Chapter 75 trumpet player in the moonlight

On a cold winter night in the middle of the street, I met a trumpet player. At that time the moon was very bright, and the cold moonlight slanted down on his body, and his shadow stretched out to the side of the street strangely.The street was very empty, I walked from the corner of the street, and he came from the bottomless street, we would pass by like passers-by, but for some reason, that street was covered by his lonely well Packed so tightly that we couldn't wipe ourselves. Suddenly, I felt very mysterious, why the shadow of an ordinary person was like a net in the early morning, so that the streets were full, I stood still in amazement, and watched him walk slowly, his steps were disorderly Stumbling, as if a little drunk, what he held in his hand seemed to be a bottle of wine, he approached step by step, and in the cold moonlight, I could clearly see that what he was holding in his hand turned out to be a telescoping horn.

I was startled like an electric shock, the trombone in his hand was shaped like a stabbed and furious cobra, its body was coiled and twisted, its cheeks full of grief and anger were flattened, as if it was about to spit out fu at any time The sound of —fu—. The bright color of the horn is also decayed into a snake body pattern. The mottled rusty yellow sound tube has many scars and twists, and the blood vessels in the hand holding the horn are tangled along the horn. The faces of old people all over the street.The white hair on his temples reflected starlight under the street lamps. He was wearing a royal blue uniform with white trim, and the big cap was not crumpled and stuck on his head. The cap badge was an eagle about to fly—he really is Like a soldier after a battle, dragging a saber that has shed a lot of blood.

Suddenly there was the sound of a car horn, and the car came from behind me. The strong light forced the old man to raise the horn to protect his eyes.It was only when he put down the horn that he saw me standing by the side of the road, and a good-natured smile burst out from his withered lips. In the small street in the early morning and night, we met like that. The old man told me with a strong smell of alcohol that he received two hundred yuan after the funeral this afternoon, so he couldn't help but ran to the stall to drink a few bottles of old wine. He said: "I haven't drunk for a few days, and my bones are soft. He rummaged around and found a hundred-dollar bill from his trouser pocket, "Go and drink two more glasses, buddy!" There was a magical command in his sentence, and I spent a lot of money trying to get that drink. In the end, the old man happily agreed in a rough voice: "That's it, I'll have a drink with you, and I'll play a song for you."

We walked a long road in the dark before we found a small stall hidden on the corner of the street. He covered the speaker upside down, and the speaker was stuck on the oily table. Very strong contrast.The old man said proudly: "Guangdong, Shandong, we are half fellow villagers!" I don't know why, but I can see a bit of melancholy in the long gray eyebrows that protrude from his flat eyebrows. For more than ten years, the old man has been on the funeral procession, using Lige to pave a road to the unknown for those who sleep forever. He used the same telescopic horn, which was dented and rusted, and in the rust of the horn, It is unknown how many lives were blown out.The old man talked about different funeral ceremonies, and when he said that everyone in the crowd wearing sackcloth would have completely different emotions, he couldn't help laughing: "People are bound to die after all, and when the trumpet sounds, heroes are the same. "

I told the old man that in our country, funeral trumpet players are called "Rohan's feet". They often squat under the banyan tree and knead their teeth, waiting for the news of the death. "Then the old man lamented that in China, funerals are the same. Most people have never heard of music performance in their entire lives, and it is not until they die that they win the glory of their life's hard work and listen to a concert. "One day I'll die too, I've heard too much." With a bit of alcohol, I talked to the old man about his wandering past. The old man was born in a small county in Shandong, and his family had a soybean field beyond the horizon. When he was young, he flew a kite in the soybean field, caught voles, and watched when the spring breeze blew, and the fields burst into tender yellow colors. Small wild flowers, the sky is always blue and transparent, when the wind and snow come, they gather around the warm small stove to keep warm, listening to the old grandfather wearing a felt hat telling endless stories over and over again.In his childhood, there were stories, the sound of the wind, the color of snow, the red paper pasted on the door lintel waiting for the New Year, and the endless chasing and laughing in the courtyard surrounded by the triple house...

"When I was 24 years old, I was working in the field and came home. A military truck was parked by the side of the road. Two middle-aged men grabbed me into the truck. I couldn't even put down the hoe. I cried in fear. The car drove away on an unknown road...his grandma's!" The old man watched his hometown go far away from the small window of the car, and the car left behind his childhood, his soybean fields, and his hometown. The story of his old grandfather finally resting.His tears fell on the board of the car, and the people around him looked at him indifferently until his tears dried up; when he got out of the car, there was a desert of yellow sand that he could not remember.

He went to the island, the sky was still blue, and the rice sprouted the golden yellow of the bright yellow wild flowers in his hometown from the green stems. He put on the military uniform, ran around with a gun, and couldn't find a place to stay. "I was thinking It’s from my hometown!” Gradually, I didn’t even dare to think about my hometown, and sometimes I jumped out of my hometown in my dream, and he was in the room about to lift the bride’s hijab, with the sound of gongs and drums, “I thought this time it must be real. Yes, it’s still fake to open your eyes, and you’re often in a cold sweat.”

The old man's hometown was twirling around in the wine glass, and he picked up the glass and drained a glass of sorghum in one gulp.Thirty years have passed, "My son may marry a wife." When the old man left, his wife was six months pregnant, cooked dinner and leaned against the door waiting for him to come home. He repeatedly said goodbye. There was no time to tell her.The old man's habit of drinking was formed when he missed his wife so much that he couldn't help himself.Thirty years of military service is really embarrassing. Hometown has become a name in the eyes of the gun. The name is so simple that no book can finish it. Beacon smoke is everywhere, and the eyes are full of tears.

When I told the old man that we are from the same hometown, he almost poured the wine juice on his mouth, grabbed my hand almost madly, and asked about various conditions in his hometown, "I have never even seen a soybean field." He opened his hands and let out a long sigh, his eyes were red because he was drunk. "My hometown is really not a good thing, and worrying about it is not a good thing." I said. When he retired from the army, the old man wanted to find a job. He couldn’t read, so he had to do odd jobs everywhere. A friend told him, “Go play the trumpet. It’s easy. People die every day.” So he took a trumpet and played it in the band every day. This appearance, pretending, pretending, can actually play some sad tunes of parting.In the continuous Lige, the nostalgia of the old man's vibrato was exhausted instead.What is it like to walk into the cemetery with different people every day?The old man said it was the taste of wine, but I dare not imagine what it would be like to vomit all over the floor after being drunk.

We were all a little drunk. The old man played his horn all the way home. It was three in the morning until the quiet Taipei. Occasionally, a fast-moving car whizzed by. The Li song played by the old man became particularly long and sad. The long sound of wah-wah is floating in the air, flowing to some unknown void, how powerless the sound is at this moment, it is quickly blown away by the night wind in all directions, there must be a trace of it going to the hometown!I thought.I borrowed the telescoping horn from the old man, and I also imitated him to raise his head high, and the horn uttered a piece of music that is popular among young people:

We are separated by distant mountains and rivers to visit the land of the motherland you use your footprints I use my wandering nostalgia you tell me There is no nostalgia in ancient China Nostalgia is for those who have no home Young China has no nostalgia Nostalgia is for those who don't go home The old man liked that piece of music very much, and then he learned the piece carefully on the way we walked back to his Wanhua residence. His notes were correct, but he either played too quickly or too slowly.I explained the song to him sentence by sentence. The song seemed to be written for me and the old man.The old man continued to play this piece intently, each time becoming more gentle and full of emotion. His gills fluttered, like an old bird flapping its wings helplessly in its nest, but the tone was just like a song, waiting for him to stop. When I was there, there were tears in his eyes. He said, "It's too hard, too hard." Then he leaned on my shoulder and began to cry.In my ears, I heard the whistling wind on the soybean field amidst the crying of the old man. I also forgot how we got to the door of the old man's house. He stood upright and stood at attention, and said to me very carefully: "I will play this song again, you sing, and we will go home after singing." When I sang "There is no nostalgia in ancient China, nostalgia is for those who have no home, and young China has no nostalgia, nostalgia is for people who can't go home", my voice became hoarse, and I couldn't sing anymore. We stood At the gate of the old man's house, there is actually no home singing the Li song, the more the song gets farther away.We were really drunk, so drunk that we would cry even thinking about our hometown. The old man will always remember in his heart the face of the bride when he lifted the hijab, and the bride is already an old woman with frosted temples, and time goes by in the song of Li Song again and again, walking away mercilessly. Saying goodbye to the old man, I walked home helplessly and weakly. My wine was completely sober at this time, and my mind was full of wounds from a page of vicissitudes in modern Chinese history. The old man was the scar formed by that wound, like leftover vines Colorful falls helplessly in an alley in Wanhua. He will never be able to tell the relationship between soybeans and history, and he will never know which orchestra played his grandfather's Li Song. Is my hometown really far away? Is my hometown really far away? I have been at night until dawn, and I saw a round of golden sun jumping out of the gap between two buildings, and another group of old people in snow-white sweatshirts were doing morning exercises on the side of the road. Starting to squirm, the sound of people opening doors and windows is everywhere, and the sun shines in from every window. I don't know why, but I always think about the old man and his trumpet, and I haven't seen him since we broke up.Every time I walk in the early hours of the night, the old man's face and tears occupy me mercilessly.The worst thing is, when I get drunk, I always sing: "We are separated by distant mountains and rivers to visit the land of our motherland, you use your footprints, I use my nostalgia of a wanderer, you tell me, the old There is no nostalgia in China, and nostalgia is for those who have no home." Then I knew that I might never see the elderly again in my life.But the history after he was taken away by the truck has become a tattoo of my life, piercing my school beads one by one.His life is the last long note of the trombone.On a cold winter night in the middle of the street, I met a trumpet player. When spring came, he was still standing in the cold middle of the street, standing alone, shapeless, but filled the whole street.