Chapter 44 Section 8

On the asphalt-roofed beach, they sit on blankets and apply sunscreen to their faces, arms and legs.Some of the girls were wearing shorts, and some had their jeans rolled up to their knees.They listened to portable radios placed nearby.The heat grew unbearably hot, and they waited a while longer before giving up. They followed the radio and sang songs from the week's charts, from No. 40 to No. 1.They have lyrics in their hands that can cadence well and hold the tone of each word.Of course, this is only for the songs they like. Later, the asphalt softened and smoked in the hot sun, and mosquitoes bit them.On the roof over there, the boy waved the bamboo pole and directed the pigeons to circle in the air, sometimes waving a towel, sometimes blowing his whistle, like a traffic policeman.His flock competed in the air with a flock that took off three blocks away, a hundred or so birds bobbing up and down in the dark.If the younger pigeons strayed into the opponent's flock, they were sometimes caught and sometimes killed according to the rules of the fanciers on the other roof.Moments later, the sun was shining on the body so that it was almost smoking, and the girls had to leave, rolling blankets and singing ballads.

They go to the beach by bus.More and more passengers got on the bus, and it was not Loretta who was leaning on Nick, but Gloria.They stand, hold the safety handle in their hands, and when the car turns or brakes, there will inevitably be a certain amount of physical contact.Nick was deadpan, Gloria was smiling.That section of the road seemed very long and seemed to have no end. The thirteenth section of the beach is the area for picking up and dropping off guests, but when they saw an open space, they immediately spread out the blankets.The two of them were together, and the entire beach was crowded with people, as crowded as the bus just now.

In the shallow water, some young people were riding on the shoulders of others, playing equestrian games. There are radios, food and rented umbrellas on blankets.Sand-stained bodies huddled together, poker players wearing sailor hats and smeared with suntan lotion. Loretta came out of the water and he threw her a towel.That was the only towel they brought, and it was shared among four people.He watched her stand on the blanket.There are blankets all around, and the U-shaped beach is terminated by rocky breakwaters.He watched Loretta shake the sea water from her hair, wrap her fingers in a towel, and dry her ears.

A young man stands on his hands for a moment, then collapses on someone else's blanket.Someone turned to look at him, someone said something, and someone brushed the sand off their body with their hands. Zhu Zhu stood up and applied sunscreen on her body. "Let them see you," Gloria said. "Weight lifters," Loretta said. "Let them see your forearm, Juju." "It's fun that you can do it on the beach," Loretta said. "If you do it on a street corner, they'll throw rocks at you." "They're looking at you, bend over and let them see," Gloria said.

An ice cream vendor walks among the blankets, all in white, his face pink in the sun.If you buy a double scoop of ice cream, the second scoop melts in your hand before you eat half of it. Nick got into the water, dived down, and felt a shock in his head when he emerged from the water, and he breathed a sigh of relief.The water intruded into his eyes, making him feel dizzy. The women stripped the children of their bathing suits, wrapped them in towels, and proceeded to dress them, underwear first.The children, still wrapped in towels, writhed like they were doing magic tricks in the desert.

Loretta was lying face down on the blanket with sand on her back, asleep.He put one hand beside her and blew gently on one of her shoulders. On the return trip, they sat in the last row of the bus with the engine under their seats.The sun was shining hotly, and the bus was steaming beneath me.They dozed off shoulder to shoulder, hungry, tired, and joyful.His face was tense after being exposed to the sun, and his eyes were still slightly painful after being soaked in sea water. He stood in the dark passage, watching her. "Gloria, you are too mean." "I'm not bad, you are."

"You are too bad." "If I'm bad, what about you?" "Gloria, come here." "What are you doing?" "Come here for a while." "What are you doing here?" "You're a woman, Gloria." "What are you going to do?" "You're a woman, Gloria." "Say something nice, Nicky." She stood there, smiling.He didn't smile. "You're so bad, really bad." "I'm bad? Who's bad?" He stroked her ass and she squirmed, smiling. "You are an out-and-out woman, you are an out-and-out woman."

"Try to say something nice," she told him. Nick took the last box of empty bottles, walked through the cellar exit, and threw it into the truck.Then he got into the car and sat next to the driver, March.March was sweating profusely, and his shirt was soaked and turning gray with sweat. "I said it's all over." "Let's go." "I say yes, but it's funny," March said. "Let's go, let's go." "I woke up this morning and told myself I couldn't believe it." "Drive, drive, I'm hungry." "Have you taken sodium supplements? Have some sodium supplements."

They stopped at a red light and a small car crashed into their car lightly. March stared in the rearview mirror. "You hit my bumper, you bastard." What did the guy in the car say. "You're still swearing?" March said. The man said something to the front windshield. "Ask him," Nick said, "where did he get his driver's license?" March stuck his head out the window, but did not turn toward the car behind him. "Where did you get your driver's license to drive this broken car?" The man said something to the front windshield.

"Ask him, is it Sears or what?" Nick said. March looked in the rearview mirror, his face about an inch away. "It's Sears, you bastard?" The signal light turns green and someone starts honking. "Infuriating," Nick said, "tell him you're going to hit the ass of his car." March kept an inch from the rearview mirror and spoke slowly.Sweat slowly trickled down the folds of the shirt that stuck to his back, onto his trousers.The car horns in the back blared. The school was deserted, and Sister Edgar sometimes wandered the halls to check on the classrooms.The other teachers are gone, some are spending the summer at the convent headquarters, some are visiting friends and relatives somewhere, some are in a doctoral program at some university, some are with the athletes and the well-dressed, in the Stroll in the shade.

Sometimes it was hard for Edgar to understand what she was doing in the face of the silent classrooms and lifeless hallways.Two or three nuns came to the school now and then, and a Filipino worker named Miguel.Miguel scrubbed the floors on a regular basis, even when they were unused for days.Of course, this approach impressed Sister Edgar: one can clean a thing so carefully that one does not have to do it again. She was alone in her room, changed into a modest dress, and read Poe's The Raven.She has read this poem many times and memorized those lines, hoping to recite it to her classmates at the beginning of school.Yes, Edgar Allan Poe was her poet of the same name.The poignant scene in the poem, in the absence of her male and female students, allowed her to regain her own sense of being concrete, tangible, and felt that it spoke her own voice. Her favorite mugs are in the closet.A picture of Jesus hangs on the candlestick.There used to be a mirror over the basin, but she took it off because it was disturbing to see herself without a veil.Thick hair, beautiful neck, plump shoulders, these things have been left in the world since the day she became a nun.She was shocked to see her own body: a man of modest means, with cropped hair and thin shoulders.She felt that this appearance was very scary, even surpassing the empty classroom in summer vacation, and she should be on guard against it. She recited the poem, admiring its rhythm and repetition.She paced the floor, thinking about what gestures to use, what variations of movement to use.She teaches sixth grade, and she's going to scare the kids.Today, she is the nun in charge of the class, helping them with their eight subjects.A painting teacher comes every other week, as does a music teacher.The music teacher wears a pitcher every time he shows up and smells of fruity perfume.All other courses are taught by Sister Edgar. She even grades the health of the students on these dimensions: the number of days missed and late, the number of requests to use the bathroom, the amount of dust and grime found under fingernails and in the palms of their hands. On top of that, she wanted them to be terrified.This is the secret core of her lessons, starting with this poem, with dire omens, intense feelings of loneliness, and a sense of death.She's going to make them tremble when they go back to school. She paced the floor and down the empty corridors, reciting the poem.They would be back soon, all in blue school uniforms, with pristine notebooks and well-inked pens, schoolbags swinging between their limp fists.She would line them up along the base of the wall according to their height and then seat them in alphabetical order.She will examine their hands and nails, and hit their palms with a ruler if necessary. They'll know who she is, and she'll let them know how awesome she is. She would recite the poem to them, curling her fingers toward their hearts.She would make herself poetry, the raven in poetry, gliding out of the eternal sky and swooping down on them. These summer nights, Johnny's family used a water pump to make young people dance under cool water sprayed by electric fans.There wasn't enough water pressure in the pipes to be sent throughout the apartment, so the women on the floors above couldn't do the dishes. All the movements point to the night sky, some people stick their heads out of the windows, some women are eating peaches in the dark window.Laughter came from the darkness of the upper floors, and some women waited for the breeze to emerge.Men in their underwear stood downstairs on the doorstep with radios playing, listening to the live ball game in breezy Cleveland. The children were running outside, naked and sweaty.One kid was skinny, and the others stood in a line behind the small bungalow bar cart, waiting to buy orange popsicles.A child with ink on his tongue is always a child with ink on his tongue.Waterman brand black and blue ink.What is he doing?Do you drink that stuff? On the porch of a private house, women sit and talk in the dark. The older boys rode rental bicycles for ten cents an hour.The girls and some boys ride together, sitting sideways on the beams of the bike racks.Boys ride into the water, making everyone happy - people sitting on doorsteps, people sticking their heads out of windows, people screaming on bikes, and people out of the way to make way for bikes child.Later, the kid in his brother's swimming trunks sticks a coffee can under the spout and it splashes. After the lights went out, the lads would be standing in the corner, smoking and chatting to pass the night.Outside the building, a trace of moving air can be felt.Some people sleep on the fire escape stairs, and they can be seen everywhere.Finally, a gust of cool wind came and changed everything here. Nick sat reading a magazine as the hollow knocking sounded across the eight fairways from the other side of the room. "Nicky, what's the news?" "Hey, Jack. I hear you're married." "It's all over, no regrets." "She asked you to come out bowling?" "Only bowling," Jack said. Lonza was squatting at the end of the bowling alley, probably the only black person in sight within a five or six block radius of the neighborhood.He is immortal, and it is difficult to tell whether he is twenty or forty-five.He sets the bowling pins, as he does every night, with a light, graceful movement that is slightly out of step with the scene here.Lonza is a poor fool.He wore the same clothes on many days, seemed to sleep in no particular place, and sometimes, reeking of whiskey, crept past the counter to the fairway.They—the regulars at the bowling alley—are more careful not to treat him too badly. Zhu Zhu came in and sat beside Nick. "Any news?" "It's your turn," Nick said. "I know, you're married, you've got three kids, you're getting potbellied and hairless." "Come on, let's play a few rounds." "Forget it. It's not my thing. She allows you to bowl once a week." "People get married and have kids. Isn't that normal?" "To me, bowling is like lifting weights." "Help me." "I wouldn't be any better with something like this." "Okay, do me a favor this time." "If a guy can bowl, it means something is wrong with his head." "Even if I didn't say it, okay?" "I'd rather take a thousand cuts and die." "Every time you go to see a movie with the character Charlie Chan. Oh, I remembered, the last time we played ball, didn't you owe me five dollars?" "I made you that," Nick told him. "how can that be possible?" "Because I wasn't thinking about winning, because winning would be demeaning to me. Either you beat me at pool and I'll pay you five dollars, or no way. I let you." The regulars laughed at each other from time to time, accosted the girls who came in, and always looked a little offended when strangers came in.Still, they were patient with the never-ageing Lonza.Lonza was slow and clumsy with bowling pins.He was hunched over at the end of the fairway like a bird, his eyes white with the crackle of the ball. Zhu Zhu found a playing partner.After a while, Nick put down the magazine and got up to leave. "Hey, take care of yourself." "Take care, Jack." "Take care of yourself." "Take care," Nick said. At this time, the surroundings were dark and silent.He walked down the narrow street to his family's apartment building.On a sudden whim, however, he entered a gate and descended a few steps into the courtyard. There was no light in the passage outside, so he groped along the wall, looking for the door to enter.He could smell the stones being soaked in the water left by the caretakers washing the ground.He went in, past the stove, to the room at the end of the hall. For a long time he had a lingering fear of that basement room, of needles and tape and spoons.Over time, though, that feeling faded and faded into thinking about many other things. Fortunately, George was in the room, alone. "I think you might be here." "It's cool down here." "That's what I thought too," Nick said. George found poker, one by one, and then shuffled the cards.Nick sat across the table, and George dealt three cards to each, turning over a king.The two started playing cards. "The trouble with poker, if you gamble," said George, "is that you're staring at the numbers and the colors for hours without a break, sometimes until the morning. When you get home, you fucking sleep Don't feel it." "The head is so excited." "Couldn't sleep at all." "It's been spinning in my head." "We're playing ace, though, and it's very relaxing. Maybe, I'll fall asleep in an hour or two." "Don't you usually sleep well?" "I don't sleep well and I don't wake up well." The two laughed and continued to play cards.After playing for an hour, there is no special topic.They each smoked two or three cigarettes and put the butts in a broken beer bottle. "I want you to have a look at this thing. I found it two days ago," said George. "I found it when I parked at the racetrack. It slid out of the seat when I made a tight turn." "Be careful when you turn." "I'm careful. I'm more careful than most people." "You have to respect your parked vehicle." "There's not much respect for the owner, the car, that's for sure." The two laughed.George reached back and parted the cans of paint and the rolled oilcloth, taking something from the bottom shelf. It was a shotgun, sawn short, with the barrel only two or three inches from the forearm.The butt of the gun was also sawed off, and it was only as long as the handle of the pistol. "What? You found it?" "I don't want to leave it in the car and it falls into the wrong hands." "Let me see," Nick said. He reached out, as if to grab the weapon, then stood up, and held it in a more natural way. "I know a little about shotguns," said George, "that you shoot with both eyes open." "Sawing off a shotgun is illegal, isn't it?" "That's another thing I know. Once you saw the gun short, it becomes a carry-on concealed weapon." "I think this gun is very old." "It's old, rusty, and worn out," George said. "It's basically a piece of scrap metal." He—Nick—holds it, and poses it as if he were holding a pistol commonly used by pirates, or what people call a Kentucky rifle.Holding it with two hands is more natural than holding it with one hand, and the left hand is placed under the front of the gun to act as an auxiliary support, and then aim the target. He aimed his gun and saw an amused smile flash across George's face.He pointed the gun at George, two yards away from George.George sat in the chair and Nick held the gun in the middle of his body, just above his hip.This means that the gun was pointing directly at George's head. There was a twinkle in George's eyes, which—such a light—was seldom seen in George's eyes.An amused smile flickered across George's mouth, a secretive, painful smile. "Loaded?" "No," George replied. George said, with a bright smile.The two shared happy moments, and George talked and laughed happily, and was very interested in the interaction between them. Compared with the usual state, they were completely different. Nick pulled the trigger. In the middle of pulling the trigger, in the quarter-second of the slow, creaking sound of the trigger, Nick understood the smile. At this time, the bullet flew out, and the sound of the gunshot shook the room, and even the chair and George's body jumped up.The imprint of George's face appeared in Nick's mind. He asked if it was loaded, and the man looked weird when he said no. Nick asked if the gun was loaded, and the man replied, no.Of course, the smile that flashed across his face had something to do with the danger, with the defiant spirit of their actions at the time. Nick felt the trigger move, and then the gunshot rang out.He went limp, thinking he hadn't pulled the trigger. However, he put the gun to the man's head first, and then asked if the gun was loaded. Then he felt the trigger move and heard the gunshot.The man and the chair jumped up and flew in different directions. He asked if it was loaded, and the man looked weird when he said no. He asked if it was loaded, to which the man replied no.Now, he was holding a weapon that he had apparently just used. He jerked the trigger and saw the smile on the other side's face. First, though, he raised his gun, aimed it at the opponent, and asked if it was loaded. Then, gunshots shook the room.He went limp, thinking he hadn't pulled the trigger. However, he pulled the trigger hard first, and then saw the smile on the opponent's face.That look seemed to have a challenging spirit. If there are bullets in the gun, why does the other party say there are no bullets? Still, why did he put the gun to the man's head first? He put the gun to the man's head first, then asked if the gun was loaded. Then, he felt the action of the trigger, and saw the mysterious expression in the other party's smile. He was standing in the room, and in the pool of blood lay the dismembered body, not that he had seen the room clearly.He thought he heard a sucking sound from the man's face on the ground--the afterbirth of the face, where the head had been. He recalled the whole process first, though, and it was exactly the same. They took him out and put him in front of the police car.There were people standing on the doorstep, some in nightgowns, their heads bobbing at the many windows, their faces pale and silent.Several young men stood near the police car, some he knew and some he had met.They looked at him carefully, with serious expressions, thinking that this was a historical event.It happened right here, on the remote, ordinary streets where they themselves lived.