Chapter 9 Eight

Joe and his books (7) Vincent and Lisa were both gone until the end of the day.They must be somewhere in the city, Jo thought, and they kept calling, but were very far away.If they were to meet they would have to cross a river, which was dark and deep, with no boats on the shore.Joe went to the corner of the hotel, he looked in and saw Reagan sitting at the table drinking.So he didn't go back?Joe stood there watching like he was pinned.I saw him drinking one cup after another, just like drinking cold water.Spread out on the round table seemed to be the contract Joe signed with him in the morning.Joe remembers him saying, "Sometimes a tragedy is necessary." Then he signed the contract.Now he spread the contract on the table in the hotel to see, is he reviewing it?Or was he thinking of the two laborers who drowned on the farm?There appeared to be a stain on his coat, perhaps from his own vomit.The owner of the hotel didn't come over to drive him away. Maybe he needs customers, and the store is too deserted.The boss was behind the counter over there, obviously watching the drunkard's every move, ready to intervene at any time.Joe didn't want to go in because in his relationship with Reagan, Reagan was always dominant.Joe was dizzy and ashamed of himself at the thought of his hot, shiny farm head.He stayed in that kind of place for many years, but he still came to the gloomy city periodically. On the surface, he came to sign the contract, but in reality, who knew what he came for.Every time he claimed that he would go back that day, maybe every time he did not go back like today, soaking himself in alcohol in this kind of low house.He raised his blood-red eyes and glared in the direction where Joe was standing.Joe knew he didn't see him through the glass because he was so drunk.

"Reagan at Rubber Plantation Farm down south, do you remember?" he said to Maria. "That man is a man." Maria was packing a finished tapestry into a box.Jo found that she had sold less recently, and she seemed to be thinking of collecting them.In this way, it is impossible for her to spend money casually like before.Seeing her spare some extravagant indulgences, Jo Can't help but feel sorry for her. "This man, the sun has ruined his brain," said Joe again. "Nonsense. I think he's a born robber. He's got no brains." Maria locked the small wooden box and drew the key out, and Joe saw the spark again, this time from the keyhole.Maria gestured to Joe, then got up and walked towards the garden.Joe followed her closely.

A small table was set among the rose bushes, and on the table was a large pot of tea. Maria took a sip of tea and said, "Daniel and I looked over from this direction and saw everything in your study clearly, don't you know?" Surprised, Joe stretched his neck and looked ahead, but he couldn't see anything, only the dark red bricks on the wall, and the small milky white balcony. "The bystander knows." Maria laughed. Maria, who lives in such a house with a garden, is not content with a peaceful middle-class life, but is fascinated by a mysterious experiment.Jo felt that she was performing that experiment all the time, and that it threatened Jo herself.This is probably the original reason why he wants to hide in his own story.And what Jo didn't understand was that since she started her kind of experiments (tapestries, roses, cats, all became her props), she had become very independent.Even if Joe were to leave her now and live elsewhere, she would probably be all right.She has a close relationship with her son Daniel, and Joe thinks that even if they don't meet, they exchange information very frequently.The roses, for one thing, might have been a magnet for them, but not for Joe.She was sitting here with Daniel that day, and how he had looked out from the balcony of the study to hear their voices flowing through the air.And now, Jo could hear Maria talking, but her voice seemed muffled, and her body, wrapped in a blue plaid dress, seemed a little artificial.Joe heard himself talking again, and his voice was blocked by a metal plate, which made a "chuck" aftertaste.Maria reached across the table to take Joe's hand, and she saw that Joe was shaking.

"Joe, how many years have passed since that incident?" She squinted her somewhat narrow eyes, showing an expression of trying to remember. Perhaps, Jo thought, the answer she was seeking lay in his unfinished story.No matter what age she was in, there was always one thing in Maria's heart, and every few years she would ask this question.Maybe there is no time for that matter, and she can only divide the stages by herself. "I don't know. I want my voices to go up, but they just buzz in my ears," said Jo, with a wry smile.He was still shaking.He can't remember his story.

Not long after supper Maria disappeared into her bedroom, and Jo saw her put out the light.Jo knew she was not asleep, she had a habit of thinking in the dark.Joe had once compared Maria's mind to a tuberose in full bloom.Jo sat down in the study and went on to read the third page of the book, stroking the praying mantis gently with her hand.The words slipped past his eyes, and he felt cut off from the story in the book.Joe turned off the lights too, and sat alone in the dark thinking about Reagan's rubber plantation farm.He suddenly had an intuition that Reagan hadn't left yet.The hotel is closed, where will this drunk man go?

Joe appeared on the street, he didn't find Reagan, but met the black woman he met every morning. "Sir, are you looking for someone?" the black woman stopped and asked, frowning. "Yes. An outsider, drunk." "Go into the sidewalk, where he is crying." The black woman hurried past. But the underground passage was empty, and it seemed that Reagan had left.The passage is dark at night, reminiscent of murder.It was a strong need in Reagan's heart to come to such a place from under the brilliant southern sky.Maria said he was "manly", and it was in this sense.Joe remembers the way he came to his office years ago, when Joe thought he was an optimist.

Coming out of the passage, Joe took a few deep breaths of the slightly damp night air, and he felt that he could enter the story he had just given up just now.