Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

waterway forced between sandbars.
    A muscular, well-dressed young man of average height walked up carrying a cage with a pair of rare white parrots. His jet black eyes caught Jintong’s attention, while the caged white parrots reminded him of the parrots that had circled the air above the son of Birdman Han and Laidi decades earlier on his first trip home from the Flood Dragon River Farm. Could it be him? As Jintong observed him closely, Laidi’s cold passion and Birdman Han’s resolute innocence began to show in the man’s face. Jintong’s astonishment led to a sigh. How big he’s gotten! The dark little boy in a cradle had grown into a young man. That thought reminded him of his own age, and he was quickly immersed in the doldrums of a man past his prime. Listlessness, that great emptiness, spread through him, and he envisioned himself as a withered blade of dry grass rooted in a barren land, quietly coming to life, quietly growing, and now quietly dying.
    The young man with the parrots walked up to the ticket gate to look around; several of the passengers called out greetings, which he acknowledged in a cocky manner, before looking down at his watch. “Parrot Han,” someone in the crowd yelled out. “You’re well connected, and you’re good at talking to people. Go tell that young woman to come back here.” “She wouldn’t punch your tickets, because I hadn’t arrived.” “Stop bragging! We’ll believe you when you get her out here.” “Now line up, all of you, and quit shoving! What good does shoving do? Line up, I say, line up!” He ordered them around, half in jest, forcing them into a straight line, all the way back to the benches in the waiting room. “If I catch anyone pushing and shoving, disrupting this line, well, I’ll take his mother and … understand?” He made an obscene gesture. “Besides, everyone will get on, early or late. And if you can’t get inside, you can climb up onto the luggage rack, where the air is fresh and the view is great. I wouldn’t mind sitting there. Now wait here while I go get that girl.”
    He was as good as his word. She came out of the lounge, still angry, but with Parrot Han at her side peppering her with sweet talk. “Dear little aunty, why get upset over the likes of them? They’re the dregs of society, punks and sluts, twisted melons and sour pears, dead cats and rotten dogs, rotten shrimp paste, all of them. Fighting with them just brings you down to their level. Even worse, getting angry leads to physical swelling, and poor uncle would die if he saw that, wouldn’t he?” “Shut up, you stinking parrot!” she said as she rapped him on the shoulder with her ticket punch. “No one will ever try to palm you off as a mute!” Parrot Han made a face. “Aunty,” he said, “I’ve got a pair of beautiful birds for you. Just tell me when you want them.” “You’re quite the smooth talker, like a teapot without a bottom! Beautiful birds, you say? Ha! You’ve been promising that for a year, and I haven’t seen so much as a single feather!” “I mean it this time. I’m going to show you a real bird for a change.” “If you had a heart, you’d forget about your so-called beautiful birds and give me that pair of white parrots.” “I can’t give you these,” he said. “These are breeders. Just arrived from Australia. But if it’s white parrots you want, next year I’ll give you a pair, or I’m not your own Parrot Han!”
    When the narrow gate opened, the crowd immediately tried to squeeze through. Parrot Han, cage in hand, stood beside the ticket-taker. “You see, aunty,” he said. “How can anyone dispute the poor quality of the Chinese? All they know how to do is push and shove, even when that actually slows things down.” “The only thing your Northeast Gaomi Township can produce is bandits and highwaymen, a bunch of savages,” she said. “I wouldn’t advise you to try to catch all the fish in the river with one net, aunty. There are some good people there. Take, for instance —” He stopped in midsentence as he saw Shangguan Jintong walking bashfully toward him from the end of the line.
    “If I’m not mistaken,” he said, “you’re my little uncle.”
    Timidly, Jintong replied, “I … I recognized you too.”
    Parrot Han grabbed Jintong’s hand and shook it eagerly. “You’re back, Little Uncle,” he said, “finally. Grandma has almost cried herself blind thinking about you.”
    The bus was by then so