The Vagrants

Tong's paternal grandfather was, according to his father's drunken tales, a local legend, with a firecracker temper, ready to fight anyone over the slightest injustice. He had died in 1951, in his late forties. The story was that he had had a big fight defending his fellow villagers against a party official, sent down to supervise the process of turning private land into a collective commune. He had beaten the official half to death; the next day he had been arrested and executed on the spot as an enemy of the new Communist nation.

Tong's mother scooped some fried peanuts onto his father's plate. “Don't drink on an empty stomach,” she said.

Tong's father ignored her. He poured himself another cup and pointed his chopsticks at Tong. “Listen, your grandfather was a real man. Your father is nothing less. You'd better not disappoint us. Now move here next to me.”

Tong hesitated. He did not like his father's breath and his intimate gestures when he was drunk, but his mother moved his chair, with him in it, before he could protest. His father put a hand on Tong's shoulder and said, “Let me tell you this story, and you'll know how a man was made. Have you heard of Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han dynasty? Before he became an emperor, he had to fight many years with Xiang Yu, his toughest enemy. Once, Xiang Yu caught Liu Bang's grandparents, his mother, and his wife. He brought them to the battlefield and sent a messenger to Liu Bang. If you don't surrender this very moment, I'll cook them into meat paste and my soldiers will have a feast tonight.

Guess what Liu Bang said? Ah, wasn't he the hero of all heroes! He wrote back to Xiang Yu, Thank you for letting me know about the banquet. Would you be a good and generous person and send me, your hungry enemy, a bowl of the meat paste? Think about that, Son. If your heart is hard enough to eat your mother and your wife, nothing can beat you in life.”

Tong looked at his mother, on the other side of the table. She gave him a smile, and he tried to smile back. They were on their way, it seemed, to another night during which he and his mother would have to sit and listen to his father tell the same old stories; the dishes and the rice would be reheated a few times, until his father was finally too drunk to carry on with his tales, and eventually Tong and his mother would be permitted to eat.

Tong thought about Ear; his father said that love for a dog was a lowly thing to feel, and his only concern, when it came to Tong, seemed to be to make him into a manly man. Tong wondered if he would disappoint his father. If an enemy were to threaten him with his grandparents’ and his mother's lives, he would cry and beg, promising anything in exchange for their lives.

After several more rounds of drinking, Tong's father pushed his chair back and told his mother to get a brick—she kept a pile of bricks in the kitchen for him to demonstrate his kung-fu skills with, and she replenished the stock dutifully when it was running low. When she came back with a red brick, he shook his head and said it would be too easy; he needed a bigger, harder brick tonight. Hear that? he said, stretching his fingers and making cracking sounds with his knuckles. She replied that the red bricks were all they had, and wouldn't it work for him if she stacked two bricks. Tong's father lost his temper, calling her a brainless woman and ordering her to go out and borrow one from their neighbors, who were building an extra shack in their yard for a granduncle who had come to visit and decided not to leave.

When she returned with a heavy construction brick, six times as big as the red brick, Tong's father took it over and put another hand on her neck. “I could wring your neck with two fingers. Do you believe me?” he asked. She giggled and said of course, she had no doubt about it. He snorted with satisfaction and set down the brick in the middle of the yard.

Tong watched his father chanting and dancing a little before he crouched down and, with a bellow, hit the brick with the heel of his hand. Ear would have enjoyed the evening if only he had been home in time—he was always the most excited member of the family when Tong's father put on a drunken show. The brick remained intact, but his father's hand looked red and swollen. Tong hid both hands in his pockets. Only once in a while could Tong's father break a brick in half, by sheer luck perhaps, but he never tired of his brick-hacking trick.