Read Online Existence by James Frey - Free Book Online Page A

“It’s time.”
    â€œAre you suggesting that your life is missing something? That this life your uncles and I have given you isn’t good enough?”
    An summons all the courage he has. “Yes.”
    â€œThen I suppose I’ve failed, and you’re just as disgustingly weak as you ever were,” his father says. “We’ll have to redouble our efforts.” He turns to An’s uncles. “Brothers, join me in giving An Liu his final birthday gift.”
    An Liu knows the uncles will do as he says—they always do. Unlike his father, they take no joy in cruelty, but they believe in doing what needs to be done. When he was younger, he struggled to understand them, how they could have allowed his father into their lives, how they could have turned on the boy they once claimed to love. Beforethat, they had not been gentle, but neither had they been cruel. Once, An Liu cared about this change, wondered whether, secretly, they hated his father as much as he did, whether they were equally afraid.
    But An Liu has learned how to stop caring. He sees his uncles clearly now, not for what they once were, but what they now are: the enemy.
    The men form a ring around An and raise their fists. Now it’s An who laughs. He will not cower away from them; he will not hide or fear what is to come.
    He will fight like a man.
    He will fight like a man with nothing left to lose.
    â€œYou’ve taught me well, Father,” he says, raising his own fists. “I have no fear left.”
    He doesn’t wait for them to make the first move. Instead he swings a punch at his father, and the crunch of his father’s nose against his knuckles is the sweetest sound he’s ever heard.
    His father shrieks with rage. As An fights his uncles, whirling and ducking and holding his own, one well-trained 10-year-old against four grown men, his father takes up the branding iron from its home by the fireplace. He slashes it through the air and strikes An solidly across the chest, knocking him to the floor. His head smacks hard against the concrete. Thunder and lightning explode at once, and he is consumed by the noise and the light and the pain.
    Then all is still.
    An Liu is somewhere else.
    Far away, in the black.
    Untouchable. Untouched.
    He feels nothing, sees nothing, cannot know that even after his eyes close and he goes limp, his father continues to beat him, teaching him a lesson he will never learn, because he is gone.
    His uncles are tasked with curing him of his fears.
    When he is five years old, the uncle who was once his favorite nails himinto a coffin and buries him in the ground .
    An screams in the dark. He kicks at the pine walls closing him in, tries to catch his breath, feels like he will lose his mind if he doesn’t get space get air get free get out get out get out .
    He does not get out .
    His voice goes hoarse; his mind goes blank .
    He lies still, in the dark, whimpers, waits .
    Somewhere above, up in the light, he hears his uncles’ voices raised in argument. He clings to the sound, evidence that a world still exists .
    â€œThis is not right, Hua. You know that. He’s only a boy.”
    â€œA boy who will be the Player someday, and you know that makes all the difference.”
    â€œThe things we’re teaching him . . . what kind of Player will he be?”
    â€œTo harden a Player’s spirit, to teach him the shape of pain, you know this is the Shang way. He learns pain now, or he learns death later. This is how we help him survive.”
    â€œNo, Hua. Not like this. Pain tempered with love, with mercy, with wisdom . That is the Shang way. This is . . . I don’t know what this is.”
    â€œThis is how our brother sees fit to train his son, Chen. It’s a father’s right to train his Player. This is also the Shang way. And if things go too far, at least we will be here.”
    â€œToo far? He’s got the boy in a