The man with the screen name 419 (For One Night) tells him, via QQ chat, “Meet me in the back of People’s Park.” Heart thumping, teeth chattering, with sweat on his brow and a flush in his cheeks, the man with the crooked bangs enters, for the His T-shirt clings tight to his chest and his pants are cropped to reveal ankles pocked with mosquito bites. A man exits a cab at the edge of the park and adjusts his hair. You can hear the cars over on the next street, the honk of trucks and the skid of moped wheels. Old men and women pick up their orange peels, abandoning the Go tables they’ve been gathered around since morning. Couples desert their benches for warm beds. It’s 7 pm on a Sunday and the kids are leaving People’s Park, their books and tennis rackets cradled under swinging arms. See how they slap each other’s shoulders in the milky dusk. Listen to how they talk, to how their voices rise with flirtatious lilts. They are the men who cruise the parks at night, with their eyes wandering and a hand planted over their hips.
