was the only bar I’d ever set foot in, but I’d seen quite a few in TV shows and films. They were all neat and clean, their walls adorned with paintings and designs.

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