When the semester ended I returned to Buck’s Peak. In a few weeks BYU would post grades; then I’d know if I could return in the fall.
学期结束后，我回到巴克峰。几周后，杨百翰大学将公布成绩，届时我就会知道秋天能否回去了。
I filled my journals with promises that I would stay out of the junkyard. I needed money — Dad would have said I was broker than the Ten Commandments — so I went to get my old job back at Stokes. I turned up at the busiest hour in the afternoon, when I knew they’d be understaffed, and sure enough, the manager was bagging groceries when I found him. I asked if he’d like me to do that, and he looked at me for all of three seconds, then lifted his apron over his head and handed it to me. The assistant manager gave me a wink: she was the one who’d suggested I ask during the rush. There was something about Stokes — about its straight, clean aisles and the warm people who worked there — that made me feel calm and happy. It’s a strange thing to say about a grocery store, but it felt like home.
我在日记里写满了承诺，发誓一定要远离废料场。我需要钱——爸爸会说我现在穷得叮当响——于是我又回到斯托克斯商店，干起老本行。在下午生意最忙的时候我去了店里，我知道那时候他们人手不够。果然，我找到经理时，他正在装杂货。我问他是否愿意让我做这个，他打量了我三秒，然后将围裙从头上摘下来递给我。副经理朝我眨眨眼：就是她建议我在生意高峰期过来问的。斯托克斯商店的某些方面——笔直干净的过道，热情友好的同事——让我感到安心和快乐。这么描述一间杂货店可能很奇怪，但它的确给我一种家的感觉。
Dad was waiting for me when I came through the back door. He saw the apron and said, “You’re working for me this summer.”
我从后门回到家时，爸爸正在等我。他看到围裙，说：“这个暑假你要为我干活。”
Dad’s face was haggard, his eyes bloodshot. He’d had a spectacularly bad winter. In the fall, he’d invested a large sum of money in new construction equipment — an excavator, a man lift and a welding trailer. Now it was spring and all of it was gone. Luke had accidentally lit the welding trailer on fire, burning it to the ground; the man lift had come off a trailer because someone — I never asked who — hadn’t secured it properly; and the excavator had joined the scrap heap when Shawn, pulling it on an enormous trailer, had taken a corner too fast and rolled truck and trailer both. With the luck of the damned, Shawn had crawled from the wreckage, although he’d hit his head and couldn’t remember the days before the accident. Truck, trailer and excavator were totaled.
爸爸脸色憔悴，眼睛充血。他度过了一个异常糟糕的冬天。秋天，他投资了一大笔钱购买新的建筑设备——一台挖掘机、一台载人升降机、一辆焊接拖车。到了春天，这些设备全都没了。卢克不小心点燃了焊接拖车，将它烧成了灰烬；载人升降机从拖车上掉下来，因为有人——我没问是谁——没把它固定好；挖掘机已进了废料堆，肖恩用大拖车拉它时转弯速度过快，撞上了卡车。不幸中的万幸是，肖恩从残骸中爬了出来，尽管他撞了头，把事故发生前的事都忘了。卡车、拖车和挖掘机全部报废。
“Think you’re too good to scrap?” His voice was raised. “This is your family. You belong here.”
“你觉得现在有能耐了，拆解废品让你掉价了？”他提高了嗓门，“这是你家。你属于这里。”
Dad’s determination was etched into his face. It was in his voice, in the harshness of it. He had to win this standoff. He’d convinced himself that if I was on the crew, there’d be fewer accidents, fewer setbacks. “You’re slower than tar running uphill,” he’d told me a dozen times. “But you get the job done without smashing anything.”
爸爸的坚决深深印刻在他的脸上，也印刻在他的声音中，他语气的严厉之中。他必须赢得这场对峙。他相信，如果我加入小工队，事故和挫折就会减少。“虽然你比柏油向山上倒流还慢，”以前他多次这样说我，“但你干活时不会弄坏东西。”
“I’m working at Stokes,” I said.
“我在斯托克斯商店上班。”我说。
“You have an opportunity to help your father,” she said. “He needs you. He’ll never say it but he does. It’s your choice what to do.” There was silence, then she added, “But if you don’t help, you can’t stay here. You’ll have to live somewhere else.”
“这是你帮爸爸的一个机会，”她说，“他需要你。他虽然从不说出口，但他需要你。该怎么选择看你的了。”沉默了一会儿，她又说，“如果你不帮他，就不能在这里住。你得另找地方。”
I pushed past Dad and shut myself in my room. Mother knocked a moment later. She stepped into the room quietly and sat so lightly on the bed, I barely felt her weight next to me. I thought she would say what she’d said last time. Then I’d remind her I was only seventeen, and she’d tell me I could stay.
我推开爸爸，把自己关在房间里。过了一会儿，母亲来敲门。她静静地走进房间，轻轻地坐在床上，我几乎感觉不到她坐在我身边。我以为她会说出上次说过的话。然后我会提醒她我才十七岁，她便会像上次那样让我留下来。
The next morning, at four A. M., I drove to Stokes and worked a ten-hour shift. It was early afternoon, and raining heavily, when I came home and found my clothes on the front lawn. I carried them into the house. Mother was mixing oils in the kitchen, and she said nothing as I passed by with my dripping shirts and jeans.
第二天早上四点，我开车前往斯托克斯商店，上了十个小时的班。下午天色尚早，下起了倾盆大雨，我回到家时，发现我的衣服都被扔在了屋前的草坪上。我把它们拿回屋子。母亲正在厨房调制精油，见我穿着湿淋淋的衬衫和牛仔裤走过，她什么也没说。
But I couldn’t do the job, because to do it would be to slide backward. I had moved home, to my old room, to my old life. If I went back to working for Dad, to waking up every morning and pulling on steel-toed boots and trudging out to the junkyard, it would be as if the last four months had never happened, as if I had never left.
但是我不能做这个工作，因为这么做就意味着倒退回过去。我已经搬回家来住，回到我以前的房间，回到我过去的生活。如果我再为爸爸工作，每天早晨醒来就穿上钢头靴跋涉至废料场，那就好像过去的四个月什么都不曾发生，仿佛我从未离开。
I sat on my bed while the water from my clothes soaked into the carpet. I’d taken a phone with me, and I stared at it, unsure what it could do. There was no one to call. There was nowhere to go and no one to call.
我坐在床上，衣服上的水湿透了地毯。我随身带了一部手机，盯着它看，不知道能做什么。没有可以打电话的人。没有地方可去，也没有人可以打电话。
“What happened?” he said. He sounded worried; he thought there’d been another accident. “Is everyone okay?”
“发生了什么事？”他说。他的声音听上去充满担忧，肯定是以为又出什么事故了，“大家都还好吧？”
“Everyone’s fine,” I said. “But Dad says I can’t stay here unless I work in the junkyard, and I can’t do that anymore.” My voice was pitched unnaturally high, and it quivered.
“都很好，”我说，“但是爸爸说我必须在废料场干活，否则就不能住在家里，但我再也不想干那个了。”我的声音颤抖着，语调高得不自然。
Tyler said, “What do you want me to do?”
泰勒说：“你想让我做什么？”
I dialed Tyler in Indiana. “I don’t want to work in the junkyard,” I said when he answered. My voice was hoarse.
我拨通了在印第安纳州的泰勒的电话。“我不想在废料场干活。”他接起电话时，我哽咽着说。
In retrospect I’m sure he meant this literally, that he was asking how he could help, but my ears, solitary and suspicious, heard something else: What do you expect me to do? I began to shake; I felt light-headed. Tyler had been my lifeline. For years he’d lived in my mind as a last resort, a lever I could pull when my back was against the wall. But now that I had pulled it, I understood its futility. It did nothing after all.
回想起来，我相信他的本意很直白，就是想知道能帮上什么忙，但我那孤僻多疑的耳朵听到了一个弦外之音：你指望我能帮你什么？我开始动摇了，我觉得头晕目眩。泰勒是我的救命稻草。多年来，在我的脑海中，他一直是我最后求救的对象。在我走投无路的时候，他是我可以拉动的一根有力的杠杆。但现在我拉了这根杠杆，才明白其实它徒劳无用。它根本不能做什么。
Dad was in the forklift, scooping up a stack of corrugated tin. He would need someone to place wooden blocks on the trailer so he could offload the stack. When he saw me, he lowered the tin so I could step onto it, and I rode the stack up and onto the trailer.
爸爸正在叉车里，铲起一堆瓦楞铁皮。他需要个人手将木块放在拖车上，这样他就可以卸货了。看到我时，他将铁皮放低，以便我可以踩着上去。我骑上那堆东西，上了拖车。
I hung up and dialed Stokes. The assistant manager answered. “You done working today?” she said brightly. I told her I quit, said I was sorry, then put down the phone. I opened my closet and there they were, where I’d left them four months before: my scrapping boots. I put them on. It felt as though I’d never taken them off.
我挂上电话，又拨通了斯托克斯商店的电话。是副经理接的。“今天的活儿干完了吧？”她用欢快的声音问。我向她道歉，告诉她我要辞职，然后挂了电话。我打开壁橱，我的废料场专用靴就放在里面，四个月前我把它们收了起来。我穿上靴子，感觉自己从未脱下过它们。
“What happened?” Tyler said again.
“发生了什么事？”泰勒说。
“Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
“没什么。一切都好。”
My daily routine was exactly what it had been: after breakfast I sorted scrap or pulled copper from radiators. If the boys were working on-site, sometimes I’d go along to drive the loader or forklift or crane. At lunch I’d help Mother cook and do the dishes, then I’d return, either to the junkyard or to the forklift.
我的日常和从前一模一样：早饭后，我给废品分类，从散热器里取出废铜烂铁。如果哥哥们也在现场工作，有时我会跟着去开装载机、叉车或起重机。午餐时分，我会帮母亲做饭和洗碗，之后我要么回到废料场，要么去开叉车。
My memories of the university faded quickly. The scratch of pencils on paper, the clack of a projector moving to the next slide, the peal of the bells signaling the end of class — all were drowned out by the clatter of iron and the roar of diesel engines. After a month in the junkyard, BYU seemed like a dream, something I’d conjured. Now I was awake.
我对大学的记忆很快变淡。铅笔在纸上写字的沙沙声，投影仪切换下一张幻灯片的咔嗒声，下课时响起的钟鸣声——所有声音都被丁零当啷的铁皮撞击声和柴油发动机的轰鸣声淹没了。在废料场待了一个月后，杨百翰大学就像一个梦，某种我想象出来的东西。现在，梦醒了。
There was a play that summer at the Worm Creek Opera House, and Shawn and I bought tickets. Charles was also there, a few rows ahead of us, and at intermission when Shawn moved away to chat up a girl, he shuffled over. For the first time I was not utterly tongue-tied. I thought of Shannon and how she’d talked to people at church, the friendly merriment of her, the way she laughed and smiled. Just be Shannon, I thought to myself. And for five minutes, I was.
那年夏天，虫溪剧场要上演一出剧，我和肖恩买了票。查尔斯也来了，就坐在我们前几排。中场休息时，趁着肖恩离开去搭讪一个女孩，查尔斯慢吞吞地走了过来。第一次，我没有舌头打结。我想起了香农，想起她在教堂与人交谈的样子，想起她友好的欢声笑语，以及她微笑和开怀大笑的样子。就当自己是香农吧，我想。接下来的五分钟，我成了香农。
Charles was looking at me strangely, the way I’d seen men look at Shannon. He asked if I’d like to see a movie on Saturday. The movie he suggested was vulgar, worldly, one I would never want to see, but I was being Shannon, so I said I’d love to.
查尔斯用怪异的目光看着我，与我见过的那些男人看香农的眼神一样。他问我星期六想不想去看电影。他提议去看的那部电影俗不可耐，是我自己永远不会去看的那种，但我在扮演香农，所以我说我很乐意去。
The only difference was Shawn. He was not what I remembered. He never said a harsh word, seemed at peace with himself. He was studying for his GED, and one night when we were driving back from a job, he told me he was going to try a semester at a community college. He wanted to study law.
唯一的变化是肖恩。他不再是我记忆中的人。他不再厉声说话，似乎变得心平气和。他正在为GED[7]复习，一天晚上，我们干完活开车回家时，他告诉我他要去社区大学念一个学期。他想学法律。【注：[7]GED（General Educational Development），普通同等学力证书，北美针对非高中毕业生的一项考试，通过后可以获得与高中毕业文凭等同的学历证明。】
I tried to be Shannon on Saturday night. The movie was terrible, worse than I’d expected, the kind of movie only a gentile would see. But it was hard for me to see Charles as a gentile. He was just Charles. I thought about telling him the movie was immoral, that he shouldn’t be seeing such things, but — still being Shannon — I said nothing, just smiled when he asked if I’d like to get ice cream.
星期六晚上我试图成为香农。那部电影糟透了，比我想象的还糟，是只有异教徒才看的那种电影。但我很难把查尔斯看作异教徒。他只是查尔斯。我想告诉他电影很不道德，他不应该看这种东西，但想到自己仍然是香农，我便什么也没说。他问我想不想吃冰激凌，我只是莞尔一笑。
Charles called a few days later. I was standing in my room after a day of roofing. I smelled of paint thinner and was covered in dust the color of ash, but he didn’t know that. We talked for two hours. He called the next night, and the one after. He said we should get a burger on Friday.
几天后查尔斯打来了电话。盖了一天的屋顶后，我正站在自己的房间里。我灰头土脸，身上一股涂料稀释剂的味道，但他不知道。我们聊了两个小时。第二天晚上，他又打来电话。第三天也打了。他说我们星期五该去吃汉堡。
In my room, I stared at myself in the mirror for a long time. The first thing I noticed was my men’s jeans and how they were nothing like the jeans other girls wore. The second thing I noticed was that my shirt was too large and made me seem more square than I was.
在我的房间里，我盯着镜中的自己看了许久。我首先注意到的是我的男式牛仔裤，它和别的女孩穿的牛仔裤全然不同。接着我注意到我的衬衫太大了，让我显得比本人块头更大。
On thursday, after I’d finished scrapping, I drove forty miles to the nearest Walmart and bought a pair of women’s jeans and two shirts, both blue. When I put them on, I barely recognized my own body, the way it narrowed and curved. I took them off immediately, feeling that somehow they were immodest. They weren’t, not technically, but I knew why I wanted them — for my body, so it would be noticed — and that seemed immodest even if the clothes were not.
星期四，拆完废品，我驱车四十英里去了最近的沃尔玛，买了一条女士牛仔裤和两件蓝色衬衫。当我穿上它们，我几乎认不出自己的身体，认不出它苗条有曲线的样子。我立刻脱下衣服，觉得这些衣服不够端庄。严格地说，衣服不算出格，但是我知道自己为什么想买它们——为了我的身体能被注意到——即便衣服没有问题，这个想法也让它们不够端庄。
Shawn was the only one still awake when I got home. I was smiling when I came through the door. Shawn joked that I had a boyfriend, and it was a real joke — he wanted me to laugh. He said Charles had good taste, that I was the most decent person he knew, then he went to bed.
我回到家时，只有肖恩还没睡。我微笑着进了门。肖恩开玩笑说我有男朋友了，那是个真正的玩笑——他想让我大笑。他说查尔斯很有品位，我是他认识的最正派的人，然后就去睡觉了。
The next afternoon, when the crew had finished for the day, I ran to the house. I showered, blasting away the dirt, then I laid the new clothes on my bed and stared at them. After several minutes, I put them on and was again shocked by the sight of myself. There wasn’t time to change so I wore a jacket even though it was a warm evening, and at some point, though I can’t say when or why, I decided that I didn’t need the jacket after all. For the rest of the night, I didn’t have to remember to be Shannon; I talked and laughed without pretending at all.
第二天下午，小工队收工后，我跑回家。我冲了个澡，洗去身上的灰尘，然后把新衣服摆在床上，盯着它们看。几分钟后，我穿上它们，再次被自己的形象震惊。没有时间换衣服了，于是我套了一件夹克，尽管那是一个暖和的夜晚。然后在某个时刻，不知为何，我决定我根本不需要那件夹克了。那一晚接下来的时间，我不必提醒自己是香农；我有说有笑，一点儿也不必装腔作势。
Charles and I spent every evening together that week. We haunted public parks and ice cream shops, burger joints and gas stations. I took him to Stokes, because I loved it there, and because the assistant manager would always give me the unsold doughnuts from the bakery. We talked about music — about bands I’d never heard of and about how he wanted to be a musician and travel the world. We never talked about us — about whether we were friends or something else. I wished he would bring it up but he didn’t. I wished he would let me know some other way — by gently taking my hand or putting an arm around me — but he didn’t do that, either.
那个星期，我和查尔斯每天晚上都在一起。我们经常出没于公园、冰激凌店、汉堡店和加油站。我带他去了斯托克斯商店，因为我喜欢那里，而且那个副经理总是把面包铺没卖出去的甜甜圈送给我。我们谈论音乐，谈论我从未听说过的乐队，他告诉我他多么想成为音乐家，去周游世界。我们从未讨论过我们的关系——我们是朋友还是别的。我希望他能提起这个，但他没有。我希望他能用其他方式让我知道——比如轻轻拉过我的手，或者用胳膊搂住我——但他也没有这样做。
Charles and I spent the next afternoon in the park, rocking lazily in tire swings. I told him about the scholarship. I’d meant it as a brag, but for some reason my fears came out with it. I said I shouldn’t even be in college, that I should be made to finish high school first. Or to at least start it.
第二天下午，我和查尔斯在公园里懒洋洋地荡着轮胎秋千。我把奖学金的事告诉了他。我本想炫耀一番，但不知为何，我的恐惧油然而生。我说我不该上大学，我应该先读完高中，或者至少去读一读高中。
On Friday we stayed out late, and when I came home the house was dark. Mother’s computer was on, the screen saver casting a green light over the living room. I sat down and mechanically checked BYU’s website. Grades had been posted. I’d passed. More than passed. I’d earned A’s in every subject except Western Civ. I would get a scholarship for half of my tuition. I could go back.
星期五我们在外面待到很晚，回到家时，屋里一片漆黑。母亲的电脑开着，屏幕保护程序在起居室里投下一片绿光。我坐下来，机械地查看杨百翰大学网站。成绩已经公布。我通过了。不只是通过，除了西方文明课，我的各科成绩都是A。我将拿到一半学费的奖学金。我可以回去了。
Charles sat quietly while I talked and didn’t say anything for a long time after. Then he said, “Are you angry your parents didn’t put you in school?”
我说话时查尔斯静静地坐着，沉默了很长一段时间。最后他说：“你的父母没送你去上学，你生他们的气吗？”
“It was an advantage!” I said, half-shouting. My response was instinctive. It was like hearing a phrase from a catchy song: I couldn’t stop myself from reciting the next line. Charles looked at me skeptically, as if asking me to reconcile that with what I’d said only moments before.
“这是一个优势！”我几乎是喊叫着说。我的回答出自本能。就像听到一首朗朗上口的歌曲中的一句歌词，马上忍不住接下一句。查尔斯疑惑地看着我，仿佛是要我把那句话和刚刚说的那番话调和一下。
I said nothing. I’d never heard anyone criticize my father except Shawn, and I wasn’t able to respond to it. I wanted to tell Charles about the Illuminati, but the words belonged to my father, and even in my mind they sounded awkward, rehearsed. I was ashamed at my inability to take possession of them. I believed then — and part of me will always believe — that my father’s words ought to be my own.
我什么也没说。除了肖恩，我从没听过任何人批评我的父亲，对此我没法回应。我想告诉查尔斯关于光明会的事，但这些话属于父亲，甚至连我都觉得它们听上去很尴尬，像是事先排练过的。我无法让这些话属于我，为此我感到羞愧。那时的我相信——一部分的我将永远会相信——父亲的话应该也是我自己的观点。
When he finally did, it was early evening and we were in his jeep, driving to his house to watch a movie. We were just coming parallel to Fivemile Creek when he reached across the gearshift and rested his hand on mine. His hand was warm and I wanted to take it, but instead I jerked away as if I’d been burned. The response was involuntary, and I wished immediately that I could take it back. It happened again when he tried a second time. My body convulsed, yielding to a strange, potent instinct.
当他终于那么做的时候，是在一个傍晚，我们坐在他的吉普车里，开车去他家看电影。我们正沿五里溪前行，他突然越过变速挡，将手放在我的手上。他的手很温暖，我想握住它，但我却猛地抽开手，就像被烫了一下。这种反应不由自主，我真希望能立即收回。他第二次尝试时，我还是这种反应。我身体抽搐，屈服于一种奇怪又强烈的本能。
“Well, I’m angry,” he said. “Even if you aren’t.”
“嗯，我很生气，”他说，“即使你没有。”
Every night for a month, when I came in from the junkyard, I’d spend an hour scrubbing grime from my fingernails and dirt from my ears. I’d brush the tangles from my hair and clumsily apply makeup. I’d rub handfuls of lotion into the pads of my fingers to soften the calluses, just in case that was the night Charles touched them.
一个月来的每天晚上，我从废料场回来时，都会花一个小时洗掉指甲和耳朵里的灰尘和污垢。我会将打结的头发梳好，笨拙地化妆。我会在手指肚涂上厚厚一层乳液，让老茧软化，以防某一晚查尔斯会摸到它们。
I shoved my hands under my knees and leaned into the window. I couldn’t let him near me — not that night, and not any night for months — without shuddering as that word, my word, ripped its way into remembrance. Whore.
我将双手放在膝盖下，斜靠车窗。我不肯让查尔斯靠近我——那天晚上，以及接下来几个月的晚上——都不行，当那个词，我的专属词，闯入我的记忆，我战栗不已。妓女。
We arrived at his house. Charles turned on the TV and settled onto the sofa; I perched lightly on one side. The lights dimmed, the opening credits rolled. Charles inched toward me, slowly at first, then more confidently, until his leg brushed mine. In my mind I bolted, I ran a thousand miles in a single heartbeat. In reality I merely flinched. Charles flinched, too — I’d startled him. I repositioned myself, driving my body into the sofa arm, gathering my limbs and pressing them away from him. I held that unnatural pose for perhaps twenty seconds, until he understood, hearing the words I couldn’t say, and moved to the floor.
我们来到他家。查尔斯打开电视，坐到沙发上，我轻轻坐在另一边。灯光暗下来，片头字幕滚动着。查尔斯一点一点靠近我，起初慢慢地，后来更有信心，直到他的腿碰到了我的腿。想象中我飞快逃离，一次心跳间便逃到了千里之外。事实上，我只是退缩了。查尔斯也退缩了——我把他吓了一跳。我调整姿势，身体陷进沙发扶手里，并紧四肢，尽量远离他。这个不自然的姿势我保持了大概二十秒，直到他明白了我没有言明的意思，挪到了地板上。
The instinct passed through me in the form of a word, a bold lyric, strong, declarative. The word was not new. It had been with me for a while now, hushed, motionless, as if asleep, in some remote corner of memory. By touching me Charles had awakened it, and it throbbed with life.
本能传递给我一个词，一个大胆的词，有力，有陈述性。这个词并不新鲜。它已经陪伴我很久，静静地，一动不动，仿佛沉睡过去，栖居在记忆深处某个遥远的角落。查尔斯的触摸唤醒了它，让它重新鲜活起来。
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