How I Met Your Mother: Peking Redux

I think I winked when I first saw her, though I could be wrong. Perhaps I burped. I
remember drinking a black cherry soda; the moment she emerged from the around the
corner I nearly choked on the carbonation. She was the most delightful thing I’d ever seen.

It was early summer and I’d just failed my exams. Father didn’t want me running
around the capital in my usual drunken stupor, so he sent me to America to conduct ‘research’
in the ‘field’. It was 1990 and the Party was still zealously keeping tabs on any Tiananmen
scum who’d fled to the West. I was to track them down, befriend them, infiltrate their
networks and find out what kind of support they were getting from those bastards in
Washington. Since many of them were now teaching in provincial universities, I’d be stuck
in the cornfields all summer. But that was before I’d seen her…

One weekend was the 88th annual State Fair; my driver came by to fetch me around
noon.It was only mid-June but hotter than a witch’s pussy. I was fairly hungover from
the night before, but my father insisted. Dad had considerable pull in Beijing so even if I
refused, my bodyguard would see to it I attended. My assignment? Track down Wu
Liao, a dissident writer then teaching chemistry at the State University who’d be
hosting a booth on Sichuan cuisine. Or folklore. The fuck if I know. I’d have to spend
my entire Sunday commending that bastard’s spicy noodles; we stopped to get a 6-pack
on the way.

The Americans were very confident that summer. Their famous little Cold War was
finally winding down and every gas-station attendant seemed to think he was John Wayne.
Meanwhile the Russians were bending over for every Polish grandma with a wooden paddle –
while the students in my own country, many of them former classmates – thought
they’d bring the Motherland to its knees. I’m no professor but I’ll be damned if I see
a couple jerk-off armchair revolutionaries who got an ‘A’ in Human Geography give
China to the Yanks on a silver fucking platter. Or at least that’s the chatter I’d heard
at home that year. I was too busy trying to screw the local missionary’s daughter to
pay such conversation any mind.

We turned off the highway and made for the giant cow. In the middle of a cornfield,
they’d erected a 75-foot pink and brown bovine, an ode to the prosperity of the day.
You had to pass through its legs – and under its udders – to enter the fairgrounds. I
couldn’t quite feel the magic but trotted along nonetheless. I sent my driver after
Wu and went straight for the cotton candy.

My father had fought in the Korean War and said the only thing the Yanks fed them
in captivity was cotton candy and un-carbonated cream soda. “They wanted to
starve and poison us, demoralize the revolutionary vanguard sore by sorer tooth.”
Whatever the case, I had to try it for myself. I approached the burly merchant and
gave him a thumb’s up. “Two servings, please.” He grunted and gave me a fistful of
fluff. I bit into the pink world of emptiness and hated every moment.

A few booths down was the farting necromancer. For a nation full of religious cracks,
Americans loved a good witch: someone they could laugh at before taking to the
scaffold. Not that I disagree. We also had our boogeymen back home; occasionally
I’d inform on a friend or two if they tried to touch my lady. Different strokes for
different blokes. The farting witch read my palm and began to moan: “He mustn’t!
He mustn’t! He must!” I gave her a fiver and continued down the line.

My driver was soon back and bearing news. Our man Wu was around the corner,
entertaining a bevy of chicken farmers. We smoked a Newport and headed over. In
order to fit in I’d had a custom track suit made: Starter brand from head to toe. I’d
consulted my father on local sports teams and he said to go with the best local high
school’s colors: that’s where all the bigwigs will have played ball back in the day. So
there I was, decked in salmon and turquoise, ready to go. Who could have possibly
known that love was just around the corner.

Wu was a squat little man, not much of a counter-revolutionary force if you ask me.
That said, he had one hell of a big mouth: who knew what these chicken farmers
might learn about the Fatherland if he got into their little corn-fed heads. I bought a corndog and
approached his stand. “I hear Sichuan has nothing on this county’s cuisine – why
don’t you give us a free sample to confirm!” He smiled and handed me a toothpick
full of peppercorns. I sneered and lifted them to my mouth. Sure, they had a kick… I
motioned my driver to hand me another soda pop. The rest is still a blur.

Before I could comment upon Wu’s peppers, an angel emerged and slapped me in
the face. Figuratively, of course: I’d have set my bodyguard on her, had she dared.
But hootenanny was she gorgeous; Penelope herself. I tossed my toothpick and
removed my baseball cap. “A pleasure, ma’am, to make your acquaintance: would
you like to scramble-dance?” I’d read it in a book before – figured my odds were
50/50. She exploded in laughter, a deep, delicious, purple laughter. Then it all went
fuzzy.

Wu and my assignment, the driver and bodyguard, my failed exams and furious
father, Tiananmen and the People’s Republic: they faded without a trace. All that
was left was Lucie, the cowgirl come to save me. My black cherry soda splattered on
the ground. I looked down then up – around and back at Lucie. The big blue sky was
bursting – I think I’ll stay with Lucie.

Zippers and Converts on the Eve of Reason

My mother, a village whore, was nonetheless a pious type, so on the morning of my
fifth birthday I was whisked away to the monastery. She must have thought I’d pay
her sins forward. Of course, I would have entered the monastery anyway: as the
second son of the village cobbler, it’s was expected of you in those days. Did I say
cobbler? I lied. At that point the Civilizers had yet to bring us shoes, so I suppose my
father was a tailor, or something of the sort. Anyway not that I’d get anything out of
it: for the next eighteen years my life’s belongings were rather elementary – a tunic,
a razor, a bowl and a prayer book… or so the elders thought. On my ninth birthday a
touring Ceylonese witch doctor gifted me a collectors’ edition Pez dispenser that I’ve
been hiding in my crotch ever since.

As I was saying. My dear, disreputable mother wanted the best for her little pumpkin
so she sent me to live with the Order of Virtuous Vivisectors, a group of renegade
holy men, if you will. They’d been caste out of the Valley in the year 1479 of Our
Leader, but had long since regrouped in the hills just north of our village. Though
blacklisted by the Bureau of Spiritual Authority for their heretical views on
kinesthetics and cookery, our village was usually on good terms with them – for
reasons largely unknown to me.

And so it was. For nearly twenty long years I arose at dawn to milk the ass and tether
the pony, my only two companions apart from drinking bouts with the occasional
traveling seer. Though the brothers had taught me to read and write, it was in their
chicken scratch dialect, a text that resembled a pair of gangly goats making carnal
intimations with one another. Down in the Valley I was virtually illiterate. Then
again, perhaps it worked to my advantage. Among the novice monks, only I was
trusted to make the occasional delivery to the Order’s secret cells in town. Since I
couldn’t read the messages, I couldn’t possibly betray them. But that was all so long
ago!

I should remind the reader that I wasn’t destined to be a holy pauper, spending my
best years tending to village donkeys and reciting ancient gabble before going to
bed. Oh no. From the moment I abandoned my mother’s whoring teat, I knew I was
destined for a higher spiritual plane: one with a simpler theology, replete with tiled
green floors and starched white shirts. Oh but for the sweet, white smell of
ammonia! So certain I was of this calling that when the Civilizers came marching
into town, I was hardly surprised.

For those unfamiliar with the turbulent history of my people, grant me a brief
digression. As you may have gathered, by the time I was born religious factions had
been splintering the Kingdom for ages. Whereas the Order of Opportunistic Enablers
was stealing converts from the Mission of Mellifluous Mantras, the Brothers of
Beneficent Bedlam were pirating the Society of Supine Sisters’ prayer books. You see
where this is going. By my 3rd and 20th year, fear and religious envy were ripping the
land apart. When the Civilizers docked in the marshy waters of the Capital, their
timing could hardly have been better.

On the 2nd day of the 13th month, I rushed down to port to see what all the fuss was
about. I’d been sent to town the day before to retrieve a garland of myrrh and
pickled mulberry for my order’s annual officiating ceremony. The moment I laid eyes
upon the Civilizers’ purple-flag-bearing ships, I knew then and there I’d never go
back to the Order.

The Civilizers, as the entire world now knows, were not only master craftsmen and
excellent seafarers, but religious authorities of the highest grade. Their priests, if one
can stoop to call them that, were young and dashing, bright and boisterous, virile
proselytizers who knew how to bring out the ‘ho’ in holy. Combined with their
technical mastery of shooting-dust and bookbinding, they couldn’t be beaten. Within
weeks, our monkish leaders were all in chains. Suffice to say I was head over heals.

The very night of their arrival, I rushed to greet their ambassador as he gorged
himself on garlic herring and offered him my oath. “From this day forward I shall
serve thee and thy Civilization, sir, ‘til death doth disembowel me!” Ok, so I hadn’t
rehearsed it – cut me some slack. One glance at my adorable little shaven brow and
he piped, “Why yes, I suppose we’ll be needing some of your kind.”

A week later I was brought along to the Council of Religious Reconciliation. Not that
the Civilizers were conciliatory men – nothing of the kind! We all know the path to
truth begins with stick and ends with stone, though the initial stages of conversion
are always tricky. Since the Civilizers’ first appearance in the Capital, civil war had
broken out in the north. Fear had swept the countryside quicker than a gypsy’s
broken promise, and local authority had all but disappeared. Worse, the religious
orders had taken to summary executions by stoning. Such savage native behavior! As
an expert on the Order of Virtuous Vivisectors, I was given my first – and last –
mission.

I boarded the first northbound train at the crack of dawn. A young and especially
zealous convert, I was given a dual mission: firstly, negotiate a temporary truce
between the warring orders in my native province; secondly, convert the novice
monks of the Virtuous Vivisectors to the Civilizers’ orderly creed. I was so giddy I
tinkled myself once aboard the wagon-car. Luckily, however, I’d brought an extra
pair of trousers – that magnificent new contraction brought to us by the Civilizers –
though I’d never actually worn a pair myself. (They’d come with my orientation
packet to the faith). I went to the bathroom to try them on.

This being long before the days of coal-powered rail, the toilet in the train merely
bottomed out to the tracks below. (How I used to love pooing whenever there was a
breeze!) Yet just I was slipping into them, my right ankle got caught in the bottom of
the first pant-leg; before I could issue a muffled cry, I fell into the toilet. If the zipper
hadn’t miraculously caught onto the toilet-paper dispenser, I would have fallen
through to the tracks, an immediate end to all my life’s ambitions: forced
conversions, speaking engagements, the whole nine yards. But miracle aside, my life
was still hanging by a zipper.

Too embarrassed to call for help, I rode in this precarious position for the next
fifteen miles. Despite the odor, I had an epiphany: whatsoever now happened to me
in that bottomless lavatory, I had found the true faith. The Civilizers had come to
liberate my country – and with it every fiber of my being. Safely a brother to the new
creed, I overcame my fear, reached up and gave the zipper a snap. I fell to my
immediate death, a grin bigger than freedom smeered across my face.

Color, Fire and Creampuffs

Charlton Chan was a portly fellow, the kind who takes an extra Danish when no one’s

looking. Not that he was unhealthy – his vision and dexterity were excellent and he 

never touched the can (at his age they were somewhat too young for the bottle). So 

he wasn’t Leonidas: who amongst is? Where he came from, no one had to fight for the

bare necessities. Yet as Carlos the Groucho Marx must remind us, the satisfaction of 

one desire merely gives rise to another. A three-time Sudoku, flute and watercolor 

champion, Charlton was itching for something bigger. Something to please his father 

and set the ladies’ loins on fire. And anyway, violin was so passé. 

An important man, Charlton’s father had always been very demanding. His elder 

brother had been top of his year at the Foreign University for Especially Promising 

Young Men, whereas his sister was whisked away by the Ministry of Talented Youth 

to train for the Tricycle Brigades at the age of two. Since mother had long since run 

off with an itinerant preacher, poor Charlton was left to suffer his father’s 

exhortations alone. 

As noted, Charlton wasn’t without his share of unconventional success:

wherever he applied himself, triumph was close at hand. In first grade, he set 

the municipal record for frogs dissected in under two minutes; in third grade he 

designed the first 3-D menu for the school’s underwater cafeteria; by middle 

school he had the patent on several new checkmates, using the proceeds to 

name a wing at the local Planetarium after his favorite cream puff (“Fluff the 

Flatulent Dragon” if you really must know). By the time he reached high school, 

corporate intelligence firms from seven provinces were recruiting him, each 

seeking his advice on how to out-maneuver the competition in diapers, palm 

oil and Ping-Pong balls – the mainstays of his small country’s manufacturing. 

Keen on something bigger, Charlton kindly declined. 

Despite his best efforts, he’d yet to please his father. Though clever, he wasn’t much 

of an intellectual, and while mindful of his surroundings, he couldn’t catch a ball to 

save his life. (He’d long since given up on sports outside of Rummikub and 

hopscotch). Alas, in the dog-eat-dog world of his father’s mind, his achievements 

were little more than curiosities, the residue of good intentions gone astray. He’d 

have to do something radically conventional – or conventionally radical – to ever win

his old man’s approval. Hence he spent the entire summer before his final year of 

high school devising stratagem after stratagem, ruse after devious ruse. 

September 1st was the Heavenly Matriarch’s birthday, the small country’s reigning 

sovereign since as long as our protagonist could remember. An energetic 

modernizer, the Matriarch also enjoyed the odd cream puff, a fact the royal bosom 

was wont to betray. Every 1st of September she’d parade down the Boulevard of 

Exponential Growth to remind the awestruck masses of her natural charisma, the 

kind that gets free tap water at celebrated restaurants and jumps the line at 

domestic airports. She made her people proud.

At midnight on the eve of the Matriarch’s procession, Charlton snuck out of his 

bedroom and tiptoed toward the elevator. His father had been saluting the sovereign 

‘til well past his bedtime and fallen asleep on the chesterfield, so he had to watch his 

step. He grabbed his satchel and flashlight and opted for the stairwell instead. Once 

outside the lobby, he disappeared into the night like a union leader in Medellin. 

His crowning idea had come to him one night watching American television. Stunned

by a fireworks display to announce the opening a new furniture outlet, Charlton had 

become obsessed with giving the Matriarch an exhibition of her own. This being a 

conservative country, the State was averse to overly creative displays of public 

admiration; in recent years they’d reduced the crown prince from an E-Class to a 

Jetta. Modest, democratic times these were. 

Ingenious as ever, Charlton had spent the summer perfecting his own homemade 

firecracker. Triggered by remote control, it was compact but highly combustible – 

liable to go off at any moment, should our innovator lose track of time. The eve of the

Matriarch’s march, he spent the early hours lining the boulevard with his elaborate 

new contraption: the fireworks were to go off in conjunction with her 10-block 

procession, a harmless hurrah of light and laughter that would remind the people of 

the sovereign’s splendor. Though initially taken aback, the authorities would soon 

recognize his genius. An act of undeniable patriotism, his father, a top-ranking civil 

servant, would have to concede. Under bushes, inside manholes, beneath hot-dog 

stands: Charlton laid his kit in every possible crevice. 

The next morning the crowds were jubilant. Not so much for love of queen than for 

an excuse to putz about downtown, in defiance of the usually draconian traffic laws 

that governed the public thoroughfares. Charlton sat perched above the steps to the 

library, binoculars in hand. He’d brought along a box of cream puffs to celebrate the 

occasion. In only several moments, glory would be his: the Matriarch’s triumph, his 

father’s approval. Redemption so close at hand. His old man must be watching from 

the office. 

At 8am the band struck up a chord: onward came the procession in all its 

understated pomp, rows of velvet monkeys and bearded eunuchs in the marching 

forefront of her majesty’s arrival. Somewhat prematurely, he turned to grab a cream 

puff, accidentally pressing the magic button as he leaned to lick his fingers. 

Seconds later a burst of color erupted, and a soft magenta filled the air. While a 

spectacular sight to behold, Charlton’s tectonic display was poorly crafted. Rather 

than erupt in procession, periodic bursts rang out at every end of the avenue. A 

popcorn stand exploded here, a bush erupted in hot pink there. Manhole covers shot

into the sky at random intervals. Porter potties caught flame, emitting an 

unmistakably democratic odor. The Matriarch herself was doused in brown matter 

that fell from the sky. 

By the end of the morning a veritable revolution had occurred. Plastered across 

everyone’s television screen was the image of the Royal Matriarch confused and 

cloaked in human filth, a countess of calamity. Her troupe of velvet monkeys had 

broken their chains while the eunuchs made for the bus stop. Brought to its knees 

was the country’s ancient pedigree, a symbol of growth and stability ground into the 

earth. Before noon the Matriarch had abdicated, leaving the throne to her eldest son.

Unwilling to trade his Jetta for the Royal float, he decided to stay in graduate school. 

His younger sister incommunicado, they convened an interim government and 

called for elections for a month later. As the highest sitting Officer in the Department

of Parks, Pools and the Passive Coexistence, Charlton’s father was made the interim 

head of state. 

But what of Charlton? Wracked of guilt, he chucked his final cream puff and turned 

himself in. How was he ever to expiate his crime? The people had lost faith in the 

monarch; ancient ties were torn asunder. He gave a press conference that afternoon, 

taking full responsibility for the calamity that had shaken the State to its very 

foundations. He father refused to pay bail, though brought him cream puffs every 

day in prison.

Our Lady of Guadeloupe

I was never much of a romantic type. Or very good-looking, for that matter. In fact, I
suppose I was probably something of bore – too concerned with Ouija boards and
plate tectonics to care about girls. Just kidding – I wasn’t that smart. The only reason
I made the chess team is because I caught the captain jerking off in the locker room
and told him I’d squeal if he didn’t let me come to Springfield for the State Finals.

After high school I enrolled in a community college on the outskirts of town. I was
madly in love with Roxanne and, despite my initial timidity, had forsaken a “career”
in the army to follow her to school. (The boys in green at the outlet mall had tried to
recruit me on several occasions). The important thing is that I was trying. What’s
that line about blindly attempting something over and over again? The object of my
heart’s desire had to be getting closer, one failure at a time.

As it goes, Roxanne ran off with a campus security guard that spring. Apparently
they used to share cigarettes outside the library – not that either of us had ever been
inside. Alas, I would never be more than the boy serendipitously sitting across from
her in Astronomy or Intro to Life and Family Sciences. Goddammit, I’d borrowed five
grand just to get next to her, and she didn’t so much as bat an eyelid when we
“happened” to have “chosen” identical schedules that first year out of high school. I
would have to get out of this town, adopt a different tactic. Perhaps I could grow
sideburns and start jogging? I bought a bus ticket and made for the coast.

I’d lost my virginity in middle school to a whale of a wonderful woman. My uncle
Ronnie had taught me from an early age that larger ones need also need affection –
but where I came from it didn’t really matter. We all put cornstarch on our corn
flakes in morning, so you know where this is going. But why bring up my sex life?
Because with Roxanne’s disappearance it all but disappeared. Not that she would
have touched me with a ten-foot pole, mind you, but her sudden and absolute

absence from the dining hall, the corner store, that dirty, downtrodden family
restaurant – the very fabric of my life – had shaken me to the core. I could barely
look at another woman – much less ever be with one. So there it began, in the back
of a California-bound Greyhound, my celibate journey to the moon.

I got to Los Angeles with 27 dollars and a sleeping bag. It really wasn’t so bad. When
I left the station the air was hot and sweet with the smell of carbon and chilies. All
the same, the city had an underbelly that made me uneasy: tramps and trannies,
hobos and toothless hockey players cavorting under the bridge. Surely it would only
be a matter of time before I joined their ranks. I found a soup kitchen and asked if
they needed help.

Mind you, I wasn’t much of a ‘good’ person either; I was strictly apathetic when it
came to other people’s problems, hunger included. I suppose I was pre-emptively
seeking shelter, offering my services at a time when they’d still be accepted, a time
when I could pretend the charity was mine, not theirs. Hence began my celibate
existence, a soup kitchen on the corner of Mercy Ave and Malcolm X with the pious
sisters of Saint Maria-Pia, Our Lady of Guadeloupe.

The next six months passed without ado. I would rise at 5 to chop onions, skin the
avocados and pluck the chickens; if ever I’m truly homeless I’ll go straight to the
district with a Mexican city councilman. The sisters and I played checkers after
breakfast and the European edition of Risk in the afternoons. You’ve no idea how
they coveted Turkey. I began to imagine myself growing old, pale and flaccid, lazy
enough to forget my discontent. A life neither lived nor squandered, I would finish
my days serving the hapless, faithful to the only promise I’d ever kept.
You were wondering, weren’t you? Oh yes, dear audience, true to my oath of celibacy
I stayed. I dare say I hadn’t even masturbated – though surrounded by festering
Vietnam vets and lacking a sensual imagination, I was never quite in the mood.

Desire had abandoned me like a dignity during a famine; lust the relic of a creature I
no longer was. Until, of course, the phone rang one sultry Sunday afternoon.
I was to accompany the Padre to a watermelon commune due west of town. It was
run by a renegade order of Saint Maria-Pia sisters and headed by a mysterious
firebrand who’d come from south of the border several years ago. Their watermelon
patch had been growing at extraordinary rates the past three summers and the
Padre was there to make an offering: give us the patch and we’ll allow you back into
the Order. “Our Lady of Guadeloupe shall welcome as was the Prodigal Son!”

The leader of the renegade nuns was not impressed, but I could scarcely believe my
eyes. She lifted her veil in anger, revealing a shock of deep brown curls and the most
stunning green eyes that side of the Mississippi. “Back to your snake’s den, good
father! The watermelons are mine!” I had no idea what was happening. Suddenly a
thick, dark gray enveloped the sky, a burst of dust began to stir on the horizon. The
desert was awake. At once the Padre ran for his conversion van – but I remained
behind.

That evening the Southwest saw its most violent tornado in seven decades.
Mailboxes were sent flying to Mexico, steeples as far as Kandahar. The padre never
made it back to the city, though I somehow survived. I peeled open my eyes, rubbing
the dust from each socket. I could feel something in my hand. I looked up and could
just make out that shock of deep brown curls. I was in bed, covered in rubble but
entirely clothed, clutching her hand in mine.