The Garlic Ballads

saw all the uniformed men patrolling the area.
    “Well, we made it,” a relieved Fourth Uncle commented.
    “Yeah, we made it,” he echoed.
    Fourth Uncle was next in line, ahead of Gao Yang, and the look of anxious anticipation on his face made Gao Yang’s heart race, only to beat even faster and harder when he noticed the inspector standing next to the scale.
    A uniformed man with a bullhorn climbed onto a red table. “Attention, farmers,” he announced. “The warehouse is temporarily suspending the purchase of garlic. We’ll notify local co-ops when we’re ready to open again, and they’ll get the word out to you.”
    Gao Yang felt as if he had been clubbed. His head spun, and he had to clutch the donkey’s back to keep from falling.
    “That’s it?” Fourth Uncle cried. “You stop buying just when I reach the scale? I’ve been on the road since midnight, almost twenty-four hours!”
    “Go home, garlic farmers. Once we’ve cleared some space in the warehouse we’ll let you know.”
    “I live fifteen miles away!” Fourth Uncle complained, his voice cracking.
    The scale operator stood up, abacus in hand.
    “Comrade, I paid a highway toll and a commodity tax …” said Fourth Uncle.
    “Keep your receipts. They’ll still be valid the next time. Now go home, all of you. We’re working day and night. As soon as this load is safely stored, we’ll open for business again.”
    People at the rear surged forward, screaming, shouting, bawling, swearing.
    Still gripping his bullhorn, the man jumped down off the table and ran like mad, bent at the waist. The steel gate slammed shut just as a swarthy young man hopped onto the red table and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Shit! You have to go through back doors to get anything done—even at a crematorium! What chance does our garlic have?” He jumped down and disappeared amid the piles of garlic.
    His place was taken by a pimply-faced youngster who shouted, “You inside the warehouse, I’ll impale your old lady on my dick!”
    Roars of laughter.
    Someone removed a scale hook and flung it at the galvanized-steel warehouse door.
Chng!
When the surging crowd knocked over the scales and smashed the table, an old man stormed out of the warehouse. “What is this, an uprising?”
    “Grab the old bastard! Beat him! His son, Pocky Liu from the Commerce Department, gives the old bastard a hundred a month to be a gatekeeper!”
    “Beat him—
beat him
—BEAT HIM!” Men rushed the gate and began pounding it with their fists.
    “Let’s get out of here, Fourth Uncle,” Gao Yang urged. “Not selling our garlic is one thing. Getting into trouble is another.”
    “I’d like to go up there and get my licks in!”
    “Come on, Fourth Uncle, let’s get out of here. If we head due east, we’ll come out on the north side of the tracks.”
    So Fourth Uncle turned his cart around and set out to the east, followed closely by Gao Yang, who was leading his donkey.
    After a few hundred yards they looked back and saw that a fire had been set in front of the warehouse gate. A man whose skin showed up red ripped down the signboard and consigned it to the flames. “The cold-storage warehouse is actually called a ‘temperature-controlled warehouse/ “ Gao Yang informed Fourth Uncle. “That’s what the sign said.”
    “Who gives a shit what it’s called?” Fourth Uncle replied. “I hope they burn the fucker down!”
    They were still watching when the gate fell and the crowd swarmed into the compound. Flickering light from the flames danced on people’s faces, even from that distance. Thunderous shouts carried over to Gao Yang and Fourth Uncle, that and the sound of glass splintering.
    A black sedan drove up from the east. “The authorities!” Gao Yang said with alarm as the car screeched to a halt near the fire and the occupants jumped out. They were immediately pushed into the gutter as the mob began pounding the roof of the car with clubs, filling the air with dull thuds. Then someone dragged a burning log from the fire and crammed it into the besieged sedan.
    “Let’s get out of here, Fourth Uncle!” Gao Yang insisted.
    Fourth Uncle, beginning to share Gao Yang’s fear, smacked his cow on the rump with his switch.
    As they headed down the road they heard a massive explosion behind them, and when they turned to look, they saw a fiery column rise into the air, higher than the building, lighting up the area for miles around. Not sure what he was