Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

glistened in his eyes. “We’ve got three-point-two acres of land. You can take half of that with you into the commune. The wooden plow was given to us as one of the ‘fruits of victory’ during land reform. You can take that too, and you can have the one-room house. Take what you can with you, and after you join, if you want to throw in your lot with your mother and them, go ahead. If not, then go it alone. I don’t want anything, nothing but this ox and this shed.”
    “Why, Dad? Tell me why.” I was nearly crying. “What purpose is served by you hanging on to your independence?”
    “None at all,” he said calmly. “I just want to live a quiet life and be my own master. I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do.”
    I went looking for Jinlong.
    “Brother,” I said, “I talked it over with Dad, and I want to join the commune.”
    Excited by the news, he doubled up his fists and banged them together in front of his chest.
    “Wonderful,” he said, “that’s just wonderful, one more great achievement of the Cultural Revolution! The last independent farmer in the county is finally taking the socialist road. This is wonderful news. Let’s go inform the County Revolutionary Committee!”
    “But Dad isn’t joining,” I said. “Just me, with half our land, our wooden plow, and a seeder.”
    “What do you mean?” His face darkened. “What the hell is he trying to do?”
    “He says he isn’t trying to do anything. He’s just gotten used to a quiet life and doesn’t want to answer to anyone.”
    “That old son of a bitch!” He banged his fist on the table beside him, so hard an ink bottle nearly bounced off onto the floor.
    “Don’t get too excited, Jinlong,” Huang Huzhu said.
    “And how do I do that?” he said in a low growl. “I’d planned to present two gifts to Vice Chairman Chang and the County Revolutionary Committee at New Year’s. One was the village production of the revolutionary opera The Red Lantern; the other was that we’d eliminated the last independent farmer, not only in the county or in the province, but in the whole country. I was going to do what Hong Taiyue failed to do. That would cement my authority up and down the line. Your joining without him means there’s still one independent farmer. I won’t have it. I’m going to talk to him. You come with me!”
    Jinlong stormed angrily into the ox shed, the first time he’d stepped foot inside in years.
    “Dad,” he said. “I shouldn’t be calling you Dad, but I will this time.”
    Dad waved him off. “Don’t,” he said. “I’m not worthy.”
    “Lan Lian,” Jinlong continued, “I have but one thing to say to you. For the sake of Jiefang, and for yourself, it’s time to join the commune. I’m in charge now, and you have my word you won’t have to perform heavy labor. And if you don’t even want light jobs, then you can just rest up. You’re getting on in years, and you deserve to take life easy.”
    “That’s more than I deserve,” Dad said icily.
    “Climb up onto the platform and look around,” Jinlong said. “Take a look at Gaomi County, or at Shandong Province, or at all of China’s nineteen provinces (not counting Taiwan), its metropolitan areas, and its autonomous regions. The whole country, awash in red, with only a single black dot, here in Ximen Village, and that black dot is you!”
    “I’m fucking honored, the one black dot in all of China!”
    “We are going to erase that black dot!” Jinlong said.
    Dad stuck his hand under the feed trough and took out a rope covered in ox dung. He threw it at Jinlong’s feet.
    “Do you plan to hang me from the apricot tree? Well, be my guest!”
    Jinlong leaped backward, as if the rope were a snake. Baring his teeth and clenching and unclenching his fists, he jammed his hands into his pants pockets and then took them out again. He took a cigarette out of his tunic pocket — he’d taken up smoking after being appointed chairman — and lit it with a gold-colored lighter. His forehead creased, obviously in deep thought. But after a moment he flipped away his cigarette, stomped it out, and turned to me.
    “Go outside, Jiefang,” he said.
    I looked first at the rope on the ground, then at Jinlong and Dad, one scrawny, the other brawny, pondering who would win and who would lose if a fight broke out, as well as whether I’d stand by and watch or jump in and, if the latter, whose side I’d be on.
    “Say what you want to say,” Dad said.