Beijing, July

We were under the awning to get dry. It was raining hard and persistently and the air was cool but everyone wanted to be inside because that's where the liquor and music and everyone else was A man was under the bar awning standing with an unlit cigarette yelling and motioning to the waitress for a light. She understood what he wanted and said loudly and slowly, "没有火!"
"I have no fire." He didn't understand and sat down. I sat down at his table and lit a match for him. "Thanks man, where you from?" He stood up and sat down and grabbed his beer and sat back. "Ohio. In America." "I'm from the West too," he said. You were from the East or the West. He smoked and drank. "Look at these people. These people walking by. Won't even give you a fucking light." He smoked. He seemed a little crazy to me but that was because I still didn't understand what it meant to be crazy and what difference there was between crazy and crazy. This guy was neither but at the time I thought he might be both. Either way he was definitely out of place in a Beijing club district inhabited mostly by foreign guys with Chinese girls on their arms. The guys didn't really have anything to offer the girls and nothing to say to them either. I realized that was also who Mike was but as an ABC he could actually communicate with a girl. Except even then he didn't have anything to say, not really.
I kept listening. "Let me tell you a story," he said. He took a drink. "Life is life. Death is death." He paused and smoked. "Look at these people. Which do you prefer, the body, the soul, or the spirit?" "What's the difference?" He didn't answer, just smoked and drank. "I guess I prefer the soul," I said. "Not the spirit-body?" he asked. I thought about it and didn't say anything. He looked at the people passing by like wet animals huddled under cheap umbrellas bought outisde the subway station. "Look at these people man." He smoked, he drank. I still thought he was crazy but now I don't know. He seemed to have a problem that night with other people. Maybe not with me but with those who wouldn't give him a light.