Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost [95]
“Israel,” one offered cautiously.
“Israel! I’ve been hoping all night for a group of Israelis to walk in. Mazel tov, my friends. This round is on me.”
And the night went on, leading inexorably to flaming shots sucked through straws and a long, endless stumble in the dark—Which way? I don’t know. Fuck. I’m drunk—until finally we found the heavy wooden door of our guesthouse, and we pounded—so much pounding, had they never before had drunken guests needing an open door at 2 A.M.?—until, at last, a young boy undid the lock and wordlessly, loudly, we tottered in.
A knock on the door. Groan. I opened the latch. Jack stood in the darkness. “You’re not going to church with me, are you?”
I was in that grim place halfway between gross inebriation and a head-shattering hangover. It was not a moment I wanted to be conscious for. And I certainly wasn’t going to drag my sorry ass out of bed for predawn mass, though I did resolve to never, ever drink again if God would please, please spare me the hangover on the horizon. I had a dim recollection of a shot glass on fire. This was going to hurt. Please, Lord. I’ll never touch a drop again.
“No. I’m not going to church. But pray for me. I am not well.”
It was as if my head had been invaded by little men with jackhammers. They pounded. They drilled. And my mouth felt as if I’d swallowed a wad of cotton. My body felt as if it had been poisoned, which of course it had been. It’s the first sign of aging, the crippling hangover. True, I’d had hangovers before. More than a few. But once, not so long ago, I could simply guzzle a couple of Gatorades, go for a run, sweat it out, and move on. Not so now. After thirty-five, hangovers hurt. Jesus, they hurt. Flammable shots? Good God, what was I thinking.
Some hours later, I stumbled downstairs to find Jack on a chair outside, smoking a cigarette.
“Tell me that you’re as hungover as I am,” I said to him.
“I am hungover,” he said. “But I’m not the wreck that you are right now.”
Enough of a wreck, however, to have missed the church service himself. It turned out that we’d also missed breakfast at the guesthouse. I was, of course, in no mood for food. I was not entirely convinced I could handle food. But the cure, of course, could only begin with nourishment.
We walked into the old town in search of sustanence as the little men inside my head continued to pound away. I yearned for the sun to disappear. I wanted darkness. I wanted the grim twilight of Guangzhou. Anything to dull my headache.
Soon, we came across a pizzeria. Dali is that kind of place. There are pizzerias. I sat there in the tiny restaurant with my eyes closed, massaging my temples, trying to decide if I could manage to eat a slice without hurling. It was a very bad hangover. Somehow, I forced a few bites into my mouth and lived in hope that they would stay down.
Back on the street, we walked on to a large outdoor Bai market. There were dead pigs, dead chickens, blood, flesh everywhere, all over the place, all these carcasses being butchered. This was not a good milieu for someone desperately trying to suppress the spontaneous expulsion of a pizza breakfast. I had a vague notion that I should linger here, that there was traditional Bai culture here among the animal carcasses. Something to learn. But I was not well. And so we marched to the Three Pagodas, which are among the oldest pagodas in China.
In my surly state, the entrance fee to the pagodas seemed an offense of the highest order.
“A hundred and twenty kuai,” I sputtered. “It’s an outrage.”
I fumbled with my money. My head throbbed. And then the fireworks began. The Chinese love their fireworks. Pop, pop, pop. Every Saturday in China—wedding day—the country explodes to the sounds of head-shattering booms. Pop, pop, crack. Rat-tat-tat-tat.
“I need to get out of here.”
So instead of lingering at the pagodas, we walked back toward the West Gate, where we were convinced by a woman to follow her on the Number 2 bus to Erhai Hu for a boat trip to a temple and fishing village. This was more my