《渺小一生》:藥物或毒品也是一樣

　 He had started crying then, not loudly, not steadily, but crying nonetheless. “JB,” Jude said again, his voice low. “Come with me. You don’t have to go back there.”

誰知他開始哭，不是很大聲，也不是哭個(gè)不停，但就是哭了。“杰比，”裘德又說了一次，聲音很低，“跟我走吧，你不必回那里去。”

　 But “I can’t,” he heard himself saying. “I can’t. I want to go upstairs. I want to go home.”

但是，“我做不到，”他聽到自己說，“我做不到。我想上樓。我想回家。”

　 “Then I’ll come in with you.”

“那我跟你一起進(jìn)去。”

　 “No. No, Jude. I want to be alone. Thank you. But go home.”

“不，不要，裘德。我想一個(gè)人靜一靜。謝謝你，你回去吧。”

　 “JB,” Jude began, but he turned from him and ran, jamming the key into the front door and running up the stairs, knowing Jude wouldn’t be capable of following him, but with Jackson right behind him, laughing his mean laugh, while Jude’s calls—“JB! JB!”—trailed after him, until he was inside his apartment (Jude had cleaned while he was here: the sink was empty; the dishes were stacked in the rack, drying) and couldn’t hear him any longer. He turned off his phone, on which Jude was calling him, and muted the front-door buzzer’s intercom, on which Jude was ringing and ringing him.

“杰比。”裘德又繼續(xù)說，但他轉(zhuǎn)身跑開，把鑰匙插入前門，跑上樓去，知道裘德沒辦法追上來，而杰克遜則緊跟在他后頭，發(fā)出刻薄的大笑聲，同時(shí)裘德的喊聲“杰比！杰比！”也一路跟著他，直到他進(jìn)了自己的公寓（裘德先前進(jìn)去時(shí)幫他打掃過了：水槽是空的；盤子堆在瀝水架上晾），再也聽不見。裘德打電話給他，他就關(guān)掉手機(jī)；裘德一直按門鈴，他就關(guān)掉前門對(duì)講機(jī)的聲音。

　 And then Jackson had cut the lines of coke he had brought and they had snorted them, and the night had become the same night he’d had hundreds of times before: the same rhythms, the same despair, the same awful feeling of suspension.

然后杰克遜把他帶來的可卡因切碎，排成一行行的，接著他們兩個(gè)用鼻子吸了。那一夜變成之前幾百個(gè)同樣的夜晚：同樣的節(jié)奏，同樣的絕望，同樣地體會(huì)到了那種暫時(shí)停止的糟糕感覺。

　 “He is pretty, your friend,” he heard Jackson say at some point late that evening. “But too bad about—” And he stood and did an imitation of Jude’s walk, a lurching grotesquerie that looked nothing like it, his mouth slack like a cretin’s, his hands bobbling in front of him. He had been too high to protest, too high to say anything at all, and so he had only blinked and watched Jackson hobble around the room, trying to speak words in Jude’s defense, his eyes prickling with tears.

“你的朋友，他很漂亮，”那一晚稍遲些，他聽到杰克遜說，“但是可惜啊……”這時(shí)杰克遜站起來模仿裘德走路，那種東倒西歪的奇怪步伐根本一點(diǎn)都不像，他還故意像個(gè)白癡似的半張著嘴，雙手在身前上下晃動(dòng)。他整個(gè)人嗑藥嗑得茫然了，沒辦法抗議，茫然得什么都沒說，只能眨著眼睛看杰克遜在房間里跳來跳去，試著想講話捍衛(wèi)裘德，雙眼卻被淚水刺痛。

　 The next day he had awoken, late, facedown on the floor near the kitchen. He stepped around Jackson, who was also asleep on the floor, near his bookcases, and went into his room, where he saw that Jude had made his bed as well, and something about that made him want to cry again. He lifted the plank under the right side of the bed, cautiously, and stuck his hand inside the space: there was nothing there. And so he lay atop the comforter, bringing one end of it over himself completely, covering the top of his head the way he used to when he was a child.

次日他醒來時(shí)已經(jīng)很晚了，發(fā)現(xiàn)自己趴在廚房旁的地上。他繞過睡在書架一旁地上的杰克遜，走進(jìn)自己的房間，看到裘德幫他鋪好的床，又想哭了。他小心翼翼地掀起床邊右側(cè)的那塊木板，伸手進(jìn)去摸：里面什么都沒有。于是他躺在床上，抓著被子的一角把自己完全蓋住，把整個(gè)頭也蓋起來，就像他小時(shí)候那樣。

　 As he tried to sleep, he made himself think of why he had fallen in with Jackson. It wasn’t that he didn’t know why; it was that he was ashamed to remember why. He had begun hanging out with Jackson to prove that he wasn’t dependent on his friends, that he wasn’t trapped by his life, that he could make and would make his own decisions, even if they were bad ones. By his age, you had met all the friends you would probably ever have. You had met your friends’ friends. Life got smaller and smaller. Jackson was stupid and callow and cruel and not the sort of person he was supposed to value, who was supposed to be worth his time. He knew this. And that was why he kept at it: to dismay his friends, to show them that he wasn’t bound by their expectations of him. It was stupid, stupid, stupid. It was hubris. And he was the only one who was suffering because of it.

試著睡覺時(shí)，他逼自己思考為什么會(huì)跟杰克遜混在一起。其實(shí)他不是不知道為什么，只是羞愧得不愿意去想。他開始跟杰克遜來往，是為了證明他不必靠自己的朋友，證明他沒被自己的生活困住，證明他可以、也會(huì)自己做決定，即使這些決定很糟糕。到了他這個(gè)年紀(jì)，往后大概不會(huì)再認(rèn)識(shí)什么新朋友了，朋友的朋友該認(rèn)識(shí)的也認(rèn)識(shí)了，生活圈子變得越來越小。杰克遜愚蠢、乳臭未干又殘忍，根本不該是他瞧得上的那種人，也根本不值得花時(shí)間結(jié)交。這個(gè)他知道。這就是為什么他堅(jiān)持跟杰克遜來往：為了讓他的朋友驚愕、失望，為了讓他們看看，他才不會(huì)被他們的期望束縛住。這樣真的很愚蠢、很愚蠢、很愚蠢，也太傲慢了，而且他是唯一因此受苦的人。

　 “You can’t actually like this guy,” Willem had said to him once. And although he had known exactly what Willem meant, he had pretended not to, just to be a brat.

“你不可能真的喜歡這家伙。”威廉有回跟他說。他完全了解威廉是什么意思，但他還是假裝沒聽懂，只為了唱反調(diào)。

　 “Why can’t I, Willem?” he’d asked. “He’s fucking hilarious. He actually wants to do things. He’s actually around when I need someone. Why can’t I? Huh?”

“為什么不行，威廉？”他問，“他很搞笑啊。他真的想做點(diǎn)事情，我需要的時(shí)候他真的就在我身邊。為什么不行，??？”

　 It was the same with the drugs. Doing drugs wasn’t hard core, it wasn’t badass, it didn’t make him more interesting. But it wasn’t what he was supposed to do. These days, if you were serious about your art, you didn’t do drugs. Indulgence, the very idea of it, had disappeared, was a thing of the Beats and AbExes and the Ops and the Pops. These days, maybe you’d smoke some pot. Maybe, every once in a while, if you were feeling very ironic, you might do a line of coke. But that was it. This was an age of discipline, of deprivation, not inspiration, and at any rate inspiration no longer meant drugs. No one he knew and respected—Richard, Ali, Asian Henry Young—did them: not drugs, not sugar, not caffeine, not salt, not meat, not gluten, not nicotine. They were artists-as-ascetics. In his more defiant moments, he tried to pretend to himself that doing drugs was so passé, so tired, that it had actually become cool again. But he knew this wasn’t true. Just as he knew it wasn’t really true that he enjoyed the sex parties that sometimes convened in Jackson’s echoey apartment in Williamsburg, where shifting groups of soft skinny people groped blindly at one another, and where the first time a boy, too reedy and young and hairless to really be JB’s type, told him he wanted JB to watch him suck away his own blood from a cut he’d give himself, he had wanted to laugh. But he hadn’t, and had instead watched as the boy cut himself on his bicep and then twisted his neck to lap at the blood, like a kitten cleaning itself, and had felt a crush of sorrow. “Oh JB, I just want a nice white boy,” his ex and now-friend Toby had once moaned to him, and he smiled a little, remembering it. He did, too. All he wanted was a nice white boy, not this sad salamander-like creature, so pale he was almost translucent, licking blood from himself in what had to be the least-erotic gesture in the world.

藥物或毒品也是一樣。嗑藥不是厲害的表現(xiàn)，也不酷，而且不會(huì)讓他更有趣?，F(xiàn)在這個(gè)年頭，如果你是認(rèn)真創(chuàng)作的人，你就不會(huì)嗑藥。放縱的觀念已經(jīng)消失了，那是垮掉的一代、抽象表現(xiàn)主義、歐普藝術(shù)和波普藝術(shù)時(shí)代流行過的?，F(xiàn)在這個(gè)年頭，或許你會(huì)抽點(diǎn)大麻?；蛟S每隔一陣子，如果你感覺非常糟糕，你可能會(huì)吸一條可卡因，但頂多就是這樣。這是紀(jì)律的時(shí)代、剝奪的時(shí)代，不是靈感的時(shí)代，而且無論如何，靈感再也不等于嗑藥。他認(rèn)識(shí)且尊敬的藝術(shù)家——理查德、阿里、亞裔亨利·楊，都沒人嗑藥：無藥物、無糖、無咖啡因、無鹽、無肉、無麩質(zhì)、無尼古丁。他們是苦行藝術(shù)家。在比較叛逆的時(shí)刻，他會(huì)嘗試欺騙自己，假裝嗑藥過時(shí)、老套到某個(gè)地步后，又變成了很酷的一件事。但他知道其實(shí)并非如此，就如同他知道自己并不真心喜愛杰克遜家有時(shí)會(huì)舉行的性愛派對(duì)一樣。在威廉斯堡那間充滿回音的公寓里，一群群皮膚柔軟的人在里頭移動(dòng)，盲目地摸索著彼此。有回他在這樣的派對(duì)上碰到一個(gè)男孩，太過纖瘦、年輕又沒有胡子，完全不是杰比的菜，那男孩要杰比看他從自己身上割出的一道傷口吸出血來，他聽了很想大笑。但他沒笑，而是看著那男孩在自己的二頭肌上劃了一刀，然后扭著脖子舔那些血，像只小貓?jiān)谔蜃约?，他忽然覺得心頭涌起一股悲傷。“啊，杰比，我只是想要一個(gè)體貼的白人小伙子。”他的前男友、現(xiàn)在的朋友托比有回跟他哀嘆，此時(shí)他想起來，微微一笑。他也是。他想要的只是一個(gè)體貼的白人小伙子，不是這個(gè)長(zhǎng)得像蠑螈的可悲生物，蒼白到簡(jiǎn)直像是透明的，舔著自己身上的血。那絕對(duì)是全世界最不性感的姿勢(shì)了。

　 But of all the questions he was able to answer, there was one he was not: How was he to get out? How was he to stop? Here he was, literally trapped in his studio, literally peeking down the hallway to make sure Jackson wasn’t approaching. How was he to escape Jackson? How was he to recover his life?

但在所有他能回答的問題中，有一個(gè)他卻回答不了：他要怎么脫身？他要怎么停下來？他人在這里，名副其實(shí)地被困在他的工作室中，名副其實(shí)地偷窺著走廊，好確定杰克遜沒有過來。他要怎么逃離杰克遜？他要怎么找回以往的人生？

　 The night after he had made Jude get rid of his stash, he had finally called him back, and Jude had asked him over, and he had refused, and so Jude had come to him. He had sat and stared at the wall as Jude made him dinner, a shrimp risotto, handing him the plate and then leaning on the counter to watch him eat.

他請(qǐng)裘德來幫他處理掉存貨的次日晚上，才終于給裘德回電。裘德要他過去，他拒絕了，于是裘德就來他家。他坐在那里瞪著墻壁，裘德幫他做晚餐，煮蝦仁意大利燉飯，做好了裝在盤子里遞給他，然后靠在料理臺(tái)上看著他吃。

　 “Can I have more?” he asked when he was done with the first serving, and Jude gave it to him. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was, and his hand shook as he brought the spoon to his mouth. He thought of Sunday-night dinners at his mother’s, which he hadn’t gone to since his grandmother died.

“可以再給我一盤嗎？”他吃完第一盤后問，裘德又給了他。他原先不知道自己有多餓，握著湯匙的手都在發(fā)抖。他想到了母親家的周日晚餐，自從外婆死后，他就再也沒去了。

　 “Aren’t you going to lecture me?” he finally asked, but Jude shook his head.

“你要訓(xùn)我一頓嗎？”他最后終于問了，但裘德只是搖搖頭。

　 After he ate, he sat on the sofa and watched television with the sound turned off, not really seeing anything but comforted by the flash and blur of images, and Jude had washed the dishes and then sat on the sofa near him, working on a brief.

他吃完后，坐在沙發(fā)上看關(guān)成靜音的電視，其實(shí)根本沒看進(jìn)去，只覺得那閃光和模糊的影像很舒服。裘德則在廚房洗盤子，洗完就在他旁邊的沙發(fā)坐下，忙著弄一份案情摘要。

　 One of Willem’s movies was on television—the one in which he played a con man in a small Irish town, whose entire left cheek was webbed with scars—and he stopped on the channel, not watching it, but looking at Willem’s face, his mouth moving silently. “I miss Willem,” he’d said, and then realized how ungrateful he sounded. But Jude had put down his pen and looked at the screen. “I miss him, too,” he said, and the two of them stared at their friend, so far away from them.

電視上是威廉演的一部電影——他在里頭演一個(gè)愛爾蘭小鎮(zhèn)的騙子，左邊的臉頰上疤痕交錯(cuò)——他停在那個(gè)頻道，沒看劇情，只看著威廉的臉，看著他的嘴巴無聲動(dòng)著。“我想念威廉。”他說，隨即才發(fā)現(xiàn)自己講這話有多么不知感激，但裘德放下筆看著屏幕。“我也想念他。”裘德說。兩個(gè)人就瞪著屏幕上的朋友，他離他們好遠(yuǎn)。

　 “Don’t go,” he’d said to Jude as he was falling asleep. “Don’t leave me.”

“別走，”他快睡著時(shí)對(duì)裘德說，“別離開我。”

　 “I won’t,” Jude had said, and he knew Jude wouldn’t.

“我不會(huì)離開的。”裘德說。他知道裘德會(huì)留下來。