The Rent Collector: Chapter Two Summary & Analysis

Poor families eke out a living in Stung Meanchey by picking through trash, searching for recyclable materials to sell to a scrap collector. Most of them are too worried about immediate problems to hope or plan for the future. To shield themselves from the sun, pickers often build temporary lean-tos to rest under in the afternoon, but government bulldozers always flatten them by the next day, along with anyone foolish enough to be out in the dump after dark.

As Sang Ly goes to bring Ki’s lunch to him, she runs into Lucky Fat, a chubby young orphan boy whose parents abandoned him at the dump. Despite having to survive alone, Lucky Fat is always cheerful and good-humored, even making a practice of collecting Buddha figurines when the other villagers remark that he looks like the plump Buddha. While Sang Ly is speaking with Lucky Fat, Ki arrives, carrying his sack filled with heavy metal pipes, meaning that it has been a good and profitable day collecting scrap. Ki gives the money he has earned so far, along with a children’s book he found amongst the rubbish, to Sang Ly, and tells her to go home and buy good food for the evening. In light of this, Sang Ly remembers Grandfather’s prediction of a lucky day.

Sang Ly walks home, imagining how she will triumphantly and pridefully pay off Sopeap this evening. In their hut, she holds Nisay on her lap and flips through the illustrated book that Ki found, making up a story as she goes since she cannot read the words. As they are looking at the pictures together, Sang Ly hears a shuffling outside and assumes it is Sopeap, drunk, back for the rest of her rent. Instead, Sang Ly finds Ki lying on the ground with blood running from his head. She instinctively knows that one of the dump’s gangs beat and robbed him.

By the next morning, Ki’s bleeding still has not stopped, and he is growing pale and weak. Sang Ly convinces him to take what money they have left to go see a doctor, even though that cost will leave them without enough money to pay the Rent Collector. Sopeap arrives, and discovering that they still have no money, tells Sang Ly that she is evicting them; they must be gone by morning. Just as Sang Ly is protesting, however, Sopeap spies the children’s book and falls silent. She picks the book up and flips through it, beginning to weep and moan. Sopeap rises to leave, and Sang Ly tells her to keep the book, since it obviously means a lot to her. As Sopeap wanders away in silence, Sang Ly realizes that the woman must know how to read.

Ki returns late in the evening with a bandage around his head, disoriented from painkillers. A clinic treated him for free, so Ki used the money he’d brought with him to buy a knife for protection against the gangs, which he’s strapped to his ankle. The next morning, the painkillers have worn off, but Ki is in no shape to work. Sang Ly leaves to pick trash instead, so that they can still afford a little rice to eat. Although it is more profitable to work near the garbage trucks and pick what comes off of them, Sang Ly opt to work out in the open swathes of rubbish. It is less profitable, but there is less danger of being crushed by machinery, and she can let her mind wander while she works. As she does so, tired of waiting for Grandfather’s luck, she devises a plan, but she imagines everyone in the village will think she is crazy for it.