Kelsang was dismissive:
"That's all just talk, and besides, neither of them is actually slacking off work."
Suopo cleared his throat: "Ahem." Then, he walked up to Enbo, who was in the middle of shifting a large slab of rock. Suopo told him to stand where he was.
Enbo ignored him, shuffling to the side of the newly blasted out, high altitude road bed with the rock in his arms. As he reached the edge, he dropped the rock, letting it roll down the steep mountain side. Naturally, it accelerated, leaving in its wake a line of crippled plants and saplings, linked by a furrow of black earth; the tumbling rock had torn up the slope's surface grass, as if it were a plough careening down the mountain.
"I'm talking to you, can't you hear?" Suopo said.
"I can hear you. You always put a lot of energy into your speaking," Enbo paused as he brushed dirt off his hands, "Look at that rock, it's smashing everything in its path. Whatever it touches dies."
"Thanks to the Communist Party, there will be automobiles here soon. Are you unhappy about the prosperity the Party has brought to the Tibetan people?"
"I'm happy. I've only ever seen one car, when I left to look for Gela. I would have seen many more cars, but they arrested me because I didn't have a permit."
"I can tell you feel resentment towards our New Society."
"If they drive their buses up here and take us to places we couldn't go before, then I'm sure everyone will be extremely happy."
Gela ambled over to join the conversation. Clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention, he shouted:
"Tickets! Get your tickets! Get your money out, tickets for sale!"
His slapstick quickly had all the workers falling about laughing, though they hadn't the faintest idea what character Gela was impersonating. Now Gela was getting into his stride, his face a picture of arrogant condescension:
"Go on, laugh! That's right; show me your teeth, you stupid barbarians. Do you want to ride the bus, or not? Then show me your money you blithering savages! What? It only costs five mao. Get out of my face, why don't you go cool off or something? ID! Permits! Everyone who wants to get on the bus show me your documents! What, you don't have any documents? Someone get over here and arrest this scoundrel!"
Belly laughs abounded on all sides. Gela joined in the laughter, followed by Enbo. Only Suopo didn't laugh, so Gela turned to address him:
"Platoon leader, Gela reporting; as you can see, everyone is very happy, why don't you join in? Lighten up a bit, eh?"
The workers' laughter redoubled.
After a while the laughter subsided and the men grew quiet, each of them reflecting on the same facts. The first fact was that the buses would come; that was for sure. But the second fact was just as true; they didn't have money, and they didn't have permits. The sun was beginning to slide down the other side of the mountain through which a new road was being blasted. The village men had nearly finished clearing the rocks scattered over the road bed by the most recent explosion, and they were preparing to go home. As they left the work site, the road crew was stuffing explosives into cracks between boulders. The villagers had sat down on the slope not far from the work site, watching the road crew light their fuse while the sun set in front of them. Once the fuse was going, the worker who lit it blew shrilly on a little metal whistle, and they all ran for cover. A few seconds later, the grass under the villagers' bottoms shook ever so faintly, in contrast to the savage boom of the explosion and the pillar of acrid smoke that curled above the litter of broken rock up to the sky. The villagers had laboured all day to clear one little section of road—now, it was buried once more under a new layer of rock.
The villagers looked on, with many an awe-struck sigh for the inconceivable power of the explosives.
Suopo broke the post-blast silence, speaking with the authority of a conclusion:
"This, this is the power of our New Society."
Actually, everyone there was already well acquainted with the power of the New Society, since it had descended upon Ji village in all its force long before work began on the new road.
Enbo clapped a hand on Suopo's shoulder, who staggered a little under the considerable force of the older man's gesture. Suopo couldn't help being a little embarrassed; his body still lacked the sturdiness that comes with manhood. Enbo laughed:
"Don't take it too hard, friend; you will grow strong, with time."
Furious, Suopo hissed through clenched teeth:
"You are living in the past, and resisting progress."
"What does my living in the past have to do with anything? Either way, I still won't be able to go anywhere once the buses arrive. But you on the other hand, you've got to keep progress going, right? Forget buses, no doubt in the future …"
Gela picked up where Enbo left off:
"They'll send an airplane to take you up to Beijing!"
Now it was Gela's turn to be hissed at:
"You little bastard," Suopo spat.
"That's old news, do you really need to bring it up now?" Gela responded with a tittering laugh.
Suopo knew that engaging any further with the little bastard would only do his reputation irreversible damage, so he directed his threats back towards Enbo:
"Nothing good for you will come of colluding with this little miscreant."
Enbo's eyes were closed. He blinked, making as if to look up at Suopo, but his eyelids only opened halfway before closing again. Apparently he couldn't be bothered to acknowledge the young man any longer.
The men got to their feet to walk back home. Gela, happy as he'd ever been, ran ahead of the pack, holding his arms out and tilting his body from side to side, circling like a huge bird riding a thermal. He ran down the slope, through the lush green grass, imitating the noise an airplane makes:
"Wooooooo, wooooo! The airplane's here! Who wants to go to Beijing!"
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