Year of the Tiger - Lisa Brackman

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unlock the door and make my way through the living room, which is cluttered with all kinds of random stuff: books, magazines, dirty clothes, a guitar amp, and a cardboard standup figure of Yao Ming draped with a plastic lei. My roommate Chuckie has the blackout curtains drawn, and I can hardly see a thing, just Yao Ming, the red of his jersey blanched gray by the dark.

      Foreigners in suits. It doesn’t make sense. How can Lao Zhang be in trouble with foreigners in suits?

      Then I think: maybe it’s not Lao Zhang they’re looking for.

      I’m not in trouble, I tell myself. I’m not. All that shit happened a long time ago, and nobody cares about it any more.

       ‘Cao dan! Zhen ta ma de!’

      ‘Chuckie? What?’

      Chuckie bursts out of his bedroom, greasy hair bristling up in spikes, glasses askew, Bill Gates T-shirt about three sizes too big, knobby knees sticking out beneath dirty gym shorts.

      ‘That fucking bastard stole my seventh-level Qi sword!’

      ‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ I say. ‘Who stole your sword?’

      ‘Ming Lu, the little shits! I should go bust his damn balls!’

      I try to picture Chuckie busting much of anything and fail. The reason I have such a good deal renting this apartment is that Chuckie gives me a break in exchange for tutoring him in English conversation. Sometimes I listen to him and think that I’m not really doing my job.

      ‘So … Chuckie … I don’t understand. This sword, I mean, it’s not a real sword, is it? It’s like … it’s part of the game, right?’

      Chuckie stares at me like I’ve suddenly grown horns.

      ‘Of course it’s part of the game!’

      ‘So, um … if it’s not real, how did Ming Lu steal it?’

      Chuckie paces around the dim, dank apartment, which I notice smells like some weird combination of sour beer and cement dust. ‘I lend it to him,’ he mutters. ‘I trust him!’ He slaps the cardboard Yao Ming for emphasis. ‘And that turtle’s egg, jiba son of a slave girl go and sell it!’

      I had a lot to drink last night and I’m pretty sleep-deprived, so maybe if I had some coffee I could follow him a little better. Still, he’s talking about a virtual sword in an online game. How can I take it seriously?

      Chuckie’s game is The Sword of Ill Repute, the same game Lao Zhang plays. That’s how I met Lao Zhang, actually, through Chuckie. Lao Zhang was throwing a party at this space off the 4th Ring Road, and he’d invited his online friends to attend. Chuckie hadn’t really wanted to go. He didn’t approve of Lao Zhang’s gaming style. ‘Too peaceful!’ he complained. ‘He don’t like to go on quest, just sit in teahouse and wine shop and drink and chat all the time.’

      Me, I was tired of virtual reality and thought an actual party might be fun. I’d thought maybe I was going crazy, sitting in that apartment all the time. I was having a lot of nightmares, not sleeping well, and I needed to get out.

      So we went to the party, which was at this place called the Airplane Factory (because it used to be an airplane factory). When we got there, a couple of the artists were doing a piece, throwing dyed red mud at each other and chanting slogans every time they got hit. A DJ was spinning tunes while another artist projected images on the blank white wall: chickens being decapitated and buildings falling down and Mickey Mouse cartoons. At some point, this fairly lame Beijing punk band played, though I had to give them points for attitude.

      I wandered around on my own, not talking to anybody, because even though I’d wanted to come, once I got there I felt awkward and nervous, like I couldn’t have been more out of place. Eventually I saw Chuckie standing over by this installation piece, a ping-pong table that lit up and made different noises depending on where the ball hit. That’s where the beer was, iced for once, in plastic tubs.

      Chuckie was talking to this big, stocky guy with a goatee and thick eyebrows, wearing paint-splattered cargo shorts, an ancient Cui Jian T-shirt, and a knit beanie. The guy had just opened a bottle of Yanjing, and instead of drinking from it, he gave it to me, eyebrow half-cocked, grinning. There was something about his smile I liked, something about how it included me, like we were already sharing a joke. ‘You’re Chuckie’s roommate,’ he said. ‘Chuckie says you’re crazy.’

      That was Lao Zhang.

      Now I’m thinking: talk about a pot/kettle scenario, ’cause here’s Chuckie, pacing around the living room, muttering about how some jiba ex-friend of his has ripped off his virtual sword.

      Chuckie grabs his backpack and heads for the door.

      ‘Hey. Where are you going?’

      ‘Matrix,’ Chuckie mumbles.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because that’s where Ming Lu is.’

      ‘So, what are you going to do?’

      ‘Make him pay.’

      ‘Hey, Chuckie, wait a minute. Just … wait.’

      He pauses at the door. ‘What?’

      ‘You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?’

      Chuckie swings his backpack over his shoulder. ‘That Qi sword is worth 10,000 kuai! I’m going to make him pay me for it!’

      ‘You’re kidding.’

      Ten thousand yuan is no small sum of money. It’s over fourteen hundred dollars. More money than I make in a month. More money than Chuckie makes a month doing his freelance geek gigs, I’m pretty sure. He’s a genius with computers, but he’s always getting canned for spending too much time online doing things he shouldn’t.

      ‘I don’t kid about this!’ Chuckie yells, wild-eyed. ‘I’m going!’

      ‘Hey, Chuckie, wait a minute. Deng yihuir,’ I repeat in Chinese for emphasis. ‘Was there anybody looking for me this morning? Some foreigners? In suits?’

      Chuckie pauses by the door and frowns. ‘Oh. Some guys came by a couple hours ago. I said you weren’t around.’

      ‘What did they want?’

      ‘They didn’t say.’ He shrugs his backpack onto his other shoulder and opens the door.

      ‘Wait a minute,’ I say again. ‘What kind of guys?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Chuckie replies, clearly frustrated. ‘Foreigners in suits, like you said.’ And he starts to leave.

      ‘Wait, I’ll come with you.’

      I throw on some fresh clothes, replenish my backpack with clean underwear, which I always do in case I end up crashing somewhere else, which, objectively, happens kind of a lot. Then I grab my passport and retrieve the roll of cash that I’ve hidden in a balled-up T-shirt tossed in the corner of my tiny closet.

      When I come out of my room, Chuckie is pacing in a little circle by the door, looking like he’s ready to bolt.

      So am I. I don’t want to stay in this apartment. Not for another minute.

      Matrix is a couple miles away, so we hop on a bus that’s so packed, I hardly move when it jerks and squeals and halts – it’s like I’m surrounded by human airbags.

      Our destination is a couple of blocks from the bus stop, just east of Beida, short for Beijing University. Chuckie’s pissed off and walking so fast that I can barely keep up.

      ‘He’ll be there,’ Chuckie mutters, ‘that little penis shit. He’s always there right now.’

      ‘You don’t say “penis.’’’

      Chuckie looks confused. ‘Penis means jiba, right?’

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