第十七章: 这个世界并不爱你 The World Doesn’t Love You
In Alex, getting arrested was a fact of life. It was so common that out on the corner we had a sign for it, a shorthand, clapping your wrists together like you were being put in handcuffs. Everyone knew what that meant.
在亚历山德拉，被捕是生活的常态，十分常见，我们甚至有个简单手势来表达这层意思：将两个手腕轻碰一下，就好像是被戴了手铐一样。所有人都知道这个动作的意思。
Wrist clap.
手腕轻扣。
My mom never gave me an inch. Anytime I got in trouble it was tough love, lectures, punishment, and hidings. Every time. For every infraction. You get that with a lot of black parents. They’re trying to discipline you before the system does. “I need to do this to you before the police do it to you.” Because that’s all black parents are thinking from the day you’re old enough to walk out into the street, where the law is waiting.
我妈对我从来都寸步不让。每次我犯了错，迎接我的都是“严厉的爱”——训话、惩戒、暴揍。每次犯错误都是这样。很多黑人父母也是这么教育子女的，他们要在社会给你惩罚之前，先将你教训一顿。“在警察把你抓走之前，我必须这么管教你。”从你能上街的那天起，所有的黑人父母心里想的都是这件事，因为法律正在外面等着你。
“Oh, shit. When?”
“哦，糟了。什么时候？”
“Where’s Bongani?”
“邦哈尼在哪儿？”
“Friday night.”
“周五晚上。”
My mom hated the hood. She didn’t like my friends there. If I brought them back to the house, she didn’t even want them coming inside. “I don’t like those boys,” she’d say. She didn’t hate them personally; she hated what they represented. “You and those boys get into so much shit,” she’d say. “You must be careful who you surround yourself with because where you are can determine who you are.”
我妈妈痛恨街区。她不喜欢我在那里交的朋友。如果我邀请他们来家里玩，她甚至不想让他们进门。“我不喜欢那些男孩。”她会说。她并不是讨厌他们本人，她讨厌的是他们身上所代表的东西。“你和那些男孩惹了那么多麻烦，”她会说，“你必须要留意自己周围都是什么样的人，因为他们会决定你是什么样的人。”
“Damn.”
“妈的。”
She said the thing she hated most about the hood was that it didn’t pressure me to become better. She wanted me to hang out with my cousin at his university.
她说她最痛恨街区的地方是，街区不会给我进步的动力。她希望我可以和读大学的表兄一起玩。
“Yes, but the pressure of the university is going to get you. I know you. You won’t sit by and watch these guys become better than you. If you’re in an environment that is positive and progressive, you too will become that. I keep telling you to change your life, and you don’t. One day you’re going to get arrested, and when you do, don’t call me. I’ll tell the police to lock you up just to teach you a lesson.”
“是，但是大学的压力会潜移默化地影响你。我了解你。你的性格是不会坐在原地，让你眼睁睁看着其他人都超过你的。如果你在一个积极进步的环境里，你也会变成积极进步的人。我一直跟你说你要改变你的生活，你就是不听。有一天你会进监狱的，但进去之后，别给我打电话。我会让警察把你关起来，好好给你个教训。”
“What’s the difference if I’m at university or I’m in the hood?” I’d say. “It’s not like I’m going to university.”
“在大学里玩和在街区里玩又有什么差别呢？”我说，“好像我真能去读大学似的。”
One morning I saw an ad in the paper. Some shop was having a clearance sale on mobile phones, and they were selling them at such a ridiculous price I knew Bongani and I could flip them in the hood for a profit. This shop was out in the suburbs, too far to walk and too out-of-the-way to take a minibus. Fortunately my stepfather’s workshop and a bunch of old cars were in our backyard.
有一天早晨，我在报纸上看到一则广告，某家商店在清仓甩卖手机，价格低到匪夷所思，我知道邦哈尼和我可以在街区把它们转卖出去，大赚一笔差价。这家店在郊区，步行太远，小巴也不直达。所幸我继父是开修车行的，后院里停着一堆旧车。
Because there were some black parents who’d actually do that, not pay their kid’s bail, not hire their kid a lawyer — the ultimate tough love. But it doesn’t always work, because you’re giving the kid tough love when maybe he just needs love. You’re trying to teach him a lesson, and now that lesson is the rest of his life.
很多黑人父母真的是这么做的，不给孩子付保释金，不请律师——这是“严厉的爱”的终极形式。但可惜，这种手段并不太行得通，因为你恰恰在孩子最需要爱的时候，给了他“严厉的爱”。你想给他个教训，但这个教训却让他付出了后半生的代价。
Most of these junkers weren’t street legal. They didn’t have proper registrations or proper number plates. Luckily, Abel also had a stack of old number plates in the back of the garage. I quickly learned I could just put one on an old car and hit the road. I was nineteen, maybe twenty, not thinking about any of the ramifications of this. I stopped by Abel’s garage when no one was around, picked up one of the cars, the red Mazda I’d taken to the matric dance, slapped some old plates on it, and set off in search of discounted cell phones.
那些破车大部分都不能合法上路。没有行车证，也没有正规牌照。幸运的是，亚伯有在车库里存了一批旧车牌。没多久，我就发现，我可以从里面挑一块车牌安到旧车上，然后就可以上路了。那时我19岁，也许20岁，完全没有想过这样做的后果。我走到亚伯的车库，确保旁边没人后，挑了一辆车——那辆我开去高中毕业舞会的红色马自达，在上面安了个旧车牌后，便开着它上路去搜罗降价手机了。
I’d been stealing Abel’s junkers to get around since I was fourteen. I would say I was test driving them to make sure they’d been repaired correctly. Abel didn’t think that was funny. I’d been caught many times, caught and subjected to my mother’s wrath. But that had never stopped me from doing anything.
从14岁开始，我就经常偷开亚伯的破车到周围转悠。我说我是在试驾，想检测一下它们维修得好不好。亚伯觉得这并不好笑。我被逮到过好几次，逮到后就被我妈大骂一顿。但这并不会阻碍我继续这么做。
I got pulled over in Hillbrow. Cops in South Africa don’t give you a reason when they pull you over. Cops pull you over because they’re cops and they have the power to pull you over; it’s as simple as that. I used to watch American movies where cops would pull people over and say, “You didn’t signal” or “Your taillight’s out.” I’d always wonder, Why do American cops bother lying? One thing I appreciate about South Africa is that we have not yet refined the system to the point where we feel the need to lie.
开到希尔布洛的时候，我被警察拦了下来。南非的警察拦你停车不需要理由。警察拦你，只因为他们是警察，有权让你停车，就这么简单。我常常看美国电影，里面的警察让人停车后还要解释说，“你没打转向灯”，或“你尾灯没亮”。我总是在想，美国警察何苦还要编个谎啊？我很欣赏南非的一点是，我们的社会系统还没有文明到需要说谎的程度。
“Because you’re a policeman and I’m a black person?”
“因为你是警察，而我是黑人？”
When the cop pulled me over, it was one of those situations where I wanted to say, “Hey, I know you guys are racially profiling me!” But I couldn’t argue the case because I was, at that moment, actually breaking the law. The cop walked up to my window, asked me the standard cop questions. Where are you going? Is this your car? Whose car is this? I couldn’t answer. I completely froze.
警察把我拦下的时候，我很想争辩：“喂，我知道你们是因为我的肤色才要查我的！”但是这次我没法争辩，因为在那一刻，我确实违法了。警察走到我的车窗前，问了我那几个标准问题。你要去哪儿？这是你的车吗？这是谁的车？我答不出来，我动都动不了。
“Do you know why I pulled you over?”
“你知道我为什么让你停车吗？”
Being young, funnily enough, I was more worried about getting in trouble with my parents than with the law. I’d had run-ins with the cops in Alexandra, in Soweto, but it was always more about the circumstance: a party getting shut down, a raid on a minibus. The law was all around me, but it had never come down on me, Trevor, specifically. And when you haven’t had much experience with the law, the law appears rational — cops are dicks for the most part, but you also recognize that they’re doing a job.
那时我还年轻，说来也怪，比起被法律制裁，我更害怕惹怒我的父母。我在亚历山德拉和索韦托都和警察打过交道，但都是外部环境所致：被迫关闭的派对，对小巴的突然搜查。法律的利剑在我头顶转来转去，却从来没有落到我特雷弗的身上。当你跟法律没打过交道的时候，法律看上去很理智——尽管警察大部分时候是混球，但你也要承认，他们只是在做自己的工作。
“That’s correct. License and registration, please.”
“没错。请出示驾照和行车证。”
The cop called in the number-plate registration and discovered that it didn’t match the car. Now he was really on my case. “This car is not in your name! What’s going on with these plates?! Step out of the vehicle!” It was only then that I realized: Ohhhhh, shit. Now I’m in real trouble. I stepped out of the car, and he put the cuffs on me and told me I was being arrested on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle. He took me in, and the car was impounded.
警察查了下车牌，发现车牌和车对不上。可抓到我的把柄了。“这辆车不是你的！牌照又是怎么回事？！给我下车！”这个时候我才意识到：啊啊啊啊，这下真惹上麻烦了。我走下车，他给我戴上手铐，告诉我，我因为有偷车嫌疑被捕了。我被带回了警察局，车则被没收了。
Your parents, on the other hand, are not rational at all. They have served as judge, jury, and executioner for your entire childhood, and it feels like they give you a life sentence for every misdemeanor. In that moment, when I should have been scared of the cop, all I was thinking was Shit shit shit; I’m in so much trouble when I get home.
但另一方面，你的父母，就一点儿也不理智了。他们在你的整个童年中扮演了法官、陪审团和行刑官等多重角色，好像每次你犯了错，他们都想判你个无期徒刑。在那一刻，尽管我理应害怕的是面前的警察，但我脑中想的完全却是，完了完了完了，等我到家后，肯定有大麻烦在等着我。
The Hillbrow police station looks exactly like every other police station in South Africa. They were all built by the same contractor at the height of apartheid — separate nodes in the central nervous system of a police state. If you were blindfolded and taken from one to the other, you probably wouldn’t even know that you’d changed locations. They’re sterile, institutional, with fluorescent lights and cheap floor tile, like a hospital. My cop walked me in and sat me down at the front booking desk. I was charged and fingerprinted.
希尔布洛警察局和南非其他警察局长得一模一样，都是在种族隔离的巅峰时期由同一个承包商建的，就像同一个警局帝国神经系统的不同分支。如果你被蒙着眼睛，从一个警察局转到另一个警察局，可能都不会注意到你换了地方。里面装着一样的日光灯，用着一样的便宜地砖，好像医院一样乏味又正统。警察把我押进去后，让我坐在登记台前，然后对我提出指控，让我按下了指纹。
Carjackings were common in South Africa at the time, too. So common you weren’t even surprised when they happened. You’d have a friend coming over for a dinner party and you’d get a call.
车被抢，在那时的南非经常发生，太稀松平常了，以至于你听到类似的事件都不会惊讶。比如你约了朋友来家里吃晚餐开派对，结果接到一个电话。
“Sorry. Got carjacked. Gonna be late.”
“对不起，车被抢了，晚点儿到。”
In the meantime, they’d been checking out the car, which wasn’t going well for me, either. Whenever I borrowed cars from Abel’s workshop, I tried to take the junkers rather than a real client’s car; I thought I’d get in less trouble that way. That was a mistake. The Mazda, being one of Abel’s junkers, didn’t have a clear title of ownership. If it had had an owner, the cops would have called the owner, the owner would have explained that the car had been dropped off for repairs, and the whole thing would have been sorted out. Since the car didn’t have an owner, I couldn’t prove I hadn’t stolen it.
与此同时，他们查了那辆车的信息，结果对我也很不利。每次我从亚伯的修车厂借车，我都倾向于借那些没人要的破车，而不是真正的客户送来的车，我以为这样就能少惹麻烦。但那是个错误的选择。这辆马自达是亚伯厂里的众多破车之一，没有明确的车主归属，如果它有车主，那么警察给车主打个电话，车主就会解释说那辆车正在厂里维修，整件事就真相大白了。但这辆车没有车主，所以我根本无法证明不是偷来的。
“Sorry, Dave!”
“戴夫好可怜啊。”
“Ah, that sucks. Hey, guys! Dave got carjacked.”
“啊，那可真糟。嘿，各位！戴夫的车被抢了。”
And the party would continue. And that’s if the person survived the carjacking. Often they didn’t. People were getting shot for their cars all the time. Not only could I not prove I hadn’t stolen the car, I couldn’t prove I hadn’t murdered someone for it, either. The cops were grilling me. “You kill anyone to get that car, boy? Eh? You a killer?”
然后派对如常继续，这还是被劫持者活下来的情况，更多时候他们会被杀死。人们总是因为自己的车而受到枪击。我不仅没法证明这辆车不是我偷来的，我也没法证明我没有为了这辆车而杀人。那些警察一直在逼问我。“你是杀了人才拿到的车吧，孩子？是吧？你是杀人犯吧？”
I was in deep, deep trouble. I had only one lifeline: my parents. One call would have fixed everything. “This is my stepfather. He’s a mechanic. I borrowed his car when I shouldn’t have.” Done. At worst I’d get a slap on the wrist for driving a car that wasn’t registered. But what would I be getting at home?
我真的真的惹下大麻烦了。我唯一的救生索是我的父母，一通电话就可以解决所有事。“这是我继父，他是修车师傅。我借了他的车，我不该这么做的。”完事。最差我也只会因为开了没有行车证的车而被处以轻微的处罚。但是回到家以后，等着我的又是什么呢？
I sat there in the police station — arrested for suspicion of grand theft auto, a plausible suspect for carjacking or murder — and debated whether I should call my parents or go to jail. With my stepfather I was thinking, He might actually kill me. In my mind that was an entirely realistic scenario. With my mother I was thinking, She’s going to make this worse. She’s not the character witness I want right now. She won’t help me. Because she’d told me she wouldn’t. “If you ever get arrested, don’t call me.” I needed someone sympathetic to my plight, and I didn’t believe she was that person. So I didn’t call my parents. I decided I didn’t need them. I was a man. I could go it alone. I used my call to phone my cousin and told him not to tell anyone what had happened while I figured out what to do — now I just had to figure out what to do.
我坐在警察局里，因偷车嫌疑而被捕——很可能还犯了劫持汽车罪，甚至杀过人——我脑中在激烈地争辩着，到底是该给家里打电话，还是去蹲监狱好。一想到我的继父，他很可能真能杀了我。在我脑海里，这完全是可能发生的场景。然后我又想到我妈妈，她只会让事情变得更糟。她可不是我现在需要的那种目击证人，而且她根本不会帮我——因为她明确告诉过我她不会帮。“如果你哪天被捕了，别给我打电话。”我需要有人同情我现在的处境，但我不觉得她会是那个人，所以我没有给他们打电话。我决定，我不需要他们。我自己已经长大成人，可以处理好自己的事。我给我表兄打了电话，跟他说我正在想办法解决，先别跟任何人说发生了什么——现在我只需要想出解决办法就可以了。
I’d been picked up late in the afternoon, so by the time I was processed it was close to lights-out. I was spending the night in jail, like it or not. It was at that point that a cop pulled me aside and told me what I was in for.
由于我是在傍晚被抓的，所以受审时已经快到晚上熄灯时间了。不管喜不喜欢，我都得在牢里过夜。这时，一个警察把我拉到一边，悄悄问我是因为什么进来的。
The way the system works in South Africa is that you’re arrested and held in a cell at the police station until your bail hearing. At the hearing, the judge looks at your case, hears arguments from the opposing sides, and then he either dismisses the charges or sets bail and a trial date. If you can make bail, you pay and go home. But there are all sorts of ways your bail hearing can go wrong: You get some court-appointed lawyer who hasn’t read your case and doesn’t know what’s going on. Your family can’t pay your bail. It could even be that the court’s backed up. “Sorry, we’re too busy. No more hearings today.” It doesn’t matter the reason. Once you leave jail, you can’t go back to jail. If your situation isn’t resolved that day, you go to prison to await trial. In prison you’re housed with the people awaiting trial, not with the general population, but even the awaiting-trial section is incredibly dangerous because you have people picked up for traffic violations all the way up to proper hardened criminals. You’re stuck there together, and you can be there for days, weeks, maybe months. It’s the same way in America. If you’re poor, if you don’t know how the system works, you can slip through the cracks, and the next thing you know you’re in this weird purgatory where you’re not in prison but you’re not not in prison. You haven’t been convicted of any crime, but you’re still locked up and can’t get out.
南非的程序是这样的，你被捕后，人要关在警察局的牢房里，直到保释听证会那天。听证会上，法官会看你的案子，听取检方意见，然后要么驳回起诉，要么设定保释金额和开庭日期。如果你可以支付保释金，那付完钱就可以回家了。但是你的保释听证会可能会出现各种纰漏：譬如你的法庭指定律师没看过你的卷宗，不知道现在是在干吗；你的家人付不起保释金；或者就是法庭本身要推迟工作。“对不起，我们太忙了。今天的听证到此结束。”不管理由如何，一旦你离开拘留所，你就不能再回来了，如果你的案子当天没有得到解决，那你要被转移到监狱里继续等待。在监狱里，你会和一群等待开庭的犯人关在一起，那可不是一群普通人。庭审等待室是个极其凶险的地方，和你关在一起的人中，小到违反交通法规的司机，大到不知悔改的惯犯，应有尽有。你和他们关在一起，可能有好几天，好几周，甚至好几个月。在美国也一样。如果你很穷，如果你不知道系统规则是什么样的，就很可能掉进这个裂缝中，然后你会发现，你身处一个诡异的炼狱之内，即不在监狱里，也不是不在监狱里。你没有被判有罪，但是你依然被关了起来，无法出去。
Now I needed money, because lawyers, as nice as they are, don’t do anything for free. I called a friend and asked him if he could ask his dad to borrow some money. He said he’d handle it. He talked to his dad, and the lawyer got his retainer the next day.
现在，我需要的是钱。尽管律师人很好，但他不是做慈善的。我给一个朋友打电话，问他能否向他爸爸借一点儿钱。他说包在他身上了。他和他父亲讲了之后，律师第二天拿到了预付款。
This cop pulled me aside and said, “Listen, you don’t want to go to your bail hearing. They’ll give you a state attorney who won’t know what’s going on. He’ll have no time for you. He’ll ask the judge for a postponement, and then maybe you’ll go free or maybe you won’t. Trust me, you don’t want to do that. You have the right to stay here for as long as you like. You want to meet with a lawyer and set yourself up before you go anywhere near a court or a judge.” He wasn’t giving me this advice out of the goodness of his heart. He had a deal with a defense attorney, sending him clients in exchange for a kickback. He handed me the attorney’s business card, I called him, and he agreed to take my case. He told me to stay put while he handled everything.
那个警察把我拉到一边说：“听着，你绝对不想就这么直接去保释听证。他们会给你派一个完全不了解情况的检察官，他没空在你身上浪费时间，而是会向法官申请延期，然后你可能就自由了，但也有可能就会被一直关起来。信我，你可不想那样。你有权在这里想待多久就待多久。你应该找个律师，在上庭见法官之前做好万全的准备。”他并不是出于好心才给我这个建议的：他和辩护律师有约定，帮他拉客户，自己从中拿回扣。他把律师的名片递到我手上，我给律师打了电话，他接了我的案子，然后让我就待在牢里，等他在外面处理好一切。
With the lawyer taken care of, I felt like I had things under control. I was feeling pretty slick. I’d handled the situation, and, most important, Mom and Abel were none the wiser.
由于有律师罩着，我感觉一切事情都尽在掌握之中，我真是聪明极了，掌控了大局，而且最关键的是，我妈和亚伯还被蒙在鼓里。
“Why do you need my shoelaces?”
“为什么要拿走鞋带？”
When the time came for lights-out a cop came and took my stuff. My belt, my wallet, my shoelaces.
到了熄灯时间，一个警察过来收走了我身上的东西：皮带，钱包，鞋带。
“So you don’t hang yourself.”
“以防你上吊。”
“Right.”
“对哦。”
I woke up the next morning with that fleeting sensation where you think something has all been a dream. Then I looked around and remembered that it wasn’t. Breakfast came, and I settled in to wait.
第二天早晨醒来后，迷迷糊糊间，我以为一切都只是一个梦。但环顾了一下四周，我才想起来这是现实。早餐来了，我开始了漫长的等待。
Even when he said that, the gravity of my situation still wasn’t sinking in. Walking to the station’s holding cell, looking around at the other six guys in there, I was thinking, This is no big deal. Everything’s gonna be cool. I’m gonna get out of this. I thought that right up until the moment the cell door clanged shut behind me and the guard yelled, “Lights out!” That’s when I thought, Oh, shit. This is real.
尽管他都这样说了，我依然不觉得我的处境有多糟。我走进警察局的拘留室，看到房间里的其他六个人，心想，没什么大不了的。一切都会很顺利，我会从这儿走出去。我正想着，牢门在我身后“砰”地关上了，守卫大吼了一声：“熄灯！”这时，我才突然意识到，哦，靠，这是来真的了。
The guards had given me a mat and a scratchy blanket. I rolled them out on the concrete floor and tried to get comfortable. Every bad prison movie I’d ever seen was racing through my head. I was thinking, I’m gonna get raped. I’m gonna get raped. I’m gonna get raped. But of course I didn’t get raped, because this wasn’t prison. It was jail, and there’s a big difference, as I would soon come to understand.
守卫给我发了一块垫子以及一床扎人的毯子。我把它们铺在水泥地上，想尽量弄得舒服些。我的脑海中呼啸着闪过以前看过的每一部监狱电影的情节。我心里想着，我要被强奸了，我要被强奸了，我要被强奸了。当然，我没有被强奸，因为这不是监狱，这只是拘留所，两者差别很大，而且我很快就会发现其中的不同。
In South Africa, everyone knows that colored gangsters are the most ruthless, the most savage. It’s a stereotype that’s fed to you your whole life. The most notorious colored gangs are the Numbers Gangs: the 26s, the 27s, the 28s. They control the prisons. They’re known for being brutally violent — maiming, torturing, raping, cutting off people’s heads — not for the sake of making money but just to prove how ruthless and savage they are, like Mexican drug cartels. In fact a lot of these gangs base their thing on those Mexican gangs. They have the same look: the Converse All Stars with the Dickies pants and the open shirt buttoned only at the top.
在南非，所有人都知道有色人种黑帮是最无情残暴的一类恶棍。这是你一辈子都无法改变的固有印象。最臭名昭著的有色人种黑帮是数字帮：26帮、27帮和28帮。他们控制着监狱，以凶狠暴力而闻名——打人致残、酷刑折磨、强奸、砍头——他们干这些事都不是为了赚钱，只为证明他们是有多么凶残，堪比墨西哥贩毒团伙。事实上，很多这类黑帮成员都在模仿墨西哥黑帮的样子，连外形都是：匡威的鞋子，迪凯斯的裤子，开襟衬衫，纽扣只系最上面一颗。
A day in jail is mostly silence punctuated by passing guards shouting profanities at you, doing roll call. Inside the holding cell nobody says anything. Nobody walks into a jail cell and says, “Hi, guys! I’m Brian!” Because everyone is afraid, and no one wants to appear vulnerable. Nobody wants to be the bitch. Nobody wants to be the guy getting killed. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was just a kid in for a traffic charge, so I reached back in my mind for all the stereotypes of what I imagined people act like in prison, and then I tried to act like that.
拘留所的第一天过得特别安静，只是偶尔有经过的守卫大声骂人，列队点名。在拘留室里，没人开口说话。没有人会在走进拘留室后说：“嗨，大家好！我是布莱恩！”因为每个人都很害怕，没人想被其他人杀掉。我也不想让任何人知道我只是个违反交通法规的小孩，我使劲地在脑海里搜刮各种蹲监狱的犯人形象，然后努力装出那副样子来。
By the time I was a teenager, anytime I was profiled by cops or security guards, it usually wasn’t because I was black but because I looked colored. I went to a club once with my cousin and his friend. The bouncer searched Mlungisi, waved him in. He searched our friend, waved him in. Then he searched me and got up in my face.
那时我还是个少年，每次被警察或保安盘查，通常都不是因为我是黑人，而是由于我看上去是个有色人种。有一次我和表兄以及他的朋友去俱乐部玩，门口的保安搜了下穆隆格斯，挥手让他进去了，搜了我们的朋友，也挥手让他进去了。但轮到我的时候，瞪着我的脸说。
“I don’t have a knife.”
“我没有刀。”
“Where’s your knife?”
“你的刀呢？”
“No shit from you! Okay?”
“别找麻烦！知道吗？”
I figured that if I was in jail people were going to assume I was the kind of colored person who ends up in jail, a violent criminal. So I played it up. I put on this character; I played the stereotype. Anytime the cops asked me questions I started speaking in broken Afrikaans with a thick colored accent. Imagine a white guy in America, just dark enough to pass for Latino, walking around jail doing bad Mexican-gangster dialogue from the movies. “Shit’s about to get loco, ese.” That’s basically what I was doing — the South African version of that. This was my brilliant plan to survive incarceration. But it worked. The guys in the cell with me, they were there for drunk driving, for domestic abuse, for petty theft. They had no idea what real colored gangsters were like. Everyone left me alone.
我忖度着，如果我进了监狱，人们肯定会觉得我是那种犯了重罪被抓进来的有色人种黑帮成员。所以我开始了我的表演。我假装我就是那种人，做戏就要做全套。每次警察问我问题，我都操着一口磕磕巴巴的南非荷兰语，带着浓重的有色人种口音。想象一下，一个肤色略深的美国白人，从外形上足以被认作是拉美人。他走进监狱，说着一口从电影里学来的墨西哥黑帮口音：“事情要开始变得麻烦了呢，朋友。”我就是这么做的——只不过是南非版本。这是我为了挨过牢狱时光想出来的绝佳计划，而且居然奏效了。那些和我关在一处的家伙，罪行不过是酒驾、家暴和小偷小摸，他们都没见过真正的有色人种黑帮，因此，所有人都不敢招惹我。
“I know you have a knife somewhere. Where is it?”
“我知道你身上哪里藏了刀，在哪儿？”
He searched and searched and finally gave up and let me in, looking me over like I was trouble.
他搜来搜去，最终只好让我进去，但他看着我的表情，就好像我一定会惹麻烦一样。
At a certain point it occurred to me that every single person in that cell might be faking it. We were all decent guys from nice neighborhoods and good families, picked up for unpaid parking tickets and other infractions. We could have been having a great time sharing meals, playing cards, and talking about women and soccer. But that didn’t happen, because everyone had adopted this dangerous pose and nobody talked because everyone was afraid of who the other guys were pretending to be. Now those guys were going to get out and go home to their families and say, “Oh, honey, that was rough. Those were some real criminals in there. There was this one colored guy. Man, he was a killer.”
某一瞬间我忽然意识到，这间牢房里的每个人应该都在装。我们其实都是来自良好的社区，有着良好家底的文明人，被关在这里或许只是因为少交了一次停车费，或者犯了什么其他的小错误。我们本应该相处融洽，一起吃饭，打牌，聊聊女人和足球。但是这不可能，因为所有人都摆出了一副自己很危险的架势，没人开口说话，是因为所有人都被其他人的装腔作势唬到了。等他们出去后，回到家里就会说：“天哪，宝贝，太可怕了。里面有一些真正的重刑犯，而且还有个有色人种，我的老天，他杀过人。”
We were all playing a game, only nobody knew we were playing it. When I walked in that first night, everyone was giving me this look: “I’m dangerous. Don’t fuck with me.” So I went, “Shit, these people are hardened criminals. I shouldn’t be here, because I am not a criminal.” Then the next day everything turned over quickly. One by one, guys left to go to their hearings, I stayed to wait for my lawyer, and new people started to pitch up. Now I was the veteran, doing my colored-gangster routine, giving the new guys the same look: “I’m dangerous. Don’t fuck with me.” And they looked at me and went, “Shit, he’s a hardened criminal. I shouldn’t be here, because I am not like him.” And round and round we went.
我们都在玩这个游戏，只是没人知道我们在玩游戏。我第一夜走进那间拘留室时，所有人的脸上都写着：“我很危险。别惹我。”我心想，“天哪，他们都是重刑犯，我不该来这儿，因为我没犯罪。”到了第二天，情况迅速反转，这些家伙一个个去参加听证会了，我留在那儿等我的律师，而新人不断被送进来。现在，我成了老油条，扮演着那套有色人种黑帮的戏码，恶狠狠地望着新人，脸上写着：“我很危险，别惹我。”他们看着我，心想：“天哪，他是个重刑犯，我不该来这儿的，我和他不一样。”每天都这么重复，一轮接一轮。
Once I had the game sorted out, I was good again. I relaxed. I was back to thinking, I got this. This is no big deal. The food was actually decent. For breakfast they brought you these peanut butter sandwiches on thick slices of bread. Lunch was chicken and rice. The tea was too hot, and it was more water than tea, but it was drinkable. There were older, hard-time prisoners close to parole, and their detail was to come and clean the cells and circulate books and magazines for you to read. It was quite relaxing.
自从我摸清了里头的门道后，就没事了。我放松了下来，开始感觉我又搞定了一件事，没什么大不了的。我吃得还不错。早饭有花生酱三明治，面包片很厚。午饭是鸡肉和米饭。茶很烫，而且很淡，但是能喝。有一些在你之前进来的老犯人快要被释放时，会过来清掉牢房，然后把书和杂志分发下来，供大家传阅。其实，里面的日子还挺让人放松的。
There was one point when I remember eating a meal and saying to myself, This isn’t so bad. I hang around with a bunch of dudes. There’s no chores. No bills to pay. No one constantly nagging me and telling me what to do. Peanut butter sandwiches? Shit, I eat peanut butter sandwiches all the time. This is pretty sweet. I could do this. I was so afraid of the ass-whooping waiting for me at home that I genuinely considered going to prison. For a brief moment I thought I had a plan. “I’ll go away for a couple of years, come back, and say I was kidnapped, and mom will never know and she’ll just be happy to see me.”
我记得有那么一瞬间，我一边吃着饭，一边对自己说，这日子不赖嘛。我可以和一堆人待在一起。没有杂事要管，没有账单要付，没人在旁边一直唠叨让我干这干那。花生酱三明治？天，我可以一直吃花生酱三明治。这日子真不错。我可以这么一直过下去。我真的很害怕回家之后等待我的那顿暴揍，所以我真的琢磨了一下怎么才能在监狱里一直住下去的事。想了会儿，我有了一个计划。“我可以消失个几年，再回来，跟大家说，我之前被绑架了，我妈永远也不会知道，她只会沉浸在与我重逢的喜悦之中。”
On the third day, the cops brought in the largest man I’d ever seen. This guy was huge. Giant muscles. Dark skin. Hardened face. He looked like he could kill all of us. Me and the other prisoners who’d been acting tough with one another — the second he walked in our tough-guy routines were over. Everyone was terrified. We all stared at him. “Oh, fuck…”
到了第三天，警察带进来一个我一生中见过的最壮的男人。简直是个巨人。发达的肌肉，黝黑的皮肤，严峻的脸庞，看上去可以把我们所有人都捏死。我和牢里其他人本来在互相装凶——但他走进来的那一瞬，我们的恶人面具就全卸下来了。所有人都吓得瑟瑟发抖。我们一起盯着他：“妈的，完蛋了…”
This guy went and sat alone in the corner. Nobody said a word. Everyone watched and waited, nervously, to see what he would do. Then one of the cops came back and called the Hulk over; they needed information from him. The cop started asking him a bunch of questions, but the guy kept shaking his head and saying he didn’t understand. The cop was speaking Zulu. The Hulk was speaking Tsonga. Black person to black person, and neither could understand the other — the Tower of Babel. Few people in South Africa speak Tsonga, but since my stepfather was Tsonga I had picked it up along the way. I overheard the cop and the other guy going back and forth with nothing getting across, so I stepped in and translated for them and sorted everything out.
这个家伙走进来后，静静地找了个角落坐着。没有人说话。所有人都在观望，等待，心中忐忑着，看他接下来要干什么。有个警察进来叫绿巨人过去，要做信息备案。警察开始问他一连串的问题，但是这个家伙只是不断摇头，说他听不懂。警察说的是祖鲁语，绿巨人说的是聪加语。黑人与黑人面对面交流，却像鸡同鸭讲——又是巴别塔。在南非，很少人会说聪加语，但是我的继父是聪加人，因此耳濡目染，我也学了一些。听到警察和那个家伙你一句我一句，却什么都交流不了，我就走上前，开始帮他们做翻译。
For whatever reason this guy was half naked when the cops picked him up. He was wearing clothes the police had scrounged up for him at the station, this torn-up wifebeater that was way too small, pants so short on him they looked like capris. He looked like a black version of the Incredible Hulk.
也不知出于什么原因，他被警察带过来的时候是半裸的，穿着警察局给他搜罗来的衣服，但那件磨破的背心穿在他身上实在太小，裤子也太短，看上去简直像女式紧身裤。他那样子，就像是个黑人版的绿巨人。
That is exactly what happened with the Hulk. The second I spoke to him, this face that had seemed so threatening and mean lit up with gratitude. “Ah, na khensa, na khensa, na khensa. Hi wena mani? Mufana wa mukhaladi u xitiela kwini xiTsonga? U huma kwini?” “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Who are you? How does a colored guy know Tsonga? Where are you from?”
这就是我和绿巨人之间发生的化学反应。当我向他开口说聪加语的那一刻起，他之前那张看上去很吓人的脸，突然之间泛起了充满感激的神采。“啊，谢谢你，谢谢你，谢谢你。你是谁？为什么一个有色人能说聪加语？你从哪儿来的？”
Nelson Mandela once said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” He was so right. When you make the effort to speak someone else’s language, even if it’s just basic phrases here and there, you are saying to them, “I understand that you have a culture and identity that exists beyond me. I see you as a human being.”
纳尔逊·曼德拉曾经说：“如果你用一个人听得懂的语言与他交流，他会记在脑子里；如果你用他自己的语言与他交流，他会记在心里。”他说得太对了。如果你努力去说另一个人的语言，哪怕只是简单不成句的短语词组，在他眼里，你也是在说：“我明白你身上具有与我不同的文化背景和身份象征。在我眼里，你是一个堂堂正正的人。”
Once we started talking I realized he wasn’t the Hulk at all. He was the sweetest man, a gentle giant, the biggest teddy bear in the world. He was simple, not educated. I’d assumed he was in for murder, for squashing a family to death with his bare hands, but it wasn’t anything like that. He’d been arrested for shoplifting PlayStation games. He was out of work and needed money to send to his family back home, and when he saw how much these games sold for he thought he could steal a few and sell them to white kids and make a lot of money. As soon as he told me that, I knew he wasn’t some hardened criminal. I know the world of pirated things — stolen videogames have no value because it’s cheaper and less risky to copy them, like Bolo’s parents did.
我们一开始聊天，我就发现他根本不是绿巨人。他是这世界上最温柔最贴心的人，简直是一只大大的泰迪熊。他人很简单，没有上过学。我之前以为他被抓进来是因为谋杀，赤手空拳把一家人打死那种，但是他的罪行和那一点儿都不沾边。他是因为偷电脑游戏碟片而被抓的。他失业了，需要钱来养家糊口，他看到那些游戏的价格，以为可以偷一点儿，卖给白人小孩，赚一笔钱。他一告诉我这个，我就知道他根本不是什么重刑犯。因为我太了解盗版的世界了——偷来的游戏碟根本不值钱，因为盗版游戏的价格要便宜得多，而且没什么风险，就像博洛的父母做的那样。
I tried to help him out a bit. I told him my trick of putting off your bail hearing to get your defense together, so he stayed in the cell, too, biding his time, and we hit it off and hung out for a few days, having a good time, getting to know each other. No one else in the cell knew what to make of us, the ruthless colored gangster and his menacing, Hulk-like friend. He told me his story, a South African story that was all too familiar to me: The man grows up under apartheid, working on a farm, part of what’s essentially a slave labor force. It’s a living hell but it’s at least something. He’s paid a pittance but at least he’s paid. He’s told where to be and what to do every waking minute of his day. Then apartheid ends and he doesn’t even have that anymore. He finds his way to Johannesburg, looking for work, trying to feed his children back home. But he’s lost. He has no education. He has no skills. He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know where to be. The world has been taught to be scared of him, but the reality is that he is scared of the world because he has none of the tools necessary to cope with it. So what does he do? He takes shit. He becomes a petty thief. He’s in and out of jail. He gets lucky and finds some construction work, but then he gets laid off from that, and a few days later he’s in a shop and he sees some PlayStation games and he grabs them, but he doesn’t even know enough to know that he’s stolen something of no value.
我努力给他提供了帮助。我跟他讲了先准备辩护词、尽量拖延庭审的小技巧，于是他也在拘留所里住了下来，等着被传讯，我们一拍即合，和睦相处了好几天，很开心，也对彼此有了更多了解。牢房里其他人都完全不明白我们俩到底是什么人，一个是冷酷无情的有色人种黑帮小子，一个是他那来势汹汹、绿巨人一样的朋友。他给我讲了他的故事，一个再熟悉不过的南非故事：他成长在种族隔离制度的环境里，在农场工作，基本干的就是奴隶的活儿。那里就是地狱，但起码还能有一点点收入。他的工资少得可怜，但起码还有工资。每一天的每分每秒，都有人指使他干这个干那个。但种族隔离结束了，他连这样的生活也没有了。他千辛万苦地来到了约翰内斯堡，希望能找份工作，试图养活家里的孩子。但是他完全蒙了。他没受过教育。他没有任何技能。他不知道该做什么，甚至不知道该去哪儿。这个世界已经形成了一种惯性思维，就是让人们惧怕拥有他这样外形的人，但是现实却是，他也在惧怕着整个世界，因为他不具备任何一项生存技能，无法在世界上苟活下去。他能怎么办呢？他只能忍。后来他成了小偷，时不时地被抓进牢里。有一次，幸运降临，他找到一份做建筑工的工作，但后来又被解雇了。几天后，他在商店里看到几张电脑游戏碟，就伸手顺走了，但以他的理解能力，他根本不知道自己偷来的这些东西几乎一文不值。
The day of my hearing came. I said goodbye to my new friend and wished him the best. Then I was handcuffed and put in the back of a police van and driven to the courthouse to meet my fate. In South African courts, to minimize your exposure and your opportunities for escape, the holding cell where you await your hearing is a massive pen below the courtroom; you walk up a set of stairs into the dock rather than being escorted through the corridors. What happens in the holding cell is you’re mixed in with the people who’ve been in prison awaiting trial for weeks and months. It’s a weird mix, everything from white-collar criminals to guys picked up on traffic stops to real, hardcore criminals covered with prison tattoos. It’s like the cantina scene from Star Wars, where the band’s playing music and Han Solo’s in the corner and all of the bad guys and bounty hunters from all over the universe are hanging out — a wretched hive of scum and villainy, only there’s no music and there’s no Han Solo.
我的听证会终于来了。我和我的新朋友告了别，祝他一切顺利。然后我被戴上手铐，塞进了警车的后座，前往法庭，直面我的命运。在南非的法庭上，为了尽量降低犯人的曝光机会，并防止他们逃跑，等待被传讯时，犯人会被关在法庭下面的牢房里，等轮到你的时候，不用被押解着走过长长的走廊，而是沿着一条楼梯直接走上审讯台。在这个牢房里，你会和那些在这里等传讯等了几周甚至几个月的犯人共处一室。这是很诡异的一群人，有犯了小罪的白领，有被交警拦下来的倒霉蛋，也有浑身都是监狱文身的重刑犯。就好像《星球大战》里的酒馆场景，乐队在演奏音乐，韩索洛坐在角落里，而来自整个宇宙的坏人和赏金猎人们共处一堂——一个同样充满了人渣与罪恶的巢穴，只不过这里面没有音乐，也没有韩索洛。
I felt terrible for him. The more time I spent in jail, the more I realized that the law isn’t rational at all. It’s a lottery. What color is your skin? How much money do you have? Who’s your lawyer? Who’s the judge? Shoplifting PlayStation games was less of an offense than driving with bad number plates. He had committed a crime, but he was no more a criminal than I was. The difference was that he didn’t have any friends or family to help him out. He couldn’t afford anything but a state attorney. He was going to go stand in the dock, unable to speak or understand English, and everyone in the courtroom was going to assume the worst of him. He was going to go to prison for a while and then be set free with the same nothing he had going in. If I had to guess, he was around thirty-five, forty years old, staring down another thirty-five, forty years of the same.
我为他感到难过。我在牢里待的时间越久，就越觉得法律并不理智，几乎跟买彩票一样随机。你是什么肤色？你有多少钱？你的律师是谁？你的法官是谁？偷电脑游戏的罪行，比驾驶假牌照汽车的罪还要轻微。他是犯了罪，但是他还不如我更像罪犯。我们之间的区别，就是他没有家人或朋友能帮他出去。他付不起任何钱，只能等州检察官来处理他的案子。他要站在审判台上，没法说一句也没法听懂一句英文，而法庭上的所有人都会把他想成最坏的样子。他会坐一段时间的牢，然后被释放，且和坐牢之前一样一无所有。如果要猜的话，他现在大概三十五或四十岁的样子，而在他可预见的未来三十五或者四十年里，也会和现在没有任何差别。
When I walked into that holding pen, I was a smooth-skinned, fresh-faced young man. At the time, I had a giant Afro, and the only way to control it was to have it tied back in this ponytail thing that looked really girly. I looked like Maxwell. The guards closed the door behind me, and this creepy old dude yelled out in Zulu from the back, “Ha, ha, ha! Hhe madoda! Angikaze ngibone indoda enhle kangaka! Sizoba nobusuku obuhle!” “Yo, yo, yo! Damn, guys. I’ve never seen a man this beautiful before. It’s gonna be a good night tonight!”
走进那间牢房的我，是个皮肤光滑，面孔青涩的年轻人。那个时候，我的发型是个巨大的黑人爆炸头，唯一让它整齐的办法，是把它往后梳成一个辫子，但这样看上去女里女气的，就像麦克斯韦尔。守卫在我身后关上门后，一个很恶心的老男人在后排用祖鲁语大声说着：“哟，哟，哟！妈的，伙计们。我从没见过这么漂亮的男人。今夜将会是很有意思的一夜。”
Fuuuuuuuuuck.
他——妈——的。
I was with these people for only a brief window of time, but in that moment I saw the difference between prison and jail. I saw the difference between criminals and people who’ve committed crimes. I saw the hardness in people’s faces. I thought back on how naive I’d been just hours before, thinking jail wasn’t so bad and I could handle it. I was now truly afraid of what might happen to me.
我只和这些人共处了很短的时间，但在这段时间里，我便已经发现监狱和拘留所的不同。我看到了罪犯和只是犯了小罪的人的不同。我看到了人们脸上的冷酷表情。我开始意识到，几个小时以前的我是那么天真，竟然觉得坐牢的体验没多糟，我还能接受。而现在的我，真的开始担心起自己接下来会受到什么样的对待了。
Right next to me as I walked in was a young man having a complete meltdown, talking to himself, bawling his eyes out. He looked up and locked eyes with me, and I guess he thought I looked like a kindred soul he could talk to. He came straight at me and started crying about how he’d been arrested and thrown in jail and the gangs had stolen his clothes and his shoes and raped him and beat him every day. He wasn’t some ruffian. He was well-spoken, educated. He’d been waiting for a year for his case to be heard; he wanted to kill himself. That guy put the fear of God in me.
我身边有个年轻人，显然已经崩溃了。他自然自语，大声恸哭着。他抬起头，和我四目相对，我猜他觉得我看上去是个能聊得来的人，所以他直接向我冲过来，开始向我哭诉他是如何被捕，被丢进监狱，以及那些罪犯怎么偷了他的衣服和鞋，还强奸他，每天打他。他不是什么流氓。他用词文雅，是读过书的人。但他已经在这儿等了一年了，他想自杀。这个人让我从心底里涌起了极大的恐惧。
I looked around the holding cell. There were easily a hundred guys in there, all of them spread out and huddled into their clearly and unmistakably defined racial groups: a whole bunch of black people in one corner, the colored people in a different corner, a couple of Indians off to themselves, and a handful of white guys off to one side. The guys who’d been with me in the police van, the second we walked in, they instinctively, automatically, walked off to join the groups they belonged to. I froze.
我环视整个牢房，里面约有一百来号人，四散在各个角落，以各自的种族组成明确无误的小团体，挤成一团：一群黑人占了一个角落，一群有色人种占了另一个角落，几个印度人自己抱团，还有几个白人站在一边。那些和我一辆警车押过来的家伙，在我们踏进这个大隔间的一瞬间，就已经出于直觉，自动走到他们所属的圈子里去了。而我只能待在原地。
I didn’t know where to go.
我不知道该去哪儿。
But then what if I went to the black corner? I know that I’m black and I identify as black, but I’m not a black person on the face of it, so would the black guys understand why I was walking over? And what kind of shit would I start by going there? Because going to the black corner as a perceived colored person might piss off the colored gangs even more than going to the colored corner as a fake colored person. Because that’s what had happened to me my entire life. Colored people would see me hanging out with blacks, and they’d confront me, want to fight me. I saw myself starting a race war in the holding cell.
那么，我走到黑人的角落里怎么样？我知道我是黑人，我也觉得自己是黑人，但是我的脸长得不像黑人，所以那些黑人看我走过来会怎么想？我走过去又会招惹什么麻烦呢？因为你看上去是个有色人种，但你又往黑人圈子里扎，这比我假装自己是有色人种暴匪，往有色人种圈子扎，更能激怒有色人种。有色人种会觉得我是在讨好黑人，他们就会和我杠上，过来揍我一顿。我仿佛看到自己要在这个牢房里引发一场种族战争。
I looked over at the colored corner. I was staring at the most notorious, most violent prison gang in South Africa. I looked like them, but I wasn’t them. I couldn’t go over there doing my fake gangster shit and have them discover I was a fraud. No, no, no. That game was over, my friend. The last thing I needed was colored gangsters up against me.
我看向有色人种的那个角落。那些人是南非最臭名昭著、最暴力无情的监狱黑帮团伙。我长得跟他们很像，但我和他们不是一类人。我没法走过去，跟他们假装我也是个暴匪，因为他们立刻就会发现我是冒牌货。不行不行不行。我已经没法再玩儿那套把戏了，朋友。我此时可不能招惹有色人种黑帮。
“Ah, yes. I know it looks that way, friend, but let me explain. It’s a funny story, actually. My father is white and my mother is black and race is a social construct, so…”
“啊，对，我知道我看起来是有色人种，但是请容我解释，这个故事其实还挺搞笑的。我爸是白人，我妈是黑人，而种族问题其实是一种社会建构…
“No, you’re not. You’re colored.”
“不，你不是。你是有色人种。”
“Hey! Why are you hanging out with the blacks?”
“嘿！为什么你要和那群黑人混？”
“Because I am black.”
“因为我是黑人。”
That wasn’t going to work. Not here.
那样行不通。起码在这里不行。
All of this was happening in my head in an instant, on the fly. I was doing crazy calculations, looking at people, scanning the room, assessing the variables. If I go here, then this. If I go there, then that. My whole life was flashing before me — the playground at school, the spaza shops in Soweto, the streets of Eden Park — every time and every place I ever had to be a chameleon, navigate between groups, explain who I was. It was like the high school cafeteria, only it was the high school cafeteria from hell because if I picked the wrong table I might get beaten or stabbed or raped. I’d never been more scared in my life. But I still had to pick. Because racism exists, and you have to pick a side. You can say that you don’t pick sides, but eventually life will force you to pick a side.
所有以上这些念头，在我脑中只花了一秒钟，闪电般的速度。我在脑内做着疯狂的运算，看着屋里的所有人，扫描屋里的每个角落，检测各项变量。如果我往这儿走，会发生这个。如果我往那儿走，会发生那个。我的整个人生都在眼前一晃而过——学校的操场，索韦托的小卖部，伊登公园的街道——我每一次化为变色龙的时间、地点、人物，我在不同种族之间游刃有余，解释我是谁。我好像回到了高中食堂里，只是这里是来自地狱的高中食堂，如果我选错了桌子，就会被暴打，被刀捅，被强奸。我从未在人生中感到如此大的恐惧。但是我依然要选。因为种族主义在这里，你必须要选边站队。你可以说你不要选，但最终生活会强迫你选。
Luckily the time went by fairly quickly. I was in there for only an hour before I was called up to court, where a judge would either let me go or send me to prison to await trial. As I was leaving, one of the white guys reached over to me. “Make sure you don’t come back down here,” he said. “Cry in front of the judge; do whatever you have to do. If you go up and get sent back down here, your life will never be the same.”
幸运的是，时间过得飞快。我在这里只待了一个小时，就被法庭传讯了。到时候，法官要么会放我走，要么会把我投进监狱，等待最终审判。我起身离开的时候，一个白人向我凑过来。“千万别再回这里了，”他说，“在法官面前哭吧，做你能做的一切去卖惨。如果你去了又被送回来，日子可不会再这么好过了。”
That day I picked white. They just didn’t look like they could hurt me. It was a handful of average, middle-aged white dudes. I walked over to them. We hung out for a while, chatted a bit. They were mostly in for white-collar crimes, money schemes, fraud and racketeering. They’d be useless if anyone came over looking to start trouble; they’d get their asses kicked as well. But they weren’t going to do anything to me. I was safe.
那天，我选择了白人。只因为他们看上去应该不会伤害我。那是几个普通的中年白人。我向他们走过去，和他们厮混了一会儿，聊了聊天。他们进来主要都是由于犯了白领工作上的罪，譬如有关金钱的诈骗勒索。如果有人要走过来找麻烦，他们派不上任何用场，他们自己也会挨揍，但是起码他们不会对我造成什么危险，我是安全的。
Up in the courtroom, I found my lawyer waiting. My cousin Mlungisi was there, too, in the gallery, ready to post my bail if things went my way.
到了法庭上，我看到我的律师在等我。我的表兄穆隆格斯也在，他坐在旁听席上，准备等着一切顺利结束后，帮我付保释金。
The bailiff read out my case number, and the judge looked up at me.
法警念出我的卷宗号码后，法官望向我。
“Why are you telling me this?”
“干吗要跟我说这个？”
“Who asked you?”
“谁问你了？”
“I didn’t say, ‘How are you?’ I said, ‘Who are you?’ Why would I waste time asking ‘How are you?’! This is jail. I know everyone is suffering down there. If I asked everyone ‘How are you?’ we’d be here all day. I said, ‘Who are you?’ State your name for the record.”
“我说的不是‘你好吗’（how are you），我说的是‘你是谁’（who are you），我干吗要浪费时间问你好不好！这里是监狱，我知道所有人都在底下受罪呢。如果我跟每个人都问‘你好吗’就要在这儿耗上一天了。我说的是‘你是谁’，报上你的名字，备案。”
“Because you asked how I was.”
“因为您问我好不好。”
I said, “I’m not fine, sir. I’m really suffering.”
我说：“我不好，法官，我真的很痛苦。”
“Okay. Now we can carry on.”
“好，我们可以继续了。”
“You did. You just asked me.”
“您问的。您刚刚问的。”
“How are you?” he said.
“你好吗？”他说。
I broke down. I’d been putting on this tough-guy facade for nearly a week, and I just couldn’t do it anymore.
我崩溃了。整整一周，我都在假装自己是个硬汉暴匪，但此刻却再也装不下去了。
“Trevor Noah.”
“特雷弗·诺亚。”
It turned out that I needn’t have been worried. Everything that happened next took only a few minutes. My lawyer had talked to the prosecutor and everything had been arranged beforehand. He presented my case. I had no priors. I wasn’t dangerous. There were no objections from the opposing side. The judge assigned my trial date and set my bail, and I was free to go.
结果证明，我并不需要担心。整个流程只花了几分钟就结束了。我的律师向检察官阐明事实经过，一切已经提前安排好了。他详述了我的卷宗。我没有前科。我不具危险性。反方没有表达反对意见。法官确认了我的审讯日期，准予保释，我自由了。
“I-I’m not fine, Your Honor. I’m not fine.”
“我，我不好，尊敬的法官。我不好。”
He looked confused. “What?!”
他看上去很迷惑。“什么？！”
The whole courtroom started laughing, so then I started laughing, too. But now I was even more petrified because I didn’t want the judge to think I wasn’t taking him seriously because I was laughing.
整个法庭的人都笑了起来，我也开始笑。但我现在更害怕了，我不希望法官因为我笑，就觉得我没把他当回事。
I drove with Mlungisi to his place, took a shower, and slept there. The next day he dropped me back at my mom’s house. I strolled up the driveway acting real casual. My plan was to say I’d been crashing with Mlungisi for a few days. I walked into the house like nothing had happened. “Hey, Mom! What’s up?” Mom didn’t say anything, didn’t ask me any questions. I was like, Okay. Cool. We’re good.
我和穆隆格斯开车先回了他家，洗了个澡，睡了一觉。第二天，他开车把我送回我妈的家。下车后，我优哉游哉地走在车道上，假装一切如常。我的计划是说我在穆隆格斯家借宿了几天。我走进房子里，表现得好像没事人一样。“嘿，妈！怎么样？”我妈什么都没说，什么都没问。我想，好了，棒，没事了。
I walked out of court and the light of day hit my face and I said, “Sweet Jesus, I am never going back there again.” It had been only a week, in a cell that wasn’t terribly uncomfortable with food that wasn’t half bad, but a week in jail is a long, long time. A week without shoelaces is a long, long time. A week with no clocks, with no sun, can feel like an eternity. The thought of anything worse, the thought of doing real time in a real prison, I couldn’t even imagine.
我走出法庭的那一刻，阳光照射在我的脸上，我说：“亲爱的耶稣，我再也不要回到这个地方了。”时间只过去了一周。在拘留所里，我的日子没有那么糟，吃得也还算可以，但是在牢里的一周，真的是太漫长、太漫长了。没有鞋带的一周，实在是太漫长、太漫长了。没有钟表、没有太阳的一周，简直让人体会到了永恒的滋味。而那些更糟的情况，在真正的监狱里度过真正的时光，我连想都不敢想。
I stayed for most of the day. Later in the afternoon we were sitting at the kitchen table, talking. I was telling all these stories, going on about everything Mlungisi and I had been up to that week, and I caught my mom giving me this look, slowly shaking her head. It was a different look than I had ever seen her give before. It wasn’t “One day, I’m going to catch you.” It wasn’t anger or disapproval. It was disappointment. She was hurt.
我在家待了一天。下午晚些时候，我们坐在厨房的桌子旁聊天。我在那儿编故事，说我和穆隆格斯这周都干了什么什么，然后瞥见我妈脸上露出了一种奇怪的表情。她缓缓地摇着头。我从未在她脸上见过这样的表情。她的样子不是在说：“有一天，我一定会逮到你。”不是生气，或不同意。那是失望的表情。她很心痛。
The truth came spilling out. Of course she’d known: the car. It had been missing the whole time. I’d been so wrapped up in dealing with jail and covering my tracks I’d forgotten that the proof of my crime was right there in the yard, the red Mazda missing from the driveway. And of course when I called my friend and he’d asked his dad for the money for the lawyer, the dad had pressed him on what the money was for and, being a parent himself, had called my mother immediately. She’d given my friend the money to pay the lawyer. She’d given my cousin the money to pay my bail. I’d spent the whole week in jail thinking I was so slick. But she’d known everything the whole time.
真相就这么哗啦啦洒了一地。她当然知道了：那辆车。那辆车丢了一周。我一直忙着处理坐牢的事情，掩盖我的足迹，却忘了我的罪证就在院子里，那辆红色马自达不见了。当然，我给朋友打电话，他跟他父亲借钱付我的律师费时，他父亲逼他说出了钱的用处，同样是为人父母，那个父亲立刻给我母亲去了电话。我母亲把钱给了我朋友，让他去付律师费。也是她，把钱给了我表兄，让他来付我的保释金。这一周我都在牢里自我感觉良好，以为我有多聪明，却没想到，她从始至终都对发生的一切了如指掌。
“I know you see me as some crazy old bitch nagging at you,” she said, “but you forget the reason I ride you so hard and give you so much shit is because I love you. Everything I have ever done I’ve done from a place of love. If I don’t punish you, the world will punish you even worse. The world doesn’t love you. If the police get you, the police don’t love you. When I beat you, I’m trying to save you. When they beat you, they’re trying to kill you.”
“我知道，你现在觉得我就是个疯婆子，在这儿唠唠叨叨，”她说，“但是你忘了，我之所以要那样管你、约束你，是因为我爱你。我所做的一切都是出于爱的前提。如果我不惩罚你，这个世界会给你更糟的惩罚。这个世界并不爱你。如果警察抓了你，警察并不爱你。我打你的时候，我是在试图救你。他们打你的时候，他们是要杀了你。”
“What?” I said. “What is it?”
“怎么了？”我说，“你怎么了？”
She said, “Boy, who do you think paid your bail? Hmm? Who do you think paid your lawyer? Do you think I’m an idiot? Did you think no one would tell me?”
她说：“孩子，你以为谁给你付的保释金？嗯？你以为谁给你付的律师费？你以为我是傻子？你以为没人告诉我？”
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