Chapter 3 Day two beggars and night robbers

In the beggar community, there is a strict hierarchy. The identity of the gang leader is the most mysterious, and the young beggars who have just joined the gang cannot see the face of the gang leader.Just like the legendary martial arts masters, the leader of the gang is also mysterious and unpredictable.Even though some beggars have joined the organization for several years, they still have no way of understanding the gang leader and their background; some have not even met the gang leader and do not know where the gang leader lives.And in the beggar gang I broke into, the gang leader is even more secretive.I believe that in this city, except for a few beggars who have met the gang leader, no one will know, and no one will guess where the gang leader lives.

Below the gang leader are several bosses, the boss is equivalent to the group leader, he is responsible for the work arrangements and daily affairs of the beggars.Who is begging on which road, who is in charge of surveillance, and who is in charge of lookout, all these are arranged by the boss.The boss also has another job content, which is to coordinate the contradictions among these beggars. The boss has several thugs under his command, all of whom are strong, athletic youths from the beggar group.An important part of their work is to beat people. When they encounter people who refuse to hand in their money, or people they think are disobedient or displeased, they will fight violently.They are the "inspectors" of the beggar community.

Below the thugs are beggars, and beggars are divided into old beggars and young beggars.Those who enter the gang early are old beggars; those who enter later are young beggars.This is somewhat similar to the ranking of disciples in Jianghu, which is not judged by age, but by the time of apprenticeship. I am a little beggar. Every day when I was begging, I did my duty and worked hard without complaint. Regardless of the wind, rain, or scorching sun, I stuck to my job.When I get off work, I will hand over all the money I begged for that day to the boss.I clearly know that when I was begging, there were thugs watching me, and even how many people gave me money and how much money was given, the thugs kept records in the dark.

In my begging group, there were five or six old beggars and young beggars, and they slept on the top floor of an abandoned building every night.Because I am a little beggar, I will take the initiative to sleep outside and block the wind and rain for the rest of the beggars.The boss sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't come, and when he doesn't come, he doesn't know where he went; and as long as he comes, it means that he has a mission that night. This group of beggars begs during the day and steals at night. As long as the boss appears at night, the eyes of these beggars will be very bright, like the eyes of wolves, they can see clearly in the dark.I learned later that some of these beggars were married and had children. They left their wives and children at home and went out to beg alone.Some beggars are begging with the whole family, but live separately from their wives, but they will meet once every few days, and they will appear in this building again the next morning.There was also a boy who was brought out by his uncle, who was also a professional beggar, and it was said that he was "working" under another boss.His uncle pretended to be blind, playing a broken erhu every day, and the sound he made was like killing a chicken; while the boy pretended to be disabled, with his legs wrapped around his neck like an acrobatic, and he used his buttocks to move his body to beg.He would take his legs off his neck at night when no one was around.

It turned out that in this city, there were such a group of professional beggars, or professional thieves, but we never knew about it.We walked on the street and looked at these beggars with pity and sympathy, but in fact they did not deserve pity and sympathy at all. A few years later, I went to the South to work as a reporter.Once, I went to a village in Anhui for an interview.All the people in that village were begging in other places, and many people went to Guangzhou and Shenzhen.In that village, every household built a new small building with two or three floors.During the Spring Festival, the beggars all returned home, and the lucky money they gave their children was fifty and one hundred.In that village, whoever has a foolish son or a disabled daughter can make a fortune.These fools and disabled people can be rented out to beggars for 50,000 to 100,000 a year.

Later, I also heard that there are indeed beggars in the cities who really have no means of living, but there are not many.Since the introduction of the "Administrative Measures for the Rescue of Vagabonds and Beggars in Cities", beggars can get a free train ticket provided by the relief station to go home and reunite with their families, but they are unwilling to go back and avoid assistance.Why?Because they are professional beggars, they have tasted the sweetness in begging. How to eliminate professional beggars in the city?A few years later, when I interviewed a shelter manager, he said that the only way to do it was to stop being merciful.

There are many ways for beggars to beg, and pretending to be disabled is just one of the more common ones. We usually see beggars in the city who lie that they have lost their wallets and have no money to go home, and only ask for travel expenses.This kind of begging has only appeared in recent years. People who pretend to be beggars are generally relatively young. They either lie that they have no money to buy a ticket to go home, or they lie that they can’t find a job and are very hungry. They only need a few yuan. . What about those who lost their wallets and begged without a job?What if they were real?Should you help?

Professional beggars know it.They often fight guerrillas with rescue stations and evade rescue.They take advantage of people's ignorance of the services provided by the aid station to beg and cheat.They spread a piece of paper on the street, saying "I lost my wallet, I want to go home", or "I want to eat for only five yuan", to deceive those kind people.I once photographed a beggar with a child at a train station. He claimed that his wallet was lost, that he was a teacher, and that he had a "teacher's certificate" beside him.After finding out that I was taking pictures, he snatched the camera aggressively and chased me.He only dropped his attack on me after I promised to delete the photo.After returning to work, I called the local education bureau and the school according to the name and address on his teacher's certificate, and found that there was no such person at all.His "teacher certificate" is obviously fake.

I call this kind of begging a show of weakness.Many beggars who pretend to be disabled belong to this type. In addition, there are many ways of begging for professional beggars: One is intelligent.Such beggars are similar to scams.They pretend to be monks or nuns, and when they see you, they will show a shiny golden sign, saying that it is a gold medal to bless you, and they want you to buy it. , if you sponsor, you will have immeasurable merit.I once followed two fake nuns. They took off their cassocks and changed into women's clothes when they walked to a secluded road without people, and even put on makeup in front of the mirror.Once I was on a business trip to a city in East China and stayed in a hotel. When I was having breakfast in the hotel restaurant, I met two fake monks.The hotel's breakfast is very expensive, and it costs dozens of yuan to eat once.Two fake monks came to me smiling, looked at my newly shaved bald head and asked, "Are you a monk?" I knew immediately that they were liars.Because monks never call themselves monks, they always call themselves monks.Sure enough, after getting my negative answer, they took out the consecration gold medal and said that they only charged 100 yuan for my bald head.I didn't buy it, so I called 110 while going to the toilet. Later, the two fake monks were arrested.There are also some beggars with fake antiques on their bodies. When they see you, they will say that this is an ancestral treasure, or that it has just been dug out from a construction site, because the family is eager to wait for money, and sells it to you at a low price.If you buy it, you will be fooled.If it is really a cultural relic, the state will pay a very high price to buy it, and there is no need to sell it secretly.

One is masochistic.We have seen many such beggars, who pretend to be all kinds of disabled people, pretend to be pitiful, and seduce people's sympathy.I once followed two blind men at dusk, and I wanted to see where they slept for the night.One of them supported the shoulders of the other, and the one in front was still holding a cane, constantly tapping on the road.The sun tans their faces, and their beards and wrinkles are so pitiful.It may be that they found someone following them, so they sat on the grass by the road and drank water, unwilling to get up.I had to go up to them and talk to them.They said they slept under the bridge hole at the railway station at night, and now they want to take the bus back.I kindly helped them go to the bus stop more than ten meters away to see the stop sign and check whether there was a bus going to the train station. When I turned around, I saw them rushing towards a taxi on the side of the road at a speed of 100 meters.well!I, who thought I was an old world, was also deceived by beggars.

One is the robber type.This is a group of children. When they see girls or old people walking alone in the downtown area, they will run up and hug their legs, and they will never let go unless they are paid.Behind the children are adults, who may be their parents or the leader of the organization.After the child asks for a certain amount of money, the adult hiding in the dark will come out and take the money from the child.When I was working in a southern city, I passed by a hot pot city every night after get off work.Every day at the gate of Hot Pot City, a boy and a girl beg forcibly.The boy was sloppy and once held a beautiful girl's ass for money and rubbed it with his hands.One day, when I was eating at a KFC, I suddenly saw that the two children and a couple were also eating KFC.They ate a family portrait set meal, which was very expensive, and when our colleagues ate together, we were reluctant to eat such an expensive meal. One is gentle.Anyone who lives in the city has seen this kind of beggar.They will appear at night, usually a husband and wife, sometimes with a child in their arms, and when they see you, they will gently say: "Brother and Sister, I have something to trouble you." If you stop, they will He further said: "Give me two yuan and buy a piece of bread for the child. The child has not eaten for a day." If the child really did not eat for a day, he would have been so hungry that he would have cried.This kind of beggars are usually dispatched as a family unit. If they encounter girls who do not give money, the men will threaten them. One is the entertaining type.This kind of beggar knows some simple skills, such as playing bamboo boards, playing the flute, playing the erhu, and some can write with a brush.Those who know the latter types of skills also have a bit of the professional ethics of beggars. They perform on the street and ask people to give alms, which is a bit like "busking" or "performance art".But those who know how to make bamboo boards are the worst. They form gangs and come to the door of the shop, say some auspicious words made up, and refuse to leave without giving money.Such a group of ragged, foul-smelling people standing at the door of the store will seriously affect the business. The boss has no choice but to give them money. In recent years, beggars' begging methods have advanced with the times.Some people are neatly dressed and hang a sign on their chest, which says "seeking novel publication" or "holding art exhibition" and needs money.Such beggars pretending to be writers and painters are equally abhorrent. Professional beggars never need you to buy food, they only need money from you. A person in charge of a rescue station once told me: "In short, don't give money to beggars. They have much more money than you. Giving money is just to encourage this kind of unhealthy trend. Our social welfare system can completely make beggars Go home and live in peace and contentment." The boss will appear at night every once in a while.As soon as he appeared, he said that he was going to steal tonight. Next to the square at night, there are often a group of elderly people selling old clothes and shoes.At that time, I didn't know where these old clothes and shoes came from. I later learned that they were stolen by thieves and sold to them. Because I have been a thief like this once, following the team of the boss. This group of beggars has a clear division of labor.We go to bed very late and wake up very late every day.In the afternoon, we will be sent out, some to step on the spot, which is usually the work of thugs; some to beg, this is the work of old beggars and young beggars.After the thugs have stepped on a little bit, we will be dispatched at night.We are like devils entering the village, stealing what we see.We swept through, and there was no grass or trees left, a piece of white land. What we steal the most are clothes hanging on the balcony and shoes outside the door.The old beggar has a special tool that is connected, with a hook at the top that sticks out, and the clothes on the balcony on the third floor can also be stolen.Since the urban community is relatively tightly guarded and the security guards are arrogant, we cannot afford to provoke them.Our thugs are no match for the security guards.They are wolves to us, but sheep to outsiders.So our scope of activities is in the urban village, and no one cares about it here.The highest house in the urban village is the third floor. The living environment in the urban village is very crowded, and shoes are usually placed outside the door. Therefore, after our army mopped up, Wanmu was depressed. Then, the thugs will sell these stolen clothes to the old men and women who set up stalls next to the night square. We also sometimes pick the door and turn the lock, these are places where the thugs have stepped on in advance.Unlike professional thieves, professional thieves only need a few seconds to open a lock, and we don't know how to open a lock, we can only pick the lock.Every time he was dispatched, the boss would have a claw hammer pinned behind his back. If he saw an open lock, he would use the claw hammer to pry it open, but if he saw a hidden lock, he would be helpless.This is a group of the most stupid thieves in the world, clumsy and without any technical content. One day in the middle of the night, we came to the door of a family.The thugs said in advance that no one lived in this house for a long time, and he could see a TV, disc player, and refrigerator through the window during the day.At that time, it was not an ordinary family who could afford a whole family of household appliances. A disc player cost seven or eight hundred yuan, and a refrigerator was even more expensive.So the thugs guessed that there must be "goods" in this store. If these bandits got in, they would loot the inside.They would call in rickshaws to move everything away.At that time, the city was full of human tricycles, and people called them "waving to stop".They don't care about pulling goods and people, and they don't care what the origin of the things they pull is. I was very anxious, thinking all the way how to stop them. This stepped spot is located on the first floor of a building. The whole building is dark, like a huge tombstone, and the surroundings are quiet, with occasional snoring sounds.The boss walked to the door and took out the claw hammer. At this critical moment, I suddenly saw a beer bottle on the windowsill of the opposite house.I knocked the beer bottle down on purpose.The beer bottle fell to the ground, and the sound of breaking sounded extremely loud in the silent night.Someone woke up on the roof, turned on the light, and our shadows were reflected in the windows of the opposite house.The male owner of that family yelled in a rough voice: "Who? What are you doing?" Then there was the sound of a stool being knocked down, and he got up. The boss was the first to escape, and we also followed behind and fled.Back on the top floor of the abandoned building, the boss asked who knocked the beer bottle down, and someone said it was me.The boss raised his hand and slapped me across the face, making my eyes stare.The boss scolded: "You are as stupid as a pig, how can you still be a thief?" The boss has a violent temper, and he will fight violently at every turn, and the attack is extremely heavy.Those hands that have been touching the handle of the hoe for 30 years are covered with old weeds; and the heart that was deceived by his wife is extremely cold.I saw him beat the young beggar once, because the young beggar hid 10 yuan secretly, and he found out. He kicked and punched the young beggar until his face was covered with blood, and he was not allowed to cry. 10 yuan is the highest single amount we can beg for. But this time the boss didn't kill me because he knew that I was an intellectual, and farmers have a natural admiration for intellectuals. Living with these beggars, my spirit was extremely empty. One day, I picked up a newspaper on the street and took it back to read.I was like the hungry person who fell on the bread as Gorky said. I watched very carefully, even the small advertisement in the middle.These days, without seeing a single line, my eyes and soul are starving.I seem to have returned to the time when I was a civil servant, and I have a morbid interest in the words in the newspaper. An old beggar came over with a mess of hair. He looked at the newspaper for a long time like a dog watching the stars, and then asked me suspiciously: "Are you literate?" There is a scholar." In northern rural areas, people who can read and write are called scholars.Then, everyone called me Xiucai.They always have great respect for scholars. Including the boss, he didn't dare to point fingers at me easily. Because of my literacy, my status among the beggars has risen rapidly.When you encounter any troubles, you will come to me to discuss them. It is nothing more than things like parents’ grievances, trivial matters, mother and daughter-in-law quarrel, son is not filial, the neighbor’s house is built higher than my own, and the field His crops were multiplied by others... This small matter is not a big deal in the eyes of literate people, but in the eyes of these illiterate beggars, it is a big deal.They want to break their heads and don't know what to do. When I am not working, I will enlighten them, take a long-term view, and don't just focus on the little things in front of you.Therefore, they all respect me. In fact, many of these beggars used to be poor people. Some were bullied by village cadres, some suffered sudden changes in their families, and of course some were lazy.I feel both sympathy and resentment for them. Word of my literacy quickly spread among the beggar community.One day, the boss suddenly said to me: "The boss sees you." I was a little nervous, I didn't know how big an "official" the gang leader was, and I didn't know what kind of person the gang leader was.When everyone talks about the leader of the gang, they are very secretive, and they dare not talk about the leader of the gang. "Where is the boss?" I asked. The boss said blankly: "You will know when you go."