Yuan Changming // Roaster Party // Fiction
Yuan Changming
Roaster Party
After Cao did much persuasion, Kang; my best high school friend, finally agreed to meet me at his residence while I was still in Jingzhou.
“But for your sake, Kang would never let anyone see him,” Cao told me. “Ever since he fell and broke his right shoulder last autumn, he’s cut off all his contacts and never stepped out of his apartment. So, none of us here, even as old friends have seen him for over a year.”
I knew Kang, almost too well. Being a cripple depending on his crutch all his life, he must have lost his mobility completely due to the accident. While his pride didn’t allow him show his weakness to anyone, especially old friends, he had surely been suffering not only from physical pain but depression as well. He had a bad on-off relationship with his wife, who was said to have eloped with a quite successful businessman.
As Kang had refused to be carried out of his building, we ordered a big Du rooster hotpot with a few other gourmet dishes from a nearby restaurant and personally brought them to his condo. In the meantime, Kang had invited Hu; his current closest friend, to attend the party. Born in the same year of the rooster, we four were ready to spend the night together like young teenagers.
Entering his suite, I found Kang slouching in his arm chair, looking much bulkier and less yellow-skinned than before, with two large eye bags and numerous crow feet. His living room was dim, messy and dirty, the floor sticky with a lot of scratches, all fixtures and furniture were dull and dusty.
“So glad to see you guys!” Kang greeted us aloud with as much warmth as delight.
To show his hospitality, Kang rolled into his bedroom and got out the very best tea and wine he had stored, while we three put everything on the table. To make things easier, we had taken with us plenty of disposable cups, bowels, plates and chopsticks.
After the first toast with Kang’s Maotai, we plunged ourselves into rantings. To begin with, Kang called all national, provincial and local politicians assholes, ridiculing ‘Fatty Xi’ as the greatest prodigal of the country and the lousiest leader of the Party. At one point, I wanted to stop him, since walls might have ears, but Cao said, “Even if someone told on us, the authorities would show only little interest in us; old assholes .” Knowing that every Chinese man had a sincere and deeply-ingrained political concern, (due to the long Confucian tradition), I just lent my ear as they tried to deflate their resentments against the socio-political reality of the day like a group of roosters fighting boisterously with one another. (According to the Chinese zodiac, one most important personal quality that all roosters share is their strong tendency to fight). When their attacks became less severe, Kang asked me quite out of blue, “What are the greatest differences between China and Canada or the West?”
Never a good speaker, much less a public one, I simply mentioned that culturally, westerners were born with an evil nature, so they stressed the rule of law, the use of power, and importance of freedom, while we Chinese people were good at birth, that’s why we pay more heed to the rule of virtue, the need for social harmony and the interest of the collective.
“To hell with politics!” said Hu, a well-recognized local artist and calligrapher still working as a union leader of a big state-owned enterprise.
“To hell with cultural discourse!” echoed Cao, a retired professor who taught chemistry in a community college and owned a small but very profitable business.
“Most important, to hell with Deng’s socio-capitalism!” added Kang, a retired mid-ranking government official, who was also a quite well established author of short fiction.
“What shall we talk about then?” I asked, not sure what other topics to bring up, but interested in anything my old high schoolmates might have to say about their lives.
“Sex or women,” Hu suggested. “A topic safe but interesting to all men all time.”
At this, Cao asked if anyone of us three was still active or functional. Before anyone made a response, Kang congratulated me for being an “ultimate winner,” because though Za, my formal fiancée, was married to Wei, a senior computer expert working and living in Europe now, she had cherished a tender feeling for me all her life.
“How can you tell?” I wondered aloud. “We’ve seldom contacted each other for the past few decades.”
While Kang explained how he had come to this conclusion through his more frequent communication with her over WeChat, Hu and Cao became excited in talking about her good figure, fair skin, especially her attractive breasts.
“Did you fuck her when you two were engaged back then?” asked Hu.
“No, I wanted to reserve it for our wedding night,” I answered with some embarrassment.
“Sanctimonious!” Cao said. “You reserved sex to no avail!”
“At least,” Hu said, “you must’ve played more than enough with her breasts, the fullest and largest I’ve ever seen!”
“What a shame you missed the best fucking experience in life,” Cao sounded profoundly sorry for me. “As an old saying goes, a thin man, like you has a strong penis, just as a plump woman, like Za, has an inviting cunt!”
“I’ve never heard of that saying,” I said, not knowing how to respond to their veracity and vulgarism.
“I know all that!” Kang confirmed. “Like all other tall or big guys, Wei must’ve got a small and soft penis, but hidden in your pants is a whole cluster of penises, all hard and long…”
“Hahaha! Hahaha!” All of us burst into laughter at Kang’s powerful reference.
After another toast to Za and me, they began to make fun of one another’s infidelities. As they elaborated on their sexual experiences, I remained speechless.
Seeing Kang have no woman in his household, I suggested he treat himself better by hiring a nanny or finding a partner. “Even if you’re unable to fuck her,” Hu chiselled in, “you could at least play with her cunt and breasts. Intimacy is needed for old age.”
“Once you change your bedmate, you’ll retrieve your fucking power,” Cao promised. “I know this from my own experience. Should you fail to become hard after the change, I can readily give you some ‘spring wine’ to help. Way more effective and natural than Viagra!”
“Really? Where can we buy it?” Hu asked.
“If you guys really need it,” Cao announced, “I’ll be your supplier!”
Hearing Cao’s generous offer, every one of us three felt fortunate and delighted in having him as an old friend, but none of us claimed to become his client on the spot.
Thinking about Kang’s poor living conditions, I went on to tell him to forget his wife and try to develop a relationship with Li, who he had declared on several occasions to be the best-looking girl from our youth station in Mayuhe.
“She’s still sexy even today!” Cao said. “When we revisited Mayuhe last time, a villager readily recognized her after fifty years of absence. That proves her physical appearance’s gone through little change over time. Most noticeable, her breasts are no less firm and perky than before.”
“How do you know that?” asked Hu.
“I happened to see her naked upper body during our visit when she changed her clothes without being aware of my presence,” Cao admitted.
“Like a cat hidden in darkness,” Kang said, “you’re always ready to jump upon a smelly fish!”
“I do like women, especially their breasts,” Cao shouted.
“I’m fond of Hua, especially her cunt,” I confessed to myself in my mind.
“I love a good-looking woman’s butt most,” Hu announced.
“I enjoy fucking every beautiful woman,” Kang yelled, “even if my dick’s softened like a damned boiled noodle now!”
From this party, I realized my old fellow roosters were still young and gay, though none of them had learned to be a politically correct guy.
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Author’s note:This prose work is inspired by Kang Jian(康健 ).
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Yuan Changming grew up in a remote village, started to learn the English alphabet in Shanghai at 19 and published monographs on translation before leaving China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently lives in Vancouver, where he co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan. Writing credits include 12 Pushcart nominations for poetry and 3 for fiction besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17) and 2149 other publications worldwide. A poetry juror for Canada's 44th National Magazine Awards, Yuan began to write prose in 2022, his hybrid novel DETACHING, 'silver romance' THE TUNER and short story collection FLASHBACKS available at Amazon.