Gang of One: Memoirs of a Red Guard

5. "Revolution Means Chopping Life"

 ‘‘Revolution Means Chopping Life’’ The disastrous retreat from Beijing University seemed to be the harbinger of a run of back luck that descended upon our proud Great Wall Fighting Team. I knew the word ‘‘revolution,’’ ge ming, literally means ‘‘chop life,’’ but I had thought it meant to chop the life of enemies like General Hei, not the life of comrades. But revolution has a funny and strange way of turning comrades into enemies. In a few short weeks following our retreat, the Cultural Revolution had turned against many of its most ardent proponents, the Red Guards themselves. After her arrest, Baby Dragon’s sister was charged as an anti-revolutionary and quickly sentenced to seven years of hard labor; Chunky, the most decorated Red Guard commander , was declared a class enemy and sentenced to ten years in prison. I later learned that he was severely tortured on the ‘‘Tiger’s Bench’’ in prison, with his legs strapped to a bench at the knees while bricks were added under his heels; his legs were so severely mutilated that he was crippled for life. Whiskers, the other hero of the fight at Beijing University , was bludgeoned to death by a rival gang of Red Guards during a brawl. The Cultural Revolution had begun to chop the lives of revolutionary Red Guards as cruelly and as quickly as it had the earlier capitalists . The bad luck also gripped the Great Wall Fighting Team, and it started with Sparrow, our buck-toothed propaganda chief. One morning in February of , Baby Dragon charged into my room and told me terrible news: ‘‘Sparrow’s father’s dead,’’ he said. ‘‘He hung himself from a pine tree in the park last night.’’ ‘‘Why?’’ I asked. ‘‘They said he was declared a traitor yesterday by some Red Guards.’’ ‘‘Is that true?’’ ‘‘I don’t think so,’’ said Baby Dragon. We went over to Sparrow’s home, which was in a building just a block ‘‘Revolution Means Chopping Life’’  from ours. But there was little we could do to console our friend. A few days after his father’s death, Sparrow and his family were told that they could no longer live in the Big Courtyard and had to move out immediately . They soon moved to the other end of the city and I rarely saw Sparrow afterward. A month later, the horrible hand of revolution struck Kangaroo, our secretary-general. For several days he did not show up at the Great Wall Fighting Team headquarters, and we went to look for him. At his apartment , we found the door was sealed and nobody was living there anymore . ‘‘Why did they go?’’ we asked around. ‘‘They left two days ago, at night, the whole family,’’ a neighbor boy told us. ‘‘Kangaroo’s father is a fake Party member and he’s not an officer any more.’’ That’s all we found out about his sudden disappearance. Several weeks later, I got a letter from Kangaroo, which was mailed from a state farm in Xinjiang, a remote region where China’s emperors used to exile their prisoners. He sounded cheerful enough in the letter, telling me about the white mountains and herds of sheep and drinking horse milk on the farm, but I knew life must be hard for him now that he was the son of a disgraced father. I wrote back immediately and told him that we would visit him someday. After that letter, however, I never heard from him again. I missed both of these friends very much. With Sparrow and Kangaroo gone, the once noisy and joyful headquarters of the Great Wall Fighting Team became quiet and empty and seemed to have lost much of its fun. I went there less and less and began spending more time at home, trying to find books to read. But the bad luck did not stop with Kangaroo. About two months after his disappearance, the mysterious hand of revolution struck again, this time at my family. On a Sunday night, I came home with my sister from the public dining hall and saw Aunt Zan Mei and my mother huddled outside the back door (we lived on the first floor), talking tensely in low voices. They did not seem to notice the chilly wind and the light rain that was falling on them. I had not seen Zan Mei, my favorite aunt, for several years. She was wearing a thin black coat and had a large coarse...