Life: Uncle Changbin’s helplessness

text / Zhao Kedi

Uncle Chang Bin next door is four years older than me, and is considered an elder according to his seniority.

In the past few years, the family has built a building, has a washing machine, an LCD TV, and cooks like other people's homes. No firewood is needed. Although there is a lot of firewood, it is all hard firewood. Although the induction cooker costs money, his family doesn't need to buy it. His wife picked one up from the pile of used electrical appliances, plugged it in, and the flashing red code was clear and completely intact. In the words of his wife: "There is nothing missing at home".

After struggling all his life, he was in his 60s, but he was terribly worried. . Don't worry about eating, drinking, and worrying about children and diligent work. But when they built a building full of hope, affixed fashionable tiles, used an induction cooker, and watched an LCD TV, the son in his thirties couldn't say anything about his daughter-in-law.

My son is neither deaf nor stupid. He is still a handsome, diligent and capable guy who walks the right path. Earlier, when his son was twenty-three or four years old, someone proposed to marry him, and the other party thought that his family was poor and lacked a building. The two of them worked as hard as they could to do construction work, and followed the foreman, Nancun, Beibao, and he had worked on building houses for people for dozens of miles around. My wife picks up scraps and sells them for money, sorts kiwis for people in the cold storage, weeds the nursery, and fertilizes them for fifty or sixty yuan a day. The owner sometimes distributes Master Kong instant noodles and cheap Shuanghui ham sausages. Like her husband, she saves them to the village canteen to replace them with other daily necessities. In this way, the savings finally covered the building. But with the building still no one came to propose.

After several days of autumn rain, it is sunny today. The moonlight poured in from the window, it was very bright, and the night sky was like a wash. The construction of the house had been suspended for a few days because of the rain.

In the past few days, Chang Bin took advantage of his free time to resume his old business. When he was in the production team, he learned how to make shoe soles and knit shoes. His craftsmanship is very famous in the village. Nowadays, handmade cloth shoes are also fashionable in the market. Sixty to seventy yuan for a pair.He held the top plate, clamped the sole, and took the sole with a stitch. His wife was in charge of making the corduroy upper, and the white lining used a pencil to mark the size of the shoe. In three days, I earned more than 200 yuan. The cloth shoes made by his family are specially purchased by someone who comes to his house, so they don't worry about their sales.

In the middle of the night, the moonlight is brighter and quieter, with crickets chirping. He tossed and turned and couldn't sleep. He was naked, took out the lighter from the computer desk that his wife picked up, and flickered brightly. In an instant, the moonlight and silver brilliance of the whole house was restored. The red light of the cigarette butts flickered on the kang head. On the other side of the kang head, my wife was sleeping soundly and snoring. He stomped down and stomped on his wife's ass. The ignorant wife was startled, knowing that when someone kicked her, she said something confused and fell asleep again. Chang Bin smoked a few cigarettes, it was almost dawn. In the morning, he rode an electric motorcycle and went to the construction site. Looking at the time on the phone, it's already six o'clock. Changbin is honest. He has been working with this contractor for six or seven years, and he doesn't know how many houses he has built. There are many rural villages with contracting teams like this. In recent years, almost all the old houses in the countryside have been rebuilt. Nowadays, the houses in rural areas are getting more and more grand and luxurious.

Most of the people who build houses this year are urbanites who live outside. In the past, those who worked outside, ate commodity grain, and were cadres, they bought a house in the city. In the past two years, they felt the hustle and bustle of the city, the traffic jams, and the number of cars, so they cleaned up their old abandoned houses in the countryside. Many villa-style courtyards have been added to the countryside.

The family I went to today are doing big things outside. They have face and money. It costs millions to renovate the old house!

Chang Bin is guarding the mixer. The ratio of 3:2:1 has always been adhered to, and the mixed sand-ash wall and powder wall are even and solid, and everyone is satisfied.

I haven't seen the owner's face, it's the owner's nephew who takes care of the venue at home. After breakfast, the host's son came back. Chang Bin looked about the same size as his own child. The head of the dish has a round head, a large piece of hair on the hammer head, and the surrounding area is cleanly shaved. The gold chain around the neck is thicker than chopsticks, and the leather shoes are dazzling. I heard that he is not married, but he is more beautiful than his daughter. A girl got out of his car. She was clean and beautiful, but Chang Bin was not used to her clothes. There were holes in her knees, holes in her butt, and a short and narrow top that exposed her belly button and belly. He also saw a peony flower painted on the girl's left crotch.

Because the building materials are piled up on the road, it can only pass in front of the sand pile of the mixer where Chang Bin is working. When the beautiful girl approached, Chang Bin didn't dare to raise his eyes, but he smelled a special scent. Chang Bin, who has lived in the countryside for half his life, has never smelled it. Even in the early years, when I was young, there was a female educated youth in the production team. His father was a high-ranking official. The members said that the female educated youth was very good-looking and exuded a faint fragrance. He deliberately came closer to smell the white, rosy cheeks. The smell left an unforgettable impression in his mind. In his sixties, he vaguely remembered that the light and fragrant taste was very attractive. But the strange fragrance drifting past the blender today drowned out the fragrance in his mind from decades ago. Just as he was thinking about falling into the elbow of reminiscence of the past, the Baotou worker shouted at him from the room: "The mixer is idling. Don't roll your nose again."

The dish head gave each of them a slender cigarette, and also taught them to pinch the small ball in the sponge mouth with their hands. Chang Bin was ignorant and ignorant. He had never seen this new thing before, and he had already eaten it. The corner of his mouth moved, and the smoke moved with it, biting the small ball in the sponge nozzle, and he didn't know the function of the small ball in the cigarette nozzle.

. When he told his fellow villagers one day, others didn't believe it. He also said that the beads in the filter nozzle were made up by Chang Bin himself. He was so angry that he secretly made up his mind that the next time he bumped into such a cigarette, he would take it back and grab their mouths. More than half a year has passed, and no one has ever issued such a slender cigarette with a round bead, which seems to prove that he made it up. Therefore, some people said that he was a liar and deliberately showed that he had seen the world.

This house is over. The owner asked people to use a car to pull them to a ravine surrounded by green trees. The air here is fresh, the birds are singing and the mountains are quiet, and the paradise is here to entertain their thirteen or four-person contract labor team.

The people who greeted them were civil, polite and courteous. The foreman and them were very surprised and disturbed. People with such a level of respect have such respect for us coolies, which makes people feel excited, a kind of face-saving satisfaction, which is indescribable anyway. good feeling.

Old-fashioned wagon wheel, varnished, on the side of the gate. The stone manger with a sense of age, with exquisite carving craftsmanship, is placed under the corner of the wall, the tile box and the tile urn... The rural people did not use it in the early years, and I saw things thrown at random here. But now there are no villages. He sighed and suddenly remembered a joke that the rural people were different from the urban people.

While rural people wipe their butts with stones, tiles, and leaves, urban people use paper. Today, while the rural people wipe their butts with paper, the urban people use paper to wipe their mouths... The things thrown away by the rural people are displayed as treasures by the urban people at home. . He wants to look for items from the past at home, but he never has one, so why can't we keep up with the people in the city! Chang Bin also feels good about the old things

put here, and describing them in civilized language is harmony.

It was the first time in my life that I sat on a round table, and there were so many people around. There are only eight people in a typical rural seat. There were 16 people sitting on this table, and the middle disc was turning automatically.

said it was a good wine, a bottle of more than 1,000. He took a sip, but did not swallow it immediately. He felt that it was not much different from the long-necked Taibai wine that he usually drinks for ten yuan a bottle. I was thinking about choking, and almost sprayed it out, pursing my mouth tightly, not making a fool of myself.

One or two of the people who entertained them met when they were pouring concrete to hit the girders. In those days, every day there would be a brightly lit car that would leave with a cannon shot. The host's nephew, brother-in-law, and those people pushed around, not answering the envelope. There were men and women, very polite people with glasses, and some as rude as a foreman. A box of cigarettes, a box of wine, put it down and go.

For those who work on construction sites every day, one pack of cigarettes per person is standard on rural infrastructure construction sites. Chang Bin saves enough cigarettes (same brand), and he will take them to a familiar small shop in the village, and the shopkeeper will give him half the money per box. This time, the cigarettes were more than ten yuan per box, and the shopkeeper only gave them eight yuan. He felt uncomfortable but had no choice, so he had to admit it. Thinking about it, he was still an acquaintance, and if he changed hands, he would have made more than half. It's really unscrupulous. There are many kinds of

dishes, some I know, many I have never seen or eaten, so I have never heard of the name, so I must have spent a lot of money. But he wasn't full, and he didn't have the hard vegetables that are often said in the countryside. Red strips of pork, steamed pork with noodles, elbows... In the end, there was no bowl of noodles. Chang Bin thought to himself, the people in the city are rich and they love to make a fool of themselves. The place to entertain guests is so good, so luxurious, and the table is so big, but it doesn't make people full.

and this one who is doing big things abroad and has a face to build a house together, as well as a neighbor's house. Rural people called to go to the dry, your family began to dig foundations, his family circle beam. Your home is backfilled, and his home is poured with concrete.Anyway, you can't stop work. Once you stop work, someone like Chang Bin who works hard will be poached by other work teams. One work team often contracts the work of several companies.

went to work in a neighboring village. They all rode electric vehicles, and the motorcycle was blocked by the traffic police several times. They asked acquaintances to ask them back, either giving cigarettes or fines, which was very troublesome.

When the house was half-built, the owner came back, and this young man was also very rich. I heard from others that I set up a show in a field and put accounts on the field. I looked very quiet and modest, and I spoke slowly and slowly. I heard from my neighbors that I acted ruthlessly and decisively. He has a group of young people younger than him, and he is not married in his thirties.

month white short sleeves, tucked into the waistband, very strict and formal, nodding and smiling, but not speaking. The few people who came with him measured here with a ruler and hung it there with a hanging hammer, not knowing whether they really understood or pretended, the foreman smiled and followed him.

They said that there is a problem with the building of the house, the two main walls are not straight, the error is seriously exceeding the standard, and there is a problem with the binding of steel bars. The foreman said: "Let's revise the steel bar and reinforce it..."

They said decisively: "No"!

stopped work, the foreman looked for the cadres in the village, looked for the most respected people in the society, looked for relatives and friends, looked for.... Many people were looked for, but the matter was not resolved.

"To build the house like this, it will cost you money..."

In fact, this is the case with rural construction teams, and it is not a big problem. Chang Bin and the contractors knew very well how many houses they had built, and they were all like this.

It's been a month, and I can't even get in touch with the guy who was on the show.

Another month, an acquaintance from a neighboring village gave them a word, saying that the house had hired a new team of workers, and it had been working for a few days.

Chang Bin was called by the foreman, and thirteen other people also arrived, and went to the neighboring village to stop the work team. Due to the language discord and resentment, under the leadership of the foreman, a dozen angry people overturned the mixer and fought with each other. Both sides were bleeding, but they were all slightly injured and not serious. The project was blocked by Chang Bin and the others and stopped.

Half a month later, one night, Chang Bin's foreman's house was smashed.

An unlicensed Wuling Hongguang van pulled more than a dozen 16- or 17-year-old half-rides. When you enter the foreman's house, you will beat people and things when you see them. The foreman's face was swollen from the beating, and he fell to the ground with his face covered. Such a powerful wolf dog in his family also made those people lie under the kiwifruit tree in front of the door, panting heavily and pulling his tongue out. Chang Bin knew how powerful and fierce the dog was. Once I went to the foreman's house for something, the wolf dog broke free from the iron chain and threw himself on his shoulder. If the foreman was not quick-witted, he would have been bitten to death, and such a ferocious wolf dog was also lying on the ground at the moment.

A retaliatory smash is over, it's not over yet.

The foreman paid 500 yuan for the unlicensed Wuling Hongguang car, and paid 150 yuan each to the guys who smashed his house.

Changbin and his co-workers also admitted their mistakes. The money was apportioned to them and deducted from the wages for the work. Not only did the family have no wages, it was equivalent to two months of work in vain, and the wages of other construction sites were also deducted to pay for the car and the appearance of those people. fee.

Hearing the sound of his wife's snoring, he kicked the foot violently. After the wife was awakened, she did not wake up. Chang Bin knew that his wife was working very hard, and contracted the garbage removal from the street, and every day there was an endless amount of garbage. She is not too dirty or tired. She was born into a poor family in the past and suffered most of the sins.

In the early years, my father bought a bucket of wheat from Wugong Railway Station in exchange for it. It seems that he was lucky. When his wife came to his house, she was able to endure hardships, was able, and never complained. She went out early and returned late with him, and she was reluctant to buy a decent dress for herself. Thinking of this, Chang Bin felt very sorry for her.

The yard is full of things she picked up. Tables with crooked legs, outdated coffee tables, exquisite tea boxes, biscuit boxes, a snakeskin bag, a snakeskin bag of beverage bottles and cans, the yard has more waste than the purchase station in the early years, not reluctance to sell, but the market The market is too bad, and it is not worth much. Knowing the hardships of his wife, tears flowed from the corners of his eyes.

No matter how hard it is, no matter how tired they are, they have the same idea. As long as they tell their children about the next daughter-in-law, even if it is a second marriage, the reality has broken their dreams again and again. What's the use of being so hard? At that time, the food was so tight, and my father was so difficult that he exchanged a bucket of wheat for him with a daughter-in-law from the Wugong Station. Now I don't know how much better conditions were in the past, but it was so difficult to find a daughter-in-law for the child.

The dish head, those with gold chains are very wealthy, and their families are so good. Seeing them hand out cigarettes, they are very polite, and they are not married and have no children.

looks quiet, good-natured, well-dressed, spends a lot of money on the outside, and the guy who sent the package foreman is not married.

I don't know how I came up with a sentence like this in my head: "The same is the stomach hunger, the real poor have nothing to eat and hold money, can't find the canteen's stomach hunger, it's not the same stomach hunger"... ....

is thinking about going on like this with the child, but it is not a solution after all. A sixty-year-old man with gray hair looks much older than his actual age. Everyone already called him the old man.He is not feeling well, he works as well as young people, he eats well, he is in good spirits, he does not miss a day of construction work, he pays the soles of his shoes and makes cloth shoes in rainy days. And he still earns 80 yuan every day, over and over again, even reluctant to smoke a pack of cigarettes, and helps his wife clean up the garbage that will never be pulled out.

When he was free some time ago, he was waiting at home for his son who was working in other places to come home. He discussed in a scolding tone, "You go out to work all day, how much money you earn, why can't you bring back a daughter-in-law?".

Chang Bin usually flips through magazines, newspapers and mobile phones. The phrase "you have to change your mind if there is no way out" seems to have inspired him. So he said to his son, "It seems that something is wrong with us in the past few years, and we haven't aimed at the direction..." He didn't know what was wrong and where was the direction? I still don't understand, where is the way out? How to change the way of thinking?

day after day. One day, just after packing up the mixer, cleaning up the concrete, and getting ready to call it a day, my son's phone number came from Hunan.

The son was very excited on the phone, very excited, and told him mysteriously that the opportunity to make a fortune had come, let him not tell anyone, take all the money in the family, and go to him according to the address on the phone, the station Someone will pick it up.

also mentioned eloquently on the phone that the object has been settled, and it is a Guizhou girl who is five years younger than him.

Chang Bin was excited and urgent. The next day, I asked the foreman to take leave, and the foreman had to pay his salary for the past few months in advance, and lied to others that his wife’s nephew was going to get married, so he had to go, and he had to give him a big gift.

In the afternoon, I went to the credit union to withdraw the 40,000 yuan deposited, and prepared it together with the more than 5,000 yuan in the past few months. Only then did I tell my wife that I would go out and take a look at my son. In fact, the son had called his mother earlier, everything went well, and he got on the train.

has not been out for many years and is in a very good mood. The buildings outside the window are one after another, and the factories are one after another. He was very excited. He had been in the car for dozens of hours without feeling sleepy. The music played in the train was so good, and the passengers around him who didn't know him felt so kind. He had never felt so comfortable and excited. He walked to the bathroom in the aisle of the train, took out the cigarette he had given out when he was contracting, lit it, and took a few breaths.

The people from the company on the child's side picked up Changbin and held a welcome ceremony for him. Chang Bin was flattered, and enjoyed a different kind of dignity from the luxurious place he went to eat last time. This kind of honor is down-to-earth and real. Here, it is more like a feeling of rebirth, such as a little daughter-in-law who has been wronged and returned to her parents' home, her emotions that have been suppressed over the years have been released here, very complicated but very comfortable.

When you put down your luggage, the only thing you carry with you is a bag. Some people brought plastic cups, towels, and soaps for washing. Some people brought tableware and chopsticks. The place to eat is under the colored steel shed on the top floor.

is the same as he eats in the work team, either on the ground or leaning against the wall. Sleep on the floor and roll up luggage during the day to make room for study. At night, when a person is only 80 cm away, lying next to his body, it is difficult to even turn around. Every day is very comfortable and happy. Although everyone has different ages, occupations, and identities, they are all equal and come together for a common goal.

This time, he invested all his belongings in the family, and experienced two months of high spirits with his son. He was clear and ignorant, happy and depressed, but felt like he was about to make a fortune. The child will be able to marry a daughter-in-law immediately, and the seductive fragrance and strange fragrance will change in his mind again.He even chooses between these two fragrances for the type of children and daughter-in-law...

and he have the same dream of making a fortune, a group of people who are full of hope for the future like him, and constantly develop their relatives and friends to join them team. Chang Bin seems to think that he should also call his close relatives and friends together to make a fortune. He didn't want to tell the foreman, because the foreman detained a few packs of cigarettes from him several times, especially the packs of good cigarettes issued by the house, and even after the completion, when the owner thanked the craftsman, he gave each worker a straw hat. , a pair of gloves, a towel and a piece of soap, the foreman also made him angrily...

did not praise his son, but secretly admired him for making a fortune with him this time. Because, after all, one person's shares are limited, and two people's successful accumulation of wealth will grow geometrically. Chang Bin has gone to school and knows the terms in mathematics, which are also taught in class. It is easier for him to understand, and he also knows more about the meaning behind these terms.

"Knowledge changes destiny". Therefore, the mixer and ash ratio, he controls the best. For many years, no matter which construction site, he has made this pass "3:2:1". This is proof that this time I feel that the knowledge I have learned in high school comes in handy here. Otherwise, I still don't understand, and I won't calculate the income after my success.

I only eat steamed buns and white rice every day. I don’t see the sun. I am active like a student. I have regular classes, do health exercises, shout uplifting slogans, and sing songs. Sometimes he also thinks to himself that he is still doing these things at such an old age, but when he looks at the large group of people around him, literate people wearing glasses, young college students, and even people older than himself, that kind of thought flashes. also passed. Everything about

is only going on with the arrangement of those few people. He thought of his nephew who was doing business abroad.The host at the welcoming ceremony also urged him several times, and he decided to call his rich nephew. Still thinking of such a good thing to convince his nephew. He pondered, if his nephew didn't participate, how could he have a good reason to successfully persuade him.

It is raining outside, and the weather in the south is humid and sultry. When he first arrived, his enthusiasm gradually faded, and Chang Bin was a little impetuous. He was homesick and missed his loyal, hard-working, and hard-working wife. It's been two months, and he hasn't made a single call, and he doesn't even know what the city is like. He wants to go outside, but he doesn't even have a penny in his pocket, and he bought all the shares of the future fortune.

Exhausted physically and mentally, on the 80-centimeter floor that belonged to him, he was stunned. A strong sound of pushing the door, accompanied by the clutter outside the corridor, and the sound of heavy footsteps, startled him from the critical state of being blurred and awake.

They were ordered to bow their heads, hold their heads, and squat in place. His first reaction was to encounter a robber. Chang Bin didn't dare to look up, feeling that it was important to save his life. He could see from the pants and shoes of those people that they were all special police officers. Later, a group of police officers and industrial and commercial personnel came in. They were all public family members anyway. Take it easy, the entire floor is under control.

They were escorted into two large sedan cars and went around several places. He was arraigned N times and asked the same topic countless times. He felt like he was about to die.

"When did you come from"?

"Who called you here"?

"How many shares did you buy"?

"Who else did you notify..."?

Over and over, over and over again, finger prints, signatures, red ink penetrating deep into the flesh of his stout index finger.

After another half month, what made Chang Bin the most ashamed in his life was that the secretary of his village, the foreman and his wife came to Hunan to pick him up. His wife signed and fingerprinted him and brought him back.

Walking on the street back home, I always feel that there are countless eyes staring at me, like a man behind my back.

In the evening, it was still the bright moonlight, and it was the kang he lay on, smoking a cigarette, sighing, and saying to himself, "What's wrong with this..."

The son was brought back Afterwards, Chang Bin only asked him one sentence: "Who told you to go to Hunan?". The son said timidly: "It's the Guizhou girl I met online..."

Chang Bin recalled that in Hunan, it was the enthusiastic girl who poured water, made meals, and asked questions...

asked After this sentence, I don't know where my son went, and Chang Bin doesn't know what will happen in the future, and he has no direction. It's just that later, every time I hear a group of cheers on the radio or TV, there is medical insurance, schooling, and poverty alleviation. , Steady growth. He would habitually scold: "What a fucking savage..." He knew that radio and television were like wedding photos, and what he experienced was life, life photos on the Internet.

Text: Zhao Kedi

Editor in charge: Kou Jianjian