Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

Baofeng, Lan Jiefang, put your hands over your hearts and think hard. Stay with your dad and you’re as good as dead; you’ll keep falling behind and can’t get ahead. Mo Yan made up all those limericks; it was a talent he’d had since early childhood. Oh, was I angry! I hated that damned Mo Yan! He was my mother’s “dry” son, my “dry” brother. Every New Year’s Eve Mother had me take a bowl of dumplings to you! “Dry” son! “Dry” brother! Shit! The word family means nothing to you. So I decided to fight fire with fire. I hid in the corner, took out my slingshot, and fired a pellet at the shiny head of Mo Yan, who was sitting in the crotch of the tree in the yard shouting through his tin megaphone. With a loud shriek, Mo Yan fell out of the tree. But damned if he wasn’t back up there in the time it takes to smoke a pipe, a blood blister on his forehead. He recommenced the shouting:
    Lan Jiefang, you little toad, follow your dad down a crooked road.
    If you dare come after me again, I’ll haul you down to the station house! I raised my slingshot and took aim at his head again. This time he threw down his megaphone and shinnied down the tree.
    Jinlong and Baofeng had no stomach for it. They tried to talk Father around.
    “Why don’t we go ahead and join, Dad?” Jinlong said. “They treat us like dirt at school.”
    “When we’re out walking,” Baofeng said, “people behind us yell, Look there, it’s the independent farmer’s kids.”
    “Dad,” Jinlong continued, “I see the production brigade people out working, and they’re always laughing and having a good time, like they’re real happy. Then look at you and Mom, how much alone you are. What good are a few hundred extra catties of grain, anyway? Rich or poor, everyone shares equally.”
    Dad said nothing, but Mom, who normally went along with whatever Dad said, took the bold step of making her opinion known:
    “The children are making sense,” she said. “Maybe we ought to join.”
    Dad was smoking his pipe. He looked up and said, “I might consider it if they weren’t applying so much pressure. But the way they’re stewing me like I was a bird of prey, I’m not going to give them the satisfaction.” He looked at Jinlong and Baofeng. “You two will soon be graduating from middle school, and under ordinary circumstances, I should be paying your way to high school and college, and then study abroad. But I don’t have the money. The little bit I put aside over the years, well, they stole it all. And even if I found the means to pay your way, they wouldn’t let you go, and not just because I’m an independent farmer. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
    Jinlong nodded.
    “We understand, Dad. We never spent a day as landlord brats, and we can’t tell you if Ximen Nao was black or white, but his blood runs through our veins and he hovers over us like a demonic shadow. We are youth born in the era of Mao Zedong, and though we had no choice in who we were born as, we do have a choice in which path to take. We don’t want to be independent farmers with you, we want to join the commune. Whether you and Mom join or not, Baofeng and I are going to.”
    “Thank you, Dad, for seventeen years of nurturing,” Baofeng said with a bow. “Please forgive us for our disobedience. With a biological father like that, if we don’t pursue progressive trends, we’ll never make anything of ourselves.”
    “Well spoken, both of you,” Dad said. “I’ve been thinking hard about this lately, and I know I can’t have you following me down the dark path. You—” He pointed to us all. “You join the commune. I’ll farm on my own. I vowed to stick to independent farming, and I can’t turn around and slap my own face now.”
    “If any of us join,” Mom said, with tears in her eyes, “then let’s do it as a family. What’s the point in working alone?”
    “I’ve said it before. The only way I’ll join the commune is if Mao Zedong orders me to. But here’s what he said: ‘Joining a commune is voluntary, leaving a commune is a matter of individual choice.’ What right do they have to bully me into joining? Do our local officials have more say than Mao Zedong? I refuse to give in to them. I’m going to test the credibility of Mao Zedong’s own words by my actions.”
    “Dad,” Jinlong said, a trace of sarcasm slipping into his voice, “please don’t keep referring to him as Mao Zedong. That’s not a name we should