A straight line of pink-white walls, ancient-style small green tile cornices, nondescript sunshade walls in the north and south, the door is on the edge, and facing the door is a screen wall with various wall tiles. Walls and windows without any novelty are inlaid with narrow and thin stainless steel window grilles. Several storefronts are filled with the crispy aroma of grilled plates and the fishy smell of mutton soup, and the sound of selling xiaolongbao is also mixed in. This is the name picked up from the back of big cities - commercial street.
The commercial street is depressed, but its location has another life, that is, a talent market. Every day, one or two thousand people from villages and towns in the east, west, south, and north are supported here. There are porters, carpenters, and handymen. The majority are masons, ranging in age from their thirties to their fifties and sixties. The best time to find work is between dawn and seven o'clock every morning. After seven o'clock, almost no one cares. On May Day, I arrived a little late. The job market was already crowded with people, and there was a lot of talk. I finally found a gap to put the motorcycle in, "Hey, Lao Xu, you're just here." !" Before the car could be stabilized, a loud and rough voice struck my ears, "I'm talking to you! Don't forget to call me!" "Okay, Lao Chen!" he. Lao Chen is a tall man with a bold attitude towards others, but his work is a little rough and he is often scolded by the foreman, so he will not be taken with him if he is just a porcelain blocker and does some fine work. I looked around through my goggles. People were gesticulating, but most of them had blank faces. There is very little work this year. At this time in previous years, no matter how many "teachers" (people who find people to do work and carry tool kits, called teachers), they can get it done.
"Old Xu, Old Xu..." A man walked out of the dense crowd. His broad forehead was full of wrinkles, and his hair was slightly gray, black and white. His yellow beard seemed to have been left unkempt for several days, his clothes were stained with white ash, and lumps of cement clung to his shoes like a mangy dog. "It's Lao Gao! Have you found a job?" "I was asked to mop the exterior walls, but I didn't go!" Lao Gao said angrily, as if he had missed some hope. "Oh!" Lao Gao's expression made me excited. Plastering exterior walls is the most dangerous type of bricklayer's work. Most of the work in the countryside is done by Murakami's contractors, who don't pay much attention to safety. The measures are not perfect, and the people who work are blind and bold. The two- and three-story buildings are basically overhangs. A steel pipe is inserted into the eye of the frame and wedged tightly with wooden wedges, and then several pieces of fence are thrown in and tied up without binding. It feels soft and swaying when you step on it. Start wiping from low to high, and the shelf will be turned up one by one, higher and higher. After wiping it to a height of more than ten meters, the bottom of the shelf is suspended, and there are no pieces of fence left. The steel pipes guarding the frame were left blankly.
There was a "whoosh", followed by a scream with a different tone. I held my hand on the wall and was stunned, feeling that my legs were as hard as steel bars...
That was a month ago. Aqiang and I went to plaster the exterior wall together. The three-and-a-half-story building was next to the road. It was high enough to make people dizzy. The east gable was There are double European-style windows on the second and third floors. The foreman said that in two hundred and sixty days, you can go home when you have laid the foundation. Aqiang and I often work together, so we work well together and work smoothly. The outer canopy frame quickly flipped to the fourth canopy. After lunch, I applied two more coats to the top. This idea just crossed my mind and I was about to relax. Suddenly my feet trembled, and Aqiang on the other side of the shelf disappeared. He was waving the wiper vigorously just now. He fell down together with the fence pieces... "Old Xu! Come down quickly! Hurry up!" I don't know who was screaming desperately.
Aqiang was curled up there, his face covered with blood, the scouring board was thrown far away, the cement in the gray box was scattered all over him, and a piece of fence was next to him. His legs were lying quietly, as if he was also stunned, and several workers were shivering as silently as chills... I held up Aqiang's head, grabbed his hand and shouted, "It's okay..." Aqiang Opening his eyes, a strong look flashed across the corners of his wrinkled eyes.
We quickly called a taxi and took him to the hospital. The examination results came out. Aqiang had three broken ribs and a fractured left leg. His head was not seriously injured, only a few scratches were caused. The cause of the accident was a steel pipe. There was a gap, and it was painted after welding. The foreman did not check it carefully when he bought it, and it broke after a certain amount of weight was put on it.
"Old Xu!" Lao Gao patted the back seat of my motorcycle, "Are you going to clean the wall today?" I shook my head and gave a wry smile. "Go and lay bricks!" A strange voice stood out from the noise, "Two hundred and twenty days, how about it?" "What time do you do it in the morning? What time do you collect it in the evening? Do you have to eat at noon?" I asked questions one after another. , "Seven o'clock in the morning, six o'clock in the evening, lunch is in charge!" The stranger narrowed his eyes, with a smile on his face, as if everyone was ready today, "Where are you going? Is it far? I ride the bike by myself, or take a ride with you "A car?" There are many questions in my mind, because there is a potential saying in the market that no one is willing to take a car with the foreman. If you take their car, you have to wait for them to come back together. This is broken. If you ride your own bike, you can decide what to do if it is not suitable, and you can control some things in your own hands. "Not far, Xu exit, just across the river!" During the conversation, I learned that the stranger's surname was Yang. He was from Tancheng and worked as a contractor in Chongfang area all year round.
More than ten miles away, Xukou Village is no stranger to me. When I was a teenager, I often pulled a row of sweet potatoes with my father to sell them. At that time, Xu Chuai, Zhu Chuai, and Sun Chuai all made sweet potato noodles and vermicelli. During the thirty-mile round trip, a cart of sweet potatoes was sold for less than 100 yuan. On the way back, my father always asked me to sit in the train, and I held a bunch of candied haws in one hand...
"Ding dong - ding dong -" The shovel was waved in the hand, and the bricks were flying in the hand. Lao Gao and I were "looking at the corners" at both ends, Lao Yang was sandwiched in the middle and urged, at noon Before we arrived, a wall rose from the ground. We were both panting and sweating profusely from exhaustion. The sweat soaked my favorite white lined coat, and my gloves were also sticky...
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The steps of the stairs were dropped one by one under the staggering steps. Although my legs seemed to be filled with lead and the tool bag felt heavier and heavier, I tried hard to turn the heavy breathing into I read Huang An's "Saving Marriage": "Look at the twists and turns of my life, who I work hard for and who I am busy with? No matter how high the sky is or how long the road is, my love for you will always be the same..." The door opened, and my wife's face was full of spring breeze. , immediately dispelled my fatigue of struggling for life...