The East Suburban Waste Collection Station that Zhao Dashan mentioned is just three to five hundred meters east of the yard. Before heading to Beijing, Zhang Guoqing had visited the place two or three times to sell junk when there was too much trash at home.
Why only two or three times over so many years? Besides having collectors come to the door, each household would mend broken items and continue using them.
Back in the day, Zhang Guoqing vaguely remembers every year-end big cleanup in the deep winter when carrying junk there, the old man would sit on a chair, sipping tea and reading the newspaper, looking utterly at ease.
After all these years, who knows if that old man is still in the humble room, living a contented life, possibly still enjoying a black-and-white chess endgame?
Pulling the cart closer and closer to the East Suburban Waste Station, the eternally tidy courtyard in memory has vanished, the big locust tree is gone, and the dirt road is full of potholes...
