• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Is it just a prestige thing? Or do you actually have to defend clients now and then?”

It wasn’t long before I regretted the question. Here inside the restaurant, Max proceeded to display his scars. There was the knife wound in his back, and the gash that had resulted from a steel pipe that had been smashed against his shins, and then there was the ice-pick incident with his forearm, and the crumpled knuckles. “It’s always in the nightclubs,” he said. “Once a week, something happens. My wife thinks I should find another job. But the money is good. And I like it. I’m one of the top bodyguards in Chengdu.”

Freak.

We finished eating, and as we left the restaurant, he again circled me and whispered nonsense into his walkie-talkie to a phantom backup.

“So what do you say? You want to go to the nightclub?” he asked.

With you?

I have enough scars, I thought. This man seemed to act like a force of gravity for every weapon-wielding mobster in Chengdu. And with him muttering into his walkie-talkie, I’d convey the impression that I was somehow important, and I did not want the denizens of this city’s nightclubs thinking I was important. Perhaps they’d think I was challenging them on their turf, sauntering into a nightclub with a bodyguard. Who does the laowai think he is? they’d grumble as they slammed back their Crowne Royale. Then there’d be trouble, and I did not want trouble. Plus, once I’d established that there were, in fact, nightclubs in China, the thought of lingering in the boom-boom environment of a Chinese nightclub was no linger interesting.

So I bade Max farewell, thanked him for the interesting evening, and returned to my hotel. Inside the elevator, I became curious as I noted an absence of a sign indicating what might be found on the second floor. The first floor was the lobby. The third floor was the restaurant. There was no fourth floor, of course, because the number 4 is considered unlucky since it sounds so much like the Chinese word for death. But on the fifth floor there was the mah-jongg room, karaoke bar, and spa, which was presumably the “spa.” So why no sign for the second floor? I pressed the button for the second floor, and as the doors opened I saw that there was a bar. Well, why not, I thought. I’d read my magazines and have a nightcap.

I was escorted by an effusive host to a seat at a table. The bar was completely full. I ordered a beer. On a small stage there was big-screen video karaoke and young men were taking turns singing love ballads. I was beginning to sense something. Half the men were attired in short blue robes. I hadn’t felt this since I’d arrived in China. Suddenly, I started to chuckle.

My gaydar was ringing.

I looked around. There was not one woman inside this bar. On the walls, there were huge black-and-white portraits of buff Chinese men. And all around, there were men chattering in short blue robes. And my presence had not gone unnoted. A table of young men with big spiky hair pointed at me. They started whispering.

“Check, please?”

I rose up. The host took me by the arm, looking concerned.

“Thank you. But I think I’ll go to sleep now.”

Misunderstandings could take so many forms in China. I could at least avoid this one.

In front of the elevator, there were more men lingering in the same blue robes. The bar was connected to a sauna. A short, rotund man of middle years in a little robe indicated he’d like to have a drink with me.

“Xie xie, but no,” I said, making the universal gesture for sleep and pointing upstairs. He found this an agreeable answer and stood beside me waiting for the elevator, which would take us upstairs to “sleep,” whereupon I gestured and explained that I meant sleep without quotation marks and that I thought I’d go ahead and do that alone.

Typical, I thought as I stepped into the elevator. Out of all the gin joints in China, I’d found the gay bar.

21

There are many fissures in Chinese society. There is the enormous gap between the rich and the poor. There is the simmering tension