Chapter 16 3 finished singing

I will return to my hometown in June. I made up a random excuse and took three days off, and took the Shinkansen on Tuesday morning by myself.Put on a white short-sleeved sports shirt and green cotton trousers frayed at the knees, white tennis shoes, no luggage, and forget to shave when I get up in the morning.The heels of my tennis shoes, which I haven't worn for a long time, are so worn and crooked that it's unbelievable.I must have gotten used to the unnatural way of walking without knowing it. It's a great feeling to take a long-distance train without luggage.It felt like a torpedo bomber caught in the distortion of time and space while walking in a daze.There is nothing there.No dentist appointments, no problems sitting in a desk drawer waiting to be resolved.There are no complicated and clueless relationships.There is no good intention to force a sense of trust.I cast it all into the abyss of temporality.All I had was a pair of old tennis shoes with skewed rubber soles.It was like a fuzzy memory stuck in another time and space, sticking tightly to my two feet.But that's not a big deal.All it takes is a few cans of beer and a dry ham sandwich to drive me away.

I haven't returned home for four years.I went back four years ago to go through some marriage-related procedures.But it was a procedure that I thought should be done, but others didn't, so it became a meaningless trip.All in all, it's a difference of thought.For some it's over, for others it's not.That's all.Just this kind of thing, after arriving at the other end of the railway, it seems that there is a big difference. Since then, I have no hometown.There is nowhere for me to go back.When I think of this, I feel relieved from the bottom of my heart.No one wants to see me anymore, no one needs me anymore, no one wants to be needed by me anymore.

After drinking two cans of beer, I fell asleep for about thirty minutes.When I woke up, the initial sense of relief and relief had completely disappeared.As the train moved forward, the sky was gradually covered by the hazy gray of the rainy season.Below that, the usual boring landscape stretched out vastly.No matter how fast you go, there is no way to escape from that boredom.On the contrary, the faster our pace is, the more we step into the boring center.That's what's called boring. The twenty-five-year-old office worker sitting next to him was engrossed in the economic news almost without moving his body.Wearing a wrinkle-free dark blue summer suit and black leather shoes.A white shirt just returned from the laundry.I looked at the ceiling of the train and puffed on a cigarette.Then in order to pass the time, I recalled the titles of the albums that were all over the place from the beginning one by one.Stop at the seventy-third track, just like that no longer go forward.How many songs can Paul McCartney remember?

After looking out of the window for a while, I turned my gaze to the ceiling again. I'm twenty-nine now, and in six months my twenty-year-old will be closing.Ten years of nothing, really nothing.All that I got was worthless, all that I accomplished was meaningless.All I got out of it was boredom. Is there anything to start with?Forgot now.But there was something there, something that moved my heart, and through mine, the hearts of others.All was lost as a result.Lost due to should be lost.Besides, what can I do but give up everything? At least I'm alive.Even if the only good Indians are dead Indians, I still have to live.

for what? In order to pass on the legend to the stone wall? Really! ◇ Why live in a hotel? I wrote down the phone number of the hotel on the back of the match and gave it to him, Jay said with a puzzled expression on his face.I have my own home here, wouldn't it be nice to live at home? It is no longer my home.I said. Jay said nothing more. I lined up three kinds of snacks in front of my eyes, and after drinking half of the beer, I took out the letter from the mouse and handed it to Jay.Jie wiped his hands with a towel, skimmed through the two letters in one breath, and then read them word by word again slowly.Um.He seemed to be quite moved.

He's still alive after all. still alive.I said taking a sip of beer.correct!I want to shave, can you lend me a razor and shaving cream. OK.As he spoke, Jie took out the portable toilet utensils from under the counter.You can use the bathroom, but there is no hot water. Cold water will do.I said.It's fine as long as there's no drunk girl lying on the ground.It's hard to shave like that. ◇ Jay's has completely changed. The former Jay's Bar was a damp shop in the basement of an old building next to the national road.In summer nights, the wind from the air conditioner almost turns into a fine mist.When you drink it for too long, even your shirt will get wet.

Jie's real name is a long and unpronounceable Chinese name.The so-called Jay is the name given to him by American soldiers when he worked in the US military base after the war.Then, unconsciously, his real name was gradually forgotten. According to what I learned from what Jay said before, he quit his job at the base in 1954 and opened a small bar nearby, which was the first generation of Jay's Bar.The bar business is booming.Most of the guests were generals of the Air Force, and the atmosphere was good.After the shop settled down, Jie got married, but the other party died five years later.Nothing was said about Death Jay.

In 1963, when the Vietnam War was heating up, Jay sold the store, came to our remote hometown, and opened the second generation of Jay's Bar. That's all I know about Jay.He has cats, smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, and doesn't drink a drop of alcohol. Before I met the mouse, I used to go to Jay's Bar by myself.I was always sipping beer, smoking a cigarette, throwing change in the jukebox and playing records.At that time, Jay's Bar was mostly empty, and Jay and I talked a lot across the bar.I can't remember what I was talking about.What kind of topic is there between a silent seventeen-year-old high school student and a Chinese whose wife died?

After I left home at eighteen, the rats continued to drink beer there.After the rats left their hometown in 1973, no one followed them.Then half a year later, the hotel moved because of the widening of the road.And our legend, which revolves around the second-generation Jay's bar, ends. ◇ The third generation bar is located by the river 500 meters away from the previous building.It wasn't too big, but it was the third floor of a new four-story building with an elevator.It was a strange feeling to take the elevator up to Jay's Bar.The night view of the city from the bar chairs is also weird.

The new Jay's Bar has large windows to the west and south, from which one can see the mountains and what used to be the sea.The sea had been completely filled in a few years ago, and dense high-rise buildings were built like tombstones. I stood by the window and looked at the night scene for a while, then returned to the bar. If it was in the past, you could see the sea here.I said. yes.Jay said. I often swim there. oh!As he spoke, Jie picked up a cigarette and lit it with a heavy lighter.I know that feeling well.Push down the mountain, build a house, transport that soil to the sea, fill it up, and build a house there.Some people actually thought it was a great thing.

I drank my beer in silence.Boz Scaggs' latest hit streams from the ceiling.The jukebox has disappeared, and the customers in the store are almost all college couples. They wear crisp clothes and drink ice-water whiskey or cocktails in a regular sip.No drunken girls, no weekend hustle and bustle.They must all change into pajamas when they get home, brush their teeth properly, and then go to bed.But that's fine too.It's really refreshing.Whether it's the world or a bar, everything isn't what it should be. During this time, Jay has been following my line of sight. how?Are you uncomfortable with changes in the store? No such thing.I said.It's just that chaos has changed its form.A giraffe and a bear exchange hats, and a bear and a zebra exchange scarves. You are still the same.Jay laughed. Times have changed.I said.Times have changed and so have all kinds of things.But that's fine too.Everyone exchanges with each other, there is no need to complain. Jay said nothing. I drink new beer and Jay smokes new cigarettes. How are you doing?Jay asked. Not bad.I simply answer. How are you getting on with your wife? I don't know, because this is between people.Sometimes it feels like we can get along just fine, and sometimes it doesn't.The so-called husband and wife, isn't that what it is? Hard to say.Jay said, picking his nose with the tip of his inconvenient little finger.What the hell is going on in married life I've forgotten.Because it's been too long. How is your cat? Died four years ago.Not long after you got married.The stomach is messed up, but in fact, the life span has come.After all, I have lived for twelve years.Together longer than my wife.It's not easy to live for twelve years, right? yes. There is an animal cemetery on the hill, and I buried it there.Can overlook high-rise buildings.This place has become a place where you can only see high-rise buildings no matter where you go.But that doesn't really matter to cats. Very lonely, right? Well, it's loneliness.No one has ever been so lonely after death. Isn't this kind of thing strange? I shake my head. While Jay was busy mixing cocktails and Caesar salads for the other guests, I played with the Nordic educational toys that had been sitting on the bar.The figure of three butterflies flying in the field of Chinese vetch is combined in a glass box.I tried for ten minutes or so and gave up. Have no children?Jay came back and asked me.Is it possible to give birth at this age? In no mood. real? Because if I give birth to a child like me, I don't think I will know what to do. Jay smiled strangely and poured beer into my glass.You always think too much ahead. No, not this question.In other words, is it really right to give birth to a life?I am not very sure.After the children grow up, the next generation goes on.So what?Is it necessary to cut down a few more mountains and bury more seas?Invent faster cars.Crushing more cats.Is it not? This is the dark side of things.In fact, good things are happening, and there are good people. If you can give three examples of each, then I will trust you.I said. Jay thought about it, then laughed.But that's for your children's generation to judge, not you.your generation It's over, right? in a sense.Jay said. The singing is over.It's just that the tune is still playing. You always speak well. Love it now.I said. ◇ When Jay's began to fill up, I said good night to Jay and walked out.It's nine o'clock.After shaving with cold water, it still hurts a little.Because after shaving, it may be related to using vodka instead of lotion.It would be no different if Jay spoke, except that the smell of vodka was all over his face. The night was surprisingly warm and the sky was still cloudy.The damp south wind blows slowly.as ever.The smell of the sea mixed with the premonition of rain.There is a lazy familiarity all around.The grass by the river made the sound of insects.It looked like it was going to rain soon.It's hard to tell whether it's raining or not, but it's the kind of drizzle that wets the whole body. In the dim white light of the mercury lamp, the flowing water of the river could be seen.There is only water as shallow as a fist.The water is still as clear as ever.The water runs straight off the mountain, so there's no reason to be dirty.The river bed is made of small stones and coarse sand washed down from the mountains, and in some places the quicksand accumulates to form waterfalls.Under the waterfall, a deep puddle is formed, and there are small fish swimming in it. In the season when there is little water, the running water is completely absorbed by the sandy ground, leaving only a white sandy road with some slightly damp moisture.When I was walking, I used to follow the sandy road upstream to find the source and starting point of the river being sucked into the river bed.There, the last trickle of the river suddenly stopped as if it had discovered something, and then disappeared in the next instant.The darkness of the underground swallowed them quietly. The road by the river is my favorite road.I follow the current.And while walking, I can feel the breath of the river.They are alive, in fact they created this city.It took tens of thousands of years to disintegrate the mountains, move the soil, fill up the sea, and grow vegetation there.The city had belonged to them from the beginning, and it probably always would have been. Thanks to the rain, the flowing water was not sucked dry by the river bed, but continued to the sea.The trees planted along the river smelled of young leaves.The green seemed to seep into the surrounding air very harmoniously.There are several couples cuddling side by side on the grass, the elderly are walking their dogs, and the high school students stop their motorcycles to smoke cigarettes, just like usual early summer nights. I bought two cans of beer at the hotel on the way, put them in paper bags, and walked to the beach with my hands.Rivers emptied into the sea like tiny bays or half-buried canals.It was a remnant of the old coastline cut to a width of about fifty meters.The beach is still the same as it used to be.There are tiny waves, rounded pieces of wood being thrown up by the waves.A smell of the sea. The concrete breakwater still has words graffitied with nails or game spray paint.This is the nostalgic coastline with only fifty meters left.However, it was firmly sandwiched by a ten-meter-high concrete wall.The wall sandwiched the narrow sea again, stretching straight out several kilometers away.On the other side, there are rows of high-rise residential buildings.Only fifty meters of the sea remained, and the rest was completely obliterated. I left the river and headed east along the old coastal road, and it was incredible that the old breakwater was still there.The breakwater that lost the sea has become a strange existence.I stopped where I used to park my car looking out to sea.Sitting on the jetty drinking a beer.Instead of the sea, Haipu Xinshengdi and high-rise apartments stretch as far as the eye can see.The flat and monotonous apartment complex looks like the unfortunate bridge girders that were meant to build a city in the sky, but were abandoned halfway and left there, or immature children who are waiting for their father's return. Between each building, asphalt roads are paved as if to stitch the gaps, and in some places, huge parking lots and bus stops are scattered here and there.There are supermarkets, gas stations, wide parks, and grand gathering places.Everything is so new and unnatural.The soil transported from the mountains has the unique cold color of Haipu Xinshengdi.The part that has not been divided and sorted out is densely covered by weeds blown by the wind.Weeds took root with astonishing speed in the new ground.They treat the artificially transplanted trees and lawns along the asphalt road as fools, and spread them everywhere. A sad landscape. But what can I say?A new game has been launched here according to new rules.No one can stop all this. After I drank two cans of beer, I threw the two empty cans one by one onto the new land of Haipu, which was once the sea.The empty cans were sucked in by the wind-swaying sea of ​​weeds, and I started smoking. When I finished smoking, I saw a man with a flashlight walking slowly towards this side.The man is about forty years old, wearing a gray shirt, gray suit pants, and a gray hat.It must be the guard of the public facilities in this area. Did you just drop something?The man stood beside me and said. Lost it.I said. What's missing? A round, metal thing with a lid.I said. The guard looked a little panicked.Why did you lose it? There is no reason.Been losing since twelve years ago.I also threw half a dozen together once, and no one complained. Once upon a time.said the guard.Now this is city land.Unreasonable littering on municipal land is prohibited. I was silent for a while.Suddenly something vibrated in the body for a moment, and then stopped. The problem is, I say.What you said seems more reasonable. This is the law.the man said.I sighed.He took a cigarette out of his pocket. So what to do? I can't ask you to pick it up.It's too dark around here, and it's going to rain.So please don't lose it next time. Will not lose again.I said.Good night. Good night.Saying that, the guard left. I lay down on the jetty and looked at the sky.As the guard said, the drizzle was starting to fall, so I smoked another one, thinking back to the conversation I had with the guard just now.Ten years ago I seemed to be stronger.No, maybe it just feels that way.It doesn't matter anyway. Walking back along the road by the river, when we found a taxi, the rain had turned into fog.I'm talking about restaurants. Are you coming for a trip?said the middle-aged driver. Um. Is it the first time? the second time.I said.