I. “Old Pig”
Decades, his real name I have long forgotten, only remember that everyone called him “old Zhu”, from the day I came to Huaiyang Commune, central Jilin Province, Liuyang County, Xiaoshan Brigade, production team No. 7, a poor production team to settle. Later I learned that this “Zhu” is the “pig” of the pig.
At that Time, “Old Pig” was a regular visitor to our collective household of 19 people. As long as he did not go out, he always had to go around among us after work and dinner. The head is casually skewed with a top several exposed light plate dogskin cap, wearing a black and shiny wrinkled cotton jacket, a sorghum straw waist a tie, the two ends a twist, to a plug is the belt. He put his hands together in the sleeves, feet slipped on a pair of open cotton rubber shoes, mouth humming some ambiguous two-person ditty, but also stuck in the throat, holding his breath, sharp voice pointedly learning the voice of the women, to the point of satisfaction must be twisted waist twisted ass.
The “old pig” appreciates the milk candy in Shanghai: “This is the taste!” he said. He said. He also liked Shanghai sausages, although he said, “It’s too sweet for us to eat.” After tasting our fried rice cakes, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked disdainful: “Hmph, what’s this stuff, it’s just like our dried potatoes.” He smacked his lips, tasted the Taicang meat pine, and concluded, “Damn, it’s the same as cotton wool.”
He sat down at the edge of the bed, took out half a book of “Quotations” from his bosom, tore off a sheet, grabbed a handful of tobacco leaves from the greasy cloth bag and laid it on the ground, crushed it with his fingers, turned his hands deftly, spat out his tongue and licked it, and put a cigarette in his mouth. Then a thick smoke accompanied by choking spicy smell filled out. The “old pig” inhaled deeply, but also forgot to comment on the Shanghai cigarettes: “good-looking is good-looking, not smoking, no strength, or my toad smoke.” Said a mouthful of white foam from the mouth, straight down the opposite wall root.
Sometimes, he will suddenly cover his thighs with his hands, or press the waist with his hands, without saying a word, slowly unbuckle his belt and loosen his pants. Just see him concentrating, one hand on the outside pressing still, the other hand carefully into the crotch, or turn over the waist of the pants; the outside hand slowly released, the inside hand step in, a sudden attack, fingers a pinch, a squeeze. “Take a look,” he gloated, “a flea!” We looked dumbfounded, admired but also uncomfortable, all uncomfortable up.
The “old pig” always came, looking east and west, inevitably bored everyone, and our stock was getting poorer and poorer, then, he finally rarely visited.
The day of killing the pig, for us as a child New Year’s Day, the collective household everyone smiling, the old disagreements cleared away, we gulped to draw up a recipe. But who will be the master of the knife, this is the main thing in front of us. The “old pig” will look at the fire, wiggling the wind to come, the cost? Well, according to the village rules a pair of water.
Immediately, we have been feeding for a long time, but the old fat pig “Lulu”, grunting and snorting reluctantly tied in front of the house on the bench. “The “old pig” rolled up his sleeves, arms on the veins bulging, he to the palm of his hand “bah bah” spit on two mouths, a copy of the poultry knife weighing, shouted “the! The tip of the knife straight to the “Lulu” throat stabbed, a scream of misery, “Lulu” opened his eyes in anger, twisted his body and stirred his legs to struggle, “old pig” also wide-eyed hurried to make up a knife, poor The poor “Lulu” gasping grunts, “old pig” gritted his teeth, and then add a knife! …… stabbed a full eight knives after the stubborn “Lulu” to quiet down. “Damn, this pig is not honest.” The “old pig” wiped the sweat on his forehead.
The “old pig” ate the pig underwater, also has a new nickname “pig eight knives”, the group more and more despise him.
That year’s harvest was very bad, and it looked like it would not be able to share much red. One day when the field was hit, the “old pig” saw me in the yard and dragged me to a small flat-roofed mud house next to the field (later, a released Cantonese man from Baishengzhenlai, nicknamed “remembering”, hanged himself here to end his unfortunate Life). With a sarcastic smile, he stammered and asked me to borrow money, five yuan. I was surprised, how could he be interested in me? I hesitated and finally agreed to lend only two yuan, I did not feel comfortable, not to mention that I also had to return Home for the New Year.
The next April, I returned to the production team. After a long winter, there were few laborers left at home in the team, and I heard that many people were out to play with money, and so was the “old pig”, who was rarely at home throughout the winter.
“Where did the ‘old pig’ get the money?” I wondered, “Earn it, the ‘old pig’ this guy is handy, those broken iron to his hands into the pot ah, barrel ah, spoon ah. He is also good at burning iron. This guy is too lazy to do the work in the field, good Food and gambling, not a proper job, he does not care, only the Family to fuck, the big boy or mute.”
Spring sowing “old pig” finally came back, the next day was the commune “group special” shouted to do a study class. Because of the lack of labor in the busy season, the team bailed him back. The political captain “Old Waste” said that “Old Pig” was lying on the bed and couldn’t get up, saying that there was no food at home and even potatoes were not much. I was thinking about the two yuan, I knew I would not get it back, I was heartbroken, two yuan is enough for me to work in the field for more than ten days, last year a work only 14 cents ah!
One day in early summer, I returned to the household after work, and the “old pig” suddenly appeared in front of the collective household, beckoning me, and I remembered that I had not seen him for a long time. He called out to me and asked me to go to his house, I asked what was the matter, he smiled and did not answer, dragged me away.
This is the first time I went to the “old pig” home, in the southernmost part of the village, a small, lonely cottage, no fence in front of the house, mud walls criss-crossed, patchy exposed adobe. The roof of the chimney, which is short and half a chimney, is spitting smoke, the windows covered with plastic are rolling their eyes, and the door is a little crooked, grinning. Only the apricot tree in front of the door is lush and vibrant.
The “old pig” let me into the house, where an earthen kang took up half of the hut, with a thin mat on the edge and a kang table in the middle of the smoke-blackened kang mat. “Go sit on the bed!” “The old pig greeted me. I said I wouldn’t cross my legs, and sat down on the edge of the bed, which was a bit tilted and worn smooth. I was really afraid that if I got on the bed, I would step on the mat and make it worse. “The old pig turned around and brought me a big grey and black clay pot with a freshly cooked and steaming cornmeal cake from the stove. He also brought half a bowl of soy sauce, grabbed a handful of green onions, and finally a bowl of cucumbers with dried tofu.
“We’ll eat here today.” “Old pig” said with a smile.
“I ……” my head spinning, is for the two dollars? The meal instead of money to end?
The “old pig” does not allow me to say, pick up a pair of chopsticks, with his thick black hand jerked over, “eat!”
His mute son was standing in the doorway with his brother staring at me, giggling with his hands as he babbled.
“Get out!” The “old pig” waved them away. “Today it’s just my brother and I. First, I’ll pay you back, and second, I’ll invite you to …… nothing good, to show that.”
I slightly red face.
He paused, “You lend me money, enough meaning, let’s make a friend. I’m poor, I’m lazy, people call me ‘old pig’, ‘old pig’ on ‘old pig’, piggyback does not also have 36 changes is not. I will also, I have a craft.”
He lowered his voice: “I’m not happy to work in the field, I’d rather go out.” He shook his head, his voice was a bit mute, “How much money do you earn here a day, your wife and children can’t feed ……”
I didn’t expect him to say so much. I reluctantly picked up a big piece of cake and bit into it, loose, burnt yellow bottom with aroma, with crispness, just a little sour and astringent surface. The cucumber with dried tofu, I know, this is the old folks often hang on the mouth, the summer rare to eat the delicacy. I took a chopstick, cool and refreshing.
It was dark, the “old pig” head down and rolled up the toad smoke, I have not said anything, and do not know what to say. I could not see his face, I only felt a little confused, we have been melted in the darkness.
At the end of the winter, I was transferred away. I never saw him again after that.
The Old Crooked Family
At noon, two big cars piled with firewood one in front of the other swayed through the village dirt road to the east. Old Yang and old Lv, two car owners holding a long whip pole silently walking beside the car. Old Crooked’s father was crying, rickety back followed the bumpy car. That after a car under the pile of firewood lying his daughter, old crooked sister, she died early this morning.
Old crooked, you will never forget the first look. An invisible vertical line will break his body into two distinct parts: a gleaming eyes and a squinting lightless eyes, strong protruding pectoral muscles and the other side of the dry, flat chest, a strong, powerful hands and another stiff, thin hands. In between the dividing line of the mouth, I do not know how to arrange the best, the struggle to compromise, is the other side of the victory, the mouth to the hard pulled over.
The villagers call him old crooked, he is not angry; shouting him “urine shoe gang”, he will be thunderous; called him “crooked whistle” he will draw his fist and up.
Old Crooked is not old, it is only about twenty years old. Called “old” reflects the respect of the villagers for him, although he is in such an unbalanced state, but was born with natural strength, known far and wide, is the first labor force of the production team.
Every year, after playing the field, grain into the warehouse, is the old crooked time to show their skills, two hundred pounds of sacks upright on the shoulder, he walked up still seems light, the body also with crooked mouth humming “dong dong clang” twisted on a few steps to the group to see. When people praised him, he was energized: “This is nothing, I carry one on my shoulder, one on my back, one on my chest, and one in each hand, damn it, and kick one on my feet, as usual!
With his brute strength, he despised other villagers and dared to call the political captain of the production team “old waste”. To our youth, who earned the same amount of work as him, Old Crooked also did not hide his discontent and contempt: “Look at this bear!” Old Crooked sneered and skewed his mouth. Until once, after wrestling a few of our youths who claimed to have learned wrestling, we met another of our youths – “Fatty”, who threw Old Crooked to the wall. From then on, Old Crooked was quite polite to us.
The old crook has such a miraculous power, the villagers say should be attributed to his mother, a forehead always covered with purple-brown fire pot mark of the woman, the old crook eating milk until the age of 8. This woman but will give her heart and soul to her son, so that she left a weak body, old crooked sister is seriously ill, sister and brother is also the contrast between strong and weak.
Old crooked sister is lying in the car. The big car followed the ruts, crooked out of the village, around the big pit to the north. Far from the village, at the junction of two large fields that could not be seen, beside a wide shallow ditch that stretched from nowhere and to nowhere, there was a barren graveyard, with weeds in abundance. Old Crooked’s sister will be here to receive the baptism of fire.
Old Crooked’s sister died this morning. Because of her illness, she has not been able to get married, listening to the villagers said that originally there was someone, only because the Parents do not want, “yellow”. She finally got a headache from pining. Dr. Zhang, who was called “Zhang Dahuizi” by the villagers and came to the brigade from Changchun, said more reliably that it was cerebral tuberculosis.
She hardly ever shows up in the village, but yesterday was an exception, being carried to the Fanjiatun town hospital, 50 miles away, on a stretcher made of wooden sticks by the youth and villagers. “OMG – it hurts me – OMG!” The cries were horrifying. In the evening, she was carried back to the town hospital, which could no longer help.
She lay on the stretcher, stranded under the windowsill outside the house. Every now and then there was a scream or two: “It hurts, mom, it’s all your fault ……” until dawn when it was completely quiet. She could not die in the house because she was a woman of marriageable age and not married off. She died, the same can not be buried in the family’s graveyard, so she was pulled outside the village to “refine”.
Old Crooked’s father found a flat piece of land at the edge of the graveyard, and the car owner unloaded firewood from the cart and spread the grain straw, which the villagers believed was sterilized. The deceased was carried off and placed on the woodpile, paper-white face, wearing new clothes and pants, prepared early for today. The fat old Yang, the owner of the car, came forward with his hand caged with a rubbed match, and with a “whirring” sound, the dry firewood jumped up to the fire. Another car owner, the long and thin old Lu carried the oil kettle, pulling down the plug of the oil black corn cob, pouring the oil kettle against the fire one by one to pour. So, a stream of black smoke rolled up, the smoke in the red fire sprayed high.
The old crooked father, crouching in the wide shallow ditch with his back to the fire, covered his face with his hands and howled dryly in a particular tone that trailed off: “My… that… can… -My–pity–daughter–ah! –Then he straightened up, approached the fire, and looked closely at his daughter, who was being licked by the tongues of fire. Suddenly, he pointed his finger at the head of the deceased and shouted sharply, “Here, quick! Not here, come oil!” The car owner came over with a jug of oil, a black smoke rose, the fire was fierce, a crackling sound of bursting. The old father squatted back into the ditch to grieve.
The tongue of fire is greedily devouring the dead, brand new clothes by the fire eaten, blackened, broken into small pieces and rose up in the air. Suddenly the whirlwind scraped the fragments of rapid rotation. The dead man’s skin turned from white to yellow to scorched and squeaked. Head burned like a black paste orb, can not distinguish the five senses, particularly harsh, burnt hands and feet contracted like a chicken claw, into an arch shape.
“Damn, what the hell, cooked, it is not burned through.” Car owner Lao Lu muttered. Fatty Lao Yang picked up the oil pot and shook it, turning the whole pot upside down and letting the last remnants of oil breeze out. “No more oil.” He smoothly manipulated the wooden stick brought with the car to pick up the fire, and then inserted the stick under the body of the deceased, knees were lifted high, deadly force a don’t. “Take a look, out of the oil!” Flames, the deceased knee tear, the expenditure of the bones hanging strip of flesh “giggle” dripping oil ……
A few hours later, the car returned to the village, the dead did not burn through, dig a pit buried.
In I left the production team for a long time, but also heard the news of the old crooked family. Said the family went to Heilongjiang, where the days are better, relying on the old crooked enough to support the parents.
Then, only Old Crooked’s sister was left on the old family land.
III. Regret and rabbits
Under the dim oil lamp, the old folks tugged and bombarded him, teasing him, laughing and pulling him off the bed and pushing him into the middle of the crowd. He dodged and cowered. His frightened eyes darted around and he muttered, “Don’t, don’t, don’t make a scene.”
Thus, on March 22, 1969, the day after our group of young people arrived at the production team, we met him at the community meeting – the only dissident in the village, the son of a rich farmer, whom people called “regret”.
The shrewd-looking production team accountant smiled and answered our questions, “How can he not regret, who told him to come out of the belly of a rich peasant woman.” The high school graduate, nicknamed “rabbit”, told us: “The wind here is blowing grass bottom see regret, this kid invites the wind, root black.”
A few months later, the situation of this red-rooted rabbit is not much better than regret.
Regret was born on the wrong side and became the team’s sporting target. “I really regret ……” every inspection report, he either began or ended like this. He stammered, curled up with his original short body, shrinking his head, which was ready to be buried in the black cotton jacket. The wife’s ability to rely on his wife, but regretfully dressed than the average villager to clean and sharp, wearing although also patched, but patched neatly, the rules, seems to confess that they never dare to talk nonsense. But he kept blinking his eyes, slithering eyes, called a little uncomfortable to look at. I always feel regretful like a mouse, timid like a mouse, smart like a mouse.
I especially like to work with regret. This is the first time that I delivered manure to the field with him, and the one who drove the cart was a thin, bony old cow. It was just after winter and the wind was still stiff, so we unloaded the so-called manure (the smoke-blackened adobe pieces replaced by the old folks in the bed) from the big cart in piles with shovels and forks along the one-mile-long monopoly ditch. Behind us, in the bare wilderness, a pile of spiked gray earth was neatly arranged in a monopoly. The eyes of the regrettable are extremely accurate, the size of each pile of manure is almost the same, and the rest of the big car is always just finished unloading the last pile.
The old cow looked overwhelmed, with cloudy tears in the corners of her eyes and sticky spittle dripping from the corners of her mouth. “Heave!” Regret raised the fork (a four-tine tool), the old cow gasped, suddenly brought the car forward a little, and then back to the original place. “Heave! Heave!” Regret used the fork handle to hit the bull’s buttocks, which were high on the bones on both sides. The old bull waved its filthy, dry tail and lifted its shit-stained hind legs in reply. “Fuck! You bully too!” Regret was furious: “Heave!” Raising the fork and poking it at the deflated old bull’s ass, the tines worked and the cart ran away upside down.
Regret woke up like a dream. He gave me a panicked look and went after him. He touched the cow’s buttocks with his hand: “No nothing, nothing, the old cowhide is thick.”
After unloading the car, he greeted me: “Get in the car, sit down and rest.” I secretly laugh. He must be regretting again.
If you say you regret the robbery because of their own “congenital deficiency”, then the rabbit is their own “acquired bad”. The rabbit is indeed “jumped out” by itself. I can testify to this.
The rabbit’s name is Lv Qinglin, and Wang’s surname of regret is the same as the old Yang family in power in our production team of the only two foreign surnames (Lv surname and a family is the rabbit’s brother, the car boss Lv Qingshan). Rabbit read a few years, will recite the “Three Character Classic” and so on, because the family is not good, twenty-five or twenty-six people, has not yet married on the wife, become the object of ridicule by the townspeople. As for why he was called a rabbit (some people also called him “mono-ear”), I still do not understand.
The rabbit in pain was inspired by the lively smile of one of us who could sing and dance well, what with the “snow-white walls and the portrait of Chairman Mao hanging on the wall”, and wrote a bold love letter revealing his feelings after a lot of thoughts. Panic has been the commune Mao Zedong Thought literary propaganda squad of female youth, know laughing in the wrong place, in a hurry to the letter to the brigade revolutionary committee, seeking help.
The head of the brigade must be very happy, there is such a “destruction of the mountains to the countryside” typical sent to the door, so the rabbit good fate, waiting for a summons from the brigade.
At that time, it was the time to convey the 26th document of the central government (Heilongjiang Production and Construction Corps Beijing, Shanghai and other places female intellectuals were “favored” by the leaders at all levels), to convey the “Comrade Jiang Qing speech”, right? “Comrade Jiang Qing” said that he was impressed by the tears he shed when he heard what happened to the female intellectuals.
So the rabbit had the honor to become the culprit and the culprit, and the content of the letter was spread throughout the whole brigade and finally the whole commune from the mouths of the enthusiastic members of the Revolutionary Committee. The first two lines of the letter, “It is Destiny to meet for a thousand miles, but not destiny to meet each other”, were recited by the villagers for a long time, and even written in chalk on the door of the production team headquarters by someone (the brother of the political captain, “Old Ruin”, after much investigation). The rabbit’s plan was not in vain. Anyway, this result was not expected by the rabbit and the young woman.
The rise of the rabbit dwarfed the regret, which was after all a dead rat (regret is not qualified to be a dead tiger, not even a dog in the water), and thanks to the rabbit’s blessing, regret had a better life.
Folks have a saying: cold dew is not cold, frost has changed the sky. The northwest wind is blowing, and animals like people are preparing for the winter, digging cellars, hiding cabbage, storage potatoes, that is for the stomach; also have to pull the cloth and thread to do the cotton jacket, that is for the body. The first thing you need to do is to make sure that you have a good idea of what you are doing.
I secretly mentioned to regret. The actual fact is that you will be able to get a good deal on your own. The cotton pants, the great leader waved a huge hand, we left the city to the countryside when the authorities sold us with tickets, wide and large and not warm. Only a day later, regret came to tell me that the cotton pants were ready and asked me to try them on to see if they fit. I was amazed at how fast the bastards were.
In the evening, I wrapped two pieces of “solid soap” I brought from home in old newspapers, and I didn’t forget to bring a small ball of black cotton yarn, which was a tight supply of supplies per person by ticket, to Regret’s house. The company’s main goal is to provide a comprehensive range of products and services to the public. The company’s eyes are wide open, a little stunned “this this, this is not good.” I hurriedly explained “I have, the line to make cotton pants to use.” The company’s main goal is to provide a good solution to the problem.
I left the production team wearing these cotton pants.
The company’s main business is to promote the development of the company’s products and services. At the general meeting of the whole community, “Zhang Da-eye” from Fanjiatun issued a warning to the class enemy that “the ugly daughter-in-law must see her father-in-law” and that “after the first day of the year, the fifteenth day of the year will not pass”.
The rabbit’s words were once again tapped by the people. People remembered that the rabbit had “released poison” on the day of the fight, saying that today the west wind was overwhelming the east wind. He also said, “The big nose has a great physique”, and took me as an example, saying that I “do not pull the blind”, and definitely can not beat the “big nose”.
The only foreign surname of the production team in which the old Yang family was in charge, Regret and Rabbit, although they came from different classes, were finally tied together.
Fourth, the eight road
The first job I did when I arrived in rural Jilin seemed to be pressing the ground, using a cylinder of more than a meter long “wooden roller” to compact the land after sowing seeds.
The spring breeze in the north is not like that in the south of the Yangtze River, it is not the mercurial “scissors” that cut the willow leaves to make them graceful, but the merciless “broom” that sweeps the earth and raises the dust to the sky. The seeds were sown, and the farmers’ expectations for the year were sown, and the ground was pressed for the spring breeze to be relentless, and for the hope to be expected.
A person leading a small donkey, donkeys pulling the suffering of the vicissitudes of the “wooden roller” in the long ridge from this end and rolled to that end, there is always walking can not finish the endless feeling. This is a light work in the countryside, although a round trip is two miles, a day to walk a few dozen miles.
The most overwhelming is the spring rut of a small donkey, the stubbornness, the love, the hissing, the city boy which has seen this style, this bewildered, this helpless, this anxious, sweating.
Another form of pressing the ground is “stepping on the grid”, which is the work of girls. The sowers go forward in the furrow, followed by three or four girls in a row, holding the wooden sticks for balance, and in the iron plow cutting through the soft ridge tip, they take the T-stage catwalk blended with the reserved crunchy steps of Oriental women, crossing their feet back and forth with each other and stepping on the ridge tip in a dense manner. Looking at the twisted footprints made by their own mud-filled black cotton rubber shoes, one stretching into the distance, some good people were bursting with poetry: “Ah! In the vast land of the motherland, we use our feet, painting the latest and most beautiful pictures ……”
More than a decade later, the exaggeration of this twisting hip and swinging crotch has become the city’s fashion landscape, the face has been etched with marks, the heart has been filled with vicissitudes, behind has dragged children, girls are no longer girls to the small head, broad shoulders, flat chest and long legs of the model dazed and disdainful: “Oh, this catwalk, we have long walked!”
Only, the stage is different.
The more tiring is the “shaving stubble”. Hand-held “small pickaxe”, bending over and prostrating his hips, the previous fall harvest to stay in the ground after the palm-like high bush, sorghum stubble, from the soil even with shaved out. In addition to the brute force to do this job, but also a bit of dexterity, in addition to the strength of the wrist and arm, but also to look at the eyes, a pick down a right. The stubble under the planes also hand to the root of the soil knocked clean, spring fire cooking, must rely on this stubble to maintain.
All year round is a round wheel that goes round and round, that farm work also with the day foot, rolling uninterrupted. Plowing, sending manure, fertilizing, sowing, inter-planting, shoveling, watching the green, harvesting, playing the field, entering the barn, grubbing stubble, pulling wheat, carrying sacks, delivering rations, cleaning pig pens, grubbing manure, mating pigs and horses, walking horses to raise fat, raking and pounding manure, composting hemp in puddles, making mud and stripping, building walls and plastering ……
There are also times when you work with your fellow villagers.
For example, when the car, we will follow the car, in addition to doing small work to do the hands, before the car to set the horse frame yoke, rest work also unload the horse to feed water, the most envious is the car boss whipped when the whip tip of the explosive sound.
When plowing the land, the old folks hold the plow behind, and we hold the animals in front. If the original is a monopoly with a furrow, that saves you, you close your eyes and lead the cattle and horses forward is, to the head of the ground to shout the password to turn around; if the trip to the flat land, the important thing is to lead the animals in a straight line, to go crooked, that the monopoly distance is wide and narrow. The annoying thing is that at some point, the livestock cold leap thin urine, the spring breeze, the stars tasted the smell is not counted, maybe also intimate contact nourished you all over, is receiving re-Education, you still have to be happy, do not dare to have displeasure expressed.
Often and I work together with the old folks, in addition to “old pig”, “regret” and is “eight” it.
“Eight Roads” as a soldier, because the Northeast Field Army led by Lin Biao is mostly from Shandong over the Eight Roads, so the Northeast villagers and the Kuomintang army still “Eight Roads” to call the PLA. This is a proud history of the “Eight Roads”.
When the “eight road” think it is about 30 or 40, frail, thin neck, thin arms, thin legs, thin body, big mouth, big teeth, big eyes, big head, open mouth, missing incisors, forehead veins, the top of the head of thin soft hair drooping. The “eight road” poor physique, look at people to see things but the eyes are shiny and bright, it is very strange.
The “eight road” once for a short time to do a “head”, leading us young people to shovel the ground. And for a long time I was with the “eight road” is in the guillotine together, in a small room on the side of the horse stables pile of grass, “eight road” feed grass, I press the guillotine.
The “eight” sat on the side of the guillotine, his arm wrapped in a shiny sheepskin. I stood facing the “eight-way” with my legs crossed and both hands clutching the handle of the crossed steel blade, pressing it down one by one.
My nasty swollen lymph nodes, left at that time, decades later, still and then the average size, frozen in the long river of time and space. It’s just that every now and then I get a different look that hints at the scars of my years.
The allergic rhinitis that has tormented me for decades, often “volcanic eruption, the river broke” has also started since then.
The “eight” is really willing to work with me, because I am a good listener. Many times, “Baji” told me about his glorious history, showed me the demobilization certificate wrapped carefully in cloth, and sang to me “We are Lin Biao’s soldiers”.
“The “eight-way” looked down on the “old pig” and said that the “old pig” was lazy, “Look at the grass I feed, how fine it is! Because I have also worked with the “old pig” guillotine grass.
The “eight” had a daughter, who was still very young.
Everyone said the daughter was not his.
The wife of the “eight” does not go out.
Everyone said that the wife of the “eight-way” is a broken shoe.
We all believed it.
If the “eight” is still around, it should also be a “section-level medical treatment” of retired old cadres.
Five, “not remember” death
“The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public.
“In the winter of 1969, the most tense time of war preparation, the release of people staying in the field of Jilin Baisheng labor farm evacuated. The war preparations at that time conveyed the suffocating and urgent: “Soviet repair will never die”, if the Soviet mechanized troops from Mongolia into Inner Mongolia, one of the way will certainly go straight into Baicheng, Changchun, Siping, stopping the three eastern provinces. So, “remember” and nickname “paralysis”, limp “rogue criminal” that the former Beijing Forestry College students together sent to our small mountain 7 team.
The “remembering” is a thin man with bald head and squinty eyes. May be accustomed to the collective work and rest of the prison farm, assigned to the production team after living alone, this old wide out will not be able to distinguish the southeast and northwest, on the brigade department “group special” (remember the term?) after the end of the training, often lost. The brigade headquarters is not far away from our production team is only two or three miles, but he often confused and dizzy to feel half a day, find the ground to know or other production team. The villagers asked him, he always shook his head, a Cantonese accent: “I can not remember it -“. I don’t know who started it, the whole village men, women and children all shouted him “can’t remember”.
The production team built a small bungalow at the side of the yard, which was only 2 meters high, plastered it with mud, laid some rice poles on the top, and pressed an old door panel on it. There was not much room left in the four or five square meters of land, which was occupied by a bed and a pot.
He was a murderer, at the beginning of the founding of the country, the rural family armed fight accidentally injured people, from the South to serve a sentence in the North. In the labor farm, this “southern barbarian” has developed a hand in building a bed and stove to repair the pipe. In the northern countryside with this skill, still afraid of no food? At the beginning, the old folks, because of the hat of the ex-prisoners, rarely asked for the help of the old “memory”, but later worked together. Together with the idle chatter, together with the tug of the dick fade, the mingling familiar, the guys are not foreign. The old folks are talking about the benefits, “remember not” have a use for the place, and bow down, obsequious used to, you and what he said, he is also used to stand up and answer “yes”, “good”. That attitude, you talk to him, really feel cool, but also feel that they are superior, although you do not necessarily have a “remember” tall, and the old “remember” that the accent is really interesting, from his mouth spit out the northeastern vernacular, often have unexpected effects. People laugh.
In those days, the movement was like the wind, a burst, or else, what do you want cadres, brigades, communes, county working groups, fighting the “regret” and then seize the “rabbit”. The campaign to produce results, the best and the class struggle of new trends, that there must be something someone, cadres think about thinking about thinking about thinking together, the catch “not remember”! Because the “paralysis” to the production team within a few days slipped back to Beijing, never appeared again (the legend of its old son is what what, I can not remember). The crime of “not remembering”? A pat on the head, there is – “pulling corrupt the poor peasants”. The poor peasants were totally confused when they said they “couldn’t remember”, so they fixed a chimney and a stove for the villagers. This is not, the class front confused, the enemy and I do not distinguish, that’s not good. What “do not remember”, the destruction of the poor peasants team, always remember very firmly ah!
The head of the brigade revolutionary committee came to the collective household to tell us that the brigade had decided to fight “not remembering”, and the production captain also said, “Let’s fight in the collective household, the old folks are involved.
In the morning, everyone was still working with “remember” to build a warehouse for the team, the youth and mud, moving billet, he pulled the wire to build the wall, noon break, the old “remember” was called to the collective household to fight. The head of the brigade “group special”, the production captain, plus a dozen of us young people, to “remember” to explain, and which of the old folks have dealings, to which home to work, eat the biscuits and Soup of which home. It is very much the meaning of following the vine to find the gourd.
“Remember not” squeaked full of aggression, and speaks a wide cadence of Cantonese Northeast, can be honest. But the captain is not high motivation, his own ass is not clean, also and “remember” sticky, “pulling and pulling” over; we know the youth is to see the good, say usually also happy and “remember” not “The “flagging” brigade cadres were also not interested, and wanted to “remember” The “flagging” brigade cadres are also uninterested in “not remembering” to write an account later, the criticism will also be hastily closed.
Who would have thought that the sullen and uncommunicative Cantonese man would be so stubborn?
The afternoon work disappeared “not remember”, still waiting for him to build the wall. The “head” sent someone to shout, came back to say that the small mud house locked the door. Something is not right, the group is anxious, everyone to the yard hut knocking on the door, climbing the window to look inside, there is no movement, the house is dark and do not understand. Smash the door! Youth small pay for strong body, lift the leg and kick, “click” a big hole under the old door, lying in front of the window “Amurin” a scream, a light to see the house: “do not remember “Low hanging body hanging on the beam. Everyone rushed into the house, the head of the household Zhang just picked up the “remember” legs to lift, others rushed back to the collective household to find shears, cut rope to put down the “remember”. At that time, the villagers all do not know where to run.
The “remember” is hopeless, the waistband of the pants strangled the neck a deep purple mark embedded in the flesh, where there is still gas.
Send someone to report to the brigade, the brigade hand-cranked telephone “chirping and squeaking” on half a day, and then reported to the commune, and finally came back: first put aside, tomorrow, the commune sent the doctor to the health center to examine the body.
It is the end of summer in August, the night is really cool, “remember” lying on the floor of the small mud house, a small room, a person under the horizontal not to mention how confined. The brigade said to protect the site, and our youth vigil.
When it was dark, the collective household Ade came back with the car, heard that “remember” died, had to go see. In the dark, walking to the front of the small bungalow, Ade a flashlight, scared back a step, out of a cold sweat, “remember” head is slanted in the doorway on the ground, right at his feet, the light shone on his dead face.
In those days, I was on night watch to “watch the youth”, which was organized by the brigade. The first thing you need to do is to take a scythe and inspect the ridge of the 7 teams in the 6 team on the dirt road, all is quiet, both sides are growing more than a person’s height of the bush and sorghum field, the wind, the crop leaves “rustling” straight. I think “remember” is lying in the hut, some heart, a little flesh jumping. I was walking, I felt someone behind me, hold the sickle tightly, tense the throat, “ho ho” cough, and then hum a few ditties, pretend as if nothing had happened, turned around, in addition to the moonlight white dirt road, the dark swaying a bit demonic crops, there is nothing ah.
Until noon the next day, the doctor from the health center came to examine the body. “Remember not” purple neck swollen old thick, the body is full of a piece of brown corpse spots. I do not know where to fly so many golden green-headed flies, dancing in the “remember” thin gray face, in the dead white lips stinging kisses, in the nostrils of no air in and out.
“Remember not” thus died, hanged, less than a year before he came to the production team.
Later, I saw the relics of “not remember”, there are “Quotations from Chairman Mao”; there are torn from the exercise book, full of words of love and sorrow; there are also some yellowing photos, a woman’s photo with the word “good” written on the back, some people say it is his daughter, some say it is his wife. Some people said it was his daughter, some said it was his wife. When I saw a photo of a young man, an old woman was sitting on a mahogany chair, not yet sculpted by the weather, and the “remembered” man with fewer folds was standing squarely on the side. The old lady must be his mother.
His not much clothing, was divided by the old folks.
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