Cattle herder Lao Tong
Text/Liu Haiqing
In the early spring evening, when the weather was a little cold, I hurried down the sparsely populated street. Suddenly, someone behind me called me, Lao Liu, you wait. The sound is not loud or small. I was taken aback, who was it? I turned around and saw a man who was only a few steps away from me. This man seemed familiar to me, but I couldn't remember who it was. He said, I'm Lao Tong, I don't have any money to spend, you can give me some money. I suddenly remembered, it's really Lao Tong, I've heard about him for a long time. I haven't seen him in almost twenty years, and the way he looks today still surprises me. He is obviously much older, but from his eyebrows, eyes, face shape, and contours, you can vaguely discern what he looked like back then. He was dressed in a school uniform, a camouflage hat with a broken brim, and a pair of camouflage galoshes on his feet, covered in mud. As he spoke, he took out a bag of instant noodles from his pocket, which was dry tobacco, and rolled it up and smoked it. I said, Lao Tong, it's you, I haven't seen you for many years. I gave him 20 yuan, and he said, "This amount of money is not good, do you think I want food!" At least 50, and there is no limit to more! I was very confused, and my heart was not happy, how could I ask for money and be so unrestrained? I had to give him 50 yuan, and he took the money, grinned, and turned around and left.
After that, for a long time, the shadow of Lao Tong has been flashing in my mind, and I have gathered with friends several times to talk about Lao Tong.
In the nineties, Lao Tong was a small celebrity in the small town, and there were many people who knew him, and his affairs were once widely spread.
Lao Tong's matter is a long story.
Lao Tong is a year older than me, less than sixty. When he was in high school at No. 1 Middle School, he was one year taller than me. In the sixties and seventies, although Lao Tong's family was not a prominent family, it was completely wealthy. He is not our local, his father participated in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and after the liberation, he transferred to our county and served as the director of the Food Bureau. When I was in junior high school, his father made a report to us, saying that he once raped in the tiger's den, and on a stormy night, several soldiers of the Eighth Route Army entered the enemy camp and killed a hardcore traitor without a single shot.
When we were in junior high school, it was the era of the planned economy, and most of the staff and cadres had meager incomes and lived in poverty. At that time, it was quite high to earn sixty or seventy yuan, but Lao Tong's father had old qualifications, high rank, and a salary of more than 100 yuan, which made people envious.
Lao Tong did not go to college, but after graduating from high school, he joined the workforce, went to a large insurance company, and in the early nineties, became the deputy general manager of the insurance company. He has a bold personality, is righteous, has a lot of connections, and has outstanding achievements. Lao Tong is more than 1.8 meters tall, strong and strong, with two sword eyebrows, blazing eyes, and a Chinese face, he is a beautiful man full of manly taste. He plays a good hand of basketball, and his specialty is a three-step basket, and he is athletic and unbeatable. In the nineties, every summer, the county held a basketball game for county workers, and Lao Tong was the captain of the financial team. I am a propagandist of the Education Wing, and I often do activities with Lao Tong and them. Lao Tong was infinitely beautiful at that time, sassy and heroic on the basketball court, tigers and tigers, and the audience was crowded with people and thunderous applause. He is a household name in the small county town and has a great reputation.
At that time, I worked in the county education bureau, and my monthly salary was only three or four hundred yuan. Dressing is a few tens of yuan a piece. Lao Tong's monthly salary at that time was more than 1,000 yuan, and the company also issued clothing, and a suit was worth thousands of dollars. I often see Lao Tong wearing a straight suit, carrying a leather bag, holding his head high, and his instrument is magnificent, going in and out of various government agencies and major hotels and restaurants in the county.
However, Lao Tong also has a fatal bad habit, that is, he loves to drink, and he drinks a lot of alcohol without moderation. Three meals a day, all eating and drinking outside. He once told me that there are more than 200 restaurants in the county, and he can eat several times a year. He never drank with a glass, but with a large bowl. I always think that Lao Tong has no city and is a rough man by nature. It was his excessive drinking that laid a huge hidden danger for his near-perfect life.
There were unforeseen circumstances, and an unexpected disaster occurred in Lao Tong's family, which changed the rest of his life. His only daughter, who was only seventeen years old, was killed in a car accident. His wife was grief-stricken and died, and Lao Tong borrowed wine to drown his sorrows and drink to quench his thirst. The husband and wife complained to each other, blamed each other, and even punched and kicked each other. Once, the husband and wife quarreled, Lao Tong was very angry, picked up a bottle of liquor, and drank it all in one go, although he had a lot of alcohol, but he was bored in his heart, who could afford to drink so much. After a moment's effort, Lao Tong was delirious, babbling nonsense, dancing, and crazy. From then on, Lao Tong sat down at the root of the illness and began to drink heavily, every time he drank, he would get drunk, and he would be chaotic, and it would get worse. He gradually had a split personality and a distorted psychology, and he could no longer live and work normally. Soon the couple separated. The insurance work must not be wrong, the company leaders saw Lao Tong like this, and decided to let Lao Tong buy out the seniority and gave him 160,000 yuan. In 2000, 160,000 was not a small amount. The first thing Lao Tong did was to buy a car, and at that time, there were very few people who could have a private car.
Without the constraints of the unit and family, Lao Tong is even more unscrupulous, eating, drinking and having fun with fox friends and dog friends every day, spending all day drinking, and even not returning home at night. Once, I met a waitress in the hotel, this girl was twenty years old, slender, handsome, although she came from a humble background, but she was quite scheming, and soon set her eyes on Lao Tong's fat. The girl tried her best, the sound of the warbler and the swallow language, and the charm of the thousands of charms, coaxed Lao Tong to be overjoyed and confused. The girl asked Lao Tong for money for various reasons, but Lao Tong was rude, and he was often in a drunken state, and after a short time, most of the money was taken away by the girl. The girl wanted to get married, but seeing that Lao Tong had little money left, she started the idea of a car, and opened her mouth to Lao Tong several times, but was rejected. So the girl conspired with others and made a plan. One night, in a hotel, the girl was with Lao Tong. As soon as the time passed, she spread her hair, scratched her face and breasts, tore her underwear, and shouted that someone had raped her, come and help! Several big men broke into the door, all with vicious faces, tattoos, and pressed Lao Tong to the ground. The public called the police and put you in prison for 10 years, and handed over the car privately and wrote the transfer papers. Lao Tong had no choice but to give the car to the girl, and since then, the girl has evaporated from the world.
Lao Tong was penniless and had no food and clothing, so he had to go to his elderly parents. His parents were old and sick, retired early, and did not have much savings, and his mother occasionally picked up some scraps to fill the family.
Lao Tong is even more broken, and he has intensified, still drinking and having fun, cheating and cheating. Ask your parents for money, borrow money from friends and acquaintances. Due to long-term excessive drinking, the eyes are damaged, similar to myopia, and it is especially offensive to see people who must be close to see clearly. As a result of heavy smoking of dry tobacco, the teeth became charred. I really have no money, and when I see colleagues, friends, classmates, and acquaintances, I must ask for money, and I must ask for more than 510 yuan, 10 yuan and 8 yuan, and I must maintain a little self-esteem at the end. Later, all those who knew him avoided him as soon as they saw him.
Lao Tong has been half-human, half-ghost, and depressed for a few years, almost no different from a beggar. One of his high school classmates opened several companies in a city and was worth more than 100 million. A few years ago, a cattle farm was opened near the reservoir area of a large reservoir in the southern part of the county. After hearing about Lao Tong, he remembered the old relationship and asked Lao Tong to go to the cattle farm to herd cattle, which solved Lao Tong's food problem. Lao Tong stayed in a deep ravine for more than ten years.
Spring goes to autumn, flowers bloom and fall, and there are still many stories in the small town. Lao Tong gradually faded out of people's field of vision.
Although Lao Tong and I are alumni, we do not have a deep friendship. Lao Tong's story made me feel a lot of emotion. He has changed from a dignified deputy general manager of an insurance company to a cattle herder in a deep ravine; from a burly and sturdy beautiful man with thick eyebrows and big eyes to a beggar in ragged clothes with a hunched back; from a vigorous and invincible athlete to an old man who moves slowly and has a withered expression. The poor will have something to hate, and the hateful will have miserable suffering. Lao Tong's life experience is in response to the old saying: wine is a poison that pierces the intestines, and color is a steel knife that scrapes bones!
About the Author:
Liu Haiqing, a native of Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province, is a member of the Hebei Writers Association and a member of the China Democratic League. His works have been scattered in newspapers and periodicals such as "Selected Essays", "Overseas Digest", "Hebei Writers", "Hebei Literature", "Contemporary", "Qinhuangdao Daily", "Southern Prose", etc., and have been selected into "Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Writers" and "Prose Volume of Contemporary Writers", and literary reviews have been published in more than 60 newspapers and magazines such as "Appreciation of Masterpieces", "Reading and Writing", "China Education News", "Middle School Chinese", etc. He won the second prize of the 2021 and 2022 China Prose Annual Conference.