《渺小一生》:成年后，他是個瘸腿的成人

　 It was half a mile from the dormitory to the road, and although he would normally have been in pain after what happened in the barn, that night he felt no pain, only elation, a sense of hyper-wakefulness that seemed to have been conjured particularly for this night, for this adventure. At the edge of the property he dropped to the ground and rolled carefully under the barbed wire, wrapping Colin’s jacket sleeves around his hands and then holding the coils of wire above him so he could scoot beneath them. Once he was safely free, his elation only intensified, and he ran and ran in the direction he knew was east, toward Boston, away from the home, from the West, from everything. He knew he would eventually have to leave this road, which was narrow and mostly dirt, and move toward the highway, where he would be more exposed but also more anonymous, and he moved quickly down the hill that led toward the black dense woods that separated the road from the interstate. Running on grass was more difficult, but he did so anyway, keeping close to the edge of the forest so that if a car passed, he could duck within it and hide behind a tree.

從宿舍到公路大約有半英里路。通常在谷倉里發(fā)生的事情之后，他都會很痛，但那一夜他沒有感覺到痛，只有歡欣和一種高度的警覺，似乎特別為這一夜、這場冒險升起。來到田野邊緣，他蹲下去，小心翼翼地湊近帶刺鐵絲的底部，用柯林的大衣袖子包住雙手，抓起那一圈圈鐵絲網(wǎng)舉高，讓自己鉆過去。一旦安全地出去，他的歡欣之感更強烈了。他跑了又跑，朝向他知道是東邊的方向，朝向波士頓，遠離少年之家，遠離西部，遠離一切。他知道自己早晚得離開這條大部分是泥土的狹窄小路，轉向高速公路，在那里他比較容易被人看見，但也比較不顯眼。于是他匆忙走下山丘，進入小路和州際公路之間那片濃密的黑色樹林。在草地上跑比較困難，但他還是照跑不誤，盡量貼著樹林邊緣，這樣如果有汽車經(jīng)過，他就可以蹲低身子，躲在樹后頭。

　 As an adult, as a crippled adult, and then as a crippled adult who was truly crippled, as someone who could no longer even walk, as someone for whom running was a magic trick, as impossible as flying, he would look back on that night with awe: how fleet he had been, how fast, how tireless, how lucky. He would wonder how long he had run that night—at least two hours, he thought, maybe three—although at the time he hadn’t thought about that at all, only that he needed to get as far as he could from the home. The sun began to appear in the sky, and he ran into the woods, which were the source of many of the younger boys’ fears, and which were so crowded and lightless that even he was frightened, and he was not frightened in general by nature, but he had gone as deep into them as he could, both because he had to go through the woods to reach the interstate and because he knew that the deeper he hid within them, the less likely he was to be discovered, and finally he had chosen a large tree, one of the largest, as if its size offered some promise of reassurance, as if it would guard and protect him, and had tucked himself between its roots and slept.

成年后，他是個瘸腿的成人，一度瘸得很嚴重，有時甚至連路都沒辦法走，對他而言，跑步是一種魔法，就跟飛行一樣不可能，此時他會充滿敬畏地回顧那一夜：他曾經(jīng)跑得多么快，他是多么靈活、多么不知疲倦、多么幸運。他很好奇那一夜他到底跑了多遠（至少兩小時，他心想，或許三小時）。當時他根本沒去想這些，只想著離少年之家越遠越好。太陽升起，他跑進樹林，很多年紀較小的院童都很怕這里，里面濃密、黑暗無光，就連通常不怕大自然的他都會怕。但是那天他盡量深入那片森林，一來他得穿過森林到州際公路，二來是他知道自己越深入就越不可能被發(fā)現(xiàn)。走到最后，他終于挑了一棵大樹，仿佛那巨大的樹身可以提供安心的保證，守著他、保護他，他就縮在樹根之間的空隙里睡著了。

　 When he woke it was dark again, although whether it was late afternoon or late evening or early morning he wasn’t certain. He began moving his way through the trees again, humming to comfort himself and to announce himself to whatever might be waiting for him, to show them he was unafraid, and by the time he had been spat out by the woods on the other side, it was still dark, so he knew it was in fact nighttime, and he had slept all day, and that knowledge made him feel stronger and more energetic. Sleep is more important than food, he remonstrated himself, because he was very hungry, and then to his legs: Move. And he did, running again uphill toward the interstate.

他醒來時，天又黑了，但他不確定是傍晚過后、深夜還是凌晨。他又開始穿過樹林，一邊哼著歌安撫自己，同時也向任何可能等著他的東西宣示，讓它們知道他不害怕。等到他從樹林另一頭走出來，天還是黑的，于是他知道這時是夜里，他睡掉了一整個白天，這一點讓他覺得更強壯、更充滿活力。睡眠比食物更重要，他告訴自己，因為他非常餓，接著他告訴兩條腿：快跑。他跑了起來，朝上坡的州際公路跑去。

　 He had realized at some point in the forest that there was only one way he would be able to get to Boston, and so he stood by the side of the road, and when the first truck stopped for him and he climbed aboard, he knew what he would have to do when the truck stopped, and he did it. He did it again and again and again; sometimes the drivers gave him food or money, and sometimes they didn’t. They all had little nests they had made for themselves in the trailers of their trucks, and they lay there, and sometimes after it was over, they would drive him a little farther, and he would sleep, the world moving beneath him in a perpetual earthquake. At filling stations he would buy things to eat and would wait around, and eventually someone would choose him—someone always did—and he would climb into the truck.

在森林中，他領悟到去波士頓只有一個辦法，于是他站在路邊，碰到第一輛停下的卡車就爬上去，卡車停下時他知道自己必須做什么，所以就做了。他做了一次又一次；有時那些卡車司機會給他食物或錢，有時不會。他們都會在卡車后頭的拖車里為自己布置一個小窩，有時完事后，他們會繼續(xù)載著他往前。他就會睡覺，整個世界在他下方搖晃，像是永遠在地震。到了加油站，他會買東西吃，然后等候，最后會有人挑上他，總會有的。于是他就會爬上卡車。

　 “Where’re you headed?” they would ask him.

“你要去哪里？”他們會問他。

　 “Boston,” he would say. “My uncle’s there.”

“波士頓，”他會說，“我叔叔家在那里?！?

　 Sometimes he felt the shame of what he was doing so intensely he wanted to vomit: he knew he would never be able to claim to himself that he had been coerced; he’d had sex with these men freely, he had let them do whatever they wanted, he had performed enthusiastically and well. And sometimes he was unsentimental: he was doing what he had to do. There was no other way. This was his skill, his one great skill, and he was using it to get somewhere better. He was using himself to save himself.

有時他對自己做的事情羞愧到簡直想吐。他知道自己永遠不能自稱是被強迫的；他跟這些人免費性交，他讓他們做他們想做的事情，他執(zhí)行得熱誠而出色。而且有時他不會傷感，他在做他必須做的。沒有別的辦法。這是他的技能，他很厲害的技能，他在利用這個技能去更好的地方。他在利用自己拯救自己。

　 Sometimes the men would want him for longer and they would get a motel room, and he would imagine Brother Luke waiting in the bathroom for him. Sometimes they would talk to him—I have a son your age, they’d say; I have a daughter your age—and he would lie there and listen. Sometimes they would watch television until they were ready to go again. Some of them were cruel to him; some of them made him fear he would be killed, or hurt so badly he wouldn’t be able to escape, and in those moments he would be terrified, and he would wish, desperately, for Brother Luke, for the monastery, for the nurse who had been so kind to him. But most of them were neither cruel nor kind. They were clients, and he was giving them what they wanted.

有時那些男人會希望他陪他們久一點，于是帶他去汽車旅館，他會想象盧克修士為了他等在浴室里。有時他們會跟他講話（他們會說，我有個兒子跟你一樣大，我有個女兒跟你一樣大），他躺在那里聽著。有時他們會看電視，直到他們準備好再來一次。有些人對他很殘酷；有些人讓他害怕自己會被殺，或者被傷得很嚴重而無法逃跑。在那些時刻，他會嚇得半死，懷念盧克修士、修道院，還有那個曾經(jīng)對他很仁慈的護士。但他們大部分既不殘酷也不仁慈。他們是顧客，他只是把他們想要的給他們。

　 Years later, when he was able to review these weeks more objectively, he would be dumbstruck by how stupid he had been, by how small his oculus: Why hadn’t he simply escaped? Why hadn’t he taken the money he had earned and bought a bus ticket? He would try and try to remember how much he had earned, and although he knew it hadn’t been much, he thought that it might have been enough for a ticket somewhere, anywhere, even if not Boston. But then, it simply hadn’t occurred to him. It was as if the entire store of resourcefulness he had possessed, every piece of courage, had been spent on his flight from the home, and once on his own, he had simply let his life be dictated to him by others, following one man after the next, the way he had been taught to do. And of all the ways in which he changed himself as an adult, it would be this, this idea that he could create at least some part of his own future, that would be the most difficult lesson to learn, as well as the most rewarding.

幾年后，當他有辦法更客觀地回顧這幾個星期時，他會驚訝于自己當時有多愚蠢、多么目光如豆：他為什么不逃走就好？為什么他不拿賺到的錢買張巴士車票？他會一再設法回憶他當時賺了多少錢。他知道并不多，但很可能夠買一張到哪里的車票，哪里都好，不是波士頓也沒關系。但當時，他就是沒想到。仿佛他累積的所有應變能力、所有勇氣，都在逃出少年之家時用光了。一旦只剩他自己一人，他只是讓別人命令他該怎么做，跟著一個接一個的男人，就像他從小被教導的那樣。他成年后改變了很多，在所有的改變之中，他發(fā)現(xiàn)他可以創(chuàng)造自己的未來、至少某些部分的未來——這個想法是最難學到的一課，但也是最值得的一課。

　 Once there had been a man who had smelled so terribly and had been so sweatily large that he had almost changed his mind, but although the sex had been horrific, the man had been gentle with him afterward, had bought him a sandwich and a soda and had asked him real questions about himself and had listened carefully to his made-up answers. He had stayed with the man for two nights, and as he drove, the man had listened to bluegrass music and had sung along: he had had a lovely voice, low and clear, and he had taught him the words, and he had found himself singing along with this man, the road smooth beneath them. “God, you have a nice voice, Joey,” the man had said, and he had—how weak he was, how pathetic!—allowed himself to be warmed by this comment, had gobbled up this affection as a rat would a piece of molding bread. On the second day, the man had asked him if he wanted to stay with him; they were in Ohio, and unfortunately he wasn’t going any farther east, he was headed south now, but if he wanted to stay with him, he would be delighted, he would make sure he was taken care of. He had declined the man’s offer, and the man had nodded, as if he had expected he would, and given him a fold of money and kissed him, the first of them who had. “Good luck to you, Joey,” he said, and later, after the man had left, he had counted the money and realized it was more than he thought, it was more than he’d made in his previous ten days altogether. Later, when the next man was brutish, when he was violent and rough, he had wished he had gone with the other man: suddenly, Boston seemed less important than tenderness, than someone who would protect him and be good to him. He lamented his poor choices, how he seemed unable to appreciate the people who were actually decent to him: he thought again of Brother Luke, how Luke had never hit him or yelled at him; how he had never called him names.

中間他碰到一個男人，身上臭得要命，塊頭大得不得了，讓他差點改變心意。雖然性交的部分很可怕，但那個男人事后卻對他很溫柔，買了一個三明治和一瓶汽水給他，還認真問了一些有關他的問題，仔細聽著他編造的答案。他陪了那個男人兩夜，那男人開車時都聽藍草音樂[4]，還一邊跟著唱，他的聲音不錯，低沉而嘹亮。他還告訴他歌詞，他不自覺地跟著男人唱了起來，一路順暢往下開?！袄咸?，你的嗓子真好，喬伊?！蹦悄腥苏f，而他（他是多么軟弱、多么可悲?。试S自己因為這個評語而感到溫暖，大口地吞下這份關愛，就像一只老鼠大口吞咽著一塊發(fā)霉的面包。第二天，那男人問他是否愿意跟著他；當時他們在俄亥俄州，很不幸沒有更往東，而是往南走，如果他愿意跟著他，他會很高興，一定會好好照顧他。他婉拒了那男人的提議，那男人點點頭，好像早就料到了，然后給了他一沓鈔票，吻了他，是那些男人之中第一個吻他的?！白Ｄ愫眠\了，喬伊?！彼f。等那個男人離開后，他數(shù)了那些錢，發(fā)現(xiàn)比原先想的還多，比他之前十天加起來的還要多。后來，下一個男人很粗暴，他被暴力且粗野地對待時，他就很希望自己跟了前一個男人。忽然間，波士頓似乎比不上溫柔，也比不上某個會保護他、對他好的人。他哀嘆自己的決定這么糟糕，好像不懂得珍惜真正對他好的人。他再度想到盧克修士，想到盧克從來不會打他或吼他，也從來不會辱罵他。

　 Somewhere he had gotten sick, but he didn’t know if it was from his time on the road or from the home. He made the men use condoms, but a few of them had said they would and then hadn’t, and he had struggled and shouted but there had been nothing he could do. He knew, from past experience, that he would need a doctor. He stank; he was in so much pain he could barely walk. On the outskirts of Philadelphia he decided he’d take a break—he had to. He had torn a small hole in the sleeve of Colin’s jacket and had rolled his money into a tube and shoved it inside and then closed the hole with a safety pin he had found in one of the motel rooms. He climbed out of the last truck, although at the time he hadn’t known it would be the last truck; at the time he had thought: one more. One more and I’ll make it to Boston. He hated that he had to stop now when he was so close, but he knew he needed help; he had waited as long as he could.

中途他病了，他不知道是在路上還是在少年之家染上的。他要那些男人用避孕套，少數(shù)幾個說會用卻沒有，于是他掙扎、大喊，但也無濟于事。從過往的經(jīng)驗看，他知道自己得去看醫(yī)生。他很臭，而且痛得幾乎沒辦法走路了。來到費城的市郊時，他決定休息一下，也非得休息不可了。他在柯林那件大衣的袖子上撕開一個小洞，把身上的錢卷成一小卷塞進去，然后用他在某個汽車旅館撿到的安全別針別住那個洞。他爬下最后一輛卡車，當時他不知道那會是最后一輛；他心想：再一趟，再一趟我就抵達波士頓了。現(xiàn)在距離這么近了，他真不想停下來，但他知道自己得看醫(yī)生，已經(jīng)拖到不能再拖了。

　 The driver had stopped at a filling station near Philadelphia—he didn’t want to drive into the city. There, he made his slow way to the bathroom; he tried to clean himself. The illness made him tired; he had a fever. The last thing he remembered from that day—it had been late January, he thought; still cold, and now with a wet, stinging wind that seemed to slap against him—was walking to the edge of the gas station, where there had been a small tree, barren and unloved and alone, and sitting down against it, resting his back in Colin’s now-filthy jacket against its spindly, unconvincing trunk, and shutting his eyes, hoping that if he slept for a while, he might feel at least a little stronger.

放他下車的司機不想開進市區(qū)，就停在靠近費城的一個加油站。他下了車，慢慢走到洗手間，設法清理自己。那疾病害他疲倦；他發(fā)燒了。那是一月下旬，他心想。天氣還是很冷，還有潮濕、刺人的寒風，像在甩他巴掌。那一天他記得的最后一件事，就是走到加油站邊緣，有一棵小樹，干枯、孤單無依，他就靠著那棵樹坐下來，穿著那件已經(jīng)很臟的大衣，背靠著單薄、不牢靠的樹干，閉上眼睛，希望自己睡一會兒，或許就會比較有力氣了。

　 When he woke he knew he was in the backseat of a car, and the car was moving, and there was Schubert playing, and he allowed himself to be comforted by that, because it was something he knew, something familiar in such unfamiliarity, in a strange car being driven by a stranger, a stranger he was too weak to sit up and examine, through a strange landscape to an unknown destination. When he woke again he was in a room, a living room, and he looked around him: at the sofa he was on, the coffee table in front of it, two armchairs, a stone fireplace, all in shades of brown. He stood, still dizzy but less dizzy, and as he did, he noticed there was a man standing in a doorway, watching him, a man a little shorter than he, and thin, but with a sloping stomach and fertile, swelling hips. He had glasses that had black plastic bracketing their top half but were clear glass beneath, and a tonsure of hair trimmed very short and soft, like a mink’s coat.

他醒來時，知道自己在一輛汽車的后座，那輛車正在移動，車上播放著舒伯特，他讓自己被那音樂撫慰，因為那是他熟悉的事物。此刻他身在一個不熟悉的環(huán)境：在一輛陌生的汽車里，虛弱到無法坐起身來看一下開車的陌生人，車子開過一片陌生的風景，駛向一個未知的目的地。他再度醒來時，身在一個客廳里，他看看四周：他躺的沙發(fā)、沙發(fā)前的茶幾、兩張安樂椅、一個石砌壁爐，全是褐色調。他站起來，還是覺得暈眩，但好一些了，然后注意到有個男人站在門口觀察他，那男人比他矮一點，很瘦，不過有個鼓起的肚子和肥大的臀部。他戴的眼鏡上半部有黑色塑料框、下半部無框，禿頂?shù)念^發(fā)剪得非常短，發(fā)質柔軟，像貂毛一般。

　 “Come to the kitchen and have something to eat,” the man said in a quiet toneless voice, and he did, walking slowly after him and into a kitchen that, except for its tiles and walls, was also brown: brown table, brown cupboards, brown chairs. He sat in the chair at the foot of the table, and the man put a plate before him with a hamburger and a slide of fries, a glass filled with milk. “I normally don’t get fast food,” the man said, and looked at him.

“來廚房吃點東西。”那男人說，聲音平靜而單調。他照做了，緩緩跟著那男人走進廚房，里頭除了瓷磚和墻壁之外，都是褐色的：褐色的餐桌、褐色的碗櫥、褐色的椅子。他坐在桌尾的椅子上，那男人在他面前放了一個盤子，里頭有一個漢堡和一堆薯條，還有一個裝了牛奶的玻璃杯。“我平常不買快餐的?！蹦悄腥丝粗f。

　 He wasn’t sure what to say. “Thank you,” he said, and the man nodded. “Eat,” he said, and he did, and the man sat at the head of the table and watched him. Normally this would have made him self-conscious, but he was too hungry to care this time.

他不確定該說什么?！爸x謝?！彼f。那男人點點頭?！俺园?。”他說。于是他吃了，那男人坐在桌首看著他。通常這會讓他難為情，但這回他實在餓得顧不了那么多了。

　 When he was finished he sat back and thanked the man again, and the man nodded again, and there was a silence.

吃完之后，他往后坐，再度謝謝那個男人，男人也再度點點頭，接下來是一段沉默。

　 “You’re a prostitute,” the man said, and he flushed, and looked down at the table, at its shined brown wood.

“你是男妓?！蹦悄腥苏f。他臉紅了，低頭看著桌子，看著那發(fā)亮的褐色木頭。

　 “Yes,” he admitted.

“是的?！彼姓J。

　 The man made a little noise, a little snuffle. “How long have you been a prostitute?” he asked, but he couldn’t answer him and was silent. “Well?” the man asked. “Two years? Five years? Ten years? Your whole life?” He was impatient, or almost impatient, but his voice was soft, and he wasn’t yelling.

那男人發(fā)出一點聲音，是一種小小的鼻音。“你當男妓多久了？”他問，但他無法回答?！霸趺礃樱俊蹦悄腥藛?，“兩年？五年？十年？還是當了一輩子？”他不耐煩起來，或近乎不耐煩，但他的聲音很柔和，沒有大吼。

　 “Five years,” he said, and the man made the same small noise again.

“五年?！彼f。那男人又發(fā)出那個小聲音。