第六章: 漏洞 Loopholes
My mom thought having a child was going to be like having a partner, but every child is born the center of its own universe, incapable of understanding the world beyond its own wants and needs, and I was no different. I was a voracious kid. I consumed boxes of books and wanted more, more, more. I ate like a pig. The way I ate I should have been obese. At a certain point the family thought I had worms. Whenever I went to my cousins’ house for the holidays, my mom would drop me off with a bag of tomatoes, onions, and potatoes and a large sack of cornmeal. That was her way of preempting any complaints about my visit. At my gran’s house I always got seconds, which none of the other kids got. My grandmother would give me the pot and say, “Finish it.” If you didn’t want to wash the dishes, you called Trevor. They called me the rubbish bin of the family. I ate and ate and ate.
我妈妈以为有了孩子就好像有了伙伴，但其实每个小孩生下来都以为自己是宇宙的中心，并不理解自己需求以外的世界，我也不例外。我是个贪婪的小孩，看完了成箱的书，还想要看更多，更多，更多。我吃起来就像一头猪。我吃东西的样子很像要得肥胖症一样。甚至我家人都以为我肚子里长了虫。每次带我去表兄家，我妈还要带上一包西红柿、洋葱、土豆和一大袋玉米面。这样她就能先发制人，扼杀那些关于我太能吃的抱怨。在我外婆家，我总能加餐，其他孩子都没有这待遇。我外婆会递给我一口锅，说：“吃光它。”如果你不想洗碟子，叫特雷弗来。他们都叫我垃圾桶，因为我可以一直吃下去。
My mother used to tell me, “I chose to have you because I wanted something to love and something that would love me unconditionally in return — and then I gave birth to the most selfish piece of shit on earth and all it ever did was cry and eat and shit and say, ‘Me, me, me, me me.’ ”
我妈妈曾告诉我：“我选择生下你，是因为我想要去爱某样东西，并且它也会无条件地爱我——然后我就生下了这个世界上最自私的玩意儿，成天就知道哭啊吃啊拉啊，还一个劲儿地喊‘我我我我我’。”
I was hyperactive, too. I craved constant stimulation and activity. When I walked down the sidewalk as a toddler, if you didn’t have my arm in a death grip, I was off, running full-speed toward the traffic. I loved to be chased. I thought it was a game. The old grannies my mom hired to look after me while she was at work? I would leave them in tears. My mom would come home and they’d be crying. “I quit. I can’t do this. Your son is a tyrant.” It was the same with my schoolteachers, with Sunday school teachers. If you weren’t engaging me, you were in trouble. I wasn’t a shit to people. I wasn’t whiny and spoiled. I had good manners. I was just high-energy and knew what I wanted to do.
我还多动。我随时都在追求刺激，动个不停。当我在学走路的时候，走在马路上，如果你没有死命抓着我的胳膊，我就会挣脱你的手，向车流全速冲过去。我喜欢被人在后面追的感觉。我以为这是在玩儿游戏。我妈在工作的时候会雇一些老奶奶来照顾我，她们后来怎么样了？全被我弄哭了。我妈每每回到家，她们肯定在哭。“我不干了。我干不了这活儿。你儿子就是个暴君。”我的学校老师、主日学校老师，都有同样的感受。你不带我玩儿？那你麻烦大了。我并不是对人态度不好。我不会吵闹，也没有被宠坏。我很有礼貌。我只是精力太充沛，而且特别有主意。
My mom used to take me to the park so she could run me to death to burn off the energy. She’d take a Frisbee and throw it, and I’d run and catch it and bring it back. Over and over and over. Sometimes she’d throw a tennis ball. Black people’s dogs don’t play fetch; you don’t throw anything to a black person’s dog unless it’s food. So it was only when I started spending time in parks with white people and their pets that I realized my mom was training me like a dog.
我妈妈以前会带我去公园，让我在里面疯跑，把精力发泄掉。她会带个飞盘，扔出去，我狂跑着去接，拿回来给我妈。如此反复。有时候飞盘会换成网球。黑人家的狗一般都不会玩这种取物游戏，因为人只会给它们丢吃的。直到我到了公园，看到白人是怎么在遛狗的，我才意识到，我妈原来是把我当成狗在训练。
Anytime my extra energy wasn’t burned off, it would find its way into general naughtiness and misbehavior. I prided myself on being the ultimate prankster. Every teacher at school used overhead projectors to put their notes up on the wall during class. One day I went around and took the magnifying glass out of every projector in every classroom. Another time I emptied a fire extinguisher into the school piano, because I knew we were going to have a performance at assembly the next day. The pianist sat down and played the first note and, foomp!, all this foam exploded out of the piano.
如果我还有多余的精力没有发泄完，那肯定得想尽办法去调皮捣蛋。我自诩为恶作剧之王，并引以为傲。上学的时候，老师会用投影机把大纲笔记投在墙上，而我有一天转了一大圈，去每个教室把每台投影机里头的放大镜镜头都取走了。还有一次，我拿了一只灭火器，把里面的东西倒进学校的钢琴里，因为我知道第二天我们会到这里集合看表演。演奏者坐下来，刚按下琴键，嘭！所有的泡沫都从钢琴里爆了出来。
The two things I loved most were fire and knives. I was endlessly fascinated by them. Knives were just cool. I collected them from pawnshops and garage sales: flick knives, butterfly knives, the Rambo knife, the Crocodile Dundee knife. Fire was the ultimate, though. I loved fire and I especially loved fireworks. We celebrated Guy Fawkes Day in November, and every year my mom would buy us a ton of fireworks, like a mini-arsenal. I realized that I could take the gunpowder out of all the fireworks and create one massive firework of my own. One afternoon I was doing precisely that, goofing around with my cousin and filling an empty plant pot with a huge pile of gunpowder, when I got distracted by some Black Cat firecrackers. The cool thing you could do with a Black Cat was, instead of lighting it to make it explode, you could break it in half and light it and it would turn into a mini-flamethrower. I stopped midway through building my gunpowder pile to play with the Black Cats and somehow dropped a match into the pile. The whole thing exploded, throwing a massive ball of flame up in my face. Mlungisi screamed, and my mom came running into the yard in a panic.
我最喜欢的两样东西，一个是火，一个是刀。对这两样，我简直是如痴如醉。刀还好，我可以从当铺和庭院甩卖摊子上收集到各种刀：弹簧刀，蝴蝶刀，兰博猎刀，还有鳄鱼邓迪刀。但火简直是我的本命，我尤其喜欢烟火。11月的时候，我们会庆祝盖伊·福克斯日，每年到那时我妈都会买一大堆烟火，家里简直像购置了一个迷你军火库。我想到，我可以把所有烟火里的火药倒出来放到一块儿，自己做一个巨大的炮仗。有一天下午我真这么干了，我和表哥闲着无聊，把一大堆火药取出来塞进一个空花盆里，然后我的注意力被黑猫爆竹吸引了过去。黑猫爆竹的牛逼之处在于，它不仅仅是能点燃然后爆炸，你还能把它折成两半再点燃，它就能变成一个迷你的喷火器。我在做巨型炮仗的途中，忽然去玩了一会儿黑猫爆竹，不知怎么地，一根火柴落在了火药堆上。整堆火药炸了，一个巨大的火球直接腾空而起，飞到我脸上。穆隆格斯尖叫起来，我妈妈惊慌失措地跑到院子里。
“What happened?!”
“发生什么了？！”
I played it cool, even though I could still feel the heat of the fireball on my face. “Oh, nothing. Nothing happened.”
我佯装镇定，尽管我还能感受到那个火球正在我脸上灼烧。“哦，没事儿。啥事儿也没有。”
“No.”
“没啊。”
“Were you playing with fire?!”
“你玩火了？！”
She shook her head. “You know what? I would beat you, but Jesus has already exposed your lies.”
她摇摇头。“你知道吗？我可以揍你一顿，但耶稣已经揭发了你的谎话。”
I went to the toilet and looked in the mirror. My eyebrows were gone and the front inch or so of my hair was completely burned off.
我走到厕所，望向镜子。我的眉毛全没了，前面的头发大概也烧掉了几厘米的样子。
And I couldn’t help it. There’s a condition kids suffer from, a compulsive disorder that makes them do things they themselves don’t understand. You can tell a child, “Whatever you do, don’t draw on the wall. You can draw on this paper. You can draw in this book. You can draw on any surface you want. But do not draw or write or color on the wall.” The child will look you dead in the eye and say, “Got it.” Ten minutes later the child is drawing on the wall. You start screaming. “Why the hell are you drawing on the wall?!” The child looks at you, and he genuinely has no idea why he drew on the wall. As a kid, I remember having that feeling all the time. Every time I got punished, as my mom was whooping my ass, I’d be thinking, Why did I just do that? I knew not to do that. She told me not to do that. Then once the hiding was over I’d say to myself, I’m going to be so good from here on. I’m never ever going to do a bad thing in my life ever ever ever ever ever — and to remember not to do anything bad, let me write something on the wall to remind myself… and then I would pick up a crayon and get straight back into it, and I never understood why.
而且我没法控制自己。孩子们总是为此烦恼，他们好像都有强迫症，强迫自己做不理解的事。你可以跟一个小孩说：“做什么都行，就是别往墙上乱画。你可以画在纸上，或者这本书上，你想在任何地方画都行，就是别往墙上乱写乱涂。”那小孩会呆滞地看着你，说：“明白了。”十分钟后，这个小孩就会画到墙上去。你开始对这小孩尖叫：“你为什么还往墙上画？！”小孩会望向你，他真的不知道为什么要往墙上画。作为小孩，我记得自己总是处于这样的迷茫之中。每次我被惩罚，一边被我妈打屁股，一边心里在纳闷，为什么我刚才要那样做啊？我知道不该那么做的。她让我别那么做的。挨完揍，我对自己说，从现在起我要好好表现。我一辈子都不要做坏事了，再也再也再也不做了——为了要把再也不做坏事记下来，我得把这句话写在墙上提醒自己…然后我会拿起一只蜡笔，直接往墙上开始写，我至今也不明白为什么自己会这样。
“Go to the bathroom and look at yourself.”
“去厕所自己看看吧。”
“Huh?”
“哈？”
From an adult’s point of view, I was destructive and out of control, but as a child I didn’t think of it that way. I never wanted to destroy. I wanted to create. I wasn’t burning my eyebrows. I was creating fire. I wasn’t breaking overhead projectors. I was creating chaos, to see how people reacted.
从大人的角度看，我是个破坏力极强，而且也管不住的小孩。但是作为一个小孩，我一点儿也不这样认为。我从来没想过要破坏什么。我是想要创造些什么。我不是要烧掉我的眉毛。我是要创造火。我不是要弄坏投影仪，我是想制造混乱，看人们如何应对。
My mom was forever trying to rein me in. Over the years, her tactics grew more and more sophisticated. Where I had youth and energy on my side, she had cunning, and she figured out different ways to keep me in line. One Sunday we were at the shops and there was a big display of toffee apples. I loved toffee apples, and I kept nagging her the whole way through the shop. “Please can I have a toffee apple? Please can I have a toffee apple? Please can I have a toffee apple? Please can I have a toffee apple?”
我妈妈一直试图管住我。经年累月，她的策略发展得越发复杂。如果说我的优势是年轻与无限的精力，那么她的优势就是狡猾，她会变着法地对付我。有一次周日，我们去超市买东西，货架上摆了一大排的太妃糖苹果。我特别喜欢太妃糖苹果，于是我一直缠着我妈要她给我买。“求求你，可以给我买一个太妃糖苹果吗？求求你，可以给我买一个太妃糖苹果吗？求求你，可以给我买一个太妃糖苹果吗？求求你，可以给我买一个太妃糖苹果吗？”
My relationship with my mom was like the relationship between a cop and a criminal in the movies — the relentless detective and the devious mastermind she’s determined to catch. They’re bitter rivals, but, damn, they respect the hell out of each other, and somehow they even grow to like each other. Sometimes my mom would catch me, but she was usually one step behind, and she was always giving me the eye. Someday, kid. Someday I’m going to catch you and put you away for the rest of your life. Then I would give her a nod in return. Have a good evening, Officer. That was my whole childhood.
我和我妈的关系很像电影里的警察与罪犯，她有着冷静无情的刑侦能力和复杂的谋略，致力于逮到我的犯罪事实。我们是劲敌，同时，我的老天，又极其尊重对手，有时候甚至会发展为互相欣赏。有时候我妈快要抓到我了，但就差一步，又被我逃掉，这时她会给我一个这样的眼神：总有一天，小子。总有一天，我要逮住你，让你下半辈子都逃不掉。这时我会冲她点个头。祝您晚安，警官。这贯穿了我的整个童年。
“No,” I said. “She’s buying it for me.”
“不是啦，”我说。“她给我买。”
“What? My mother? You are my mother.”
“啥？我妈妈？你是我妈妈啊。”
The cashier looked at me skeptically. “Wait your turn, boy. I’m still helping this lady.”
收银员用怀疑的眼神看着我：“你等等，小朋友。我先给这位女士结账。”
“You’re buying it for me.”
“你给我买呀。”
My mother turned to me. “Who’s buying it for you?”
我妈妈转过来对着我说，“谁给你买？”
“No, no. Why doesn’t your mother buy it for you?”
“不对不对，不该是你妈妈给你买吗？”
“Add this toffee apple, please,” I said.
“加一个太妃糖苹果，”我说。
“I’m your mother? No, I’m not your mother. Where’s your mother?”
“我是你妈妈？不，我不是你妈妈，你妈妈去哪儿了？”
“Are you lost, little boy? Where’s your mother?”
“你是迷路了吗，小朋友。你妈妈在哪儿？”
“Yeah,” the cashier said. “Where’s your mother?”
“是啊，”收银员附和着，“你妈妈在哪儿？”
Finally, once we had our groceries and my mom was heading to the front to pay, I succeeded in wearing her down. “Fine,” she said. “Go and get a toffee apple.” I ran, got a toffee apple, came back, and put it on the counter at the checkout.
终于，当我们拿完所有东西，准备去付账的时候，她松口了。“好吧，”她说，“去拿一个太妃糖苹果吧。”我迅速冲过去，拿了一个太妃糖苹果，冲回来，把它放在结账台上。
The cashier looked at her, looked back at me, looked at her again. She shrugged, like, I have no idea what that kid’s talking about. Then she looked at me like she’d never seen me before in her life.
收银员看看她，又看看我，又看看她。我妈耸耸肩，好像在说，我真不懂这小孩在说什么。然后她看着我，那样子好像她这辈子都没见过我。
I was so confused. “You’re my mother.”
我蒙了。“你是我妈妈啊。”
I pointed at my mother. “She’s my mother.”
我指着我妈：“她就是我妈妈。”
My mom shook her head. “Poor little colored boy lost his mother. What a shame.”
我妈妈摇摇头：“可怜的有色人种小朋友找不到妈妈啦。好可怜啊。”
I panicked. Was I crazy? Is she not my mother? I started bawling. “You’re my mother. You’re my mother. She’s my mother. She’s my mother.”
我开始慌了。我疯了吗？她不是我妈妈？我开始哭着大叫。“你是我妈妈！你是我妈妈。她是我妈妈。她是我妈妈。”
“Why are you crying?” she asked.
“你哭什么？”她问我。
She shrugged again. “So sad. I hope he finds his mother.”
她再次耸耸肩。“好可怜。我希望他能赶快找到他妈妈。”
“What? She can’t be your mother, boy. She’s black. Can’t you see?”
“什么？她不可能是你妈妈，小朋友。你看，她是黑人，看不出来吗？”
The cashier nodded. She paid him, took our groceries, and walked out of the shop. I dropped the toffee apple, ran out behind her in tears, and caught up to her at the car. She turned around, laughing hysterically, like she’d really got me good.
收银员点点头。她付了钱，拿上我们买的东西，走出了超市。我丢下太妃糖苹果，哭着冲出去追她，在车那边追上了她。她转过来，放声大笑，好像她终于狠狠治了我一顿。
“Because you wouldn’t shut up about the toffee apple. Now get in the car. Let’s go.”
“因为你一直在那儿吵吵着要太妃糖苹果。上车，我们走了。”
“Because you said you weren’t my mother. Why did you say you weren’t my mother?”
“因为你说你不是我妈。为什么你要说你不是我妈？”
By the time I was seven or eight, I was too smart to be tricked, so she changed tactics. Our life turned into a courtroom drama with two lawyers constantly debating over loopholes and technicalities. My mom was smart and had a sharp tongue, but I was quicker in an argument. She’d get flustered because she couldn’t keep up. So she started writing me letters. That way she could make her points and there could be no verbal sparring back and forth. If I had chores to do, I’d come home to find an envelope slipped under the door, like from the landlord.
等到我七八岁的时候，我已经变聪明了，不会再被这种小伎俩骗到，于是她又改变策略。那时我的生活变成了法庭戏，两个律师轮番上阵，试图抓到对方的逻辑漏洞。我妈妈很聪明，并且巧舌如簧，但是我能更快地给出论点。我妈一跟不上我的节奏就会乱了阵脚。于是她开始给我写信。这样她就能更清晰地阐述自己的观点，不用和我吵来吵去。假设我今天需要干家务，回家后就会看到门底下塞了个信封，就像是房东留的。
“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”
“你们做儿女的，要凡事听从父母，因为这是主所喜悦的。”
— Colossians 3:20
——歌罗西书3：20
Dear Trevor,
亲爱的特雷弗：
Yours sincerely, Mom
谨启，妈妈
I would do my chores, and if I had anything to say I would write back. Because my mom was a secretary and I spent hours at her office every day after school, I’d learned a great deal about business correspondence. I was extremely proud of my letter-writing abilities.
我会乖乖做家务，如果我有什么要表达的，我也会回封信给她。我妈妈是秘书，放学后我常常去她办公室玩，在那里学到了很多商务通信技巧。我对我的写信能力非常骄傲。
Dear Mom, I have received your correspondence earlier. I am delighted to say that I am ahead of schedule on the dishes and I will continue to wash them in an hour or so. Please note that the garden is wet and so I cannot do the weeds at this time, but please be assured this task will be completed by the end of the weekend. Also, I completely agree with what you are saying with regard to my respect levels and I will maintain my room to a satisfactory standard.
亲爱的妈妈，早前收到了您的来信。很高兴地告诉您，洗碗的工作已经开始了，接下来的一小时我会继续完成这项工作。请留意，花园地面潮湿，此刻我无法做杂草清理的工作，但我保证这项任务将会在周末结束前完成。另外，我完全赞同您关于尊重一事的言论，我会将我的房间清洁保持在一个令人满意的标准之上。
To Whom It May Concern:
敬启者：
There are certain things I expect from you as my child and as a young man. You need to clean your room. You need to keep the house clean. You need to look after your school uniform. Please, my child, I ask you. Respect my rules so that I may also respect you. I ask you now, please go and do the dishes and do the weeds in the garden.
作为我的孩子，以及一个负责任的年轻人，我对你怀有一些期冀。我希望你能整理自己的房间。我希望你能打扫屋子。你还要整理好你的校服。我的孩子，我希望你，谨遵我的要求，这样我也会尊重你。现在，我希望你去把碗洗掉，再到院子里去除草。
— Proverbs 22:15
——箴言篇22：15
Those were the polite letters. If we were having a real, full-on argument or if I’d gotten in trouble at school, I’d find more accusatory missives waiting for me when I got home.
这些是很有礼貌的通信。如果我们争执得很厉害，或者我在学校惹了什么麻烦，回家后会有言辞更为苛责的信件在等着我。
Dear Trevor,
亲爱的特雷弗，
Yours sincerely, Trevor
谨启，特雷弗
“Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of discipline will remove it far from him.”
“愚蒙迷住孩童的心，用管教的杖可以远远赶除。”
Your school marks this term have been very disappointing, and your behavior in class continues to be disruptive and disrespectful. It is clear from your actions that you do not respect me. You do not respect your teachers. Learn to respect the women in your life. The way you treat me and the way you treat your teachers will be the way you treat other women in the world. Learn to buck that trend now and you will be a better man because of it. Because of your behavior I am grounding you for one week. There will be no television and no videogames.
你这个学期的成绩很不理想，并且仍旧喜欢在课堂上捣乱，没有礼貌。很显然，你这样做既不尊敬我，也不尊敬你的老师。你要学着去尊敬你生活中遇到的女性。你对待我和你老师的态度，就是将来你对待这个世界上其他女性的态度。悬崖勒马，未来你才会成为更好的男人。由于你的表现不佳，这周你被禁足了，不能看电视，不能打游戏。
Yours sincerely, Mom
谨启，妈妈
I, of course, would find this punishment completely unfair. I’d take the letter and confront her.
而我，当然觉得这惩罚完全不公平。我得写封信来回击。
“Can I speak to you about this?”
“我能和你谈谈吗？”
“No. If you want to reply, you have to write a letter.”
“不可以。你想回复，就给我写信。”
Dear Mom, First of all, this has been a particularly tough time in school, and for you to say that my marks are bad is extremely unfair, especially considering the fact that you yourself were not very good in school and I am, after all, a product of yours, and so in part you are to blame because if you were not good in school, why would I be good in school because genetically we are the same. Gran always talks about how naughty you were, so obviously my naughtiness comes from you, so I don’t think it is right or just for you to say any of this.
亲爱的妈妈，首先，这个学期很难，您说我的成绩不好，这很不公平，尤其考虑到您以前在学校成绩就不好，而我，毕竟是您的孩子，如果您在学校表现都不好，那为什么要求我就非要表现好，毕竟我们有一样的基因。外婆总是说您以前有多调皮，很显然，我调皮是您遗传的，所以我认为您那样指责我是不正确、不公平的。
I’d go to my room, get out my pen and paper, sit at my little desk, and go after her arguments one by one.
我回到房间，拿出纸笔，趴在桌子上，开始一条条地反驳她的论据。
To Whom It May Concern:
敬启者：
I’d bring her the letter and stand there while she read it. Invariably she’d tear it up and throw it in the dustbin. “Rubbish! This is rubbish!” Then she’d start to launch into me and I’d say, “Ah-ah-ah. No. You have to write a letter.” Then I’d go to my room and wait for her reply. This sometimes went back and forth for days.
我会把信拿给她，站在原地看着她读。每次她读完都会把信撕了，丢进垃圾桶。“垃圾！这是垃圾！”然后她会开始试图训我，我会说：“啊啊啊。不行，你得给我回信。”然后我就回屋，等着她回信。这样来来回回可能会持续上好几天。
Yours sincerely, Trevor
谨启，特雷弗
The letter writing was for minor disputes. For major infractions, my mom went with the ass-whooping. Like most black South African parents, when it came to discipline my mom was old school. If I pushed her too far, she’d go for the belt or switch. That’s just how it was in those days. Pretty much all of my friends had it the same.
我犯了小错，我妈会写信。如果我惹了大麻烦，我妈会打我屁股。和大多数南非父母一样，我妈在惩罚小孩的方式上很传统。如果把她逼急了，她就会去拿皮带或者鞭子。那段日子就是这么过来的。我所有的小伙伴几乎都是一样的遭遇。
My mom would have given me proper sit-down hidings if I’d given her the opportunity, but she could never catch me. My gran called me “Springbok,” after the second-fastest land mammal on earth, the deer that the cheetah hunts. My mom had to become a guerrilla fighter. She got her licks in where she could, her belt or maybe a shoe, administered on the fly.
如果我愿意，我妈是可以坐下来好好打我屁股的，但是她永远抓不住我。我外婆叫我“跳羚”，地球上速度第二快的哺乳动物，仅次于猎豹。我妈为了打到我，要化身游击队，哪里能打到我，她就在哪里打，随手抄着皮带鞭子或者拖鞋打，灵活机动。
One thing I respected about my mom was that she never left me in any doubt as to why I was receiving the hiding. It wasn’t rage or anger. It was discipline from a place of love. My mom was on her own with a crazy child. I destroyed pianos. I shat on floors. I would screw up, she’d beat the shit out of me and give me time to cry, and then she’d pop back into my room with a big smile and go, “Are you ready for dinner? We need to hurry and eat if we want to watch Rescue 911. Are you coming?”
我很佩服我妈的一点是，揍完我，这事就过去了，绝不会让我留有疑问。我挨揍不是因为她心情不好或生气，而是出于她对我的爱。我妈妈一个人带着我这样一个疯狂的小孩，我破坏钢琴，在地板上大便，我会做错事，她会把我暴打一顿，给我时间让我哭一会儿，然后她会再次跑进我的房间，脸上带着笑容说：“吃不吃饭？想看《火线救援》的话，咱们就得快点儿吃。来吃饭不？”
“Yes. Because you did something wrong. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you anymore.”
“是啊。因为你做错事了，这又不意味着我不爱你了。”
“What?”
“什么？”
“What? What kind of psychopath are you? You just beat me!”
“什么？你是有毛病吗？你才揍了我！”
“Look, did you or did you not do something wrong?”
“看，你是不是做了错事？”
“I did.”
“是的。”
“And then? I hit you. And now that’s over. So why sit there and cry? It’s time for Rescue 911. William Shatner is waiting. Are you coming or not?”
“然后呢？我揍了你。这件事就过去了。干吗还坐在这哭？该看《火线救援》了。威廉·夏特纳在等你呢，你来不来？”
Whenever the principal would hit me, it was like he was afraid to do it too hard. One day I was getting a hiding and I thought, Man, if only my mom hit me like this, and I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. The principal was quite disturbed. “If you’re laughing while you’re getting beaten,” he said, “then something is definitely wrong with you.”
每当校长打我，他都好像怕下手太重。有一天我在被校长打的时候想，天，要是我妈能像这样打我就好了，结果我开始笑。实在憋不住。那是学校第一次让我妈把我带去看心理医生，之后还去了两次。校长深感不安：“如果挨打的时候还笑个不停，那你脑子肯定有问题。”
When it came to discipline, Catholic school was no joke. Whenever I got into trouble with the nuns at Maryvale they’d rap me on the knuckles with the edge of a metal ruler. For cursing they’d wash my mouth out with soap. For serious offenses I’d get sent to the principal’s office. Only the principal could give you an official hiding. You’d have to bend over and he’d hit your ass with this flat rubber thing, like the sole of a shoe.
说到惩戒，天主教学校可不是闹着玩的。在玛丽威尔的时候，每当我犯错，修女们会用铁尺的边缘抽我的指关节。如果我骂了脏话，她们会用肥皂洗我的嘴巴。如果犯了更严重的错，我就会被叫去校长办公室。只有校长才能给你正式的惩戒。你要弯下腰，他会用一种好像鞋底一样平平的橡胶物体，打你的屁股。
The rules about communion at Friday mass, for example, made absolutely no sense. We’d be in there for an hour of kneeling, standing, sitting, kneeling, standing, sitting, kneeling, standing, sitting, and by the end of it I’d be starving, but I was never allowed to take communion, because I wasn’t Catholic. The other kids could eat Jesus’s body and drink Jesus’s blood, but I couldn’t. And Jesus’s blood was grape juice. I loved grape juice. Grape juice and crackers — what more could a kid want? And they wouldn’t let me have any. I’d argue with the nuns and the priest all the time.
譬如关于周五弥撒圣餐仪式的规定，就完全没道理。在集会的一个小时里，我们要先跪着，再站着，再坐下，再跪着，再站着，再坐下，再跪着，再站着，再坐下，到最后，我都饿死了，但是我从来不能领圣餐，因为我不是天主教徒。其他孩子都可以吃耶稣的身体，喝耶稣的血，但我不能。而且耶稣的血是葡萄汁，我超爱葡萄汁。葡萄汁和饼干——哪个小孩不想吃？他们就不让我吃。我总是在和修女牧师争辩。
That was the first of three times the school made my mom take me to a psychologist to be evaluated. Every psychologist who examined me came back and said, “There’s nothing wrong with this kid.” I wasn’t ADD. I wasn’t a sociopath. I was just creative and independent and full of energy. The therapists did give me a series of tests, and they came to the conclusion that I was either going to make an excellent criminal or be very good at catching criminals, because I could always find loopholes in the law. Whenever I thought a rule wasn’t logical, I’d find my way around it.
学校让我妈带我去看过三次心理医生，那次是第一次。每一个心理医生在给我做完检查之后都说：“这孩子没毛病。”我没有多动症。我没得精神病。我只是太有创造力，太独立，而且精力过于充沛。那些医生给我做了一系列的检查，都会得出一个结论，我将来要么会成为一个杰出的罪犯，要么就会变成一个善于抓罪犯的人，因为我总能找出法规中的漏洞。每次发现一个法规不合逻辑的地方，我就会绕着走。
“So you’re telling me that if Jesus walked into your church right now, Jesus would not be allowed to have the body and blood of Jesus?”
“所以你的意思是，假设现在此刻耶稣走进我们的教堂，他本人也不能吃耶稣的身体，喝耶稣的血？”
They never had a satisfactory reply.
他们从来没给出令我满意的答案。
They didn’t care. The school could break whatever rules it wanted. The principal laid into me.
他们才不在乎。只要他们想，学校可以打破任何规则。校长痛斥了我。
“Jesus was Jewish.”
“耶稣是犹太人。”
“Well, yes.”
“嗯，是的。”
“Yes.”
“是的。”
“No.”
“他不是。”
“Well… uh… um…”
“嗯…呃…嗯…”
“But Jesus wasn’t Catholic.”
“但是耶稣不是天主教徒。”
“No, no,” I protested. “You’ve broken the rules. That’s confidential information. The priest isn’t supposed to repeat what you say in confession.”
“不对，不对，”我抗议着，“你才违背了规则！神父是不能把别人忏悔的话讲出去的！”
“Only Catholics can eat Jesus’s body and drink Jesus’s blood, right?”
“只有天主教徒才能吃耶稣的身体、喝耶稣的血，对吗？”
One morning before mass I decided, I’m going to get me some Jesus blood and Jesus body. I snuck behind the altar and I drank the entire bottle of grape juice and I ate the entire bag of Eucharist to make up for all the other times that I couldn’t.
有一天早晨，在弥撒之前，我决定要吃到耶稣的身体、喝到耶稣的血。我悄悄潜伏到圣餐台的后面，喝了一整瓶的葡萄汁，吃掉了一整包的圣餐，把我之前没吃到的都补回来了。
In my mind, I wasn’t breaking the rules, because the rules didn’t make any sense. And I got caught only because they broke their own rules. Another kid ratted me out in confession, and the priest turned me in.
在我的理解里，我没有违背规定，因为那些规定根本没道理。我被抓只是因为打破了他们心里的规定。有一个小孩在忏悔的时候出卖了我，然后神父揭发了我。
“A hungry person.”
“很饿的人。”
“What kind of a sick person would eat all of Jesus’s body and drink all of Jesus’s blood?”
“什么样的人才会吃光耶稣的身体、喝光耶稣的血啊？”
I got another hiding and a second trip to the psychologist for that one. The third visit to the shrink, and the last straw, came in grade six. A kid was bullying me. He said he was going to beat me up, and I brought one of my knives to school. I wasn’t going to use it; I just wanted to have it. The school didn’t care. That was the last straw for them. I wasn’t expelled, exactly. The principal sat me down and said, “Trevor, we can expel you. You need to think hard about whether you really want to be at Maryvale next year.” I think he thought he was giving me an ultimatum that would get me to shape up. But I felt like he was offering me an out, and I took it. “No,” I told him, “I don’t want to be here.” And that was the end of Catholic school.
我又挨了一顿揍，然后第二次被送去看心理医生。我第三次去看心理医生，也是压垮校领导的最后一根稻草，发生在六年级。一个小孩欺负我，说他要暴打我一顿，我就带了一把刀去学校。我没有打算要用它，我只想带着防身。但学校不管我说什么，这对他们来说是最后一根稻草。严格来说，我不是被开除的。校长还是让我坐下来，告诉我：“特雷弗，我们可以开除你。你要好好想清楚，明年还想不想继续在玛丽威尔上学了。”他是在给我下最后通牒，希望我能改过自新。但是我觉得他是在给我打开大门，于是我就接受了。“不，”我告诉他，“我不想在这儿待了。”我在天主教学校的日子结束了。
Funnily enough, I didn’t get into trouble with my mom when it happened. There was no ass-whooping waiting for me at home. She’d lost the bursary when she’d left her job at ICI, and paying for private school was becoming a burden. But more than that, she thought the school was overreacting. The truth is she probably took my side against Maryvale more often than not. She agreed with me 100 percent about the Eucharist thing. “Let me get this straight,” she told the principal. “You’re punishing a child because he wants Jesus’s body and Jesus’s blood? Why shouldn’t he have those things? Of course he should have them.” When they made me see a therapist for laughing while the principal hit me, she told the school that was ridiculous, too.
有趣的是，这件事发生以后，我妈没有找我麻烦。回家后，我并没有挨揍。从ICI离职后，她就没有奖学金补助了，供我去私立学校上学将会是一笔很大的负担。可即使这样，她也觉得是学校反应过度了。事实上，在和玛丽威尔的对抗中，她通常是站在我这边的。对于这次的圣餐事件，她百分百支持我。“我就直说了，”她对校长说，“就因为一个小孩想要分享耶稣的身体和耶稣的血，你就惩罚他？他为什么不能吃那些东西？他当然可以吃。”当他们因为我被校长惩罚而笑个不停，便把我送去看心理医生时，我妈也跟学校说，这事简直荒唐。
That was the weird and kind of amazing thing about my mom. If she agreed with me that a rule was stupid, she wouldn’t punish me for breaking it. Both she and the psychologists agreed that the school was the one with the problem, not me. Catholic school is not the place to be creative and independent.
这是我妈有点儿怪同时也有点儿牛的地方。如果她同意我的想法，觉得一个法规是愚蠢的，那么当我违背这个法规的时候，她不会惩罚我。她和心理医生都觉得是学校有问题，而不是我有问题。天主教学校并不是一个富有创造力和独立精神的地方。
“Well, clearly you don’t know how to hit a kid. That’s your problem, not mine. Trevor’s never laughed when I’ve hit him, I can tell you.”
“好吧，很显然你不知道怎么打小孩。这是你的问题，不是我的。可以告诉你，我打特雷弗的时候他从来不笑。”
“Ms. Noah, your son was laughing while we were hitting him.”
“诺亚女士，您的儿子在我们惩戒他的时候一直在笑。”
Catholic school is similar to apartheid in that it’s ruthlessly authoritarian, and its authority rests on a bunch of rules that don’t make any sense. My mother grew up with these rules and she questioned them. When they didn’t hold up, she simply went around them. The only authority my mother recognized was God’s. God is love and the Bible is truth — everything else was up for debate. She taught me to challenge authority and question the system. The only way it backfired on her was that I constantly challenged and questioned her.
天主教学校和种族隔离一样，都是无情的独裁者，而且权力中心所仰赖的那一大堆法条完全没有任何逻辑。在我妈妈的成长过程里，她遇到了各种各样的规则，而她会质疑这些规则。如果规则没有拦在她面前，她就直接绕着走。我妈心里唯一的权威就是上帝。上帝是爱，《圣经》是真理——所有其他事情都可以辩驳。她唯一头疼的就是我总在试图挑战并质疑她。
As a black person back then, if you wanted to live in the suburbs you’d have to find a white family renting out their servants’ quarters or sometimes their garage, which was what Abel had done. He lived in a neighborhood called Orange Grove in a white family’s garage, which he’d turned into a cottage-type thing with a hot plate and a bed. Sometimes he’d come and sleep at our house, and sometimes we’d go stay with him. Staying in a garage when we owned our own house wasn’t ideal, but Orange Grove was close to my school and my mom’s work so it had its benefits.
那个时候，一个黑人要想住在郊区的话，你就得去找一个白人家庭，租他们的用人房或者车库来住，亚伯就是这么做的。他住在一个叫橘子苑的街区，租了一个白人家庭的车库，改装成了一个类似小木屋的住所，里面配有轻便电炉和一张床。有时候他会来我们家，有时候我们去他家。在我们有自己的房子的前提下，住车库并不是很理想的选择，但是橘子苑离我的学校和我妈上班的地方都很近，所以这也有它的优势。
When I was seven years old, my mother had been dating her new boyfriend, Abel, for a year maybe, but at that point I was too young to know who they were to each other. It was just “Hey, that’s mom’s friend who’s around a lot.” I liked Abel; he was a really nice guy.
我七岁那年，我妈妈开始和她的新男友约会——他叫亚伯。他们交往了一年，那时我还小，还不懂他们之间是什么关系，我只是觉得：“嘿，那是我妈的朋友，他经常来找我们。”我挺喜欢他，他人很好。
This white family also had a black maid who lived in the servants’ quarters in the backyard, and I’d play with her son whenever we stayed there. At that age my love of fire was in full bloom. One afternoon everyone was at work — my mom and Abel and both of the white parents — and the kid and I were playing together while his mom was inside the house cleaning. One thing I loved doing at the time was using a magnifying glass to burn my name into pieces of wood. You had to aim the lens and get the focus just right and then you got the flame and then you moved it slowly and you could burn shapes and letters and patterns. I was fascinated by it.
这个白人家庭还有一个黑人女佣，住在后面的用人房里。每次去亚伯那儿住，我都会和那个女佣的儿子玩。那个年龄段的我，是真心爱玩儿火。那天下午，所有人——我妈、亚伯和白人夫妇——都去上班了，女佣在屋子里打扫，我和她儿子玩。我那时候很喜欢干一件事，就是用放大镜把我的名字烧在一片木头上。你要调整镜片的角度，把太阳光聚焦到一点上，木片上会出现灼烧的痕迹，然后你缓缓移动，就可以烧出想要的形状、字母或图案什么的。我为此痴迷不已。
At one point we took a break to go get a snack. I set the magnifying glass and the matches on the mattress and we left. When we came back a few minutes later we found the shed had one of those doors that self-locks from the inside. We couldn’t get back in without going to get his mother, so we decided to run around and play in the yard. After a while I noticed smoke coming out of the cracks in the window frame. I ran over and looked inside. A small fire was burning in the middle of the straw mattress where we’d left the matches and the magnifying glass. We ran and called the maid. She came, but she didn’t know what to do. The door was locked, and before we could figure out how to get into the shed the whole thing caught — the mattress, the ladders, the paint, the turpentine, everything.
忽然我们想休息下，拿点儿零食吃。我把放大镜和火柴丢在床垫上，和他一起离开了屋子。几分钟后我们回来时，发现这个小木屋的锁从里面自动锁上了，我们进不去，除非去找他妈妈帮我们，于是我们决定先在院子里玩一会儿。又过了几分钟，我注意到窗户的缝隙里有烟冒出来。我跑过去往里面看，在我们放火柴和放大镜的地方，有一小团火苗正在草垫中间燃烧。我们跑去叫女佣。她来了，但她也不知道怎么办。门锁住了，在我们想到破门方法之前，所有的东西都烧起来了——草垫、梯子、画、松节油，所有的东西。
That afternoon I was teaching this kid how to do it. We were inside the servants’ quarters, which was really more of a toolshed added on to the back of the house, full of wooden ladders, buckets of old paint, turpentine. I had a box of matches with me, too — all my usual fire-making tools. We were sitting on an old mattress that they used to sleep on the floor, basically a sack stuffed with dried straw. The sun was beaming in through the window, and I was showing the kid how to burn his name into a piece of plywood.
那天下午，我把这个小技巧教给那个小孩。我们待在用人房里，这个房间更像是连接主屋的工具间，礼帽堆满了木梯子、整箱的旧画，还有松节油。我带了一盒火柴，这是我的日常打火工具。我们坐在一张旧床垫上，是他们以前睡在地板上垫的，基本就是一包塞满的稻草。太阳光从窗口射进来，我给那个小孩演示，该怎么把名字烧在一块胶合板上。
The flames moved quickly. Soon the roof was on fire, and from there the blaze spread to the main house, and the whole thing burned and burned and burned. Smoke was billowing into the sky. A neighbor had called the fire brigade, and the sirens were on their way. Me and this kid and the maid, we ran out to the road and watched as the firemen tried to put it out, but by the time they did, it was too late. There was nothing left but a charred brick-and-mortar shell, roof gone, and gutted from the inside.
火焰移动速度很快。很快，屋顶也着了，火舌从那里开始向主屋接近，整个房子都烧了起来，黑烟直冲天际。一个邻居叫来了火警，警笛大作。我和女佣还有女佣的小孩都跑到人行道上，看救火员灭火，但是等火熄灭的时候，一切都完了。什么都没剩下，只有一个烧焦的砖头水泥空壳，屋顶没了，屋里东西全毁了。
The white family came home and stood on the street, staring at the ruins of their house. They asked the maid what happened and she asked her son and the kid totally snitched. “Trevor had matches,” he said. The family said nothing to me. I don’t think they knew what to say. They were completely dumbfounded. They didn’t call the police, didn’t threaten to sue. What were they going to do, arrest a seven-year-old for arson? And we were so poor you couldn’t actually sue us for anything. Plus they had insurance, so that was the end of it.
白人一家回来后，就站在人行道旁，望着他们家的残骸。他们问女佣到底怎么回事，女佣问她儿子，她儿子直接告发了我。“特雷弗带了火柴。”白人家庭什么也没对我说。我觉得是他们不知道该说什么。他们目瞪口呆，没有叫警察，也没有要告我。他们能怎么做呢，逮捕一个七岁的小孩，告他纵火罪？而且我们家很穷，告我们也拿不到什么钱。何况他们有保险，所以这事就完了。
I didn’t feel bad about it at all. I still don’t. The lawyer in me maintains that I am completely innocent. There were matches and there was a magnifying glass and there was a mattress and then, clearly, a series of unfortunate events. Things catch fire sometimes. That’s why there’s a fire brigade. But everyone in my family will tell you, “Trevor burned down a house.” If people thought I was naughty before, after the fire I was notorious. One of my uncles stopped calling me Trevor. He called me “Terror” instead. “Don’t leave that kid alone in your home,” he’d say. “He’ll burn it to the ground.”
我对这件事一点儿都不觉得愧疚，现在也不觉得。我心中的律师告诉我，我是无罪的。那儿有一盒火柴，一个放大镜，一个草垫，这是一系列不幸的偶然事件。有时候东西就是会着火。这也是为什么我们需要消防部门。如果人们以前觉得我只是淘气，在这场火灾之后，我变得臭名昭著。我的一个舅舅不再叫我特雷弗，他叫我“特雷”（意为“恐怖”）。他常说：“别把那孩子一个人留在你家，他会把房子烧没的。”
They kicked Abel out of the garage, which I thought was hilarious because the garage, which was freestanding, was the only piece of the property left unscathed. I saw no reason for Abel to have to leave, but they made him. We packed up his stuff, put it into our car, and drove home to Eden Park; Abel basically lived with us from then on. He and my mom got into a huge fight. “Your son has burned down my life!” But there was no punishment for me that day. My mom was too much in shock. There’s naughty, and then there’s burning down a white person’s house. She didn’t know what to do.
他们把亚伯从车库里赶走了。我觉得这有点儿滑稽，因为车库和其他房子不挨着，是整个家唯一没有受到损伤的地方。亚伯其实没理由离开，但是他们赶走了亚伯。我们收拾了他的东西，放进车里，一起载回了伊登公园。从那时起，亚伯就和我们住在一起了。他和我妈大吵了一架：“你儿子烧毁了我的生活！”但那天我没有受罚，我妈太震惊了。淘气是一回事，而烧掉白人的房子是另一回事。她也不知道该怎么办。
My cousin Mlungisi, to this day, cannot comprehend how I survived being as naughty as I was for as long as I did, how I withstood the number of hidings that I got. Why did I keep misbehaving? How did I never learn my lesson? Both of my cousins were supergood kids. Mlungisi got maybe one hiding in his life. After that he said he never wanted to experience anything like it ever again, and from that day he always followed the rules. But I was blessed with another trait I inherited from my mother: her ability to forget the pain in life. I remember the thing that caused the trauma, but I don’t hold on to the trauma. I never let the memory of something painful prevent me from trying something new. If you think too much about the ass-kicking your mom gave you, or the ass-kicking that life gave you, you’ll stop pushing the boundaries and breaking the rules. It’s better to take it, spend some time crying, then wake up the next day and move on. You’ll have a few bruises and they’ll remind you of what happened and that’s okay. But after a while the bruises fade, and they fade for a reason — because now it’s time to get up to some shit again.
时至今日，我的表兄穆隆格斯依然无法理解，我怎么可以一直调皮捣蛋地活到今天的，我怎么能经得住那么多次暴揍，却一直不长记性。我的表兄弟都非常乖。穆隆格斯大概一辈子就挨过一次打，在那之后他说他再也不想挨打了，于是变得非常循规蹈矩。但是我还从我妈身上继承了一个特点，就是擅长忘记生活中的痛苦。我记得留下创伤的原因，但是我不会揪着创伤不放。我从来不会让回忆的痛苦阻碍我对新东西的尝试。如果你总是想着你妈妈会打你，或者生活会惩罚你，你就不会再突破界限，打破规则。最好的是，你挨完打，哭一会儿，第二天醒来继续生活。身上可能会留下几块淤青，提醒你发生了什么，但没事的，过一段时间，淤青会褪去，而且它们褪去是有原因的——又到了该干点儿什么坏事的时候了。
In South Africa, black people have dogs.
在南非，黑人只养狗。
It was front-page news all over the country. White people lost their shit. Oh my word, it was insane. The security guard was arrested and put on trial and found guilty of animal abuse. He had to pay some enormous fine to avoid spending several months in jail. What was ironic to me was that white people had spent years seeing video of black people being beaten to death by other white people, but this one video of a black man kicking a cat, that’s what sent them over the edge. Black people were just confused. They didn’t see any problem with what the man did. They were like, “Obviously that cat was a witch. How else would a cat know how to get out onto a soccer pitch? Somebody sent it to jinx one of the teams. That man had to kill the cat. He was protecting the players.”
这上了全国新闻的头条。白人们全都受不了了。我的天哪，这太疯狂了。这个保安被逮捕，受审，并被判虐待动物罪。他交了巨额罚金，才免掉了几个月的牢狱之灾。讽刺的是，白人已经看了很多年白人把黑人打死的视频，也没怎样，但是一个黑人打猫的视频，就能让他们崩溃。黑人群体觉得很困惑。他们不觉得那个保安的做法有什么问题。他们认为：“很明显那只猫就是女巫。否则一只猫怎么能知道要闯进足球场？肯定是有人派它来给其中一只球队下咒的。保安必须得杀了那只猫，他是在保护运动员。”
I grew up in a black family in a black neighborhood in a black country. I’ve traveled to other black cities in black countries all over the black continent. And in all of that time I’ve yet to find a place where black people like cats. One of the biggest reasons for that, as we know in South Africa, is that only witches have cats, and all cats are witches.
我生长于这个黑人国家的黑人社区的一个普通黑人家庭中。我造访过这片黑人大陆的许多黑人国家的黑人城市。我从来没见过哪个地方的黑人喜欢猫。就拿南非来说，最大的原因是，人们觉得只有女巫养猫，于是所有的猫都是女巫。
********************
********************
There was a famous incident during an Orlando Pirates soccer match a few years ago. A cat got into the stadium and ran through the crowd and out onto the pitch in the middle of the game. A security guard, seeing the cat, did what any sensible black person would do. He said to himself, “That cat is a witch.” He caught the cat and — live on TV — he kicked it and stomped it and beat it to death with a sjambok, a hard leather whip.
很多年前，奥兰多海盗队足球赛上发生过一起著名的事件。一只猫跑进了运动馆，穿过人群，进入了正在比赛的场地上。一个保安看到了这只猫，他做了所有正常黑人都会做的事。他对自己说，“这只猫是个女巫。”在直播中，他抓住了这只猫，用脚踢，踩，跺，最后拿一根粗皮鞭把那只猫弄死了。
0 条评论