Demon Box by Ken Kesey
11:35. It's Mike Pinocci from the U.S., followed by Bobby Hodge, Inge Simonsen, and Magapius Dasong. Mike snags a bottle from a drink table, drains half, and passes the rest to the tall Tanzanian.
In the midst of the Chinese runners, Yang watches the back of his friend's neck. Too stiff, too tense, poor Zhoa...
20 km. It's Pinocci and Simonsen and the Tanzanian.
25 km. It's still Pinocci, looking good, strong; and tall, black Magapius Dasong still right behind him looking just as strong. An American coach tries to hand Pinocci a cup of Gatorade but he's too late. The Tanzanian takes it instead. After a sip lie comes alongside Pinocci and hands him the cup. The runners grin at each other.
28 km. Pinocci and Magapius Dasong side by side; then Simonsen, struggling a little; then, coming up from the pack, the lanky Swede, Erikstahl.
Nearing 30 km a motorcycle cop shoots past to drive a spectator back toward the curb, and Magapius swerves to avoid the bike and clips Pinocci's heel with his foot. The American trips, rolls across his hip and over his shoulder, and comes back up still running, now third behind the Tanzanian and the Korean, Go Chu Sen. He sticks with the front runners, but his wide eyes reveal the fracture in his concentration.
Magapius lets the Korean pass. He shoots Pinocci a quick look of apology and he falls back alongside.
A stretch of rough road jars something loose in the trailing TV camera. The runners become indecipherable blots of color for a few miles.
The crowd back at the square is finally showing signs of restlessness. A drumming can be heard - a banging of fists on empty metal, relentless and rhythmless. A military wagon bores through a throng to check it out...
The wind tries to stir up some relief, swirling shreds of paper across the enforced emptiness of the square. The wagon comes driving back, a half dozen scuffed teenagers in custody, one with a bloody ear. All aboard stare stoically ahead, the catchers and the caught.
35 km. The camera is repaired. The picture clears. Pinocci is falling back, favoring his hip, Magapius still steady alongside, leaving Simonsen, the Korean, and Erikstahl to fight for the front. In the Chinese pack Yang realizes he has passed the 35-km cut-off point. He will be allowed to finish. He feels fine. He begins to open up - why not? As he passes Zhoa, his laboring friend exhorts him to go on, Yang. Chi oh.
Far, far back, Bling is panting oh shit, shit, shit. He sees he'll never make the 35-km cut-off. That smug mother Mude! Will he ever be delighted to hear Mr. Wise-ass Wu was not even capable of finishing.
The Japanese TV crew is disappointed with the crowd action. They're dead as stumps, these Chinamen! A sound man walks to the middle of the street with a bullhorn and tries to get something worked up. At first the crowd is puzzled. Yell? They have nothing to yell.
1:21. Kjell Erikstahl breaks the tape: 2 hours, 15 minutes, 20 seconds. Far from outstanding but, considering the locale, the rigors, the air, it's enough. Close on his heels is Norwegian Simonsen (2:15:51) and third is Jong Hyon Li of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (2:15:52). Li is followed by his Korean compatriot Go Chu Sen, then Chuck Hattersly in fifth, the only Yank to take home one of the vases. The limping American and the tall, gliding Tanzanian tie for tenth. They embrace at the finish line.
On the final turn around the huge square Yang is suddenly passing runner after runner, to the crowd's delight. Now they have something to cheer about. The Japanese sound man gets them going - Chi oh! Chi oh! -- causing the police to gather in worried, fidgeting packs. Crowds should keep calm. When Yang passes two Italians and two Japanese right in front of them they really get into the idea; CHI! OH! CHI! OH! CHI! OH!
Yang is not the first Chinese to finish. He is second behind Peng Jiazheng at 2:26:03. But Peng appears shot at the line, green and gasping, whereas little Yang finishes in a full sprint, arms pumping, looking good, his Gypsy eyes flashing. He's the one the crowd pours across the line to raise on their shoulders.
In Beijing, heroes don't necessarily always finish first.
Later, at the 35-km cut-off, three officials ran into the street with a big red flag to stop Bling. He sped up instead. "Clear the track, you yellow pigs!" He dodged through them, quickening his stride. The officials gave pursuit, to the crowd's great pleasure. The people began to cheer for this plucky laggard. Chi oh indeed. Bling poured it on, yelling back at the receding officials, "You'll never take Bee Wing Lou alive!"
Luckily they gave up after a block and Bling coasted on home. After he finished he apologized to all concerned, swore he was sorry that he had held up traffic for nearly an extra hour and, no, he didn't really know why he had done it.
"Maybe I was motivated by that Red Flag."
The next day was a rest day for the runners, another mandatory tour for the press. This time, the journalists were told, to the rural countryside to see marvels even more ancient!
The little bus had stopped on the statue-lined road to Ming's tomb to allow the photographer out for pictures. The writer also dismounted; he was picking up inner rumblings about a Yellow Peril attack. He trotted across the road and back into a pear orchard about five rows, to consult with his colon.
Hunkered among the fallen pears and the waving weeds, he tried to think about the assignment. The team was getting plenty pics and much info, but no story. That's the trouble with the New Policy of the Open Bamboo Curtain - there's too damn much info to get a unifying hook into. What was needed to hang this all on was a good old Pearl Buck plot, he was telling himself, or a fresh inspiration; then he looked closer at the handful of leaves he'd torn from the weeds. Holy shit, there it was all around him, acres of it, waving wild and free. Ming-a-wanna!
He returned to the bus blazing with excitement. He could hardly wait to get through the echoing tombs and chilly temples and back to his private hotel room. It burned in his pockets like money wanting to be spent. There are no headshops in Beijing but plenty pipes, sold as mementos of the Opium War days.
In his room he crammed seeds stems and all in the clay bowl and fired up. He sighed a grateful cloud. By the time his colleagues called at his door to tell him the bus was waiting to take them to the farewell ceremonies at the Peking Hotel, a plot had been conceived, fertilized, and, if he said so himself, well laid. All that was needed now was the hatching.
Bling and the writer's journalistic colleagues were at first understandably opposed.
"You're crazy. Worse, you're high. What do you think? They're just gonna let us fly out of here with him in a barrel like a souvenir coolie?"
"No, I'm serious. Consider the terrific publicity, the headlines: Shoe Company Smuggles Track Defector Out of Red China. I mean think of it. A couple years at Oregon under a good trainer he'll win the Boston Marathon! Sell a zillion damn shoes! I saw the stats. He went from a 2:06 at 35 km to 2:29 at the finish. That's 4:53 a mile for the last leg of a marathon, a world-record pace. The kid's a treasure, I'm telling you, a diamond that will never be cut without the proper training. Consider it. It's in the kid's best interests.
The editor nodded, considering it, especially the zillion shoes and the dawning oriental market. The photog had reservations.
"Even if the kid goes for it, how would we get him out? You saw the paperwork at that airport. What's he gonna use for a passport?"
"Bling's."
"Just a minute!"
"With little Bling's passport and a scarf around his throat - 'the boy cannot talk, comrade; that long run: laryngitis' - he could make it."
"Just a goddamned minute, what makes you think that little Bling is gonna hand over his passport?"
"Because the mag pays little Bling to keep quiet, put on the nice blue warm-ups with the nice hood, and catch the milk plane home to Qufu or wherever."
"Pays Bling how much?" Bling wanted to know.
"I'd say a thousand Yankee bucks would cover the flight and expenses."
Now the editor wants to wait just one goddamn minute. Bling was getting behind it, though - "With another say five hundred for
"Let's have a gander at your passport picture, Bling."
"No less than three thousand Chinese yuan! That's a reasonable compromise, not much more than a thousand bucks!"
"A Chinese Communist Pittsburgh Shylock!"
"How will we make the pitch? We've got to get him off from his coaches -"
"We'll get him to come on our Great Wall tour tomorrow!" cried the photographer, adding another page to his paste-up. "What do you think, Mr. Editor?"
"For starters, Bling doesn't look a thing like him," the editor observed. "The eyes are different. The noses. Let's see the passport picture, Bling, because I think that even if you disguised the kid, a customs officer would take one look and -"
He stopped, gawking into the open passport.
"In God's name, Bling; how did you get them to allow a passport photo of you wearing those goofy glasses?"
"They're prescription," Bling explained.
When they saw the kid in the banquet hall they veered to his table and congratulated him again, each giving him the wishbone pinky handclasp of their growing conspiracy. Bling translated their invitation about the trip to the Great Wall. The boy blinked and blushed and looked at his coach for advice. The coach explained that it would not be possible; all the Chinese runners were scheduled to visit the National Agricultural Exhibition Center tomorrow. But thank you for so kind.
By the time they got to their table Bling and the writer had cooked up a number of alternative meets where they might make their pitch to the boy in private - Bling would follow him to the bathroom... Bling would tell him there was a phone call in the lobby - but it was that master of surprises, Mr. Mude, who came forward to further their fantasy.
"The coaches spoke of your thoughtful invitation to our little minority friend," Mude said as he stopped at their table. Tonight he was wearing a very informal sports jacket, no tie. "I talked to Mr. Wenlao and Mr. Quisan about it, and we all think it would make very good media for both our nations. Also, we are told our little Yang has never seen the Great Wall. China owes her young hero an excursion, don't you agree?"
They nodded agreement. Mude asked how their story was progressing. Better and better, the writer told him. Mude chatted a few moments more, then excused himself.
"Forgive me, but is that not the Tanzanian that tripped the American? I must go congratulate him. As to our young minority boy, I shall see that all the arrangements are made for your convenience. Good night."
"Oh, shit," mumbled the editor when Mude had walked on. "Oh, shit."
Mude's mood was still cheerful the next day, his outfit more informal yet - a jogging jacket and Levi's. He stopped the bus whenever the photographer asked. He laughed at Bling's acrid observations on roadside China. He beamed well-being. He knew his assignment had been successful. No bad incidents, and he had learned a good deal about Yankee ways. He was getting with it, as they say. So after their stroll back down from the Great Wall, when Bling asked would it be all right if he and Mr. Yang took a little run together before they got in the bus for the long ride back to Beijing - "to loosen the knots" - Mude responded with his most with it expression, a phrase he'd been saving for just such a time:
"All right, you guys. Do your thing."
Bling was still laughing as he and Yang jogged around the bend out of sight.
The journalists played with the swarms of school kids in the bus lot while Mr. Mude smoked with the bus driver. The tourists teemed. And the Great Wall writhed across the rugged terrain like some ambitious stone dragon, bigger than the sandworms of Dune, heavier than the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Not greater, though. Not nearly. As a World Class Wonder the Great Wall is really more awe-inspiring than uplifting. One feels that it had to take some kind of all-prevailing, ill-proportioned paranoia to drive that stone snake across three thousand miles and thirty centuries. The Great Pyramid says, I rise to the skies. The Great Wall says, I keep out the louts. China says, The twentieth century must be allowed to enter! The Wall says, Louts will be everywhere - shooting beer commercials, buying Coca-Cola, strutting their ugly stuff. The twentieth century says, I'm coming in, louts and all, wall or no... I'm coming in because Time can't just walk off and leave behind one fourth of all the people in the world, can it now?
The Wall doesn't answer.
It was almost an hour before the two runners came back into sight, walking. And Bling was no longer laughing. When his eyes met the writer's he nodded and mouthed, "He'll do it." Morosely. Somehow the kick had gone out of the conspiracy. Bling put on his blue glasses and climbed in to look out the bus window. Yang took a seat on the other side of the bus, looking at the other side of the road.
The ride back, Mude finally decided, was silent because everybody would be leaving tomorrow. It must make the heart very solemn, leaving Beijing after such short weeks. He embraced them all tenderly when he left them for the final time in the hotel lot. He told them if they ever got fed up with capitalistic landlord mentality to contact their friend Wun Mude in Beijing. He would see that China took them in.
Bling kept quiet up the steps and across the hotel lobby. In the elevator the journalists finally demanded in unison, "Well?"
"I'm to pick him up in a taxi when he goes out for his run tomorrow morning. He'll have his papers on him."
"Far out. The Prince and the Pauper do Peking."
"What did he say? When you asked...?"
"He told me a story. How his father died."
"Yea...?"
"A few years ago there was a thing - a fad, practically - started by members of the intelligentsia who had taken all the shit they could take. Doctors and lawyers and teachers. Journalists, too. They would be found guilty of some crime against the Cultural Revolution and paraded around town with nothing on but a strip of paper hanging from their necks. Their crime would be written on the paper. People - their neighbors, their families - would come out and insult them, throw dirt on the poor dudes, piss on them! We Chinese are fucking barbarians, you know? We aren't really disciplined or obedient. We've just never had any damn freedom! If we could suddenly go down to our local Beijing sporting goods store and buy guns like in the States, man, there would be lead flying and blood flowing all over town."
"Bling! What about the kid?"
"A fad, like. Here in Beijing it was doctors. They were catching a lot of crap for catering to the landlord element, treating bourgeoisie heart attacks and so forth. Finally, twenty top physicians, the cream of the nation's doctors, man, poisoned themselves by way of protest."
"Some protest."
"Yeah, well, in Yang's province it was teachers. The kid's father was a professor of poetry. He was condemned to humiliation for teaching some damn out-of-favor tome or other. After enough insults he and a dozen other maligned colleagues walked into the provincial university gymnasium in the middle of a Ping-Pong tournament... walked in, lined up, took out their swords, and staged a protest."
"Like dominoes."
Bling nodded. "The man at the end of the line had to do double duty: first dispatch the man in front of him, then do himself. They tried to keep it out of the papers, but there were pictures. And things like that get talked around even in China."
"Jesus."
"That anchor man was the kid's father."
"And that's why the kid went for our plot?"
"That and, of course, the stipend of three thousand huyen... that may have had some influence."
They waited for their Prince and Pauper as long as they dared the next morning. The photographer fiddled with his aluminum camera cases. The writer checked his pockets again to be sure he'd flushed all the wild wanna. The editor paid the phone bill.
They finally ordered a cab.
"I begin to suspect that we've seen
The editor nodded glumly. "I wonder if the kid gets a cut?"
"I wonder if the kid even got the pitch. Bling may have put a hummer on all of us. Who can tell with these inscrutable pricks?"
The plane was delayed for two hours - emergency work for the flood victims - and they were drinking Chinese beer on the terminal mezzanine when they saw the taxi.
"Hey, look! Here he by God comes!"
"So he does, by God, so he does," the editor admitted, not too much relieved. "And, by God, with those glasses and that cap - he does look a lot like Bling."
The photographer lowered his long-range lens. "That's because it is Bling."
They couldn't get seats together until after the takeoff. "You did what with my money?"
"You heard me. Your three Chinese grand went into young Yang's travel fund to fly him to next year's Nike marathon in Eugene."
"Wait'll bookkeeping comes across that."
"Cheer up. He can still defect when he gets to Oregon."
"But what about you, Bling? Your education, your career?"
"When I got back to my dorm room last night I found I'd been moved out, girly books and all. You know who was in my bed, all coiled up like a black snake? That damn Tanzanian. Mude must've liked his style. So I decided it might be time for me to do some myself. Tripping."
"Listen, Bling. Be straight with us. Did you even ask the kid, or is this all a shuck?"
"I will not be tempted by doubt." Bling sniffed. He pushed the recliner button and leaned back, fingers laced behind his neck. "Besides, you'll get your money's worth."
"A thousand bucks for a thirty-year-old Pekingese punk? With times most high school girls can beat?"
"Ah! Good houseboy, me. Wash missy's underdrawers. Velly handy."
Yang did not wait for the bus from the Qufu airport. He left his bag and his coat with Zhoa. He would get them later at school.
He loped off down the puddled runway, east, in the direction of his village, feeling very happy to be back in the country. The sweepers smiled at him. The workers in the fields waved to him. Perhaps that was the difference: in Beijing there had been no smile of greeting on the streets. People moved past people, eyes forward to avoid contact. Perhaps it was merely the difference between country and city life, not between governments or nations or races. Perhaps there were only two peoples, city and country.