Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh

includes two soft drinks.”
    The woman giggled.
    “Hey, there, old man, where's this cottage of yours?” the man asked audaciously.
    Old Ding lowered the board to reveal the top half of his face. “There,” he stammered, “over there.”
    “Can we take a look?” The man grinned at the woman and said, “I am a little thirsty.”
    The woman gave him a seductive look out of the corner of her eye. “You can die of thirst for all I care!”
    With a sly look and a smile at the woman, the man turned to old Ding and said:
    “Take us over to see the place, old man.”
    He stood, noticeably agitated, picked up his stool, put the board under his arm and led them through the cemetery to the abandoned bus.
    “This is your little cottage?” the man exclaimed. “It's a damned iron coffin!”
    Old Ding unlocked the brass lock and swung the heavy door open.
    The man bent at the waist and went inside.
    “Hey, Ping'er,” he shouted, “it's goddamned cool in here!”
    The woman looked askance at old Ding, a slight blush on her face, before sticking her head in to take a look. Then she went in.
    The man stuck his head out. “It's too dark in here. I can't see a thing!”
    Old Ding handed him a disposable lighter.
    “There's a candle on the table,” he said.
    The candle cast its yellow light on the inside of the bus. He watched as the woman took a drink from the soda bottle in her hand. Her still wet hair streamed down her back like a horse's tail, nearly covering her high, jutting buttocks.
    The man stepped out of the bus and made a sweep of the area. “Say, old man,” he asked in a soft voice, “do you guarantee nobody comes around here?”
    “There's a lock inside,” he said. “You've got my guarantee.”
    “We'd like to take a nap,” the man said, “and we don't want any interruptions.”
    Old Ding nodded.
    The man went back inside.
    Old Ding heard the door being locked.
    After walking over to a little grove of locust trees, he looked at his ancient pocket watch, in its metal casing, like a coach on the sidelines. At first, there was no sound inside the bus, but about ten minutes later, the woman began to shout. Because the bus was sealed up so tightly, the shouts sounded as if they came up from under the ground. Old Ding was on pins and needles, as images of the woman's tender white skin swirled inside his head. He thumped his own leg and muttered:
    “Don't be thinking about things like that, you old fart!”
    But the woman's pale flesh had attached itself to his brain and wouldn't let go. Then the smiling face and cleavage of the woman buying piglets came to join the party.
    Fifty minutes later, the steel door swung open and out stepped the woman, now dressed in street clothes. Her face was red, her eyes bright, the look of a hen that's just laid an egg. She glanced off to the side, as if she didn't even know he was there, and walked off toward the cemetery. Then the man emerged, a bath towel draped over his arm and a bottle of soda in his hand. He walked up to the man and said timidly:
    “Fifty minutes .. .”
    “How much?”
    “It's up to you …”
    The man, also in street clothes, reached into his pocket and pulled out a fifty-yuan bill. He handed it to old Ding, whose hand shook; his heart was racing.
    “I don't have any change,” he said.
    “Keep it,” the man said airily. “We're coming back tomorrow.”
    Crushing the bill in his fist, he thought he might burst into tears.
    “Old man, you're really something!” the man said as he tossed the empty bottle away. “You ought to stock the place with condoms,” he said softly. “That and some cigarettes and beer. Then double the price.”
    Old Ding responded with a deep bow.
    7
    Acting on the man's suggestion, he outfitted his little love cottage with everything couples might need for their trysts, as well as beer, soft drinks, and snacks of dried fish slices and preserved plums. The first time he went to the pharmacy for condoms, he was so embarrassed he couldn't hold his head up or make clear what it was he wanted, to the utter contempt of the young woman behind the counter. As he slinked out of the store with his prophylactic purchase, he heard her say to another clerk behind her:
    “Hey, who'd have thought an old geezer like that still had use for those …”
    But as his business grew with each passing day, so did his nerve and his business sense. No longer flushed with embarrassment when he made his purchases at the pharmacy, he