The hustle and bustle around him had nothing to do with him
The smoke curling from the barbecue has nothing to do with him
This action of him "picking up money".
It is embedded in the background of the night
The waist was bent into a groveling arc
1
When my dad died, I couldn't sleep all night. I had nothing to do at night, so I took a pack of cigarettes and wandered around the streets.
This city of coconut wind and sea charm is known as the "capital that never sleeps", and even at 3 a.m., there are people doing hair in the barbershop. Under the dim rows of street lamps, the smoke of barbecue curls up, and the voices of people drinking and guessing boxing are boiling.
Hainan's barbecue stalls are mostly seafood-based
Northeast people like to buy a house and a car in Hainan, sit down in the barbecue stall, and there are people with a Northeast accent all around, and occasionally people who hear a Hainan accent feel particularly cordial.
I ordered a few skewers of beef and a few bottles of beer and started playing Tetris, building up the block in a grid, and I felt very comfortable when I heard the sound of the phone killing a line.
The boss also knows me more often, and sometimes he will give me a baked steamed bun or something. The boisterous crowd made me feel safe, better than the cold apartment that didn't have a bit of popularity.
I usually stay until 4 a.m. and I'm ready to leave, when the food stalls are closed. As soon as I stood up, Lao Yang, who had been waiting on the side, drove his little electric car to follow, and asked me in his Hainanese Sichuan accent, "Gosa?"
Lao Yang is almost fifty years old this year, and his body looks tough, but his legs and feet are not very good. Once, when he was on a very high slope, he got down to push the electric car, and his back looked a little depressed as he walked with a limp. He himself said that it was the sequelae of a car accident when he was young, but he didn't say how it happened.
asked him why he came out so late to solicit customers, and Lao Yang said that the money at night was easy to make.
"Business is better than before because there are more people coming out for supper in the evening. And people who can come out for supper don't care about the fare, and sometimes they don't know if they meet a few drunk people. ”
Lao Yang drove very steadily and slowly, which may be the reason for the inconvenience of his legs and feet, so he was very cautious. The voice that talks to me is scattered in the wind, and sometimes they shout at me.
Later, I learned that Lao Yang originally solicited customers at the entrance of a village, and there were just a bunch of people soliciting customers, and Lao Yang came from behind and was not familiar with everyone. Moreover, the drivers of several motorcycles who solicited customers together often laughed at him for his sore spots, and after a long time, he stopped soliciting customers in that area. Some people will also spoil his business, and when customers walk up to his car, they will shout that he is a cripple and that driving is prone to car accidents. After going back and forth like this, no one dared to get into his car for a long time.
Everywhere in the city, there is a farce of motorcycle snatching customers
So Lao Yang turned to the evening and squatted at a food stall to eat barbecue.
It is said that Lao Yang did a lot in the clothing business when he was young, and many people called him Brother Yang when they saw him, and he was in the limelight for a while. Later, there was a car accident, and the situation was worse day by day, and the palms of his hands seemed to leak money, and he lost money in any business. Later, I was so poor that I had no choice but to spend more than 4,000 to buy an electric car to solicit customers.
"When I first came out, I was embarrassed to show it to my acquaintances. I deliberately drove the car far away to solicit customers, and once sent a guest to the place where I lived, and it happened to be seen by my daughter after school. At that time, I was really embarrassed, and my old face was lost. How so...... The main thing is that I don't want my daughter to see her father so embarrassed. ”
Lao Yang sighed, I sat in the back seat of the car and looked at his slightly arched back, and suddenly realized that every time I saw him, he was neatly dressed, with leather shoes on his feet and his hair combed meticulously.
It's a far cry from the Hainan people who wear shorts and flip-flops on the streets.
Neat and tidy clothes are one of the few things that a middle-aged man can maintain in front of his family — even if he just comes out in the middle of the night to solicit customers on an electric car.
Lao Yang also told me about his young and rebellious daughter, and he was clamoring to run away from home after beating and scolding twice. Noisy and noisy, he said that he didn't want to study, didn't want to take the college entrance examination, and didn't go to college, Lao Yang just thought of the thousands of yuan in college tuition, and he was so stressed that he was going bald, where did he have the heart to care about his little daughter's mind?
Before getting off the bus, Lao Yang was still complaining to me: "Why do you say that today's children are so expensive?
This is a question left over from history, and it has been the case for generations, and I don't know how to answer it, so I smiled and didn't speak.
He took my change, carefully kneaded it one by one, folded it, and put it in the compartment of his leather bag.
Lao Yang pushed his electric car and walked a few steps, still limping. Before getting into the car, he supported the ground with his intact foot, and gently put the pedal on his other lame foot, so that he dared to drive the car out slowly.
The shadow of him and the car was stretched long by the street lamp, and the silver-white sideburns were dyed with a little warmth, trembling slightly in the wind, revealing an indescribable desolation.
2
Later, I rarely saw Lao Yang at the barbecue stall in the early hours of the morning, and several motorcycle drivers who solicited customers with him told me that they had heard him complain that he couldn't stay in the city anymore and wanted to go back to his hometown.
I don't know if I'm going back to my hometown now.
The person who dragged me home turned into an old aunt, about the same age as my mother, wearing a plain shirt, with a round face like a Maitreya Buddha, always smiling. I called her aunt, and I didn't know the name, so I just shouted it anyway.
Auntie doesn't know how to use WeChat QR code to pay, and she doesn't want to use it, she thinks that it always looks like a "deception", and she can't take it out if she puts it in. I've taught her a few times and she can't learn, so I'll forget it.
Nowadays, young people don't carry much cash when they go out, and she has lost a lot of business because of this. But she doesn't care, always laughing. Auntie believes in Buddhism, and she firmly believes that everyone who gets on her car is fateful and predestined, and the Buddha will not treat her badly.
When my aunt takes me, she will definitely promote the Dharma, popularize relics with me, accumulate merits, and be immeasurable. Seeing how excited she was, I didn't dare to tell her that I believed in Christ, and I was afraid of being beaten.
The aunt came out to solicit customers and was forced to be helpless. There are 4 children at home who want to study, and my husband is not angry, and he doesn't go out to look for a job except for drinking all day long. There was no way, in order to support the children in the family, she had to come out to solicit customers. I had to get up at half past five in the morning, and I didn't dare to buy breakfast outside. Heat up last night's leftovers, fill the kettle and head out, and won't be home until 4 or 5 a.m.
Motorcycle drivers often don't make much money in a day
"Now the soup noodles cost eight or nine yuan casually, and it costs about 300 yuan a month, where can I afford to eat? I think that in the past, a bowl of noodles in Hainan was only 3 yuan. This year, it's really 100 yuan in the hand, and it's gone when it's broken. But I'm compassionate, and every guest I've pulled in is very nice. "Auntie is a sincere person, and she doesn't dare to collect too much money, others pull me to collect 10 yuan, and she only accepts me 6 yuan.
Another time, I pulled a student, maybe I was in a bad mood and said I was going to jump off the building or something. scared the aunt so much that she didn't do business that day, and took the little girl to the beach to chat, afraid that as soon as she walked away, the little girl would be gone. Later, I didn't receive any money, and I don't know how she made money like this.
But she didn't seem to care: "Buddha is destined to be a person, and I can be regarded as doing a good deed." ”
The aunt disappeared for a few days, and when she reappeared, she had a bunch of scars on her body, her eyes were swollen, and the rest of the place was covered with a hat and a shade cloth and she couldn't see it, but when you think about it, the situation is not much better. The man in her family was going to beat her when he came back drunk at night, and she didn't know how to fight back. After the fight, she had to copy the "Diamond Sutra" by hand for her husband.
Copying the Diamond Sutra by hand can give one a moment of peace
"He doesn't know what he's doing, and one day he'll understand. Her voice trembled a little when she said this, and when I got out of the car, I saw that her eyes were red, as if she had cried. I don't know how much hatred the Dharma can counteract, but it certainly can't heal the wounds on her body.
During that time, her husband beat her badly, and she went out to solicit customers intermittently, and then she simply stopped coming. I haven't seen her in this place for a long time, and I wonder if she stopped doing it and did something else.
On the streets, there are old ladies who believe in Buddhism, tying a small stereo to their bicycles and playing Buddhist music. There is no Amitabha Buddha in the south, and every time I hear it, I think of the soliciting aunt who believes in Buddhism.
She was really a very devout believer, and every time I got in the car, she would recite the sutra first, probably to thank the Buddha.
Faith is almost the backbone of her life, supporting her to pedal an electric car all the way to solicit customers, and to beat her spirit to solicit business at 3 a.m. at night. For her, life is sometimes just a little person's tolerance, trembling to survive in the cracks of this reinforced concrete city.
3
In the summer, it began to rain heavily in Hainan, and the wind blew through the buildings to make a whining sound, and the green belt swept in patches of green, riding the waves and swaying in the heavy rain layer by layer. Many streets were flooded, and the electric car was halfway down to the knees, and there was no way to go any further.
Heavy rain and strong winds in Hainan in summer have become the norm
Master Su and I had to take shelter from the rain in front of a nearby supermarket, and the rain was blowing from top to bottom, as if it would never stop. Listening to the accent, Master Su is a local Hainanese, and saying "go straight" always sounds like "go in a hurry".
When he drove, he always complained about his son, who worked in Beijing, and he didn't know how to come home after being there for so long. But sometimes they will excuse him, saying that a ticket from Beijing to Hainan costs thousands of yuan, and ordinary people can't afford to sit down.
Master Su's hair is all white, but his hands and feet are very powerful, and his eyes are very good, so he can avoid the traffic police from afar.
He's the oldest solicitor I've ever met, and he lives very close to my neighborhood, right across the street from the village. In the morning, I often see him wearing Tai Chi clothes to the beach to practice Tai Chi, and I used to say hello to him a few times when I was running in the morning.
Later, I didn't go for a morning run, and occasionally I went downstairs to buy breakfast and met Master Su who had just come back. Master Su said that he used to be a soldier, but when he was discharged from the army, he had nothing to do, so he made some fruit to sell. The most in Hainan are fruit stalls, which actually don't make a lot of money, and there are many bankruptcies and closures.
There are fruit stalls in almost every street in Hainan, and the varieties are even more abundant
When the children were older and wanted to study, Master Su ran out to solicit customers, and more than 20 years have passed. Now his son works in a restaurant in Beijing, and from time to time he will send some money back, in fact, he has no need to go out and run around, but he just can't stay at home, "After my wife left, the house was empty, and I didn't know what to do when I stayed at home." ”
I can understand his feelings very well, and the feeling of emptiness after the death of his family is not relieved in a day or two. It was a very long process, slow and torturous. Anything about "home" will only cause mourning, and it is better to stay outside in the crowd and at least get a little bit of excitement.
It may be that heavy rain is more likely to cause people to miss, and Master Su told me the story of him and his wife when they were young. They worked in a factory, and when they got off work, Master Su went all the way to her department to wait for her. At that time, I didn't know how to write love letters and send flowers, and a girl was willing to go to the cafeteria with you to sit and eat, which was almost equivalent to acquiescing in your pursuit.
Later, Master Su went to be a soldier, and the girl waited for him. In that era when there were no mobile phones and transportation was inconvenient, a little girl went to the city where he was a soldier to work. I went to see him while he was standing guard, and I didn't dare to approach him from a distance, for fear of delaying his work.
Once the little girl got him some small cakes and hid them in a handkerchief, and he secretly stuffed them in his sleeves and brought them back to the dormitory, and he cried as he ate them. The sweet cake melts in the mouth, all like bitterness.
Later, the little girl became his wife, and the two had another child not long after. The family was happy and had a happy life. Master Su's wife left two years ago and had breast cancer. When I found out, it was too late, and I had to wait for death.
"During that time, I wanted to go with her, thinking about how to die every day, and I bought pesticides and put them at home for more than a month. But thinking that my son has not yet married a daughter-in-law, and I have not held my grandson, I am really relieved. After Master Su finished speaking, he sniffed, took out a cigarette from his jacket pocket, and lit it.
I opened my mouth to tell him something about my dad, but my throat felt like something was blocked. I subconsciously didn't want to mention this person, and I didn't want to remember anything about him. It is a cruel thing to turn over the past one by one and relive it.
But some people don't seem to care very much, such as Master Su. He told me over and over again about the little girl who peeked at him standing guard, that he and his wife went to buy a new bed, and that they quarreled and reconciled when the child was born.
After the man left, it seemed that even such a trivial matter as a quarrel came alive. Master Su was silent as he spoke, and in the face of the blank space where the person was not there, every step of the rest of the days became very difficult. came out to solicit customers for his son, and he lived for his son, so he had to find a reason.
When the rain was about to stop, Master Su smoked three cigarettes and got up to crush the spark with the heel of his shoe. He stood up and held the front of the electric car and sighed: "I don't know what to do, thinking that the days without her will be so long, I feel like I can't live." ”
When I got out of the car, he gave me a cigarette and I didn't ask for it.
4
My dad also visited for a while, probably when I was in high school. There are three children in the family, two older sisters, and I am the youngest.
Dad didn't have a good relationship with the family, anyway, like most authoritative fathers, he didn't say anything at home. may have inherited his character, I have also been taciturn since I was a child, and I couldn't squeeze out a word for a long time. The father and son basically have zero communication.
I have the impression that my dad belongs to the kind of glamorous person, no matter how poor the family is, he always goes out in a straight suit, and his hair is combed back straight with hair cream. It's similar to Lao Yang's situation, if it weren't for my sister who found out that my father was soliciting customers on a motorcycle, we wouldn't have known that he was doing this kind of work.
I felt like I was going to say something, but I couldn't open my mouth every time I saw my dad tired. I didn't go to the beginning of my junior year of high school, so I left a letter to my family and ran away from home. At that time, I thought that as a man in the family, I should help my father take on some responsibilities at home.
I went to a restaurant to serve dishes to people and gave me 500 yuan a month to eat and lodging, which I thought was a good deal. I don't know how my dad found me, but a week later he showed up in my restaurant and told the manager to take me away. Maybe he was too fierce, and the manager didn't dare to keep me, so he gave me a week's worth of money and let me go.
When I got home, I beat my dad hard and pumped him with a belt. I cried so badly that night, snot and tears flowed together. There was a bunch of strange medicinal wine at home, and after beating me, my dad used that medicinal wine to medicate medicated medicated wine.
My father brewed a lot of strange medicinal liquor at home
He told me earnestly that if I didn't have a culture, I would suffer in society, and advised me to at least finish college before coming out to work. He also calculated an account for me, and now it is 500 per month, and it will be 500 every month in the future, but when I go to college, it will be 1000 a month.
My father also told me that he had suffered a loss of education in his life, and his friends bullied him for not being able to read, and cheated him out of all his money in the contract.
That was the only time he had a heart-to-heart with me, and certainly the last.
After graduating from college, I came out to work on my own, and I also understood how difficult it was to make money, and I didn't even dare to think about how my father, who didn't graduate from elementary school, raised our three children for so many years, and all of them finished college.
My mom said I was calm when my dad wasn't there. After hanging up the phone, I smoked all night and felt like the sky was falling, even though I didn't have to live on my parents' money anymore.
Sometimes thinking about the night my dad hit me should have been a turning point in my life. If it weren't for what my dad told me that day, I would still be serving dishes in the restaurant for a pittance salary.
Now I'm very afraid of the night, I can't sleep and have nothing to do. I went out into the street and watched the dim lights of the early morning, and after the hustle and bustle of the day, the empty streets felt a kind of loneliness. I have a stalk in my throat but I don't want to say it, I've heard anyone say that the collapse of adults is silent, and I think so.
Walking along the bustling places, drinking some beer at the food stalls, and playing Tetris, I waited for dawn alone.
The motorcycles and electric car drivers at the intersection always remind me of my dad.
Last night, I saw a motorcycle driver arguing with passengers for one or two yuan, and pulled his throat: "I will definitely charge 2 yuan more when I just go uphill, and if I knew that I want to go uphill at the beginning, I will definitely say 10 yuan." ”
The passenger retorted to him: "At the beginning, it was said that 8 yuan was 8 yuan. ”
The driver of the motorcycle hurriedly grabbed his hand and kept him from leaving, repeating loudly over and over again: "10 yuan, 10 yuan." ”
Later, the passenger got angry, took out two coins from his pocket and threw them on the ground, and rolled his eyes as he left: "Isn't it just 2 yuan?"
The chubby motorbike driver got off the motorcycle, squatted down with great difficulty, picked the two coins off the floor with his chubby fingers, blew them on the edge of his mouth, and put them in his pocket with great pity. The hustle and bustle around him has nothing to do with him, neither does the curling smoke from the barbecue, and his action of "picking up money" is embedded in the background of the night, and his waist is bent into a groveling arc.
Watching him walk back to the car step by step, staggering and careful, I cried somehow.
(Text/Ming Kite, this article is the exclusive first release of "Human Story Shop", enjoys exclusive copyright authorization, and no third party may reprint it without authorization, and violators will be held accountable in accordance with the law.) ）