Old Yang was Yang Yushan, the son of Teacher Yang, and my classmate.
Old Yang dreamed of opening a restaurant—one that belonged to him, one different from other people’s.
“You’re still incorrigible, still insisting on taking the capitalist road?”
“Heh-heh. Can’t cut off the capitalist tail. I’ll die without repenting.”
We were old classmates and old friends. We had been in the same class since junior middle school. Full of spirit, we talked about the affairs of the world. When the Five-Starred Red Flag flew across the country, after Spring Festival we went back to the motherland. He studied at Peking University, went to the Great Northern Wilderness, then moved across the northwestern plateau and worked as a journalist. I served in the People’s Liberation Army and, after demobilization, went to the southwestern frontier. After the Cultural Revolution, one after another, we came to America.
He had done a little small business. It neither lost money nor made much, and he decided it was not a lasting solution. “Food is the first necessity of the people.” Everyone has to eat, so why not open a restaurant? But from childhood he had been a young master with food brought to his mouth and clothes placed on his body. His father had been a prominent overseas Chinese leader in Burma, and the family had servants and a driver. Yet to realize his American dream, he willingly endured hardship and took a job washing dishes in a restaurant. Every day he worked among mountains of bowls and plates, enduring clouds of hot steam. He worked hard, watched carefully, and secretly memorized kitchen procedures and ingredients. Before long, the chef appreciated his willingness to suffer and transferred him to an assistant position, giving him the chance to learn more skills.
At last, he owned a fast-food shop.
When a pockmarked man yawns, the whole family mobilizes. He cooked personally, his wife helped, and their two sons assisted in the dining room. Every day they rose early and worked late, busy from morning to night.
But the location was poor, customers were few, and profits were small. After three months, the sons—still in school—began to complain. When they calculated the numbers, the family was earning less than if they simply worked for someone else. They had no choice but to close the business.
For the sake of earning a living, he went back to wage work while waiting for another opportunity to rise again.
He took a janitorial job at a large company. Fortunately, it was not as physically exhausting, giving his old gout some chance to rest. His American dream never disappeared. In his free time, he watched advertisements for restaurants being transferred cheaply.
“What? You still haven’t given up your thieving heart?” Whenever we met and talked about his ideal, I would tease him again.
He would laugh heartily. He told me he had gone to inspect many locations. Some were in good neighborhoods but too expensive; some were very cheap but in poor locations.
“I refuse to believe that if I couldn’t walk the socialist broad road, I can’t cross the capitalist single-plank bridge.” He sounded full of confidence.
Once, over the telephone, he told me he had found a location he liked and was preparing to start again. But his sons were unwilling. One was in college; the other repaired computers and already earned a decent income. Old Yang sighed a little.
Year after year, the painkillers he took for gout badly damaged his kidneys. His health grew worse and worse. Twice he suffered kidney-failure crises and had to be rushed to the hospital. After he was discharged, doctors put him on dialysis. He could no longer do physical work.
After some time, his wife telephoned to tell me Old Yang was critically ill. I hurried to the hospital. He was already skin and bones. His dull, lifeless eyes stared at me.
“My strength no longer obeys my heart. Heaven doesn’t obey man.”
Then, slowly, one word at a time, from lips pale and bloodless, he said:
“I’m going early to see Marx.”
His eyes filled with moisture.
Old Yang fought his illness through several springs and autumns. In the end, he left us, leaving behind a dream he had never completed.