The Garlic Ballads

his hands as he stood in the school office, looking pitifully into the face of the nearly apoplectic principal. “Mr. Principal, sir, the boy didn’t know what he was doing.
    “What do you mean, he didn’t know what he was doing?” the principal barked as he banged his desk. “He’s a little hooligan!”
    “A hoo … ligan?”
    “He peed on the girls in his class! Was that your idea?”
    “Mr. Principal… sir … I’m a lifelong reader of the classics … benevolence, justice, rites, knowledge, trust… no contact between boys and girls. …” Father was wailing before he finished.
    “You can put away that bunch of feudalistic crap,” the principal snarled.
    “I had no idea he could do something as shameful as that,” said Father, who was trembling from head to toe. He raised the thick willow switch in his hands. “I… I’ll kill him.… I’ll beat you to death You let me down, you good-for-nothing little bastard As if I didn’t have enough trouble, now you do something like this….”
    The hunched-over old man in a tattered conical rain hat raised the willow switch in both hands … it arched downward toward Gao Yang’s head but landed on his shoulder….
    “What do you think you’re doing?” the principal bellowed. “Where do you think you are, pulling a stunt like that?” He yanked the switch out of Father’s hands and tossed it aside. “We’ve decided to expel Gao Yang. Take him home with you. Once you get him home you can beat him to death for all we care.”
    “Mr. Principal, please don’t expel me, please don’t….” Gao Yang felt awful.
    “You expect us to keep a hooligan like you?” The principal glared at him. “Go on—go with your father!”
    “Mr. Principal…” Father bent double, again holding the switch in both hands, quaking badly, tears running down his face. “Mr. Principal, I beg you … let him graduate, please.”
    “Button your lip!” the principal demanded. “Is Team Leader Wang out there?”
    Gao Yang watched Wang Tai’s father, Six-Wheels Wang, enter. Team Leader Six-Wheels would later be his superior for twenty years. For two decades Gao Yang would serve as one of his commune underlings. A tall, beefy man, he was barefoot and stripped to the waist; his skin was tanned and healthy looking. Refusing to wear a belt, he always tied his baggy white pants at the waist, his scythe tucked into the waistband. Gao Yang called him Master Six.
    “Principal,” Six-Wheels said in his gravelly voice, “what do you want me for?”
    “Team Leader Wang,” the principal said, “now don’t get mad, but your son, Wang Tai, peed on some of the girls in his class…. Something like that, well, it’s not a good idea. The heads of households share the responsibility for their children’s upbringing with those of us at school.”
    “Where is the little asshole?” Six-Wheels Wang growled.
    The principal gave the high sign to one of the teachers, who dragged Wang Tai into the office.
    “You little asshole,” Six-Wheels said to his son, “did you pee on girls in your class? Is that where you’re supposed to pee?”
    Wang Tai stood silently, his head bowed as he picked at his fingernails.
    “Who told you to do something like that?” Six-Wheels asked.
    Wang Tai pointed at Gao Yang. “Him,” he said without a moment’s hesitation.
    Gao Yang was shocked. His head swirled.
    “He wasn’t satisfied doing a terrible thing like that himself,” the principal said to Gao Yang’s father. “He had to drag the son of a poor and lower-middle-class peasant into his shameful affair. Things like this don’t happen by accident.”
    “My family is cursed … family is cursed … produce scum like this … scum …” Father was pacing.
    “You’ve always been a bad boy,” Six-Wheels Wang said to Gao Yang. One of these days your bad nature will be the death of you.” Then he turned to Gao Yang’s father. “How could you sire a bad seed like this?” he asked. “Hm?”
    Father picked up the switch and hit Gao Yang square in the head … a couple of anguished cries…. Gao Yang tried to recall if hé had cried out. It had been twenty years, and he had no idea whether he had cried out or not. He remembered wanting to shout: “Father, all I did was drink my own piss!”

    “Cheer up, Little Brother,” the middle-aged inmate consoled Gao Yang. “You’ll be fine now that you’ve passed the test. You took it like a man. You know when to stand your ground and