I am an old man. Once I was young and good and fair, and once all the women in the world noticed me and smiled. Now I sit in my chair in a dark room, always in a dark room, and think about all the things that have happened to me in my average and considerably varied life. I was foolish in my youth, believing that nothing could stop me if I had the guts to pursue what I wanted, be it women or wealth or power or even luck. Nothing could stop me, I was proud and it was a good kind of pride, but somewhere along the way it turned into something bad without my noticing. Or perhaps I chose not to notice. Power is heady that way.
I married a girl, fresh and pure as the sun on the best of its days. It seemed the right thing to do, the right complement to a successful man. I might or might not have been faithful to her, it has been a very long time and I do not have the memory I once had. But it was beautiful at the first, as these things always are. But arranged or not, I was selfish. I took what I wanted from her, demanded it with regularity and coarseness. She might have learned to hate me in those early days. I wonder if she ever really loved me.
It became tedious to have a wife. Children were begotten, by-products of my own selfish need and desire and bodily lust. I wonder now how different it would have been if I had made myself their father. As such, all I was ever entitled was to give them my name. They grew up without a father, I being selfish as I was. I didn't think much of it. It was the way I had been raised. Children are to be seen and not heard. Or played with, for that matter. It made the perfect sense. It was a very Chinese thing to do, and I was Chinese down to the toenails on my feet. It was all a very grand thing.
I ignored my children. I gave them their basic needs, what more could they ask? A father, love, toys to play with, new shoes, smiles, holidays. But I never thought of all these. I suppose that is what being a teacher in a little school makes of you: you become strict and are a teacher to your own children. I gambled my wealth away, was it not mine to do what I wished with? I never saw my family. I never wanted to. I used other, younger girls; even at the end of my life I never learned how to be faithful, or to really love my wife.
My children grew up when I wasn't looking. Two of my daughters ran away to fall in love with and to marry two foreigners, huge and tall. As un-Chinese as you could get. Perhaps it is my punishment, that they uprooted themselves and went so far away, taking their husbands and the children they would have, my grandchildren, out of my life. They thought to punish me for their own time as children, to remove my bad influence and negativity. I suppose they succeeded: my beautiful half-blood grandchildren cannot remember me now, they will never know me beyond an old man, their paternal grandfather. I cannot even give them my name now, that privilege is their fathers'.
The rest of my many children stayed in my country. My oldest son did well for himself, but he married a woman with a selfish heart, she controls his every move without his ever knowing it. My youngest inherited my loose temper, my tendency to hurt unknowingly, my wild drunken rages. He never amounted to anything. I give him money when he asks, because what else can I do? I rant and rage about disowning him, but nothing ever happens. I am a coward for all my surface quarrelments and anger. My oldest daughter married the neighbor's son. He was a straight and simple man, insisting on the most wearisome of things. They never had children. Perhaps they never loved each other. She was ever slightly an airheaded girl, given to her impulsive fancies. Her husband turned out to have a common problem: he squandered money he didn't have. How can a poor man still act like he is rich? That is the most stupid of people, but perhaps I have been guilty of it myself.
One of my sons married a girl who lived in the same town as us. He alone of all my children takes me in. He dislikes me as all my children do, but he is a good son. We quarrel whenever we speak. I have disowned him in my rages, how many times I cannot remember. I have learned to not say anything to my children. Instead, selfish as ever, I quarrel with my wife. In her old age, she grows tired of me, and never hesitates to let me know. I used to shout back at her, clinging to whatever shred of authority I have left. But in all actuality, I have lost whatever authority I once had. I decide things that are still in my power, but even that is not much: the dishes on the table, the fruit the family eats, the lottery numbers I buy with the only religious fervor I have ever had. She is a stupid woman. I grow tired of her. Of everything. But in my old age I cannot do anything anymore. I can only wait to die.
I am a bitter old man. For all my years, I don't think I have found the kind of love that is worthy of a lifetime as long as mine. I think I never shall. My daughters argue with me every time they return, a brief tolerance with their useless father before they flee back to the comforts of their overseas homes. But they take care of me. They have never forgotten they were daughters.
I cannot sleep at night. My thoughts keep me awake. I deny everything. I am old. Sometimes I forget things. I can no longer remember my early days. What did my mother look like? Did I ever have a father? Did I ever leave this country? What use has my life been? Have I amounted to anything? Try as I might, I cannot push these thoughts from my head. They will be there with me in the coffin as they hammer down the nails, or with the ashes of my body as they fling me to the wind.
I am a bitter old man.
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