In 1985, when I first joined the work, I met a painter named Kong Long in our factory. His suffering process and persistent pursuit of art deeply infected and moved me, and I became a lifelong friend. At the end of 1987, without any warning, Kong Long suddenly abandoned his wife and children and wandered alone in Yunnan.
Kong Long was born in the 40s of the 20th century, and from 1959 to 1961, he studied at the Fine Arts Department of Fuzhou Art Normal School. From 1961 to 1964, due to his outstanding achievements, he was selected to study in the three-year painting major of the Art Department of Fuzhou Normal University, during which he held a personal exhibition. In April 1964, due to overwork, he suffered from severe mental asthenia.
In February 1966, Kong Long** resumed his studies and continued his studies as an undergraduate. In July of the same year, because he was born in a pseudo-military officer, he was branded as a pacesetter, a spy, and a revisionist seedling of the White Dictatorship, and was criticized and expelled. In February 1969, Kong Long gave up his studies to respond to the call and went to my hometown, Chongren Commune, a county in northern Fujian.
After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Kong Long, whose parents died (committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution), was homeless and did not return to Fuzhou, but entered the county cement factory, became an electrician, married a wife and had children. His wife was illiterate and did not have a punctuated common language with him. When arguing, the angry wife would tear or even burn his paintings. Kong Long usually cares little about his wife and children, and half of his income is used to buy pen, ink, paper, books, and ticketsIn his spare time, he spends all his time painting. In those years, he almost traveled and painted all over the landscapes of northern Fujian and Wuyi Mountain, which is adjacent to our county, at least once a month.
After Kong Long left, there was no news.
At the end of 1989, I suddenly received a letter from Kong Long.
Brother Qiu:
It's good that you love writing, but you have to travel thousands of miles to write. You must know the wandering writer Ai Wu, right?He wandered the streets of Kunming, and later drifted to Malaysia and Singapore, where he wrote the sensational "Journey to the South". As Chekhov once told the young writers: "You get a thousand, two thousand, three thousand versts to go to ......."How many things will you know, how many short stories will you bring back!You will see the life of the people, spend the night in the remote post houses and in the thatched huts of the peasants, exactly like ...... in the time of PushkinIf you are going to become a writer, then you can buy a ticket tomorrow to go to Nizhny, from where you can travel along the Volga River, along the Kama River......"Then, you can come to Kunming tomorrow!You'll get a lot of unexpected gains.
I think I'm going to be wiped out one day, and I might as well see a few fresh sunshines and a few more dangerous bridges. So I want to be like Shen Congwen, although I go far away, go deeper, go to a strange world, bet my life, bet on it, and let my fate be better controlledIf everything is good, everything has a way, and all the problems that cannot be solved today can be solved tomorrow, then I will win. If it is not good, I still have to run to a strange distance, and finally one day I collapse in the gutter under someone's empty house with a shriveled stomach, then I will lose and admit it. Because all this is my own ......
This letter greatly stimulated my wandering emotions. On the third day of receiving the letter, I, who had never been far away, patted the dust on my body, hung a walkman on my waist, and boarded the train to the west in the singing of Cui Jian's "Nothing". At the end of the year, the train was crowded, and the journey of two days and three nights was almost to Kunming, and I couldn't resist it, so I got into other people's seats like a dog and lay down for a while. On the morning of the third day, we finally arrived in Kunming.
Kong Long rode a tricycle to pick me up at the station, and he lived in a three-story stairwell on the outskirts of the city, where he couldn't fit anything but a bed and a table. I thought he had become famous, married, and wealthy, but I didn't expect that the situation would be so difficult and his life would be so shabby.
I was so tired that my eyelids were so sour that I felt like I had been soaked in old vinegar, and I was so sleepy that I couldn't lift my head, so I lay down on the bed and fell asleep.
When I woke up, it was already dark. Kong Long washed the dust for me, and the liquor was added to the roast chicken and bacon, and a few plates of vegetables.
After receiving me ceremoniously, Kong Long was penniless. I am poor and rich, and my monthly salary is less than 100 yuan, but my family is poor and poor, and I don't have much money on me. In three days, the Spring Festival will be gone, but we are worried about the cost of the journey. After the Spring Festival, Kong Long will go to Guizhou to wander.
Kong Long decided to go to the street to buy Spring Festival couplets, his calligraphy was very good, and at the end of the day, he earned more than 500. For us, it's a lot of money.
Yunnan folk customs are strong, every household sticks the Spring Festival couplets, and even sticks two or three pairs of detached households, most of them are written with gold powder, which is brilliant and lovely. However, there are quite a lot of people who write Spring Festival couplets, and the competition is fierce. Fortunately, Kong Long has a trick: he has a brick on his arm, writes four or five couplets in one breath, his face does not change color and his heart does not beat, and the bricks on his arm do not move at all. There are many people who see it, and there are many people who buy it, and I am busy collecting money, and I am very happy.
Such a good business, Kong Long refused to do it the next day, saying that if it wasn't for my sake, he would never have been on the street yesterday to show his ugliness. I really wanted to punch it, and he spent five dollars on my money and ten dollars on the right, and instead put on a savior face.
I was so angry that I didn't sleep well all night and regretted coming to see him.
Kong Long woke up early in the morning and asked me if I was going to see an art exhibition. As soon as I fell asleep in a daze and didn't want to go, he left alone. When I woke up, I was top-heavy, I didn't have the strength to get out of bed, my mouth was boring, I had a nosebleed, I struggled for a while, and then I fell asleep. When I opened my eyes again, it was already more than three o'clock in the afternoon, and I still didn't see Kong Long's figure. When he hated and regretted, Kong Long pushed the door in with a large bag of food, and the painting clip on his back was bulging.
Kong Long touched the forehead of the **, jumped up, and took three steps and two steps to run out of the door.
I don't know how long it took, Kong Long brought a doctor. He ran several private clinics in a row, either closed or the doctor refused to come, and finally spent 50 yuan ** to "kidnap" one with a tricycle.
After getting an injection, I was cured the next day, which was the Spring Festival of the Year of the Horse.
Kong Long bought a lot of New Year's goods, I felt bad and asked him how much money he had left. He threw me the broken bag containing the money: "I don't know, you can take a look." ”
I'm a little cold, less than 300 yuan, and I have to go to Shilin and Xishuangbanna. I don't care about decency: "The money is still on me for safekeeping, otherwise I don't know when you will spend it." ”
Kong Long's attitude towards spending money surprised me, spitting on the ground. When he was in the factory, he often borrowed money from me and never paid it back. Of course, I borrowed money from him, and I didn't have to pay it back, he always asked.
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, we went to the Stone Forest and then headed for Xishuangbanna. In order to save money, we mainly ate instant noodles and bread and stayed in the worst hotels. Half a month later, we reluctantly bid farewell to Yunnan. When the train entered the territory of Guizhou, it was snowing heavily, and the white land was really clean. The snow can't hide the majestic mountains and rivers of Guizhou, and I enjoy the scenery of the north in the south.
Kong Long was busy painting portraits of travelers and earning travel expenses. Kong Long's portrait sketch is perfect, and a few brushstrokes leap onto the paper. Kong Long's money is always not enough to buy a ticket for the whole journey, buy**sit**, and then get off the bus and walk. The peasants in the fields, the pedestrians on the road, the workers in the mines, and the old people in the village are all the objects of his conversation and sketching. If someone gives him money, or something to eat, or something to live with, and if he can't give anything or doesn't want to give him, ask him to smoke a cigarette. If you have money to ride in a car but not to walk, eat 100 meals and live in 100 houses, Kong Long used this way to travel through most of Yunnan, "completely like in the Pushkin era".
It was dawn to get off at Anshun in front of Guiyang Station, and visited Huangguoshu Waterfall on the way. The Huangguoshu Waterfall in winter, although it is not as thrilling as imagined, but in the ice and snow, it is more domineering.
That night, he got on the bus from Anshun, passed through Guiyang, and after another hour, Kong Long arrived at the station, and the place he went to was called Longli. There was a friend of his painter who had never met in Longli County, who opened an art and craft factory and asked him to help.
We will be separated from each other again, and whether we can see each other again or not can only follow our feelings. Kong Long poured everything he had, bought me some food, and he only had one yuan and five jiao left.
The train entered the station, and Kong Long grabbed my hand violently: "Brother, cherish!."With that, he got out of the car, waved at me, and disappeared into the night.
I put on my headphones, pressed down on my Walkman, and fell drunk in the infinite melancholy of parting:
I've come here from a long way away, and I'm going to be a long way away, so if you see me tired, don't persuade me to give up ......If you see my melancholy look, please don't ask me ...... my return date
After parting, Kong Long and I kept in touch with each other. It was probably the spring of 2004, after a few **, after which I completely lost contact, called an empty mobile phone number, and wrote a letter that either "no such person" was returned, or there was no reply. Could it be that he had "collapsed with a shriveled stomach in the gutter under someone's empty house"?
In the next 12 years, I changed four mobile phones, three numbers, and the fixed ** at home was also canceled by me. With the cancellation of the factory guard, the mailing address was also changed, and I went to the post office to apply for a special mailbox. Kong Long wanted to contact me, but he couldn't.
In mid-March 2016, I went to Beijing for four months of study. A few days after arriving in Beijing, I received my wife**, saying that there was a distinguished guest at home. I said that our family is poor in the downtown area, what can there be any distinguished guests. My wife said that it was Kong Long, and Brother Kong Long came to our house. I couldn't believe my ears and shouted, how is this possible, can't be mistaken?My wife said, Brother Kong Long is by my side, and he wants to talk to you.
A familiar and unfamiliar voice came from the mobile phone, Brother Guiping, I am Lao Kong. I was sitting, but when I heard Sun Long's voice, the scorpion stood up as if it had stung, and exclaimed, why are you here, I didn't say hello in advance, I haven't heard from you for so many years, you are almost seventy, I, I thought you were ......Kong Long interrupted me, you think I'm dead, right?However, I am really dying, I am seventy-three years old this year, and I will not live long.
I asked, are you sick?Kong Long said, I'm not sick, but I'm desperate now, I can't earn money by painting, I came back to find my wife and children, but without their ***, do you have their ** number......
In the third year of Kong Long's absence, his wife remarried and moved to live outside the factory, because she was still working in the factory, she could still see her from time to time, and occasionally asked me about Kong Long. In 1998, the county cement factory closed down, and I never saw her again. Later, I learned from a co-worker that her step-husband died of illness, and her son divorced after a year of marriage, and his life was very miserable. I told Kong Long about these in the letter and **.
At that time, Kong Long was living with a woman who was more than twenty years younger than him, a third-rate painter who was as poor as him. Regarding the fate of his wife and children, Kong Long could do nothing except sigh with emotion (no repentance). Kong Long told me in ** that as early as five years ago, the female painter abandoned him and looked for another high branch.
After losing contact with Kong Long completely, I no longer pay attention to the news of his wife and children. Fortunately, I have been living in the factory, and many of my co-workers also live in the factory, so Kong Long was able to find my home after a little inquiry. I didn't expect it to be so unfortunate, after a twenty-six year absence, Kong Long came to look for me, but I was not at home.
Put down the **, the mood is extremely heavy, and I am a little nervous, and there is a little luck. It's heavy because Kong Long has fallen to such a point, he has no one to rely on, and he can't even support himself. At that time, Kong Long did not go through any formalities, left his post without authorization, automatically terminated the labor relationship, and did not have social security and medical insurance. With the closure of the factory, his file was gone, and he became "black" and "superfluous".
If it weren't for the desperation, no matter how thick-skinned he was, Kong Long would not have come back to join his wife and children. For so many years, he didn't dare to come back to visit his wife and children, not so much ruthless as a weak heart. He hurt them too much and too deeply.
The nervousness is because of selfishness, and I am afraid that Kong Long will stay at my house and not leave. My wife and I have been laid off for many years, I make a living from writing, and my wife is a direct salesman, with limited income, and I really can't help him. Luckily, because I am far away in Beijing, I can put on a posture of "beyond the reach of the whip", if I am at home, I really don't know how to face it, is it to "see death and not save him", or send him away?
After a while, I sent a WeChat message to my wife, asking her to go to the hotel to open a room for Kong Long and pay the room fee in advance for three days. His wife soon called** and said that Kong Long had left, and that he had stayed in the most humble inn near the railway station (the cement factory was only about 300 meters away from the railway station), twenty yuan a day.
I said, you invite him to dinner and give him some money. My wife said that he would skip the meal and eat as much as he wanted, but borrowed money from me. I asked, how much to borrow?The wife said, "Two hundred, I gave five hundred, so that he did not have to pay it back."
I said, yes, I'll contact my friend at the Public Security Bureau immediately, and tomorrow you can take him to the Public Security Bureau to find my friend and see if you can find his wife and son. My wife said, I sent a missing person notice on WeChat, and the circle of friends is omnipotent. My wife's words reminded me, and I hurriedly said, don't send it first, I'll write a missing person notice, I write better than you, you are from my circle of friends**.
The wife is a kind woman, and this is the first time she has met Kong Long. When I met Kong Long, I didn't know her yet. After getting married, I told her about Kong Long many times in a tone of appreciation and reverence, and I was "impressed".
After the missing person notice was sent out in the circle of friends, no clues were obtained. A friend from the Public Security Bureau found a clue: because he could not gain a foothold in this county, in 2013, Kong Long's wife and children returned to their hometown in Sichuan. I vaguely heard Kong Long say that his wife is from Sichuan, and I can't remember which county exactly, that place is much more backward than my county.
In the mid-70s of the 20th century, she went to a distant relative in the cement factory in our county, worked as a temporary worker in the factory, and then married Kong Long. thought that she would be able to live a stable life from now on, but she didn't expect the neurotic Kong Long to ruthlessly abandon her and her son and run away.
Kong Long stayed for five days and then went back to Kunming. Before leaving, he came to my house again and borrowed money from his wife, and borrowed three hundred, and she gave one thousand. His wife cooked him a large bowl of noodles and fried two poached eggs. My wife told me that Kong Long gobbled up as if he hadn't eaten for days. After eating the noodles, Kong Long repeatedly expressed his gratitude.
The wife said, Brother Kong Long, you're welcome, Lao Qiu and your friends, this is as it should be, but unfortunately we can't help you. Kong Long said, I am his last friend in this world. After Kong Long finished speaking, he staggered away.
For some reason, Kong Long didn't say goodbye to me. Although he doesn't have a mobile phone, he can use his wife's. This means that I will not be able to contact him in the future. I asked my wife if Kong Long wanted your and my mobile phone numbers. The wife said, "No." I asked again, did you tell him my and your mobile phone numbers? The wife said, "No." I let out a long sigh.
My wife said to me, husband, Kong Long is so pitiful, as soon as I heard that his wife and son had returned to his hometown in Sichuan, I felt that his whole person collapsed all of a sudden, completely desperate, he didn't say a word, the road was almost unable to walk, I estimate, he didn't live long, you and his friends had a fight, but unfortunately I couldn't see the last ......
I held the microphone and choked speechlessly.
I think I will be sad for Kong Long for the rest of my life, and I will also be sad for my incompetence, helplessness and even shamelessness for the rest of my life.