One Hundred and Five Names

I owed 380,000 yuan when my childhood friend tricked me onto a bus headed for northern Myanmar.

Blindfolded in the back of the bus, I counted the turns: six left, three right, over an iron-plank bridge, then a two-minute stop. I'd spent eight years repairing machinery. When I couldn't see, I measured with my mind.

The first night, they pried at my fingers to force me to sign an IOU. The second night, they beat me with an electric baton and dragged me into the courtyard. Two people were soaking in the pit.

The first thing I said wasn't a plea for mercy. It was: I can fix generators. Three mechanics had failed to repair the generator in the back building. I fixed it.

They gave me four phones and a three-hundred-page sales script, and told me that if I didn't hit my targets in sixty days, they'd send me away with a truckload of others.

I couldn't scam people. All I could do was remember. After lights-out, I memorized every name I heard, one by one: 105 people.

The day the list was smuggled out of the country, I was still inside. Later, I went back and opened the door to the east compound. The people inside were sold by number, at 18,000 yuan per person.

The verdict read: Guilty of fraud. Three years in prison, suspended for four years, and 473,000 yuan in restitution.

The names made it out. I still had to stay alive and pay it all back, one installment at a time.