When Lao Melon walked through the Lianting vegetable market, the semi – trailer went crazy, speeding across the Xi Emperor Avenue. Their successive waves of dust, like a sandstorm, buried the entire village of Lianting city.
The dust came tumbling down on the dark blue brim of the old man’s hat, on the shoulders and sleeves of his rough uniform, on the vamp, and on his stubble scrawled beard. At the moment, he is no more glamorous than the vegetable vendors.
When I saw the old guy coming from a distance with his head buried in his mobile phone, I hid behind a car and missed him — I was too embarrassed to see him — I was not afraid, nor owed him anything, nor pretended to be arrogant, but I felt sorry for him.
1
I went to the secondary normal school in 2002, old melon is my classmate.
For the first three years, we didn’t know each other. The next two years, college, learn Chinese. There were two classes in Chinese, about 100 people. The classrooms were next to each other. We often met each other, but we were not familiar with each other. Later, he hooked up with one of my roommates and often went out to the Internet bar at night to play games and watch porn. During the day, they slept together and woke up with a dead face and dull eyes. They discussed the equipment, level and pet of the game with others. They are black and white, addicted to the Internet, and feel like they are going to die in adolescence.
Old melon, whose real name is Guadesteel. It seems to be similar to Guo Degang, but at that time we heard little, did not know there is such a crosstalk, otherwise, we give old melon nicknames, it would not be so hasty, reckless. We’ve always wondered about his last name. Is there a melon in the world? We squashed all the names in our heads and couldn’t think of a second name.
The old man is dumpy, a little like Wu Dalang, but a little taller and better looking. The hair does not comb four seasons, than chicken coop slightly neat. A round-faced man in his early twenties, with a full beard. When we are tender to drip water, he has been like a Japanese gourd, ripe to crack, revealing the full belly of the seeds.
Apart from surfing the Internet, sleeping, and looking grumpy, there is hardly a centimetre of him to talk about. In the junior college two years, he almost unknown, submerged rivers and lakes.
His fame came on a tumultuous night.
At that time, all the male dormitories were in the same building. To the corridor as the boundary, I live with the old melon on the west side of the fourth floor, the east is lower than our students. On the first floor, we share a toilet and a water closet. There are four or five holes in the toilet and two long sinks in the water room. Because of the number of people, fire and water do not spare, grab the matter of the toilet, from time to time. Squatting in the pit, leisurely, smoking, thinking about the first half of life, even end a fantasy novel, do not get up, the half of the book over, just shake the two spicy sour hard legs drill out.
There is a grade lower than our youth, have this problem, a into the toilet, can squat for an hour, keep smoking in the pit, read fantasy yellow novels. The man outside was about to explode, but he remained unmoved, even excited, and hit a “plane” inside. He is tall and thin with yellow hair. The acne on his face doesn’t grow well after being cut. It turns into a pock-like pit, which makes me want to throw up.
The teenager is a city person, rely on the home to have money, rely on to know a few mix in the society, in the schoolyard arrogant person, at every turn pound other people two fists, or threaten one time, everyone is forced by his insolent power, is also more take it on the chin.
At that time, popular PHS, his family has money, two or three thousand yuan to buy a play for him. He seemed afraid that people would not know that he had a little smart, deliberately in the corridor to and fro, with a cigarette in his mouth, cursing “I X! I X!” Either on the phone or playing games. In addition, this man has a problem that makes everyone nauseous. He puts his feet in the sink at night and turns the tap on and flushes them. Sink is on weekdays everyone wash rice bowl to wash clothes, he is used to wash feet, too his mother is not a person. But we still dare not dare to speak, had to scold behind, have a habit of mouth.
As for reading, running, cleaning, waiting in line for food, that sort of thing is a joke to teenagers. The only way he could prove he wasn’t scum was by joining the school choir and singing bel canto well. He learned to sing as a child and had several teachers. We’ve heard him sing, and it’s a few notches above the braying of our asses.
In those two years, he had been a teacher’s “shoulder-bearer”. We all wonder, like such a person, how to get into the normal? Normal at that time score line is very high, can take an examination of, basically be top student. To bring a rogue into a normal school is like leaking a grain of rat dung into the rice soup.
At this time, the old melon, is mediocre, unknown to the public with their own days, in addition to the Internet, sleep, it seems to do nothing, even a love did not talk about. We think he graduated with a low profile.
One night, old Melon went out to use the toilet. The pits were full of people, and the doors dangled from the inside, and I couldn’t see what they were dawdling about with. Maybe he had a bad stomach in the evening. The old melon scolded us when he ran out of the dormitory, “X, I’m going to drag my son to death.”
In the toilet, he was holding his belly growling, had reached the limit of his patience, can not be delayed a second. He lifted a foot, kicked on the door, scolding way: “you don’t come out, eat shit li?” It seemed to be the only time he had been irritated by a school trip.
When no one answered, he gave another kick and screamed. The door opened, is a young man to carry a handle, his crotch zipper was not pulled well, one came out of the hands to slap the old man a box on the ear, scold a way: “you his mother seek death, you so urgent, is to eat Lao Tze’s hot shit?”
The old melon stroked his face without saying a word, hugged his belly, and went into the pit. Before he did so, the porter spat again at the back of his head.
Old melon finished, went straight back to his dormitory, also said nothing, under the bed to find out a knife, put into his sleeve, to carry son dormitory. To the door of the dormitory, kicked the door open, standing at the door, pointing to carry the handle and Shouting: “You come out of the dog day!”
At first, the shoulder-keeper was confused — no one had dared to call him that. After a long reaction, he got out of bed, put on his slippers, tilted his head, lit a cigarette, and asked, “Did you eat it? What can I do for you?”
“Did you hit me and spit at me?” “Asked old Melon, who was too short, holding up his neck.
“How about hitting your grandson?” With that, he slapped old Melon in the face with another backhand. Before he could stand still, old Melon got another blow on his nose. As soon as the fist was withdrawn, the shoulder-bearer uttered a scream, and fell to the ground, clasping his stomach in both hands, kicking his legs wildly, with a ferocious face.
The corridor was crowded with onlookers. In the screams and the dim light, people could see the old melon holding a knife with blood dripping from the blade.
Old melon killed somebody —
The news spread through the school overnight and old Melon became a celebrity overnight. Everybody privately thinks old melon this knife, stab well.
He didn’t die. He went to the hospital. Old melon was taken away by the police station the next day. Later, he came out of the hospital and went back to school. Old Melon’s knife stabbed him in the stomach, but usually drinking beer, belly fat, not to hurt the key.
After that, the handle suddenly withered, no longer arrogant, start road, head covered, like a grandson. Unfortunately, he was no longer able to sing bel canto. They joked that he had a leak in his stomach, and as he sang bel canto, the air came out of the punctured hole.
As for the old melon, squatted in the detention house for half a month, came out. Since the other side was the first to strike, and the school was afraid of making a big deal, they intervened, and did not cause any serious trouble. As for who paid the medical bills, we don’t know, the poor old melons all eat on credit at the noodle shop at the back door of the school, where they have the money to pay. But this matter, also dare not say with parents absolutely.
Old melon came out from the detention house, obviously white, thin. Since then, he has become a famous person in the school, a real shoulder pole in everyone’s mind. A person with fists and feet again brave and brave, than with a knife to talk to you, after all is not a level. We began to look at him with new eyes and even a little admiration. When he went to the canteen, he was always surrounded by a group of classmates, paying him by swiping his credit card, pouring him vinegar and salt, and even washing his dinner mug. When he was in his dormitory, there were always people knocking at the door to chat with him, and he talked in a breezy tone about what he had seen and heard in the prison. The more indifferent he was, the more admired he became. He sat in the last row of his class, where girls always changed seats to join him, and every word he said carried weight — not before, when he sat in the last row, silent, buried in the silence of fifty heads.
But a few months after the stabbing incident, we graduated.
2
After graduation, we go our separate ways. I worked as a customer service clerk in a hotel and laid sheets all day. Have to go to Xinjiang when the teacher, the result one year summer vacation did not go home, went to the reservoir swimming, drowned; Have taken an examination of a civil servant, allocate to remote villages and towns; Also have go to the south to make a fortune, the result entered pyramid selling, do not know whereabouts. More is to let a person sigh.
As soon as one graduates and enters the society, it is like a flower that immediately fades. It is full of disappointments and sorrows.
Where the old melon ended up, I don’t know. The city is not big, but the stream of people is turbulent, besides the miscellaneous affairs pester a person, it is difficult to see again eventually. I thought that the old melon, just like me, has no edges and corners, and has no specialty, and will soon be submerged in this world. And he is good at me, is forced to stand up and fight, like a rabbit can bite, and I will only be submissive.
After a long time, I heard that Lao Melon had not gone to other places, but had been working in Tianshui, and had set up a beer stall in Fuxi Temple. He had a girlfriend — the ex of the roommate he’d been sleeping with. I was surprised when others said so. Study, also did not see the old melon and this woman between what intercourse, each other about each other, is also more dislike of words. After graduation, my roommate and the girl split up. Even so, it’s a bit embarrassing to pry into a friend’s ex.
But the feelings of the matter, who can say why, yuanyang spectrum chaos is a common thing. What happened between them after graduation, I have no way of knowing. It was only after a moment of surprise that it didn’t matter.
One day, my roommate took me to Lao Gua’s beer stand for a drink. He said it was to drink, but it was to take care of his business. There is no bad blood between them because of the woman, or even a little embarrassment, as if there is no such thing, maybe I think too much. When he saw the old man, he was wearing an old short-sleeved shirt, covered with dirty nails, and had a very shy belly. He must have been drinking beer. He was still bearded, his hair unkempt, and did not seem to have changed much.
When we sat down, he followed us into the yellow plastic chair, and business did not bother to greet us. He grabbed two cases of beer from the guy who gave him the job and ordered peanuts and roast meat from the next table. We drank and talked about other things, about how miserable most of our classmates were getting along, and about funny things about school, like the time we boys shared a floor and a bathroom with the female chef in the canteen. When we go to the toilet, want to shout at the door have a person, if have a woman shout have, we can wait for somebody else to finish to come out, if nobody answer, then can go in. Once, we went to the toilet, standing at the door Shouting “There is no one”, no one responded, we went in, just got to the urinal, a huge head from the crack of the toilet door, is the canteen noodle woman, a face of terror, screaming: “– Ah — rascals!” We had just entered school, and it was a time of cowardice. We were scared out of our wits. After that, I never ate the dough again. Have the shadow.
After that, everyone laughed and drank again. The only thing we didn’t talk about was that he should have had his finest moment in decades. He should have pulled it out and let him blow off steam, but he didn’t. He just keeps drinking his own beer. He measured so well that he could drink a case of it, and ended up drinking it round and round himself, slumped in his chair like an angry fugu, in danger of bursting at any moment.
He swore: “I drank all the money I earned in one night, and I couldn’t even pay the wages of the waiters I hired.” He licked a circle of his thick lips with his tongue and said, “Come on, let’s touch one more. If you’re drunk today, don’t worry.”
Who paid for the last drink that night? I forget.
3
After that, I didn’t see the old melon for four or five years.
They say he broke up with his girlfriend. I think they blow, is also a matter of time, two people “hook up” together, is to fill the face after graduation to the emptiness of the rush, huddle together just. After a long time, each was washed by the society, the separation of labor, it is normal. Besides, they’re not really on the same wavelength. A single plank bridge, a thin long, a low file. One talkative, one silent. A heart high, a wind light clouds light. One loves a handbag, lipstick and high heels, and one is eating and drinking with a beer stand. My roommate could not bear such a woman, so he parted company with her. After all, they are not the same kind of people, even if the same bed, there is no result. As expected, they parted company.
I guessed the right outcome, but I didn’t think of the process. The process goes like this: one day, on a whim, old Melon rides on the broken motorcycle that he has lost and no one picks up, and takes his girlfriend to Nanshanlang. Up the hill, there is a section of bumpy road, very bad, the jolt jumped off the motorcycle, the car back two people, also jumped up and down, sit unsteady.
Old melon was blowing a cow to his girlfriend, saying how good he was at motorcycling and could run on a piece of wood. I do not know whether his girlfriend is listening, anyway, there has been no answer. The old melon blew his head off and spat. Ride out of the potholes section, he covered with ease, a foot accelerator, fast forward.
When he reached the top of the hill, the bike stopped and found no one behind.
Afterwards just know, the motorcycle too bump, the girl friend hand not grasp firmly, like a gunny bag, bump off, throw into the big hole. She called out, old blowhard in full puff, and the motorcycle was so loud that she didn’t hear it. Afterwards, he blamed himself for not installing a rearview mirror for the motorcycle, otherwise, throw down, still can see.
That’s why she broke up with him. Old melon also seems to know this day, a little pain is not, and even some lucky, my roommate invited, and drink a. He warned my roommate, people can not forget oneself, one forget oneself, will have an accident.
The year after graduation, He still had a beer stand. It’s not just a matter of setting up a beer stall with two plastic tables and chairs and a pile of beer. Have to go through the back door, look for a person, trust relation, register for the record over there in chengguan, next the somebody else delimits area to you, you pay certain cost, ability sets booth to open a business. Otherwise, people come over, three times five in addition to two of your desks and chairs confiscated.
In those years, the beer stand is not easy to place, the key chengguan there can not be approved down the place. I don’t know what he ended up doing. I wonder if they have any relative to lead the family. But this summer, which was the golden time to make money, it rained every now and then. When it rains and it’s cold, no one gets sick and drinks beer from the rain stall.
Old Melon lost money that summer. After losing money, the old melon to do business hand wash, do odd jobs around, such as Internet cafes when a period of time, to the hotel as a security guard for a period of time, even with relatives to run a big truck for a period. But most of the time is not long, muddle through a period of time, earn some living, take a rest in the rented house for a few days, wander about at random, until the money in hand runs out, then go out to find some work, so as to pass the fading time.
4
Graduation a few years, I and a lot of classmates are mixed enough, also stem afraid of recruitment work, have signed up for the exam. Have an examination a year, passed an examination, go to become a teacher; Have to take an examination of two years, three years, even four years, boil white head, boil spent eye, finally blend into the system. A few years later, most of my classmates, including me, passed the examination. Went to the test, a deep into the mountains, when a primary school teacher. Everybody also wants to open, anyway go up normal school, be a teacher of. There are also some people, the city of colorful world lost heart, the country can not stay, until the weekend, into the city to eat and play.
A few years down, the marriage of the marriage, the baby of the baby, we have fallen into the mire of life, do show fatigue, no longer ran to the city toss about the strength. And keep in the village, slowly wooden, no original clever school, dressed old, stingy, cheeks branded indelible mountain red.
Old Melon also took the exam. One year, two years, three years, four years… His name fell to Sun Shan in succession. Even a man ten times worse than he had been at school passed, and all he could do was sigh. He shook his head bitterly: “have no life, don’t take an examination of again, ancestor a plank board.”
He consoled himself with the thought that he could make a fortune in anything if he had the ability. We want to laugh, hold back, continue to listen to his jokes about how bad it is to be a teacher.
Old melon did not pass the examination teacher, did not set up a stall again, did not do odd jobs, he did not know exactly what to do, really do not know. For years I heard nothing of him. My roommate, on the other hand, seldom communicated with me.
Until one day, when I was going back to The rental house of Lian-ting to cook dinner, I met Old melon at the entrance of the tunnel through Tianshuijun, bearing the dust rolled up by vehicles and carrying two yuan of noodles.
I was worried about whether the water in the noon with garlic in soy or onion in soy sauce, did not pay attention to the road. The old bloke came up and called out, “Great writer, what’s the big deal in life? Walking listless.”
When I looked up, I didn’t recognize old Melon in his navy blue chengguan suit and hat. But his distinctive face, with its thick lips, thick whiskers, upturned nostrils and large, smoke-stained teeth, distinguished him from the crowd.
We shake hands and greet each other. He smoked. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t answer.
He asked me if I had been promoted? I smiled wryly, raised a hot pepper, just muddle through.
He asked me where I lived. What do you do with noodles at noon? I said Lianting rented a house and went back to cook dinner at noon.
He said that he also rented a house, so he could just scrape together a living by himself. There was no need to spend money on living there. He also said, their own cooking, clean point, the most important oil is good, now the outside of the rice can not eat. I nodded.
He asked if my wife’s job had been transferred? I still smile bitterly, nobody does not have money, the mobilization is not easy.
He said that with your great fame, the leaders should take special care of you. I shook my head, and he went on to curse the government and grumble.
Old Melon has long since lost his simple, if low file appearance, and with it comes a life of drift, uncertainty about his future, and a slovenly, chattering, tired quasi-middle age. He took off his hat and patted the top of it with his hand. Then I saw that he was bald and that the few sparse hairs were being blown chilling by the midday wind.
Ten years after graduation, life has brought us back to our original shape. What should be pigs became pigs, what should be dogs became dogs, and what should be monkeys became monkeys.
I asked him a few questions in between: he was now a chengguan, but an assistant. Must be the relative who exists or does not exist behind the help — he said, these days, do not see an assistant, many people seek, no point back door, is not inserted into it.
Laogua is in charge of the street and market in Lianting. The key is the food stand and food stand at the entrance of the alley. Like a valve, he would lock the stallholders in the alley. Like a shepherd, you have to chase away the vendors who sometimes spill over the road. You have to stand on the curb like a sheepdog, with your left hand walkie-talkie, your right hand goji tea cup, and your eyes alert as you prowl the vendors, trying to stop any “sheep” trying to stampede.
When I asked about the salary, he said about two thousand yuan a month. I said it would work. He said it was better to earn something than nothing. I say you’re easy.
“It’s damn easy. It’s a waste of time just standing up and moving your eyes and your mouth.”
“Get used to it. It’s just as boring.”
“Yeah, it’s pointless to do anything.”
I had wanted to ask him if he had married, but he suddenly got up in confusion and said: ‘Let’s put your time together more often. The captain came and if he saw me away he’d scold.’ Then he turned and walked away. His already round body, supported by a distorted uniform, dragged his feet across the road.
So he became the victim of life, as I was, completely resigned to the triviality of the day, with only respite. He left me with an old, tired, dazed back.
This is certainly not the back of our generation.
I can still remember him standing in the corridor with a knife in his hand, his face grim. It was the most dazzling moment of his youth, and probably of his life. After that, he lost even the ability to be dim.
I have infinite dejection at this noonday.
Afterword.
As for the boy who swallowed the old melon knife with his belly, he had already entered the society for many years, no longer arrogant, no longer carrying a handle, but to take an exam, assigned to a remote school, when a village teacher. Maybe he should have lived another life in his profession, but old Melon’s knife changed his future and cut off his outlet. But that was only when I looked back years later. Then, who knows now? Like the old melon, and how do I know the time pressed on the cement floor repeated friction of sorrow.
Later, I saw the old melon two or three times, but I mostly avoided it. I was afraid to see him, afraid to see a person who was unsatisfactory, afraid to see his old days of sameness, afraid to think of those bright and light youth, afraid to show him the days when I was slightly better than him.
Later, I moved away from The Lotus Pavilion, can not see the old melon, like those youth, before there is the possibility of greed, now, was swept together by the hand of time, into the trash can.
In the end, we will all have nothing.
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