Vance, J.D. - Hillbilly Elegy

Introduction

介紹

My name is J.D. Vance, and I think I should start with a confession: I find the existence of the book you hold in your hands somewhat absurd. It says right there on the cover that it’s a memoir, but I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve accomplished nothing great in my life, certainly nothing that would justify a complete stranger paying money to read about it. The coolest thing I’ve done, at least on paper, is graduate from Yale Law School, something thirteen-year-old J.D. Vance would have considered ludicrous. But about two hundred people do the same thing every year, and trust me, you don’t want to read about most of their lives. I am not a senator, a governor, or a former cabinet secretary. I haven’t started a billion-dollar company or a world-changing nonprofit. I have a nice job, a happy marriage, a comfortable home, and two lively dogs.

我的名字是J.D.萬斯，我想我應該先坦白一下：我發現你手裡拿著的書的存在有點荒謬。封面上寫著這是一本回憶錄，但我已經三十一歲了，我將是第一個承認我一生中沒有取得任何偉大成就的人，當然也沒有什麼可以證明一個完全陌生的人花錢閱讀它。至少在紙面上，我做過的最酷的事情是從耶魯大學法學院畢業，13歲的J.D.萬斯會認為這是荒謬的。但是每年大約有兩百人做同樣的事情，相信我，你不想讀他們大部分的生活。我不是參議員、州長或前內閣秘書。我還沒有創辦過一家價值數十億美元的公司，也沒有創辦過改變世界的非營利組織。我有一份不錯的工作，幸福的婚姻，舒適的家，還有兩隻活潑的狗。

So I didn’t write this book because I’ve accomplished something extraordinary. I wrote this book because I’ve achieved something quite ordinary, which doesn’t happen to most kids who grow up like me. You see, I grew up poor, in the Rust Belt, in an Ohio steel town that has been hemorrhaging jobs and hope for as long as I can remember. I have, to put it mildly, a complex relationship with my parents, one of whom has struggled with addiction for nearly my entire life. My grandparents, neither of whom graduated from high school, raised me, and few members of even my extended family attended college. The statistics tell you that kids like me face a grim future—that if they’re lucky, they’ll manage to avoid welfare; and if they’re unlucky, they’ll die of a heroin overdose, as happened to dozens in my small hometown just last year.

所以我寫這本書不是因為我取得了非凡的成就。我寫這本書是因為我取得了一些非常平凡的成就，這在大多數像我一樣長大的孩子身上都不會發生。你看，我在鐵鏽地帶長大，在俄亥俄州的一個鋼鐵小鎮，從我記事起，這個小鎮就一直在失去工作和希望。委婉地說，我與父母的關係很複雜，其中一位幾乎一生都在與毒癮作鬥爭。我的爺爺奶奶都沒有高中畢業，他們撫養我長大，甚至我的大家庭也很少有人上大學。統計數據告訴你，像我這樣的孩子面臨著一個嚴峻的未來——如果他們幸運的話，他們會設法避免福利;如果他們運氣不好，他們會死於海洛因過量，就像去年在我的小家鄉發生的幾十個人一樣。

I was one of those kids with a grim future. I almost failed out of high school. I nearly gave in to the deep anger and resentment harbored by everyone around me. Today people look at me, at my job and my Ivy League credentials, and assume that I’m some sort of genius, that only a truly extraordinary person could have made it to where I am today. With all due respect to those people, I think that theory is a load of bullshit. Whatever talents I have, I almost squandered until a handful of loving people rescued me.

我是那些前途渺茫的孩子之一。我差點從高中畢業。我幾乎屈服於周圍每個人所懷有的深深的憤怒和怨恨。今天，人們看著我，看著我的工作和我的常春藤盟校證書，認為我是某種天才，只有真正非凡的人才能走到今天。恕我直言，我認為這種理論是一堆廢話。無論我有什麼才能，我幾乎都揮霍殆盡，直到少數有愛心的人救了我。

That is the real story of my life, and that is why I wrote this book. I want people to know what it feels like to nearly give up on yourself and why you might do it. I want people to understand what happens in the lives of the poor and the psychological impact that spiritual and material poverty has on their children. I want people to understand the American Dream as my family and I encountered it. I want people to understand how upward mobility really feels. And I want people to understand something I learned only recently: that for those of us lucky enough to live the American Dream, the demons of the life we left behind continue to chase us.

這就是我生命中的真實故事，這就是我寫這本書的原因。我想讓人們知道幾乎放棄自己的感覺，以及你為什麼要這樣做。我希望人們了解窮人生活中發生的事情，以及精神和物質貧困對他們的孩子造成的心理影響。我希望人們理解美國夢，因為我的家人和我遇到了它。我希望人們瞭解向上流動的真實感受。我希望人們明白我最近才學到的東西：對於我們這些有幸實現美國夢的人來說，我們留下的生活惡魔繼續追趕我們。

There is an ethnic component lurking in the background of my story. In our race-conscious society, our vocabulary often extends no further than the color of someone’s skin—“black people,” “Asians,” “white privilege.” Sometimes these broad categories are useful, but to understand my story, you have to delve into the details. I may be white, but I do not identify with the WASPs of the Northeast. Instead, I identify with the millions of working-class white Americans of Scots-Irish descent who have no college degree. To these folks, poverty is the family tradition—their ancestors were day laborers in the Southern slave economy, sharecroppers after that, coal miners after that, and machinists and millworkers during more recent times. Americans call them hillbillies, rednecks, or white trash. I call them neighbors, friends, and family.

在我的故事背景中潛伏著種族成分。在我們這個種族意識強的社會中，我們的詞彙往往只限於某人的膚色——“黑人”、“亞洲人”、“白人特權”。有時這些廣泛的類別是有用的，但要理解我的故事，你必須深入研究細節。我可能是白人，但我不認同東北的WASP。相反，我認同數百萬沒有大學學位的蘇格蘭-愛爾蘭血統的美國工人階級白人。對這些人來說，貧窮是家庭傳統——他們的祖先是南方奴隸經濟的臨時工，之後是佃農，之後是煤礦工人，以及近代的機械師和磨坊工人。美國人稱他們為鄉巴佬、鄉巴佬或白色垃圾。我稱他們為鄰居、朋友和家人。

The Scots-Irish are one of the most distinctive subgroups in America. As one observer noted, “In traveling across America, the Scots-Irish have consistently blown my mind as far and away the most persistent and unchanging regional subculture in the country. Their family structures, religion and politics, and social lives all remain unchanged compared to the wholesale abandonment of tradition that’s occurred nearly everywhere else.”¹ This distinctive embrace of cultural tradition comes along with many good traits—an intense sense of loyalty, a fierce dedication to family and country—but also many bad ones. We do not like outsiders or people who are different from us, whether the difference lies in how they look, how they act, or, most important, how they talk. To understand me, you must understand that I am a Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart.

蘇格蘭-愛爾蘭人是美國最具特色的亞群之一。正如一位觀察家所指出的那樣，“在美國旅行時，蘇格蘭-愛爾蘭人一直讓我大吃一驚，因為它是該國最持久和最不變的區域亞文化。他們的家庭結構、宗教和政治以及社會生活都保持不變，而幾乎在其他地方都發生了對傳統的全面拋棄。¹這種對文化傳統的獨特擁抱伴隨著許多好的特質——強烈的忠誠感、對家庭和國家的強烈奉獻——但也有許多壞的特質。我們不喜歡外人或與我們不同的人，無論區別在於他們的外表、行為方式，還是最重要的是，他們說話的方式。要瞭解我，你必須明白我本質上是一個蘇格蘭-愛爾蘭鄉巴佬。

If ethnicity is one side of the coin, then geography is the other. When the first wave of Scots-Irish immigrants landed in the New World in the eighteenth century, they were deeply attracted to the Appalachian Mountains. This region is admittedly huge—stretching from Alabama to Georgia in the South to Ohio to parts of New York in the North—but the culture of Greater Appalachia is remarkably cohesive. My family, from the hills of eastern Kentucky, describe themselves as hillbillies, but Hank Williams, Jr.—born in Louisiana and an Alabama resident—also identified himself as one in his rural white anthem “A Country Boy Can Survive.” It was Greater Appalachia’s political reorientation from Democrat to Republican that redefined American politics after Nixon. And it is in Greater Appalachia where the fortunes of working-class whites seem dimmest. From low social mobility to poverty to divorce and drug addiction, my home is a hub of misery.

如果種族是硬幣的一面，那麼地理就是另一面。當第一波蘇格蘭-愛爾蘭移民在十八世紀登陸新大陸時，他們被阿巴拉契亞山脈深深吸引。誠然，這個地區幅員遼闊——從阿拉巴馬州到南部的喬治亞州，再到俄亥俄州，再到北部的紐約部分地區——但大阿巴拉契亞的文化卻非常有凝聚力。我的家人來自肯塔基州東部的山區，他們自稱是鄉巴佬，但小漢克·威廉姆斯（Hank Williams， Jr.）出生於路易士安那州，是阿拉巴馬州的居民，在他的鄉村白人歌曲《一個鄉下男孩可以生存》（A Country Boy Can Survive）中也認為自己是鄉巴佬。正是大阿巴拉契亞從民主黨到共和黨的政治重新定位重新定義了尼克鬆之後的美國政治。在大阿巴拉契亞地區，工人階級白人的命運似乎最黯淡。從低社會流動性到貧困，再到離婚和吸毒成癮，我的家是一個痛苦的中心。

It is unsurprising, then, that we’re a pessimistic bunch. What is more surprising is that, as surveys have found, working-class whites are the most pessimistic group in America. More pessimistic than Latino immigrants, many of whom suffer unthinkable poverty. More pessimistic than black Americans, whose material prospects continue to lag behind those of whites. While reality permits some degree of cynicism, the fact that hillbillies like me are more down about the future than many other groups—some of whom are clearly more destitute than we are—suggests that something else is going on.

因此，我們是一群悲觀的人也就不足為奇了。更令人驚訝的是，正如調查發現的那樣，工人階級白人是美國最悲觀的群體。比拉丁裔移民更悲觀，他們中的許多人遭受了難以想像的貧困。比美國黑人更悲觀，他們的物質前景繼續落後於白人。雖然現實允許某種程度的憤世嫉俗，但像我這樣的鄉巴佬比許多其他群體更對未來感到沮喪——其中一些人顯然比我們更貧困——這表明其他事情正在發生。

Indeed it is. We’re more socially isolated than ever, and we pass that isolation down to our children. Our religion has changed—built around churches heavy on emotional rhetoric but light on the kind of social support necessary to enable poor kids to do well. Many of us have dropped out of the labor force or have chosen not to relocate for better opportunities. Our men suffer from a peculiar crisis of masculinity in which some of the very traits that our culture inculcates make it difficult to succeed in a changing world.

確實如此。我們在社會上比以往任何時候都更加孤立，我們將這種孤立傳遞給了我們的孩子。我們的宗教已經發生了變化——圍繞著教會建立起來，這些教會重於情感言論，但輕而易舉地支援了使貧困孩子能夠取得好成績所必需的社會支援。我們中的許多人已經退出了勞動力市場，或者選擇不搬遷以獲得更好的機會。我們的男人遭受了一種特殊的男子氣概危機，在這種危機中，我們的文化灌輸的一些特徵使我們很難在不斷變化的世界中取得成功。

When I mention the plight of my community, I am often met with an explanation that goes something like this: “Of course the prospects for working-class whites have worsened, J.D., but you’re putting the chicken before the egg. They’re divorcing more, marrying less, and experiencing less happiness because their economic opportunities have declined. If they only had better access to jobs, other parts of their lives would improve as well.”

當我提到我所在社區的困境時，我經常會得到這樣的解釋：「當然，工人階級白人的前景已經惡化了，JD，但你把雞放在雞蛋之前。他們離婚的次數越來越多，結婚的次數越來越少，幸福感也越來越低，因為他們的經濟機會減少了。如果他們能更好地找到工作，他們生活的其他部分也會得到改善。

I once held this opinion myself, and I very desperately wanted to believe it during my youth. It makes sense. Not having a job is stressful, and not having enough money to live on is even more so. As the manufacturing center of the industrial Midwest has hollowed out, the white working class has lost both its economic security and the stable home and family life that comes with it.

我自己也曾經持有過這種觀點，在我年輕的時候，我非常迫切地想相信它。這是有道理的。沒有工作是有壓力的，沒有足夠的錢來維持生活更是如此。隨著中西部工業的製造業中心被掏空，白人工人階級失去了經濟保障以及隨之而來的穩定的家庭和家庭生活。

But experience can be a difficult teacher, and it taught me that this story of economic insecurity is, at best, incomplete. A few years ago, during the summer before I enrolled at Yale Law School, I was looking for full-time work in order to finance my move to New Haven, Connecticut. A family friend suggested that I work for him in a medium-sized floor tile distribution business near my hometown. Floor tile is extraordinarily heavy: Each piece weighs anywhere from three to six pounds, and it’s usually packaged in cartons of eight to twelve pieces. My primary duty was to lift the floor tile onto a shipping pallet and prepare that pallet for departure. It wasn’t easy, but it paid thirteen dollars an hour and I needed the money, so I took the job and collected as many overtime shifts and extra hours as I could.

但經驗可能是一個困難的老師，它告訴我，這個經濟不安全的故事充其量是不完整的。幾年前，在我進入耶魯大學法學院之前的那個夏天，我正在尋找全職工作，以資助我搬到康涅狄格州紐黑文市。一位家庭朋友建議我在家鄉附近的一家中型地磚分銷公司為他工作。地磚非常重：每塊地磚的重量從三到六磅不等，通常包裝在八到十二塊的紙箱中。我的主要職責是將地磚抬到運輸托盤上，併為出發準備該托盤。這並不容易，但它每小時支付 13 美元，我需要這筆錢，所以我接受了這份工作，並盡可能多地收集加班和加班時間。

The tile business employed about a dozen people, and most employees had worked there for many years. One guy worked two full-time jobs, but not because he had to: His second job at the tile business allowed him to pursue his dream of piloting an airplane. Thirteen dollars an hour was good money for a single guy in our hometown—a decent apartment costs about five hundred dollars a month—and the tile business offered steady raises. Every employee who worked there for a few years earned at least sixteen dollars an hour in a down economy, which provided an annual income of thirty-two thousand—well above the poverty line even for a family. Despite this relatively stable situation, the managers found it impossible to fill my warehouse position with a long-term employee. By the time I left, three guys worked in the warehouse; at twenty-six, I was by far the oldest.

瓷磚公司雇傭了大約十幾名員工，大多數員工都在那裡工作了很多年。一個人做了兩份全職工作，但並不是因為他必須這樣做：他在瓷磚公司的第二份工作使他能夠追求駕駛飛機的夢想。對於我們家鄉的單身人士來說，每小時13美元是一筆不錯的錢——一套像樣的公寓每月大約要花500美元——而且瓷磚生意提供了穩定的加薪。在經濟不景氣的情況下，每個在那裡工作了幾年的員工每小時至少賺十六美元，年收入達三萬二千美元——即使對於一個家庭來說，也遠高於貧困線。儘管情況相對穩定，但經理們發現不可能用長期員工來填補我的倉庫職位。當我離開時，有三個人在倉庫里工作;二十六歲時，我是迄今為止年齡最大的。

One guy, I’ll call him Bob, joined the tile warehouse just a few months before I did. Bob was nineteen with a pregnant girlfriend. The manager kindly offered the girlfriend a clerical position answering phones. Both of them were terrible workers. The girlfriend missed about every third day of work and never gave advance notice. Though warned to change her habits repeatedly, the girlfriend lasted no more than a few months. Bob missed work about once a week, and he was chronically late. On top of that, he often took three or four daily bathroom breaks, each over half an hour. It became so bad that, by the end of my tenure, another employee and I made a game of it: We’d set a timer when he went to the bathroom and shout the major milestones through the warehouse—“Thirty-five minutes!” “Forty-five minutes!” “One hour!”

有一個人，我叫他鮑勃，比我早幾個月加入瓷磚倉庫。鮑勃十九歲，有一個懷孕的女朋友。經理好心地給了女朋友一個接電話的文員職位。他們倆都是糟糕的工人。女朋友大約每三天就缺勤一次，而且從未提前通知。儘管一再警告她要改變習慣，但女友只持續了幾個月。鮑勃大約每周缺勤一次，而且他經常遲到。最重要的是，他經常每天上三四次廁所，每次都超過半小時。它變得如此糟糕，以至於在我任期結束時，我和另一位員工做了一個遊戲：當他去洗手間時，我們設置了一個計時器，並在倉庫里大喊重要的里程碑——“三十五分鐘！“四十五分鐘！”“一個小時！”

Eventually, Bob, too, was fired. When it happened, he lashed out at his manager: “How could you do this to me? Don’t you know I’ve got a pregnant girlfriend?” And he was not alone: At least two other people, including Bob’s cousin, lost their jobs or quit during my short time at the tile warehouse.

最終，鮑勃也被解僱了。當事情發生時，他猛烈抨擊他的經理：「你怎麼能這樣對我？你不知道我有一個懷孕的女朋友嗎？他並不孤單：至少還有兩個人，包括鮑勃的表弟，在我在瓷磚倉庫的短暫時間里失去了工作或辭職。

You can’t ignore stories like this when you talk about equal opportunity. Nobel-winning economists worry about the decline of the industrial Midwest and the hollowing out of the economic core of working whites. What they mean is that manufacturing jobs have gone overseas and middle-class jobs are harder to come by for people without college degrees. Fair enough—I worry about those things, too. But this book is about something else: what goes on in the lives of real people when the industrial economy goes south. It’s about reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way possible. It’s about a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it.

當你談論平等機會時，你不能忽視這樣的故事。諾貝爾經濟學獎得主擔心中西部工業的衰落和白人經濟核心的空心化。他們的意思是，製造業的工作已經轉移到海外，沒有大學學位的人更難找到中產階級的工作。很公平，我也擔心這些事情。但這本書是關於另一件事的：當工業經濟向南發展時，現實中人們的生活會發生什麼。這是關於以最糟糕的方式對糟糕的環境做出反應。這是關於一種文化，這種文化越來越鼓勵社會衰敗，而不是抵消它。

The problems that I saw at the tile warehouse run far deeper than macroeconomic trends and policy. Too many young men immune to hard work. Good jobs impossible to fill for any length of time. And a young man with every reason to work—a wife-to-be to support and a baby on the way—carelessly tossing aside a good job with excellent health insurance. More troublingly, when it was all over, he thought something had been done to him. There is a lack of agency here—a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself. This is distinct from the larger economic landscape of modern America.

我在瓷磚倉庫看到的問題遠比宏觀經濟趨勢和政策更深。太多的年輕人對艱苦的工作免疫。好工作不可能在任何時間內填補。一個有充分理由工作的年輕人——一個要養活的准妻子和一個即將出生的孩子——粗心大意地把一份擁有良好健康保險的好工作扔到一邊。更令人不安的是，當一切都結束時，他以為有人對他做了什麼。這裡缺乏能動性——一種感覺，你幾乎無法控制自己的生活，並且願意責怪除了你自己之外的所有人。這與現代美國更大的經濟格局截然不同。

It’s worth noting that although I focus on the group of people I know—working-class whites with ties to Appalachia—I’m not arguing that we deserve more sympathy than other folks. This is not a story about why white people have more to complain about than black people or any other group. That said, I do hope that readers of this book will be able to take from it an appreciation of how class and family affect the poor without filtering their views through a racial prism. To many analysts, terms like “welfare queen” conjure unfair images of the lazy black mom living on the dole. Readers of this book will realize quickly that there is little relationship between that specter and my argument: I have known many welfare queens; some were my neighbors, and all were white.

值得注意的是，雖然我關注的是我認識的一群人——與阿巴拉契亞有聯繫的工人階級白人——但我並不是說我們比其他人更值得同情。這不是一個關於為什麼白人比黑人或任何其他群體有更多的抱怨的故事。話雖如此，我確實希望這本書的讀者能夠從中了解階級和家庭如何影響窮人，而不是通過種族棱鏡過濾他們的觀點。對許多分析人士來說，像「福利女王」這樣的術語讓人聯想到懶惰的黑人媽媽生活在救濟金上的不公平形象。這本書的讀者很快就會意識到，這個幽靈和我的論點之間幾乎沒有關係：我認識許多福利女王;有些是我的鄰居，而且都是白人。

This book is not an academic study. In the past few years, William Julius Wilson, Charles Murray, Robert Putnam, and Raj Chetty have authored compelling, well-researched tracts demonstrating that upward mobility fell off in the 1970s and never really recovered, that some regions have fared much worse than others (shocker: Appalachia and the Rust Belt score poorly), and that many of the phenomena I saw in my own life exist across society. I may quibble with some of their conclusions, but they have demonstrated convincingly that America has a problem. Though I will use data, and though I do sometimes rely on academic studies to make a point, my primary aim is not to convince you of a documented problem. My primary aim is to tell a true story about what that problem feels like when you were born with it hanging around your neck.

本書不是學術研究。在過去的幾年裡，威廉·朱利葉斯·威爾遜（William Julius Wilson）、查理斯·默里（Charles Murray）、羅伯特·普特南（Robert Putnam）和拉傑·切蒂（Raj Chetty）撰寫了令人信服的、經過充分研究的小冊子，證明向上流動在1970年代下降，從未真正恢復，一些地區的情況比其他地區差得多（令人震驚的是：阿巴拉契亞和鏽帶得分很低），而且我在自己的生活中看到的許多現象存在於整個社會中。我可能會對他們的一些結論提出質疑，但他們已經令人信服地證明了美國有問題。雖然我會使用數據，儘管我有時確實依靠學術研究來說明觀點，但我的主要目的不是讓你相信一個有據可查的問題。我的主要目的是講述一個真實的故事，講述當你出生時這個問題掛在脖子上的感覺。

I cannot tell that story without appealing to the cast of characters who made up my life. So this book is not just a personal memoir but a family one—a history of opportunity and upward mobility viewed through the eyes of a group of hillbillies from Appalachia. Two generations ago, my grandparents were dirt-poor and in love. They got married and moved north in the hope of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. Their grandchild (me) graduated from one of the finest educational institutions in the world. That’s the short version. The long version exists in the pages that follow.

在講述這個故事時，我不能不吸引構成我生活的一群角色。因此，這本書不僅僅是一本個人回憶錄，而是一本家庭回憶錄——通過一群來自阿巴拉契亞的鄉巴佬的眼睛來看待一段關於機會和向上流動的歷史。兩代人以前，我的祖父母一貧如洗，卻相愛。他們結婚並搬到北方，希望逃離他們周圍可怕的貧困。他們的孫子（我）畢業於世界上最好的教育機構之一。這是簡短的版本。長版本存在於以下頁面中。

Though I sometimes change the names of people to protect their privacy, this story is, to the best of my recollection, a fully accurate portrait of the world I’ve witnessed. There are no composite characters and no narrative shortcuts. Where possible, I corroborated the details with documentation—report cards, handwritten letters, notes on photographs—but I am sure this story is as fallible as any human memory. Indeed, when I asked my sister to read an earlier draft, that draft ignited a thirty-minute conversation about whether I had misplaced an event chronologically. I left my version in, not because I suspect my sister’s memory is faulty (in fact, I imagine hers is better than mine), but because I think there is something to learn in how I’ve organized the events in my own mind.

雖然我有時會更改人們的名字以保護他們的隱私，但據我所知，這個故事是我所目睹的世界的完全準確的寫照。沒有複合角色，也沒有敘事捷徑。在可能的情況下，我用文件證實了細節——成績單、手寫信件、照片筆記——但我確信這個故事和任何人類記憶一樣容易出錯。事實上，當我讓我姐姐讀一份較早的草稿時，那份草稿引發了一場長達三十分鐘的談話，討論我是否按時間順序錯位了事件。我留下了我的版本，不是因為我懷疑我姐姐的記憶有問題（事實上，我認為她的記憶力比我的要好），而是因為我認為在我自己的腦海中組織事件的方式有一些東西需要學習。

Nor am I an unbiased observer. Nearly every person you will read about is deeply flawed. Some have tried to murder other people, and a few were successful. Some have abused their children, physically or emotionally. Many abused (and still abuse) drugs. But I love these people, even those to whom I avoid speaking for my own sanity. And if I leave you with the impression that there are bad people in my life, then I am sorry, both to you and to the people so portrayed. For there are no villains in this story. There’s just a ragtag band of hillbillies struggling to find their way—both for their sake and, by the grace of God, for mine.

我也不是一個公正的觀察者。你幾乎會讀到的每一個人都有嚴重的缺陷。有些人試圖謀殺其他人，有些人成功了。有些人在身體上或情感上虐待他們的孩子。許多人濫用（並且仍在濫用）藥物。但我愛這些人，即使是那些我為了自己的理智而避免與之交談的人。如果我給你留下的印象是我的生活中有壞人，那麼我很抱歉，無論是對你還是對如此描繪的人。因為這個故事中沒有惡棍。只有一群衣衫襤褸的鄉巴佬在努力尋找自己的路——既是為了他們，也是為了上帝的恩典，為了我的緣故。

Chapter 1

第 1 章

Like most small children, I learned my home address so that if I got lost, I could tell a grown-up where to take me. In kindergarten, when the teacher asked me where I lived, I could recite the address without skipping a beat, even though my mother changed addresses frequently, for reasons I never understood as a child. Still, I always distinguished “my address” from “my home.” My address was where I spent most of my time with my mother and sister, wherever that might be. But my home never changed: my great-grandmother’s house, in the holler, in Jackson, Kentucky.

像大多數小孩子一樣，我學會了我的家庭住址，這樣如果我迷路了，我可以告訴大人帶我去哪裡。在幼稚園時，當老師問我住在哪裡時，我可以毫不猶豫地背誦位址，儘管我的母親經常更換位址，原因我小時候一直不明白。儘管如此，我總是將“我的位址”與“我的家”區分開來。我的位址是我與母親和姐姐度過大部分時間的地方，無論那裡在哪裡。但我的家從未改變：我曾祖母的房子，在肯塔基州傑克遜的喧囂中。

Jackson is a small town of about six thousand in the heart of southeastern Kentucky’s coal country. Calling it a town is a bit charitable: There’s a courthouse, a few restaurants—almost all of them fast-food chains—and a few other shops and stores. Most of the people live in the mountains surrounding Kentucky Highway 15, in trailer parks, in government-subsidized housing, in small farmhouses, and in mountain homesteads like the one that served as the backdrop for the fondest memories of my childhood.

傑克遜是一個擁有約六千人口的小鎮，位於肯塔基州東南部的煤炭之鄉的中心地帶。稱它為小鎮有點慈善：這裡有一座法院、幾家餐館（幾乎都是速食連鎖店）和其他一些商店和商店。大多數人住在肯塔基州 15 號公路周圍的山區、拖車公園、政府補貼的住房、小農舍和山區宅基地，就像我童年最美好回憶的背景一樣。

Jacksonians say hello to everyone, willingly skip their favorite pastimes to dig a stranger’s car out of the snow, and—without exception—stop their cars, get out, and stand at attention every time a funeral motorcade drives past. It was that latter practice that made me aware of something special about Jackson and its people. Why, I’d ask my grandma—whom we all called Mamaw—did everyone stop for the passing hearse? “Because, honey, we’re hill people. And we respect our dead.”

傑克遜人對每個人都說你好，心甘情願地跳過他們最喜歡的消遣，從雪地里挖出陌生人的車，並且——無一例外——停下車，下車，每次葬禮車隊駛過時都站在那裡。正是后一種做法使我意識到傑克遜及其人民的特別之處。為什麼，我會問我的奶奶——我們都叫她媽媽——每個人都停下來等靈車經過嗎？“因為，親愛的，我們是山民。我們尊重我們的死者。

My grandparents left Jackson in the late 1940s and raised their family in Middletown, Ohio, where I later grew up. But until I was twelve, I spent my summers and much of the rest of my time back in Jackson. I’d visit along with Mamaw, who wanted to see friends and family, ever conscious that time was shortening the list of her favorite people. And as time wore on, we made our trips for one reason above all: to take care of Mamaw’s mother, whom we called Mamaw Blanton (to distinguish her, though somewhat confusingly, from Mamaw). We stayed with Mamaw Blanton in the house where she’d lived since before her husband left to fight the Japanese in the Pacific.

我的祖父母在 1940 年代後期離開傑克遜，在俄亥俄州的米德爾敦養家糊口，後來我在那裡長大。但在我十二歲之前，我的暑假和大部分時間都回到了傑克遜。我會和媽媽一起去拜訪，她想見朋友和家人，她總是意識到時間正在縮短她最喜歡的人的名單。隨著時間的流逝，我們旅行的首要原因只有一個：照顧媽媽的母親，我們稱她為媽媽布蘭頓（為了將她與媽媽區分開來，儘管有點令人困惑）。我們和布蘭頓媽媽一起住在她丈夫去太平洋與日本人作戰之前她一直住的房子里。

Mamaw Blanton’s house was my favorite place in the world, though it was neither large nor luxurious. The house had three bedrooms. In the front were a small porch, a porch swing, and a large yard that stretched into a mountain on one side and to the head of the holler on the other. Though Mamaw Blanton owned some property, most of it was uninhabitable foliage. There wasn’t a backyard to speak of, though there was a beautiful mountainside of rock and tree. There was always the holler, and the creek that ran alongside it; those were backyard enough. The kids all slept in a single upstairs room: a squad bay of about a dozen beds where my cousins and I played late into the night until our irritated grandma would frighten us into sleep.

布蘭頓媽媽的房子是我最喜歡的地方，雖然它既不大也不豪華。房子有三間臥室。前面是一個小門廊，一個門廊秋千，還有一個大院子，一邊延伸到山上，另一邊延伸到吼叫者的頭上。雖然布蘭頓媽媽擁有一些財產，但其中大部分是無法居住的樹葉。沒有後院可言，雖然有一個美麗的岩石和樹木的山腰。總是有呐喊聲，還有沿著它流淌的小溪;那些已經足夠後院了。孩子們都睡在樓上的一個房間里：一個大約有十幾張床的小隊隔間，我和我的表兄弟們在那裡玩到深夜，直到我們惱怒的奶奶嚇得我們睡著了。

The surrounding mountains were paradise to a child, and I spent much of my time terrorizing the Appalachian fauna: No turtle, snake, frog, fish, or squirrel was safe. I’d run around with my cousins, unaware of the ever-present poverty or Mamaw Blanton’s deteriorating health.

周圍的群山對一個孩子來說是天堂，我花了很多時間恐嚇阿巴拉契亞動物群：沒有、蛇、青蛙、魚或松鼠是安全的。我和我的表兄弟們一起跑來跑去，沒有意識到無處不在的貧困，也不知道布蘭頓媽媽的健康情況每況愈下。

At a deep level, Jackson was the one place that belonged to me, my sister, and Mamaw. I loved Ohio, but it was full of painful memories. In Jackson, I was the grandson of the toughest woman anyone knew and the most skilled auto mechanic in town; in Ohio, I was the abandoned son of a man I hardly knew and a woman I wished I didn’t. Mom visited Kentucky only for the annual family reunion or the occasional funeral, and when she did, Mamaw made sure she brought none of the drama. In Jackson, there would be no screaming, no fighting, no beating up on my sister, and especially “no men,” as Mamaw would say. Mamaw hated Mom’s various love interests and allowed none of them in Kentucky.

在深層次上，傑克遜是屬於我、我姐姐和媽媽的地方。我愛俄亥俄州，但它充滿了痛苦的回憶。在傑克遜，我是人們認識的最堅強的女人的孫子，也是鎮上最熟練的汽車修理工;在俄亥俄州，我是一個我幾乎不認識的男人和一個我希望不認識的女人的遺棄兒子。媽媽來肯塔基州只是為了一年一度的家庭聚會或偶爾的葬禮，當她去時，媽媽確保她沒有帶任何戲劇。在傑克遜，不會有尖叫，不會打架，不會毆打我妹妹，尤其是“沒有男人”，正如媽媽所說的那樣。媽媽討厭媽的各種愛情，並且不允許他們在肯塔基州。

In Ohio, I had grown especially skillful at navigating various father figures. With Steve, a midlife-crisis sufferer with an earring to prove it, I pretended earrings were cool—so much so that he thought it appropriate to pierce my ear, too. With Chip, an alcoholic police officer who saw my earring as a sign of “girlieness,” I had thick skin and loved police cars. With Ken, an odd man who proposed to Mom three days into their relationship, I was a kind brother to his two children. But none of these things were really true. I hated earrings, I hated police cars, and I knew that Ken’s children would be out of my life by the next year. In Kentucky, I didn’t have to pretend to be someone I wasn’t, because the only men in my life—my grandmother’s brothers and brothers-in-law—already knew me. Did I want to make them proud? Of course I did, but not because I pretended to like them; I genuinely loved them.

在俄亥俄州，我變得特別善於駕馭各種父親形象。史蒂夫（Steve）是一個中年危機患者，戴著耳環來證明這一點，我假裝耳環很酷——以至於他認為也適合打耳洞。奇普是一個酗酒的員警，他把我的耳環看作是“少女”的標誌，我臉皮厚，喜歡警車。肯是一個奇怪的男人，在他們交往三天后向媽媽求婚，我是他兩個孩子的好兄弟。但這些都不是真的。我討厭耳環，我討厭警車，我知道肯的孩子明年就會離開我的生活。在肯塔基州，我不必假裝自己不是我，因為我生命中唯一的男人——我祖母的兄弟和姐夫——已經認識我了。我想讓他們感到驕傲嗎？我當然知道了，但不是因為我假裝喜歡他們;我真的很愛他們。

The oldest and meanest of the Blanton men was Uncle Teaberry, nicknamed for his favorite flavor of chewing gum. Uncle Teaberry, like his father, served in the navy during World War II. He died when I was four, so I have only two real memories of him. In the first, I’m running for my life, and Teaberry is close behind with a switchblade, assuring me that he’ll feed my right ear to the dogs if he catches me. I leap into Mamaw Blanton’s arms, and the terrifying game is over. But I know that I loved him, because my second memory is of throwing such a fit over not being allowed to visit him on his deathbed that my grandma was forced to don a hospital robe and smuggle me in. I remember clinging to her underneath that hospital robe, but I don’t remember saying goodbye.

布蘭頓人中最年長、最卑鄙的人是茶莓叔叔，他因最喜歡的口香糖口味而得名。蒂貝里叔叔和他的父親一樣，在二戰期間在海軍服役。他在我四歲時就去世了，所以我對他只有兩個真實的記憶。在第一部中，我正在逃命，Teaberry 拿著彈簧刀緊隨其後，向我保證如果他抓住我，他會把我的右耳喂給狗。我跳進了布蘭頓媽媽的懷裡，可怕的遊戲結束了。但我知道我愛他，因為我的第二個記憶是，在他臨終前不被允許探望他，以至於我的祖母被迫穿上病號服，把我偷偷帶進去。我記得在那件病號服下緊緊抱著她，但我不記得說再見。

Uncle Pet came next. Uncle Pet was a tall man with a biting wit and a raunchy sense of humor. The most economically successful of the Blanton crew, Uncle Pet left home early and started some timber and construction businesses that made him enough money to race horses in his spare time. He seemed the nicest of the Blanton men, with the smooth charm of a successful businessman. But that charm masked a fierce temper. Once, when a truck driver delivered supplies to one of Uncle Pet’s businesses, he told my old hillbilly uncle, “Off-load this now, you son of a bitch.” Uncle Pet took the comment literally: “When you say that, you’re calling my dear old mother a bitch, so I’d kindly ask you speak more carefully.” When the driver—nicknamed Big Red because of his size and hair color—repeated the insult, Uncle Pet did what any rational business owner would do: He pulled the man from his truck, beat him unconscious, and ran an electric saw up and down his body. Big Red nearly bled to death but was rushed to the hospital and survived. Uncle Pet never went to jail, though. Apparently, Big Red was also an Appalachian man, and he refused to speak to the police about the incident or press charges. He knew what it meant to insult a man’s mother.

接下來是寵物叔叔。寵物叔叔是個高個子，機智俏皮，幽默感不修邊幅。作為布蘭頓船員中經濟上最成功的，彼特叔叔很早就離開了家，開始了一些木材和建築業務，這使他在業餘時間賺到了足夠的錢來賽馬。他似乎是布蘭頓人中最好的，有著成功商人的圓滑魅力。但這種魅力掩蓋了兇猛的脾氣。有一次，當一個卡車司機給彼特叔叔的一家企業運送物資時，他對我的鄉巴佬叔叔說：“你這個婊子，現在把這個卸下來。寵物叔叔從字面上理解了這句話：“你這麼說，你是在罵我親愛的老母親是婊子，所以我請你說話更小心。當司機——因為他的體型和頭髮顏色而被昵稱為“大紅”——重複了侮辱時，彼得叔叔做了任何理性企業主都會做的事情：他把這個人從卡車上拉下來，把他打昏，然後用電鋸在他的身體上來回移動。大紅差點流血致死，但被緊急送往醫院並倖免於難。不過，寵物叔叔從未進過監獄。顯然，大紅也是阿巴拉契亞人，他拒絕與警方談論這一事件或媒體指控。他知道侮辱一個男人的母親意味著什麼。

Uncle David may have been the only one of Mamaw’s brothers to care little for that honor culture. An old rebel with long, flowing hair and a longer beard, he loved everything but rules, which might explain why, when I found his giant marijuana plant in the backyard of the old homestead, he didn’t try to explain it away. Shocked, I asked Uncle David what he planned to do with illegal drugs. So he got some cigarette papers and a lighter and showed me. I was twelve. I knew if Mamaw ever found out, she’d kill him.

大衛舅舅可能是媽媽的兄弟中唯一一個不關心這種榮譽文化的人。他是一個老叛逆者，有著飄逸的長髮和更長的鬍鬚，他喜歡一切，除了規則，這也許可以解釋為什麼當我在老宅基地的後院發現他的巨型大麻植物時，他沒有試圖解釋它。我大吃一驚，問大衛叔叔他打算如何處理非法毒品。於是他拿了一些煙紙和打火機給我看。那年我十二歲。我知道如果媽媽知道了，她會殺了他。

I feared this because, according to family lore, Mamaw had nearly killed a man. When she was around twelve, Mamaw walked outside to see two men loading the family’s cow—a prized possession in a world without running water—into the back of a truck. She ran inside, grabbed a rifle, and fired a few rounds. One of the men collapsed—the result of a shot to the leg—and the other jumped into the truck and squealed away. The would-be thief could barely crawl, so Mamaw approached him, raised the business end of her rifle to the man’s head, and prepared to finish the job. Luckily for him, Uncle Pet intervened. Mamaw’s first confirmed kill would have to wait for another day.

我擔心這一點，因為根據家族傳說，媽媽差點殺了一個人。在她十二歲左右的時候，媽媽走到外面，看到兩個男人把家裡的牛裝進卡車的後座——在一個沒有自來水的世界里，這是珍貴的財產。她跑進去，拿起一把步槍，開了幾槍。其中一名男子倒下了——腿部中彈——另一名男子跳上卡車，尖叫著離開了。這個潛在的小偷幾乎無法爬行，所以媽媽走近他，將步槍的一端舉到男人的頭上，準備完成這項工作。幸運的是，彼得叔叔介入了。Mamaw的第一次確認殺戮將不得不等待另一天。

Even knowing what a pistol-packing lunatic Mamaw was, I find this story hard to believe. I polled members of my family, and about half had never heard the story. The part I believe is that she would have murdered the man if someone hadn’t stopped her. She loathed disloyalty, and there was no greater disloyalty than class betrayal. Each time someone stole a bike from our porch (three times, by my count), or broke into her car and took the loose change, or stole a delivery, she’d tell me, like a general giving his troops marching orders, “There is nothing lower than the poor stealing from the poor. It’s hard enough as it is. We sure as hell don’t need to make it even harder on each other.”

即使知道一個裝滿手槍的瘋子媽媽，我也覺得這個故事很難相信。我調查了我的家人，大約一半的人從未聽說過這個故事。我相信的部分是，如果有人沒有阻止她，她會謀殺那個男人。她憎惡不忠，沒有比階級背叛更大的不忠了。每當有人從我們的門廊偷了一輛自行車（據我統計了三次），或者闖入她的車，拿走了零錢，或者偷了快遞，她都會告訴我，就像一個將軍向他的部隊下達行軍命令一樣，“沒有什麼比窮人從窮人那裡偷東西更卑鄙的了。這已經夠難了。我們當然不需要讓彼此更難。

Youngest of all the Blanton boys was Uncle Gary. He was the baby of the family and one of the sweetest men I knew. Uncle Gary left home young and built a successful roofing business in Indiana. A good husband and a better father, he’d always say to me, “We’re proud of you, ole Jaydot,” causing me to swell with pride. He was my favorite, the only Blanton brother not to threaten me with a kick in the ass or a detached ear.

布蘭頓所有男孩中最小的是加里叔叔。他是家裡的寶貝，也是我認識的最可愛的男人之一。加里叔叔年輕時就離開了家，在印第安那州建立了一家成功的屋頂企業。一個好丈夫和一個好父親，他總是對我說，“我們為你感到驕傲，ole Jaydot”，這讓我感到自豪。他是我的最愛，是布蘭頓唯一一個不用踢屁股或脫落耳朵來威脅我的兄弟。

My grandma also had two younger sisters, Betty and Rose, whom I loved each very much, but I was obsessed with the Blanton men. I would sit among them and beg them to tell and retell their stories. These men were the gatekeepers to the family’s oral tradition, and I was their best student.

我奶奶還有兩個妹妹，貝蒂和羅斯，我非常喜歡她們，但我癡迷於布蘭頓的男人。我會坐在他們中間，懇求他們講述和複述他們的故事。這些人是這個家庭口頭傳統的守門人，而我是他們最好的學生。

Most of this tradition was far from child appropriate. Almost all of it involved the kind of violence that should land someone in jail. Much of it centered on how the county in which Jackson was situated—Breathitt—earned its alliterative nickname, “Bloody Breathitt.” There were many explanations, but they all had one theme: The people of Breathitt hated certain things, and they didn’t need the law to snuff them out.

這種傳統大多不適合兒童。幾乎所有的暴力事件都涉及應該讓某人入獄的暴力。其中大部分都集中在傑克遜所在的縣——Breathitt——如何贏得它的綽號“Bloody Breathitt”。有很多解釋，但它們都有一個主題：Breathitt的人討厭某些東西，他們不需要法律來扼殺它們。

One of the most common tales of Breathitt’s gore revolved around an older man in town who was accused of raping a young girl. Mamaw told me that, days before his trial, the man was found facedown in a local lake with sixteen bullet wounds in his back. The authorities never investigated the murder, and the only mention of the incident appeared in the local newspaper on the morning his body was discovered. In an admirable display of journalistic pith, the paper reported: “Man found dead. Foul play expected.” “Foul play expected?” my grandmother would roar. “You’re goddamned right. Bloody Breathitt got to that son of a bitch.”

Breathitt 血腥事件中最常見的故事之一圍繞著鎮上一名被指控強姦一名年輕女孩的老人展開。媽媽告訴我，在審判前幾天，這名男子被發現面朝下躺在當地的一個湖裡，背部有16處槍傷。當局從未調查過這起謀殺案，唯一提到這一事件的是在他的屍體被發現的那天早上出現在當地報紙上。該報以令人欽佩的新聞精髓展示報導：「人被發現死了。犯規是意料之中的。“犯規嗎？”我祖母會咆哮。“你說得對。血腥的呼吸找到了那個婊子的兒子。

Or there was that day when Uncle Teaberry overheard a young man state a desire to “eat her panties,” a reference to his sister’s (my Mamaw’s) undergarments. Uncle Teaberry drove home, retrieved a pair of Mamaw’s underwear, and forced the young man—at knifepoint—to consume the clothing.

或者有一天，茶莓叔叔無意中聽到一個年輕人說想“吃她的內褲”，指的是他姐姐（我媽媽）的內衣。茶莓舅舅開車回家，取回了媽媽的一條內褲，用刀逼迫這個年輕人吃掉了衣服。

Some people may conclude that I come from a clan of lunatics. But the stories made me feel like hillbilly royalty, because these were classic good-versus-evil stories, and my people were on the right side. My people were extreme, but extreme in the service of something—defending a sister’s honor or ensuring that a criminal paid for his crimes. The Blanton men, like the tomboy Blanton sister whom I called Mamaw, were enforcers of hillbilly justice, and to me, that was the very best kind.

有些人可能會得出結論，我來自一個瘋子家族。但這些故事讓我覺得自己像鄉巴佬的皇室成員，因為這些都是經典的善惡對比故事，我的人民站在正確的一邊。我的人民是極端的，但在為某事服務時是極端的——捍衛姊妹的榮譽或確保罪犯為他的罪行付出代價。布蘭頓的男人，就像我叫媽媽的假小子布蘭頓姐姐一樣，是鄉巴佬正義的執行者，對我來說，這是最好的那種。

Despite their virtues, or perhaps because of them, the Blanton men were full of vice. A few of them left a trail of neglected children, cheated wives, or both. And I didn’t even know them that well: I saw them only at large family reunions or during the holidays. Still, I loved and worshipped them. I once overheard Mamaw tell her mother that I loved the Blanton men because so many father figures had come and gone, but the Blanton men were always there. There’s definitely a kernel of truth to that. But more than anything, the Blanton men were the living embodiment of the hills of Kentucky. I loved them because I loved Jackson.

儘管他們有美德，或者也許正因為如此，布蘭頓人充滿了惡習。他們中的一些人留下了被忽視的孩子、出軌的妻子或兩者兼而有之的痕跡。我甚至不太了解他們：我只在大型家庭聚會或假期期間看到他們。儘管如此，我還是愛他們，崇拜他們。有一次，我無意中聽到媽媽告訴她媽媽，我愛布蘭頓的男人，因為有那麼多父親的形象來來去去，但布蘭頓的男人總是在那裡。這肯定是有道理的。但最重要的是，布蘭頓人是肯塔基州山丘的活生生的化身。我愛他們，因為我愛傑克遜。

As I grew older, my obsession with the Blanton men faded into appreciation, just as my view of Jackson as some sort of paradise matured. I will always think of Jackson as my home. It is unfathomably beautiful: When the leaves turn in October, it seems as if every mountain in town is on fire. But for all its beauty, and for all the fond memories, Jackson is a very harsh place. Jackson taught me that “hill people” and “poor people” usually meant the same thing. At Mamaw Blanton’s, we’d eat scrambled eggs, ham, fried potatoes, and biscuits for breakfast; fried bologna sandwiches for lunch; and soup beans and cornbread for dinner. Many Jackson families couldn’t say the same, and I knew this because, as I grew older, I overheard the adults speak about the pitiful children in the neighborhood who were starving and how the town could help them. Mamaw shielded me from the worst of Jackson, but you can keep reality at bay only so long.

隨著年齡的增長，我對布蘭頓男人的癡迷逐漸消失，就像我對傑克遜作為某種天堂的看法成熟一樣。我將永遠認為傑克遜是我的家。它美得不可思議：當十月的樹葉翻開時，似乎鎮上的每一座山都著火了。但是，儘管傑克遜的美麗和所有美好的回憶，傑克遜是一個非常嚴酷的地方。傑克遜告訴我，「山民」和「窮人」通常意味著同樣的事情。在Mamaw Blanton's，我們會吃炒雞蛋、火腿、炸土豆和餅乾作為早餐;午餐炸博洛尼亞三明治;晚餐還有湯豆和玉米麵包。許多傑克遜家庭不能這麼說，我知道這一點，因為隨著年齡的增長，我無意中聽到大人們談論附近饑餓的可憐孩子以及鎮上如何幫助他們。媽媽保護了我免受傑克遜最糟糕的影響，但你只能讓現實保持這麼久。

On a recent trip to Jackson, I made sure to stop at Mamaw Blanton’s old house, now inhabited by my second cousin Rick and his family. We talked about how things had changed. “Drugs have come in,” Rick told me. “And nobody’s interested in holding down a job.” I hoped my beloved holler had escaped the worst, so I asked Rick’s boys to take me on a walk. All around I saw the worst signs of Appalachian poverty.

在最近一次去傑克遜的旅行中，我一定要在媽媽布蘭頓的老房子里停下來，現在住著我的二表弟裡克和他的家人。我們談到了事情是如何變化的。“毒品進來了，”里克告訴我。“而且沒有人對保住一份工作感興趣。我希望我心愛的吼叫者逃脫了最壞的情況，所以我讓瑞克的孩子們帶我去散步。我到處都看到了阿巴拉契亞貧困的最糟糕跡象。

Some of it was as heartbreaking as it was cliché: decrepit shacks rotting away, stray dogs begging for food, and old furniture strewn on the lawns. Some of it was far more troubling. While passing a small two-bedroom house, I noticed a frightened set of eyes looking at me from behind the curtains of a bedroom window. My curiosity piqued, I looked closer and counted no fewer than eight pairs of eyes, all looking at me from three windows with an unsettling combination of fear and longing. On the front porch was a thin man, no older than thirty-five, apparently the head of the household. Several ferocious, malnourished, chained-up dogs protected the furniture strewn about the barren front yard. When I asked Rick’s son what the young father did for a living, he told me the man had no job and was proud of it. But, he added, “they’re mean, so we just try to avoid them.”

其中一些既令人心碎，又是陳詞濫調：破舊的棚屋腐爛，流浪狗乞討食物，舊傢俱散落在草坪上。其中一些更令人不安。在經過一棟兩居室的小房子時，我注意到一雙驚恐的眼睛從臥室窗戶的窗簾後面看著我。我的好奇心被激起了，我仔細看了看，數了數不下八雙眼睛，都從三扇窗戶看著我，帶著一種令人不安的恐懼和渴望。前廊上坐著一個瘦弱的男人，年齡不超過三十五歲，顯然是一家之主。幾隻兇猛、營養不良、被拴著鏈子的狗保護著散落在貧瘠的前院的傢俱。當我問瑞克的兒子這位年輕的父親靠什麼謀生時，他告訴我這個人沒有工作，併為此感到自豪。但是，他補充說，「他們很卑鄙，所以我們只是盡量避免他們。

That house might be extreme, but it represents much about the lives of hill people in Jackson. Nearly a third of the town lives in poverty, a figure that includes about half of Jackson’s children. And that doesn’t count the large majority of Jacksonians who hover around the poverty line. An epidemic of prescription drug addiction has taken root. The public schools are so bad that the state of Kentucky recently seized control. Nevertheless, parents send their children to these schools because they have little extra money, and the high school fails to send its students to college with alarming consistency. The people are physically unhealthy, and without government assistance they lack treatment for the most basic problems. Most important, they’re mean about it—they will hesitate to open their lives up to others for the simple reason that they don’t wish to be judged.

那所房子可能很極端，但它代表了傑克遜山民的生活。該鎮近三分之一的人生活在貧困中，這個數位包括傑克遜大約一半的孩子。這還不包括徘徊在貧困線附近的絕大多數傑克遜人。處方藥成癮的流行已經紮根。公立學校非常糟糕，以至於肯塔基州最近奪取了控制權。然而，父母把孩子送到這些學校是因為他們幾乎沒有多餘的錢，而高中未能以驚人的一致性將學生送入大學。人們的身體不健康，沒有政府的援助，他們無法治療最基本的問題。最重要的是，他們對此很刻薄——他們會猶豫是否向他人敞開心扉，原因很簡單，他們不想被評判。

In 2009, ABC News ran a news report about Appalachian America, highlighting a phenomenon known locally as “Mountain Dew mouth”: painful dental problems in young children, generally caused by too much sugary soda. In its broadcast, ABC featured a litany of stories about Appalachian children confronting poverty and deprivation. The news report was widely watched in the region but met with utter scorn. The consistent reaction: This is none of your damn business. “This has to be the most offensive thing I have ever heard and you should all be ashamed, ABC included,” wrote one commenter online. Another added: “You should be ashamed of yourself for reinforcing old, false stereotypes and not giving a more accurate picture of Appalachia. This is an opinion shared among many in the actual rural towns of the mountains that I have met.”

2009年，美國廣播公司新聞（ABC News）刊登了一篇關於阿巴拉契亞美洲的新聞報導，強調了一種在當地被稱為“山露嘴”的現象：幼兒的牙齒問題疼痛，通常是由過多的含糖蘇打水引起的。在廣播中，美國廣播公司（ABC）播放了一連串關於阿巴拉契亞兒童面臨貧困和匱乏的故事。這則新聞報導在該地區受到廣泛關注，但遭到了徹底的蔑視。一致的反應是：這不關你的事。“這一定是我聽過的最令人反感的事情，你們都應該感到羞恥，包括ABC，”一位評論者在網上寫道。另一位補充說：「你應該為自己強化舊的、錯誤的刻板印象而感到羞恥，而不是更準確地描述阿巴拉契亞。這是我遇到的山區農村城鎮中的許多人所認同的觀點。

I knew this because my cousin took to Facebook to silence the critics—noting that only by admitting the region’s problems could people hope to change them. Amber is uniquely positioned to comment on the problems of Appalachia: Unlike me, she spent her entire childhood in Jackson. She was an academic star in high school and later earned a college degree, the first in her nuclear family to do so. She saw the worst of Jackson’s poverty firsthand and overcame it.

我之所以知道這一點，是因為我的表弟在Facebook上讓批評者閉嘴——他指出，只有承認該地區的問題，人們才有希望改變它們。艾梅柏在評論阿巴拉契亞問題方面具有獨特的優勢：與我不同，她的整個童年都是在傑克遜度過的。她在高中時是學術明星，後來獲得了大學學位，這是她核心家庭中第一個這樣做的人。她親眼目睹了傑克遜最糟糕的貧困，並克服了它。

The angry reaction supports the academic literature on Appalachian Americans. In a December 2000 paper, sociologists Carol A. Markstrom, Sheila K. Marshall, and Robin J. Tryon found that avoidance and wishful-thinking forms of coping “significantly predicted resiliency” among Appalachian teens. Their paper suggests that hillbillies learn from an early age to deal with uncomfortable truths by avoiding them, or by pretending better truths exist. This tendency might make for psychological resilience, but it also makes it hard for Appalachians to look at themselves honestly.

憤怒的反應支持了關於阿巴拉契亞裔美國人的學術文獻。在2000年12月的一篇論文中，社會學家卡羅爾·A·馬克斯特羅姆（Carol A. Markstrom）、希拉·K·馬歇爾（Sheila K. Marshall）和羅賓·J·特賴恩（Robin J. Tryon）發現，逃避和一廂情願的應對方式“顯著地預測了阿巴拉契亞青少年的復原力”。他們的論文表明，鄉巴佬從小就學會了通過迴避或假裝存在更好的真相來處理令人不安的真相。這種傾向可能會使心理恢復力強，但也使阿巴拉契亞人難以誠實地看待自己。

We tend to overstate and to understate, to glorify the good and ignore the bad in ourselves. This is why the folks of Appalachia reacted strongly to an honest look at some of its most impoverished people. It’s why I worshipped the Blanton men, and it’s why I spent the first eighteen years of my life pretending that everything in the world was a problem except me.

我們傾向於誇大和低估，頌揚好的一面，忽視自己身上的壞處。這就是為什麼阿巴拉契亞的人民對誠實地看待一些最貧困的人反應強烈的原因。這就是為什麼我崇拜布蘭頓的男人，這就是為什麼我在生命的前十八年裡假裝世界上除了我之外的一切都是問題。

The truth is hard, and the hardest truths for hill people are the ones they must tell about themselves. Jackson is undoubtedly full of the nicest people in the world; it is also full of drug addicts and at least one man who can find the time to make eight children but can’t find the time to support them. It is unquestionably beautiful, but its beauty is obscured by the environmental waste and loose trash that scatters the countryside. Its people are hardworking, except of course for the many food stamp recipients who show little interest in honest work. Jackson, like the Blanton men, is full of contradictions.

真相是艱難的，而對於山民來說，最難的真相是他們必須講述自己的真相。傑克遜無疑充滿了世界上最好的人;這裡也到處都是吸毒者，至少有一個男人可以抽出時間生八個孩子，卻找不到時間養活他們。它無疑是美麗的，但它的美麗被散落在鄉村的環境垃圾和鬆散的垃圾所掩蓋。它的人民很勤奮，當然除了許多對誠實工作興趣不大的食品券領取者。傑克遜和布蘭頓的男人一樣，充滿了矛盾。

Things have gotten so bad that last summer, after my cousin Mike buried his mother, his thoughts turned immediately to selling her house. “I can’t live here, and I can’t leave it untended,” he said. “The drug addicts will ransack it.” Jackson has always been poor, but it was never a place where a man feared leaving his mother’s home alone. The place I call home has taken a worrisome turn.

事情變得如此糟糕，以至於去年夏天，我的表弟邁克埋葬了他的母親后，他立即想到賣掉她的房子。“我不能住在這裡，我不能讓它無人照料，”他說。“吸毒者會洗劫一空。”傑克遜一直很窮，但這裡從來不是一個男人害怕獨自離開母親家的地方。我稱之為家的地方發生了令人擔憂的轉變。

If there is any temptation to judge these problems as the narrow concern of backwoods hollers, a glimpse at my own life reveals that Jackson’s plight has gone mainstream. Thanks to the massive migration from the poorer regions of Appalachia to places like Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, hillbilly values spread widely along with hillbilly people. Indeed, Kentucky transplants and their children are so prominent in Middletown, Ohio (where I grew up), that as kids we derisively called it “Middletucky.”

如果說有什麼誘惑把這些問題看作是窮鄉僻壤的狹隘關注，那麼只要看一看我自己的生活，就會發現傑克遜的困境已經成為主流。由於從阿巴拉契亞較貧窮的地區大規模遷移到俄亥俄州、密歇根州、印第安那州、賓夕法尼亞州和伊利諾伊州等地，鄉巴佬的價值觀與鄉巴佬一起廣泛傳播。事實上，肯塔基州的移植和他們的孩子在俄亥俄州的米德爾敦（我長大的地方）非常突出，以至於小時候我們嘲笑地稱它為「米德爾塔基」。。

My grandparents uprooted themselves from the real Kentucky and relocated to Middletucky in search of a better life, and in some ways they found it. In other ways, they never really escaped. The drug addiction that plagues Jackson has afflicted their older daughter for her entire adult life. Mountain Dew mouth may be especially bad in Jackson, but my grandparents fought it in Middletown, too: I was nine months old the first time Mamaw saw my mother put Pepsi in my bottle. Virtuous fathers are in short supply in Jackson, but they are equally scarce in the lives of my grandparents’ grandchildren. People have struggled to get out of Jackson for decades; now they struggle to escape Middletown.

我的祖父母從真正的肯塔基州背井離鄉，搬到米德爾塔基尋找更好的生活，在某些方面他們找到了它。在其他方面，他們從未真正逃脫過。困擾傑克遜的毒癮折磨了他們的大女兒的整個成年生活。在傑克遜，Mountain Dew 的嘴巴可能特別糟糕，但我的祖父母在米德爾敦也與之抗爭：媽媽第一次看到我媽媽把百事可樂放進我的瓶子裡時，我才九個月大。在傑克遜，賢慧的父親是稀缺的，但在我祖父母的孫子孫女的生活中，他們同樣稀缺。幾十年來，人們一直在努力擺脫傑克遜;現在他們掙扎著逃離米德爾敦。

If the problems start in Jackson, it is not entirely clear where they end. What I realized many years ago, watching that funeral procession with Mamaw, is that I am a hill person. So is much of America’s white working class. And we hill people aren’t doing very well.

如果問題始於傑克遜，那麼它們在哪裡結束並不完全清楚。許多年前，我和媽媽一起觀看葬禮隊伍時意識到，我是一個山地人。美國的大部分白人工人階級也是如此。我們山民過得不是很好。

Chapter 2

第 2 章

Hillbillies like to add their own twist to many words. We call minnows “minners” and crayfish “crawdads.” “Hollow” is defined as a “valley or basin,” but I’ve never said the word “hollow” unless I’ve had to explain to a friend what I mean when I say “holler.” Other people have all kinds of names for their grandparents: grandpa, nanna, pop-pop, grannie, and so on. Yet I’ve never heard anyone say “Mamaw”—pronounced ma’am-aw—or “Papaw” outside of our community. These names belong only to hillbilly grandparents.

鄉巴佬喜歡在許多詞語中加入自己的風格。我們稱小魚為“minners”，稱小龍蝦為“crawdads”。“空心”被定義為“山谷或盆地”，但我從來沒有說過“空心”這個詞，除非我不得不向朋友解釋我說“holler”的意思。其他人對他們的祖父母有各種各樣的名字：爺爺、娜娜、流行音樂、奶奶等等。然而，我從未聽過有人在我們的社區之外說“Mamaw”——發音為 馬'am-aw——或“Papaw”。這些名字只屬於鄉巴佬的祖父母。

My grandparents—Mamaw and Papaw—were, without question or qualification, the best things that ever happened to me. They spent the last two decades of their lives showing me the value of love and stability and teaching me the life lessons that most people learn from their parents. Both did their part to ensure that I had the self-confidence and the right opportunities to get a fair shot at the American Dream. But I doubt that, as children, Jim Vance and Bonnie Blanton ever expected much out of their own lives. How could they? Appalachian hills and single-room, K–12 schoolhouses don’t tend to foster big dreams.

我的爺爺奶奶——媽媽和爸爸——毫無疑問，是發生在我身上的最好的事情。他們花了他們生命的最後二十年向我展示了愛和穩定的價值，並教會了我大多數人從父母那裡學到的人生課程。兩人都盡了自己的一份力量，以確保我有自信和合適的機會來公平地實現美國夢。但我懷疑，小時候的吉姆·萬斯（Jim Vance）和邦妮·布蘭頓（Bonnie Blanton）是否對自己的生活抱有太大期望。他們怎麼可能？阿巴拉契亞山脈和單間 K-12 校舍往往不會培養遠大的夢想。

We don’t know much about Papaw’s early years, and I doubt that will ever change. We do know that he was something of hillbilly royalty. Papaw’s distant cousin—also Jim Vance—married into the Hatfield family and joined a group of former Confederate soldiers and sympathizers called the Wildcats. When Cousin Jim murdered former Union soldier Asa Harmon McCoy, he kicked off one of the most famous family feuds in American history.

我們對爸爸的早年知之甚少，我懷疑這種情況會改變。我們確實知道他是鄉巴佬皇室成員。帕帕的遠房表親吉姆·萬斯（Jim Vance）嫁給了哈特菲爾德家族，並加入了一群名為“野貓”的前同盟軍士兵和同情者。當表弟吉姆謀殺了前聯邦士兵阿薩·哈蒙·麥考伊時，他拉開了美國歷史上最著名的家族爭鬥之一。

Papaw was born James Lee Vance in 1929, his middle name a tribute to his father, Lee Vance. Lee died just a few months after Papaw’s birth, so Papaw’s overwhelmed mother, Goldie, sent him to live with her father, Pap Taulbee, a strict man with a small timber business. Though Goldie sent money occasionally, she rarely visited her young son. Papaw would live with Taulbee in Jackson, Kentucky, for the first seventeen years of his life.

Papaw 於 1929 年出生於 James Lee Vance，他的中間名是對他父親 Lee Vance 的致敬。李在爸爸出生幾個月後就去世了，所以爸爸不堪重負的母親戈爾迪把他送到了她的父親爸爸陶爾比那裡，爸爸陶爾比是一個嚴格的人，經營著一家小木材生意。雖然戈爾迪偶爾會寄錢，但她很少去看望年幼的兒子。帕帕將與陶爾比一起住在肯塔基州傑克遜市，度過他生命的前十七年。

Pap Taulbee had a tiny two-room house just a few hundred yards from the Blantons—Blaine and Hattie and their eight children. Hattie felt sorry for the young motherless boy and became a surrogate mother to my grandfather. Jim soon became an extra member of the family: He spent most of his free time running around with the Blanton boys, and he ate most of his meals in Hattie’s kitchen. It was only natural that he’d eventually marry her oldest daughter.

Pap Taulbee 有一棟兩居室的小房子，距離布蘭頓一家只有幾百碼——布萊恩和哈蒂以及他們的八個孩子。哈蒂為這個沒有母親的年輕男孩感到難過，並成為我祖父的代孕母親。吉姆很快就成了這個家庭的額外成員：他把大部分空閒時間都花在了和布蘭頓男孩一起跑來跑去，他的大部分飯菜都是在哈蒂的廚房裡吃的。他最終娶了她的大女兒是很自然的。

Jim married into a rowdy crew. The Blantons were a famous group in Breathitt, and they had a feuding history nearly as illustrious as Papaw’s. Mamaw’s great-grandfather had been elected county judge at the beginning of the twentieth century, but only after her grandfather, Tilden (the son of the judge), killed a member of a rival family on Election Day.² In a New York Times story about the violent feud, two things leap out. The first is that Tilden never went to jail for the crime.³ The second is that, as the Times reported, “complications [were] expected.” I would imagine so.

吉姆嫁給了一個吵鬧的船員。布蘭頓家族是 Breathitt 的一個著名團體，他們的世仇歷史幾乎和 Papaw 的一樣輝煌。Mamaw 的曾祖父在 20 世紀初被選為縣法官，但只是在她的祖父 Tilden（法官的兒子）在選舉日殺死了敵對家族的一名成員之後。²在《紐約時報》一篇關於暴力爭鬥的報導中，有兩件事跳了出來。首先是蒂爾登從未因犯罪入獄。³其次，正如《泰晤士報》報導的那樣，“併發症是意料之中的”。我會想像的。

When I first read this gruesome story in one of the country’s most circulated newspapers, I felt one emotion above all the rest: pride. It’s unlikely that any other ancestor of mine has ever appeared in The New York Times. Even if they had, I doubt that any deed would make me as proud as a successful feud. And one that could have swung an election, no less! As Mamaw used to say, you can take the boy out of Kentucky, but you can’t take Kentucky out of the boy.

當我第一次在該國發行量最大的報紙之一上讀到這個令人毛骨悚然的故事時，我感到一種情感高於一切：自豪。我的任何其他祖先都不太可能出現在《紐約時報》上。即使他們有，我懷疑任何行為都會讓我像成功的世仇一樣感到自豪。而且一個本可以搖擺不定的選舉，同樣如此！正如媽媽常說的，你可以把男孩帶出肯塔基州，但你不能把肯塔基州從男孩身上帶走。

I can’t imagine what Papaw was thinking. Mamaw came from a family that would shoot at you rather than argue with you. Her father was a scary old hillbilly with the mouth and war medals of a sailor. Her grandfather’s murderous exploits were impressive enough to make the pages of The New York Times. And as scary as her lineage was, Mamaw Bonnie herself was so terrifying that, many decades later, a Marine Corps recruiter would tell me that I’d find boot camp easier than living at home. “Those drill instructors are mean,” he said. “But not like that grandma of yours.” That meanness wasn’t enough to dissuade my grandfather. So Mamaw and Papaw were married as teenagers in Jackson, in 1947.

我無法想像爸爸在想什麼。媽媽來自一個會向你開槍而不是與你爭吵的家庭。她的父親是一個可怕的老鄉巴佬，有著水手的嘴巴和戰爭勳章。她祖父的殺戮功績令人印象深刻，足以登上《紐約時報》的版面。儘管她的血統很可怕，但邦妮媽媽本人是如此可怕，以至於幾十年後，海軍陸戰隊的一名招募人員告訴我，我發現新兵訓練營比住在家裡更容易。“那些演習教官很卑鄙，”他說。“但不像你那個奶奶。”這種卑鄙還不足以勸阻我的祖父。因此，Mamaw 和 Papaw 於 1947 年在傑克遜結婚。

At that time, as the post–World War II euphoria wore off and people began to adjust to a world at peace, there were two types of people in Jackson: those who uprooted their lives and planted them in the industrial powerhouses of the new America, and those who didn’t. At the tender ages of fourteen and seventeen, my grandparents had to decide which group to join.

當時，隨著二戰後的興奮感消退，人們開始適應和平的世界，傑克遜有兩種人：一種是將生活連根拔起，種在新美國的工業強國，另一種是沒有。在我十四七歲的時候，我的祖父母不得不決定加入哪個團體。

As Papaw once told me, the sole option for many of his friends was to work “in the mines”—mining coal not far from Jackson. Those who stayed in Jackson spent their lives on the edge of poverty, if not submerged in it. So, soon after marrying, Papaw uprooted his young family and moved to Middletown, a small Ohio town with a rapidly growing industrialized economy.

正如帕帕曾經告訴我的那樣，他的許多朋友唯一的選擇就是“在礦井裡”工作——在離傑克遜不遠的地方開採煤炭。那些留在傑克遜的人在貧困的邊緣度過了他們的一生，即使沒有被淹沒在貧困中。因此，結婚後不久，帕帕就背井離鄉，搬到了俄亥俄州的一個工業化經濟迅速發展的小鎮米德爾敦。

This is the story my grandparents told me, and like most family legends it’s largely true but plays fast and loose with the details. On a recent trip to visit family in Jackson, my great-uncle Arch—Mamaw’s brother-in-law and the last of that generation of Jacksonians—introduced me to Bonnie South, a woman who’d spent all of her eighty-four years a hundred yards from Mamaw’s childhood home. Until Mamaw left for Ohio, Bonnie South was her best friend. And by Bonnie South’s reckoning, Mamaw and Papaw’s departure involved a bit more scandal than any of us realized.

這是我爺爺奶奶告訴我的故事，就像大多數家族傳說一樣，它在很大程度上是真實的，但在細節上玩得又快又松。在最近一次去傑克遜探親的旅行中，我的叔叔阿奇——媽媽的姐夫，也是那一代傑克遜人的最後一位——向我介紹了邦妮·南，一個在離媽媽童年的家一百碼的地方度過了八十四年的女人。在媽媽前往俄亥俄州之前，邦妮·南是她最好的朋友。根據邦妮·南（Bonnie South）的估計，媽媽和爸爸的離開涉及的醜聞比我們任何人都意識到的要多一些。

In 1946, Bonnie South and Papaw were lovers. I’m not sure what this meant in Jackson at the time—whether they were preparing for an engagement or just passing the time together. Bonnie had little to say of Papaw besides the fact that he was “very handsome.” The only other thing Bonnie South recalled was that, at some point in 1946, Papaw cheated on Bonnie with her best friend—Mamaw. Mamaw was thirteen and Papaw sixteen, but the affair produced a pregnancy. And that pregnancy added a number of pressures that made right now the time to leave Jackson: my intimidating, grizzled war-veteran great-grandfather; the Blanton Brothers, who had already earned a reputation for defending Mamaw’s honor; and an interconnected group of gun-toting hillbillies who immediately knew all about Bonnie Blanton’s pregnancy. Most important, Bonnie and Jim Vance would soon have another mouth to feed before they’d gotten used to feeding themselves. Mamaw and Papaw left abruptly for Dayton, Ohio, where they lived briefly before settling permanently in Middletown.

1946 年，Bonnie South 和 Papaw 是戀人。我不確定這對當時的傑克遜意味著什麼——他們是在為訂婚做準備，還是只是在一起打發時間。邦妮對爸爸沒什麼好說的，除了他“非常帥”這一事實。邦妮·南（Bonnie South）唯一記得的另一件事是，在1946年的某個時候，爸爸和她最好的朋友媽媽（Mamaw）欺騙了邦妮。媽媽十三歲，爸爸十六歲，但婚外情導致她懷孕了。那次懷孕增加了許多壓力，使得現在是時候離開傑克遜了：我令人生畏、頭髮花白的退伍軍人曾祖父;布蘭頓兄弟（Blanton Brothers）已經因捍衛媽媽的榮譽而聲名鵲起;還有一群相互關聯的持槍鄉巴佬，他們立即知道了邦妮·布蘭頓懷孕的一切。最重要的是，邦妮和吉姆·萬斯在習慣自己吃飯之前很快就會有另一張嘴可以餵食。Mamaw 和Papaw突然前往俄亥俄州的代頓，在那裡他們短暫居住，然後永久定居在米德爾敦。

In later years, Mamaw sometimes spoke of a daughter who died in infancy, and she led us all to believe that the daughter was born sometime after Uncle Jimmy, Mamaw and Papaw’s eldest child. Mamaw suffered eight miscarriages in the decade between Uncle Jimmy’s birth and my mother’s. But recently my sister discovered a birth certificate for “Infant” Vance, the aunt I never knew, who died so young that her birth certificate also lists her date of death. The baby who brought my grandparents to Ohio didn’t survive her first week. On that birth certificate, the baby’s brokenhearted mother lied about her age: Only fourteen at the time and with a seventeen-year-old husband, she couldn’t tell the truth, lest they ship her back to Jackson or send Papaw to jail.

在後來的幾年裡，媽媽有時會談到一個在嬰兒期就夭折的女兒，她讓我們所有人都相信這個女兒是在媽媽和爸爸的長子吉米叔叔之後出生的。媽媽在吉米叔叔出生和我母親出生之間的十年裡流產了八次。但最近我姐姐發現了「嬰兒」萬斯的出生證明，我從來不認識的阿姨，她死得太早了，她的出生證明上也列出了她的死亡日期。把我爺爺奶奶帶到俄亥俄州的那個孩子沒能活過第一周。在那份出生證明上，嬰兒傷心欲絕的母親謊報了她的年齡：當時只有十四歲，丈夫只有十七歲，她不能說實話，以免他們把她送回傑克遜或把爸爸送進監獄。

Mamaw’s first foray into adulthood ended in tragedy. Today I often wonder: Without the baby, would she ever have left Jackson? Would she have run off with Jim Vance to foreign territory? Mamaw’s entire life—and the trajectory of our family—may have changed for a baby who lived only six days.

媽媽成年後的第一次嘗試以悲劇告終。今天我常常在想：如果沒有孩子，她會離開傑克遜嗎？她會和吉姆·萬斯一起逃到外國嗎？媽媽的整個人生——以及我們家庭的軌跡——可能對於一個只活了六天的嬰兒來說改變了。

Whatever mix of economic opportunity and family necessity catapulted my grandparents to Ohio, they were there, and there was no going back. So Papaw found a job at Armco, a large steel company that aggressively recruited in eastern Kentucky coal country. Armco representatives would descend on towns like Jackson and promise (truthfully) a better life for those willing to move north and work in the mills. A special policy encouraged wholesale migration: Applicants with a family member working at Armco would move to the top of the employment list. Armco didn’t just hire the young men of Appalachian Kentucky; they actively encouraged those men to bring their extended families.

無論經濟機會和家庭需要的混合將我的祖父母推到俄亥俄州，他們都在那裡，沒有回頭路。因此，Papaw在Armco找到了一份工作，這是一家大型鋼鐵公司，在肯塔基州東部的煤炭之鄉積極招聘。Armco的代表將來到傑克遜這樣的城鎮，並承諾（如實）為那些願意向北移動並在工廠工作的人提供更好的生活。一項特殊政策鼓勵大規模移民：有家庭成員在Armco工作的申請人將進入就業名單的首位。Armco 不僅僱用了肯塔基州阿巴拉契亞的年輕人;他們積極鼓勵這些人帶上他們的大家庭。

A number of industrial firms employed a similar strategy, and it appears to have worked. During that era, there were many Jacksons and many Middletowns. Researchers have documented two major waves of migration from Appalachia to the industrial powerhouse economies in the Midwest. The first happened after World War I, when returning veterans found it nearly impossible to find work in the not-yet-industrialized mountains of Kentucky, West Virginia, and Tennessee. It ended as the Great Depression hit Northern economies hard.⁴ My grandparents were part of the second wave, composed of returning veterans and the rapidly rising number of young adults in 1940s and ’50s Appalachia.⁵ As the economies of Kentucky and West Virginia lagged behind those of their neighbors, the mountains had only two products that the industrial economies of the North needed: coal and hill people. And Appalachia exported a lot of both.

許多工業公司也採用了類似的策略，而且似乎已經奏效。在那個時代，有很多傑克遜和許多米德爾敦。研究人員記錄了從阿巴拉契亞到中西部工業強國經濟體的兩大移民浪潮。第一次發生在第一次世界大戰之後，當時返回的退伍軍人發現在肯塔基州、西弗吉尼亞州和田納西州尚未工業化的山區幾乎不可能找到工作。隨著大蕭條對北方經濟的沉重打擊，它結束了。⁴我的祖父母是第二波浪潮的一部分，由返回的退伍軍人和 1940 年代和 50 年代阿巴拉契亞迅速增加的年輕人組成。⁵由於肯塔基州和西弗吉尼亞州的經濟落後於鄰國，山區只有北方工業經濟需要的兩種產品：煤炭和山地人。阿巴拉契亞兩者都出口了很多。

Precise numbers are tough to pin down because studies typically measure “net out-migration”—as in the total number of people who left minus the number of people who came in. Many families constantly traveled back and forth, which skews the data. But it is certain that many millions of people traveled along the “hillbilly highway”—a metaphorical term that captured the opinion of Northerners who saw their cities and towns flooded with people like my grandparents. The scale of the migration was staggering. In the 1950s, thirteen of every one hundred Kentucky residents migrated out of the state. Some areas saw even greater emigration: Harlan County, for example, which was brought to fame in an Academy Award–winning documentary about coal strikes, lost 30 percent of its population to migration. In 1960, of Ohio’s ten million residents, one million were born in Kentucky, West Virginia, or Tennessee. This doesn’t count the large number of migrants from elsewhere in the southern Appalachian Mountains; nor does it include the children or grandchildren of migrants who were hill people to the core. There were undoubtedly many of these children and grandchildren, as hillbillies tended to have much higher birthrates than the native population.⁶

準確的數位很難確定，因為研究通常衡量的是“淨遷出”——比如離開的總人數減去進來的人數。許多家庭經常來回旅行，這扭曲了數據。但可以肯定的是，數以百萬計的人沿著「鄉巴佬公路」旅行——這是一個隱喻性的術語，它抓住了北方人的觀點，他們看到他們的城鎮被像我祖父母這樣的人淹沒了。遷移的規模令人震驚。在 1950 年代，每 100 名肯塔基州居民中有 13 人遷出該州。一些地區的移民人數甚至更多：例如，哈蘭縣（Harlan County）因一部關於煤炭罷工的奧斯卡獲獎紀錄片而聲名鵲起，該縣因移民而失去了30%的人口。1960年，在俄亥俄州的1000萬居民中，有100萬人出生在肯塔基州、西弗吉尼亞州或田納西州。這還不包括來自阿巴拉契亞山脈南部其他地方的大量移民;它也不包括移民的子女或孫輩，他們的核心是山地人。毫無疑問，這些孩子和孫子中有很多，因為鄉巴佬的出生率往往比當地人口高得多。⁶

In short, my grandparents’ experience was extremely common. Significant parts of an entire region picked up shop and moved north. Need more proof? Hop on a northbound highway in Kentucky or Tennessee the day after Thanksgiving or Christmas, and virtually every license plate you see comes from Ohio, Indiana, or Michigan—cars full of hillbilly transplants returning home for the holidays.

總之，我爺爺奶奶的經歷非常普遍。整個地區的大部分地區都開始購物並向北移動。需要更多證據嗎？感恩節或耶誕節後的第二天，在肯塔基州或田納西州的一條北行高速公路上跳上，你看到的幾乎每一個車牌都來自俄亥俄州、印第安那州或密歇根州——滿載鄉巴佬的汽車回家過節。

Mamaw’s family participated in the migratory flow with gusto. Of her seven siblings, Pet, Paul, and Gary moved to Indiana and worked in construction. Each owned a successful business and earned considerable wealth in the process. Rose, Betty, Teaberry, and David stayed behind. All of them struggled financially, though everyone but David managed a life of relative comfort by the standards of their community. The four who left died on a significantly higher rung of the socioeconomic ladder than the four who stayed. As Papaw knew when he was a young man, the best way up for the hillbilly was out.

媽媽的家人興致勃勃地參與了遷徙。在她的七個兄弟姐妹中，Pet、Paul 和 Gary 搬到了印第安那州並從事建築工作。每個人都擁有成功的企業，並在此過程中賺取了可觀的財富。羅斯、貝蒂、蒂貝里和大衛留了下來。他們都在經濟上掙扎，儘管按照社區的標準，除了大衛之外，每個人都過著相對舒適的生活。離開的四人死於社會經濟階梯的階梯上，比留下來的四人高得多。正如爸爸年輕時所知道的那樣，鄉巴佬最好的出路就是出去。

It was probably uncommon for my grandparents to be alone in their new city. But if Mamaw and Papaw were isolated from their family, they were hardly segregated from Middletown’s broader population. Most of the city’s inhabitants had moved there for work in the new industrial plants, and most of these new workers were from Appalachia. The family-based hiring practices of the major industrial firms⁷ had their desired effect, and the results were predictable. All over the industrial Midwest, new communities of Appalachian transplants and their families sprang up, virtually out of nowhere. As one study noted, “Migration did not so much destroy neighborhoods and families as transport them.”⁸ In 1950s Middletown, my grandparents found themselves in a situation both new and familiar. New because they were, for the first time, cut off from the extended Appalachian support network to which they were accustomed; familiar because they were still surrounded by hillbillies.

我的爺爺奶奶在他們的新城市獨自一人可能並不常見。但是，如果Mamaw和Papaw與他們的家人隔離開來，他們幾乎不會與米德爾敦更廣泛的人口隔離開來。該市的大多數居民都搬到了那裡，在新的工廠工作，這些新工人中的大多數來自阿巴拉契亞。大型工業企業⁷以家庭為基礎的招聘做法取得了預期的效果，結果是可以預見的。在整個工業化的中西部，阿巴拉契亞移植的新社區及其家庭幾乎無處不在。正如一項研究指出的那樣，“移民與其說是摧毀社區和家庭，不如說是運輸它們。⁸在 1950 年代的米德爾敦，我的祖父母發現自己處於一種既陌生又熟悉的境地。之所以新，是因為他們第一次被切斷了他們所習慣的擴展的阿巴拉契亞支持網路;熟悉，因為他們仍然被鄉巴佬包圍。

I’d like to tell you how my grandparents thrived in their new environment, how they raised a successful family, and how they retired comfortably middle-class. But that is a partial truth. The full truth is that my grandparents struggled in their new life, and they continued to do so for decades.

我想告訴你，我的祖父母是如何在新環境中茁壯成長的，他們是如何養育一個成功的家庭的，以及他們是如何舒適地退休的中產階級。但這是部分事實。完整的事實是，我的祖父母在他們的新生活中掙扎，他們繼續這樣做了幾十年。

For starters, a remarkable stigma attached to people who left the hills of Kentucky for a better life. Hillbillies have a phrase—“too big for your britches”—to describe those who think they’re better than the stock they came from. For a long time after my grandparents came to Ohio, they heard exactly that phrase from people back home. The sense that they had abandoned their families was acute, and it was expected that, whatever their responsibilities, they would return home regularly. This pattern was common among Appalachian migrants: More than nine in ten would make visits “home” during the course of their lives, and more than one in ten visited about once a month.⁹ My grandparents returned to Jackson often, sometimes on consecutive weekends, despite the fact that the trip in the 1950s required about twenty hours of driving. Economic mobility came with a lot of pressures, and it came with a lot of new responsibilities.

首先，為了更好的生活而離開肯塔基州山區的人們受到了極大的恥辱。鄉巴佬有一句話——“對你的腮幫子來說太大了”——來形容那些認為自己比他們來自的股票更好的人。在我祖父母來到俄亥俄州後的很長一段時間里，他們從家鄉的人那裡聽到了這句話。他們拋棄家人的感覺很強烈，人們期望，無論他們承擔什麼責任，他們都會定期回家。這種模式在阿巴拉契亞移民中很常見：超過十分之九的人在他們的一生中會“回家”，超過十分之一的人大約每月訪問一次。⁹我的爺爺奶奶經常回到傑克遜，有時是連續的週末，儘管 1950 年代的旅行需要大約 20 個小時的車程。經濟流動性帶來了很大的壓力，也帶來了許多新的責任。

That stigma came from both directions: Many of their new neighbors viewed them suspiciously. To the established middle class of white Ohioans, these hillbillies simply didn’t belong. They had too many children, and they welcomed their extended families into their homes for too long. On several occasions, Mamaw’s brothers and sisters lived with her and Papaw for months as they tried to find good work outside of the hills. In other words, many parts of their culture and customs met with roaring disapproval from native Middletonians. As one book, Appalachian Odyssey, notes about the influx of hill people to Detroit: “It was not simply that the Appalachian migrants, as rural strangers ‘out of place’ in the city, were upsetting to Midwestern, urban whites. Rather, these migrants disrupted a broad set of assumptions held by northern whites about how white people appeared, spoke, and behaved . . . the disturbing aspect of hillbillies was their racialness. Ostensibly, they were of the same racial order (whites) as those who dominated economic, political, and social power in local and national arenas. But hillbillies shared many regional characteristics with the southern blacks arriving in Detroit.”¹⁰

這種恥辱來自兩個方向：他們的許多新鄰居都對他們持懷疑態度。對於俄亥俄州白人的既定中產階級來說，這些鄉巴佬根本不屬於。他們有太多的孩子，他們歡迎他們的大家庭到他們的家裡太久了。有好幾次，媽媽的兄弟姐妹們和她和爸爸一起住了幾個月，他們試圖在山外找到一份好工作。換句話說，他們的文化和習俗的許多部分都遭到了當地米德爾頓人的強烈反對。正如一本名為《阿巴拉契亞奧德賽》的書所指出的那樣，山地人湧入底特律：「這不僅僅是因為阿巴拉契亞移民作為城市中」格格不入的農村陌生人，讓中西部的城市白人感到不安。相反，這些移民打破了北方白人對白人如何出現、說話和行為的廣泛假設。鄉巴佬令人不安的方面是他們的種族。從表面上看，他們與那些在地方和國家舞臺上主導經濟、政治和社會權力的人屬於同一種族秩序（白人）。但鄉巴佬與抵達底特律的南方黑人有許多共同的地區特徵。¹⁰

One of Papaw’s good friends—a hillbilly from Kentucky whom he met in Ohio—became the mail carrier in their neighborhood. Not long after he moved, the mail carrier got embroiled in a battle with the Middletown government over the flock of chickens that he kept in his yard. He treated them just as Mamaw had treated her chickens back in the holler: Every morning he collected all the eggs, and when his chicken population grew too large, he’d take a few of the old ones, wring their necks, and carve them up for meat right in his backyard. You can just imagine a well-bred housewife watching out the window in horror as her Kentucky-born neighbor slaughtered squawking chickens just a few feet away. My sister and I still call the old mail carrier “the chicken man,” and years later even a mention of how the city government ganged up on the chicken man could inspire Mamaw’s trademark vitriol: “Fucking zoning laws. They can kiss my ruby-red asshole.”

帕帕的一位好朋友——一個來自肯塔基州的鄉巴佬，他在俄亥俄州認識了他——成為了他們附近的郵遞員。在他搬家后不久，郵遞員就捲入了與米德爾敦政府的鬥爭，爭奪他在院子里養的雞群。他對待它們就像媽媽對待她的雞一樣：每天早上，他都會收集所有的雞蛋，當他的雞群長大時，他會抓一些老雞，擰斷它們的脖子，然後把它們切成肉，在他的後院吃肉。你可以想像一個有教養的家庭主婦驚恐地看著窗外，因為她出生在肯塔基州的鄰居在幾英尺外宰殺了尖叫的雞。我和姐姐仍然稱這個老郵遞員為「雞人」，多年後，即使提到市政府如何聯合起來對付雞人，也會激發媽媽標誌性的尖酸刻薄：「該死的分區法。他們可以親吻我紅寶石色的屁眼。

The move to Middletown created other problems, as well. In the mountain homes of Jackson, privacy was more theory than practice. Family, friends, and neighbors would barge into your home without much warning. Mothers would tell their daughters how to raise their children. Fathers would tell sons how to do their jobs. Brothers would tell brothers-in-law how to treat their wives. Family life was something people learned on the fly with a lot of help from their neighbors. In Middletown, a man’s home was his castle.

搬到米德爾敦也帶來了其他問題。在傑克遜的山區住宅中，隱私更多的是理論而不是實踐。家人、朋友和鄰居會在沒有太多警告的情況下闖入你的家。母親會告訴女兒如何撫養孩子。父親會告訴兒子如何做他們的工作。兄弟會告訴姐夫如何對待他們的妻子。家庭生活是人們在鄰居的大力説明下即時學習的東西。在米德爾敦，一個人的家就是他的城堡。

However, that castle was empty for Mamaw and Papaw. They brought an ancient family structure from the hills and tried to make it work in a world of privacy and nuclear families. They were newlyweds, but they didn’t have anyone to teach them about marriage. They were parents, but there were no grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins to help them with the workload. The only nearby close relative was Papaw’s mother, Goldie. She was mostly a stranger to her own son, and Mamaw couldn’t have held her in lower esteem for abandoning him.

然而，那座城堡對媽媽和爸爸來說是空的。他們從山上帶來了一個古老的家庭結構，並試圖讓它在一個隱私和核心家庭的世界中發揮作用。他們是新婚夫婦，但沒有人教他們關於婚姻的知識。他們是父母，但沒有祖父母、阿姨、叔叔或堂兄弟姐妹幫助他們完成工作量。附近唯一的近親是爸爸的母親戈爾迪。她對自己的兒子大多是一個陌生人，媽媽不可能因為拋棄他而對她不屑一顧。

After a few years, Mamaw and Papaw began to adapt. Mamaw became close friends with the “neighbor lady” (that was her word for the neighbors she liked) who lived in a nearby apartment; Papaw worked on cars in his spare time, and his coworkers slowly turned from colleagues to friends. In 1951 they welcomed a baby boy—my uncle Jimmy—and showered him with their new material comforts. Jimmy, Mamaw would tell me later, could sit up at two weeks, walk at four months, speak in complete sentences just after his first birthday, and read classic novels by age three (“A slight exaggeration,” my uncle later admitted). They visited Mamaw’s brothers in Indianapolis and picnicked with their new friends. It was, Uncle Jimmy told me, “a typical middle-class life.” Kind of boring, by some standards, but happy in a way you appreciate only when you understand the consequences of not being boring.

幾年後，媽媽和爸爸開始適應。媽媽與住在附近公寓的「鄰居女士」（這是她對她喜歡的鄰居的稱呼）成為了好朋友;Papaw在業餘時間從事汽車工作，他的同事慢慢從同事變成了朋友。1951年，他們迎來了一個男嬰——我的叔叔吉米（Jimmy），併為他帶來了新的物質享受。媽媽後來告訴我，吉米兩周時可以坐起來，四個月大時可以走路，一歲生日剛過就能說完整的句子，三歲時就能讀經典小說（“有點誇張，”我叔叔後來承認）。他們在印第安那波利斯拜訪了媽媽的兄弟們，並與他們的新朋友一起野餐。吉米叔叔告訴我，這是「典型的中產階級生活」。。從某些標準來看，這有點無聊，但只有當你瞭解不無聊的後果時，你才會以一種你欣賞的方式快樂。

Which is not to say that things always proceeded smoothly. Once, they traveled to the mall to buy Christmas presents with the holiday throng and let Jimmy roam so he could locate a toy he coveted. “They were advertising it on television,” he told me recently. “It was a plastic console that looked like the dash of a jet fighter plane. You could shine a light or shoot darts. The whole idea was to pretend that you were a fighter pilot.”

這並不是說事情總是進展順利。有一次，他們和節日人群一起去商場買聖誕禮物，讓吉米四處遊蕩，這樣他就可以找到他夢寐以求的玩具。“他們在電視上做廣告，”他最近告訴我。“這是一個塑膠控制台，看起來像噴氣式戰鬥機的儀錶板。你可以發光或射飛鏢。整個想法是假裝你是一名戰鬥機飛行員。

Jimmy wandered into a pharmacy that happened to sell the toy, so he picked it up and began to play with it. “The store clerk wasn’t happy. He told me to put the toy down and get out.” Chastised, young Jimmy stood outside in the cold until Mamaw and Papaw strolled by and asked if he’d like to go inside the pharmacy.

吉米走進一家藥店，碰巧有賣玩具，於是他拿起它開始玩。“店員不高興。他叫我把玩具放下，出去。年幼的吉米被責備了，他站在外面冷酷無情，直到媽媽和爸爸走過來，問他是否願意進藥房。

“I can’t,” Jimmy told his father.

“我不能，”吉米告訴他的父親。

“Why?”

“為什麼？”

“I just can’t.”

“我就是做不到。”

“Tell me why right now.”

“現在告訴我為什麼。”

He pointed at the store clerk. “That man got mad at me and told me to leave. I’m not allowed to go back inside.”

他指了指店員。“那個人對我生氣，叫我離開。我不准回去。

Mamaw and Papaw stormed in, demanding an explanation for the clerk’s rudeness. The clerk explained that Jimmy had been playing with an expensive toy. “This toy?” Papaw asked, picking up the toy. When the clerk nodded, Papaw smashed it on the ground. Utter chaos ensued. As Uncle Jimmy explained, “They went nuts. Dad threw another of the toys across the store and moved toward the clerk in a very menacing way; Mom started grabbing random shit off the shelves and throwing it all over the place. She’s screaming, ‘Kick his fucking ass! Kick his fucking ass!’ And then Dad leans in to this clerk and says very clearly, ‘If you say another word to my son, I will break your fucking neck.’ This poor guy was completely terrified, and I just wanted to get the hell out of there.” The man apologized, and the Vances continued with their Christmas shopping as if nothing had happened.

媽媽和爸爸衝了進來，要求對店員的粗魯行為做出解釋。店員解釋說，吉米一直在玩一個昂貴的玩具。“這個玩具？”爸爸一邊問，一邊拿起玩具。店員點了點頭，爸爸就把它砸在了地上。隨之而來的是徹底的混亂。正如吉米叔叔所解釋的那樣，“他們瘋了。爸爸把另一個玩具扔到店對面，以一種非常威脅的方式向店員走去;媽媽開始從架子上隨便抓起狗屎，扔得滿地都是。她尖叫著，「踢他媽的屁股！踢他媽的屁股！然後爸爸靠到這個店員面前，非常明確地說，「如果你再對我兒子說一句話，我就打斷你他媽的脖子。這個可憐的傢伙完全被嚇壞了，我只想離開那裡。那人道歉了，萬斯一家繼續他們的聖誕購物，就好像什麼都沒發生過一樣。

So, yes, even in their best times, Mamaw and Papaw struggled to adapt. Middletown was a different world. Papaw was supposed to go to work and complain politely to management about rude pharmacy employees. Mamaw was expected to cook dinner, do laundry, and take care of the children. But sewing circles, picnics, and door-to-door vacuum salesmen were not suited to a woman who had almost killed a man at the tender age of twelve. Mamaw had little help when the children were young and required constant supervision, and she had nothing else to do with her time. Decades later she would remember how isolated she felt in the slow suburban crawl of midcentury Middletown. Of that era, she said with characteristic bluntness: “Women were just shit on all the time.”

所以，是的，即使在他們最好的時候，媽媽和爸爸也在努力適應。米德爾敦是一個不同的世界。Papaw 應該去上班，禮貌地向管理層抱怨粗魯的藥房員工。媽媽被要求做晚飯，洗衣服，照顧孩子。但是縫紉圈、野餐和挨家挨戶的真空推銷員並不適合一個在十二歲時差點殺死一個男人的女人。當孩子們還小的時候，媽媽幾乎沒有什麼説明，需要不斷的監督，她的時間也沒什麼可做的。幾十年後，她會記得自己在上世紀中葉米德爾敦緩慢的郊區爬行中感到多麼孤立。對於那個時代，她直言不諱地說：“女人一直都是狗屎。

Mamaw had her dreams but never the opportunity to pursue them. Her greatest love was children, in both a specific sense (her children and grandchildren were the only things in the world she seemed to enjoy in old age) and a general one (she watched shows about abused, neglected, and missing kids and used what little spare money she had to purchase shoes and school supplies for the neighborhood’s poorest children). She seemed to feel the pain of neglected kids in a deeply personal way and spoke often of how she hated people who mistreated children. I never understood where this sentiment came from—whether she herself was abused as a child, perhaps, or whether she just regretted that her childhood had ended so abruptly. There is a story there, though I’ll likely never hear it.

媽媽有她的夢想，但從來沒有機會去追求它們。她最大的愛是孩子，既有特定意義上的愛（她的孩子和孫子是她晚年似乎唯一喜歡的東西），也有一般的愛（她看關於受虐待、被忽視和失蹤孩子的節目，並用她僅有的一點閒錢為附近最貧窮的孩子購買鞋子和學慣用品）。她似乎以一種非常個人化的方式感受到被忽視的孩子的痛苦，並經常談到她如何憎恨虐待兒童的人。我從來不明白這種情緒從何而來——也許是她自己小時候被虐待過，還是她只是後悔自己的童年就這樣突然結束了。那裡有一個故事，儘管我可能永遠不會聽到它。

Mamaw dreamed of turning that passion into a career as a children’s attorney—serving as a voice for those who lacked one. She never pursued that dream, possibly because she didn’t know what becoming an attorney took. Mamaw never spent a day in high school. She’d given birth to and buried a child before she could legally drive a car. Even if she’d known what was required, her new lifestyle offered little encouragement or opportunity for an aspiring law student with three children and a husband.

Mamaw 夢想著將這種熱情轉化為兒童律師的職業——為那些缺乏這種熱情的人發聲。她從未追求過這個夢想，可能是因為她不知道成為一名律師需要什麼。媽媽從來沒有在高中度過一天。在她可以合法駕駛汽車之前，她已經生下並埋葬了一個孩子。即使她知道需要什麼，她的新生活方式對於一個有三個孩子和一個丈夫的有抱負的法學院學生來說也沒有什麼鼓勵或機會。

Despite the setbacks, both of my grandparents had an almost religious faith in hard work and the American Dream. Neither was under any illusions that wealth or privilege didn’t matter in America. On politics, for example, Mamaw had one opinion—“They’re all a bunch of crooks”—but Papaw became a committed Democrat. He had no problem with Armco, but he and everyone like him hated the coal companies in Kentucky thanks to a long history of labor strife. So, to Papaw and Mamaw, not all rich people were bad, but all bad people were rich. Papaw was a Democrat because that party protected the working people. This attitude carried over to Mamaw: All politicians might be crooks, but if there were any exceptions, they were undoubtedly members of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition.

儘管遭遇了挫折，但我的祖父母都對努力工作和美國夢有著近乎宗教信仰的信仰。兩人都不抱任何幻想，認為財富或特權在美國無關緊要。例如，在政治上，媽媽有一種觀點——“他們都是一群騙子”——但帕帕成為了一名堅定的民主黨人。他對阿姆科沒有問題，但由於長期的勞資衝突，他和所有像他一樣的人都討厭肯塔基州的煤炭公司。所以，對爸爸和媽媽來說，並不是所有的富人都是壞人，而是所有的壞人都是有錢人。帕帕是民主黨人，因為該黨保護了勞動人民。這種態度延續到了媽媽身上：所有的政客都可能是騙子，但如果有任何例外，他們無疑是佛蘭克林·德拉諾·羅斯福新政聯盟的成員。

Still, Mamaw and Papaw believed that hard work mattered more. They knew that life was a struggle, and though the odds were a bit longer for people like them, that fact didn’t excuse failure. “Never be like these fucking losers who think the deck is stacked against them,” my grandma often told me. “You can do anything you want to.”

儘管如此，Mamaw 和 Papaw 仍然認為努力工作更重要。他們知道生活是一場鬥爭，儘管對於像他們這樣的人來說，可能性要長一些，但這一事實並不能成為失敗的藉口。“永遠不要像這些該死的失敗者一樣，認為甲板對他們不利，”我奶奶經常告訴我。“你可以做任何你想做的事。”

Their community shared this faith, and in the 1950s that faith appeared well founded. Within two generations, the transplanted hillbillies had largely caught up to the native population in terms of income and poverty level. Yet their financial success masked their cultural unease, and if my grandparents caught up economically, I wonder if they ever truly assimilated. They always had one foot in the new life and one foot in the old one. They slowly acquired a small number of friends but remained strongly rooted in their Kentucky homeland. They hated domesticated animals and had little use for “critters” that weren’t for eating, yet they eventually relented to the children’s demands for dogs and cats.

他們的社區分享了這種信仰，在 1950 年代，這種信仰似乎是有根據的。在兩代人的時間里，被移植的鄉巴佬在收入和貧困程度方面基本上趕上了當地居民。然而，他們在經濟上的成功掩蓋了他們的文化不安，如果我的祖父母在經濟上趕上了，我想知道他們是否真的被同化了。他們總是一隻腳踏在新生命中，一隻腳踏在舊生命中。他們慢慢地獲得了少數朋友，但仍然牢牢紮根於肯塔基州的家鄉。他們討厭馴養的動物，對不吃的“小動物”幾乎沒有用處，但他們最終還是屈服於孩子們對狗和貓的要求。

Their children, though, were different. My mom’s generation was the first to grow up in the industrial Midwest, far from the deep twangs and one-room schools of the hills. They attended modern high schools with thousands of other students. To my grandparents, the goal was to get out of Kentucky and give their kids a head start. The kids, in turn, were expected to do something with that head start. It didn’t quite work out that way.

然而，他們的孩子卻不同。我媽媽那一代人是第一個在工業化的中西部長大的人，遠離山上的深邃和單間學校。他們與數千名其他學生一起就讀於現代高中。對我的祖父母來說，目標是離開肯塔基州，讓他們的孩子有一個良好的開端。反過來，孩子們也被期望利用這個領先優勢做點什麼。但事實並非如此。

Before Lyndon Johnson and the Appalachian Regional Commission brought new roads to southeastern Kentucky, the primary road from Jackson to Ohio was U.S. Route 23. So important was this road in the massive hillbilly migration that Dwight Yoakam penned a song about northerners who castigated Appalachian children for learning the wrong three R’s: “Reading, Rightin’, Rt. 23.” Yoakam’s song about his own move from southeastern Kentucky could have come from Mamaw’s diary:

在林登·詹森（Lyndon Johnson）和阿巴拉契亞地區委員會（Appalachian Regional Commission）為肯塔基州東南部帶來新道路之前，從傑克遜到俄亥俄州的主要道路是美國23號公路。這條路在大規模的鄉巴佬遷徙中是如此重要，以至於德懷特·約卡姆（Dwight Yoakam）寫了一首關於北方人的歌曲，他們譴責阿巴拉契亞兒童學習了錯誤的三個R：“閱讀，正確，Rt.23。Yoakam 關於他自己從肯塔基州東南部搬家的歌曲可能來自 Mamaw 的日記：

         They thought readin’, writin’, Route 23 would take them to the good life that they had never seen;

他們以為讀、寫、寫、23號公路會帶他們過上他們從未見過的美好生活;

         They didn’t know that old highway would lead them to a world of misery

他們不知道這條古老的高速公路會把他們帶到一個痛苦的世界

Mamaw and Papaw may have made it out of Kentucky, but they and their children learned the hard way that Route 23 didn’t lead where they hoped.

媽媽和爸爸可能已經離開了肯塔基州，但他們和他們的孩子以艱難的方式瞭解到，23號公路並沒有通向他們希望的地方。

Chapter 3

第 3 章

Mamaw and Papaw had three kids—Jimmy, Bev (my mom), and Lori. Jimmy was born in 1951, when Mamaw and Papaw were integrating into their new lives. They wanted more children, so they tried and tried, through a heartbreaking period of terrible luck and numerous miscarriages. Mamaw carried the emotional scars of nine lost children for her entire life. In college I learned that extreme stress can cause miscarriages and that this is especially true during the early part of a pregnancy. I can’t help but wonder how many additional aunts and uncles I’d have today were it not for my grandparents’ difficult early transition, no doubt intensified by Papaw’s years of hard drinking. Yet they persisted through a decade of failed pregnancies, and eventually it paid off: Mom was born on January 20, 1961—the day of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration—and my aunt Lori came along less than two years later. For whatever reason, Mamaw and Papaw stopped there.

媽媽和爸爸有三個孩子——吉米、貝夫（我媽媽）和蘿莉。吉米出生於 1951 年，當時媽媽和爸爸正在融入他們的新生活。他們想要更多的孩子，所以他們嘗試了又嘗試，經歷了一段令人心碎的糟糕運氣和無數次流產的時期。嬤嬤一生都背負著九個失散孩子的情感傷痕。在大學里，我瞭解到極端壓力會導致流產，在懷孕初期尤其如此。我不禁想知道，如果不是我祖父母艱難的早期過渡，我今天還會有多少阿姨和叔叔，毫無疑問，爸爸多年的酗酒加劇了這種轉變。然而，他們堅持了十年失敗的懷孕，最終得到了回報：媽媽出生於1961年1月20日，也就是約翰·甘迺迪（John F. Kennedy）就職典禮的那一天，而我的姨媽洛裡（Lori）在不到兩年後出生。不知出於什麼原因，媽媽和爸爸停在那裡。

Uncle Jimmy once told me about the time before his sisters were born: “We were just a happy, normal middle-class family. I remember watching Leave It to Beaver on TV and thinking that looked like us.” When he first told me this, I nodded attentively and left it alone. Looking back, I realize, that to most outsiders, a statement like that must come off as insane. Normal middle-class parents don’t wreck pharmacies because a store clerk is mildly rude to their child. But that’s probably the wrong standard to use. Destroying store merchandise and threatening a sales clerk were normal to Mamaw and Papaw: That’s what Scots-Irish Appalachians do when people mess with your kid. “What I mean is that they were united, they were getting along with each other,” Uncle Jimmy conceded when I later pressed him. “But yeah, like everyone else in our family, they could go from zero to murderous in a fucking heartbeat.”

吉米舅舅曾經告訴我，他的姐妹們出生前的那段時間：「我們只是一個幸福、普通的中產階級家庭。我記得在電視上看過《留給海狸》，覺得它看起來像我們。當他第一次告訴我這些時，我認真地點了點頭，然後就不理會了。回想起來，我意識到，對於大多數局外人來說，這樣的聲明一定是瘋狂的。正常的中產階級父母不會因為店員對他們的孩子有點粗魯而破壞藥店。但這可能是錯誤的標準。破壞商店商品和威脅售貨員對媽媽和爸爸來說很正常：這就是蘇格蘭-愛爾蘭阿巴拉契亞人當人們惹惱你的孩子時所做的事情。“我的意思是他們團結一致，他們相處融洽，”吉米叔叔在我後來追問他時承認。“但是，是的，就像我們家裡的其他人一樣，他們可以在他媽的心跳中從零變成殺人。”

Whatever unity they possessed early in their marriage began to evaporate after their daughter Lori—whom I call Aunt Wee—was born in 1962. By the mid–1960s, Papaw’s drinking had become habitual; Mamaw began to shut herself off from the outside world. Neighborhood kids warned the mailman to avoid the “evil witch” of McKinley Street. When the mailman ignored their advice, he met a large woman with an extra-long menthol cigarette hanging out of her mouth who told him to stay the fuck off of her property. “Hoarder” hadn’t entered everyday parlance, but Mamaw fit the bill, and her tendencies only worsened as she withdrew from the world. Garbage piled up in the house, with an entire bedroom devoted to trinkets and debris that had no earthly value.

1962年，他們的女兒蘿莉（我稱她為黃阿姨）出生後，他們在婚姻早期所擁有的團結就開始消失。到 1960 年代中期，Papaw 的飲酒已成為習慣;媽媽開始將自己與外界隔絕開來。鄰居的孩子警告郵遞員要避開麥金利街的「邪惡女巫」。。當郵遞員無視他們的建議時，他遇到了一個大女人，嘴裏叼着一根超長的薄荷醇香煙，她告訴他不要他媽的離開她的財產。“囤積者”還沒有進入日常用語，但媽媽符合要求，隨著她退出這個世界，她的傾向只會惡化。垃圾堆積在房子里，整個臥室都擺放著沒有世俗價值的小飾品和碎片。

To hear of this period, one gets the sense that Mamaw and Papaw led two lives. There was the outward public life. It included work during the day and preparing the kids for school. This was the life that everyone else saw, and by all measures it was quite successful: My grandfather earned a wage that was almost unfathomable to friends back home; he liked his work and did it well; their children went to modern, well-funded schools; and my grandmother lived in a home that was, by Jackson standards, a mansion—two thousand square feet, four bedrooms, and modern plumbing.

聽到這個時期，人們會感覺到媽媽和爸爸過著兩種生活。有外在的公共生活。這包括白天的工作和為孩子們上學做準備。這是其他人所看到的生活，而且從各方面來看都相當成功：我祖父的工資幾乎是家鄉朋友無法企及的;他喜歡自己的工作，而且做得很好;他們的孩子就讀於現代化、資金充足的學校;我的祖母住在一個房子里，按照傑克遜的標準，這是一座豪宅——兩千平方英尺，四間臥室和現代化的管道。

Home life was different. “I didn’t notice it at first as a teenager,” Uncle Jimmy recalled. “At that age, you’re just so wrapped up in your own stuff that you hardly recognize the change. But it was there. Dad stayed out more; Mom stopped keeping the house—dirty dishes and junk piled up everywhere. They fought a lot more. It was all around a rough time.”

家庭生活不同。“我十幾歲的時候一開始沒有注意到它，”吉米叔叔回憶道。“在那個年紀，你只是被自己的東西包裹住了，以至於你幾乎察覺不到這種變化。但它就在那裡。爸爸在外面呆得更多;媽媽不再打理家裡了——髒盤子和垃圾到處都是。他們打得更多。那是一段艱難的時期。

Hillbilly culture at the time (and maybe now) blended a robust sense of honor, devotion to family, and bizarre sexism into a sometimes explosive mix. Before Mamaw was married, her brothers had been willing to murder boys who disrespected their sister. Now that she was married to a man whom many of them considered more a brother than an outsider, they tolerated behavior that would have gotten Papaw killed in the holler. “Mom’s brothers would come up and want to go carousing with Dad,” Uncle Jimmy explained. “They’d go drinking and chasing women. Uncle Pet was always the leader. I didn’t want to hear about it, but I always did. It was that culture from back then that expected the men were going to go out and do what they wanted to do.”

當時（也許是現在）的鄉巴佬文化將強烈的榮譽感、對家庭的奉獻和奇怪的性別歧視融合在一起，有時甚至是爆炸性的混合體。在媽媽結婚之前，她的哥哥們願意謀殺那些不尊重妹妹的男孩。現在她嫁給了一個男人，他們中的許多人認為這個男人更像是兄弟而不是局外人，他們容忍了會讓爸爸在吼叫聲中被殺的行為。“媽媽的兄弟們會過來想和爸爸一起去狂歡，”吉米叔叔解釋道。他們會去喝酒和追女人。寵物叔叔一直是領導者。我不想聽到它，但我總是這樣做。正是當時的這種文化期望男人們出去做他們想做的事。

Mamaw felt disloyalty acutely. She loathed anything that smacked of a lack of complete devotion to family. In her own home, she’d say things like “I’m sorry I’m so damned mean” and “You know I love you, but I’m just a crazy bitch.” But if she knew of anyone criticizing so much as her socks to an outsider, she’d fly off the handle. “I don’t know those people. You never talk about family to some stranger. Never.” My sister, Lindsay, and I could fight like cats and dogs in her home, and for the most part she’d let us figure things out alone. But if I told a friend that my sister was hateful and Mamaw overheard, she’d remember it and tell me the next time we were alone that I had committed the cardinal sin of disloyalty. “How dare you speak about your sister to some little shit? In five years you won’t even remember his goddamned name. But your sister is the only true friend you’ll ever have.” Yet in her own life, with three children at home, the men who should have been most loyal to her—her brothers and husband—conspired against her.

媽媽強烈地感覺到不忠。她討厭任何對家庭缺乏完全奉獻的東西。在她自己的家裡，她會說“對不起，我太卑鄙了”和“你知道我愛你，但我只是一個瘋狂的婊子”之類的話。但是，如果她知道有人對外人批評她的襪子，她就會飛走。“我不認識那些人。你從不和陌生人談論家庭。絕不。我姐姐琳賽和我在她家裡可以像貓和狗一樣打架，在大多數情況下，她會讓我們一個人解決問題。但是，如果我告訴一個朋友，我姐姐很可恨，媽媽無意中聽到了，她會記住這件事，並在下次我們單獨相處時告訴我，我犯了不忠的大罪。“你怎麼敢說你妹妹的狗屎？五年後，你甚至不記得他該死的名字。但你的妹妹是你唯一真正的朋友。然而，在她自己的生活中，家裡有三個孩子，本應對她最忠誠的男人——她的兄弟和丈夫——密謀反對她。

Papaw seemed to resist the social expectations of a middle-class father, sometimes with hilarious results. He would announce that he was headed to the store and ask his kids if they needed anything; he’d come back with a new car. A new Chevrolet convertible one month. A luxurious Oldsmobile the next. “Where’d you get that?” they’d ask him. “It’s mine, I traded for it,” he’d reply nonchalantly.

爸爸似乎抵制了中產階級父親的社會期望，有時會產生令人捧腹的結果。他會宣佈他要去商店，問他的孩子是否需要什麼;他會帶著一輛新車回來。一個月的新雪佛蘭敞篷車。下一個豪華的奧茲莫比爾。“你從哪裡弄來的？”他們會問他。“這是我的，我用它換來的，”他會漫不經心地回答。

But sometimes his failure to conform brought terrible consequences. My young aunt and mother would play a little game when their father came home from work. Some days he would carefully park his car, and the game would go well—their father would come inside, they’d have dinner together like a normal family, and they’d make one another laugh. Many days, however, he wouldn’t park his car normally—he’d back into a spot too quickly, or sloppily leave his car on the road, or even sideswipe a telephone pole as he maneuvered. Those days the game was already lost. Mom and Aunt Wee would run inside and tell Mamaw that Papaw had come home drunk. Sometimes they’d run out the back door and stay the night with Mamaw’s friends. Other times Mamaw would insist on staying, so Mom and Aunt Wee would brace for a long night. One Christmas Eve, Papaw came home drunk and demanded a fresh dinner. When that failed to materialize, he picked up the family Christmas tree and threw it out the back door. The next year he greeted a crowd at his daughter’s birthday party and promptly coughed up a huge wad of phlegm at everyone’s feet. Then he smiled and walked off to grab himself another beer.

但有時他不順從會帶來可怕的後果。我年輕的阿姨和母親會在父親下班回家時玩一個小遊戲。有些日子，他會小心翼翼地把車停好，比賽會進行得很順利——他們的父親會進來，他們會像正常家庭一樣一起吃晚飯，他們會互相逗笑。然而，很多時候，他不會正常停車——他會太快地回到一個地方，或者草率地把車停在路上，甚至在他操縱時擦過電線杆。那些日子里，遊戲已經輸了。媽媽和黃阿姨會跑進去告訴媽媽，爸爸喝醉了回家了。有時他們會從後門跑出來，和媽媽的朋友一起過夜。其他時候，媽媽會堅持留下來，所以媽媽和黃阿姨會撐起一個漫長的夜晚。一個平安夜，爸爸喝醉了回家，要了一頓新鮮的晚餐。當這未能實現時，他撿起家裡的聖誕樹，把它扔出後門。第二年，他在女兒的生日派對上向一群人打招呼，並迅速在每個人的腳下咳出一大團痰。然後他笑了笑，走開了，又給自己拿了一瓶啤酒。

I couldn’t believe that mild-mannered Papaw, whom I adored as a child, was such a violent drunk. His behavior was due at least partly to Mamaw’s disposition. She was a violent nondrunk. And she channeled her frustrations into the most productive activity imaginable: covert war. When Papaw passed out on the couch, she’d cut his pants with scissors so they’d burst at the seam when he next sat down. Or she’d steal his wallet and hide it in the oven just to piss him off. When he came home from work and demanded fresh dinner, she’d carefully prepare a plate of fresh garbage. If he was in a fighting mood, she’d fight back. In short, she devoted herself to making his drunken life a living hell.

我簡直不敢相信我小時候崇拜的溫文爾雅的爸爸竟然是個暴力的酒鬼。他的行為至少部分是由於媽媽的性格。她是一個暴力的不醉漢。她將自己的挫敗感轉化為可以想像到的最富有成效的活動：秘密戰爭。當爸爸昏倒在沙發上時，她會用剪刀剪斷他的褲子，這樣當他下次坐下時，褲子就會在接縫處爆裂。或者她會偷走他的錢包，把它藏在烤箱裡，只是為了惹他生氣。當他下班回家要新鮮的晚餐時，她會小心翼翼地準備一盤新鮮的垃圾。如果他有戰鬥的情緒，她會反擊。總之，她一心想讓他醉酒的生活變成人間地獄。

If Jimmy’s youth shielded him from the signs of their deteriorating marriage for a bit, the problem soon reached an obvious nadir. Uncle Jimmy recalled one fight: “I could hear the furniture bumping and bumping, and they were really getting into it. They were both screaming. I went downstairs to beg them to stop.” But they didn’t stop. Mamaw grabbed a flower vase, hurled it, and—she always had a hell of an arm—hit Papaw right between the eyes. “It split his forehead wide open, and he was bleeding really badly when he got in his car and drove off. That’s what I went to school the next day thinking about.”

如果說吉米的年輕讓他暫時遠離了他們婚姻惡化的跡象，那麼問題很快就達到了明顯的最低點。吉米叔叔回憶起一次打架：「我能聽到傢俱的碰撞聲，他們真的要進去了。他們倆都在尖叫。我下樓求他們停下來。但他們並沒有停下來。媽媽抓起一個花瓶，扔了出去，然後——她總是有一隻地獄般的胳膊——正好打在爸爸的眼睛之間。“它把他的額頭劈開了，當他上車開車離開時，他流血得很厲害。這就是我第二天去學校時所想的。

Mamaw told Papaw after a particularly violent night of drinking that if he ever came home drunk again, she’d kill him. A week later, he came home drunk again and fell asleep on the couch. Mamaw, never one to tell a lie, calmly retrieved a gasoline canister from the garage, poured it all over her husband, lit a match, and dropped it on his chest. When Papaw burst into flames, their eleven-year-old daughter jumped into action to put out the fire and save his life. Miraculously, Papaw survived the episode with only mild burns.

媽媽在一夜酗酒後告訴爸爸，如果他再喝醉回家，她會殺了他。一個星期後，他又醉醺醺地回到家，在沙發上睡著了。媽媽從來不會說謊，她從車庫里拿出一個汽油罐，倒在丈夫身上，點燃一根火柴，放在他的胸口。當爸爸突然起火時，他們十一歲的女兒跳起來撲滅大火並挽救了他的生命。奇跡般地，Papaw 倖免於難，只有輕微燒傷。

Because they were hill people, they had to keep their two lives separate. No outsiders could know about the familial strife—with outsiders defined very broadly. When Jimmy turned eighteen, he took a job at Armco and moved out immediately. Not long after he left, Aunt Wee found herself in the middle of one particularly bad fight, and Papaw punched her in the face. The blow, though accidental, left a nasty black eye. When Jimmy—her own brother—returned home for a visit, Aunt Wee was made to hide in the basement. Because Jimmy didn’t live with the family anymore, he was not to know about the inner workings of the house. “That’s just how everyone, especially Mamaw, dealt with things,” Aunt Wee said. “It was just too embarrassing.”

因為他們是山民，所以他們不得不將兩種生活分開。沒有外人可以知道家庭衝突——外人的定義非常廣泛。當吉米十八歲時，他在Armco找到了一份工作，並立即搬了出去。在他離開后不久，黃阿姨發現自己陷入了一場特別糟糕的戰鬥中，爸爸一拳打在了她的臉上。這一擊雖然是偶然的，但留下了令人討厭的黑眼圈。當她的親弟弟吉米回家探望時，黃阿姨被迫躲在地下室裡。因為吉米不再和家人住在一起，所以他不知道房子的內部運作。“這就是每個人，尤其是媽媽，處理事情的方式，”黃阿姨說。“這太尷尬了。”

It’s not obvious to anyone why Mamaw and Papaw’s marriage fell apart. Perhaps Papaw’s alcoholism got the best of him. Uncle Jimmy suspects that he eventually “ran around” on Mamaw. Or maybe Mamaw just cracked—with three living kids, one dead one, and a host of miscarriages in between, who could have blamed her?

任何人都不清楚為什麼Mamaw和Papaw的婚姻破裂了。也許爸爸的酗酒讓他發揮了最大的作用。吉米叔叔懷疑他最終在媽媽身上「跑來跑去」。或者，也許媽媽剛剛崩潰了——有三個活著的孩子，一個死去的孩子，中間還有一大堆流產，誰能責怪她呢？

Despite their violent marriage, Mamaw and Papaw always maintained a measured optimism about their children’s futures. They reasoned that if they could go from a one-room schoolhouse in Jackson to a two-story suburban home with the comforts of the middle class, then their children (and grandchildren) should have no problem attending college and acquiring a share of the American Dream. They were unquestionably wealthier than the family members who had stayed in Kentucky. They visited the Atlantic Ocean and Niagara Falls as adults despite never traveling farther than Cincinnati as children. They believed that they had made it and that their children would go even further.

儘管他們的婚姻是暴力的，但媽媽和爸爸始終對孩子的未來保持著謹慎的樂觀態度。他們的理由是，如果他們能從傑克遜的一室校舍搬到兩層樓的郊區住宅，享受中產階級的舒適，那麼他們的孩子（和孫子）上大學和獲得美國夢應該沒有問題。毫無疑問，他們比留在肯塔基州的家庭成員更富有。他們成年後參觀了大西洋和尼亞加拉大瀑布，儘管他們小時候從未去過辛辛那提。他們相信他們已經成功了，他們的孩子會走得更遠。

There was something deeply naive about that attitude, though. All three children were profoundly affected by their tumultuous home life. Papaw wanted Jimmy to get an education instead of slogging it out in the steel mill. He warned that if Jimmy got a full-time job out of high school, the money would be like a drug—it would feel good in the short term, but it would keep him from the things he ought to be doing. Papaw even prevented Jimmy from using him as a referral on his Armco application. What Papaw didn’t appreciate was that Armco offered something more than money: the ability to get out of a house where your mother threw vases at your father’s forehead.

不過，這種態度有些幼稚。這三個孩子都深受動蕩的家庭生活的影響。爸爸希望吉米接受教育，而不是在鋼鐵廠裡苦苦掙扎。他警告說，如果吉米高中畢業后找到一份全職工作，這筆錢就像毒品一樣——短期內感覺很好，但會讓他無法做他應該做的事情。Papaw 甚至阻止 Jimmy 將他作為 Armco 申請的推薦人。Papaw 不欣賞的是，Armco 提供的不僅僅是金錢：能夠走出你母親向你父親額頭扔花瓶的房子。

Lori struggled in school, mostly because she never attended class. Mamaw used to joke that she’d drive her to school and drop her off, and somehow Lori would beat her home. During her sophomore year of high school, Lori’s boyfriend stole some PCP, and the two of them returned to Mamaw’s to indulge. “He told me that he should do more, since he was bigger. That was the last thing I remembered.” Lori woke up when Mamaw and her friend Kathy placed Lori in a cold bathtub. Her boyfriend, meanwhile, wasn’t responding. Kathy couldn’t tell if the young man was breathing. Mamaw ordered her to drag him to the park across the street. “I don’t want him to die in my fucking house,” she said. Instead she called someone to take him to the hospital, where he spent five days in intensive care.

洛瑞在學校很掙扎，主要是因為她從不上課。媽媽曾經開玩笑說，她會開車送她去學校，然後送她下車，不知何故，蘿莉會把她打回家。高二那年，蘿莉的男朋友偷了一些PCP，兩人回到媽媽家放縱。“他告訴我，他應該做得更多，因為他更大。那是我記得的最後一件事。當媽媽和她的朋友凱西把蘿莉放在冰冷的浴缸裡時，洛瑞醒了。與此同時，她的男朋友沒有回應。凱西無法判斷這個年輕人是否在呼吸。媽媽命令她把他拖到街對面的公園。“我不想讓他死在我他媽的房子裡，”她說。相反，她打電話給人送他去醫院，在那裡他在重症監護室呆了五天。

The next year, at sixteen, Lori dropped out of high school and married. She immediately found herself trapped in an abusive home just like the one she’d tried to escape. Her new husband would lock her in a bedroom to keep her from seeing her family. “It was almost like a prison,” Aunt Wee later told me.

第二年，十六歲的洛瑞從高中輟學並結婚。她立即發現自己被困在一個虐待家庭中，就像她試圖逃離的那個家庭一樣。她的新丈夫會把她鎖在臥室里，不讓她見家人。“這幾乎就像一座監獄，”黃阿姨後來告訴我。

Fortunately, both Jimmy and Lori found their way. Jimmy worked his way through night school and landed a sales job with Johnson & Johnson. He was the first person in my family to have a “career.” By the time she turned thirty, Lori was working in radiology and had such a nice new husband that Mamaw told the entire family, “If they ever get divorced, I’m following him.”

幸運的是，吉米和洛瑞都找到了自己的路。吉米在夜校工作，並在強生公司找到了一份銷售工作。他是我家裡第一個擁有“事業”的人。當她三十歲時，洛瑞在放射科工作，有了一個很好的新丈夫，媽媽告訴全家人，「如果他們離婚了，我會跟著他。

Unfortunately, the statistics caught up with the Vance family, and Bev (my mom) didn’t fare so well. Like her siblings, she left home early. She was a promising student, but when she got pregnant at eighteen, she decided college had to wait. After high school, she married her boyfriend and tried to settle down. But settling down wasn’t quite her thing: She had learned the lessons of her childhood all too well. When her new life developed the same fighting and drama so present in her old one, Mom filed for divorce and began life as a single mother. She was nineteen, with no degree, no husband, and a little girl—my sister, Lindsay.

不幸的是，統計數據趕上了萬斯一家，而貝夫（我媽媽）的情況並不好。和她的兄弟姐妹一樣，她很早就離開了家。她是一個很有前途的學生，但當她十八歲懷孕時，她決定上大學必須等待。高中畢業後，她嫁給了男朋友，並試圖安定下來。但安定下來並不是她的事：她已經很好地吸取了童年的教訓。當她的新生活發展出與舊生活相同的戰鬥和戲劇性時，媽媽提出了離婚，開始了單身母親的生活。她十九歲，沒有學位，沒有丈夫，還有一個小女孩——我的妹妹琳賽。

Mamaw and Papaw eventually got their act together. Papaw quit drinking in 1983, a decision accompanied by no medical intervention and not much fanfare. He simply stopped and said little about it. He and Mamaw separated and then reconciled, and although they continued to live in separate houses, they spent nearly every waking hour together. And they tried to repair the damage they had wrought: They helped Lori break out of her abusive marriage. They lent money to Bev and helped her with child care. They offered her places to stay, supported her through rehab, and paid for her nursing school. Most important, they filled the gap when my mom was unwilling or unable to be the type of parent that they wished they’d been to her. Mamaw and Papaw may have failed Bev in her youth. But they spent the rest of their lives making up for it.

媽媽和爸爸最終走到了一起。Papaw在1983年戒酒，這一決定沒有醫療干預，也沒有大張旗鼓。他只是停了下來，什麼也沒說。他和媽媽分居，然後又和好，雖然他們繼續住在不同的房子裡，但他們幾乎每個醒著的時候都在一起。他們試圖修復他們造成的傷害：他們説明洛瑞擺脫了虐待的婚姻。他們借錢給Bev，並幫助她照顧孩子。他們為她提供了住宿的地方，支援她進行康復治療，並支付了她的護士學校的費用。最重要的是，當我媽媽不願意或不能成為他們希望成為她的那種父母時，他們填補了空白。Mamaw 和Papaw可能在她年輕時辜負了Bev。但他們用餘生來彌補它。

Chapter 4

第 4 章

I was born in late summer 1984, just a few months before Papaw cast his first and only vote for a Republican—Ronald Reagan. Winning large blocks of Rust Belt Democrats like Papaw, Reagan went on to the biggest electoral landslide in modern American history. “I never liked Reagan much,” Papaw later told me. “But I hated that son of a bitch Mondale.” Reagan’s Democratic opponent, a well-educated Northern liberal, stood in stark cultural contrast to my hillbilly Papaw. Mondale never had a chance, and after he departed from the political scene, Papaw never again voted against his beloved “party of the workingman.”

我出生於1984年夏末，就在帕帕投下他的第一張也是唯一一張共和黨人羅納德·雷根（Ronald Reagan）的票前幾個月。雷根贏得了像帕帕這樣的鐵鏽地帶民主黨人，繼續了現代美國歷史上最大的選舉壓倒性勝利。“我從來都不喜歡雷根，”帕帕後來告訴我。“可是我討厭那個婊子蒙代爾的兒子。雷根的民主黨對手，一個受過良好教育的北方自由主義者，與我的鄉巴佬爸爸形成了鮮明的文化對比。蒙代爾再也沒有機會，在他離開政治舞臺後，帕帕再也沒有投票反對他心愛的“工人黨”。

Jackson, Kentucky, would always have my heart, but Middletown, Ohio, had most of my time. In many ways, the town where I was born was largely the same as the one my grandparents had migrated to four decades earlier. Its population had changed little since the 1950s, when the flood of migrants on the hillbilly highway slowed to a dribble. My elementary school was built in the 1930s, before my grandparents left Jackson, and my middle school first welcomed a class shortly after World War I, well before my grandparents were born. Armco remained the town’s biggest employer, and though troubling signs were on the horizon, Middletown had avoided significant economic problems. “We saw ourselves as a really fine community, on par with Shaker Heights or Upper Arlington,” explained a decades-long veteran of the public schools, comparing the Middletown of yore to some of the most successful of Ohio’s suburbs. “Of course, none of us knew what would happen.”

肯塔基州的傑克遜永遠是我的心，但俄亥俄州的米德爾敦擁有我的大部分時間。在許多方面，我出生的小鎮與我祖父母四十年前移居的小鎮大致相同。自 1950 年代以來，它的人口變化不大，當時鄉巴佬高速公路上的移民潮放緩到滴水不漏。我的小學建於 1930 年代，在我祖父母離開傑克遜之前，我的中學在第一次世界大戰後不久首次迎來了一個班級，遠在我祖父母出生之前。阿姆科仍然是該鎮最大的僱主，儘管令人不安的跡象即將到來，但米德爾敦避免了重大的經濟問題。“我們認為自己是一個非常好的社區，與Shaker Heights或Upper Arlington相提並論，”一位在公立學校工作了幾十年的資深人士解釋說，他將昔日的米德爾敦與俄亥俄州一些最成功的郊區進行了比較。“當然，我們誰也不知道會發生什麼。

Middletown is one of the older incorporated towns in Ohio, built during the 1800s thanks to its proximity to the Miami River, which empties directly into the Ohio. As kids, we joked that our hometown was so generic that they didn’t even bother to give it a real name: It’s in the middle of Cincinnati and Dayton, and it’s a town, so here we are. (It’s not alone: A few miles from Middletown is Centerville.) Middletown is generic in other ways. It exemplified the economic expansion of the manufacturing-based Rust Belt town. Socioeconomically, it is largely working-class. Racially, there are lots of white and black people (the latter the product of an analogous great migration) but few others. And culturally, it is very conservative, although cultural conservatism and political conservatism are not always aligned in Middletown.

米德爾敦是俄亥俄州最古老的合併城鎮之一，建於 1800 年代，這要歸功於它靠近直接流入俄亥俄州的邁阿密河。小時候，我們開玩笑說我們的家鄉太普通了，以至於他們甚至懶得給它起一個真實的名字：它位於辛辛那提和代頓的中間，這是一個小鎮，所以我們在這裡。（它並不孤單：距離米德爾敦幾英里的地方是森特維爾。米德爾敦在其他方面是通用的。它體現了以製造業為基礎的鏽帶小鎮的經濟擴張。在社會經濟上，它主要是工人階級。從種族上講，有很多白人和黑人（後者是類似大遷徙的產物），但其他人很少。在文化上，它非常保守，儘管文化保守主義和政治保守主義在米德爾敦並不總是一致的。

The people I grew up around are not all that dissimilar from the people of Jackson. This is especially obvious at Armco, which employed a plurality of the town’s population. Indeed, the work environment once mirrored the Kentucky towns that many of the employees came from. One author reported that “a sign over a doorway between departments read, ‘Leave Morgan County and Enter Wolfe County.’”¹¹ Kentucky—down to its county rivalries—moved with the Appalachian migrants to town.

我長大的人與傑克遜的人並沒有什麼不同。這在阿姆科尤為明顯，它僱用了該鎮的大部分人口。事實上，工作環境曾經反映了許多員工來自肯塔基州的城鎮。一位作者報告說，「各部門之間門口的牌子上寫著『離開摩根縣，進入沃爾夫縣』。¹¹肯塔基州 - 包括其縣級競爭 - 與阿巴拉契亞移民一起搬到了鎮上。

As a kid, I sorted Middletown into three basic geographic regions. First, the area surrounding the high school, which opened in 1969, Uncle Jimmy’s senior year. (Even in 2003, Mamaw called it the “new high school.”) The “rich” kids lived here. Large homes mixed comfortably with well-kept parks and office complexes. If your dad was a doctor, he almost certainly owned a home or had an office here, if not both. I dreamed that I’d own a house in Manchester Manor, a relatively new development not a mile from the high school, where a nice home went for less than a fifth of the price of a decent house in San Francisco. Next, the poor kids (the really poor kids) lived near Armco, where even the nice homes had been converted into multi-family apartment units. I didn’t know until recently that this neighborhood was actually two neighborhoods—one inhabited by Middletown’s working-class black population, the other by its poorest white population. Middletown’s few housing projects stood there.

小時候，我把米德爾敦分為三個基本的地理區域。首先是高中周圍的區域，該高中於 1969 年開學，吉米叔叔的高年級。（即使在 2003 年，Mamaw 也稱它為“新高中”。“有錢”的孩子住在這裡。大型住宅與保存完好的公園和辦公大樓舒適地混合在一起。如果你的父親是一名醫生，他幾乎可以肯定在這裡擁有一所房子或辦公室，如果不是兩者兼而有之的話。我夢想著在曼徹斯特莊園擁有一棟房子，這是一個相對較新的開發項目，距離高中不到一英里，在那裡，一棟漂亮的房子的價格不到三藩市一棟像樣房子的五分之一。接下來，窮孩子（真正的窮孩子）住在阿姆科附近，那裡甚至連漂亮的房子都被改造成了多戶公寓。直到最近，我才知道這個社區實際上是兩個社區——一個是米德爾敦的工人階級黑人人口，另一個是最貧窮的白人人口。米德爾敦為數不多的住房專案就在那裡。

Then there was the area where we lived—mostly single-family homes, with abandoned warehouses and factories within walking distance. Looking back, I don’t know if the “really poor” areas and my block were any different, or whether these divisions were the constructs of a mind that didn’t want to believe it was really poor.

然後是我們居住的地區——大部分是單戶住宅，步行即可到達廢棄的倉庫和工廠。回想起來，我不知道“真正貧窮”的地區和我的街區是否有任何不同，或者這些劃分是否是一個不願意相信它真的很貧窮的思想的建構。

Across the street from our house was Miami Park, a single city block with a swing set, a tennis court, a baseball field, and a basketball court. As I grew up, I noticed that the tennis court lines faded with each passing month, and that the city had stopped filling in the cracks or replacing the nets on the basketball courts. I was still young when the tennis court became little more than a cement block littered with grass patches. I learned that our neighborhood had “gone downhill” after two bikes were stolen in the course of the week. For years, Mamaw said, her children had left their bikes unchained in the yard with no problems. Now her grandkids woke to find thick locks cracked in two by dead-bolt cutters. From that point forward, I walked.

我們家的街對面是邁阿密公園，這是一個單一的城市街區，有一個秋千、一個網球場、一個棒球場和一個籃球場。隨著我長大，我注意到網球場的線條隨著時間的流逝而逐漸消失，城市已經停止填補裂縫或更換籃球場上的球網。我還很年輕的時候，網球場只不過是一塊散落著草地的水泥塊。我瞭解到，在一周內有兩輛自行車被盜后，我們的社區已經“走下坡路”。媽媽說，多年來，她的孩子們一直把自行車鬆開在院子里，沒有任何問題。現在，她的孫子們醒來時發現厚厚的鎖被死線鉗劈成兩半。從那時起，我就走了。

If Middletown had changed little by the time I was born, the writing was on the wall almost immediately thereafter. It’s easy even for residents to miss it because the change has been gradual—more erosion than mudslide. But it’s obvious if you know where to look, and a common refrain for those of us who return intermittently is “Geez, Middletown is not looking good.”

如果說在我出生的時候，米德爾敦幾乎沒有什麼變化，那麼在那之後，字跡幾乎立即就掛在了牆上。即使是居民也很容易錯過它，因為這種變化是漸進的——比泥石流更多的侵蝕。但如果你知道去哪裡看，那就很明顯了，對於我們這些間歇性返回的人來說，一個常見的克制是“哎呀，米德爾敦看起來不太好。

In the 1980s, Middletown had a proud, almost idyllic downtown: a bustling shopping center, restaurants that had operated since before World War II, and a few bars where men like Papaw would gather and have a beer (or many) after a hard day at the steel mill. My favorite store was the local Kmart, which was the main attraction in a strip mall, near a branch of Dillman’s—a local grocer with three or four locations. Now the strip mall is mostly bare: Kmart stands empty, and the Dillman family closed that big store and all the rest, too. The last I checked, there was only an Arby’s, a discount grocery store, and a Chinese buffet in what was once a Middletown center of commerce. The scene at that strip mall is hardly uncommon. Few Middletown businesses are doing well, and many have ceased operating altogether. Twenty years ago, there were two local malls. Now one of those malls is a parking lot, and the other serves as a walking course for the elderly (though it still has a few stores).

在 1980 年代，米德爾敦有一個引以為豪的、幾乎是田園詩般的市中心：一個繁華的購物中心、從二戰前就開始營業的餐館，以及一些酒吧，像 Papaw 這樣的人會在鋼鐵廠辛苦了一天后聚集在一起喝啤酒（或很多）。我最喜歡的商店是當地的凱馬特（Kmart），這是一家購物中心的主要景點，靠近迪爾曼（Dillman's）的一家分店，這是一家擁有三四家分店的當地雜貨店。現在，脫衣舞購物中心幾乎光禿禿的：凱馬特空無一人，迪爾曼家族關閉了那家大商店，其他所有商店也都關閉了。我上次檢查時，在曾經是米德爾敦商業中心的地方，只有一家 Arby's、一家折扣雜貨店和一家中式自助餐。那個脫衣舞商場的場景並不少見。米德爾敦很少有企業經營良好，許多企業已經完全停止運營。二十年前，當地有兩家購物中心。現在，其中一個購物中心是停車場，另一個是老年人的步行道（儘管它仍然有幾家商店）。

Today downtown Middletown is little more than a relic of American industrial glory. Abandoned shops with broken windows line the heart of downtown, where Central Avenue and Main Street meet. Richie’s pawnshop has long since closed, though a hideous yellow and green sign still marks the site, so far as I know. Richie’s isn’t far from an old pharmacy that, in its heyday, had a soda bar and served root beer floats. Across the street is a building that looks like a theater, with one of those giant triangular signs that reads “ST___L” because the letters in the middle were shattered and never replaced. If you need a payday lender or a cash-for-gold store, downtown Middletown is the place to be.

今天，米德爾敦市中心只不過是美國工業輝煌的遺迹。窗戶破損的廢棄商店排列在市中心的中心地帶，中央大道和主街在這裡交匯。里奇的當鋪早已關門，但據我所知，這裡仍然掛著一個醜陋的黃綠相間的標誌。Richie's離一家老藥店不遠，在鼎盛時期，這家藥店有一家蘇打水吧，供應根啤酒漂浮物。街對面是一座看起來像劇院的建築，上面有一個巨大的三角形標誌，上面寫著“ST___L”，因為中間的字母被打碎了，再也沒有更換過。如果您需要發薪日貸款人或現金換金店，米德爾敦市中心就是您的不二之選。

Not far from the main drag of empty shops and boarded-up windows is the Sorg Mansion. The Sorgs, a powerful and wealthy industrial family dating back to the nineteenth century, operated a large paper mill in Middletown. They donated enough money to put their names on the local opera house and helped build Middletown into a respectable enough city to attract Armco. Their mansion, a gigantic manor home, sits near a formerly proud Middletown country club. Despite its beauty, a Maryland couple recently purchased the mansion for $225,000, or about half of what a decent multi-room apartment sets you back in Washington, D.C.

離空蕩蕩的商店和木板窗戶的主要拖曳不遠處是 Sorg Mansion。Sorgs 是一個強大而富有的工業家族，其歷史可以追溯到 19 世紀，在米德爾敦經營著一家大型造紙廠。他們捐贈了足夠的錢，將他們的名字放在當地的歌劇院上，並説明將米德爾敦建設成一個足夠受人尊敬的城市，以吸引阿姆科。他們的豪宅是一座巨大的莊園，坐落在以前引以為豪的米德爾敦鄉村俱樂部附近。儘管它很漂亮，但馬里蘭州的一對夫婦最近以 225,000 美元的價格購買了這座豪宅，大約是華盛頓特區體面的多房間公寓的一半。

Located quite literally on Main Street, the Sorg Mansion is just up the road from a number of opulent homes that housed Middletown’s wealthy in their heyday. Most have fallen into disrepair. Those that haven’t have been subdivided into small apartments for Middletown’s poorest residents. A street that was once the pride of Middletown today serves as a meeting spot for druggies and dealers. Main Street is now the place you avoid after dark.

Sorg Mansion 位於主街上，距離米德爾敦鼎盛時期的富人居住的許多豪華住宅僅一行之遙。大多數都年久失修。那些還沒有被細分為米德爾敦最貧困居民的小公寓。這條曾經是米德爾敦驕傲的街道今天成為毒品販子和毒販的聚會場所。主街現在是你天黑后避開的地方。

This change is a symptom of a new economic reality: rising residential segregation. The number of working-class whites in high-poverty neighborhoods is growing. In 1970, 25 percent of white children lived in a neighborhood with poverty rates above 10 percent. In 2000, that number was 40 percent. It’s almost certainly even higher today. As a 2011 Brookings Institution study found, “compared to 2000, residents of extreme-poverty neighborhoods in 2005–09 were more likely to be white, native-born, high school or college graduates, homeowners, and not receiving public assistance.”¹² In other words, bad neighborhoods no longer plague only urban ghettos; the bad neighborhoods have spread to the suburbs.

這種變化是新經濟現實的徵兆：住宅隔離加劇。高貧困社區的工人階級白人人數正在增長。1970年，25%的白人兒童生活在貧困率超過10%的社區。2000年，這一數位為40%。今天幾乎可以肯定，它甚至更高。布魯金斯學會2011年的一項研究發現，“與2000年相比，2005-09年極端貧困社區的居民更有可能是白人，土生土長，高中或大學畢業生，房主，並且沒有獲得公共援助。¹²換句話說，糟糕的社區不再只困擾城市貧民窟;糟糕的社區已經蔓延到郊區。

This has occurred for complicated reasons. Federal housing policy has actively encouraged homeownership, from Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act to George W. Bush’s ownership society. But in the Middletowns of the world, homeownership comes at a steep social cost: As jobs disappear in a given area, declining home values trap people in certain neighborhoods. Even if you’d like to move, you can’t, because the bottom has fallen out of the market—you now owe more than any buyer is willing to pay. The costs of moving are so high that many people stay put. Of course, the people trapped are usually those with the least money; those who can afford to leave do so.

發生這種情況的原因很複雜。聯邦住房政策積極鼓勵房屋擁有權，從吉米·卡特（Jimmy Carter）的《社區再投資法案》（Community Reinvestment Act）到喬治·W·布希（George W. Bush）的擁有權協會。但在世界的米德爾敦，擁有房屋需要付出高昂的社會成本：隨著特定地區的工作崗位消失，房屋價值的下降使人們被困在某些社區。即使你想搬家，你也不能，因為市場已經跌出谷底——你現在欠的錢比任何買家願意支付的都多。搬家的成本如此之高，以至於許多人留在原地。當然，被困的人通常是那些錢最少的人;那些有能力離開的人會這樣做。

City leaders have tried in vain to revive Middletown’s downtown. You’ll find their most infamous effort if you follow Central Avenue to its end point on the banks of the Miami River, once a lovely place. For reasons I can’t begin to fathom, the city’s brain trust decided to turn our beautiful riverfront into Lake Middletown, an infrastructural project that apparently involved shoveling tons of dirt into the river and hoping something interesting would come of it. It accomplished nothing, though the river now features a man-made dirt island about the size of a city block.

市領導試圖重振米德爾敦市中心，但徒勞無功。如果您沿著中央大道到達邁阿密河岸邊的終點，您會發現他們最臭名昭著的努力，這裡曾經是一個可愛的地方。出於我無法理解的原因，該市的智囊團決定將我們美麗的河濱變成米德爾敦湖，這是一個基礎設施項目，顯然涉及將大量泥土鏟入河中，並希望它能帶來一些有趣的東西。它什麼也沒做，儘管這條河現在有一個人造土島，大約有一個城市街區那麼大。

Efforts to reinvent downtown Middletown always struck me as futile. People didn’t leave because our downtown lacked trendy cultural amenities. The trendy cultural amenities left because there weren’t enough consumers in Middletown to support them. And why weren’t there enough well-paying consumers? Because there weren’t enough jobs to employ those consumers. Downtown Middletown’s struggles were a symptom of everything else happening to Middletown’s people, especially the collapsing importance of Armco Kawasaki Steel.

重塑米德爾敦市中心的努力總是讓我感到徒勞無功。人們沒有離開，因為我們的市中心缺乏時尚的文化設施。時髦的文化設施離開了，因為米德爾敦沒有足夠的消費者來支持他們。為什麼沒有足夠多的高薪消費者？因為沒有足夠的工作來僱用這些消費者。米德爾敦市中心的掙扎是米德爾敦人民發生的一切的徵兆，尤其是阿姆科川崎鋼鐵公司（Armco Kawasaki Steel）重要性的崩潰。

AK Steel is the result of a 1989 merger between Armco Steel and Kawasaki—the same Japanese corporation that makes those small high-powered motorcycles (“crotch rockets,” we called them as kids). Most people still call it Armco for two reasons. The first is that, as Mamaw used to say, “Armco built this fucking town.” She wasn’t lying: Many of the city’s best parks and facilities were bought with Armco dollars. Armco’s people sat on the boards of many of the important local organizations, and it helped to fund the schools. And it employed thousands of Middletonians who, like my grandfather, earned a good wage despite a lack of formal education.

AK Steel 是 1989 年 Armco Steel 和 Kawasaki 合併的結果——川崎是生產小型大功率摩托車（“胯部火箭”，我們小時候稱它們為“胯部火箭”）的同一家日本公司。大多數人仍然稱它為 Armco，原因有兩個。首先，正如Mamaw常說的那樣，“Armco建造了這個該死的小鎮。她沒有撒謊：該市許多最好的公園和設施都是用阿姆科的錢買來的。Armco的員工在許多重要的當地組織的董事會中任職，並幫助資助了學校。它僱用了成千上萬的米德爾頓人，他們像我的祖父一樣，儘管缺乏正規教育，但還是獲得了不錯的工資。

Armco earned its reputation through careful design. “Until the 1950s,” writes Chad Berry in his book Southern Migrants, Northern Exiles, “the ‘big four’ employers of the Miami Valley region—Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati, Champion Paper and Fiber in Hamilton, Armco Steel in Middletown, and National Cash Register in Dayton—had had serene labor relations, partly because they . . . [hired] family and friends of employees who were once migrants themselves. For example, Inland Container, in Middletown, had 220 Kentuckyians on its payroll, 117 of whom were from Wolfe County alone.” While labor relations no doubt had declined by the 1980s, much of the goodwill built by Armco (and similar companies) remained.

Armco通過精心設計贏得了聲譽。“直到1950年代，”查德·貝瑞（Chad Berry）在他的《南方移民，北方流亡者》一書中寫道，“邁阿密谷地區的'四大'雇主——辛辛那提的寶潔公司、漢密爾頓的冠軍紙和纖維公司、米德爾敦的阿姆科鋼鐵公司和代頓的國家收銀機公司——一直保持著平靜的勞資關係，部分原因是他們......[僱用]曾經是移民的員工的家人和朋友。例如，位於米德爾敦的內陸集裝箱公司（Inland Container）的工資單上有220名肯塔基人，其中僅沃爾夫縣就有117人。雖然勞資關係在1980年代無疑有所下降，但Armco（和類似公司）建立的大部分商譽仍然存在。

The other reason most still call it Armco is that Kawasaki was a Japanese company, and in a town full of World War II vets and their families, you’d have thought that General Tojo himself had decided to set up shop in southwest Ohio when the merger was announced. The opposition was mostly a bunch of noise. Even Papaw—who once promised he’d disown his children if they bought a Japanese car—stopped complaining a few days after they announced the merger. “The truth is,” he told me, “that the Japanese are our friends now. If we end up fighting any of those countries, it’ll be the goddamned Chinese.”

大多數人仍然稱它為Armco的另一個原因是川崎是一家日本公司，在一個充滿二戰老兵及其家人的小鎮上，你會認為東條將軍本人在宣佈合併時決定在俄亥俄州西南部開店。反對派大多是一堆噪音。就連曾經承諾過，如果孩子買日本車，他會和孩子斷絕關係的爸爸，在他們宣布合併幾天后也不再抱怨了。“事實是，”他告訴我，“日本人現在是我們的朋友。如果我們最終與這些國家中的任何一個作戰，那將是該死的中國人。

The Kawasaki merger represented an inconvenient truth: Manufacturing in America was a tough business in the post-globalization world. If companies like Armco were going to survive, they would have to retool. Kawasaki gave Armco a chance, and Middletown’s flagship company probably would not have survived without it.

川崎的合併代表了一個令人不安的事實：在後全球化世界中，美國的製造業是一項艱難的業務。如果像Armco這樣的公司要生存下去，他們就必須進行重組。川崎給了Armco一個機會，如果沒有它，米德爾敦的旗艦公司可能無法生存。

Growing up, my friends and I had no clue that the world had changed. Papaw had retired only a few years earlier, owned stock in Armco, and had a lucrative pension. Armco Park remained the nicest, most exclusive recreation spot in town, and access to the private park was a status symbol: It meant that your dad (or grandpa) was a man with a respected job. It never occurred to me that Armco wouldn’t be around forever, funding scholarships, building parks, and throwing free concerts.

在成長過程中，我和我的朋友們都不知道世界已經發生了變化。Papaw幾年前才退休，擁有Armco的股票，並擁有豐厚的養老金。阿姆科公園仍然是鎮上最好、最獨特的休閒場所，進入私人公園是一種身份的象徵：這意味著你的父親（或爺爺）是一個有一份受人尊敬的工作的人。我從來沒有想過 Armco 不會永遠存在，資助獎學金、建造公園和舉辦免費音樂會。

Still, few of my friends had ambitions to work there. As small children, we had the same dreams that other kids did; we wanted to be astronauts or football players or action heroes. I wanted to be a professional puppy-player-wither, which at the time seemed eminently reasonable. By the sixth grade, we wanted to be veterinarians or doctors or preachers or businessmen. But not steelworkers. Even at Roosevelt Elementary—where, thanks to Middletown geography, most people’s parents lacked a college education—no one wanted to have a blue-collar career and its promise of a respectable middle-class life. We never considered that we’d be lucky to land a job at Armco; we took Armco for granted.

儘管如此，我的朋友中很少有人有在那裡工作的雄心壯志。小時候，我們和其他孩子一樣有同樣的夢想;我們想成為宇航員、足球運動員或動作英雄。我想成為一名職業的小狗玩家，這在當時看來非常合理。到六年級時，我們想成為獸醫、醫生、傳教士或商人。但不是鋼鐵工人。即使在羅斯福小學（Roosevelt Elementary）——由於米德爾敦的地理位置，大多數人的父母都沒有受過大學教育——也沒有人想擁有藍領職業和體面的中產階級生活。我們從沒想過能在 Armco 找到一份工作會很幸運;我們認為Armco是理所當然的。

Many kids seem to feel that way today. A few years ago I spoke with Jennifer McGuffey, a Middletown High School teacher who works with at-risk youth. “A lot of students just don’t understand what’s out there,” she told me, shaking her head. “You have the kids who plan on being baseball players but don’t even play on the high school team because the coach is mean to them. Then you have those who aren’t doing very well in school, and when you try to talk to them about what they’re going to do, they talk about AK. ‘Oh, I can get a job at AK. My uncle works there.’ It’s like they can’t make the connection between the situation in this town and the lack of jobs at AK.” My initial reaction was: How could these kids not understand what the world was like? Didn’t they notice their town changing before their very eyes? But then I realized: We didn’t, so why would they?

今天，許多孩子似乎都有這種感覺。幾年前，我與米德爾敦高中（Middletown High School）的教師詹妮弗·麥格菲（Jennifer McGuffey）進行了交談，她與高危青少年一起工作。“很多學生只是不明白外面有什麼，”她搖著頭告訴我。“有些孩子計劃成為棒球運動員，但甚至不參加高中隊，因為教練對他們很刻薄。然後你有那些在學校表現不佳的人，當你試圖和他們談論他們將要做什麼時，他們會談論AK。“哦，我可以在AK找到一份工作。我舅舅在那裡工作。就好像他們無法將這個城鎮的情況與AK缺乏工作聯繫起來一樣。我的第一反應是：這些孩子怎麼可能不明白這個世界是什麼樣子的？難道他們沒有注意到他們的城鎮在他們眼前發生了變化嗎？但後來我意識到：我們沒有，那他們為什麼要呢？

For my grandparents, Armco was an economic savior—the engine that brought them from the hills of Kentucky into America’s middle class. My grandfather loved the company and knew every make and model of car built from Armco steel. Even after most American car companies transitioned away from steel-bodied cars, Papaw would stop at used-car dealerships whenever he saw an old Ford or Chevy. “Armco made this steel,” he’d tell me. It was one of the few times that he ever betrayed a sense of genuine pride.

對我的祖父母來說，阿姆科是經濟救星，是把他們從肯塔基州的山區帶入美國中產階級的引擎。我的祖父很喜歡這家公司，並且瞭解用Armco鋼製造的每一種品牌和型號的汽車。即使在大多數美國汽車公司從鋼制汽車轉型之後，每當看到一輛舊的福特或雪佛蘭時，Papaw都會在二手車轉銷商處停下來。“阿姆科製造了這種鋼，”他會告訴我。這是他為數不多的一次背叛了真正的自豪感。

Despite that pride, he had no interest in my working there: “Your generation will make its living with their minds, not their hands,” he once told me. The only acceptable career at Armco was as an engineer, not as a laborer in the weld shop. A lot of other Middletown parents and grandparents must have felt similarly: To them, the American Dream required forward momentum. Manual labor was honorable work, but it was their generation’s work—we had to do something different. To move up was to move on. That required going to college.

儘管有這種自豪感，但他對我在那裡的工作沒有興趣：“你們這一代人將用他們的頭腦而不是他們的雙手謀生，”他曾經告訴我。在Armco，唯一可以接受的職業是工程師，而不是焊接車間的工人。許多其他米德爾敦的父母和祖父母一定也有類似的感受：對他們來說，美國夢需要前進的動力。體力勞動是光榮的工作，但這是他們這一代人的工作——我們必須做一些不同的事情。向上移動就是繼續前進。這需要上大學。

And yet there was no sense that failing to achieve higher education would bring shame or any other consequences. The message wasn’t explicit; teachers didn’t tell us that we were too stupid or poor to make it. Nevertheless, it was all around us, like the air we breathed: No one in our families had gone to college; older friends and siblings were perfectly content to stay in Middletown, regardless of their career prospects; we knew no one at a prestigious out-of-state school; and everyone knew at least one young adult who was underemployed or didn’t have a job at all.

然而，沒有接受高等教育會帶來恥辱或任何其他後果。該消息並不明確;老師沒有告訴我們，我們太笨或太窮了，做不到。然而，它就在我們周圍，就像我們呼吸的空氣一樣：我們家裡沒有人上過大學;年長的朋友和兄弟姐妹都非常滿意留在米德爾敦，無論他們的職業前景如何;在一所著名的州外學校里，我們不認識任何人;每個人都知道至少有一個年輕人就業不足或根本沒有工作。

In Middletown, 20 percent of the public high school’s entering freshmen won’t make it to graduation. Most won’t graduate from college. Virtually no one will go to college out of state. Students don’t expect much from themselves, because the people around them don’t do very much. Many parents go along with this phenomenon. I don’t remember ever being scolded for getting a bad grade until Mamaw began to take an interest in my grades in high school. When my sister or I struggled in school, I’d overhear things like “Well, maybe she’s just not that great at fractions,” or “J.D.’s more of a numbers kid, so I wouldn’t worry about that spelling test.”

在米德爾敦，20%的公立高中新生無法畢業。大多數人不會從大學畢業。幾乎沒有人會去州外上大學。學生對自己期望不高，因為周圍的人做得不多。許多父母都同意這種現象。我不記得曾經因為成績不好而被責駡過，直到媽媽開始對我高中的成績感興趣。當我和姐姐在學校里掙扎時，我會無意中聽到諸如“好吧，也許她只是不擅長分數”或“JD更像是一個數位孩子，所以我不會擔心拼寫測試。

There was, and still is, a sense that those who make it are of two varieties. The first are lucky: They come from wealthy families with connections, and their lives were set from the moment they were born. The second are the meritocratic: They were born with brains and couldn’t fail if they tried. Because very few in Middletown fall into the former category, people assume that everyone who makes it is just really smart. To the average Middletonian, hard work doesn’t matter as much as raw talent.

過去和現在都有一種感覺，即製作它的人有兩種。第一個是幸運的：他們來自有關係的富裕家庭，他們的生活從他們出生的那一刻起就註定了。第二種是任人唯賢：他們天生就有頭腦，如果他們嘗試過，就不會失敗。因為在米德爾敦，很少有人屬於前一類，所以人們認為每個成功的人都非常聰明。對於普通的米德爾頓人來說，努力工作並不像天賦那麼重要。

It’s not like parents and teachers never mention hard work. Nor do they walk around loudly proclaiming that they expect their children to turn out poorly. These attitudes lurk below the surface, less in what people say than in how they act. One of our neighbors was a lifetime welfare recipient, but in between asking my grandmother to borrow her car or offering to trade food stamps for cash at a premium, she’d blather on about the importance of industriousness. “So many people abuse the system, it’s impossible for the hardworking people to get the help they need,” she’d say. This was the construct she’d built in her head: Most of the beneficiaries of the system were extravagant moochers, but she—despite never having worked in her life—was an obvious exception.

這並不是說父母和老師從不提及努力工作。他們也不會大聲地走來走去，宣稱他們希望自己的孩子表現不佳。這些態度潛伏在表面之下，與其說是人們所說的話，不如說是他們的行為方式。我們的一位鄰居是終身福利領取者，但在要求我祖母借她的車或提出以高價換取食品券之間，她會喋喋不休地談論勤勞的重要性。這麼多人濫用這個系統，辛勤工作的人不可能得到他們需要的説明，“她說。這是她在腦海中建立的結構：這個系統的大多數受益者都是奢侈的哄騙者，但她——儘管她一生中從未工作過——是一個明顯的例外。

People talk about hard work all the time in places like Middletown. You can walk through a town where 30 percent of the young men work fewer than twenty hours a week and find not a single person aware of his own laziness. During the 2012 election cycle, the Public Religion Institute, a left-leaning think tank, published a report on working-class whites. It found, among other things, that working-class whites worked more hours than college-educated whites. But the idea that the average working-class white works more hours is demonstrably false.¹³ The Public Religion Institute based its results on surveys—essentially, they called around and asked people what they thought.¹⁴ The only thing that report proves is that many folks talk about working more than they actually work.

在米德爾敦這樣的地方，人們一直在談論努力工作。你可以走過一個小鎮，那裡有30%的年輕人每周工作不到20小時，卻沒有一個人意識到自己的懶惰。在2012年的選舉週期中，左傾智庫公共宗教研究所（Public Religion Institute）發表了一份關於工人階級白人的報告。它發現，除其他外，工人階級白人的工作時間比受過大學教育的白人多。但是，認為普通工人階級白人工作時間更長的想法顯然是錯誤的。¹³公共宗教研究所（Public Religion Institute）的調查結果基於調查——基本上，他們四處打電話，詢問人們的想法。¹⁴該報告唯一證明的是，許多人談論的工作比實際工作多。

Of course, the reasons poor people aren’t working as much as others are complicated, and it’s too easy to blame the problem on laziness. For many, part-time work is all they have access to, because the Armcos of the world are going out of business and their skill sets don’t fit well in the modern economy. But whatever the reasons, the rhetoric of hard work conflicts with the reality on the ground. The kids in Middletown absorb that conflict and struggle with it.

當然，窮人工作不如其他人的原因很複雜，很容易將問題歸咎於懶惰。對於許多人來說，兼職工作是他們所能獲得的，因為世界上的Armcos正在倒閉，他們的技能組合不適合現代經濟。但無論出於何種原因，努力工作的言論都與實地現實相衝突。米德爾敦的孩子們吸收了這種衝突並與之鬥爭。

In this, as in so much else, the Scots-Irish migrants resemble their kin back in the holler. In an HBO documentary about eastern Kentucky hill people, the patriarch of a large Appalachian family introduces himself by drawing strict lines between work acceptable for men and work acceptable for women. While it’s obvious what he considers “women’s work,” it’s not at all clear what work, if any, is acceptable for him. Apparently not paid employment, since the man has never worked a paying job in his life. Ultimately, the verdict of his own son is damning: “Daddy says he’s worked in his life. Only thing Daddy’s worked is his goddamned ass. Why not be straight about it, Pa? Daddy was an alcoholic. He would stay drunk, he didn’t bring food home. Mommy supported her young’uns. If it hadn’t been for Mommy, we’d have been dead.”¹⁵

在這一點上，就像在其他許多方面一樣，蘇格蘭-愛爾蘭移民就像他們的親戚一樣。在一部關於肯塔基州東部山民的HBO紀錄片中，阿巴拉契亞一個大家庭的族長在男性可接受的工作和女性可接受的工作之間劃清了界限，從而自我介紹。雖然他所認為的「女性工作」是顯而易見的，但完全不清楚哪些工作（如果有的話）對他來說是可以接受的。顯然不是有償工作，因為該男子一生中從未從事過有償工作。最終，他自己兒子的判決是詛咒的：“爸爸說他一生都在工作。爸爸唯一能做的就是他那該死的屁股。為什麼不直截了當地說出來呢，爸爸？爸爸是個酒鬼。他會喝醉，他不會把食物帶回家。媽媽支援她的孩子們。如果不是媽媽，我們早就死了。¹⁵

Alongside these conflicting norms about the value of blue-collar work existed a massive ignorance about how to achieve white-collar work. We didn’t know that all across the country—and even in our hometown—other kids had already started a competition to get ahead in life. During first grade, we played a game every morning: The teacher would announce the number of the day, and we’d go person by person and announce a math equation that produced the number. So if the number of the day was four, you could announce “two plus two” and claim a prize, usually a small piece of candy. One day the number was thirty. The students in front of me went through the easy answers—“twenty-nine plus one,” “twenty-eight plus two,” “fifteen plus fifteen.” I was better than that. I was going to blow the teacher away.

除了這些關於藍領工作價值的相互衝突的規範之外，還存在著對如何實現白領工作的巨大無知。我們不知道，在全國各地，甚至在我們的家鄉，其他孩子已經開始了在生活中取得成功的競爭。在一年級時，我們每天早上都會玩一個遊戲：老師會宣佈當天的數字，我們會一個人一個接一個地宣佈一個產生數位的數學方程式。因此，如果當天的數位是四，您可以宣佈“二加二”並領取獎品，通常是一小塊糖果。有一天，這個數位是三十個。在我面前的學生們回答了簡單的問題——“二十九加一”、“二十八加二”、“十五加十五”。我比那更好。我本來想把老師吹走的。

When my turn came, I proudly announced, “Fifty minus twenty.” The teacher gushed, and I received two pieces of candy for my foray into subtraction, a skill we’d learned only days before. A few moments later, while I beamed over my brilliance, another student announced, “Ten times three.” I had no idea what that even meant. Times? Who was this guy?

輪到我時，我自豪地宣佈：“五十減去二十。老師滔滔不絕地說，我收到了兩塊糖果，用於我嘗試減法，這是我們幾天前才學會的技能。過了一會兒，當我為自己的才華而歡欣鼓舞時，另一個學生宣佈：“十乘以三。我甚至不知道這意味著什麼。次？這個人是誰？

The teacher was even more impressed, and my competitor triumphantly collected not two but three pieces of candy. The teacher spoke briefly of multiplication and asked if anyone else knew such a thing existed. None of us raised a hand. For my part, I was crushed. I returned home and burst into tears. I was certain my ignorance was rooted in some failure of character. I just felt stupid.

老師更是印象深刻，我的競爭對手得意洋洋地收集了三塊糖果，而不是兩塊。老師簡短地談到了乘法，並問是否有其他人知道這種東西的存在。我們誰也沒有舉手。就我而言，我被壓垮了。我回到家，淚流滿面。我確信我的無知源於某種性格上的失敗。我只是覺得自己很傻。

It wasn’t my fault that until that day I had never heard the word “multiplication.” It wasn’t something I’d learned in school, and my family didn’t sit around and work on math problems. But to a little kid who wanted to do well in school, it was a crushing defeat. In my immature brain, I didn’t understand the difference between intelligence and knowledge. So I assumed I was an idiot.

直到那天，我從未聽說過“乘法”這個詞，這不是我的錯。這不是我在學校學到的東西，我的家人也沒有坐下來做數學問題。但對於一個想在學校取得好成績的小孩子來說，這是一場慘敗。在我不成熟的大腦中，我不明白智力和知識之間的區別。所以我以為我是個白癡。

I may not have known multiplication that day, but when I came home and told Papaw about my heartbreak, he turned it into triumph. I learned multiplication and division before dinner. And for two years after that, my grandfather and I would practice increasingly complex math once a week, with an ice cream reward for solid performance. I would beat myself up when I didn’t understand a concept, and storm off, defeated. But after I’d pout for a few minutes, Papaw was always ready to go again. Mom was never much of a math person, but she took me to the public library before I could read, got me a library card, showed me how to use it, and always made sure I had access to kids’ books at home.

那天我可能不知道乘法，但當我回到家告訴爸爸我的心碎時，他把它變成了勝利。晚飯前我學會了乘法和除法。在那之後的兩年裡，我和祖父每周練習一次越來越複雜的數學，表現優異的人會得到霜淇淋獎勵。當我不理解一個概念時，我會毆打自己，然後暴走，失敗。但是在我撅了幾分鐘之後，爸爸總是準備再去一次。媽媽從來不是一個喜歡數學的人，但在我讀書之前，她帶我去了公共圖書館，給我一張借書證，教我如何使用它，並總是確保我在家裡能接觸到兒童讀物。

In other words, despite all of the environmental pressures from my neighborhood and community, I received a different message at home. And that just might have saved me.

換句話說，儘管我的鄰居和社區面面臨著環境壓力，但我在家中收到了不同的信息。這可能救了我。

Chapter 5

第 5 章

I assume I’m not alone in having few memories from before I was six or seven. I know that I was four when I climbed on top of the dining room table in our small apartment, announced that I was the Incredible Hulk, and dove headfirst into the wall to prove that I was stronger than any building. (I was wrong.)

我想我並不是唯一一個在我六七歲之前幾乎沒有記憶的人。我知道我四歲時爬上我們小公寓的餐桌，宣佈我是不可思議的綠巨人，然後一頭扎進牆上，證明我比任何建築物都強壯。（我錯了。

I remember being smuggled into the hospital to see Uncle Teaberry. I remember sitting on Mamaw Blanton’s lap as she read Bible stories aloud before the sun came up, and I remember stroking the whiskers on her chin and wondering whether God gave all old women facial hair. I remember explaining to Ms. Hydorne in the holler that my name was “J.D., like jay-dot-dee-dot.” I remember watching Joe Montana lead a TD-winning drive in the Super Bowl against the hometown Bengals. And I remember the early September day in kindergarten when Mom and Lindsay picked me up from school and told me that I’d never see my dad again. He was giving me up for adoption, they said. It was the saddest I had ever felt.

我記得我被偷偷帶進醫院去看茶莓叔叔。我記得在太陽升起之前，我坐在布蘭頓媽媽的腿上，大聲朗讀聖經故事，我記得撫摸著她下巴上的鬍鬚，想知道上帝是否給了所有老婦人的鬍鬚。我記得我向海多恩女士解釋說，我的名字是“J.D.，就像jay-dot-dee-dot。我記得看過喬·蒙大拿（Joe Montana）在超級碗（Super Bowl）對陣家鄉孟加拉虎隊（Bengals）的比賽中帶領TD獲勝。我還記得九月初在幼稚園的一天，媽媽和琳賽從學校接我，告訴我我再也見不到爸爸了。他們說，他要把我送去收養。這是我經歷過的最悲傷的一次。

My father, Don Bowman, was Mom’s second husband. Mom and Dad married in 1983 and split up around the time I started walking. Mom remarried a couple years after the divorce. Dad gave me up for adoption when I was six. After the adoption, he became kind of a phantom for the next six years. I had few memories of life with him. I knew that he loved Kentucky, its beautiful mountains, and its rolling green horse country. He drank RC Cola and had a clear Southern accent. He drank, but he stopped after he converted to Pentecostal Christianity. I always felt loved when I spent time with him, which was why I found it so shocking that he “didn’t want me anymore,” as Mom and Mamaw told me. He had a new wife, with two small children, and I’d been replaced.

我的父親唐·鮑曼（Don Bowman）是媽媽的第二任丈夫。爸爸媽媽於1983年結婚，在我開始走路的時候分手了。媽媽在離婚幾年後再婚。爸爸在我六歲時把我送去收養。被收養后，在接下來的六年裡，他變成了一個幻影。我對和他在一起的生活幾乎沒有記憶。我知道他喜歡肯塔基州，喜歡它美麗的山脈，喜歡它連綿起伏的綠馬之鄉。他喝RC可樂，有明顯的南方口音。他喝酒，但在皈依五旬節派基督教后就停止了。當我和他在一起時，我總是感到被愛，這就是為什麼我發現他“不再想要我了”，正如媽媽和媽媽告訴我的那樣，我感到如此震驚。他有了一個新妻子，有兩個小孩，我被取代了。

Bob Hamel, my stepdad and eventual adoptive father, was a good guy in that he treated Lindsay and me kindly. Mamaw didn’t care much for him. “He’s a toothless fucking retard,” she’d tell Mom, I suspect for reasons of class and culture: Mamaw had done everything in her power to be better than the circumstances of her birth. Though she was hardly rich, she wanted her kids to get an education, obtain white-collar work, and marry well-groomed middle-class folks—people, in other words, who were nothing like Mamaw and Papaw. Bob, however, was a walking hillbilly stereotype. He had little relationship with his own father and had learned the lessons of his own childhood well: He had two kids whom he barely saw, though they lived in Hamilton, a town ten miles south of Middletown. Half of his teeth had rotted out, and the other half were black, brown, and misshapen, the consequence of a lifetime of Mountain Dew consumption and presumably some missed dental checkups. He was a high school dropout who drove a truck for a living.

鮑勃·哈默爾（Bob Hamel）是我的繼父，也是最終的養父，他是個好人，因為他善待琳賽和我。媽媽不太關心他。“他是個沒牙的弱智，”她會告訴媽媽，我懷疑是出於階級和文化的原因：媽媽已經盡了一切努力，讓自己比她出生時的環境更好。雖然她並不富裕，但她希望她的孩子接受教育，獲得白領工作，並嫁給衣冠楚楚的中產階級——換句話說，這些人與媽媽和爸爸完全不同。然而，鮑勃是一個行走的鄉巴佬刻板印象。他與自己的父親關係不大，並且很好地吸取了自己童年的教訓：他有兩個孩子，儘管他們住在米德爾敦以南十英里的漢密爾頓鎮，但他幾乎沒有見過他們。他的一半牙齒已經腐爛，另一半是黑色、棕色和畸形的，這是他一生食用山露水的結果，大概是錯過了一些牙科檢查。他是一名高中輟學生，以開卡車為生。

We’d all eventually learn that there was much to dislike about Bob. But what drove Mamaw’s initial dislike were the parts of him that most resembled her. Mamaw apparently understood what would take me another twenty years to learn: that social class in America isn’t just about money. And her desire that her children do better than she had done extended past their education and employment and into the relationships they formed. When it came to spouses for her kids and parents for her grandkids, Mamaw felt, whether she knew it consciously, that she wasn’t good enough.

我們最終都會瞭解到，鮑勃有很多不喜歡的地方。但驅使媽媽最初不喜歡的是他身上最像她的部分。媽媽顯然明白我再花二十年才能學到的東西：美國的社會階層不僅僅是金錢。她希望自己的孩子比她做得更好，這超出了他們的教育和就業，延伸到他們建立的關係中。當談到孩子的配偶和孫子孫女的父母時，媽媽覺得，無論她是否有意識地知道，她都不夠好。

When Bob became my legal father, Mom changed my name from James Donald Bowman to James David Hamel. Until then, I’d borne my father’s first name as my middle name, and Mom used the adoption to erase any memory of his existence. She kept the D to preserve what had by then become a universal nickname—J.D. Mom told me that I was now named after Uncle David, Mamaw’s older, pot-smoking brother. This seemed a bit of a stretch even when I was six. Any old D name would have done, so long as it wasn’t Donald.

當鮑勃成為我的合法父親時，媽媽把我的名字從詹姆斯·唐納德·鮑曼改成了詹姆斯·大衛·哈默爾。在那之前，我一直以父親的名字作為中間名，而媽媽則用收養來抹去對他存在的任何記憶。她保留了D，以保留當時已成為普遍的昵稱——J.D.媽媽告訴我，我現在是以大衛叔叔的名字命名的，大衛叔叔是媽媽的哥哥，抽煙的哥哥。即使在我六歲的時候，這似乎也有點牽強。任何舊的 D 名字都可以，只要它不是唐納德。

Our new life with Bob had a superficial, family-sitcom feel to it. Mom and Bob’s marriage seemed happy. They bought a house a few blocks away from Mamaw’s. (We were so close that if the bathrooms were occupied or I felt like a snack, I’d just walk over to Mamaw’s.) Mom had recently acquired her nursing license, and Bob made a great salary, so we had plenty of money. With our gun-toting, cigarette-smoking Mamaw up the street and a new legal father, we were an odd family but a happy one.

我們和鮑勃的新生活有一種膚淺的家庭情景喜劇的感覺。媽媽和鮑勃的婚姻看起來很幸福。他們在離媽媽家幾個街區的地方買了一棟房子。（我們離得太近了，如果浴室被佔用，或者我想吃零食，我就會走到媽媽家。媽媽最近考了照，鮑勃的薪水很高，所以我們有很多錢。我們拿著槍，抽著煙的媽媽在街上，還有一個新的合法父親，我們是一個奇怪的家庭，但是一個幸福的家庭。

My life assumed a predictable cadence: I’d go to school and come home and eat dinner. I visited Mamaw and Papaw nearly every day. Papaw would sit on our porch to smoke, and I’d sit out there with him and listen to him grumble about politics or the steelworkers’ union. When I learned to read, Mom bought me my first chapter book—Space Brat—and heaped praise on me for finishing it quickly. I loved to read, and I loved to work on math problems with Papaw, and I loved the way that Mom seemed to delight in everything I did.

我的生活呈現出一種可預測的節奏：我會去上學，回家吃晚飯。我幾乎每天都去看望媽媽和爸爸。爸爸會坐在我們的門廊上抽菸，我會和他一起坐在外面，聽他抱怨政治或鋼鐵工人工會。當我學會閱讀時，媽媽給我買了第一本章節書——《太空小子》，並稱讚我讀得很快。我喜歡讀書，我喜歡和爸爸一起做數學題，我喜歡媽媽似乎對我所做的一切感到高興。

Mom and I bonded over other things, especially our favorite sport: football. I read every word I could about Joe Montana, the greatest quarterback of all time, watched every game, and wrote fan mail to the 49ers and later the Chiefs, Montana’s two teams. Mom checked out books on football strategy from the public library, and we built little models of the field with construction paper and loose change—pennies for the defense, nickels and dimes for the offense.

媽媽和我在其他事情上建立了聯繫，尤其是我們最喜歡的運動：足球。我閱讀了關於有史以來最偉大的四分衛喬·蒙塔納（Joe Montana）的所有字，觀看了每場比賽，並給蒙大拿州的兩支球隊49人隊和後來的酋長隊寫了球迷郵件。媽媽從公共圖書館借了關於足球策略的書籍，我們用建築紙和零錢製作了場地的小模型——防守用便士，進攻用鎳幣和一角鎳。

Mom didn’t want me to understand only the rules of football; she wanted me to understand the strategy. We practiced on our construction-paper football field, going over the various contingencies: What happened if a particular lineman (a shiny nickel) missed his block? What could the quarterback (a dime) do if no receiver (another dime) was open? We didn’t have chess, but we did have football.

媽媽不想讓我只瞭解足球規則;她想讓我理解這個策略。我們在建築紙足球場上練習，研究各種突發事件：如果某個邊裁（閃亮的鎳幣）錯過了他的阻擋，會發生什麼？如果沒有接球手（另一角錢）打開，四分衛（一角錢）可以做什麼？我們沒有國際象棋，但我們有足球。

More than anyone else in my family, Mom wanted us to be exposed to people from all walks of life. Her friend Scott was a kind old gay man who, she later told me, died unexpectedly. She made me watch a movie about Ryan White, a boy not that much older than I was, who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion and had to start a legal fight to return to school. Every time I complained about school, Mom reminded me of Ryan White and spoke about what a blessing it was to get an education. She was so overcome by White’s story that she handwrote a letter to his mother after he died in 1990.

媽媽比我家裡的任何人都更希望我們能接觸到各行各業的人。她的朋友斯科特是一個善良的老同性戀者，她後來告訴我，他意外去世了。她讓我看了一部關於瑞恩·懷特（Ryan White）的電影，這個男孩比我大不了多少，他通過輸血感染了愛滋病毒，不得不開始法律鬥爭才能重返學校。每次我抱怨學校，媽媽都會讓我想起瑞恩·懷特，並談到接受教育是多麼幸福。她被懷特的故事深深打動，以至於在他於 1990 年去世后，她給他的母親寫了一封信。

Mom believed deeply in the promise of education. She was the salutatorian of her high school class but never made it to college because Lindsay was born weeks after Mom graduated from high school. But she did return to a local community college and earn an associate’s degree in nursing. I was probably seven or eight when she started working full-time as a nurse, and I liked to think that I had contributed in some small way: I “helped” her study by crawling all over her, and I let her practice drawing blood on my youthful veins.

媽媽深信教育的希望。她是高中班上的問候者，但從未上過大學，因為琳賽是在媽媽高中畢業幾周後出生的。但她確實回到了當地的一所社區大學，並獲得了護理副學士學位。當她開始全職做護士時，我大概七八歲，我喜歡認為我以某種小小的方式做出了貢獻：我通過爬遍她來“説明”她的學習，我讓她練習在我年輕的血管上抽血。

Sometimes Mom’s devotion to education arguably went a little too far. During my third-grade science fair project, Mom helped at every stage—from planning the project to assisting with lab notes to assembling the presentation. The night before everything was due, the project looked precisely how it deserved to look: like the work of a third-grader who had slacked off a bit. I went to bed expecting to wake up the next morning, give my mediocre presentation, and call it a day. The science fair was a competition, and I even thought that, with a little salesmanship, I could advance to the next round. But in the morning I discovered that Mom had revamped the entire presentation. It looked like a scientist and a professional artist had joined forces to create it. Though the judges were blown away, when they began to ask questions that I couldn’t answer (but that the maker of the collage would have known), they realized something didn’t fit. I didn’t make it to the final round of the competition.

有時，媽媽對教育的投入可以說有點過分了。在我三年級的科學博覽會專案中，媽媽在每個階段都提供了説明——從計劃專案到協助做實驗筆記再到組裝演示文稿。在一切都到期的前一天晚上，這個專案看起來正是它應有的樣子：就像一個有點懈怠的三年級學生的作品。我上床睡覺，期待第二天早上醒來，做我平庸的演講，然後收工。科學博覽會是一場比賽，我甚至認為，只要有一點推銷技巧，我就可以晉級下一輪。但是早上我發現媽媽已經修改了整個演示文稿。它看起來像是科學家和專業藝術家聯手創造的。雖然評委們被震撼了，但當他們開始問我無法回答的問題時（但拼貼畫的製作者會知道），他們意識到有些東西不合適。我沒有進入比賽的最後一輪。

What that incident taught me—besides the fact that I needed to do my own work—was that Mom cared deeply about enterprises of the mind. Nothing brought her greater joy than when I finished a book or asked for another. Mom was, everyone told me, the smartest person they knew. And I believed it. She was definitely the smartest person I knew.

除了我需要做自己的工作之外，那件事教會了我一件事，那就是媽媽非常關心心靈的事業。沒有什麼比我讀完一本書或要求另一本書更能給她帶來快樂的了。每個人都告訴我，媽媽是他們認識的最聰明的人。我相信了。她絕對是我認識的最聰明的人。

In the southwest Ohio of my youth, we learned to value loyalty, honor, and toughness. I earned my first bloody nose at five and my first black eye at six. Each of these fights began after someone insulted my mother. Mother jokes were never allowed, and grandmother jokes earned the harshest punishment that my little fists could administer. Mamaw and Papaw ensured that I knew the basic rules of fighting: You never start a fight; you always end the fight if someone else starts it; and even though you never start a fight, it’s maybe okay to start one if a man insults your family. This last rule was unspoken but clear. Lindsay had a boyfriend named Derrick, maybe her first boyfriend, who broke up with her after a few days. She was heartbroken as only thirteen-year-olds can be, so I decided to confront Derrick when I saw him walking past our house one day. He had five years and about thirty-five pounds on me, but I came at him twice as he pushed me down easily. The third time I came at him, he’d had enough and proceeded to pound the shit out of me. I ran to Mamaw’s house for some first aid, crying and a little bloody. She just smiled at me. “You did good, honey. You did real good.”

在我年輕時的俄亥俄州西南部，我們學會了重視忠誠、榮譽和堅韌。我五歲時第一次流鼻血，六歲時第一次黑眼圈。每一次爭吵都是在有人侮辱我母親之後開始的。母親的笑話從來不被允許，祖母的笑話贏得了我的小拳頭所能給予的最嚴厲的懲罰。媽媽和爸爸確保我知道戰鬥的基本規則：你永遠不要打架;如果別人開始戰鬥，你總是會結束戰鬥;即使你從不打架，如果一個男人侮辱你的家人，也許可以開始打架。這最後一條規則是不言而喻的，但很清楚。琳賽有一個男朋友，名叫德里克，也許是她的第一個男朋友，幾天后就和她分手了。她傷心欲絕，因為只有十三歲的孩子才能做到，所以當我有一天看到德里克從我們家走過時，我決定與他對峙。他有五年的年限，大約有三十五磅重在我身上，但我兩次向他襲來，因為他很容易就把我推倒了。我第三次來找他時，他已經受夠了，開始把我身上的捶出來。我跑到媽媽家急救，哭著說，有點流血。她只是對我微笑。“你做得很好，親愛的。你做得很好。

In fighting, as with many things, Mamaw taught me through experience. She never laid a hand on me punitively—she was anti-spanking in a way must have come from her own bad experiences—but when I asked her what it felt like to be punched in the head, she showed me. A swift blow, delivered by the meat of her hand, directly on my cheek. “That didn’t feel so bad, did it?” And the answer was no. Getting hit in the face wasn’t nearly as terrible as I’d imagined. This was one of her most important rules of fighting: Unless someone really knows how to hit, a punch in the face is no big deal. Better to take a blow to the face than to miss an opportunity to deliver your own. Her second tip was to stand sideways, with your left shoulder facing your opponent and your hands raised because “you’re a much smaller target that way.” Her third rule was to punch with your whole body, especially your hips. Very few people, Mamaw told me, appreciate how unimportant your fist is when it comes to hitting someone.

在戰鬥中，就像許多事情一樣，媽媽通過經驗教會了我。她從來沒有懲罰過我——她反對打屁股，這在某種程度上一定是來自她自己的糟糕經歷——但當我問她被打頭是什麼感覺時，她向我展示了。她手上的肉迅速地擊中了我的臉頰。“感覺沒那麼糟糕，是嗎？”答案是否定的。被擊中臉部並不像我想像的那麼可怕。這是她最重要的戰鬥規則之一：除非有人真的知道如何打人，否則一拳打在臉上沒什麼大不了的。寧可挨一拳打臉，也不願錯過自己交出的機會。她的第二個技巧是側身站立，左肩面向對手，舉起雙手，因為“這樣你的目標要小得多”。她的第三條規則是用你的整個身體，尤其是你的臀部。媽媽告訴我，很少有人會意識到，在打人時，你的拳頭是多麼不重要。

Despite her admonition not to start fights, our unspoken honor code made it easy to convince someone else to start a fight for you. If you really wanted to get into it with someone, all you needed to do was insult his mom. No amount of self-control could withstand a well-played maternal criticism. “Your mom’s so fat that her ass has its own zip code”; “Your mom’s such a hillbilly that her false teeth have cavities”; or a simple “Yo’ mama!” These were fighting words, whether you wanted them to be or not. To shirk from avenging a string of insults was to lose your honor, your dignity, or even your friends. It was to go home and be afraid to tell your family that you had disgraced them.

儘管她告誡不要打架，但我們不言而喻的榮譽準則很容易說服別人為你打架。如果你真的想和某人在一起，你需要做的就是侮辱他的媽媽。再多的自製力也經不起母親的批評。“媽太胖了，她的屁股有自己的郵遞區號”;“媽真是個鄉巴佬，她的假牙有蛀牙”;或者一句簡單的「哟，媽媽！這些都是戰鬥的詞語，不管你是否願意。逃避一連串的侮辱，就是失去你的榮譽，你的尊嚴，甚至你的朋友。就是回家，害怕告訴你的家人你讓他們蒙羞了。

I don’t know why, but after a few years Mamaw’s views evolved on fighting. I was in third grade, had just lost a race, and felt there was only one way to adequately deal with the taunting victor. Mamaw, lurking nearby, intervened in what was certain to be another schoolyard cage match. She sternly asked whether I had forgotten her lesson that the only just fights are defensive. I didn’t know what to say—she had endorsed the unstated rule of honor fighting only a few years earlier. “One time I got in a fight and you told me that I did good,” I told her. She said, “Well, then, I was wrong. You shouldn’t fight unless you have to.” Now, that made an impression. Mamaw never admitted mistakes.

我不知道為什麼，但幾年後，媽媽對戰鬥的看法發生了變化。我上三年級，剛剛輸掉了一場比賽，覺得只有一種方法可以充分應對嘲諷的勝利者。潛伏在附近的媽媽介入了另一場校園籠子比賽。她嚴厲地問我是否忘記了她的教訓，即唯一正義的戰鬥是防禦性的。我不知道該說什麼——就在幾年前，她還支援不言而喻的榮譽規則。“有一次我吵架了，你告訴我我做得很好，”我告訴她。她說：“好吧，那麼，我錯了。除非你不得不打架，否則你不應該打架。現在，這給人留下了深刻的印象。媽媽從不承認錯誤。

The next year, I noticed that a class bully had taken a particular interest in a specific victim, an odd kid I rarely spoke to. Thanks to my prior exploits, I was largely immune to bullying, and, like most kids, was usually content to avoid the bully’s attention. One day, though, he said something about his victim that I overheard, and I felt a strong urge to stick up for the poor kid. There was something pathetic about the target, who seemed especially wounded by the bully’s treatment.

第二年，我注意到一個班級欺淩者對一個特定的受害者特別感興趣，一個我很少說話的奇怪孩子。由於我之前的功績，我在很大程度上不受欺淩，並且像大多數孩子一樣，通常滿足於避免欺淩者的注意。然而，有一天，他說了一些關於他的受害者的事情，我無意中聽到了，我有一種強烈的衝動，要為這個可憐的孩子挺身而出。目標有些可憐，他似乎特別受了欺淩者的傷害。

When I spoke to Mamaw after school that day, I broke down in tears. I felt incredibly guilty that I hadn’t had the courage to speak up for this poor kid—that I had just sat there and listened to someone else make his life a living hell. She asked whether I had spoken to the teacher about it, and I assured her that I had. “That bitch ought to be put in jail for sitting there and not doing anything.” And then she said something that I will never forget: “Sometimes, honey, you have to fight, even when you’re not defending yourself. Sometimes it’s just the right thing to do. Tomorrow you need to stand up for that boy, and if you have to stand up for yourself, then do that, too.” Then she taught me a move: a swift, hard (make sure to turn your hips) punch right to the gut. “If he starts in on you, make sure to punch him right in the belly button.”

那天放學后我和媽媽說話時，我淚流滿面。我感到非常內疚，因為我沒有勇氣為這個可憐的孩子說話——我只是坐在那裡聽別人把他的生活變成人間地獄。她問我有沒有和老師談過這件事，我向她保證我有。“那個婊子應該坐在那裡什麼都不做，就應該被關進監獄。”然後她說了一句我永遠不會忘記的話：“有時候，親愛的，你必須戰鬥，即使你沒有為自己辯護。有時這是正確的做法。明天你需要為那個男孩挺身而出，如果你必須為自己挺身而出，那就也這樣做。然後她教了我一個動作：一個快速、用力（確保轉動臀部）的拳頭直擊腸道。“如果他開始攻擊你，一定要打他的肚臍。”

The next day at school, I felt nervous and hoped that the bully would take a day off. But in the predictable chaos as the class lined up for lunch, the bully—his name was Chris—asked my little charge whether he planned on crying that day. “Shut up,” I said. “Just leave him alone.” Chris approached me, pushed me, and asked what I planned to do about it. I walked right up to him, pivoted my right hip, and sucker-punched him right in the stomach. He immediately—and terrifyingly—dropped to his knees, seemingly unable to breathe. By the time I realized that I’d really injured him, he was alternately coughing and trying to catch his breath. He even spit up a small amount of blood.

第二天在學校，我感到很緊張，希望欺負者能休息一天。但是，在可預見的混亂中，當全班排隊吃午飯時，惡霸——他的名字叫克裡斯——問我的小傢伙那天是否打算哭。“閉嘴，”我說。“別管他。”克裡斯走近我，推了我一把，問我打算怎麼做。我走到他面前，轉動右臀部，一拳打在了他的肚子上。他立刻——而且可怕地——跪倒在地，似乎無法呼吸。當我意識到我真的傷害了他時，他交替咳嗽並試圖喘口氣。他甚至吐出了少量的血。

Chris went to the school nurse, and after I confirmed that I hadn’t killed him and would avoid the police, my thoughts immediately turned to the school justice system—whether I’d be suspended or expelled and for how long. While the other kids played at recess and Chris recovered with the nurse, the teacher brought me into the classroom. I thought she was going to tell me that she’d called my parents and I’d be kicked out of school. Instead, she gave me a lecture about fighting and made me practice my handwriting instead of playing outside. I detected a hint of approval from the teacher, and I sometimes wonder whether there were school politics at work in her inability to appropriately discipline the class bully. At any rate, Mamaw found out about the fight directly from me and praised me for doing something really good. It was the last time I ever got in a fistfight.

克裡斯去找了學校的護士，在我確認我沒有殺了他並且會避開警察之後，我的思緒立即轉向了學校的司法系統——我是否會被停學或開除，以及會開除多長時間。當其他孩子在課間玩耍時，克裡斯和護士一起康復，老師把我帶進了教室。我以為她會告訴我，她打電話給我的父母，我會被趕出學校。相反，她給我上了一堂關於格鬥的講座，讓我練習寫字，而不是在外面玩。我從老師身上察覺到了一絲贊同，我有時在想，她無法適當地懲戒班級霸凌者，是不是有學校政治在起作用。無論如何，媽媽直接從我那裡知道了這場戰鬥，並稱讚我做了一件非常好的事情。這是我最後一次打架。

While I recognized that things weren’t perfect, I also recognized that our family shared a lot with most of the families I saw around me. Yes, my parents fought intensely, but so did everyone else’s. Yes, my grandparents played as big a role in my life as Mom and Bob did, but that was the norm in hillbilly families. We didn’t live a peaceful life in a small nuclear family. We lived a chaotic life in big groups of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. This was the life I’d been given, and I was a pretty happy kid.

雖然我認識到事情並不完美，但我也認識到我們的家庭與我周圍看到的大多數家庭有很多共同點。是的，我的父母吵得很厲害，但其他人也吵得很厲害。是的，我的祖父母在我的生活中扮演著與媽媽和鮑勃一樣重要的角色，但這是鄉巴佬家庭的常態。我們在一個小核心家庭里過著平靜的生活。我們在一大群阿姨、叔叔、祖父母和堂兄弟姐妹中過著混亂的生活。這就是我被賦予的生活，我是一個非常快樂的孩子。

When I was about nine years old, things began to unravel at home. Tired of Papaw’s constant presence and Mamaw’s “interference,” Mom and Bob decided to move to Preble County, a sparsely populated part of Ohio farm country approximately thirty-five miles from Middletown. Even as a boy, I knew this was the very worst thing that could happen to me. Mamaw and Papaw were my best friends. They helped me with my homework and spoiled me with treats when I behaved correctly or finished a difficult school assignment. They were also the gatekeepers. They were the scariest people I knew—old hillbillies who carried loaded guns in their coat pockets and under their car seats, no matter the occasion. They kept the monsters at bay.

在我大約九歲的時候，家裡的事情開始瓦解。厭倦了爸爸的不斷出現和媽媽的“干涉”，媽媽和鮑勃決定搬到普雷布爾縣，這是俄亥俄州農業鄉村人口稀少的地區，距離米德爾敦約三十五英里。甚至在我還是個孩子的時候，我就知道這是可能發生在我身上的最糟糕的事情。媽媽和爸爸是我最好的朋友。他們説明我完成家庭作業，並在我表現正確或完成困難的學校作業時用零食寵壞我。他們也是看門人。他們是我認識的最可怕的人——老鄉巴佬，無論在什麼場合，他們都把上膛的槍放在外套口袋裡和汽車座椅下面。他們把怪物擋在了門外。

Bob was Mom’s third husband, but the third time was not the charm. By the time we moved to Preble County, Mom and Bob had already begun to fight, and many of those fights would keep me up well past my bedtime. They said things friends and family should never say to each other: “Fuck you!” “Go back to your trailer park,” Mom sometimes told Bob, a reference to his life before they were married. Sometimes Mom would take us to a local motel, where we’d hide out for a few days until Mamaw or Papaw convinced Mom to face her domestic problems.

鮑勃是媽媽的第三任丈夫，但第三次不是魅力。當我們搬到普雷布爾縣時，媽媽和鮑勃已經開始打架了，其中許多打架會讓我睡不著覺。他們說了朋友和家人永遠不應該對彼此說的話：“去你媽的！“回到你的拖車公園，”媽媽有時會對鮑勃說，這是對他結婚前生活的引用。有時媽媽會帶我們去當地的汽車旅館，在那裡我們會躲幾天，直到媽媽或爸爸說服媽媽面對她的家庭問題。

Mom had a lot of Mamaw’s fire, which meant that she never allowed herself to become a victim during domestic disputes. It also meant that she often escalated normal disagreements beyond where they should go. During one of my second-grade football games, a tall, overweight mother muttered about why I had been given the ball on the previous play. Mom, a bleacher row behind the woman, overheard the comment and told her that I’d been given the ball because, unlike her child, I wasn’t a fat piece of shit who’d been raised by a fat piece-of-shit mother. By the time I observed the commotion on the sidelines, Bob was ripping Mom away with the woman’s hair still clenched in her hands. After the game, I asked Mom what happened, and she replied only, “No one criticizes my boy.” I beamed with pride.

媽媽對媽媽有很大的火，這意味著她從來不允許自己在家庭爭吵中成為受害者。這也意味著她經常將正常的分歧升級到他們應該去的地方。在我二年級的一場足球比賽中，一位身材高大、體重超重的母親嘟囔著為什麼在上一場比賽中給了我球。媽媽，在那個女人後面的看臺上，無意中聽到了這句話，並告訴她，我得到了這個球，因為與她的孩子不同，我不是由一個胖胖的狗屎媽媽撫養長大的胖子。當我看到場邊的騷動時，鮑勃正在把媽媽扯開，而那個女人的頭髮仍然緊握在她的手裡。比賽結束后，我問媽媽發生了什麼事，她只回答說：“沒有人批評我的孩子。我自豪地笑了。

In Preble County, with Mamaw and Papaw over forty-five minutes away, the fights turned into screaming matches. Often the subject was money, though it made little sense for a rural Ohio family with a combined income of over a hundred thousand dollars to struggle with money. But fight they did, because they bought things they didn’t need—new cars, new trucks, a swimming pool. By the time their short marriage fell apart, they were tens of thousands of dollars in debt, with nothing to show for it.

在普雷布爾縣，媽媽和爸爸還有四十五分鐘的路程，戰鬥變成了尖叫的比賽。通常主題是錢，儘管對於一個總收入超過十萬美元的俄亥俄州農村家庭來說，為錢而苦苦掙扎是沒有意義的。但是他們確實在戰鬥，因為他們買了他們不需要的東西——新車、新卡車、游泳池。當他們短暫的婚姻破裂時，他們已經欠下了數萬美元的債務，一無所獲。

Finances were the least of our problems. Mom and Bob had never been violent with each other, but that slowly started to change. I awoke one night to the sound of breaking glass—Mom had lobbed plates at Bob—and ran downstairs to see what was up. He was holding her against the kitchen counter, and she was flailing and biting at him. When she dropped to the ground, I ran to her lap. When Bob moved closer, I stood up and punched him in the face. He reared back (to return the blow, I figured), and I collapsed on the ground with my arms over my head in anticipation. The blow never came—Bob never was physically abusive—and my intervention somehow ended the fight. He walked over to the couch and sat down silently, staring at the wall; Mom and I meekly walked upstairs to bed.

財務是我們最不關心的問題。媽媽和鮑勃從來沒有對彼此施暴，但這種情況慢慢開始改變。一天晚上，我被玻璃破碎的聲音吵醒——媽媽把盤子扔給鮑勃——然後跑下樓去看看發生了什麼。他把她靠在廚房的櫃臺上，她揮舞著，咬著他。當她倒在地上時，我跑到她的腿上。當鮑勃走近時，我站起來打了他一拳。他向後退了一步（我想是為了還擊），我倒在地上，雙臂舉過頭頂，滿懷期待。打擊從未到來——鮑勃從未受到過身體虐待——我的干預以某種方式結束了這場戰鬥。他走到沙發前，靜靜地坐下，盯著牆;媽媽和我溫順地走上樓去睡覺。

Mom and Bob’s problems were my first introduction to marital conflict resolution. Here were the takeaways: Never speak at a reasonable volume when screaming will do; if the fight gets a little too intense, it’s okay to slap and punch, so long as the man doesn’t hit first; always express your feelings in a way that’s insulting and hurtful to your partner; if all else fails, take the kids and the dog to a local motel, and don’t tell your spouse where to find you—if he or she knows where the children are, he or she won’t worry as much, and your departure won’t be as effective.

媽媽和鮑勃的問題是我第一次介紹婚姻衝突的解決。以下是要點：當尖叫可以時，永遠不要以合理的音量說話;如果打架有點太激烈，可以扇耳光和拳打腳踢，只要男人不先打;總是以侮辱和傷害伴侶的方式表達你的感受;如果一切都失敗了，帶孩子和狗去當地的汽車旅館，不要告訴你的配偶在哪裡找你——如果他或她知道孩子在哪裡，他或她就不會那麼擔心，你的離開也不會那麼有效。

I began to do poorly in school. Many nights I’d lie in bed, unable to sleep because of the noise—the furniture rocking, heavy stomping, yelling, sometimes glass shattering. The next morning I’d wake up tired and depressed, meandering through the school day, thinking constantly about what awaited at home. I just wanted to retreat to a place where I could sit in silence. I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on, as that was far too embarrassing. And though I hated school, I hated home more. When the teacher announced that we had only a few minutes to clear our desks before the bell rang, my heart sank. I’d stare at the clock as if it were a ticking bomb. Not even Mamaw understood how terrible things had become. My slipping grades were the first indication.

我開始在學校表現不佳。很多個晚上，我躺在床上，因為噪音而無法入睡——傢具搖晃、重重的跺腳、大喊大叫，有時玻璃碎裂。第二天早上，我醒來時又累又沮喪，在上學的日子裡蜿蜒曲折，不停地想著家裡等待著什麼。我只想退到一個可以靜靜地坐著的地方。我不能告訴任何人發生了什麼，因為這太尷尬了。雖然我討厭學校，但我更討厭家。當老師宣布我們只有幾分鐘的時間在鈴聲響起之前清理桌子時，我的心沉了下去。我會盯著時鐘，就好像它是一顆定時炸彈。就連媽媽也不明白事情變得多麼可怕。我的成績下滑是第一個跡象。

Not every day was like that, of course. But even when the house was ostensibly peaceful, our lives were so charged that I was constantly on guard. Mom and Bob never smiled at each other or said nice things to Lindsay and me anymore. You never knew when the wrong word would turn a quiet dinner into a terrible fight, or when a minor childhood transgression would send a plate or book flying across the room. It was like we were living among land mines—one wrong step, and kaboom.

當然，不是每一天都是這樣。但即使房子表面上很平靜，我們的生活也充滿了壓力，以至於我一直保持警惕。媽媽和鮑勃再也不會對彼此微笑，也不再對琳賽和我說過好話了。你永遠不知道什麼時候錯誤的詞會把一頓安靜的晚餐變成一場可怕的爭吵，或者什麼時候一個小小的童年過錯會讓一個盤子或一本書飛過房間。就像我們生活在地雷中一樣——走錯一步，然後咔嚓咔嚓。

Up to that point in my life, I was a perfectly fit and healthy child. I exercised constantly, and though I didn’t exactly watch what I ate, I didn’t have to. But I began to put on weight, and I was positively chubby by the time I started the fifth grade. I often felt sick and would complain of severe stomachaches to the school nurse. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, the trauma at home was clearly affecting my health. “Elementary students may show signs of distress through somatic complaints such as stomachaches, headaches, and pains,” reads one resource for school administrators who deal with children who suffer trauma at home. “These students may have a change in behavior, such as increased irritability, aggression, and anger. Their behaviors may be inconsistent. These students may show a change in school performance and have impaired attention and concentration and more school absences.” I just thought I was constipated or that I really hated my new hometown.

在我生命的那一刻，我是一個完全健康的孩子。我經常鍛煉，雖然我沒有完全注意我吃了什麼，但我不必這樣做。但是我開始發胖，到五年級時，我已經胖乎乎的了。我經常感到噁心，會向學校護士抱怨嚴重的胃痛。雖然我當時沒有意識到，但家裡的創傷顯然影響了我的健康。“小學生可能會通過胃痛、頭痛和疼痛等軀體疾病表現出痛苦的跡象，”為處理在家中遭受創傷的兒童的學校管理人員提供的一份資源中寫道。“這些學生的行為可能會發生變化，例如煩躁、攻擊性和憤怒增加。他們的行為可能不一致。這些學生可能會表現出學習成績的變化，注意力和注意力受損，缺課次數更多。我只是以為我便秘了，或者我真的很討厭我的新家鄉。

Mom and Bob weren’t that abnormal. It would be tough to chronicle all the outbursts and screaming matches I witnessed that had nothing to do with my family. My neighbor friend and I would play in his backyard until we heard screaming from his parents, and then we’d run into the alley and hide. Papaw’s neighbors would yell so loudly that we could hear it from inside his house, and it was so common that he’d always say, “Goddammit, there they go again.” I once saw a young couple’s argument at the local Chinese buffet escalate into a symphony of curse words and insults. Mamaw and I used to open the windows on one side of her house so we could hear the substance of the explosive fights between her neighbor Pattie and Pattie’s boyfriend. Seeing people insult, scream, and sometimes physically fight was just a part of our life. After a while, you didn’t even notice it.

媽媽和鮑勃並沒有那麼反常。很難記錄我目睹的所有與我的家人無關的爆發和尖叫比賽。我和我的鄰居朋友會在他的後院玩耍，直到我們聽到他父母的尖叫聲，然後我們就會跑進小巷躲起來。爸爸的鄰居會大聲喊叫，以至於我們可以從他家裡聽到，而且這種情況很常見，他總是說，“該死的，他們又來了。我曾經看到一對年輕夫婦在當地的中式自助餐上爭吵，升級為詛咒和侮辱的交響樂。媽媽和我過去常常打開她家一側的窗戶，這樣我們就可以聽到她的鄰居帕蒂和帕蒂的男朋友之間爆炸性戰鬥的實質。看到人們侮辱、尖叫，有時甚至打架只是我們生活的一部分。過了一會兒，你甚至沒有注意到它。

I always thought it was how adults spoke to one another. When Lori married Dan, I learned of at least one exception. Mamaw told me that Dan and Aunt Wee never screamed at each other because Dan was different. “He’s a saint,” she’d say. As we got to know Dan’s entire family, I realized that they were just nicer to each other. They didn’t yell at each other in public. I got the distinct impression that they didn’t yell at each other much in private, either. I thought they were frauds. Aunt Wee saw it differently. “I just assumed they were really weird. I knew they were genuine. I just figured they were genuinely odd.”

我一直以為這是大人彼此交談的方式。當洛瑞嫁給丹時，我至少瞭解到一個例外。媽媽告訴我，丹和點阿姨從來不對對方尖叫，因為丹是不同的。“他是個聖人，”她會說。當我們瞭解丹的整個家庭時，我意識到他們只是對彼此更好。他們沒有在公共場合互相大喊大叫。我得到的明顯印象是，他們私下裡也不怎麼互相大喊大叫。我以為他們是騙子。黃阿姨對此有不同的看法。“我只是覺得他們真的很奇怪。我知道他們是真的。我只是覺得他們真的很奇怪。

The never-ending conflict took its toll. Even thinking about it today makes me nervous. My heart begins to race, and my stomach leaps into my throat. When I was very young, all I wanted to do was get away from it—to hide from the fighting, go to Mamaw’s, or disappear. I couldn’t hide from it, because it was all around me.

永無止境的衝突造成了損失。即使今天想到它，我也會感到緊張。我的心開始跳動，我的胃跳到我的喉嚨里。在我很小的時候，我只想遠離它——躲避戰鬥，去媽媽家，或者消失。我無法躲避它，因為它就在我身邊。

Over time, I started to like the drama. Instead of hiding from it, I’d run downstairs or put my ear to the wall to get a better listen. My heart would still race, but in an anticipatory way, like it did when I was about to score in a basketball game. Even the fight that went too far—when I thought Bob was about to hit me—was less about a brave kid who intervened and more about a spectator who got a little too close to the action. This thing that I hated had become a sort of drug.

隨著時間的流逝，我開始喜歡這部劇。我沒有躲避它，而是跑下樓或把耳朵貼在牆上，以便更好地聆聽。我的心仍然會跳動，但以一種期待的方式，就像我即將在籃球比賽中得分時一樣。即使是那場打得太遠的戰鬥——當我以為鮑勃要打我的時候——也不是一個勇敢的孩子介入，而是一個離動作太近的觀眾。我討厭的這個東西已經變成了一種毒品。

One day I came home from school to see Mamaw’s car in the driveway. It was an ominous sign, as she never made unannounced visits to our Preble County home. She made an exception on this day because Mom was in the hospital, the result of a failed suicide attempt. For all the things I saw happening in the world around me, my eleven-year-old eyes missed so much. In her work at Middletown Hospital, Mom had met and fallen in love with a local fireman and begun a years-long affair. That morning Bob had confronted her about the affair and demanded a divorce. Mom had sped off in her brand-new minivan and intentionally crashed it into a telephone pole. That’s what she said, at least. Mamaw had her own theory: that Mom had tried to detract attention from her cheating and financial problems. As Mamaw said, “Who tries to kill themselves by crashing a fucking car? If she wanted to kill herself, I’ve got plenty of guns.”

有一天，我放學回家，看到媽媽的車停在車道上。這是一個不祥的跡象，因為她從未未經宣佈訪問過我們普雷布爾縣的家。這一天她破例了，因為媽媽在醫院裡，自殺未遂的結果。對於我看到的周圍世界發生的所有事情，我十一歲的眼睛錯過了太多。在米德爾敦醫院工作時，媽媽認識並愛上了當地的一名消防員，並開始了長達數年的戀情。那天早上，鮑勃就這件事質問她，並要求離婚。媽媽開著她嶄新的小型貨車飛馳而去，故意撞上了電線杆。至少她是這麼說的。媽媽有她自己的理論：媽媽試圖轉移對她作弊和財務問題的注意力。正如媽媽所說，「誰會想撞車自殺？如果她想自殺，我有很多槍。

Lindsay and I largely bought Mamaw’s view of things, and we felt relief more than anything—that Mom hadn’t really hurt herself, and that Mom’s attempted suicide would be the end of our Preble County experiment. She spent only a couple days in the hospital. Within a month, we moved back to Middletown, one block closer to Mamaw than we’d been before, with one less man in tow.

琳賽和我基本上接受了媽媽對事物的看法，我們感到寬慰比什麼都重要——媽媽並沒有真正傷害自己，媽媽的自殺未遂將是我們普雷布爾縣實驗的終結。她只在醫院住了幾天。不到一個月，我們搬回了米德爾敦，離媽媽比以前更近一個街區，少了一個人。

Despite the return to a familiar home, Mom’s behavior grew increasingly erratic. She was more roommate than parent, and of the three of us—Mom, Lindsay, and me—Mom was the roommate most prone to hard living. I’d go to bed only to wake up around midnight, when Lindsay got home from doing whatever teenagers do. I’d wake up again at two or three in the morning, when Mom got home. She had new friends, most of them younger and without kids. And she cycled through boyfriends, switching partners every few months. It was so bad that my best friend at the time commented on her “flavors of the month.” I’d grown accustomed to a certain amount of instability, but it was of a familiar type: There would be fighting or running away from fights; when things got rocky, Mom would explode on us or even slap or pinch us. I didn’t like it—who would?—but this new behavior was just strange. Though Mom had been many things, she hadn’t been a partier. When we moved back to Middletown, that changed.

儘管回到了熟悉的家，但媽媽的行為變得越來越古怪。她更像是室友而不是父母，在我們三個人——媽媽、琳賽和我——中，媽媽是最容易生活艱難的室友。我上床睡覺時，只是在午夜時分醒來，這時琳賽從青少年所做的事情回到家。我會在淩晨兩三點醒來，媽媽回到家。她有了新朋友，其中大多數都很年輕，沒有孩子。她迴圈換交男朋友，每隔幾個月就換一次伴侶。這太糟糕了，以至於我當時最好的朋友評論了她的“本月口味”。我已經習慣了一定程度的不穩定，但這是一種熟悉的類型：會有戰鬥或逃避戰鬥;當事情變得艱難時，媽媽會對我們大發雷霆，甚至扇我們耳光或捏我們。我不喜歡它——誰會呢?——但這種新行為實在是太奇怪了。儘管媽媽有許多東西，但她並不是一個參與者。當我們搬回米德爾敦時，情況發生了變化。

With partying came alcohol, and with alcohol came alcohol abuse and even more bizarre behavior. One day when I was about twelve, Mom said something that I don’t remember now, but I recall running out the door without my shoes and going to Mamaw’s house. For two days, I refused to speak to or see my mother. Papaw, worried about the disintegrating relationship between his daughter and her son, begged me to see her.

隨著聚會而來的是酒精，隨著酒精而來的是酗酒，甚至更奇怪的行為。在我十二歲左右的一天，媽媽說了一句我現在不記得的話，但我記得我沒有穿鞋就跑出門去媽媽家。有兩天，我拒絕與母親交談或見母親。爸爸擔心女兒和兒子之間的關係破裂，懇求我去見她。

So I listened to the apology that I’d heard a million times before. Mom was always good at apologies. Maybe she had to be—if she didn’t say “sorry,” then Lindsay and I never would have spoken to her. But I think she really meant it. Deep down, she always felt guilty about the things that happened, and she probably even believed that—as promised—they’d “never happen again.” They always did, though.

於是我聽了那句道歉，這話我以前聽過一百萬次。媽媽總是善於道歉。也許她必須這樣——如果她不說“對不起”，那麼琳賽和我永遠不會和她說話。但我認為她是認真的。在內心深處，她總是對發生的事情感到內疚，她甚至可能相信——正如承諾的那樣——它們“永遠不會再發生”。不過，他們總是這樣做。

This time was no different. Mom was extra-apologetic because her sin was extra-bad. So her penance was extra-good: She promised to take me to the mall and buy me football cards. Football cards were my kryptonite, so I agreed to join her. It was probably the biggest mistake of my life.

這次也不例外。媽媽特別道歉，因為她的罪特別嚴重。所以她的懺悔是特別好的：她答應帶我去商場，給我買足球卡。足球卡是我的氪石，所以我同意加入她。這可能是我一生中最大的錯誤。

We got on the highway, and I said something that ignited her temper. So she sped up to what seemed like a hundred miles per hour and told me that she was going to crash the car and kill us both. I jumped into the backseat, thinking that if I could use two seat belts at once, I’d be more likely to survive the impact. This infuriated her more, so she pulled over to beat the shit out of me. When she did, I leaped out of the car and ran for my life. We were in a rural part of the state, and I ran through a large field of grass, the tall blades slapping my ankles as I sped away. I happened upon a small house with an aboveground pool. The owner—an overweight woman about the same age as Mom—was floating on her back, enjoying the nice June weather.

我們上了高速公路，我說了一句話，點燃了她的脾氣。於是她加速到每小時一百英里的速度，告訴我她要撞車，把我們倆都殺了。我跳到後座上，想著如果我能同時使用兩條安全帶，我就更有可能在撞擊中倖存下來。這更激怒了她，所以她停下來把我打得狗屎滾滾。當她這樣做時，我跳下車逃命。我們在該州的一個農村地區，我跑過一大片草地，高大的刀片拍打著我的腳踝，我飛馳而去。我碰巧遇到了一個帶地上游泳池的小房子。主人——一個和媽媽差不多大的超重女人——正漂浮在她的背上，享受著六月的美好天氣。

“You have to call my mamaw!” I screamed. “Please help me. My mom is trying to kill me.” The woman clambered out of the pool as I looked around fearfully, terrified of any sign of my mother. We went inside, and I called Mamaw and repeated the woman’s address. “Please hurry up,” I told her. “Mom is going to find me.”

“你得叫我媽媽！”我尖叫起來。“請幫幫我。我媽媽想殺了我。那個女人從游泳池裡爬了出來，我害怕地環顧四周，害怕我母親的任何跡象。我們進去了，我打電話給媽媽，重複了那個女人的位址。“請快點，”我告訴她。“媽媽會來找我的。”

Mom did find me. She must have seen where I ran from the highway. She banged on the door and demanded that I come out. I begged the owner not to open the door, so she locked the doors and promised Mom that her two dogs—each no bigger than a medium-sized house cat—would attack her if she tried to enter. Eventually Mom broke down the woman’s door and dragged me out as I screamed and clutched for anything—the screen door, the guardrails on the steps, the grass on the ground. The woman stood there and watched, and I hated her for doing nothing. But she had in fact done something: In the minutes between my call to Mamaw and Mom’s arrival, the woman had apparently dialed 911. So as Mom dragged me to her car, two police cruisers pulled up, and the cops who got out put Mom in handcuffs. She did not go quietly; they wrestled her into the back of a cruiser. Then she was gone.

媽媽確實找到了我。她一定看到了我從高速公路上跑到哪裡去了。她砰地敲門，要我出來。我懇求主人不要開門，於是她鎖上了門，並向媽媽保證，如果她試圖進去，她的兩隻狗——每隻都不比一隻中型家貓大——會攻擊她。最後，媽媽破闖了那個女人的門，把我拖了出去，我尖叫著，抓著東西——紗門、台階上的護欄、地上的草。那個女人站在那裡看著，我恨她什麼都不做。但她實際上做了一些事情：在我給媽媽打電話和媽媽到來的幾分鐘內，那個女人顯然撥打了911。當媽媽把我拖到她的車上時，兩輛警車停了下來，下車的員警給媽媽戴上了手銬。她沒有悄悄地走;他們把她摔到一艘巡洋艦的後面。然後她就走了。

The second cop put me in the back of his cruiser as we waited for Mamaw to arrive. I have never felt so lonely, watching that cop interview the homeowner—still in her soaking-wet bathing suit, flanked by two pint-sized guard dogs—unable to open the cruiser door from the inside, and unsure when I could expect Mamaw’s arrival. I had begun to daydream when the car door swung open, and Lindsay crawled into the cruiser with me and clutched me to her chest so tightly that I couldn’t breathe. We didn’t cry; we said nothing. I just sat there being squeezed to death and feeling like all was right with the world.

第二個員警把我放在他的巡洋艦後面，我們等著媽媽到來。我從未感到如此孤獨，看著那個警察採訪房主——她仍然穿著濕透的泳衣，兩側是兩隻小小的護衛犬——無法從裡面打開巡洋艦的門，也不確定我什麼時候能期待媽媽的到來。當車門打開時，我開始做白日夢，琳賽和我一起爬進巡洋艦，把我緊緊地抱在她的胸口，以至於我無法呼吸。我們沒有哭;我們什麼也沒說。我只是坐在那裡被擠得死去活來，感覺這個世界一切都很好。

When we got out of the car, Mamaw and Papaw hugged me and asked if I was okay. Mamaw spun me around to inspect me. Papaw spoke with the police officer about where to find his incarcerated daughter. Lindsay never let me out of her sight. It had been the scariest day of my life. But the hard part was over.

當我們下車時，媽媽和爸爸擁抱了我，問我是否還好。媽媽把我轉過身來檢查我。Papaw與警官討論了在哪裡可以找到他被監禁的女兒。琳賽從不讓我離開她的視線。那是我一生中最可怕的一天。但困難的部分已經過去了。

When we got home, none of us could talk. Mamaw wore a silent, terrifying anger. I hoped that she would calm down before Mom got out of jail. I was exhausted and wanted only to lie on the couch and watch TV. Lindsay went upstairs and took a nap. Papaw collected a food order for Wendy’s. On his way to the front door, he stopped and stood over me on the couch. Mamaw had left the room temporarily. Papaw placed his hand on my forehead and began to sob. I was so afraid that I didn’t even look up at his face. I had never heard of him crying, never seen him cry, and assumed he was so tough that he hadn’t even cried as a baby. He held that pose for a little while, until we both heard Mamaw approaching the living room. At that point he collected himself, wiped his eyes, and left. Neither of us ever spoke of that moment.

當我們回到家時，我們誰也說不出話來。媽媽帶著一種無聲的、可怕的憤怒。我希望她在媽媽出獄之前冷靜下來。我筋疲力盡，只想躺在沙發上看電視。琳賽上樓打了個盹。Papaw 為 Wendy's 收集了一份食品訂單。在他去前門的路上，他停了下來，站在沙發上。媽媽暫時離開了房間。爸爸把手放在我的額頭上，開始抽泣。我嚇得連抬頭都沒看他的臉。我從來沒聽過他哭過，也沒見過他哭過，我還以為他太堅強了，連嬰兒時期都沒哭過。他保持了這個姿勢一會兒，直到我們倆都聽到媽媽走近客廳。說完，他收拾好自己，擦了擦眼睛，然後離開了。我們倆都沒有說過那一刻。

Mom was released from jail on bond and prosecuted for a domestic violence misdemeanor. The case depended entirely on me. Yet during the hearing, when asked if Mom had ever threatened me, I said no. The reason was simple: My grandparents were paying a lot of money for the town’s highest-powered lawyer. They were furious with my mother, but they didn’t want their daughter in jail, either. The lawyer never explicitly encouraged dishonesty, but he did make it clear that what I said would either increase or decrease the odds that Mom spent additional time in prison. “You don’t want your mom to go to jail, do you?” he asked. So I lied, with the express understanding that even though Mom would have her liberty, I could live with my grandparents whenever I wished. Mom would officially retain custody, but from that day forward I lived in her house only when I chose to—and Mamaw told me that if Mom had a problem with the arrangement, she could talk to the barrel of Mamaw’s gun. This was hillbilly justice, and it didn’t fail me.

媽媽被保釋出獄，並因家庭暴力輕罪被起訴。這個案子完全取決於我。然而，在聽證會上，當被問及媽媽是否曾經威脅過我時，我說沒有。原因很簡單：我的祖父母花了很多錢請了鎮上權力最大的律師。他們對我母親很生氣，但他們也不想讓女兒坐牢。律師從未明確鼓勵不誠實，但他確實明確表示，我說的話會增加或減少媽媽在監獄里度過更多時間的幾率。“你不想讓媽進監獄，是嗎？”他問。於是我撒了謊，明確表示即使媽媽有自由，我也可以隨時和爺爺奶奶住在一起。媽媽將正式保留監護權，但從那天起，我只在我選擇的時候才住在她家裡——媽媽告訴我，如果媽媽對這個安排有問題，她可以對著媽媽的槍駕駛說話。這是鄉巴佬的正義，它沒有讓我失望。

I remember sitting in that busy courtroom, with half a dozen other families all around, and thinking they looked just like us. The moms and dads and grandparents didn’t wear suits like the lawyers and judge. They wore sweatpants and stretchy pants and T-shirts. Their hair was a bit frizzy. And it was the first time I noticed “TV accents”—the neutral accent that so many news anchors had. The social workers and the judge and the lawyer all had TV accents. None of us did. The people who ran the courthouse were different from us. The people subjected to it were not.

我記得我坐在那個繁忙的法庭上，周圍有六個家庭，我想他們看起來和我們一樣。爸爸媽媽和爺爺奶奶不像律師和法官那樣穿西裝。他們穿著運動褲、彈力褲和T恤。他們的頭髮有點捲曲。這是我第一次注意到「電視口音」——許多新聞主播都有的中性口音。社工、法官和律師都有電視口音。我們都沒有這樣做。管理法院的人和我們不一樣。受其影響的人不是。

Identity is an odd thing, and I didn’t understand at the time why I felt such kinship with these strangers. A few months later, during my first trip to California, I began to understand. Uncle Jimmy flew Lindsay and me to his home in Napa, California. Knowing that I’d be visiting him, I told every person I could that I was headed to California in the summer and, what was more, flying for the first time. The main reaction was disbelief that my uncle had enough money to fly two people—neither of whom were his children—out to California. It is a testament to the class consciousness of my youth that my friends’ thoughts drifted first to the cost of an airplane flight.

身份是一件奇怪的事情，我當時不明白為什麼我和這些陌生人有如此親切的感覺。幾個月後，在我第一次去加利福尼亞旅行時，我開始理解。吉米舅舅把我和琳賽送到了他在加利福尼亞州納帕的家。知道我會去看望他，我告訴每一個人，我將在夏天前往加利福尼亞，更重要的是，這是我第一次坐飛機。主要的反應是不相信我叔叔有足夠的錢讓兩個人——他們都不是他的孩子——飛到加利福尼亞。這證明瞭我年輕時的階級意識，我朋友的思想首先飄到了飛機飛行的費用上。

For my part, I was overjoyed to travel west and visit Uncle Jimmy, a man I idolized on par with my great-uncles, the Blanton men. Despite the early departure, I didn’t sleep a wink on the six-hour flight from Cincinnati to San Francisco. Everything was just too exciting: the way the earth shrank during takeoff, the look of clouds from close up, the scope and size of the sky, and the way the mountains looked from the stratosphere. The flight attendant took notice, and by the time we hit Colorado, I was making regular visits to the cockpit (this was before 9/11), where the pilot gave me brief lessons in flying an airplane and updated me on our progress.

就我而言，我很高興能向西旅行並拜訪吉米叔叔，我崇拜他與我的叔叔布蘭頓人相提並論。儘管出發時間很早，但在從辛辛那提到三藩市的六個小時飛行中，我沒有睡過一個眨眼。一切都太令人興奮了：地球在起飛時收縮的方式，從近處看雲層的樣子，天空的範圍和大小，以及從平流層看山脈的方式。空乘人員注意到了，當我們到達科羅拉多州時，我定期訪問駕駛艙（這是在 9/11 之前），飛行員在那裡給我上了駕駛飛機的簡短課程，並向我介紹了我們的進展。

The adventure had just begun. I had traveled out of state before: I had joined my grandparents on road trips to South Carolina and Texas, and I visited Kentucky regularly. On those trips, I rarely spoke to anyone except family, and I never noticed anything all that different. Napa was like a different country. In California, every day included a new adventure with my teenage cousins and their friends. During one trip we went to the Castro District of San Francisco so that, in the words of my older cousin Rachael, I could learn that gay people weren’t out to molest me. Another day, we visited a winery. On yet another day, we helped at my cousin Nate’s high school football practice. It was all very exciting. Everyone I met thought I sounded like I was from Kentucky. Of course, I kind of was from Kentucky. And I loved that people thought I had a funny accent. That said, it became clear to me that California really was something else. I’d visited Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, and Lexington. I’d spent a considerable amount of time in South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and even Arkansas. So why was California so different?

冒險才剛剛開始。我以前去過州外：我和祖父母一起去南卡羅來納州和德克薩斯州旅行，我經常去肯塔基州。在那些旅行中，除了家人，我很少和任何人說話，我從來沒有注意到任何不同的東西。納帕就像一個不同的國家。在加利福尼亞，每一天都包括與我十幾歲的表兄弟和他們的朋友一起進行新的冒險。在一次旅行中，我們去了三藩市的卡斯特羅區，用我的表妹瑞秋的話來說，我可以瞭解到同性戀者不會騷擾我。另一天，我們參觀了一家酒莊。又有一天，我們在我表弟內特的高中橄欖球訓練中幫忙。這一切都非常令人興奮。我遇到的每個人都認為我聽起來像是來自肯塔基州。當然，我有點來自肯塔基州。我喜歡人們認為我的口音很有趣。話雖如此，我很清楚加州真的是另一回事。我去過匹茲堡、克利夫蘭、哥倫布和列剋星敦。我在南卡羅來納州、肯塔基州、田納西州甚至阿肯色州度過了相當長的時間。那麼，為什麼加州如此不同呢？

The answer, I’d learn, was the same hillbilly highway that brought Mamaw and Papaw from eastern Kentucky to southwest Ohio. Despite the topographical differences and the different regional economies of the South and the industrial Midwest, my travels had been confined largely to places where the people looked and acted like my family. We ate the same foods, watched the same sports, and practiced the same religion. That’s why I felt so much kinship with those people at the courthouse: They were hillbilly transplants in one way or another, just like me.

據我所知，答案是將媽媽和爸爸從肯塔基州東部帶到俄亥俄州西南部的同一條鄉巴佬高速公路。儘管南部和中西部工業區的地形和區域經濟存在差異，但我的旅行主要局限於人們看起來和行為都像我的家人的地方。我們吃同樣的食物，看同樣的運動，信奉同樣的宗教。這就是為什麼我和法院裡的那些人有如此多的親戚關係：他們和我一樣，在某種程度上都是鄉巴佬移植的。

Chapter 6

第 6 章

One of the questions I loathed, and that adults always asked, was whether I had any brothers or sisters. When you’re a kid, you can’t wave your hand, say, “It’s complicated,” and move on. And unless you’re a particularly capable sociopath, dishonesty can only take you so far. So, for a time, I dutifully answered, walking people through the tangled web of familial relationships that I’d grown accustomed to. I had a biological half brother and half sister whom I never saw because my biological father had given me up for adoption. I had many stepbrothers and stepsisters by one measure, but only two if you limited the tally to the offspring of Mom’s husband of the moment. Then there was my biological dad’s wife, and she had at least one kid, so maybe I should count him, too. Sometimes I’d wax philosophical about the meaning of the word “sibling”: Are the children of your mom’s previous husbands still related to you? If so, what about the future children of your mom’s previous husbands? By some metrics, I probably had about a dozen stepsiblings.

我討厭的問題之一，也是大人們經常問的問題，是我是否有兄弟姐妹。當你還是個孩子的時候，你不能揮揮手，說“這很複雜”，然後繼續前進。除非你是一個特別有能力的反社會者，否則不誠實只能讓你走得更遠。所以，有一段時間，我盡職盡責地回答，帶領人們穿過我已經習慣的錯綜複雜的家庭關係網路。我有一個同父異母的兄弟姐妹，我從未見過他們，因為我的親生父親放棄了我。我有很多繼兄弟和繼姐妹，但如果你把這個數位限制在媽媽丈夫的後代上，那就只有兩個了。然後是我親生父親的妻子，她至少有一個孩子，所以也許我也應該把他算在內。有時會對「兄弟姐妹」這個詞的含義進行哲學思考：媽前夫的孩子和你還有親戚關係嗎？如果是這樣，媽前夫的未來孩子呢？從某些指標來看，我可能有十幾個繼兄弟姐妹。

There was one person for whom the term “sibling” definitely applied: my sister, Lindsay. If any adjective ever preceded her introduction, it was always one of pride: “my full sister, Lindsay”; “my whole sister, Lindsay”; “my big sister, Lindsay.” Lindsay was (and remains) the person I was proudest to know. The moment I learned that “half sister” had nothing to do with my affections and everything to do with the genetic nature of our relationship—that Lindsay, by virtue of having a different father, was just as much my half sister as people I’d never seen—remains one of the most devastating moments of my life. Mamaw told me this nonchalantly as I exited the shower one night before bedtime, and I screamed and wailed as if I’d just learned that my dog had died. I calmed down only after Mamaw relented and agreed that henceforth no one would ever refer to Lindsay as my “half sister” again.

有一個人，“兄弟姐妹”這個詞絕對適用於他：我的妹妹琳賽。如果說在她介紹之前有任何形容詞，那總是一個驕傲：“我全妹妹，琳賽”;“我的妹妹，琳賽”;“我的大姐姐，琳賽。”琳賽曾經是（現在仍然是）我最自豪的人。當我得知“同父異母的妹妹”與我的感情無關，而與我們關係的遺傳性質有關的那一刻——琳賽，由於父親不同，就像我從未見過的人一樣是我同父異母的妹妹——仍然是我生命中最具破壞性的時刻之一。一天晚上，當我睡前從淋浴間出來時，媽媽漫不經心地告訴我，我尖叫著哀嚎著，好像我剛剛得知我的狗死了一樣。直到媽媽心軟並同意從今以後沒有人再稱琳賽為我的“同父異母的妹妹”後，我才冷靜下來。

Lindsay Leigh was five years older than I was, born just two months after Mom graduated from high school. I was obsessed with her, both in the way that all children adore their older siblings and in a way that was unique to our circumstances. Her heroism on my behalf was the stuff of legend. One time after she and I argued over a soft pretzel, leading Mom to drop me off in an empty parking lot to show Lindsay what life without me would look like, it was my sister’s fit of sorrow and rage that brought Mom back immediately. During explosive fights between Mom and whatever man she let into our home, it was Lindsay who withdrew to her bedroom to place a rescue call to Mamaw and Papaw. She fed me when I was hungry, changed my diaper when no one else did, and dragged me everywhere with her—even though, Mamaw and Aunt Wee told me, I weighed nearly as much as she did.

Lindsay Leigh 比我大五歲，在媽媽高中畢業兩個月後出生。我對她很著迷，無論是所有孩子都崇拜他們的哥哥姐姐的方式，還是我們環境所獨有的方式。她為我做的英雄事蹟堪稱傳奇。有一次，她和我為一個軟椒鹽卷餅吵架，導致媽媽把我送到一個空蕩蕩的停車場，向琳賽展示沒有我的生活會是什麼樣子，是我姐姐的悲傷和憤怒讓媽媽立即回來了。在媽媽和她允許進入我們家的任何男人之間的激烈爭吵中，是琳賽退到她的臥室，向媽媽和爸爸打報了救援電話。她趁我餓的時候餵我吃飯，趁別人不換尿布的時候給我換尿布，還拖著我到處走——儘管媽媽和黃阿姨告訴我，我的體重幾乎和她一樣重。

I always saw her as more adult than child. She never expressed her displeasure at her teenage boyfriends by storming off and slamming doors. When Mom worked late nights or otherwise didn’t make it home, Lindsay ensured that we had something for dinner. I annoyed her, like all little brothers annoy their sisters, but she never yelled at me, screamed at me, or made me afraid of her. In one of my most shameful moments, I wrestled Lindsay to the ground for reasons I don’t remember. I was ten or eleven, which would have made her about fifteen, and though I realized then that I’d outgrown her in terms of strength, I continued to think there was nothing childlike about her. She was above it all, the “one true adult in the house,” as Papaw would say, and my first line of defense, even before Mamaw. She made dinner when she had to, did the laundry when no one else did, and rescued me from the backseat of that police cruiser. I depended on her so completely that I didn’t see Lindsay for what she was: a young girl, not yet old enough to drive a car, learning to fend for herself and her little brother at the same time.

我一直認為她比孩子更像成年人。她從不通過衝出去和砰的一聲關上門來表達對她十幾歲的男朋友的不滿。當媽媽工作到深夜或無法回家時，琳賽會確保我們有東西吃晚飯。我惹惱了她，就像所有的小弟弟惹惱了他們的妹妹一樣，但她從不對我大吼大叫，對我尖叫，或者讓我害怕她。在我最羞愧的時刻之一，我把琳賽摔倒在地，原因我不記得了。我當時十歲或十一歲，這本來可以讓她十五歲左右，雖然我當時意識到我在力量方面已經超過了她，但我仍然認為她沒有什麼孩子氣。她高於一切，正如爸爸所說，她是“家裡一個真正的成年人”，也是我的第一道防線，甚至在媽媽之前。她必要的時候做晚飯，沒人洗衣服的時候洗衣服，把我從那輛警車的後座上救了出來。我完全依賴她，以至於我沒有看到琳賽的本來面目：一個年輕的女孩，還沒有到開車的年齡，同時學會照顧自己和她的弟弟。

That began to change the day our family decided to give Lindsay a shot at her dreams. Lindsay had always been a beautiful girl. When my friends and I ranked the world’s prettiest girls, I listed Lindsay first, just ahead of Demi Moore and Pam Anderson. Lindsay had learned of a modeling recruitment event at a Dayton hotel, so Mom, Mamaw, Lindsay, and I piled into Mamaw’s Buick and headed north. Lindsay was bursting with excitement, and I was, too. This was going to be her big break and, by extension, our whole family’s.

當我們的家人決定讓Lindsay嘗試實現她的夢想的那一天，情況開始改變。琳賽一直是個漂亮的女孩。當我和我的朋友們對世界上最漂亮的女孩進行排名時，我把琳賽排在第一位，排在黛米·摩爾和帕姆·安德森之前。琳賽聽說代頓一家酒店有一場模特招聘活動，於是媽媽、媽媽、琳賽和我擠進媽媽的別克車，向北走去。琳賽興奮不已，我也是。這將是她的重大突破，進而也是我們全家的重大突破。

When we arrived at the hotel, a lady instructed us to follow signs to a giant ballroom and wait in line. The ballroom was perfectly tacky in that 1970s sort of way: ugly carpet, big chandeliers, and lighting just bright enough to prevent you from stumbling over your own feet. I wondered how any talent agent could ever appreciate my sister’s beauty. It was too damned dark.

當我們到達酒店時，一位女士指示我們按照指示牌前往一個巨大的宴會廳並排隊等候。宴會廳在1970年代非常俗氣：醜陋的地毯，大吊燈，燈光足夠明亮，可以防止你絆倒自己的腳。我想知道任何藝人經紀人怎麼會欣賞我姐姐的美麗。太黑了。

Eventually we reached the front of the line, and the talent agent seemed optimistic about my sister. She said something about how cute she was and told her to go wait in another room. Surprisingly, she said that I was model material, too, and asked if I’d like to follow my sister and hear about our next step. I agreed enthusiastically.

最終，我們到達了隊伍的最前面，人才經紀人似乎對我妹妹很看好。她說她有多可愛，並告訴她去另一個房間等。出乎意料的是，她說我也是模特材料，並問我是否願意跟隨我姐姐，聽聽我們的下一步。我欣然同意。

After a little while in the holding room, Lindsay and I and the other selectees learned that we had made it to the next round, but another trial awaited us in New York City. The agency employees gave us brochures with more information and told us that we needed to RSVP within the next few weeks. On the way home, Lindsay and I were ecstatic. We were going to New York City to become famous models.

在拘留室里呆了一會兒後，琳賽和我以及其他被選中的人得知我們已經進入了下一輪，但另一場審判在紐約市等待著我們。該機構的員工給了我們摺頁冊，其中包含更多資訊，並告訴我們需要在接下來的幾周內回復。在回家的路上，琳賽和我欣喜若狂。我們要去紐約成為著名的模特。

The fee for traveling to New York was hefty, and if someone had really wanted us as models, they likely would have paid for our audition. In hindsight, the cursory treatment they gave each individual—each “audition” was no longer than a few-sentence conversation—suggests that the whole event was more scam than talent search. But I don’t know: Model audition protocol has never been my area of expertise.

去紐約的旅行費用很高，如果有人真的想讓我們當模特，他們很可能會為我們的試鏡買單。事後看來，他們給每個人的粗略對待——每次「試鏡」都不超過幾句話的對話——表明整個活動與其說是人才搜索，不如說是騙局。但我不知道：模特試鏡協定從來都不是我的專業領域。

What I do know is that our exuberance didn’t survive the car ride. Mom began to worry aloud about the cost of the trip, causing Lindsay and me to bicker about which one of us should go (no doubt I was being a brat). Mom became progressively angrier and then snapped. What happened next was no surprise: There was a lot of screaming, some punching and driving, and then a stopped car on the side of the road, full of two sobbing kids. Mamaw intervened before things got out of hand, but it’s a miracle we didn’t crash and die: Mom driving and slapping the kids in the backseat; Mamaw on the passenger side, slapping and screaming at Mom. That was why the car stopped—though Mom was a multitasker, this was too much. We drove home in silence after Mamaw explained that if Mom lost her temper again, Mamaw would shoot her in the face. That night we stayed at Mamaw’s house.

我所知道的是，我們的繁榮並沒有在乘車中倖存下來。媽媽開始大聲擔心旅行的費用，導致林賽和我為我們中的哪一個應該去而爭吵（毫無疑問，我是個小子）。媽媽越來越生氣，然後啪。接下來發生的事情並不令人驚訝：有很多尖叫聲，一些拳打腳踢和開車，然後一輛停在路邊的汽車，裡面裝滿了兩個哭泣的孩子。媽媽在事情失控之前進行了干預，但我們沒有撞車和死亡是一個奇跡：媽媽開車並拍打後座上的孩子們;媽媽在乘客一側，對媽媽拍打和尖叫。這就是車子停下來的原因——雖然媽媽是一個多任務處理者，但這實在是太過分了。我們默默地開車回家，媽媽解釋說，如果媽媽再發脾氣，媽媽會朝她的臉開槍。那天晚上，我們住在媽媽家。

I’ll never forget Lindsay’s face as she marched upstairs to bed. It wore the pain of a defeat known by only a person who experiences the highest high and the lowest low in a matter of minutes. She had been on the cusp of achieving a childhood dream; now she was just another teenage girl with a broken heart. Mamaw turned to retire to her couch, where she would watch Law & Order, read the Bible, and fall asleep. I stood in the narrow walkway that separated the living room from the dining room and asked Mamaw a question that had been on my mind since she ordered Mom to drive us home safely. I knew what she’d say, but I guess I just wanted reassurance. “Mamaw, does God love us?” She hung her head, gave me a hug, and began to cry.

我永遠不會忘記琳賽上樓睡覺時的表情。它承受著失敗的痛苦，只有那些在幾分鐘內經歷過最高點和最低點的人才能知道。她正處於實現兒時夢想的風口浪尖;現在，她只是另一個心碎的少女。嬤嬤轉身回到沙發上，在那裡她會看《法律與秩序》，讀聖經，然後入睡。我站在隔開客廳和餐廳的狹窄走道上，問了媽媽一個問題，自從她命令媽媽開車送我們回家以來，我一直在想這個問題。我知道她會說什麼，但我想我只是想得到安慰。“媽媽，上帝愛我們嗎？”她垂下頭，給了我一個擁抱，然後開始哭泣。

The question wounded Mamaw because the Christian faith stood at the center of our lives, especially hers. We never went to church, except on rare occasions in Kentucky or when Mom decided that what we needed in our lives was religion. Nevertheless, Mamaw’s was a deeply personal (albeit quirky) faith. She couldn’t say “organized religion” without contempt. She saw churches as breeding grounds for perverts and money changers. And she hated what she called “the loud and proud”—people who wore their faith on their sleeve, always ready to let you know how pious they were. Still, she sent much of her spare income to churches in Jackson, Kentucky, especially those controlled by Reverend Donald Ison, an older man who bore a striking resemblance to the priest from The Exorcist.

這個問題傷害了媽媽，因為基督教信仰是我們生活的中心，尤其是她的生活。我們從不去教堂，除了在肯塔基州的極少數情況下，或者當媽媽決定我們生活中需要的是宗教時。儘管如此，Mamaw的信仰卻是個人化的（儘管很古怪）。她不能不輕蔑地說“有組織的宗教”。她認為教會是變態和貨幣兌換商的溫床。她討厭她所謂的「大聲而驕傲的人」——那些把信仰戴在袖子上的人，隨時準備讓你知道他們有多虔誠。儘管如此，她還是把大部分閑暇收入捐給了肯塔基州傑克遜的教堂，尤其是那些由唐納德·伊森牧師控制的教堂，唐納德·伊森是一位年長的老人，與《驅魔人》中的牧師有著驚人的相似之處。

By Mamaw’s reckoning, God never left our side. He celebrated with us when times were good and comforted us when they weren’t. During one of our many trips to Kentucky, Mamaw was trying to merge onto the highway after a brief stop for gas. She didn’t pay attention to the signs, so we found ourselves headed the wrong way on a one-way exit ramp with angry motorists swerving out of our way. I was screaming in terror, but after a U-turn on a three-lane interstate, the only thing Mamaw said about the incident was “We’re fine, goddammit. Don’t you know Jesus rides in the car with me?”

根據媽媽的估計，上帝從未離開過我們身邊。當情況好時，他會和我們一起慶祝，當情況不好時，他會安慰我們。在我們去肯塔基州的多次旅行中，Mamaw 在短暫停下來加油后試圖併入高速公路。她沒有注意標誌，所以我們發現自己在一個單向出口匝道上走錯了路，憤怒的駕駛者轉向了我們。我驚恐地尖叫著，但在一條三車道的州際公路上掉頭後，媽媽對這件事說的唯一一句話就是“我們很好，該死的。難道你不知道耶穌和我一起坐車嗎？

The theology she taught was unsophisticated, but it provided a message I needed to hear. To coast through life was to squander my God-given talent, so I had to work hard. I had to take care of my family because Christian duty demanded it. I needed to forgive, not just for my mother’s sake but for my own. I should never despair, for God had a plan.

她所教授的神學並不複雜，但它提供了我需要聽到的資訊。在生活中滑行就是浪費我上帝賜予的天賦，所以我必須努力工作。我必須照顧我的家人，因為基督徒的責任要求我這樣做。我需要原諒，不僅是為了我母親，也是為了我自己。我永遠不應該絕望，因為上帝有一個計劃。

Mamaw often told a parable: A young man was sitting at home when a terrible rainstorm began. Within hours, the man’s house began to flood, and someone came to his door offering a ride to higher ground. The man declined, saying, “God will take care of me.” A few hours later, as the waters engulfed the first floor of the man’s home, a boat passed by, and the captain offered to take the man to safety. The man declined, saying, “God will take care of me.” A few hours after that, as the man waited on his roof—his entire home flooded—a helicopter flew by, and the pilot offered transportation to dry land. Again the man declined, telling the pilot that God would care for him. Soon thereafter, the waters overcame the man, and as he stood before God in heaven, he protested his fate: “You promised that you’d help me so long as I was faithful.” God replied, “I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter. Your death is your own fault.” God helps those who help themselves. This was the wisdom of the Book of Mamaw.

媽媽經常講一個比喻：當一場可怕的暴雨開始時，一個年輕人正坐在家裡。幾個小時后，這名男子的房子開始被洪水淹沒，有人來到他家門口，提出搭車去地勢較高的地方。那人拒絕了，說：“上帝會照顧我的。幾個小時后，當海水吞沒了該男子家的一樓時，一艘船經過，船長提出將該男子帶到安全地帶。那人拒絕了，說：“上帝會照顧我的。幾個小時后，當這名男子在屋頂上等待時——他的整個房子都被淹沒了——一架直升機飛過，飛行員提供了前往旱地的交通工具。那人再次拒絕了，告訴飛行員上帝會照顧他。不久之後，水淹沒了這個人，當他站在天上的上帝面前時，他抗議自己的命運：“你答應過，只要我忠心，你就會説明我。上帝回答說：“我給你送了一輛車、一艘船和一架直升機。你的死是你自己的錯。上帝説明那些説明自己的人。這就是《媽媽之書》的智慧。

The fallen world described by the Christian religion matched the world I saw around me: one where a happy car ride could quickly turn to misery, one where individual misconduct rippled across a family’s and a community’s life. When I asked Mamaw if God loved us, I asked her to reassure me that this religion of ours could still make sense of the world we lived in. I needed reassurance of some deeper justice, some cadence or rhythm that lurked beneath the heartache and chaos.

基督教所描述的墮落世界與我周圍所看到的世界相吻合：一個快樂的汽車之旅可能很快變成痛苦的世界，一個個人的不當行為在家庭和社區生活中漣漪的世界。當我問媽媽是否愛我們時，我請她向我保證，我們的宗教仍然可以理解我們生活的世界。我需要一些更深層次的正義的保證，一些潛伏在心痛和混亂之下的節奏或節奏。

Not long after Lindsay’s childhood modeling dream went up in flames, I was in Jackson with Mamaw and my cousin Gail on August 2, my eleventh birthday. Late in the afternoon, Mamaw advised me to call Bob—still my legal father—because I hadn’t heard from him yet. After we moved back to Middletown, he and Mom divorced, so it wasn’t surprising that he rarely got in touch. But my birthday was obviously special, and I found it odd that he hadn’t called. So I phoned and got the answering machine. A few hours later, I phoned once more with the same result, and I knew instinctively that I would never see Bob again.

在琳賽兒時的模特夢想付諸東流后不久，8月2日，也就是我11歲生日那天，我和媽媽以及我的表弟蓋爾一起在傑克遜。下午晚些時候，媽媽建議我打電話給鮑勃——仍然是我的合法父親——因為我還沒有收到他的消息。我們搬回米德爾敦后，他和媽媽離婚了，所以他很少聯繫也就不足為奇了。但我的生日顯然很特別，我覺得他沒有打電話很奇怪。於是我打了電話，拿到了答錄機。幾個小時后，我再次打電話，結果是一樣的，我本能地知道我再也見不到鮑勃了。

Either because she felt bad for me or because she knew I loved dogs, Gail took me to the local pet store, where a brand-new litter of German shepherd puppies was on display. I desperately wanted one and had just enough birthday money to make the purchase. Gail reminded me that dogs were a lot of work and that my family (read: my mother) had a terrible history of getting dogs and then giving them away. When wisdom fell on deaf ears—“You’re probably right, Gail, but they’re soooo cute!”—authority kicked in: “Honey, I’m sorry, but I’m not letting you buy this dog.” By the time we returned to Mamaw Blanton’s house, I was more upset about the dog than about losing father number two.

也許是因為她為我感到難過，或者因為她知道我喜歡狗，蓋爾帶我去了當地的寵物店，那裡陳列著一窩全新的德國牧羊犬幼犬。我迫切地想要一個，並且有足夠的生日錢來購買。蓋爾提醒我，養狗是一項艱巨的工作，我的家人（讀作：我的母親）有一段可怕的歷史，那就是養狗然後送人。當智慧被置若罔聞時——“你可能是對的，蓋爾，但他們太可愛了！——權威開始：“親愛的，對不起，我不讓你買這隻狗。當我們回到布蘭頓媽媽的家時，我對這隻狗的難過多於失去二號父親。

I cared less about the fact that Bob was gone than about the disruption his departure would inevitably cause. He was just the latest casualty in a long line of failed paternal candidates. There was Steve, a soft-spoken man with a temperament to match. I used to pray that Mom would marry Steve because he was nice and had a good job. But they broke up, and she moved on to Chip, a local police officer. Chip was kind of a hillbilly himself: He loved cheap beer, country music, and catfish fishing, and we got along well until he, too, was gone.

我關心的不是鮑勃離開的事實，而是他的離開將不可避免地造成的破壞。他只是一長串失敗的父親候選人中的最新受害者。還有史蒂夫，一個說話輕聲細語的男人，氣質與之相匹配。我曾經祈禱媽媽能嫁給史蒂夫，因為他很好，有一份好工作。但是他們分手了，她轉而去找當地員警奇普。奇普本人有點像個鄉巴佬：他喜歡便宜的啤酒、鄉村音樂和釣鯰魚，我們相處得很好，直到他也走了。

One of the worst parts, honestly, was that Bob’s departure would further complicate the tangled web of last names in our family. Lindsay was a Lewis (her dad’s last name), Mom took the last name of whichever husband she was married to, Mamaw and Papaw were Vances, and all of Mamaw’s brothers were Blantons. I shared a name with no one I really cared about (which bothered me already), and with Bob gone, explaining why my name was J.D. Hamel would require a few additional awkward moments. “Yeah, my legal father’s last name is Hamel. You haven’t met him because I don’t see him. No, I don’t know why I don’t see him.”

老實說，最糟糕的部分之一是鮑勃的離開將使我們家族中錯綜複雜的姓氏網路進一步複雜化。琳賽是路易斯（她爸爸的姓氏），媽媽隨她嫁給哪個丈夫的姓氏，媽媽和爸爸是萬斯，媽媽的所有兄弟都是布蘭頓。我沒有和我真正關心的人共用一個名字（這已經困擾了我），隨著鮑勃的離開，解釋為什麼我的名字是 JD Hamel需要一些額外的尷尬時刻。“是的，我合法父親的姓氏是哈梅爾。你沒有見過他，因為我沒有看到他。不，我不知道為什麼我看不到他。

Of all the things that I hated about my childhood, nothing compared to the revolving door of father figures. To her credit, Mom had avoided abusive or neglectful partners, and I never felt mistreated by any of the men she brought into our home. But I hated the disruption. And I hated how often these boyfriends would walk out of my life just as I’d begun to like them. Lindsay, with the benefit of age and wisdom, viewed all of the men skeptically. She knew that at some point they’d be gone. With Bob’s departure, I had learned the same lesson.

在我童年討厭的所有事情中，沒有什麼能比得上父親形象的旋轉門。值得稱讚的是，媽媽避開了虐待或忽視的伴侶，我從未感到被她帶到我們家的任何男人虐待過。但我討厭這種破壞。我討厭這些男朋友在我開始喜歡他們的時候經常離開我的生活。琳賽憑藉年齡和智慧，對所有的人都持懷疑態度。她知道在某個時候他們會離開。隨著鮑勃的離開，我吸取了同樣的教訓。

Mom brought these men into our lives for the right reasons. She often wondered aloud whether Chip or Bob or Steve made good “father figures.” She would say: “He takes you fishing, which is really good” or “It’s important to learn something about masculinity from someone closer to your age.” When I heard her screaming at one of them, or weeping on the floor after an especially intense argument, or when I saw her mired in despair after a breakup, I felt guilty that she was going through this for my sake. After all, I thought, Papaw was plenty good as a father figure. I promised her after each breakup that we would be okay or that we’d get over this together or (echoing Mamaw) that we didn’t need any damned men. I know Mom’s motives were not entirely selfless: She (like all of us) was motivated by the desire for love and companionship. But she was looking out for us, too.

媽媽把這些人帶進我們的生活是有正當理由的。她經常大聲地想知道奇普、鮑勃或史蒂夫是否是很好的“父親形象”。她會說：“他帶你去釣魚，這真的很好”或“從與你年齡相仿的人那裡學到一些關於男子氣概的知識很重要。當我聽到她對其中一個人尖叫，或者在特別激烈的爭吵后在地板上哭泣，或者當我看到她在分手後陷入絕望時，我感到內疚，因為她是為了我而經歷這一切。畢竟，我想，爸爸作為一個父親的形象已經足夠好了。每次分手後，我都答應她，我們會沒事的，或者我們會一起度過難關，或者（呼應媽媽）我們不需要任何該死的男人。我知道媽媽的動機並非完全無私：她（和我們所有人一樣）的動機是對愛和陪伴的渴望。但她也在照顧我們。

The road to hell, however, is paved with good intentions. Caught between various dad candidates, Lindsay and I never learned how a man should treat a woman. Chip may have taught me how to tie a fishing hook, but I learned little else about what masculinity required of me other than drinking beer and screaming at a woman when she screamed at you. In the end, the only lesson that took was that you can’t depend on people. “I learned that men will disappear at the drop of a hat,” Lindsay once said. “They don’t care about their kids; they don’t provide; they just disappear, and it’s not that hard to make them go.”

然而，通往地獄的道路是用善意鋪就的。夾在不同的爸爸候選人之間，琳賽和我從未學會男人應該如何對待女人。奇普可能教過我如何系魚鉤，但除了喝啤酒和在女人對你尖叫時對她大喊大叫之外，我對男子氣概的要求知之甚少。最後，唯一的教訓是你不能依賴人。“我瞭解到，男人會一頂帽子就消失了，”琳賽曾經說過。“他們不關心自己的孩子;他們不提供;他們只是消失了，讓他們離開並不難。

Mom perhaps sensed that Bob was regretting his decision to take on an additional child, because one day she called me into the living room to speak on the phone with Don Bowman, my biological father. It was a short but memorable conversation. He asked if I remembered wanting to have a farm with horses and cows and chickens, and I answered that I did. He asked if I remembered my siblings—Cory and Chelsea—and I did a little bit, so I said, “Kind of.” He asked if I’d like to see him again.

媽媽也許感覺到鮑勃後悔他決定再生一個孩子，因為有一天她把我叫到客廳，和我的親生父親唐·鮑曼通電話。這是一次簡短但令人難忘的談話。他問我是否記得想要一個養馬、牛和雞的農場，我回答說我有。他問我是否記得我的兄弟姐妹——科里和切爾西——我有點記得，所以我說，“有點。他問我是否願意再見到他。

I knew little about my biological father and barely recalled my life before Bob adopted me. I knew that Don had abandoned me because he didn’t want to pay child support (or so Mom said). I knew that he was married to a woman named Cheryl, that he was tall, and that people thought I looked like him. And I knew that he was, in Mamaw’s words, a “Holy Roller.” That was the word she used for charismatic Christians who, she claimed, “handled snakes and screamed and wailed in church.” This was enough to pique my curiosity: With little religious training, I was desperate for some exposure to a real church. I asked Mom if I could see him, and she agreed, so in the same summer that my legal father walked out of my life, my biological one walked back in. Mom had come full circle: Having cycled through a number of men in an effort to find me a father, she had settled on the original candidate.

我對我的親生父親知之甚少，在鮑勃收養我之前，我幾乎不記得我的生活。我知道唐拋棄了我，因為他不想支付子女撫養費（或者媽媽是這麼說的）。我知道他娶了一個名叫謝麗爾的女人，他個子很高，人們認為我長得像他。我知道，用媽媽的話說，他是一個“神聖的滾輪”。她聲稱，這是她用來形容有魅力的基督徒的詞，他們“在教堂裡處理蛇，尖叫和哀號”。這足以激起我的好奇心：由於幾乎沒有受過宗教訓練，我迫切希望接觸一個真正的教會。我問媽媽能不能見他，她同意了，所以在我合法的父親離開我生活的同一個夏天，我的親生父親又走了進來。媽媽兜了一圈：為了找我找一個爸爸，她試圖輾試了好幾個男人，她選擇了最初的候選人。

Don Bowman had much more in common with Mom’s side of the family than I expected. His father (and my grandfather), Don C. Bowman, also migrated from eastern Kentucky to southwest Ohio for work. After marrying and starting a family, my grandfather Bowman died suddenly, leaving behind two small children and a young wife. My grandmother remarried, and Dad spent much of his childhood in eastern Kentucky with his grandparents.

唐·鮑曼（Don Bowman）與媽媽的家庭共同點比我預期的要多得多。他的父親（也是我的祖父）唐·鮑曼（Don C. Bowman）也從肯塔基州東部移民到俄亥俄州西南部工作。結婚成家後，我的祖父鮑曼突然去世，留下了兩個年幼的孩子和一個年輕的妻子。我的祖母再婚了，爸爸的童年大部分時間都在肯塔基州東部和他的祖父母一起度過。

More than any other person, Dad understood what Kentucky meant to me, because it meant the same thing to him. His mom remarried early, and though her second husband was a good man, he was also very firm and an outsider—even the best stepparents take some getting used to. In Kentucky, among his people and with plenty of space, Dad could be himself. I felt the same way. There were two kinds of people: those whom I’d behave around because I wanted to impress them and those whom I’d behave around to avoid embarrassing myself. The latter people were outsiders, and Kentucky had none of them.

爸爸比任何人都更瞭解肯塔基州對我的意義，因為這對他來說意味著同樣的事情。他的母親很早就再婚了，雖然她的第二任丈夫是個好人，但他也非常堅定，是個局外人——即使是最好的繼父母也需要一些時間來適應。在肯塔基州，在他的人民中，有足夠的空間，爸爸可以做他自己。我也有同感。有兩種人：一種是我想給他們留下深刻印象而表現在身邊的人，另一種是我會為了避免讓自己尷尬而表現的人。後者是局外人，肯塔基州沒有他們。

In many ways, Dad’s life project was rebuilding for himself what he once had in Kentucky. When I first visited him, Dad had a modest house on a beautiful plot of land, fourteen acres in total. There was a medium-sized pond stocked with fish, a couple of fields for cows and horses, a barn, and a chicken coop. Every morning the kids would run to the chicken coop and grab the morning’s haul of eggs—usually seven or eight, a perfect number for a family of five. During the day, we capered around the property with a dog in tow, caught frogs, and chased rabbits. It was exactly what Dad had done as a child, and exactly what I did with Mamaw in Kentucky.

在許多方面，爸爸的人生計劃是為自己重建他曾經在肯塔基州擁有的東西。當我第一次拜訪他時，爸爸在一塊美麗的土地上有一棟簡陋的房子，總共有十四英畝。有一個放養魚的中等大小的池塘，幾塊牛和馬的田地，一個穀倉和一個雞舍。每天早上，孩子們都會跑到雞舍里，搶一上午的雞蛋——通常是七八個，對於一個五口之家來說是一個完美的數位。白天，我們拖著一隻狗在酒店周圍閒逛，抓青蛙，追逐兔子。這正是爸爸小時候所做的事情，也是我在肯塔基州對媽媽所做的事情。

I remember running through a field with Dad’s collie, Dannie, a beautiful, bedraggled creature so gentle that he once caught a baby rabbit and carried it in his mouth, unharmed, to a human for inspection. I have no idea why I was running, but we both collapsed from exhaustion and lay in the grass, Dannie’s head on my chest and my eyes staring at the blue sky. I don’t know that I had ever felt so content, so completely unworried about life and its stresses.

我記得我和爸爸的牧羊犬丹尼一起在田野里奔跑，丹尼是一隻美麗而笨拙的生物，非常溫柔，有一次他抓住了一隻小兔子，把它叼在嘴裏，毫髮無傷，交給人類檢查。我不知道我為什麼要跑，但我們倆都精疲力竭地倒下，躺在草地上，丹尼的頭靠在我的胸前，我的眼睛盯著藍天。我不知道我曾經感到如此滿足，如此完全不擔心生活及其壓力。

Dad had built a home with an almost jarring serenity. He and his wife argued, but they rarely raised their voices at each other and never resorted to the brutal insults that were commonplace in Mom’s house. None of their friends drank, not even socially. Even though they believed in corporal punishment, it was never doled out excessively or combined with verbal abuse—spanking was methodical and anger-free. My younger brother and sister clearly enjoyed their lives, even though they lacked pop music or R-rated movies.

爸爸建造了一個幾乎令人不快的寧靜的家。他和妻子爭吵，但他們很少互相大聲喧嘩，也從不訴諸於在媽媽家裡司空見慣的殘酷侮辱。他們的朋友都沒有喝酒，甚至在社交場合也沒有。儘管他們相信體罰，但體罰從不過度施放或與辱駡相結合——打屁股是有條不紊的，沒有憤怒。我的弟弟和妹妹顯然很享受他們的生活，儘管他們缺乏流行音樂或R級電影。

What little I knew of Dad’s character during his marriage to Mom came mostly secondhand. Mamaw, Aunt Wee, Lindsay, and Mom all told varying degrees of the same story: that Dad was mean. He yelled a lot and sometimes hit Mom. Lindsay told me that, as a child, I had a peculiarly large and misshapen head, and she attributed that to a time when she saw Dad push Mom aggressively.

在爸爸和媽媽結婚期間，我對他的性格知之甚少，大部分是二手的。媽媽、點阿姨、林賽和媽媽都講述了不同程度的同一個故事：爸爸很刻薄。他經常大喊大叫，有時還打媽媽。琳賽告訴我，小時候，我有一個特別大而畸形的頭，她把這歸因於她看到爸爸咄咄逼人地推媽媽。

Dad denies ever physically abusing anyone, including Mom. I suspect that they were physically abusive to each other in the way that Mom and most of her men were: a bit of pushing, some plate throwing, but nothing more. What I do know is that between the end of his marriage with Mom and the beginning of his marriage with Cheryl—which occurred when I was four—Dad had changed for the better. He credits a more serious involvement with his faith. In this, Dad embodied a phenomenon social scientists have observed for decades: Religious folks are much happier. Regular church attendees commit fewer crimes, are in better health, live longer, make more money, drop out of high school less frequently, and finish college more frequently than those who don’t attend church at all.¹⁶ MIT economist Jonathan Gruber even found that the relationship was causal: It’s not just that people who happen to live successful lives also go to church, it’s that church seems to promote good habits.

爸爸否認曾經對任何人進行過身體虐待，包括媽媽。我懷疑他們像媽媽和她的大多數男人一樣互相虐待：有點推搡，一些扔盤子，但僅此而已。我所知道的是，從他與媽媽的婚姻結束到他與謝麗爾的婚姻開始——發生在我四歲的時候——爸爸已經變得更好了。他將自己的信仰歸功於更嚴肅的參與。在這一點上，爸爸體現了社會科學家幾十年來觀察到的一個現象：有宗教信仰的人更快樂。與那些根本不去教堂的人相比，經常去教堂的人犯罪更少，健康情況更好，壽命更長，賺的錢更多，高中輟學的頻率更低，完成大學的頻率更高。¹⁶麻省理工學院（MIT）經濟學家喬納森·格魯伯（Jonathan Gruber）甚至發現，這種關係是因果關係：不僅僅是碰巧過著成功生活的人也會去教堂，而且教堂似乎促進了良好的習慣。

In his religious habits, Dad lived the stereotype of a culturally conservative Protestant with Southern roots, even though the stereotype is mostly inaccurate. Despite their reputation for clinging to their religion, the folks back home resembled Mamaw more than Dad: deeply religious but without any attachment to a real church community. Indeed, the only conservative Protestants I knew who attended church regularly were my dad and his family.¹⁷ In the middle of the Bible Belt, active church attendance is actually quite low.¹⁸

在他的宗教習慣中，爸爸生活在一個具有南方血統的文化保守的新教徒的刻板印象中，儘管這種刻板印象大多是不準確的。儘管他們以堅持自己的宗教而聞名，但家鄉的人們更像媽媽而不是爸爸：虔誠的宗教信仰，但對真正的教會社區沒有任何依戀。事實上，我認識的唯一定期去教堂的保守派新教徒是我父親和他的家人。¹⁷在聖經帶的中間，活躍的教會出席率實際上相當低。¹⁸

Despite its reputation, Appalachia—especially northern Alabama and Georgia to southern Ohio—has far lower church attendance than the Midwest, parts of the Mountain West, and much of the space between Michigan and Montana. Oddly enough, we think we attend church more than we actually do. In a recent Gallup poll, Southerners and Midwesterners reported the highest rates of church attendance in the country. Yet actual church attendance is much lower in the South.

儘管阿巴拉契亞享有盛譽，但阿巴拉契亞州——尤其是阿拉巴馬州北部和喬治亞州到俄亥俄州南部——的教會出席率遠低於中西部、西部山區的部分地區以及密歇根州和蒙大拿州之間的大部分地區。奇怪的是，我們認為我們去教會的次數比實際次數多。在最近的蓋洛普民意調查中，南方人和中西部人報告說，該國的教堂出席率最高。然而，在南方，實際的教會出席率要低得多。

This pattern of deception has to do with cultural pressure. In southwestern Ohio, where I was born, both the Cincinnati and Dayton metropolitan regions have very low rates of church attendance, about the same as ultra-liberal San Francisco. No one I know in San Francisco would feel ashamed to admit that they don’t go to church. (In fact, some of them might feel ashamed to admit that they do.) Ohio is the polar opposite. Even as a kid, I’d lie when people asked if I attended church regularly. According to Gallup, I wasn’t alone in feeling that pressure.

這種欺騙模式與文化壓力有關。在我出生的俄亥俄州西南部，辛辛那提和代頓大都市區的教堂出席率都非常低，與極端自由主義的三藩市差不多。在三藩市，我認識的人中沒有人會因為承認自己不去教堂而感到羞恥。（事實上，他們中的一些人可能會羞於承認他們這樣做。俄亥俄州則截然相反。甚至在我還是個孩子的時候，當人們問我是否經常去教堂時，我也會撒謊。根據蓋洛普的說法，我並不是唯一一個感受到這種壓力的人。

The juxtaposition is jarring: Religious institutions remain a positive force in people’s lives, but in a part of the country slammed by the decline of manufacturing, joblessness, addiction, and broken homes, church attendance has fallen off. Dad’s church offered something desperately needed by people like me. For alcoholics, it gave them a community of support and a sense that they weren’t fighting addiction alone. For expectant mothers, it offered a free home with job training and parenting classes. When someone needed a job, church friends could either provide one or make introductions. When Dad faced financial troubles, his church banded together and purchased a used car for the family. In the broken world I saw around me—and for the people struggling in that world—religion offered tangible assistance to keep the faithful on track.

這種並列是令人不快的：宗教機構仍然是人們生活中的積極力量，但在該國遭受製造業衰落、失業、成癮和家庭破碎的抨擊的地區，教堂的出席率已經下降。爸爸的教會提供了像我這樣的人迫切需要的東西。對於酗酒者來說，這給了他們一個支援社區，並讓他們感覺到他們不是在獨自對抗成癮。對於准媽媽來說，它提供了一個免費的家，包括職業培訓和育兒課程。當有人需要一份工作時，教會朋友可以提供一份工作或介紹一份工作。當爸爸面臨經濟困難時，他的教會聯合起來，為家人購買了一輛二手車。在我所看到的破碎世界里，對於在那個世界上掙扎的人們來說，宗教提供了切實的説明，使信徒們走上正軌。

Dad’s faith attracted me even though I learned early on that it had played a significant role in the adoption that led to our long separation. While I really enjoyed the time we spent together, the pain of that adoption remained, and we spoke often of how and why it happened in the first place. For the first time, I heard his side of the story: that the adoption had nothing to do with a desire to avoid child support and that, far from simply “giving me away,” as Mom and Mamaw had said, Dad had hired multiple lawyers and done everything within reason to keep me.

爸爸的信仰吸引了我，儘管我很早就知道它在導致我們長期分離的收養中發揮了重要作用。雖然我真的很享受我們一起度過的時光，但收養的痛苦仍然存在，我們經常談論它最初是如何發生的以及為什麼會發生。我第一次聽到他的故事：收養與避免子女撫養費的願望無關，而且，爸爸遠非像媽媽和媽媽所說的那樣簡單地“把我送走”，而是聘請了多位律師，並盡一切努力留住我。

He worried that the custody war was destroying me. When I saw him during visitations before the adoption, I would hide under the bed for the first few hours, fearful that he would kidnap me and never let me see Mamaw again. Seeing his son in such a frightened state led him to reconsider his approach. Mamaw hated him, a fact I knew firsthand; but Dad said her hatred stemmed from the early days of his marriage to Mom, when he was far from a perfect husband. Sometimes when he came to pick me up, Mamaw would stand on the porch and stare at him, unblinking, clutching a hidden weapon. When he spoke to the court’s child psychiatrist, he learned that I had begun acting out at school and was showing signs of emotional problems. (This I know to be true. After a few weeks in kindergarten, I was held back for a year. Two decades later, I ran into the teacher who had endured my first foray into kindergarten. She told me that I’d behaved so badly that she had nearly quit the profession—three weeks into her first year of teaching. That she remembered me twenty years later says a lot about my misbehavior.)

他擔心監護權之爭會毀了我。當我在收養前的探視中見到他時，我會在最初的幾個小時裡躲在床底下，擔心他會綁架我，再也不讓我見到媽媽。看到兒子如此驚恐的狀態，他重新考慮了自己的做法。媽媽討厭他，這是我親身經歷過的事實;但爸爸說，她的仇恨源於他與媽媽結婚的早期，當時他遠不是一個完美的丈夫。有時，當他來接我時，媽媽會站在門廊上盯著他，一眨不眨地抓著一把隱藏的武器。當他與法院的兒童精神科醫生交談時，他得知我已經開始在學校表現，並且表現出情緒問題的跡象。（我知道這是真的。在幼稚園呆了幾個星期後，我被推遲了一年。二十年後，我遇到了一位老師，他忍受了我第一次進入幼兒園的經歷。她告訴我，我表現得很糟糕，以至於她幾乎放棄了這個行業——在她教書的第一年有三個星期。二十年後，她還記得我，這充分說明瞭我的不當行為。

Eventually, Dad told me, he asked God for three signs that an adoption was in my best interest. Those signs apparently appeared, and I became the legal son of Bob, a man I’d known for barely a year. I don’t doubt the truth of this account, and though I empathize with the obvious difficulty of the decision, I have never felt comfortable with the idea of leaving your child’s fate to signs from God.

最終，爸爸告訴我，他向上帝祈求三個跡象，表明收養對我最有利。這些跡象顯然出現了，我成了鮑勃的合法兒子，一個我認識不到一年的人。我不懷疑這個記載的真實性，雖然我對這個決定的明顯困難感同身受，但我從來不願意把孩子的命運交給上帝的跡象。

Yet this was a minor blip, all things considered. Just knowing that he had cared about me erased a lot of childhood pain. On balance, I loved my dad and his church. I’m not sure if I liked the structure or if I just wanted to share in something that was important to him—both, I suppose—but I became a devoted convert. I devoured books about young-earth creationism, and joined online chat rooms to challenge scientists on the theory of evolution. I learned about millennialist prophecy and convinced myself that the world would end in 2007. I even threw away my Black Sabbath CDs. Dad’s church encouraged all of this because it doubted the wisdom of secular science and the morality of secular music.

然而，考慮到所有因素，這隻是一個小小的曇花一現。只要知道他關心我，就抹去了很多童年的痛苦。總的來說，我愛我的父親和他的教會。我不確定我是否喜歡這個結構，或者我只是想分享一些對他來說很重要的東西——我想兩者都是——但我變成了一個虔誠的皈依者。我如饑似渴地閱讀了有關年輕地球創造論的書籍，並加入了在線聊天室，就進化論向科學家發起挑戰。我瞭解了千禧年的預言，並說服自己世界將在2007年結束。我甚至扔掉了我的黑色安息日CD。 爸爸的教會鼓勵這一切，因為它懷疑世俗科學的智慧和世俗音樂的道德性。

Despite the lack of a legal relationship, I began spending a lot of time with Dad. I visited him on most holidays and spent every other weekend at his house. Though I loved seeing aunts, uncles, and cousins who hadn’t been part of my life in years, the basic segregation of my two lives remained. Dad avoided Mom’s side of the family, and vice versa. Lindsay and Mamaw appreciated Dad’s new role in my life, but they continued to distrust him. To Mamaw, Dad was the “sperm donor” who had abandoned me at a critical juncture. Although I, too, resented Dad for the past, Mamaw’s stubbornness didn’t make things any easier.

儘管缺乏法律關係，但我開始花很多時間和爸爸在一起。我在大多數假期都去看望他，每隔一個週末就在他家度過。雖然我喜歡看到阿姨、叔叔和表兄弟姐妹，他們已經多年沒有參與我的生活了，但我的兩種生活的基本隔離仍然存在。爸爸避開了媽媽的家庭，反之亦然。Lindsay 和Mamaw很欣賞爸爸在我生活中的新角色，但他們仍然不信任他。對媽媽來說，爸爸是在關鍵時刻拋棄我的「精子捐贈者」。雖然我也對爸爸過去感到怨恨，但媽媽的固執並沒有讓事情變得更容易。

Still, my relationship with Dad continued to develop, and so did my relationship with his church. The downside of his theology was that it promoted a certain segregation from the outside world. I couldn’t listen to Eric Clapton at Dad’s house—not because the lyrics were inappropriate but because Eric Clapton was influenced by demonic forces. I’d heard people joke that if you played Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” backward, you’d hear some evil incantation, but a member of Dad’s church spoke about the Zeppelin myth as if it were actually true.

儘管如此，我和爸爸的關係繼續發展，我和他的教會的關係也在繼續發展。他的神學的缺點是它促進了與外部世界的某種隔離。我不能在爸爸家裡聽埃裡克·克萊普頓的歌——不是因為歌詞不合適，而是因為埃裡克·克萊普頓受到了惡魔勢力的影響。我聽人開玩笑說，如果你倒著彈齊柏林飛艇的《天堂的階梯》，你會聽到一些邪惡的咒語，但爸爸教會的一位成員談到齊柏林飛艇的神話，就好像它真的是真的一樣。

These were quirks, and at first I understood them as little more than strict rules that I could either comply with or get around. Yet I was a curious kid, and the deeper I immersed myself in evangelical theology, the more I felt compelled to mistrust many sectors of society. Evolution and the Big Bang became ideologies to confront, not theories to understand. Many of the sermons I heard spent as much time criticizing other Christians as anything else. Theological battle lines were drawn, and those on the other side weren’t just wrong about biblical interpretation, they were somehow unchristian. I admired my uncle Dan above all other men, but when he spoke of his Catholic acceptance of evolutionary theory, my admiration became tinged with suspicion. My new faith had put me on the lookout for heretics. Good friends who interpreted parts of the Bible differently were bad influences. Even Mamaw fell from favor because her religious views didn’t conflict with her affinity for Bill Clinton.

這些都是怪癖，起初我把它們理解為嚴格的規則，我要麼遵守，要麼繞過。然而，我是一個好奇的孩子，我越是沉浸在福音派神學中，我就越覺得有必要不信任社會的許多部門。進化論和宇宙大爆炸成為要面對的意識形態，而不是要理解的理論。我聽到的許多講道都花了很多時間批評其他基督徒，就像其他任何事情一樣。神學的戰線已經劃定，而另一邊的人不僅在解釋《聖經》方面是錯誤的，而且在某種程度上是非基督教的。我最欽佩我的叔叔丹，但當他談到他天主教徒對進化論的接受時，我的欽佩變成了懷疑。我的新信仰使我開始尋找異教徒。對聖經部分內容有不同解釋的好朋友是壞影響。就連媽媽也失寵了，因為她的宗教觀點與她對比爾·柯林頓的親和力並不衝突。

As a young teenager thinking seriously for the first time about what I believed and why I believed it, I had an acute sense that the walls were closing in on “real” Christians. There was talk about the “war on Christmas”—which, as far as I could tell, consisted mainly of ACLU activists suing small towns for nativity displays. I read a book called Persecution by David Limbaugh about the various ways that Christians were discriminated against. The Internet was abuzz with talk of New York art displays that featured images of Christ or the Virgin Mary covered in feces. For the first time in my life, I felt like a persecuted minority.

當我還是一個十幾歲的少年時，我第一次認真地思考我所相信的是什麼以及我為什麼相信它，我敏銳地感覺到，圍牆正在向“真正的”基督徒逼近。有人談論「耶誕節戰爭」——據我所知，這主要包括美國公民自由聯盟活動家起訴小城鎮進行耶穌誕生展示。我讀了一本名為《迫害》的書，作者是大衛·林博（David Limbaugh），書中講述了基督徒受到歧視的各種方式。互聯網上充斥著關於紐約藝術展覽的討論，這些展覽以基督或聖母瑪利亞被糞便覆蓋的圖像為特色。我有生以來第一次覺得自己是受迫害的少數群體。

All of this talk about Christians who weren’t Christian enough, secularists indoctrinating our youth, art exhibits insulting our faith, and persecution by the elites made the world a scary and foreign place. Take gay rights, a particularly hot topic among conservative Protestants. I’ll never forget the time I convinced myself that I was gay. I was eight or nine, maybe younger, and I stumbled upon a broadcast by some fire-and-brimstone preacher. The man spoke about the evils of homosexuals, how they had infiltrated our society, and how they were all destined for hell absent some serious repenting. At the time, the only thing I knew about gay men was that they preferred men to women. This described me perfectly: I disliked girls, and my best friend in the world was my buddy Bill. Oh no, I’m going to hell.

所有這些都在談論不夠基督徒的基督徒，世俗主義者灌輸我們的年輕人，侮辱我們信仰的藝術展覽，以及精英的迫害，使世界成為一個可怕和陌生的地方。以同性戀權利為例，這是保守派新教徒中特別熱門的話題。我永遠不會忘記我說服自己是同性戀的那一刻。我當時八九歲，也許還小，偶然發現了某個硫磺火傳教士的廣播。這個人談到了同性戀者的罪惡，他們如何滲透到我們的社會中，以及他們如何註定要下地獄，而沒有一些認真的悔改。當時，我對男同性戀者的唯一瞭解是，他們更喜歡男人而不是女人。這完美地描述了我：我不喜歡女孩，我在世界上最好的朋友是我的朋友比爾。哦不，我要下地獄了。

I broached this issue with Mamaw, confessing that I was gay and I was worried that I would burn in hell. She said, “Don’t be a fucking idiot, how would you know that you’re gay?” I explained my thought process. Mamaw chuckled and seemed to consider how she might explain to a boy my age. Finally she asked, “J.D., do you want to suck dicks?” I was flabbergasted. Why would someone want to do that? She repeated herself, and I said, “Of course not!” “Then,” she said, “you’re not gay. And even if you did want to suck dicks, that would be okay. God would still love you.” That settled the matter. Apparently I didn’t have to worry about being gay anymore. Now that I’m older, I recognize the profundity of her sentiment: Gay people, though unfamiliar, threatened nothing about Mamaw’s being. There were more important things for a Christian to worry about.

我向媽媽提起了這個問題，承認我是同性戀，我擔心我會在地獄里被燒死。她說：「別他媽的傻子，你怎麼知道你是同性戀？我解釋了我的思考過程。媽媽咯咯地笑了起來，似乎在考慮如何向一個和我同齡的男孩解釋。最後她問：“J.D.，你想吮吸雞巴嗎？我大吃一驚。為什麼有人想這樣做？她重複了一遍，我說：“當然不是！“那麼，”她說，“你不是同性戀。即使你確實想吮吸雞巴，那也沒關係。上帝仍然會愛你。事情就這樣解決了。顯然，我再也不用擔心自己是同性戀了。現在我長大了，我認識到她情感的深刻性：同性戀者雖然不熟悉，但對媽媽的存在沒有任何威脅。對於基督徒來說，還有更重要的事情需要擔心。

In my new church, on the other hand, I heard more about the gay lobby and the war on Christmas than about any particular character trait that a Christian should aspire to have. I recalled that moment with Mamaw as an instance of secularist thinking rather than an act of Christian love. Morality was defined by not participating in this or that particular social malady: the gay agenda, evolutionary theory, Clintonian liberalism, or extramarital sex. Dad’s church required so little of me. It was easy to be a Christian. The only affirmative teachings I remember drawing from church were that I shouldn’t cheat on my wife and that I shouldn’t be afraid to preach the gospel to others. So I planned a life of monogamy and tried to convert other people, even my seventh-grade science teacher, who was Muslim.

另一方面，在我的新教會裡，我聽到的更多是關於同性戀遊說團體和耶誕節戰爭，而不是基督徒應該渴望擁有的任何特定性格特徵。我回想起與媽媽在一起的那一刻，認為這是世俗主義思想的一個例子，而不是基督徒的愛的行為。道德的定義是不參與這個或那個特定的社會弊病：同性戀議程、進化論、柯林頓自由主義或婚外性行為。爸爸的教會對我的要求太低了。成為基督徒很容易。我記得從教會中得到的唯一肯定的教導是，我不應該欺騙我的妻子，我不應該害怕向別人傳福音。因此，我計劃過一夫一妻制的生活，並試圖改變其他人的信仰，甚至包括我七年級的科學老師，他是穆斯林。

The world lurched toward moral corruption—slouching toward Gomorrah. The Rapture was coming, we thought. Apocalyptic imagery filled the weekly sermons and the Left Behind books (one of the best-selling fiction series of all time, which I devoured). Folks would discuss whether the Antichrist was already alive and, if so, which world leader it might be. Someone told me that he expected I’d marry a very pretty girl if the Lord hadn’t come by the time I reached marrying age. The End Times were the natural finish for a culture sliding so quickly toward the abyss.

世界陷入了道德敗壞——無精打采地走向蛾摩拉。我們以為，被提要來了。世界末日的意象充斥著每周的佈道和《被遺忘》的書（有史以來最暢銷的小說系列之一，我吞噬了它）。人們會討論敵基督是否還活著，如果是的話，它可能是哪個世界領袖。有人告訴我，他希望我會娶一個非常漂亮的女孩，如果我到了結婚年齡時主還沒有來。末世是一個文化如此迅速地滑向深淵的自然結局。

Other authors have noted the terrible retention rates of evangelical churches and blamed precisely that sort of theology for their decline.¹⁹ I didn’t appreciate it as a kid. Nor did I realize that the religious views I developed during my early years with Dad were sowing the seeds for an outright rejection of the Christian faith. What I did know is that, despite its downsides, I loved both my new church and the man who introduced me to it. The timing, it turned out, was impeccable: The next months would bring a desperate need for both a heavenly father and an earthly one.

其他作者指出了福音派教會的可怕保留率，並將這種神學的衰落歸咎於這種神學。¹⁹我小時候並不欣賞它。我也沒有意識到，我早年和爸爸在一起時形成的宗教觀點正在為徹底拒絕基督教信仰播下種子。我所知道的是，儘管它有缺點，但我既愛我的新教會，也愛把我介紹給它的人。事實證明，這個時機是無可挑剔的：接下來的幾個月將帶來對天父和地上父的迫切需求。

Chapter 7

第7章

In the fall after I turned thirteen, Mom began dating Matt, a younger guy who worked as a firefighter. I adored Matt from the start—he was my favorite of all of Mom’s men, and we still keep in touch. One night I was at home watching TV, waiting for Mom to get home from work with a bucket of KFC for dinner. I had two responsibilities that evening: first, track down Lindsay in case she was hungry; and second, run food over to Mamaw as soon as Mom arrived. Shortly before I expected Mom, Mamaw called. “Where is your mother?”

在我十三歲之後的秋天，媽媽開始和馬特約會，馬特是一個年輕的消防員。我從一開始就崇拜馬特——他是我媽媽所有男人中我最喜歡的，我們仍然保持聯繫。一天晚上，我在家裡看電視，等著媽媽下班回家，拿著一桶肯德基吃晚飯。那天晚上我有兩項職責：第一，在琳賽餓了的情況下找到她;第二，媽媽一到就把食物送到媽媽那裡。就在我期待媽媽之前不久，媽媽打來了電話。“媽在哪兒？”

“I don’t know. What’s wrong, Mamaw?”

“我不知道。怎麼了，媽媽？

Her response, more than anything I’ve ever heard, is seared in my memory. She was worried—scared, even. The hillbilly accent that she usually hid dripped from her lips. “No one has seen or heard from Papaw.” I told her I’d call as soon as Mom got home, which I expected would happen soon.

她的回答，比我聽過的任何話都更深深地烙在我的記憶中。她很擔心，甚至害怕。她平時隱藏的鄉巴佬口音從她的嘴唇上滴落下來。“沒有人見過或聽說過爸爸的消息。”我告訴她，媽媽一回家我就打電話，我預計很快就會發生。

I figured Mamaw was overreacting. But then I considered the utter predictability of Papaw’s schedule. He woke at six in the morning every day, without an alarm clock, then drove to McDonald’s at seven to grab a coffee with his old Armco buddies. After a couple of hours of conversation, he would amble over to Mamaw’s house and spend the morning watching TV or playing cards. If he left at all before dinnertime, he might briefly visit his friend Paul’s hardware store. Without exception, he stayed at Mamaw’s house to greet me when I came home from school. And if I didn’t go to Mamaw’s—if I went to Mom’s, as I did when times were good—he’d usually come over and say goodbye before he went home for the evening. That he had missed all of these events meant that something was very wrong.

我以為媽媽反應過度了。但後來我考慮了Papaw日程安排的完全可預測性。他每天早上六點起床，沒有鬧鐘，然後七點開車去麥當勞，和他的老夥伴們一起喝咖啡。經過幾個小時的交談，他會漫步到媽媽的家裡，花一上午的時間看電視或打牌。如果他在晚餐時間之前離開，他可能會短暫地去他朋友保羅的五金店。無一例外，當我放學回家時，他都留在媽媽家迎接我。如果我不去媽媽家——如果我去媽媽家，就像我在天氣好的時候那樣——他通常會在晚上回家之前過來道別。他錯過了所有這些事件，這意味著有些事情非常不對勁。

Mom walked in the door a few minutes after Mamaw called, and I was already sobbing. “Papaw . . . Papaw, I think he’s dead.” The rest is a blur: I think I relayed Mamaw’s message; we picked her up down the street and sped over to Papaw’s house, no more than a few minutes’ drive away. I knocked on his door violently. Mom ran to the back door, screamed, and came around front, both to tell Mamaw that he was hunched over in his chair and to grab a rock. She then broke and went in through a window, unlocked and opened the door, and tended to her father. By then he had been dead for nearly a day.

媽媽打來電話幾分鐘後，媽媽走進門，我已經在抽泣了。“啪......爸爸，我想他已經死了。剩下的就是模糊不清了：我想我轉達了媽媽的資訊;我們在街上接她，然後飛快地跑到爸爸的家，離這裡只有幾分鐘的車程。我猛烈地敲了他的門。媽媽跑到後門，尖叫著，走到前面，既要告訴媽媽他彎腰坐在椅子上，又要抓一塊石頭。然後她破門而入，從窗戶進去，打開門，照料她的父親。那時他已經死了將近一天。

Mom and Mamaw sobbed uncontrollably as we waited for an ambulance. I tried to hug Mamaw, but she was beside herself and unresponsive even to me. When she stopped crying, she clutched me to her chest and told me to go say goodbye before they took his body away. I tried, but the medical technician kneeling beside him gazed at me as if she thought I was creepy for wanting to look at a dead body. I didn’t tell her the real reason I had walked back to my slouching Papaw.

媽媽和媽媽在我們等待救護車時無法控制地抽泣。我試著擁抱媽媽，但她就在自己身邊，甚至對我沒有反應。當她停止哭泣時，她把我抱在胸前，告訴我在他們把他的屍體帶走之前說再見。我試過了，但跪在他旁邊的醫務人員盯著我，好像她認為我想看一具屍體而令人毛骨悚然。我沒有告訴她我走回懶洋洋的爸爸身邊的真正原因。

After the ambulance took Papaw’s body away, we drove immediately to Aunt Wee’s house. I guessed Mom had called her, because she descended from her porch with tears in her eyes. We all hugged her before squeezing into the car and heading back to Mamaw’s. The adults gave me the unenviable task of tracking down Lindsay and giving her the news. This was before cell phones, and Lindsay, being a seventeen-year-old, was difficult to reach. She wasn’t answering the house phone, and none of her friends answered my calls. Mamaw’s house sat literally five houses away from Mom’s—313 McKinley to 303—so I listened to the adults make plans and watched out the window for signs of my sister’s return. The adults spoke about funeral arrangements, where Papaw would want to be buried—“In Jackson, goddammit,” Mamaw insisted—and who would call Uncle Jimmy and tell him to come home.

救護車把爸爸的屍體運走後，我們立即驅車前往黃阿姨家。我猜是媽媽給她打電話的，因為她眼裡含著淚水從門廊上下來。我們都擁抱了她，然後擠進車裡，回到了媽媽家。大人們給了我一個令人羨慕的任務，那就是追蹤琳賽並告訴她這個消息。那是在手機出現之前，琳賽作為一個十七歲的孩子，很難聯繫到他。她沒有接家裡的電話，她的朋友也沒有接我的電話。媽媽的房子和媽媽的房子相距五幢房子——麥金利街313歲到303歲——所以我聽大人計劃，並注意窗外有沒有我妹妹回來的跡象。大人們談到了葬禮的安排，爸爸想被埋葬在哪裡——“在傑克遜，該死的，”媽媽堅持說——誰會打電話給吉米叔叔，讓他回家。

Lindsay returned home shortly before midnight. I trudged down the street and opened our door. She was walking down the stairs but stopped cold when she saw my face, red and blotchy from crying all day. “Papaw,” I blurted out. “He’s dead.” Lindsay collapsed on the stairs, and I ran up and embraced her. We sat there for a few minutes, crying as two children do when they find out that the most important man in their lives has died. Lindsay said something then, and though I don’t remember the exact phrase, I do remember that Papaw had just done some work on her car, and she was muttering something through the tears about taking advantage of him.

琳賽在午夜前不久回到家。我跋涉在街上，打開了我們的門。她正走下樓梯，但當她看到我的臉時，她冷了下來，因為整天哭泣而紅腫。爸爸，“我脫口而出。“他死了。”琳賽癱倒在樓梯上，我跑上去擁抱她。我們在那裡坐幾分鐘，像兩個孩子一樣哭泣，當他們發現他們生命中最重要的人去世了。琳賽接著說了些什麼，雖然我不記得確切的短語了，但我確實記得爸爸剛剛在她的車上做了一些工作，她流著眼淚嘟囔著什麼，說要利用他。

Lindsay was a teenager when Papaw died, at the height of that weird mixture of thinking you know everything and caring too much about how others perceive you. Papaw was many things, but he was never cool. He wore the same old T-shirt every day with a front pocket just big enough to fit a pack of cigarettes. He always smelled of mildew, because he washed his clothes but let them dry “naturally,” meaning packed together in a washing machine. A lifetime of smoking had blessed him with an unlimited supply of phlegm, and he had no problem sharing that phlegm with everyone, no matter the time or occasion. He listened to Johnny Cash on perpetual repeat and drove an old El Camino—a car truck—everywhere he went. In other words, Papaw wasn’t ideal company for a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl with an active social life. Thus, she took advantage of him in the same way that every young girl takes advantage of a father: She loved and admired him, she asked him for things that he sometimes gave her, and she didn’t pay him a lot of attention when she was around her friends.

爸爸去世時，琳賽還是個十幾歲的孩子，正處於那種奇怪的混合狀態，認為自己無所不知，過於在乎別人如何看待你。爸爸有很多東西，但他從來都不酷。他每天都穿著同樣的舊T恤，前面的口袋剛好能裝一包香煙。他總是聞到霉味，因為他洗衣服，但讓它們“自然”晾乾，意思是在洗衣機里擠在一起。一輩子的吸煙使他擁有無限的痰液供應，無論何時何地，他都可以毫無問題地與所有人分享這些痰液。他不停地重複約翰尼·卡什（Johnny Cash）的歌，無論走到哪裡，都開著一輛舊的El Camino（一輛汽車卡車）。換句話說，對於一個擁有活躍社交生活的美麗十七歲女孩來說，Papaw 並不是理想的公司。因此，她利用他的方式就像每個年輕女孩利用父親一樣：她愛他，欽佩他，她向他索要他有時給她的東西，當她和朋友在一起時，她並沒有給他太多的關注。

To this day, being able to “take advantage” of someone is the measure in my mind of having a parent. For me and Lindsay, the fear of imposing stalked our minds, infecting even the food we ate. We recognized instinctively that many of the people we depended on weren’t supposed to play that role in our lives, so much so that it was one of the first things Lindsay thought of when she learned of Papaw’s death. We were conditioned to feel that we couldn’t really depend on people—that, even as children, asking someone for a meal or for help with a broken-down automobile was a luxury that we shouldn’t indulge in too much lest we fully tap the reservoir of goodwill serving as a safety valve in our lives. Mamaw and Papaw did everything they could to fight that instinct. On our rare trips to a nice restaurant, they would interrogate me about what I truly wanted until I’d confess that yes, I did want the steak. And then they’d order it for me over my protests. No matter how imposing, no figure could erase that feeling entirely. Papaw had come the closest, but he clearly hadn’t succeeded all the way, and now he was gone.

直到今天，能夠“利用”某人是我心目中擁有父母的衡量標準。對我和琳賽來說，對強加的恐懼困擾著我們的思想，甚至感染了我們吃的食物。我們本能地認識到，我們依賴的許多人不應該在我們的生活中扮演這個角色，以至於當琳賽得知爸爸的死訊時，她首先想到的是一件事。我們習慣於覺得我們不能真正依賴別人——即使在孩提時代，請人吃飯或幫忙修理壞掉的汽車也是一種奢侈，我們不應該沉迷其中，以免我們充分利用善意的蓄水池作為我們生活中的安全閥。媽媽和爸爸竭盡全力與這種本能作鬥爭。在我們難得的去一家不錯的餐廳旅行時，他們會問我真正想要什麼，直到我承認是的，我確實想要牛排。然後他們會在我的抗議下為我訂購它。無論多麼氣勢磅礴，沒有一個人物可以完全抹去這種感覺。爸爸走得最近，但他顯然沒有一路成功，現在他走了。

Papaw died on a Tuesday, and I know this because when Mom’s boyfriend, Matt, drove me to a local diner the next morning to pick up food for the whole family, the Lynyrd Skynyrd song “Tuesday’s Gone” was playing on the radio. “But somehow I’ve got to carry on / Tuesday’s gone with the wind.” That was the moment it really hit me that Papaw was never coming back. The adults did what people do when a loved one dies: They planned a funeral, figured out how to pay for it, and hoped that they did the deceased some justice. We hosted a visitation in Middletown that Thursday so all the locals could pay their respects, then had a second visitation in Jackson on Friday before a Saturday funeral. Even in death, Papaw had one foot in Ohio and another in the holler.

爸爸在星期二去世了，我知道這一點，因為第二天早上，當媽媽的男朋友馬特開車送我去當地的一家餐館為全家人取食物時，收音機里正在播放林納德·斯凱納德的歌曲“星期二走了”。“但不知何故，我必須繼續前進/星期二隨風而去。”就在那一刻，我真正意識到爸爸再也回不來了。成年人做了親人去世時人們會做的事情：他們計劃了一場葬禮，想好了如何支付費用，並希望他們為死者伸張正義。週四，我們在米德爾敦舉辦了一次探訪活動，以便所有當地人都可以表達敬意，然後在週六葬禮之前於週五在傑克遜進行了第二次探訪。即使在死亡中，Papaw 的一隻腳在俄亥俄州，另一隻腳在嘶吼中。

Everyone I cared to see came to the funeral in Jackson—Uncle Jimmy and his kids, our extended family and friends, and all of the Blanton men who were still kicking. It occurred to me as I saw these titans of my family that, for the first eleven or so years of my life, I saw them during happy times—family reunions and holidays or lazy summers and long weekends—and in the two most recent years I’d seen them only at funerals.

我關心的每個人都來參加傑克遜的葬禮——吉米叔叔和他的孩子們，我們的大家庭和朋友，以及所有還在踢球的布蘭頓人。當我看到我家的這些巨頭時，我突然想到，在我生命的頭十一年左右，我在快樂的時光里看到他們——家庭團聚和假期，或者慵懶的夏天和長週末——而在最近兩年，我只在葬禮上見過他們。

At Papaw’s funeral, as at other hillbilly funerals I’ve witnessed, the preacher invited everyone to stand up and say a few words about the deceased. As I sat next to Uncle Jimmy in the pew, I sobbed throughout the hour-long funeral, my eyes so irritated by the end that I could hardly see. Still, I knew this was it, and that if I didn’t stand up and speak my piece, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

在帕帕的葬禮上，就像我目睹的其他鄉巴佬葬禮一樣，傳教士邀請每個人站起來，對死者說幾句話。當我坐在吉米叔叔旁邊的長椅上時，我在長達一個小時的葬禮中抽泣，我的眼睛被激怒了，以至於我幾乎看不見。不過，我知道就是這樣，如果我不站起來說出我的作品，我會後悔一輩子。

I thought about a moment nearly a decade earlier that I’d heard about but didn’t remember. I was four or five, sitting in a church pew for a great-uncle’s funeral in that same Deaton funeral home in Jackson. We had just arrived after a long drive from Middletown, and when the minister asked us to bow our heads and pray, I bowed my head and passed out. Mamaw’s older brother Uncle Pet lay me on my side with a Bible as a pillow and thought nothing more of it. I was asleep for what happened next, but I’ve heard some version of it a hundred times. Even today, when I see someone who attended that funeral, they tell me about my hillbilly Mamaw and Papaw.

我想起了將近十年前的一個時刻，我聽說過，但不記得了。我四五歲時，坐在教堂的長椅上，在傑克遜的迪頓殯儀館參加叔叔的葬禮。我們剛從米德爾敦驅車長途跋涉到達，當牧師要求我們低頭祈禱時，我低下頭昏倒了。媽媽的哥哥寶叔叔把我放在我身邊，把聖經當成枕頭，沒有再想。我為接下來發生的事情睡著了，但我已經聽過一百次了。即使在今天，當我看到有人參加葬禮時，他們也會告訴我我的鄉巴佬媽媽和爸爸。

When I failed to appear in the crowd of mourners leaving the church, Mamaw and Papaw grew suspicious. There were perverts even in Jackson, they told me, who wanted to stick sticks up your butt and “blow on your pecker” as much as the perverts in Ohio or Indiana or California. Papaw hatched a plan: There were only two exits to Deaton’s, and no one had driven away yet. Papaw ran to the car and grabbed a .44 Magnum for himself and a .38 Special for Mamaw. They manned the exits to the funeral home and checked every car. When they encountered an old friend, they explained the situation and enlisted help. When they met someone else, they searched the cars like goddamned DEA agents.

當我沒有出現在離開教堂的哀悼人群中時，媽媽和爸爸開始懷疑。他們告訴我，甚至在傑克遜也有變態，他們想把棍子插在你的屁股上，像俄亥俄州、印第安那州或加利福尼亞州的變態一樣“吹你的啄木鳥”。Papaw制定了一個計劃：Deaton's只有兩個出口，而且還沒有人開車離開。Papaw跑到車前，為自己拿了一把.44 Magnum，給Mamaw拿了一把.38 Special。他們在殯儀館的出口有人值守，並檢查了每輛車。當他們遇到一位老朋友時，他們解釋了情況並尋求説明。當他們遇到其他人時，他們像該死的緝毒局特工一樣搜查汽車。

Uncle Pet approached, frustrated that Mamaw and Papaw were holding up traffic. When they explained, Pet howled with laughter: “He’s asleep in the church pew, let me show you.” After they found me, they allowed traffic to flow freely once again.

寵物叔叔走了過來，對媽媽和爸爸阻礙了交通感到沮喪。當他們解釋時，佩特笑著嚎叫：「他在教堂的長椅上睡著了，讓我給你看看。在他們找到我之後，他們再次允許交通自由流動。

I thought about Papaw buying me a BB gun with a mounted scope. He placed the gun on his workbench with a vise to hold it in place and fired repeatedly at a target. After each shot, we adjusted the scope, aligning the crosshairs with where the BB impacted the target. And then he taught me how to shoot—how to focus on the sights and not the target, how to exhale before pulling the trigger. Years later, our marine boot camp marksmanship instructors would tell us that the kids who already “knew” how to shoot performed the worst, because they’d learned improper fundamentals. That was true with one exception: me. From Papaw, I had learned excellent fundamentals, and I qualified with an M16 rifle as an expert, the highest category, with one of the highest scores in my entire platoon.

我想到爸爸給我買了一把帶瞄準鏡的BB槍。他把槍放在工作臺上，用虎鉗固定住，然後反覆向目標射擊。每次射擊后，我們都會調整瞄準鏡，將十字准線與BB撞擊目標的位置對齊。然後他教我如何射擊——如何專注於瞄準具而不是目標，如何在扣動扳機之前呼氣。多年後，我們的海軍陸戰隊新兵訓練營槍法教練會告訴我們，那些已經“知道”射擊的孩子表現最差，因為他們學到了不正確的基礎知識。除了一個例外：我。從爸爸那裡，我學到了優秀的基礎知識，我獲得了 M16 步槍的資格，成為專家，這是最高類別，是我整個排中得分最高的之一。

Papaw was gruff to the point of absurdity. To every suggestion or behavior he didn’t like, Papaw had one reply: “Bullshit.” That was everyone’s cue to shut the hell up. His hobby was cars: He loved buying, trading, and fixing them. One day not long after Papaw quit drinking, Uncle Jimmy came home to find him fixing an old automobile on the street. “He was cussing up a storm. ‘These goddamned Japanese cars, cheap pieces of shit. What a stupid motherfucker who made this part.’ I just listened to him, not knowing a single person was around, and he just kept carrying on and complaining. I thought he sounded miserable.” Uncle Jimmy had recently started working and was eager to spend his money to help his dad out. So he offered to take the car to a shop and get it fixed. The suggestion caught Papaw completely off guard. “What? Why?” he asked innocently. “I love fixing cars.”

爸爸粗魯到荒謬的地步。對於他不喜歡的每一個建議或行為，爸爸都有一個回答：“胡說八道。這是每個人閉嘴的暗示。他的愛好是汽車：他喜歡購買、交易和修理汽車。有一天，爸爸戒酒後不久，吉米叔叔回到家，發現他在街上修理一輛舊車。“他正在掀起一場風暴。'這些該死的日本汽車，廉價的狗屎。真是個愚蠢的混蛋，他做了這個角色。 我只是聽他說話，不知道周圍有一個人，他只是繼續抱怨。我覺得他聽起來很悲慘。吉米叔叔最近開始工作，他很想花錢幫助爸爸。於是他提出把車開到一家商店修好。這個建議讓Papaw完全措手不及。“什麼？為什麼？“他天真地問。“我喜歡修車。”

Papaw had a beer belly and a chubby face but skinny arms and legs. He never apologized with words. While helping Aunt Wee move across the country, she admonished him for his earlier alcoholism and asked why they rarely had the chance to talk. “Well, talk now. We’ve got all fucking day in the car together.” But he did apologize with deeds: The rare times when he lost his temper with me were always followed with a new toy or a trip to the ice cream parlor.

爸爸有一個啤酒肚和一張胖乎乎的臉，但胳膊和腿都很瘦。他從不用言語道歉。在説明黃阿姨搬到全國各地時，她告誡他早先酗酒，並問為什麼他們很少有機會交談。“好吧，現在談談。我們他媽的在車裡一起度過了一整天。但他確實用行動道歉：他很少對我發脾氣，之後總是會買一個新玩具或去霜淇淋店。

Papaw was a terrifying hillbilly made for a different time and place. During that cross-country drive with Aunt Wee, they stopped at a highway rest stop in the early morning. Aunt Wee decided to comb her hair and brush her teeth and thus spent more time in the ladies’ room than Papaw thought reasonable. He kicked open the door holding a loaded revolver, like a character in a Liam Neeson movie. He was sure, he explained, that she was being raped by some pervert. Years later, after Aunt Wee’s dog growled at her infant baby, Papaw told her husband, Dan, that unless he got rid of the dog, Papaw would feed it a steak marinated in antifreeze. He wasn’t joking: Three decades earlier, he had made the same promise to a neighbor after a dog nearly bit my mom. A week later that dog was dead. In that funeral home I thought about these things, too.

Papaw 是一個可怕的鄉巴佬，為不同的時間和地點而生。在與黃阿姨的越野駕駛中，他們在清晨停在高速公路休息站。黃阿姨決定梳頭刷牙，因此在女士房間里呆的時間比爸爸認為合理的時間要多。他拿著一把上膛的左輪手槍踢開了門，就像連姆·尼森電影中的角色一樣。他解釋說，他確信她被某個變態強姦了。多年後，在黃阿姨的狗對著她繈褓中的孩子咆哮后，爸爸告訴她的丈夫丹，除非他擺脫這隻狗，否則爸爸會喂它一塊用防凍劑醃制的牛排。他不是在開玩笑：三十年前，在一隻狗差點咬了我媽媽之後，他向鄰居做出了同樣的承諾。一周后，那隻狗死了。在那家殯儀館里，我也想到了這些事情。

Most of all I thought about Papaw and me. I thought about the hours we spent practicing increasingly complex math problems. He taught me that lack of knowledge and lack of intelligence were not the same. The former could be remedied with a little patience and a lot of hard work. And the latter? “Well, I guess you’re up shit creek without a paddle.”

最重要的是，我想到了爸爸和我。我想到了我們花在練習越來越複雜的數學問題上的時間。他告訴我，缺乏知識和缺乏智慧是不一樣的。前者可以通過一點耐心和大量的努力來補救。而後者呢？“嗯，我猜你是沒有槳的狗屎小溪。”

I thought about how Papaw would get on the ground with me and Aunt Wee’s baby girls and play with us like a child. Despite his “bullshits” and his grouchiness, he never met a hug or a kiss that he didn’t welcome. He bought Lindsay a crappy car and fixed it up, and after she wrecked it, he bought her another one and fixed that one up, too, just so she didn’t feel like she “came from nothing.” I thought about losing my temper with Mom or Lindsay or Mamaw, and how those were among the few times Papaw ever showed a mean streak, because, as he once told me, “the measure of a man is how he treats the women in his family.” His wisdom came from experience, from his own earlier failures with treating the women in his family well.

我想著爸爸會如何和我和黃阿姨的寶貝女兒一起趴在地上，像個孩子一樣和我們一起玩。儘管他「胡說八道」，脾氣暴躁，但他從未遇到過他不歡迎的擁抱或親吻。他給琳賽買了一輛蹩腳的車，把它修好了，在她把它弄壞後，他又給她買了一輛，也修好了那輛車，這樣她就不會覺得自己“白手起家”。我想過對媽媽、琳賽或媽媽發脾氣，以及爸爸為數不多的幾次表現出刻薄的性格，因為，正如他曾經告訴我的那樣，“衡量一個男人的標準是他如何對待家裡的女人。他的智慧來自經驗，來自他自己早先在善待家庭女性方面的失敗。

I stood up in that funeral home, resolved to tell everyone just how important he was. “I never had a dad,” I explained. “But Papaw was always there for me, and he taught me the things that men needed to know.” Then I spoke the sum of his influence on my life: “He was the best dad that anyone could ever ask for.”

我站在殯儀館里，決心告訴大家他有多重要。“我從來沒有爸爸，”我解釋道。“但爸爸總是在我身邊，他教我男人需要知道的事情。”然後我談到了他對我生活的影響：「他是任何人都能要求的最好的父親。

After the funeral, a number of people told me that they appreciated my bravery and courage. Mom was not among them, which struck me as odd. When I located her in the crowd, she seemed trapped in some sort of trance: saying little, even to those who approached her; her movements slow and her body slouched.

葬禮結束后，許多人告訴我，他們欣賞我的勇敢和勇氣。媽媽不在其中，這讓我感到很奇怪。當我在人群中找到她時，她似乎陷入了某種恍惚狀態：很少說話，甚至對那些接近她的人也是如此;她的動作很慢，身體也懶洋洋的。

Mamaw, too, seemed out of sorts. Kentucky was usually the one place where she was completely in her element. In Middletown, she could never truly be herself. At Perkins, our favorite breakfast spot, Mamaw’s mouth would sometimes earn a request from the manager that she keep her voice down or watch her language. “That fucker,” she’d mutter under her breath, chastened and uncomfortable. But at Bill’s Family Diner, the only restaurant in Jackson worth sitting down at for a meal, she’d scream at the kitchen staff to “hurry the hell up” and they’d laugh and say, “Okay, Bonnie.” Then she’d look at me and tell me, “You know I’m just fucking with them, right? They know I’m not a mean old bitch.”

媽媽似乎也有些不對勁。肯塔基州通常是她完全融入其中的一個地方。在米德爾敦，她永遠無法真正做自己。在我們最喜歡的早餐店珀金斯（Perkins），媽媽的嘴巴有時會得到經理的要求，要求她壓低聲音或注意自己的語言。“那個混蛋，”她低聲咕哝着，既懊惱又不舒服。但是在傑克遜唯一值得坐下來吃飯的餐廳比爾的家庭餐廳，她會對廚房工作人員大喊“快點”，他們會笑著說，“好吧，邦妮。然後她會看著我，告訴我，「你知道我只是在和他們做愛，對吧？他們知道我不是一個卑鄙的老婊子。

In Jackson, among old friends and real hillbillies, she needed no filter. At her brother’s funeral a few years earlier, Mamaw and her niece Denise convinced themselves that one of the pallbearers was a pervert, so they broke into his funeral home office and searched through his belongings. They found an extensive magazine collection, including a few issues of Beaver Hunt (a periodical that I can assure you has nothing to do with aquatic mammals). Mamaw found it hilarious. “Fucking Beaver Hunt!” she’d roar. “Who comes up with this shit?” She and Denise hatched a plot to take the magazines home and mail them to the pallbearer’s wife. After a short deliberation, she changed her mind. “With my luck,” she told me, “we’ll get in a crash on the way back to Ohio and the police will find these damned things in my trunk. I’ll be damned if I’m going to go out with everyone thinking I was a lesbian—and a perverted one at that!” So they threw the magazines away to “teach that pervert a lesson” and never spoke of it again. This side of Mamaw rarely showed itself outside of Jackson.

在傑克遜，在老朋友和真正的鄉巴佬中，她不需要濾鏡。幾年前，在她哥哥的葬禮上，媽媽和她的侄女丹妮絲說服自己，其中一名殯葬者是個，所以他們闖入了他的殯儀館辦公室，搜查了他的物品。他們發現了大量的雜誌收藏，包括幾期《海狸狩獵》（我可以向你保證與水生哺乳動物無關的期刊）。媽媽覺得這很搞笑。“該死的海狸狩獵！”她咆哮道。“誰想出這個狗屎？”她和丹妮絲策劃了一個陰謀，把雜誌帶回家，然後郵寄給蒼蠅的妻子。經過短暫的考慮，她改變了主意。“運氣好的話，”她告訴我，“我們會在回俄亥俄州的路上撞車，員警會在我的後備箱裡找到這些該死的東西。如果我要和所有人一起出去，認為我是女同性戀——而且是一個變態的人，我會被詛咒的！於是他們把雜誌扔掉，“給那個一個教訓”，從此再也沒有提起過這件事。媽媽的這一面很少在傑克遜之外出現。

Deaton’s funeral home in Jackson—where she’d stolen those Beaver Hunts—was organized like a church. In the center of the building was a main sanctuary flanked by larger rooms with couches and tables. On the other two sides were hallways with exits to a few smaller rooms—offices for staff, a tiny kitchen, and bathrooms. I’ve spent much of my life in that tiny funeral home, saying goodbye to aunts and uncles and cousins and great-grandparents. And whether she went to Deaton’s to bury an old friend, a brother, or her beloved mother, Mamaw greeted every guest, laughed loudly, and cursed proudly.

迪頓在傑克遜的殯儀館——她偷走了那些海狸狩獵——組織得像一座教堂。在建築物的中央是一個主要的避難所，兩側是帶沙發和桌子的較大房間。另外兩邊是走廊，出口通向幾個較小的房間——員工辦公室、小廚房和浴室。我一生中的大部分時間都在那個小小的殯儀館里度過，告別阿姨、叔叔、堂兄弟姐妹和曾祖父母。無論她去迪頓家埋葬老朋友、兄弟還是她心愛的母親，媽媽都會向每一位客人打招呼，放聲大笑，自豪地咒罵。

So it was a surprise to me when, during Papaw’s visitation, I went searching for comfort and found Mamaw alone in a corner of the funeral home, recharging batteries that I never knew could go empty. She stared blankly at the floor, her fire replaced with something unfamiliar. I knelt before her and laid my head in her lap and said nothing. At that moment, I realized that Mamaw was not invincible.

因此，在爸爸探望期間，我去尋找安慰，發現媽媽獨自一人在殯儀館的一個角落裡，為我從來不知道會耗盡的電池充電，這讓我感到驚訝。她茫然地盯著地板，她的火被一種陌生的東西所取代。我跪在她面前，把頭埋在她的腿上，什麼也沒說。那一刻，我意識到媽媽並不是無敵的。

In hindsight, it’s clear that there was more than grief to both Mamaw’s and Mom’s behavior. Lindsay, Matt, and Mamaw did their best to hide it from me. Mamaw forbade me to stay at Mom’s, under the ruse that Mamaw needed me with her as she grieved. Perhaps they hoped to give me a little space to mourn Papaw. I don’t know.

事後看來，很明顯，媽媽和媽媽的行為不僅僅是悲傷。Lindsay、Matt 和Mamaw盡力向我隱瞞。媽媽禁止我待在媽媽家，理由是媽媽在悲傷時需要我和她在一起。也許他們希望給我一點空間來哀悼爸爸。我不知道。

I didn’t see at first that something had veered off course. Papaw was dead, and everyone processed it differently. Lindsay spent a lot of time with her friends and was always on the move. I stayed as close to Mamaw as possible and read the Bible a lot. Mom slept more than usual, and I figured this was her way of coping. At home, she lacked even a modicum of temper control. Lindsay failed to do the dishes properly, or forgot to take out the dog, and Mom’s anger poured out: “My dad was the only one who really understood me!” she’d scream. “I’ve lost him, and you’re not making this any easier!” Mom had always had a temper, though, so I dismissed even this.

起初我沒有看到有什麼東西偏離了軌道。爸爸死了，每個人都以不同的方式處理它。琳賽花了很多時間和她的朋友在一起，而且總是在移動。我盡可能地靠近媽媽，經常讀聖經。媽媽睡得比平時多，我想這是她的應對方式。在家裡，她甚至缺乏一點脾氣控制。琳賽沒有把碗洗好，或者忘了把狗拿出來，媽媽的怒火傾瀉而出：“我爸爸是唯一一個真正理解我的人！”她會尖叫。“我把他弄丟了，你沒有讓這件事變得更容易！”不過，媽媽總是有脾氣，所以我甚至不屑一顧。

Mom seemed bothered that anyone but her was grieving. Aunt Wee’s grief was unjustified, because Mom and Papaw had a special bond. So, too, was Mamaw’s, for she didn’t even like Papaw and chose not to live under the same roof. Lindsay and I needed to get over ourselves, for it was Mom’s father, not ours, who had just died. The first indication that our lives were about to change came one morning when I woke and strolled over to Mom’s house, where I knew Lindsay and Mom were sleeping. I went first to Lindsay’s room, but she was asleep in my room instead. I knelt beside her, woke her up, and she hugged me tightly. After a little while, she said earnestly, “We’ll get through this, J.”—that was her nickname for me—“I promise.” I still have no idea why she slept in my room that night, but I would soon learn what she promised we’d get through.

媽媽似乎很煩惱，除了她之外，沒有人在悲傷。黃阿姨的悲傷是沒有道理的，因為媽媽和爸爸有一種特殊的紐帶。媽媽也是如此，因為她甚至不喜歡爸爸，選擇不住在同一個屋簷下。琳賽和我需要克服自己，因為剛剛去世的是媽媽的父親，而不是我們的父親。我們的生活即將改變的第一個跡象是一天早上，當我醒來並漫步到媽媽家時，我知道琳賽和媽媽正在睡覺。我先去了琳賽的房間，但她卻在我的房間里睡著了。我跪在她身邊，叫醒了她，她緊緊地抱住了我。過了一會兒，她認真地說：「我們會度過難關的，J。——那是她對我的昵稱——“我保證。我仍然不知道那天晚上她為什麼睡在我的房間里，但我很快就會知道她答應我們會度過難關的事情。

A few days after the funeral, I walked onto Mamaw’s front porch, looked down the street, and saw an incredible commotion. Mom was standing in a bath towel in her front yard, screaming at the only people who truly loved her: to Matt, “You’re a fucking loser nobody”; to Lindsay, “You’re a selfish bitch, he was my dad, not yours, so stop acting like you just lost your father”; to Tammy, her unbelievably kind friend who was secretly gay, “The only reason you act like my friend is because you want to fuck me.” I ran over and begged Mom to calm down, but by then a police cruiser was already on the scene. I arrived on the front porch as a police officer grabbed Mom’s shoulders and she collapsed on the ground, struggling and kicking. Then the officer grabbed Mom and carried her to the cruiser, and she fought the whole way. There was blood on the porch, and someone said that she had tried to cut her wrists. I don’t think the officer arrested her, though I don’t know what happened. Mamaw arrived on the scene and took Lindsay and me with her. I remember thinking that if Papaw were here, he would know what to do.

葬禮幾天後，我走到媽媽的前廊，往街上看，看到了令人難以置信的騷動。媽媽站在前院的浴巾里，對著唯一真正愛她的人大喊大叫：對馬特說，「你他媽的是個失敗者」;對琳賽說：「你是個自私的婊子，他是我爸爸，不是你的，所以不要再表現得像你剛剛失去了你的父親」;對她令人難以置信的善良朋友塔米說，“你表現得像我朋友的唯一原因是因為你想操我。我跑過去懇求媽媽冷靜下來，但那時一輛警車已經到了現場。我到達前廊時，一名員警抓住了媽媽的肩膀，她倒在地上，掙扎著踢著。然後軍官抓住媽媽，把她帶到巡洋艦上，她一路戰鬥。門廊上有血跡，有人說她曾試圖割腕。我不認為員警逮捕了她，儘管我不知道發生了什麼。媽媽趕到現場，帶走了琳賽和我。我記得我當時想，如果爸爸在這裡，他會知道該怎麼做。

Papaw’s death cast light upon something that had previously lurked in the shadows. Only a kid could have missed the writing on the wall, I suppose. A year earlier, Mom had lost her job at Middletown Hospital after Rollerblading through the emergency room. At the time I saw Mom’s bizarre behavior as the consequence of her divorce from Bob. Similarly, Mamaw’s occasional references to Mom “getting loaded” seemed like random comments of a woman known for her willingness to say anything, not a diagnosis of a deteriorating reality. Not long after Mom lost her job, during my trip to California, I heard from her just once. I had no idea that, behind the scenes, the adults—meaning Mamaw on the one hand and Uncle Jimmy and his wife, Aunt Donna, on the other—were debating whether I should move permanently to California.

爸爸的死照亮了以前潛伏在陰影中的東西。我想，只有孩子才會錯過牆上的文字。一年前，媽媽在急診室滑旱冰后失去了在米德爾敦醫院的工作。當時我看到媽媽的怪異行為是她與鮑勃離婚的結果。同樣，媽媽偶爾提到媽媽「滿載而歸」，這似乎是一個以願意說什麼而聞名的女人的隨意評論，而不是對不斷惡化的現實的診斷。媽媽失業後不久，在我去加利福尼亞旅行期間，我只收到過一次她的消息。我不知道，在幕後，大人們——一方面是媽媽，另一方面是吉米叔叔和他的妻子唐娜阿姨——正在爭論我是否應該永久搬到加利福尼亞。

Mom flailing and screaming in the street was the culmination of the things I hadn’t seen. She’d begun taking prescription narcotics not long after we moved to Preble County. I believe the problem started with a legitimate prescription, but soon enough, Mom was stealing from her patients and getting so high that turning an emergency room into a skating rink seemed like a good idea. Papaw’s death turned a semi-functioning addict into a woman unable to follow the basic norms of adult behavior.

媽媽在街上揮舞和尖叫是我從未見過的事情的高潮。在我們搬到普雷布爾縣后不久，她就開始服用處方麻醉劑。我相信問題始於合法的處方，但很快，媽媽就從她的病人那裡偷東西，並且變得如此之高，以至於將急診室變成溜冰場似乎是個好主意。爸爸的死把一個半功能的癮君子變成了一個無法遵循成人行為基本規範的女人。

In this way, Papaw’s death permanently altered the trajectory of our family. Before his death, I had settled into the chaotic but happy routine of splitting time between Mom’s and Mamaw’s. Boyfriends came and went, Mom had good days and bad, but I always had an escape route. With Papaw gone and Mom in rehab at the Cincinnati Center for Addiction Treatment—or “the CAT house,” as we called it—I began to feel myself a burden. Though she never said anything to make me feel unwanted, Mamaw’s life had been a constant struggle: From the poverty of the holler to Papaw’s abuse, from Aunt Wee’s teenage marriage to Mom’s rap sheet, Mamaw had spent the better part of her seven decades managing crises. And now, when most people her age were enjoying the fruits of retirement, she was raising two teenage grandchildren. Without Papaw to help her, that burden seemed twice as heavy. In the months after Papaw’s death, I remembered the woman I found in an isolated corner of Deaton’s funeral home and couldn’t shake the feeling that, no matter what aura of strength Mamaw projected, that other woman lived somewhere inside her.

就這樣，爸爸的死永久地改變了我們家庭的軌跡。在他去世之前，我已經習慣了在媽媽和媽媽之間分配時間的混亂但快樂的例行公事。男朋友來來去去，媽媽有好日子也有壞日子，但我總是有一條逃生路線。隨著爸爸的離去，媽媽在辛辛那提成癮治療中心（或我們稱之為“貓屋”）接受康復治療，我開始覺得自己是一個負擔。雖然她從來沒有說過任何讓我感到不受歡迎的話，但媽媽的生活一直是一場持續的掙扎：從吶喊的貧困到爸爸的虐待，從黃阿姨的十幾歲婚姻到媽媽的說唱表，媽媽在她七十年的大部分時間里都在處理危機。而現在，當她這個年紀的大多數人都在享受退休的果即時，她正在撫養兩個十幾歲的孫子。沒有爸爸的幫助，這個負擔似乎加倍沉重。在爸爸死後的幾個月里，我想起了我在迪頓殯儀館一個偏僻的角落裡找到的那個女人，我無法擺脫這種感覺，無論媽媽投射出什麼樣的力量光環，另一個女人都住在她體內的某個地方。

So instead of retreating to Mamaw’s house, or calling her every time problems arose with Mom, I relied on Lindsay and on myself. Lindsay was a recent high school graduate, and I had just started seventh grade, but we made it work. Sometimes Matt or Tammy brought us food, but we largely fended for ourselves: Hamburger Helper, TV dinners, Pop-Tarts, and breakfast cereal. I’m not sure who paid the bills (probably Mamaw). We didn’t have a lot of structure—Lindsay once came home from work to find me hanging out with a couple of her friends, all of us drunk—but in some ways we didn’t need it. When Lindsay learned that I got the beer from a friend of hers, she didn’t lose her cool or laugh at the indulgence; she kicked everyone out and then lectured me on substance abuse.

因此，我沒有退縮到媽媽家，也沒有在媽媽出現問題時都給她打電話，而是依靠琳賽和我自己。琳賽剛高中畢業，而我剛上七年級，但我們做到了。有時馬特或塔米會給我們帶來食物，但我們基本上自生自滅：漢堡包幫手、電視晚餐、流行餡餅和早餐麥片。我不確定誰付了帳單（可能是媽媽）。我們沒有太多的結構——有一次琳賽下班回家，發現我和她的幾個朋友一起出去玩，我們都喝醉了——但在某些方面我們不需要它。當琳賽得知我從她的一個朋友那裡得到啤酒時，她並沒有因為這種放縱而失去冷靜或嘲笑;她把所有人都趕了出去，然後給我講了藥物濫用的問題。

We saw Mamaw often, and she asked about us constantly. But we both enjoyed the independence, and I think we enjoyed the feeling that we burdened no one except perhaps each other. Lindsay and I had grown so good at managing crises, so emotionally stoic even as the very planet seemed to lose its cool, that taking care of ourselves seemed easy. No matter how much we loved Mom, our lives were easier with one less person to care for.

我們經常見到媽媽，她經常問我們。但我們倆都享受著這種獨立，我想我們很享受這種感覺，除了彼此之外，我們沒有給任何人帶來負擔。琳賽和我變得如此善於管理危機，即使這個星球似乎失去了冷靜，在情感上也如此堅忍，以至於照顧好自己似乎很容易。無論我們多麼愛媽媽，我們的生活都更輕鬆，少了一個需要照顧的人。

Did we struggle? Certainly. We received one letter from the school district informing us that I had collected so many unexcused absences that my parents might be summoned before the school or even prosecuted by the city. We found this letter hilarious: One of my parents had already faced a prosecution of sorts and hardly possessed any walking-around liberty, while the other was sufficiently off the grid that “summoning” him would require some serious detective work. We also found it frightening: Without a legal guardian around to sign the letter, we didn’t know what the hell to do. But as we had with other challenges, we improvised. Lindsay forged Mom’s signature, and the school district stopped sending letters home.

我們掙扎過嗎？當然。我們收到了一封來自學區的信，通知我們我收集了太多無故缺勤，我的父母可能會被傳喚到學校，甚至被市政府起訴。我們覺得這封信很搞笑：我的父母之一已經面臨某種起訴，幾乎沒有任何走動的自由，而另一個則完全脫離了電網，“召喚”他需要一些嚴肅的偵探工作。我們還發現這很可怕：沒有法定監護人在信上簽字，我們不知道該怎麼做。但正如我們面對其他挑戰一樣，我們即興發揮。琳賽偽造了媽媽的簽名，學區也停止了給家裡寄信。

On designated weekdays and weekends, we visited our mother at the CAT house. Between the hills of Kentucky, Mamaw and her guns, and Mom’s outbursts, I thought that I had seen it all. But Mom’s newest problem exposed me to the underworld of American addiction. Wednesdays were always dedicated to a group activity—some type of training for the family. All of the addicts and their families sat in a large room with each family assigned to an individual table, engaged in some discussion meant to teach us about addiction and its triggers. In one session, Mom explained that she used drugs to escape the stress of paying bills and to dull the pain of Papaw’s death. In another, Lindsay and I learned that standard sibling conflict made it more difficult for Mom to resist temptation.

在指定的工作日和周末，我們去貓家看望我們的母親。在肯塔基州的山丘之間，在媽媽和她的槍之間，在媽媽的爆發之間，我以為我已經看到了這一切。但媽媽的最新問題讓我接觸到了美國成癮的黑社會。星期三總是專門用於集體活動——某種類型的家庭培訓。所有的癮君子和他們的家人都坐在一個大房間里，每個家庭都被分配到一張單獨的桌子上，進行一些討論，旨在教我們關於成癮及其觸發因素的知識。在一次會議中，媽媽解釋說，她使用毒品來逃避支付帳單的壓力，並減輕爸爸死亡的痛苦。在另一篇文章中，琳賽和我瞭解到，標準的兄弟姐妹衝突使媽媽更難抗拒誘惑。

These sessions provoked little more than arguments and raw emotion, which I suppose was their purpose. On the nights when we sat in that giant hall with other families—all of whom were either black or Southern-accented whites like us—we heard screaming and fighting, children telling their parents that they hated them, sobbing parents begging forgiveness in one breath and then blaming their families in the next. It was there that I first heard Lindsay tell Mom how she resented having to play the caretaker in the wake of Papaw’s death instead of grieving for him, how she hated watching me grow attached to some boyfriend of Mom’s only to see him walk out on us. Perhaps it was the setting, or perhaps it was the fact that Lindsay was almost eighteen, but as my sister confronted my mother, I began to see my sister as the real adult. And our routine at home only enhanced her stature.

這些會議只引發了爭論和原始的情緒，我想這就是他們的目的。在那天晚上，當我們和其他家庭坐在那個巨大的大廳裡時——他們都是像我們一樣的黑人或南方口音的白人——我們聽到尖叫和打架，孩子們告訴他們的父母他們討厭他們，抽泣的父母一口氣乞求原諒，然後下一口氣責怪他們的家人。正是在那裡，我第一次聽到琳賽告訴媽媽，她多麼憎恨在爸爸去世后不得不扮演看護人，而不是為他悲傷，她多麼討厭看著我對媽媽的某個男朋友越來越依戀，卻看到他離開我們。也許是環境的原因，也許是琳賽快十八歲了，但當我姐姐面對我母親時，我開始把我姐姐視為真正的成年人。我們在家裡的例行公事只會提高她的身材。

Mom’s rehab proceeded apace, and her condition apparently improved with time. Sundays were designated as unstructured family time: We couldn’t take Mom off-site, but we were able to eat and watch TV and talk as normal. Sundays were usually happy, though Mom did angrily chide us during one visit because our relationship with Mamaw had grown too close. “I’m your mother, not her,” she told us. I realized that Mom had begun to regret the seeds she’d sown with Lindsay and me.

媽媽的康復進展迅速，隨著時間的推移，她的病情明顯好轉。星期天被指定為非結構化的家庭時間：我們不能帶媽媽離開現場，但我們可以像往常一樣吃飯、看電視和聊天。星期天通常很快樂，儘管媽媽在一次拜訪中生氣地責備了我們，因為我們和媽媽的關係變得太親密了。“我是你的母親，不是她，”她告訴我們。我意識到媽媽已經開始後悔她和琳賽和我一起播下的種子。

When Mom came home a few months later, she brought a new vocabulary along with her. She regularly recited the Serenity Prayer, a staple of addiction circles in which the faithful ask God for the “serenity to accept the things [they] cannot change.” Drug addiction was a disease, and just as I wouldn’t judge a cancer patient for a tumor, so I shouldn’t judge a narcotics addict for her behavior. At thirteen, I found this patently absurd, and Mom and I often argued over whether her newfound wisdom was scientific truth or an excuse for people whose decisions destroyed a family. Oddly enough, it’s probably both: Research does reveal a genetic disposition to substance abuse, but those who believe their addiction is a disease show less of an inclination to resist it. Mom was telling herself the truth, but the truth was not setting her free.

幾個月後，當媽媽回到家時，她帶來了一個新詞彙。她經常背誦寧靜祈禱文，這是成癮圈子的主要內容，信徒們在其中祈求上帝“平靜地接受[他們]無法改變的事情”。吸毒成癮是一種疾病，就像我不會因為腫瘤而評判癌症患者一樣，我也不應該因為吸毒成癮者的行為而評判她。十三歲時，我發現這顯然是荒謬的，媽媽和我經常爭論她新發現的智慧是科學真理，還是那些決定毀了家庭的人的藉口。奇怪的是，這可能是兩者兼而有之：研究確實揭示了藥物濫用的遺傳傾向，但那些認為自己的成癮是一種疾病的人表現出較少的抵抗傾向。媽媽告訴自己真相，但真相並沒有讓她自由。

I didn’t believe in any of the slogans or sentiments, but I did believe she was trying. Addiction treatment seemed to give Mom a sense of purpose, and it gave us something to bond over. I read what I could on her “disease” and even made a habit of attending some of her Narcotics Anonymous meetings, which proceeded precisely as you’d expect: a depressing conference room, a dozen or so chairs, and a bunch of strangers sitting in a circle, introducing themselves as “Bob, and I’m an addict.” I thought that if I participated, she might actually get better.

我不相信任何口號或情緒，但我確實相信她在努力。成癮治療似乎給了媽媽一種目標感，它給了我們一些可以聯繫的東西。我閱讀了關於她的“疾病”的文章，甚至養成了參加她的一些匿名麻醉品會議的習慣，這些會議的進行完全符合你的預期：一個令人沮喪的會議室，十幾把椅子，一群陌生人圍成一圈，介紹自己是“鮑勃，我是個癮君子。我想如果我參加，她可能會變得更好。

At one meeting a man walked in a few minutes late, smelling like a garbage can. His matted hair and dirty clothes evidenced a life on the streets, a truth he confirmed as soon as he opened his mouth. “My kids won’t speak to me; no one will,” he told us. “I scrounge together what money I can and spend it on smack. Tonight I couldn’t find any money or any smack, so I came in here because it looked warm.” The organizer asked if he’d be willing to try giving up the drugs for more than one night, and the man answered with admirable candor: “I could say yes, but honestly, probably not. I’ll probably be back at it tomorrow night.”

在一次會議上，一個男人遲到了幾分鐘，聞起來像垃圾桶。他亂蓬蓬的頭髮和髒兮兮的衣服證明了街頭生活，他一開口就證實了這個事實。“我的孩子不會和我說話;沒有人會，“他告訴我們。“我把我能賺到的錢都湊在一起，然後花在啪上。今晚我找不到錢，也找不到任何錢，所以我來到這裡，因為它看起來很暖和。召集人問他是否願意嘗試戒毒超過一晚，這名男子以令人欽佩的坦率回答：“我可以說是的，但老實說，可能不會。我明天晚上可能會回來。

I never saw that man again. Before he left, someone did ask him where he was from. “Well, I’ve lived here in Hamilton for most of my life. But I was born down in eastern Kentucky, Owsley County.” At the time, I didn’t know enough about Kentucky geography to tell the man that he had been born no more than twenty miles from my grandparents’ childhood home.

我再也沒有見過那個人。在他離開之前，確實有人問他來自哪裡。“嗯，我一生中的大部分時間都住在漢密爾頓。但我出生在肯塔基州東部的歐斯利縣。當時，我對肯塔基州的地理了解還不夠，無法告訴那個人，他出生在離我祖父母童年的家不超過二十英里的地方。

Chapter 8

第8章

By the time I finished eighth grade, Mom had been sober for at least a year, and she’d been dating Matt for two or three years. I was doing well in school, and Mamaw had taken a couple vacations—one trip to California to visit Uncle Jimmy and another to Las Vegas with her friend Kathy. Lindsay had married soon after Papaw’s death. I loved her husband, Kevin, and still do, for a simple reason: He never mistreated her. That’s all I ever wanted in a mate for my sister. Just under a year after their wedding, Lindsay gave birth to her son, Kameron. She was a mom, and a damn good one at that. I was proud of her, and I adored my new nephew. Aunt Wee also had two small children, which gave me three little kids to dote on. I saw all of this as a sign of family renewal. The summer before high school was thus a hopeful one.

到我讀完八年級的時候，媽媽已經清醒了至少一年，她已經和馬特約會了兩三年。我在學校表現很好，媽媽也放了幾個假——一次去加利福尼亞看望吉米叔叔，另一次和她的朋友凱西一起去拉斯維加斯。琳賽在爸爸死後不久就結婚了。我愛她的丈夫凱文，現在仍然如此，原因很簡單：他從未虐待過她。這就是我想要的姐姐的伴侶。婚後不到一年，琳賽生下了她的兒子卡梅隆。她是個媽媽，而且是個該死的好媽媽。我為她感到驕傲，我崇拜我的新侄子。黃阿姨還有兩個小孩，這給了我三個小孩可以寵愛。我把這一切都看作是家庭更新的標誌。因此，高中前的暑假是一個充滿希望的暑假。

That same summer, however, Mom announced that I’d be moving in with Matt in his Dayton home. I liked Matt, and by then Mom had lived in Dayton with him for a little while. But Dayton was a forty-five-minute drive from Mamaw’s, and Mom made it clear that she wanted me to attend school in Dayton. I liked my life in Middletown—I wanted to attend the high school, I loved my friends, and although it was a bit unconventional, I enjoyed splitting time between Mom’s and Mamaw’s houses during the week and hanging out with Dad on the weekends. Importantly, I could always go to Mamaw’s house if I needed to, and that made all the difference. I remembered life when I didn’t have that safety valve, and I didn’t want to go back to those days. Moreover, any move would be without Lindsay and Kameron. So when Mom made her announcement about moving in with Matt, I belted out, “Absolutely not,” and stormed away.

然而，同年夏天，媽媽宣佈我要和馬特一起搬進他代頓的家。我喜歡馬特，那時媽媽已經和他一起在代頓住了一段時間。但代頓離媽媽家有四十五分鐘的車程，媽媽明確表示她希望我在代頓上學。我喜歡我在米德爾敦的生活——我想上高中，我愛我的朋友，雖然這有點不合常規，但我喜歡在一周內在媽媽和媽媽的房子里分配時間，週末和爸爸一起出去玩。重要的是，如果需要，我可以隨時去媽媽家，這讓一切變得不同。我記得我沒有那個安全閥的生活，我不想回到那些日子。此外，任何舉動都將沒有琳賽和卡梅隆。因此，當媽媽宣佈要搬去和馬特同住時，我大聲說，“絕對不會”，然後衝了出去。

Mom drew from this conversation that I had anger problems and scheduled a time for me to meet with her therapist. I didn’t know she had a therapist or the money to afford one, but I agreed to meet with this lady. Our first meeting took place the following week in a musty old office near Dayton, Ohio, where a nondescript middle-aged woman, Mom, and I tried to understand why I was so angry. I recognized that human beings aren’t very good at judging themselves: I may have been wrong that I was no angrier (in fact, considerably less so) than most of the people in my life. Maybe Mom was right and I did have some anger problems. I tried to keep an open mind. If nothing else, I thought, this woman might give Mom and me an opportunity to get everything in the open.

媽媽從這次談話中得知我有憤怒問題，並安排了時間讓我與她的治療師見面。我不知道她有治療師，也沒有錢買得起，但我同意和這位女士見面。接下來的一周，我們的第一次見面在俄亥俄州代頓附近的一間發黴的舊辦公室里舉行，在那裡，一個不起眼的中年婦女，媽媽和我試圖理解我為什麼這麼生氣。我認識到人類並不善於評判自己：我可能錯了，我並不比我生命中的大多數人更生氣（事實上，要少得多）。也許媽媽是對的，我確實有一些憤怒問題。我試著保持開放的心態。我想，如果不出意外的話，這個女人可能會給媽媽和我一個機會，把一切都公開。

But that first session felt like an ambush. Immediately, the woman began asking why I would scream at my mother and storm off, why I didn’t recognize that she was my mother and that I had to live with her by law. The therapist chronicled “outbursts” that I’d allegedly had, some going back to a time I couldn’t remember—the time I threw a tantrum in a department store as a five-year-old, my fight with another child in school (the school bully, whom I didn’t want to punch but did so at Mamaw’s encouragement), the times I’d run from home to my grandparents’ house because of Mom’s “discipline.” Clearly this woman had developed an impression of me based solely on what Mom had told her. If I didn’t have an anger problem before, I did now.

但第一次會議感覺就像是一場伏擊。那個女人立刻開始問我為什麼會對著我母親大喊大叫然後暴走，為什麼我不承認她是我的母親，我必須依法和她住在一起。治療師記錄了我據稱有過的“爆發”，有些可以追溯到我不記得的那段時間——我五歲時在百貨公司發脾氣，我在學校里和另一個孩子打架（學校惡霸，我不想打他，但在媽媽的鼓勵下打了他），我因為媽媽的“管教”而從家裡跑到祖父母家的次數。顯然，這個女人對我的印象完全是基於媽媽告訴她的話。如果我以前沒有憤怒問題，我現在有。

“Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?” I asked. At fourteen, I knew at least a little about professional ethics. “Aren’t you supposed to ask me what I think about things and not just criticize me?” I launched into an hour-long summary of my life to that point. I didn’t tell the whole story, since I knew I had to choose my words carefully: During Mom’s domestic violence case a couple of years earlier, Lindsay and I had let slip some unsavory details about Mom’s parenting, and because it counted as a new revelation of abuse, the family counselor was required to report it to child services. So I didn’t miss the irony of lying to a therapist (to protect Mom) lest I ignite another intervention by the county children’s services. I explained the situation well enough: After an hour, she said simply, “Perhaps we should meet alone.”

你知道你在說什麼嗎？”我問。十四歲時，我至少對職業道德有所瞭解。“難道你不應該問我對事情的看法，而不僅僅是批評我嗎？”那時，我開始對我的生活進行長達一個小時的總結。我沒有說出整個故事，因為我知道我必須謹慎選擇措辭：在幾年前媽媽的家庭暴力案件中，琳賽和我洩露了一些關於媽媽養育子女的令人討厭的細節，因為這算作虐待的新啟示，家庭顧問被要求向兒童服務部門報告。因此，我沒有錯過對治療師撒謊（以保護媽媽）的諷刺意味，以免我引發縣兒童服務機構的另一次干預。我把情況解釋得很清楚：一個小時后，她簡單地說，「也許我們應該單獨見面。

I saw this woman as an obstacle to overcome—an obstacle placed by Mom—not as someone who might help. I explained only half of my feelings: that I had no interest in putting a forty-five-minute barrier between me and everyone I had ever depended on so I could replant myself with a man I knew would be sent packing. The therapist obviously understood. What I didn’t tell her is that for the first time in my life, I felt trapped. There was no Papaw, and Mamaw—a longtime smoker with the emphysema to prove it—seemed too frail and exhausted to care for a fourteen-year-old boy. My aunt and uncle had two young kids. Lindsay was newly married and had a child of her own. I had nowhere to go. I’d seen chaos and fighting, violence, drugs, and a great deal of instability. But I’d never felt like I had no way out. When the therapist asked me what I’d do, I replied that I would probably go live with my dad. She said that this sounded like a good idea. When I walked out of her office, I thanked her for her time and knew that I’d never see her again.

我把這個女人看作是需要克服的障礙——是媽媽設置的障礙——而不是一個可以提供説明的人。我只解釋了我一半的感受：我沒有興趣在我和我曾經依賴的每個人之間設置四十五分鐘的障礙，這樣我就可以重新安置一個我知道會被打包的男人。治療師顯然明白了。我沒有告訴她的是，我有生以來第一次感到被困住了。沒有爸爸，媽媽——一個長期吸煙、患有肺氣腫的人——似乎太虛弱了，筋疲力盡，無法照顧一個十四歲的男孩。我的阿姨和叔叔有兩個年幼的孩子。琳賽新婚不久，有了自己的孩子。我無處可去。我見過混亂和戰鬥、暴力、毒品和大量的不穩定。但我從未覺得自己沒有出路。當治療師問我會做什麼時，我回答說我可能會和我爸爸住在一起。她說這聽起來是個好主意。當我走出她的辦公室時，我感謝她抽出時間，並知道我再也見不到她了。

Mom had a massive blind spot in the way that she perceived the world. That she would ask me to move with her to Dayton, that she seemed genuinely surprised by my resistance, and that she would subject me to such a one-sided introduction to a therapist meant that Mom didn’t understand something about the way that Lindsay and I ticked. Lindsay once told me, “Mom just doesn’t get it.” I initially disagreed with her: “Of course she gets it; it’s just the way she is, something she can’t change.” After the incident with the therapist, I knew that Lindsay was right.

媽媽在感知世界的方式上有一個巨大的盲點。她會要求我和她一起搬到代頓，她似乎真的對我的抗拒感到驚訝，她會讓我接受如此片面的治療師介紹，這意味著媽媽對琳賽和我打勾的方式有些不瞭解。琳賽曾經告訴我，「媽媽就是不明白。我最初不同意她的觀點：「她當然明白;她就是這樣，她無法改變。在與治療師的事件發生后，我知道琳賽是對的。

Mamaw was unhappy when I told her that I planned to live with Dad, and so was everyone else. No one really understood it, and I felt unable to say much about it. I knew that if I told the truth, I’d have a few people offering their spare bedrooms, and all of them would submit to Mamaw’s demand that I live permanently with her. I also knew that living with Mamaw came with a lot of guilt, and a lot of questions about why I didn’t live with my mom or dad, and a lot of whispers from a lot of people to Mamaw that she just needed to take a break and enjoy her golden years. That feeling of being a burden to Mamaw wasn’t something I imagined; it came from a number of small cues, from the things she muttered under her breath, and from the weariness she wore like a dark piece of clothing. I didn’t want that, so I chose what seemed like the least bad option.

當我告訴她我打算和爸爸住在一起時，媽媽很不高興，其他人也是如此。沒有人真正理解它，我覺得不能說太多。我知道，如果我說實話，我會有幾個人提供他們的空餘臥室，他們都會服從媽媽的要求，讓我永遠和她住在一起。我也知道和媽媽住在一起會帶來很多內疚，還有很多關於我為什麼不和媽媽或爸爸住在一起的問題，很多人對媽媽說她只是需要休息一下，享受她的黃金歲月。那種成為媽媽負擔的感覺不是我想像的;它來自一些小線索，來自她低聲嘀咕的東西，來自她穿著像一件深色衣服一樣的疲憊。我不想這樣，所以我選擇了看起來最不壞的選擇。

In some ways, I loved living with Dad. His life was normal in precisely the way I’d always wanted mine to be. My stepmom worked part-time but was usually home. Dad came home from work around the same time each day. One of them (usually my stepmom but sometimes Dad) made dinner every night, which we ate as a family. Before each meal, we’d say grace (something I’d always liked but had never done outside of Kentucky). On weeknights, we’d watch some family sitcom together. And Dad and Cheryl never screamed at each other. Once, I heard them raise their voices during an argument about money, but slightly elevated volumes were far different from screaming.

在某些方面，我喜歡和爸爸住在一起。他的生活很正常，正是我一直希望我的生活。我的繼母做兼職，但通常在家。爸爸每天差不多在同一時間下班回家。其中一個（通常是我的繼母，但有時是爸爸）每天晚上做晚餐，我們一家人一起吃。每頓飯前，我們都會說恩典（我一直很喜歡，但在肯塔基州以外的地方從未做過）。在工作日的晚上，我們會一起看一些家庭情景喜劇。爸爸和謝麗爾從不互相尖叫。有一次，我聽到他們在關於金錢的爭吵中提高了聲音，但稍微高一點的音量與尖叫大不相同。

On my first weekend at Dad’s house—the first weekend I had ever spent with him when I knew that, come Monday, I wouldn’t be going somewhere else—my younger brother invited a friend to sleep over. We fished in Dad’s pond, fed horses, and grilled steaks for dinner. That night, we watched Indiana Jones movies until the early-morning hours. There was no fighting, no adults hurling insults at one another, no glass china shattering angrily against the wall or floor. It was a boring evening. And it epitomized what attracted me to Dad’s home.

在我去爸爸家的第一個週末——這是我和他一起度過的第一個週末，因為我知道星期一我不會去別的地方——我的弟弟邀請了一個朋友過來過夜。我們在爸爸的池塘里釣魚，喂馬，烤牛排當晚餐。那天晚上，我們看了印第安那鐘斯的電影，直到淩晨。沒有打架，沒有成年人互相辱駡，沒有玻璃瓷器憤怒地砸在牆上或地板上。那是一個無聊的夜晚。它集中體現了吸引我到爸爸家的原因。

What I never lost, though, was the sense of being on guard. When I moved in with my father, I’d known him for two years. I knew that he was a good man, a little quiet, a devout Christian from a very strict religious tradition. When we first reconnected, he made it clear that he didn’t care for my taste in classic rock, especially Led Zeppelin. He wasn’t mean about it—that wasn’t his style—and he didn’t tell me I couldn’t listen to my favorite bands; he just advised that I listen to Christian rock instead. I could never tell my dad that I played a nerdy collectible card game called Magic, because I feared he’d think the cards were satanic—after all, kids at the church youth group often spoke of Magic and its evil influence on young Christians. And as most teenagers do, I had so many questions about my faith—whether it was compatible with modern science, for instance, or whether this or that denomination was correct on particular doctrinal disputes.

然而，我從未失去的是警惕感。當我和父親一起搬進來時，我已經認識他兩年了。我知道他是個好人，有點安靜，是一個虔誠的基督徒，有著非常嚴格的宗教傳統。當我們第一次重新聯繫時，他明確表示他不在乎我對經典搖滾的品味，尤其是齊柏林飛艇。他並不刻薄——那不是他的風格——他也沒有告訴我我不能聽我最喜歡的樂隊;他只是建議我聽基督教搖滾樂。我從來不會告訴爸爸，我玩過一個名叫「魔術」的書收藏卡牌遊戲，因為我擔心他會認為這些牌是撒旦的——畢竟，教會青年團體的兒童經常談論魔法及其對年輕基督徒的邪惡影響。和大多數青少年一樣，我對自己的信仰有很多疑問——例如，它是否與現代科學相容，或者這個或那個教派在特定的教義爭議上是否正確。

I doubt he would have gotten upset if I’d asked those questions, but I never did because I didn’t know how he’d respond. I didn’t know whether he’d tell me I was a spawn of Satan and send me away. I didn’t know how much of our new relationship was built on his sense that I was a good kid. I didn’t know how he’d react if I listened to those Zeppelin CDs in his house with my younger siblings around. That not knowing gnawed at me to the point where I could no longer take it.

我懷疑如果我問這些問題，他會生氣，但我從來沒有這樣做，因為我不知道他會如何回應。我不知道他會不會告訴我我是撒旦的後裔，然後把我送走。我不知道我們的新關係有多少是建立在他覺得我是個好孩子的基礎上的。我不知道如果我在他家裡和我的弟弟妹妹一起聽那些齊柏林飛艇的CD，他會有什麼反應。這種不知道啃噬著我，以至於我再也無法忍受。

I think Mamaw understood what was going on in my head, even though I never told her explicitly. We spoke on the phone frequently, and one night she told me that I had to know she loved me more than anything and she wanted me to return home when I was ready. “This is your home, J.D., and always will be.” The next day, I called Lindsay and asked her to come and get me. She had a job, a house, a husband, and a baby. But she said, “I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.” I apologized to Dad, who was heartbroken by my decision. But he understood: “You can’t stay away from that crazy grandma of yours. I know she’s good to you.” It was a stunning admission from a man to whom Mamaw never said a nice word. And it was the first indication that Dad understood the complex and conflicting feelings I’d developed. That meant a great deal to me. When Lindsay and her family came to get me, I got in the car, sighed, and said to her, “Thanks for taking me home.” I gave my infant nephew a kiss on the forehead and said nothing else until we got to Mamaw’s.

我想媽媽明白我腦子裡在想什麼，儘管我從來沒有明確告訴她。我們經常通電話，有一天晚上，她告訴我，我必須知道她愛我勝過一切，她希望我在準備好後回家。“這是你的家，J.D.，永遠都是。第二天，我打電話給琳賽，讓她來接我。她有工作，有房子，有丈夫，有孩子。但她說，“我四十五分鐘后就到。我向爸爸道歉，爸爸對我的決定傷心欲絕。但他明白：「你不能遠離你那個瘋狂的奶奶。我知道她對你很好。這是一個令人震驚的承認，來自一個媽媽從未說過一句好話的人。這是爸爸理解我所形成的複雜而矛盾的感情的第一個跡象。這對我來說意義重大。當琳賽和她的家人來接我時，我上了車，嘆了口氣，對她說：“謝謝你帶我回家。我吻了一下我繈褓中的侄子的額頭，然後什麼也沒說，直到我們到了媽媽家。

I spent the rest of the summer mostly with Mamaw. A few weeks with Dad had given me no epiphanies: I still felt caught between a desire to stay with her and a fear that my presence was depriving her of the comforts of old age. So before my freshman year started, I told Mom that I’d live with her so long as I could stay in Middletown’s schools and see Mamaw whenever I wanted. She said something about needing to transfer to a Dayton school after my freshman year, but I figured we’d cross that bridge in a year, when we had to.

我整個夏天大部分時間都和媽媽在一起。和爸爸在一起的幾個星期並沒有給我頓悟：我仍然感到兩難境地想和她在一起，害怕我的存在剝奪了她老年的舒適感。所以在我大一開始之前，我告訴媽媽，只要我能留在米德爾敦的學校，只要我能見到媽媽，我就會和她住在一起。她說我大一畢業后需要轉學到代頓的一所學校，但我想我們會在一年內跨過那座橋，那時我們必須這樣做。

Living with Mom and Matt was like having a front-row seat to the end of the world. The fighting was relatively normal by my standards (and Mom’s), but I’m sure poor Matt kept asking himself how and when he’d hopped the express train to crazy town. It was just the three of us in that house, and it was clear to all that it wouldn’t work out. It was only a matter of time. Matt was a nice guy, and as Lindsay and I joked, nice guys never survived their encounters with our family.

和媽媽和馬特住在一起，就像坐在世界盡頭的前排座位上一樣。按照我（和媽媽）的標準，戰鬥是相對正常的，但我敢肯定，可憐的馬特一直在問自己，他是如何以及何時跳上特快列車前往瘋狂小鎮的。那所房子里只有我們三個人，所有人都清楚這不會成功。這隻是時間問題。馬特是個好人，正如琳賽和我開玩笑說的那樣，好人從來沒有在與我們家人的相遇中倖存下來。

Given the state of Mom and Matt’s relationship, I was surprised when I came home from school one day early during my sophomore year and Mom announced that she was getting married. Perhaps, I thought, things weren’t quite as bad as I expected. “I honestly thought you and Matt were going to break up,” I said. “You fight every day.” “Well,” she replied, “I’m not getting married to him.”

考慮到媽媽和馬特的關係狀況，當我在大二的一天提前放學回家時，媽媽宣佈她要結婚了，我感到很驚訝。也許，我想，事情並不像我想像的那麼糟糕。“老實說，我以為你和馬特要分手了，”我說。“你每天都在戰鬥。”“好吧，”她回答說，“我不會和他結婚的。

It was a story that even I found incredible. Mom had been working as a nurse at a local dialysis center, a job she’d held for a few months. Her boss, about ten years her senior, asked her out to dinner one night. She obliged, and with her relationship in shambles, she agreed to marry him a week later. She told me on a Thursday. On Saturday we moved into Ken’s house. His home was my fourth in two years.

這是一個連我都覺得不可思議的故事。媽媽在當地一家透析中心當護士，這份工作她已經做了幾個月。一天晚上，她的老闆比她大十歲，約她出去吃飯。她答應了，在她的關係一團糟的情況下，她同意在一周後嫁給他。她在星期四告訴我。星期六，我們搬進了肯的房子。他的家是我兩年來的第四個家。

Ken was born in Korea but raised by an American veteran and his wife. During that first week in his house, I decided to inspect his small greenhouse and stumbled upon a relatively mature marijuana plant. I told Mom, who told Ken, and by the end of the day it had been replaced with a tomato plant. When I confronted Ken, he stammered a bit and finally said, “It’s for medicinal purposes, don’t worry about it.”

Ken 出生於韓國，但由一位美國退伍軍人和他的妻子撫養長大。在他家的第一周，我決定檢查他的小溫室，偶然發現了一株相對成熟的大麻植物。我告訴了媽媽，媽媽也告訴了肯，到一天結束時，它已經被西紅柿植物取代了。當我面對肯時，他有點結結巴巴，最後說：“這是藥用目的，不用擔心。

Ken’s three children—a young girl and two boys about the same age I was—found the new arrangement as strange as I did. The oldest boy fought constantly with Mom, which—thanks to the Appalachian honor code—meant that he fought constantly with me. Shortly before I went to bed one night, I came downstairs just as he called her a bitch. No self-respecting hillbilly could stand idly by, so I made it abundantly clear that I meant to beat my new stepbrother to within an inch of his life. So unquenchable was my appetite for violence that night that Mom and Ken decided that my new stepbrother and I should be separated. I wasn’t even particularly angry. My desire to fight arose more out of a sense of duty. But it was a strong sense of duty, so Mom and I went to Mamaw’s for the night.

肯的三個孩子——一個年輕女孩和兩個和我年齡差不多的男孩——和我一樣覺得這種新安排很奇怪。大男孩經常和媽媽打架，這要歸功於阿巴拉契亞的榮譽守則，這意味著他經常和我打架。一天晚上睡覺前不久，我下樓時，他罵她是婊子。沒有一個有自尊心的鄉巴佬可以袖手旁觀，所以我非常明確地表示，我的意思是要把我的新繼兄弟打到他生命的一英寸以內。那天晚上，我對暴力的慾望是如此的強烈，以至於媽媽和肯決定我和我的新繼兄弟應該分開。我甚至沒有特別生氣。我戰鬥的慾望更多地是出於一種責任感。但這是一種強烈的責任感，所以媽媽和我去媽媽家過夜。

I remember watching an episode of The West Wing about education in America, which the majority of people rightfully believe is the key to opportunity. In it, the fictional president debates whether he should push school vouchers (giving public money to schoolchildren so that they escape failing public schools) or instead focus exclusively on fixing those same failing schools. That debate is important, of course—for a long time, much of my failing school district qualified for vouchers—but it was striking that in an entire discussion about why poor kids struggled in school, the emphasis rested entirely on public institutions. As a teacher at my old high school told me recently, “They want us to be shepherds to these kids. But no one wants to talk about the fact that many of them are raised by wolves.”

我記得看過一集關於美國教育的《西翼》，大多數人理所當然地認為這是機會的關鍵。在書中，虛構的總統辯論他是否應該推動教育券（向學童提供公共資金，以便他們逃離失敗的公立學校），還是只專注於修復那些失敗的學校。當然，這場辯論很重要——在很長一段時間里，我所在的大部分不及格學區都有資格獲得代金券——但令人驚訝的是，在關於為什麼貧困孩子在學校掙扎的整個討論中，重點完全集中在公共機構上。正如我以前高中的一位老師最近告訴我的那樣，“他們希望我們成為這些孩子的牧羊人。但沒有人願意談論他們中的許多人是由狼撫養長大的事實。

I don’t know what happened the day after Mom and I escaped Ken’s to Mamaw’s for the night. Maybe I had a test that I wasn’t able to study for. Maybe I had a homework assignment due that I never had the time to complete. What I do know is that I was a sophomore in high school, and I was miserable. The constant moving and fighting, the seemingly endless carousel of new people I had to meet, learn to love, and then forget—this, and not my subpar public school, was the real barrier to opportunity.

我不知道我和媽媽從肯家逃到媽媽家過夜的第二天發生了什麼。也許我有一個我無法學習的考試。也許我有一個家庭作業，因為我從來沒有時間完成。我所知道的是，我是高中二年級的學生，我很痛苦。不斷的搬家和爭吵，看似無休止的新朋友的旋轉木馬，我必須結識，學會愛，然後忘記——這，而不是我那所不合格的公立學校，才是機會的真正障礙。

I didn’t know it, but I was close to the precipice. I had nearly failed out of my freshmen year of high school, earning a 2.1 GPA. I didn’t do my homework, I didn’t study, and my attendance was abysmal. Some days I’d fake an illness, and others I’d just refuse to go. When I did go, I did so only to avoid a repeat of the letters the school had sent home a few years earlier—the ones that said if I didn’t go to school, the administration would be forced to refer my case to county social services.

我不知道，但我離懸崖很近。我在高中一年級幾乎不及格，GPA 為 2.1。我沒有做作業，沒有學習，出勤率也很糟糕。有些日子我會假裝生病，有些日子我只是拒絕去。當我去的時候，我這樣做只是為了避免重蹈學校幾年前寄回家的覆轍——那些信說，如果我不去上學，行政部門將被迫將我的案子轉介給縣社會服務機構。

Along with my abysmal school record came drug experimentation—nothing hard, just what alcohol I could get my hands on and a stash of weed that Ken’s son and I found. Final proof, I suppose, that I did know the difference between a tomato plant and marijuana.

伴隨著我糟糕的學習成績而來的還有藥物實驗——沒什麼難的，只是我能拿到什麼酒，還有我和肯的兒子找到的一堆大麻。我想，最後的證據是，我確實知道番茄植物和大麻之間的區別。

For the first time in my life, I felt detached from Lindsay. She’d been married well over a year and had a toddler. There was something heroic about Lindsay’s marriage—that after everything she’d witnessed, she’d ended up with someone who treated her well and had a decent job. Lindsay seemed genuinely happy. She was a good mom who doted on her young son. She had a little house not far from Mamaw’s and seemed to be finding her way.

我有生以來第一次感到與琳賽分離。她結婚一年多了，有一個蹣跚學步的孩子。琳賽的婚姻有一些英雄主義的東西——在她目睹了一切之後，她最終得到了一個對她很好並有一份體面工作的人。琳賽似乎真的很開心。她是一個溺愛年幼兒子的好媽媽。她在離媽媽家不遠的地方有一棟小房子，似乎正在找路。

Though I felt happy for my sister, her new life heightened my sense of separation. For my entire existence, we had lived under the same roof, but now she lived in Middletown, and I lived with Ken about twenty miles away. While Lindsay built a life almost in opposition to the one she left behind—she would be a good mother, she would have a successful marriage (and only one)—I found myself mired in the things that both of us hated. While Lindsay and her new husband took trips to Florida and California, I was stuck in a stranger’s house in Miamisburg, Ohio.

雖然我為姐姐感到高興，但她的新生活加劇了我的分離感。在我的一生中，我們一直住在同一個屋簷下，但現在她住在米德爾敦，我和肯住在大約二十英里外。雖然琳賽的生活幾乎與她留下的生活背道而馳——她會成為一個好母親，她會有一個成功的婚姻（而且只有一個）——但我發現自己陷入了我們倆都討厭的事情中。當琳賽和她的新丈夫去佛羅里達和加利福尼亞旅行時，我被困在俄亥俄州邁阿密斯堡的一個陌生人家裡。

Chapter 9

第9章

Mamaw knew little of how this arrangement affected me, partly by design. During a long Christmas break, just a couple of months after I’d moved in with my new stepfather, I called her to complain. But when she answered, I could hear the voices of family in the background—my aunt, I thought, and cousin Gail, and perhaps some others. The background noise suggested holiday merriment, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her what I had called to say: that I loathed living with these strangers and that everything that had made my life to that point tolerable—the reprieve of her house, the company of my sister—had apparently vanished. I asked her to tell everyone whose voice I heard in the background that I loved them, and then I hung up the phone and marched upstairs to watch TV. I had never felt so alone. Happily, I continued to attend Middletown’s schools, which kept me in touch with my school friends and gave me an excuse to spend a few hours at Mamaw’s. During active school sessions, I saw her a few times a week, and every time I did, she reminded me of the importance of doing well academically. She often remarked that if anyone in our family “made it,” it would be me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her what was really happening. I was supposed to be a lawyer or a doctor or a businessman, not a high school dropout. But I was much closer to dropping out than I was to anything else.

媽媽對這種安排對我有多大影響知之甚少，部分原因是有意為之。在一個漫長的聖誕假期里，就在我和我的新繼父搬進來幾個月後，我打電話給她抱怨。但當她回答時，我能聽到背景中傳來家人的聲音——我想，我的姨媽和表妹蓋爾，也許還有其他一些人。背景的喧囂暗示著節日的歡樂，我沒有心思告訴她我打電話要說的話：我討厭和這些陌生人住在一起，一切讓我的生活變得可以忍受的東西——她家的緩刑，我姐姐的陪伴——顯然已經消失了。我讓她告訴所有我在後台聽到的聲音的人，我愛他們，然後我掛了電話，上樓去看電視。我從未感到如此孤獨。令人高興的是，我繼續在米德爾敦的學校上學，這讓我與學校的朋友保持聯繫，並給了我一個在媽媽學校呆幾個小時的藉口。在學校上課期間，我每周見到她幾次，每次見到她，她都會提醒我學業成績好的重要性。她經常說，如果我們家裡有人“成功了”，那就是我。我沒有心思告訴她到底發生了什麼。我應該成為一名律師、醫生或商人，而不是一個高中輟學生。但我比其他任何事情都更接近輟學。

She learned the truth when Mom came to me one morning demanding a jar of clean urine. I had stayed at Mamaw’s the night before and was getting ready for school when Mom walked in, frantic and out of breath. She had to submit to random urinalyses from the nursing board in order to keep her license, and someone had called that morning demanding a sample by the end of the day. Mamaw’s piss was dirtied with a half dozen prescription drugs, so I was the only candidate.

一天早上，當媽媽來找我，要一罐乾淨的尿液時，她才知道了真相。前一天晚上我住在媽媽家，正準備上學，媽媽走了進來，氣喘吁吁。為了保住她的執照，她不得不接受護理委員會的隨機尿液分析，那天早上有人打電話要求在一天結束前提供樣本。媽媽的小便被六種處方藥弄髒了，所以我是唯一的候選人。

Mom’s demand came with a strong air of entitlement. She had no remorse, no sense that she was asking me to do something wrong. Nor was there any guilt over the fact that she had broken yet another promise to never use drugs.

媽媽的要求帶著強烈的權利氣息。她沒有悔恨，沒有感覺到她要求我做錯什麼。她也沒有任何內疚感，因為她違背了另一個永不吸毒的承諾。

I refused. Sensing my resistance, Mom transitioned. She became apologetic and desperate. She cried and begged. “I promise I’ll do better. I promise.” I had heard it many times before, and I didn’t believe it even a little. Lindsay once told me that, above all, Mom was a survivor. She survived her childhood, she survived the men who came and went. She survived successive brushes with the law. And now she was doing everything she could to survive an encounter with the nursing board.

我拒絕了。感覺到我的抗拒，媽媽轉變了。她變得歉疚和絕望。她哭著乞求。“我保證我會做得更好。我保證。我以前聽過很多次，我甚至有點不相信。琳賽曾經告訴我，最重要的是，媽媽是一個倖存者。她熬過了她的童年，她熬過了來來往往的男人。她連續與法律擦肩而過。現在，她正在盡一切努力在與護理委員會的相遇中倖存下來。

I exploded. I told Mom that if she wanted clean piss, she should stop fucking up her life and get it from her own bladder. I told Mamaw that enabling Mom made it worse and that if she had put her foot down thirty years earlier, then maybe Mom wouldn’t be begging her son for clean piss. I told Mom that she was a shitty mother and I told Mamaw that she was a shitty mother, too. The color drained from Mamaw’s face, and she refused to even look me in the eye. What I had said had clearly struck a nerve.

我爆炸了。我告訴媽媽，如果她想要乾淨的尿液，她應該停止搞砸自己的生活，從自己的膀胱里得到它。我告訴媽媽，讓媽媽變得更糟，如果她早三十年放下腳步，那麼也許媽媽不會乞求兒子要乾身的尿液。我告訴媽媽她是一個糟糕的母親，我告訴媽媽她也是一個糟糕的母親。媽媽的臉上流下了麥圖的顏色，她甚至拒絕看我的眼睛。我說的話顯然觸動了我的神經。

Though I meant these things, I also knew that my urine might not be clean. Mom collapsed onto the couch, crying quietly, but Mamaw wouldn’t give in so easily, even though I’d wounded her with my criticism. I pulled Mamaw into the bathroom and whispered a confession—that I had smoked Ken’s pot twice in the past few weeks. “I can’t give it to her. If Mom takes my pee, we could both be in trouble.”

雖然我是認真的，但我也知道我的尿液可能不乾淨。媽媽癱倒在沙發上，小聲地哭泣，但媽媽不會輕易屈服，即使我的批評傷害了她。我把媽媽拉進洗手間，低声懺悔——過去幾個星期我抽了兩次肯的火壺。“我不能給她。如果媽媽拿走我的尿液，我們倆都可能遇到麻煩。

First, Mamaw assuaged my fears. A couple of hits of pot over three weeks wouldn’t show up on the screen, she told me. “Besides, you probably didn’t know what the hell you were doing. You didn’t inhale, even if you tried.” Then she addressed the morality of it. “I know this isn’t right, honey. But she’s your mother and she’s my daughter. And maybe, if we help her this time, she’ll finally learn her lesson.”

首先，媽媽緩解了我的恐懼。她告訴我，三周內的幾次擊球不會出現在螢幕上。“再說了，你可能不知道你到底在做什麼。即使你嘗試了，你也沒有吸氣。然後她談到了它的道德問題。“我知道這是不對的，親愛的。但她是你的母親，她是我的女兒。也許，如果我們這次説明她，她最終會吸取教訓。

It was the eternal hope, the thing to which I couldn’t say no. That hope drove me to voluntarily attend those many N.A. meetings, consume books on addiction, and participate in Mom’s treatment to the fullest extent that I could. It had driven me to get in the car with her when I was twelve, knowing that her emotional state could lead her to do something she’d regret later. Mamaw never lost that hope, after more heartache and more disappointment than I could possibly fathom. Her life was a clinic in how to lose faith in people, but Mamaw always found a way to believe in the people she loved. So I don’t regret relenting. Giving Mom that piss was wrong, but I’ll never regret following Mamaw’s lead. Her hope allowed her to forgive Papaw after the rough years of their marriage. And it convinced her to take me in when I needed her most.

這是永恆的希望，是我無法拒絕的東西。這種希望驅使我自願參加那些NA會議，閱讀有關成癮的書籍，並盡我所能參與媽媽的治療。在我十二歲的時候，它驅使我和她一起上車，因為我知道她的情緒狀態可能會導致她做一些她以後會後悔的事情。媽媽從來沒有失去希望，在經歷了比我所能理解的更多的心痛和失望之後。她的生活是一個如何對人失去信心的診所，但媽媽總能找到一種方法來相信她所愛的人。所以我不後悔心軟。給媽媽撒尿是不對的，但我永遠不會後悔跟隨媽媽的腳步。她的希望讓她在婚姻的艱難歲月後原諒了爸爸。這說服了她在我最需要她的時候收留我。

Though I followed Mamaw’s lead, something inside me broke that morning. I went to school red-eyed from crying and regretful that I’d helped. A few weeks earlier, I had sat with Mom at a Chinese buffet as she tried in vain to shovel food in her mouth. It’s a memory that still makes my blood boil: Mom unable to open her eyes or close her mouth, spooning food in as it fell back on the plate. Other people stared at us, Ken was speechless, and Mom was oblivious. It was a prescription pain pill (or many of them) that had done this to her. I hated her for it and promised myself that if she ever did drugs again, I’d leave the house.

雖然我跟著媽媽的腳步走，但那天早上我內心的一些東西都壞了。我哭得紅著眼睛去上學，後悔自己幫了忙。幾周前，我和媽媽坐在一起吃中式自助餐，她徒勞地試圖把食物塞進嘴裏。這段記憶至今仍讓我熱血沸騰：媽媽無法睜開眼睛或閉上嘴巴，當食物掉回盤子裡時，她用勺子舀了進去。其他人盯著我們看，肯說不出話來，媽媽也忘乎所以。是處方止痛藥（或其中許多）對她造成了這種影響。我恨她，並答應自己，如果她再吸毒，我會離開家。

The urine episode was the last straw for Mamaw, too. When I came home from school, Mamaw told me that she wanted me to stay with her permanently, with no more moving in between. Mom seemed not to care: She needed a “break,” she said, I supposed from being a mother. She and Ken didn’t last much longer. By the end of sophomore year, she had moved out of his house and I had moved in with Mamaw, never to return to the homes of Mom and her men. At least she passed her piss test.

尿液事件也是壓垮媽媽的最後一根稻草。當我放學回家時，媽媽告訴我，她希望我永遠和她在一起，中間不要再搬家了。媽媽似乎並不在乎：她需要「休息一下」，她說，我應該是一個母親。她和肯並沒有持續太久。到大二結束時，她搬出了他的房子，我和媽媽一起搬了進來，再也沒有回到媽媽和她的男人的家裡。至少她通過了她的小便測試。

I didn’t even have to pack, because much of what I owned remained at Mamaw’s as I bounced from place to place. She didn’t approve of me taking too many of my belongings to Ken’s house, convinced that he and his kids might steal my socks and shirts. (Neither Ken nor his children ever stole from me.) Though I loved living with her, my new home tested my patience on many levels. I still harbored the insecurity that I was burdening her. More important, she was a hard woman to live with, quick-witted and sharp-tongued. If I didn’t take out the garbage, she told me to “stop being a lazy piece of shit.” When I forgot to do my homework, she called me “shit for brains” and reminded me that unless I studied, I’d amount to nothing. She demanded that I play card games with her—usually gin rummy—and she never lost. “You are the worst fucking cardplayer I’ve ever met,” she’d gloat. (That one didn’t make me feel bad: She said it to everyone she beat, and she beat everyone at gin rummy.)

我甚至不需要收拾行李，因為當我從一個地方蹦蹦跳跳時，我擁有的大部分東西都留在了Mamaw s。她不贊成我把太多的東西帶到肯家，相信他和他的孩子可能會偷我的襪子和襯衫。（肯和他的孩子們都沒有從我這裡偷過東西。雖然我喜歡和她住在一起，但我的新家在很多層面上考驗了我的耐心。我仍然懷有不安全感，因為我給她帶來了負擔。更重要的是，她是一個很難相處的女人，機智而犀利。如果我不倒垃圾，她就告訴我“別再做懶惰的狗屎了”。當我忘記做作業時，她罵我“腦子狗屎”，並提醒我，除非我學習，否則我一事無成。她要求我和她一起玩紙牌遊戲——通常是杜松子酒拉米酒——她從來沒有輸過。“你是我見過的最糟糕的紙牌玩家，”她幸災樂禍。（這句話並沒有讓我感到難過：她對她打敗的每個人都說過這句話，她在杜松子酒拉米酒上打敗了所有人。

Years later, every single one of my relatives—Aunt Wee, Uncle Jimmy, even Lindsay—repeated some version of “Mamaw was really hard on you. Too hard.” There were three rules in her house: Get good grades, get a job, and “get off your ass and help me.” There was no set chore list; I just had to help her with whatever she was doing. And she never told me what to do—she just yelled at me if she did anything and I wasn’t helping.

多年後，我的每一個親戚——黃阿姨、吉米叔叔，甚至琳賽——都重複著某種版本的“媽媽對你真的很苛刻。太難了。她家裡有三條規則：取得好成績，找到一份工作，以及“放下你的屁股，幫幫我”。沒有固定的家務清單;無論她做什麼，我都必須説明她。她從不告訴我該怎麼做——如果她做了什麼而我沒有幫忙，她就會對我大吼大叫。

But we had a lot of fun. Mamaw had a much bigger bark than bite, at least with me. She once ordered me to watch a TV show with her on a Friday night, a creepy murder mystery, the type of show Mamaw loved to watch. At the climax of the show, during a moment designed to make the viewer jump, Mamaw flipped off the lights and screamed in my ear. She’d seen the episode before and knew what was coming. She made me sit there for forty-five minutes just so she could scare me at the appointed time.

但我們玩得很開心。媽媽的吠叫比咬人大得多，至少在我這裡是這樣。她曾經命令我在週五晚上和她一起看一個電視節目，一個令人毛骨悚然的謀殺之謎，媽媽喜歡看的那種節目。在演出的高潮處，在一個旨在讓觀眾跳起來的時刻，媽媽關掉了燈，在我耳邊尖叫。她以前看過這一集，知道會發生什麼。她讓我在那裡坐了四十五分鐘，這樣她就可以在約定的時間嚇唬我。

The best part about living with Mamaw was that I began to understand what made her tick. Until then, I had resented how rarely we traveled to Kentucky after Mamaw Blanton’s death. The decline in visits wasn’t noticeable at first, but by the time I started middle school, we visited Kentucky only a few times a year for a few days at a time. Living with Mamaw, I learned that she and her sister, Rose—a woman of uncommon kindness—had a falling-out after their mother died. Mamaw had hoped that the old house would become a sort of family time share, while Rose had hoped that the house would go to her son and his family. Rose had a point: None of the siblings who lived in Ohio or Indiana visited often enough, so it made sense to give the house to someone who would use it. But Mamaw feared that without a home base, her children and grandchildren would have no place to stay during their visits to Jackson. She, too, had a point.

和媽媽住在一起最好的部分是我開始理解是什麼讓她打勾。在那之前，我一直對布蘭頓媽媽去世后我們很少去肯塔基州感到不滿。起初訪問量的下降並不明顯，但到我開始上中學時，我們每年只訪問肯塔基州幾次，每次幾天。和媽媽住在一起，我瞭解到她和她的妹妹羅斯——一個異常善良的女人——在母親去世后發生了爭執。媽媽希望老房子能成為一種家庭分時度假，而羅斯則希望這所房子能屬於她的兒子和他的家人。羅斯說得有道理：住在俄亥俄州或印第安那州的兄弟姐妹都不夠頻繁地來訪，所以把房子送給願意使用它的人是有道理的。但媽媽擔心，如果沒有大本營，她的孩子和孫子們在傑克遜訪問期間將沒有地方住。她也說得有道理。

I started to understand that Mamaw saw returning to Jackson as a duty to endure rather than a source of enjoyment. To me, Jackson was about my uncles, and chasing turtles, and finding peace from the instability that plagued my Ohio existence. Jackson gave me a shared home with Mamaw, a three-hour road trip to tell and listen to stories, and a place where everyone knew me as the grandson of the famous Jim and Bonnie Vance. Jackson was something much different to her. It was the place where she sometimes went hungry as a child, from which she ran in the wake of a teenage pregnancy scandal, and where so many of her friends had given their lives in the mines. I wanted to escape to Jackson; she had escaped from it.

我開始明白，媽媽把回到傑克遜看作是一種忍受的責任，而不是一種享受的源泉。對我來說，傑克遜是關於我的叔叔們，追逐，並從困擾我在俄亥俄州生活的不穩定中尋找平靜。傑克遜給了我一個與媽媽合住的家，一個三小時的公路旅行，可以講故事和聽故事，以及一個每個人都知道我是著名的吉姆和邦妮·萬斯的孫子的地方。傑克遜對她來說是一個截然不同的東西。這是她小時候有時會挨餓的地方，在少女懷孕醜聞之後，她從那裡逃跑，她的許多朋友都在礦井中獻出了生命。我想逃到傑克遜;她已經逃脫了。

In her old age, with limited mobility, Mamaw loved to watch TV. She preferred raunchy humor and epic dramas, so she had a lot of options. But her favorite show by far was the HBO mob story The Sopranos. Looking back, it’s hardly surprising that a show about fiercely loyal, sometimes violent outsiders resonated with Mamaw. Change the names and dates, and the Italian Mafia starts to look a lot like the Hatfield-McCoy dispute back in Appalachia. The show’s main character, Tony Soprano, was a violent killer, an objectively terrible person by almost any standard. But Mamaw respected his loyalty and the fact that he would go to any length to protect the honor of his family. Though he murdered countless enemies and drank excessively, the only criticism she ever levied against him involved his infidelity. “He’s always sleeping around. I don’t like that.”

在她行動不便的晚年，媽媽喜歡看電視。她更喜歡不修邊幅的幽默和史詩劇，所以她有很多選擇。但到目前為止，她最喜歡的節目是HBO黑幫故事《黑道家族》。回想起來，一部關於極度忠誠、有時甚至是暴力的局外人的節目引起Mamaw的共鳴也就不足為奇了。改變名字和日期，義大利黑手黨開始看起來很像阿巴拉契亞的哈特菲爾德-麥考伊爭端。該劇的主角托尼·女高音（Tony Soprano）是一個暴力殺手，幾乎以任何標準衡量，他都是一個客觀上可怕的人。但媽媽尊重他的忠誠，以及他會不惜一切代價保護家人榮譽的事實。儘管他謀殺了無數的敵人並酗酒，但她對他的唯一批評是他的不忠。“他總是在睡覺。我不喜歡那樣。

I also saw for the first time Mamaw’s love of children, not as an object of her affection but as an observer of it. She often babysat for Lindsay’s or Aunt Wee’s young kids. One day she had both of Aunt Wee’s girls for the day and Aunt Wee’s dog in the backyard. When the dog barked, Mamaw screamed, “Shut up, you son of a bitch.” My cousin Bonnie Rose ran to the back door and began screaming over and over, “Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!” Mamaw hobbled over to Bonnie Rose and scooped her up in her arms. “Shhh! You can’t say that or you’ll get me in trouble.” But she was laughing so hard that she could barely get the words out. A few weeks later, I got home from school and asked Mamaw how her day had gone. She told me that she’d had a great day because she’d been watching Lindsay’s son Kameron. “He asked me if he could say ‘fuck’ like I do. I told him yes, but only at my house.” Then she chuckled quietly to herself. Regardless of how she felt, whether her emphysema made it difficult to breathe or her hip hurt so badly that she could barely walk, she never turned down an opportunity to “spend time with those babies,” as she put it. Mamaw loved them, and I began to understand why she had always dreamed of becoming a lawyer for abused and neglected children.

我也第一次看到媽媽對孩子的愛，不是作為她愛的物件，而是作為愛的觀察者。她經常照顧琳賽或黃阿姨的年幼孩子。有一天，她把黃阿姨的兩個女兒都帶走了，還有黃阿姨的狗在後院。當狗吠叫時，媽媽尖叫道：“閉嘴，你這個婊子。我的表妹邦妮·羅斯（Bonnie Rose）跑到後門，開始一遍又一遍地尖叫，“婊子的兒子！婊子的兒子！媽媽蹣跚地走到邦妮·羅斯身邊，把她抱在懷裡。“噓！你不能這麼說，否則會給我帶來麻煩。但她笑得太厲害了，幾乎說不出話來。幾個星期後，我放學回家，問媽媽她今天過得怎麼樣。她告訴我，她今天過得很愉快，因為她一直在看琳賽的兒子卡梅隆。“他問我他能不能像我一樣說'他媽的'。我告訴他是的，但僅限於我家。然後她悄悄地自言自語地笑了起來。無論她的感受如何，無論是她的肺氣腫導致呼吸困難，還是她的臀部疼痛嚴重到幾乎無法走路，她從未拒絕過“與那些嬰兒共度時光”的機會，正如她所說。媽媽愛他們，我開始理解為什麼她一直夢想成為受虐待和被忽視兒童的律師。

At some point, Mamaw underwent major back surgery to help with the pain that made walking difficult. She landed in a nursing home for a few months to recover, forcing me to live alone, an experience that happily didn’t last long. Every night she called Lindsay, Aunt Wee, or me and made the same request: “I hate the damned food here. Can you go to Taco Bell and get me a bean burrito?” Indeed, Mamaw hated everything about the nursing home and once asked me to promise that if she ever faced a permanent stay, I’d take her .44 Magnum and put a bullet in her head. “Mamaw, you can’t ask me to do that. I’d go to jail for the rest of my life.” “Well,” she said, pausing for a moment to reflect, “then get your hands on some arsenic. That way no one will know.” Her back surgery, it turned out, was completely unnecessary. She had a broken hip, and as soon as a surgeon repaired it, she was back on her feet, though she used a walker or cane from then on. Now that I’m a lawyer, I marvel that we never considered a medical malpractice suit against the doctor who operated unnecessarily on her back. But Mamaw wouldn’t have allowed it: She didn’t believe in using the legal system until you had to.

在某個時候，媽媽接受了背部大手術，以幫助緩解行走困難的疼痛。她住進了養老院幾個月，被迫獨自生活，這種經歷並沒有持續多久。每天晚上，她都會打電話給琳賽、黃阿姨或我，提出同樣的要求：“我討厭這裡該死的食物。你能去塔可鐘給我買一個豆捲餅嗎？事實上，媽媽討厭療養院的一切，曾經讓我答應，如果她面臨永久居留，我會拿走她的 .44 Magnum 並在她的頭上放一顆子彈。“媽媽，你不能要求我那樣做。我會在監獄里度過餘生。“好吧，”她說，停頓了一會兒思考，“那就去拿點砒霜吧。這樣就沒人知道了。事實證明，她的背部手術是完全沒有必要的。她的髖部骨折了，外科醫生一修復它，她就重新站起來了，儘管從那時起她就使用助行器或拐杖。現在我是一名律師，我很驚訝我們從未考慮過針對在她背上進行不必要手術的醫生提起醫療事故訴訟。但媽媽不會允許這樣做：她不相信使用法律制度，除非你不得不這樣做。

Sometimes I’d see Mom every few days, and sometimes I’d go a couple of weeks without hearing from her at all. After one breakup, she spent a few months on Mamaw’s couch, and we both enjoyed her company. Mom tried, in her own way: When she was working, she’d always give me money on paydays, almost certainly more than she could afford. For reasons I never quite understood, Mom equated money with affection. Perhaps she felt that I would never appreciate that she loved me unless she offered a wad of spending money. But I never cared about the money. I just wanted her to be healthy.

有時我每隔幾天就會見到媽媽，有時我會去幾個星期，根本沒有她的消息。一次分手後，她在媽媽的沙發上呆了幾個月，我們倆都很享受她的陪伴。媽媽用她自己的方式嘗試過：當她工作時，她總是在發薪日給我錢，幾乎可以肯定比她能承受的要多。出於我一直不太明白的原因，媽媽把金錢等同於感情。也許她覺得我永遠不會感激她愛我，除非她提供一大筆零花錢。但我從不在乎錢。我只是希望她健康。

Not even my closest friends knew that I lived in my grandma’s house. I recognized that though many of my peers lacked the traditional American family, mine was more nontraditional than most. And we were poor, a status Mamaw wore like a badge of honor but one I’d hardly come to grips with. I didn’t wear clothes from Abercrombie & Fitch or American Eagle unless I’d received them for Christmas. When Mamaw picked me up from school, I’d ask her not to get out of the car lest my friends see her—wearing her uniform of baggy jeans and a men’s T-shirt—with a giant menthol cigarette hanging from her lip. When people asked, I lied and told them that I lived with my mom, that she and I took care of my ailing grandmother. Even today, I still regret that far too many high school friends and acquaintances never knew Mamaw was the best thing that ever happened to me.

甚至連我最親密的朋友都不知道我住在我奶奶的房子里。我認識到，儘管我的許多同齡人缺乏傳統的美國家庭，但我的家庭比大多數人更非傳統。我們很窮，媽媽戴著這種身份就像一枚榮譽勳章，但我幾乎無法理解。我不穿Abercrombie & Fitch或American Eagle的衣服，除非我在耶誕節收到它們。當媽媽從學校接我時，我會要求她不要下車，以免我的朋友看到她穿著寬鬆牛仔褲和男士T恤的制服，嘴唇上掛著一根巨大的薄荷醇香煙。當人們問起時，我撒謊告訴他們我和我媽媽住在一起，她和我照顧生病的祖母。即使在今天，我仍然後悔，太多的高中朋友和熟人從來不知道媽媽是發生在我身上的最好的事情。

My junior year, I tested into the honors Advanced Math class—a hybrid of trigonometry, advanced algebra, and precalculus. The class’s instructor, Ron Selby, enjoyed legendary status among the students for his brilliance and high demands. In twenty years, he had never missed a day of school. According to Middletown High School legend, a student called in a bomb threat during one of Selby’s exams, hiding the explosive device in a bag in his locker. With the entire school evacuated outside, Selby marched into the school, retrieved the contents of the kid’s locker, marched outside, and threw those contents into a trash can. “I’ve had that kid in class; he’s not smart enough to make a functioning bomb,” Selby told the police officers gathered at the school. “Now let my students go back to class to finish their exams.”

大三那年，我考上了榮譽高級數學課——三角學、高等代數和微積分的混合體。該班的導師羅恩·塞爾比（Ron Selby）因其才華橫溢和高要求而在學生中享有傳奇地位。二十年來，他從未缺過一天學。根據米德爾敦高中的傳說，一名學生在塞爾比的一次考試中打電話威脅炸彈，將爆炸裝置藏在他儲物櫃的一個袋子里。當整個學校都撤離到外面時，塞爾比走進學校，取回孩子儲物櫃里的東西，走到外面，把這些東西扔進了垃圾桶。“我在課堂上有過那個孩子;他不夠聰明，無法製造出有效的炸彈，「塞爾比告訴聚集在學校的員警。“現在讓我的學生回去上課完成考試。”

Mamaw loved stories like this, and though she never met Selby, she admired him and encouraged me to follow his lead. Selby encouraged (but didn’t require) his students to obtain advanced graphing calculators—the Texas Instruments model 89 was the latest and greatest. We didn’t have cell phones, and we didn’t have nice clothes, but Mamaw made sure that I had one of those graphing calculators. This taught me an important lesson about Mamaw’s values, and it forced me to engage with school in a way I never had before. If Mamaw could drop $180 on a graphing calculator—she insisted that I spend none of my own money—then I had better take schoolwork more seriously. I owed it to her, and she reminded me of it constantly. “Have you finished your work for that Selby teacher?” “No, Mamaw, not yet.” “You damn well better start. I didn’t spend every penny I had on that little computer so you could fuck around all day.”

媽媽喜歡這樣的故事，雖然她從未見過塞爾比，但她很欽佩他，並鼓勵我跟隨他的領導。塞爾比鼓勵（但並不要求）他的學生獲得先進的圖形計算機——德州儀器 （TI） 的 89 型是最新、最好的。我們沒有手機，也沒有漂亮的衣服，但媽媽確保我有一個圖形計算機。這給我上了重要的一課，讓我瞭解了媽媽的價值觀，它迫使我以一種前所未有的方式參與學校。如果媽媽能花180美元費用一個車輸算器——她堅持我不花自己的錢——那麼我最好更嚴肅地對待功業。我欠她的，她不斷提醒我。“你為塞爾比老師完成作業了嗎？”“不，媽媽，還沒有。”“你該死的，最好開始。我沒有把我的每一分錢都花在那台小電腦上，這樣你就可以整天亂搞。

Those three years with Mamaw—uninterrupted and alone—saved me. I didn’t notice the causality of the change, how living with her turned my life around. I didn’t notice that my grades began to improve immediately after I moved in. And I couldn’t have known that I was making lifelong friends.

和媽媽在一起的那三年——不間斷的、孤獨的——拯救了我。我沒有注意到這種變化的因果關係，沒有注意到和她一起生活如何改變了我的生活。我沒有注意到我的成績在我搬進來后立即開始提高。我不可能知道我正在結交終生的朋友。

During that time, Mamaw and I started to talk about the problems in our community. Mamaw encouraged me to get a job—she told me that it would be good for me and that I needed to learn the value of a dollar. When her encouragement fell on deaf ears, she then demanded that I get a job, and so I did, as a cashier at Dillman’s, a local grocery store.

在那段時間里，媽媽和我開始談論我們社區的問題。媽媽鼓勵我找一份工作，她告訴我這對我有好處，我需要學習一美元的價值。當她的鼓勵被置若罔聞時，她要求我找一份工作，於是我照做了，在當地一家雜貨店迪爾曼（Dillman's）當收銀員。

Working as a cashier turned me into an amateur sociologist. A frenetic stress animated so many of our customers. One of our neighbors would walk in and yell at me for the smallest of transgressions—not smiling at her, or bagging the groceries too heavy one day or too light the next. Some came into the store in a hurry, pacing between aisles, looking frantically for a particular item. But others waded through the aisles deliberately, carefully marking each item off of their list. Some folks purchased a lot of canned and frozen food, while others consistently arrived at the checkout counter with carts piled high with fresh produce. The more harried a customer, the more they purchased precooked or frozen food, the more likely they were to be poor. And I knew they were poor because of the clothes they wore or because they purchased their food with food stamps. After a few months, I came home and asked Mamaw why only poor people bought baby formula. “Don’t rich people have babies, too?” Mamaw had no answers, and it would be many years before I learned that rich folks are considerably more likely to breast-feed their children.

收銀員的工作使我成為了一名業餘社會學家。狂熱的壓力激發了我們的許多客戶。我們的一個鄰居會走進來，對我大吼大叫，因為我犯了最小的過錯——不對她微笑，或者今天把雜貨裝得太重，第二天太輕。有些人匆匆忙忙地走進商店，在過道之間踱步，瘋狂地尋找特定的商品。但其他人則故意在過道上跋涉，小心翼翼地將每一項從清單上劃掉。有些人購買了大量的罐頭和冷凍食品，而另一些人則一直帶著裝滿新鮮農產品的手推車來到收銀台。顧客越是煩惱，他們購買的預煮或冷凍食品越多，他們就越有可能貧窮。我知道他們很窮，因為他們穿的衣服，或者因為他們用食品券購買食物。幾個月後，我回到家問媽媽，為什麼只有窮人買嬰兒配方奶粉。“有錢人不也有孩子嗎？”媽媽沒有答案，很多年後我才知道，有錢人更有可能母乳餵養他們的孩子。

As my job taught me a little more about America’s class divide, it also imbued me with a bit of resentment, directed toward both the wealthy and my own kind. The owners of Dillman’s were old-fashioned, so they allowed people with good credit to run grocery tabs, some of which surpassed a thousand dollars. I knew that if any of my relatives walked in and ran up a bill of over a thousand dollars, they’d be asked to pay immediately. I hated the feeling that my boss counted my people as less trustworthy than those who took their groceries home in a Cadillac. But I got over it: One day, I told myself, I’ll have my own damned tab.

當我的工作教會了我更多關於美國階級鴻溝的知識時，它也讓我充滿了一點怨恨，既針對富人，也針對我自己的同類。迪爾曼的老闆是老式的，所以他們允許信用良好的人經營雜貨店，其中一些超過一千美元。我知道，如果我的親戚走進來，開了一千多美元的帳單，他們就會被要求立即付款。我討厭這樣一種感覺，即我的老闆認為我的員工不如那些開著凱迪拉克把雜貨帶回家的人值得信賴。但我克服了它：有一天，我告訴自己，我會有自己該死的標籤。

I also learned how people gamed the welfare system. They’d buy two dozen-packs of soda with food stamps and then sell them at a discount for cash. They’d ring up their orders separately, buying food with food stamps, and beer, wine, and cigarettes with cash. They’d regularly go through the checkout line speaking on their cell phones. I could never understand why our lives felt like a struggle while those living off of government largesse enjoyed trinkets that I only dreamed about.

我還了解了人們如何玩弄福利制度。他們會用食品券購買兩打裝蘇打水，然後以折扣價出售以換取現金。他們會單獨下訂單，用食品券購買食物，用現金購買啤酒、葡萄酒和香煙。他們經常通過收銀台，用手機說話。我永遠無法理解為什麼我們的生活感覺像是一場鬥爭，而那些靠政府慷慨生活的人卻享受著我夢寐以求的小飾品。

Mamaw listened intently to my experiences at Dillman’s. We began to view much of our fellow working class with mistrust. Most of us were struggling to get by, but we made do, worked hard, and hoped for a better life. But a large minority was content to live off the dole. Every two weeks, I’d get a small paycheck and notice the line where federal and state income taxes were deducted from my wages. At least as often, our drug-addict neighbor would buy T-bone steaks, which I was too poor to buy for myself but was forced by Uncle Sam to buy for someone else. This was my mind-set when I was seventeen, and though I’m far less angry today than I was then, it was my first indication that the policies of Mamaw’s “party of the working man”—the Democrats—weren’t all they were cracked up to be.

媽媽專心致志地聽著我在迪爾曼的經歷。我們開始以不信任的眼光看待我們的工人階級同胞。我們大多數人都在掙扎著過日子，但我們湊合著過日子，努力工作，希望過上更好的生活。但有很大一部分人滿足於靠救濟金生活。每兩周，我就會拿到一小筆薪水，並注意從我的工資中扣除聯邦和州所得稅的那條線。至少同樣頻繁的是，我們吸毒成癮的鄰居會買T骨牛排，我太窮了，不能自己買，但被山姆大叔強迫給別人買。這是我十七歲時的心態，雖然我今天的憤怒遠不如那時，但這是我第一次表明，媽媽的“工人黨”——民主黨——的政策並不是他們所想的那樣。

Political scientists have spent millions of words trying to explain how Appalachia and the South went from staunchly Democratic to staunchly Republican in less than a generation. Some blame race relations and the Democratic Party’s embrace of the civil rights movement. Others cite religious faith and the hold that social conservatism has on evangelicals in that region. A big part of the explanation lies in the fact that many in the white working class saw precisely what I did, working at Dillman’s. As far back as the 1970s, the white working class began to turn to Richard Nixon because of a perception that, as one man put it, government was “payin’ people who are on welfare today doin’ nothin’! They’re laughin’ at our society! And we’re all hardworkin’ people and we’re gettin’ laughed at for workin’ every day!”²⁰

政治學家花了數百萬字試圖解釋阿巴拉契亞和南方如何在不到一代人的時間里從堅定的民主黨變成堅定的共和黨。一些人指責種族關係和民主黨對民權運動的擁護。其他人則引用了宗教信仰和社會保守主義對該地區福音派教徒的控制。很大一部分原因在於，白人工人階級中的許多人看到了我在迪爾曼工作所做的事情。早在 1970 年代，白人工人階級就開始轉向理查·尼克鬆，因為正如一個人所說，政府是「付錢給今天領取福利的人」無所事事'！他們在嘲笑我們的社會！我們都是勤奮的人，我們每天都因為工作而受到嘲笑！²⁰

At around that time, our neighbor—one of Mamaw and Papaw’s oldest friends—registered the house next to ours for Section 8. Section 8 is a government program that offers low-income residents a voucher to rent housing. Mamaw’s friend had little luck renting his property, but when he qualified his house for the Section 8 voucher, he virtually assured that would change. Mamaw saw it as a betrayal, ensuring that “bad” people would move into the neighborhood and drive down property values.

大約在那個時候，我們的鄰居——媽媽和爸爸最年長的朋友之一——為我們隔壁的房子註冊了第 8 節。第 8 節是一項政府計劃，為低收入居民提供租房券。Mamaw 的朋友租下他的房產運氣不佳，但當他有資格獲得第 8 節代金券時，他幾乎可以肯定這種情況會改變。Mamaw認為這是一種背叛，確保「壞」人會搬進社區並壓低房產價值。

Despite our efforts to draw bright lines between the working and nonworking poor, Mamaw and I recognized that we shared a lot in common with those whom we thought gave our people a bad name. Those Section 8 recipients looked a lot like us. The matriarch of the first family to move in next door was born in Kentucky but moved north at a young age as her parents sought a better life. She’d gotten involved with a couple of men, each of whom had left her with a child but no support. She was nice, and so were her kids. But the drugs and the late-night fighting revealed troubles that too many hillbilly transplants knew too well. Confronted with such a realization of her own family’s struggle, Mamaw grew frustrated and angry.

儘管我們努力在有工作的窮人和非有工作的窮人之間劃清界限，但媽媽和我認識到，我們與那些我們認為給我們的人民帶來壞名聲的人有很多共同點。那些第8節的接受者看起來很像我們。第一個搬進隔壁家庭的女族長出生在肯塔基州，但隨著父母尋求更好的生活，她很小的時候就搬到了北方。她和幾個男人發生了關係，每個男人都給她留下了一個孩子，但沒有支援。她很好，她的孩子也很好。但毒品和深夜的戰鬥揭示了太多鄉巴佬移植者所熟知的麻煩。面對自己家庭的掙扎，媽媽變得沮喪和憤怒。

From that anger sprang Bonnie Vance the social policy expert: “She’s a lazy whore, but she wouldn’t be if she was forced to get a job”; “I hate those fuckers for giving these people the money to move into our neighborhood.” She’d rant against the people we’d see in the grocery store: “I can’t understand why people who’ve worked all their lives scrape by while these deadbeats buy liquor and cell phone coverage with our tax money.”

社會政策專家邦妮·萬斯（Bonnie Vance）從這種憤怒中湧現出來：“她是一個懶惰的妓女，但如果她被迫找工作，她就不會了”;“我討厭那些混蛋給這些人錢搬進我們的社區。她會對我們在雜貨店裡看到的人大發雷霆：「我不明白為什麼那些工作了一輩子的人，而這些無賴卻用我們的稅款買酒和手機。

These were bizarre views for my bleeding-heart grandma. And if she blasted the government for doing too much one day, she’d blast it for doing too little the next. The government, after all, was just helping poor people find a place to live, and my grandma loved the idea of anyone helping the poor. She had no philosophical objection to Section 8 vouchers. So the Democrat in her would resurface. She’d rant about the lack of jobs and wonder aloud whether that was why our neighbor couldn’t find a good man. In her more compassionate moments, Mamaw asked if it made any sense that our society could afford aircraft carriers but not drug treatment facilities—like Mom’s—for everyone. Sometimes she’d criticize the faceless rich, whom she saw as far too unwilling to carry their fair share of the social burden. Mamaw saw every ballot failure of the local school improvement tax (and there were many) as an indictment of our society’s failure to provide a quality education to kids like me.

對於我流血的奶奶來說，這些都是奇怪的景象。如果她某一天抨擊政府做得太多，那麼第二天她就會抨擊政府做得太少。畢竟，政府只是在幫助窮人找到住處，而我奶奶喜歡任何人幫助窮人的想法。她對第8節代金券沒有哲學上的反對意見。因此，她身上的民主黨人將重新浮出水面。她會咆哮著說沒有工作，並大聲想知道這是否就是我們的鄰居找不到一個好男人的原因。在她更富有同情心的時刻，媽媽問我們的社會可以買得起航空母艦，但不能為每個人買得起戒毒設施——比如媽媽的——這有什麼意義嗎？有時她會批評那些不露面的富人，她認為他們太不願意承擔他們應有的社會負擔。媽媽認為，當地學校改善稅的每一次投票失敗（而且有很多）都是對我們社會未能為像我這樣的孩子提供優質教育的控訴。

Mamaw’s sentiments occupied wildly different parts of the political spectrum. Depending on her mood, Mamaw was a radical conservative or a European-style social Democrat. Because of this, I initially assumed that Mamaw was an unreformed simpleton and that as soon as she opened her mouth about policy or politics, I might as well close my ears. Yet I quickly realized that in Mamaw’s contradictions lay great wisdom. I had spent so long just surviving my world, but now that I had a little space to observe it, I began to see the world as Mamaw did. I was scared, confused, angry, and heartbroken. I’d blame large businesses for closing up shop and moving overseas, and then I’d wonder if I might have done the same thing. I’d curse our government for not helping enough, and then I’d wonder if, in its attempts to help, it actually made the problem worse.

Mamaw的情緒佔據了政治光譜中截然不同的部分。根據她的心情，媽媽是一個激進的保守派或歐洲式的社會民主黨人。正因為如此，我最初以為媽媽是一個沒有改革的傻瓜，只要她開口談論政策或政治，我還不如閉上耳朵。然而，我很快意識到，在媽媽的矛盾中蘊藏著偉大的智慧。我花了這麼長時間才在我的世界裡生存下來，但現在我有了一點空間來觀察它，我開始像媽媽一樣看待這個世界。我感到害怕、困惑、憤怒和心碎。我會責怪大企業關門大吉，搬到海外，然後我想知道我是否也會做同樣的事情。我會詛咒我們的政府沒有提供足夠的説明，然後我想知道，在它試圖提供幫助的過程中，它是否真的使問題變得更糟。

Mamaw could spew venom like a Marine Corps drill instructor, but what she saw in our community didn’t just piss her off. It broke her heart. Behind the drugs, and the fighting matches, and the financial struggles, these were people with serious problems, and they were hurting. Our neighbors had a kind of desperate sadness in their lives. You’d see it in how the mother would grin but never really smile, or in the jokes that the teenage girl told about her mother “smacking the shit out of her.” I knew what awkward humor like this was meant to conceal because I’d used it in the past. Grin and bear it, says the adage. If anyone appreciated this, Mamaw did.

媽媽可以像海軍陸戰隊的演習教官一樣噴出毒液，但她在我們社區的所見所聞不僅惹惱了她。這傷了她的心。在毒品、格鬥比賽和財務鬥爭的背後，這些人有嚴重的問題，他們正在受傷。我們的鄰居在他們的生活中有一種絕望的悲傷。你會從母親如何咧嘴笑但從未真正微笑，或者從十幾歲的女孩講述的關於她母親“從她身上啪”的笑話中看出這一點。我知道像這樣尷尬的幽默是為了隱藏什麼，因為我過去用過它。咧嘴一笑，忍受它，諺語說。如果有人欣賞這一點，媽媽就做到了。

The problems of our community hit close to home. Mom’s struggles weren’t some isolated incident. They were replicated, replayed, and relived by many of the people who, like us, had moved hundreds of miles in search of a better life. There was no end in sight. Mamaw had thought she escaped the poverty of the hills, but the poverty—emotional, if not financial—had followed her. Something had made her later years eerily similar to her earliest ones. What was happening? What were our neighbor’s teenage daughter’s prospects? Certainly the odds were against her, with a home life like that. This raised the question: What would happen to me?

我們社區的問題離家很近。媽媽的掙扎並不是某個孤立的事件。它們被許多像我們一樣為了尋求更好生活而搬遷數百英里的人複製、重播和重溫。看不到盡頭。媽媽以為她逃離了山上的貧窮，但貧窮——如果不是經濟上的貧窮——一直跟隨著她。有些東西使她的晚年與她早年的晚年驚人地相似。這是怎麼回事？我們鄰居十幾歲的女兒的前景如何？當然，對她來說，這樣的家庭生活是不利的。這就提出了一個問題：我會發生什麼？

I was unable to answer these questions in a way that didn’t implicate something deep within the place I called home. What I knew is that other people didn’t live like we did. When I visited Uncle Jimmy, I did not wake to the screams of neighbors. In Aunt Wee and Dan’s neighborhood, homes were beautiful and lawns well manicured, and police came around to smile and wave but never to load someone’s mom or dad in the back of their cruiser.

我無法以一種不牽涉到我稱之為家的地方深處的方式回答這些問題。我所知道的是，其他人的生活並不像我們一樣。當我拜訪吉米叔叔時，我沒有被鄰居的尖叫聲吵醒。在黃阿姨和丹的鄰居那裡，房子很漂亮，草坪修剪整齊，員警過來微笑和揮手，但從不把別人的媽媽或爸爸裝在他們的巡洋艦後面。

So I wondered what was different about us—not just me and my family but our neighborhood and our town and everyone from Jackson to Middletown and beyond. When Mom was arrested a couple of years earlier, the neighborhood’s porches and front yards filled with spectators; there’s no embarrassment like waving to the neighbors right after the cops have carted your mother off. Mom’s exploits were undoubtedly extreme, but all of us had seen the show before with different neighbors. These sorts of things had their own rhythm. A mild screaming match might invite a few cracked shutters or peeking eyes behind the shades. If things escalated a bit, bedrooms would illuminate as people awoke to investigate the commotion. And if things got out of hand, the police would come and take someone’s drunk dad or unhinged mom down to the city building. That building housed the tax collector, the public utilities, and even a small museum, but all the kids in my neighborhood knew it as the home of Middletown’s short-term jail.

所以我想知道我們有什麼不同——不僅僅是我和我的家人，還有我們的社區和我們的城鎮，以及從傑克遜到米德爾敦及其他地區的每個人。幾年前，當媽媽被捕時，附近的門廊和前院擠滿了觀眾;沒有什麼比在員警把你母親趕走後立即向鄰居揮手更尷尬的了。媽媽的功績無疑是極端的，但我們所有人都以前和不同的鄰居一起看過這個節目。這些事情有自己的節奏。一場輕微的尖叫比賽可能會招致一些破裂的百葉窗或窗簾後面偷看的眼睛。如果事情稍微升級，當人們醒來調查騷動時，臥室就會亮起。如果事情失控，員警會來把某人喝醉的爸爸或精神錯亂的媽媽帶到城市大樓。那棟樓里有稅吏、公用事業，甚至還有一個小博物館，但我附近的所有孩子都知道它是米德爾敦短期監獄的所在地。

I consumed books about social policy and the working poor. One book in particular, a study by eminent sociologist William Julius Wilson called The Truly Disadvantaged, struck a nerve. I was sixteen the first time I read it, and though I didn’t fully understand it all, I grasped the core thesis. As millions migrated north to factory jobs, the communities that sprouted up around those factories were vibrant but fragile: When the factories shut their doors, the people left behind were trapped in towns and cities that could no longer support such large populations with high-quality work. Those who could—generally the well educated, wealthy, or well connected—left, leaving behind communities of poor people. These remaining folks were the “truly disadvantaged”—unable to find good jobs on their own and surrounded by communities that offered little in the way of connections or social support.

我閱讀了有關社會政策和工作窮人的書籍。著名社會學家威廉·朱利葉斯·威爾遜（William Julius Wilson）的一本名為《真正的弱勢群體》（The Truly Disadvantaged）的書尤其觸動了人們的神經。我第一次讀這本書時才十六歲，雖然我沒有完全理解它，但我掌握了核心論點。隨著數以百萬計的人向北遷移到工廠工作，這些工廠周圍萌芽的社區充滿活力但脆弱：當工廠關門時，留下來的人被困在城鎮中，這些城鎮無法再以高品質的工作來支援如此龐大的人口。那些有能力的人——通常是受過良好教育、富有或人脈廣闊的人——離開了，留下了窮人社區。剩下的這些人是“真正的弱勢群體”——無法自己找到好工作，周圍的社區幾乎沒有提供聯繫或社會支援。

Wilson’s book spoke to me. I wanted to write him a letter and tell him that he had described my home perfectly. That it resonated so personally is odd, however, because he wasn’t writing about the hillbilly transplants from Appalachia—he was writing about black people in the inner cities. The same was true of Charles Murray’s seminal Losing Ground, another book about black folks that could have been written about hillbillies—which addressed the way our government encouraged social decay through the welfare state.

威爾遜的書對我說話了。我想給他寫一封信，告訴他他已經完美地描述了我的家。然而，它如此個人化地引起共鳴是很奇怪的，因為他不是在寫從阿巴拉契亞移植來的鄉巴佬，而是在寫內城的黑人。查理斯·默里（Charles Murray）的開創性著作《失地》（Losing Ground）也是如此，這是另一本關於黑人的書，本來可以寫成鄉巴佬的——它談到了我們的政府如何通過福利國家鼓勵社會衰敗。

Though insightful, neither of these books fully answered the questions that plagued me: Why didn’t our neighbor leave that abusive man? Why did she spend her money on drugs? Why couldn’t she see that her behavior was destroying her daughter? Why were all of these things happening not just to our neighbor but to my mom? It would be years before I learned that no single book, or expert, or field could fully explain the problems of hillbillies in modern America. Our elegy is a sociological one, yes, but it is also about psychology and community and culture and faith.

雖然很有見地，但這兩本書都沒有完全回答困擾我的問題：為什麼我們的鄰居不離開那個施虐的人？她為什麼要把錢花在毒品上？為什麼她看不出自己的行為正在毀掉她的女兒？為什麼所有這些事情不僅發生在我們的鄰居身上，也發生在我媽媽身上？多年後，我才知道，沒有一本書、專家或領域可以完全解釋現代美國鄉巴佬的問題。是的，我們的挽歌是一首社會學的挽歌，但它也是關於心理學、社區、文化和信仰的。

During my junior year of high school, our neighbor Pattie called her landlord to report a leaky roof. The landlord arrived and found Pattie topless, stoned, and unconscious on her living room couch. Upstairs the bathtub was overflowing—hence, the leaking roof. Pattie had apparently drawn herself a bath, taken a few prescription painkillers, and passed out. The top floor of her home and many of her family’s possessions were ruined. This is the reality of our community. It’s about a naked druggie destroying what little of value exists in her life. It’s about children who lose their toys and clothes to a mother’s addiction.

在我高中三年級的時候，我們的鄰居帕蒂打電話給她的房東，報告屋頂漏水。房東趕到后發現帕蒂赤裸上身，被石頭砸死，昏迷不醒地躺在客廳的沙發上。樓上的浴缸溢出了水，因此屋頂漏水了。帕蒂顯然給自己洗了個澡，吃了幾片處方止痛藥，然後昏倒了。她家的頂樓和她家的許多財產都被毀了。這就是我們社區的現實。這是關於一個赤裸裸的吸毒者摧毀了她生活中所存在的一點價值。這是關於孩子們因母親的成癮而失去玩具和衣服的故事。

Another neighbor lived alone in a big pink house. She was a recluse, a neighborhood mystery. She came outside only to smoke. She never said hello, and her lights were always off. She and her husband had divorced, and her children had landed in jail. She was extremely obese—as a child, I used to wonder if she hated the outdoors because she was too heavy to move.

另一位鄰居獨自住在一棟粉紅色的大房子里。她是一個隱士，一個鄰里之謎。她來到外面只是為了抽菸。她從不說你好，她的燈總是關著。她和丈夫離婚了，孩子們也進了監獄。她非常肥胖——小時候，我曾經懷疑她是否討厭戶外活動，因為她太重了，無法移動。

There were the neighbors down the street, a younger woman with a toddler and her middle-aged boyfriend. The boyfriend worked, and the woman spent her days watching The Young and the Restless. Her young son was adorable, and he loved Mamaw. At all times of the day—one time, past midnight—he would wander to her doorstep and ask for a snack. His mother had all the time in the world, but she couldn’t keep a close enough watch on her child to prevent him from straying into the homes of strangers. Sometimes his diaper would need changing. Mamaw once called social services on the woman, hoping they’d somehow rescue the young boy. They did nothing. So Mamaw used my nephew’s diapers and kept a watchful eye on the neighborhood, always looking for signs of her “little buddy.”

街上有鄰居，一個帶著蹣跚學步的年輕女子和她的中年男友。男朋友在工作，女人整天在看《年輕人與不安分的人》。她的小兒子很可愛，他愛媽媽。在一天中的任何時候——有一次，午夜過後——他都會徘徊到她家門口，要點零食。他的母親在這個世界上擁有所有的時間，但她無法密切關注她的孩子，以防止他誤入陌生人的家中。有時他的尿布需要更換。媽媽曾經打電話給這個女人的社會服務機構，希望他們能以某種方式救出這個小男孩。他們什麼也沒做。於是，媽媽用我侄子的尿布，密切關注著附近，總是在尋找她“小夥伴”的跡象。

My sister’s friend lived in a small duplex with her mother (a welfare queen if one ever existed). She had seven siblings, most of them from the same father—which was, unfortunately, a rarity. Her mother had never held a job and seemed interested “only in breeding,” as Mamaw put it. Her kids never had a chance. One ended up in an abusive relationship that produced a child before the mom was old enough to purchase cigarettes. The oldest overdosed on drugs and was arrested not long after he graduated from high school.

我姐姐的朋友和她的母親住在一個小複式公寓里（如果有的話，她就是福利女王）。她有七個兄弟姐妹，其中大部分來自同一個父親——不幸的是，這種情況很少見。她的母親從未有過工作，似乎「只對繁殖感興趣」，正如媽媽所說。她的孩子們從來沒有機會。其中一人最終陷入了一段虐待關係，在母親長大到可以購買香煙之前就生了一個孩子。最年長的吸毒過量，高中畢業后不久就被捕了。

This was my world: a world of truly irrational behavior. We spend our way into the poorhouse. We buy giant TVs and iPads. Our children wear nice clothes thanks to high-interest credit cards and payday loans. We purchase homes we don’t need, refinance them for more spending money, and declare bankruptcy, often leaving them full of garbage in our wake. Thrift is inimical to our being. We spend to pretend that we’re upper-class. And when the dust clears—when bankruptcy hits or a family member bails us out of our stupidity—there’s nothing left over. Nothing for the kids’ college tuition, no investment to grow our wealth, no rainy-day fund if someone loses her job. We know we shouldn’t spend like this. Sometimes we beat ourselves up over it, but we do it anyway.

這就是我的世界：一個真正非理性行為的世界。我們一路走進貧民窟。我們購買巨型電視和iPad。我們的孩子穿著漂亮的衣服，這要歸功於高息信用卡和發薪日貸款。我們購買不需要的房子，為它們再融資以獲得更多的支出，然後宣布破產，往往讓它們在我們身後裝滿垃圾。節儉對我們的存在是有害的。我們花錢假裝自己是上流社會。當塵埃落定時——當破產來襲，或者一個家庭成員把我們從愚蠢中解救出來時——就沒有什麼了。孩子們的大學學費一無所有，沒有投資來增加我們的財富，如果有人失業，就沒有未雨綢繆的基金。我們知道我們不應該這樣花錢。有時我們會為此自責，但我們還是這樣做了。

Our homes are a chaotic mess. We scream and yell at each other like we’re spectators at a football game. At least one member of the family uses drugs—sometimes the father, sometimes the mother, sometimes both. At especially stressful times, we’ll hit and punch each other, all in front of the rest of the family, including young children; much of the time, the neighbors hear what’s happening. A bad day is when the neighbors call the police to stop the drama. Our kids go to foster care but never stay for long. We apologize to our kids. The kids believe we’re really sorry, and we are. But then we act just as mean a few days later.

我們的家是一團亂麻。我們互相尖叫和大喊大叫，就像我們是足球比賽的觀眾一樣。家庭中至少有一名成員吸毒——有時是父親，有時是母親，有時兩者兼而有之。在特別緊張的時候，我們會互相毆打和拳打腳踢，都是在家人面前，包括年幼的孩子;很多時候，鄰居們會聽到正在發生的事情。糟糕的一天是鄰居打電話給員警阻止戲劇。我們的孩子去寄養，但從不呆太久。我們向孩子們道歉。孩子們認為我們真的很抱歉，我們確實如此。但幾天后，我們表現得同樣卑鄙。

We don’t study as children, and we don’t make our kids study when we’re parents. Our kids perform poorly in school. We might get angry with them, but we never give them the tools—like peace and quiet at home—to succeed. Even the best and brightest will likely go to college close to home, if they survive the war zone in their own home. “I don’t care if you got into Notre Dame,” we say. “You can get a fine, cheap education at the community college.” The irony is that for poor people like us, an education at Notre Dame is both cheaper and finer.

我們小時候不學習，當我們為人父母時，我們也不會讓孩子學習。我們的孩子在學校表現不佳。我們可能會對他們生氣，但我們從不給他們成功的工具——比如家裡的和平與安寧。即使是最優秀、最聰明的人，如果他們在自己家中度過戰區，也可能會去離家很近的大學。“我不在乎你是否進入了巴黎聖母院，”我們說。“你可以在社區大學接受優質、廉價的教育。具有諷刺意味的是，對於像我們這樣的窮人來說，聖母大學的教育既便宜又好。

We choose not to work when we should be looking for jobs. Sometimes we’ll get a job, but it won’t last. We’ll get fired for tardiness, or for stealing merchandise and selling it on eBay, or for having a customer complain about the smell of alcohol on our breath, or for taking five thirty-minute restroom breaks per shift. We talk about the value of hard work but tell ourselves that the reason we’re not working is some perceived unfairness: Obama shut down the coal mines, or all the jobs went to the Chinese. These are the lies we tell ourselves to solve the cognitive dissonance—the broken connection between the world we see and the values we preach.

當我們應該找工作時，我們選擇不工作。有時我們會找到一份工作，但它不會持久。我們會因為遲到而被解僱，或者因為偷竊商品並在eBay上出售，或者因為有顧客抱怨我們呼吸中的酒精味，或者因為每班在洗手間休息五次，30分鐘。我們談論努力工作的價值，但告訴自己，我們不工作的原因是一些不公平：奧巴馬關閉煤礦，或者所有的工作都流向了中國人。這些是我們告訴自己的謊言，以解決認知失調——我們看到的世界和我們所宣揚的價值觀之間的斷裂聯繫。

We talk to our children about responsibility, but we never walk the walk. It’s like this: For years I’d dreamed of owning a German shepherd puppy. Somehow Mom found me one. But he was our fourth dog, and I had no clue how to train him. Within a few years, all of them had vanished—given to the police department or to a family friend. After saying goodbye to the fourth dog, our hearts harden. We learn not to grow too attached.

我們和孩子談論責任，但我們從不言出必行。就像這樣：多年來，我一直夢想擁有一隻德國牧羊犬。不知怎的，媽媽給我找了一個。但他是我們的第四隻狗，我不知道如何訓練它。沒過幾年，他們都消失了——交給了員警局或家人朋友。告別第四隻狗后，我們的心變硬了。我們學會了不要太執著。

Our eating and exercise habits seem designed to send us to an early grave, and it’s working: In certain parts of Kentucky, local life expectancy is sixty-seven, a full decade and a half below what it is in nearby Virginia. A recent study found that unique among all ethnic groups in the United States, the life expectancy of working-class white folks is going down. We eat Pillsbury cinnamon rolls for breakfast, Taco Bell for lunch, and McDonald’s for dinner. We rarely cook, even though it’s cheaper and better for the body and soul. Exercise is confined to the games we play as children. We see people jog on the streets only if we leave our homes for the military or for college in some distant place.

我們的飲食和運動習慣似乎被設計為了讓我們早日進入墳墓，而且它正在起作用：在肯塔基州的某些地區，當地的預期壽命是六十七歲，比附近的維吉尼亞州低了整整十五年。最近的一項研究發現，在美國所有種族群體中，工人階級白人的預期壽命正在下降。我們早餐吃 Pillsbury 肉桂卷，午餐吃 Taco Bell，晚餐吃麥當勞。我們很少做飯，儘管它更便宜，對身體和靈魂更好。運動僅限於我們小時候玩的遊戲。只有當我們離開家去軍隊或去某個遙遠的地方上大學時，我們才會看到人們在街上慢跑。

Not all of the white working class struggles. I knew even as a child that there were two separate sets of mores and social pressures. My grandparents embodied one type: old-fashioned, quietly faithful, self-reliant, hardworking. My mother and, increasingly, the entire neighborhood embodied another: consumerist, isolated, angry, distrustful.

並非所有的白人工人階級都在鬥爭。我甚至在孩提時代就知道有兩套不同的習俗和社會壓力。我的爺爺奶奶體現了一種類型：老式的、安靜的、忠誠的、自力更生的、勤奮的。我的母親，以及越來越多的整個社區都體現了另一種：消費主義、孤立、憤怒、不信任。

There were (and remain) many who lived by my grandparents’ code. Sometimes you saw it in the subtlest of ways: the old neighbor who diligently tended her garden even as her neighbors let their homes rot from the inside out; the young woman who grew up with my mom, who returned to the neighborhood every day to help her mother navigate old age. I say this not to romanticize my grandparents’ way of life—which, as I’ve observed, was rife with problems—but to note that many in our community may have struggled but did so successfully. There are many intact families, many dinners shared in peaceful homes, many children studying hard and believing they’ll claim their own American Dream. Many of my friends have built successful lives and happy families in Middletown or nearby. They are not the problem, and if you believe the statistics, the children of these intact homes have plenty of reason for optimism.

曾經（並且仍然）有很多人按照我祖父母的準則生活。有時你會以最微妙的方式看到它：老鄰居勤奮地照料她的花園，即使她的鄰居讓他們的房子從里到外腐爛;那個和我媽媽一起長大的年輕女子，她每天都回到附近説明她的母親度過晚年。我這樣說並不是要把我祖父母的生活方式浪漫化——正如我所觀察到的，這種生活方式充滿了問題——而是要指出，我們社區中的許多人可能一直在掙扎，但取得了成功。有許多完整的家庭，許多在和平的家中共進晚餐，許多孩子努力學習並相信他們會實現自己的美國夢。我的許多朋友在米德爾敦或附近建立了成功的生活和幸福的家庭。他們不是問題，如果你相信統計數據，這些完整家庭的孩子有足夠的理由樂觀。

I always straddled those two worlds. Thanks to Mamaw, I never saw only the worst of what our community offered, and I believe that saved me. There was always a safe place and a loving embrace if ever I needed it. Our neighbors’ kids couldn’t say the same.

我總是橫跨這兩個世界。多虧了媽媽，我從來不會只看到我們社區提供的最糟糕的東西，我相信這救了我。總有一個安全的地方和一個充滿愛的擁抱，如果我需要的話。我們鄰居的孩子不能這麼說。

One Sunday, Mamaw agreed to watch Aunt Wee’s kids for several hours. Aunt Wee dropped them off at ten. I had to work the dreaded eleven A.M. to eight P.M. shift at the grocery store. I hung out with the kids for about forty-five minutes, then left at ten-forty-five for work. I was unusually upset—devastated, even—to leave them. I wanted nothing more than to spend the day with Mamaw and the babies. I told Mamaw that, and instead of telling me to “quit your damn whining” like I expected, she told me she wished that I could stay home, too. It was a rare moment of empathy. “But if you want the sort of work where you can spend the weekends with your family, you’ve got to go to college and make something of yourself.” That was the essence of Mamaw’s genius. She didn’t just preach and cuss and demand. She showed me what was possible—a peaceful Sunday afternoon with the people I loved—and made sure I knew how to get there.

一個星期天，媽媽同意看黃阿姨的孩子幾個小時。黃阿姨在十點把他們送走了。我不得不在雜貨店工作可怕的上午十一點到晚上八點。我和孩子們一起出去玩了大約四十五分鐘，然後在十點四十五分離開去上班。離開他們，我感到異常沮喪，甚至感到沮喪。我只想和媽媽和寶寶們一起度過這一天。我告訴了媽媽，她沒有像我預期的那樣告訴我“停止你該死的抱怨”，而是告訴我她希望我也能呆在家裡。這是一個難得的同理心時刻。“但是，如果你想要一份可以和家人一起度過週末的工作，你就必須上大學，為自己做點什麼。這就是媽媽天才的本質。她不只是說教、責駡和要求。她向我展示了什麼是可能的——與我所愛的人一起度過一個寧靜的周日下午——並確保我知道如何到達那裡。

Reams of social science attest to the positive effect of a loving and stable home. I could cite a dozen studies suggesting that Mamaw’s home offered me not just a short-term haven but also hope for a better life. Entire volumes are devoted to the phenomenon of “resilient children”—kids who prosper despite an unstable home because they have the social support of a loving adult.

大量的社會科學證明瞭一個充滿愛心和穩定的家庭的積極影響。我可以舉出十幾項研究表明，媽媽的家不僅為我提供了一個短期的避風港，還為我提供了過上更好生活的希望。整本書都致力於“有彈性的孩子”現象——儘管家庭不穩定，但孩子們仍然茁壯成長，因為他們得到了一個充滿愛心的成年人的社會支援。

I know Mamaw was good for me not because some Harvard psychologist says so but because I felt it. Consider my life before I moved in with Mamaw. In the middle of third grade, we left Middletown and my grandparents to live in Preble County with Bob; at the end of fourth grade, we left Preble County to live in a Middletown duplex on the 200 block of McKinley Street; at the end of fifth grade, we left the 200 block of McKinley Street to move to the 300 block of McKinley Street, and by that time Chip was a regular in our home, though he never lived with us; at the end of sixth grade, we remained on the 300 block of McKinley Street, but Chip had been replaced by Steve (and there were many discussions about moving in with Steve); at the end of seventh grade, Matt had taken Steve’s place, Mom was preparing to move in with Matt, and Mom hoped that I would join her in Dayton; at the end of eighth grade, she demanded that I move to Dayton, and after a brief detour at my dad’s house, I acquiesced; at the end of ninth grade, I moved in with Ken—a complete stranger—and his three kids. On top of all that were the drugs, the domestic violence case, children’s services prying into our lives, and Papaw dying.

我知道媽媽對我有好處，不是因為哈佛的心理學家這麼說，而是因為我感覺到了。想想我和媽媽一起搬進來之前的生活。三年級中期，我們離開了米德爾敦和我的祖父母，和鮑勃一起住在普雷布爾縣;四年級結束時，我們離開普雷布爾縣，住在麥金利街 200 街區的米德爾敦複式公寓里;五年級結束時，我們離開了麥金利街的200街區，搬到了麥金利街的300街區，那時奇普是我們家的常客，儘管他從未和我們住在一起。六年級結束時，我們住在麥金利街300號街區，但奇普已經被史蒂夫取代了（關於搬去和史蒂夫住在一起的討論很多次）;七年級結束時，馬特接替了史蒂夫的位置，媽媽正準備搬去和馬特一起住，媽媽希望我能和她一起去代頓;八年級結束時，她要求我搬到代頓，在我爸爸家繞了一小段路后，我默許了;九年級結束時，我和肯——一個完全陌生的人——和他的三個孩子住在一起。除此之外，還有毒品、家庭暴力案件、窺探我們生活的兒童服務以及Papaw的死亡。

Today, even remembering that period long enough to write it down invokes an intense, indescribable anxiety in me. Not long ago, I noticed that a Facebook friend (an acquaintance from high school with similarly deep hillbilly roots) was constantly changing boyfriends—going in and out of relationships, posting pictures of one guy one week and another three weeks later, fighting on social media with her new fling until the relationship publicly imploded. She is my age with four children, and when she posted that she had finally found a man who would treat her well (a refrain I’d seen many times before), her thirteen-year-old daughter commented: “Just stop. I just want you and this to stop.” I wish I could hug that little girl, because I know how she feels. For seven long years, I just wanted it to stop. I didn’t care so much about the fighting, the screaming, or even the drugs. I just wanted a home, and I wanted to stay there, and I wanted these goddamned strangers to stay the fuck out.

今天，即使記得那段時間足夠長，把它寫下來，也會在我心中喚起一種強烈的、難以形容的焦慮。不久前，我注意到一個Facebook朋友（一個有著同樣深厚鄉巴佬血統的高中熟人）不斷更換男朋友——進進出出，一周后發佈一個男人的照片，三周后發佈另一個男人的照片，在社交媒體上與她的新朋友爭吵，直到這段關係公開破裂。她和我同齡，有四個孩子，當她發帖說她終於找到了一個會善待她的男人時（我以前見過很多次），她十三歲的女兒評論說：“停下來。我只想讓你和這件事停下來。我希望我能擁抱那個小女孩，因為我知道她的感受。在長達七年的時間里，我只想讓它停下來。我不太在乎打架、尖叫，甚至毒品。我只是想要一個家，我想呆在那裡，我想讓這些該死的陌生人呆在外面。

Now consider the sum of my life after I moved in with Mamaw permanently. At the end of tenth grade, I lived with Mamaw, in her house, with no one else. At the end of eleventh grade, I lived with Mamaw, in her house, with no one else. At the end of twelfth grade, I lived with Mamaw, in her house, with no one else. I could say that the peace of Mamaw’s home gave me a safe space to do my homework. I could say that the absence of fighting and instability let me focus on school and my job. I could say that spending all of my time in the same house with the same person made it easier for me to form lasting friendships with people at school. I could say that having a job and learning a bit about the world helped clarify precisely what I wanted out of my own life. In hindsight, those explanations make sense, and I am certain that a bit of truth lies in each.

現在想想我永久搬來媽媽家後的生活總和。十年級結束時，我和媽媽一起住在她的房子里，沒有其他人。十一年級結束時，我和媽媽一起住在她的房子里，沒有其他人。十二年級結束時，我和媽媽住在一起，住在她的房子里，沒有其他人。我可以說，媽媽家的寧靜給了我一個安全的空間來做作業。我可以說，沒有戰鬥和不穩定讓我專注於學校和工作。我可以說，把我所有的時間都花在同一個房子里，和同一個人在一起，讓我更容易與學校裡的人建立持久的友誼。我可以說，有一份工作並瞭解一些世界有助於澄清我想要從自己的生活中得到什麼。事後看來，這些解釋是有道理的，我確信每個解釋都有一點道理。

I’m sure that a sociologist and a psychologist, sitting in a room together, could explain why I lost interest in drugs, why my grades improved, why I aced the SAT, and why I found a couple of teachers who inspired me to love learning. But what I remember most of all is that I was happy—I no longer feared the school bell at the end of the day, I knew where I’d be living the next month, and no one’s romantic decisions affected my life. And out of that happiness came so many of the opportunities I’ve had for the past twelve years.

我敢肯定，一位社會學家和一位心理學家坐在一個房間里，可以解釋為什麼我對毒品失去了興趣，為什麼我的成績提高了，為什麼我在SAT考試中取得了優異成績，以及為什麼我找到了幾位激勵我熱愛學習的老師。但我最難忘的是，我很快樂——我不再害怕一天結束時的上課鈴聲，我知道下個月我會住在哪裡，沒有人的浪漫決定影響我的生活。從這種幸福中，我獲得了過去十二年中的許多機會。

Chapter 10

第10章

During my last year of high school, I tried out for the varsity golf team. For about a year, I’d taken golf lessons from an old golf pro. The summer before senior year, I got a job at a local golf course so I could practice for free. Mamaw never showed any interest in sports, but she encouraged me to learn golf because “that’s where rich people do business.” Though wise in her own way, Mamaw knew little about the business habits of rich people, and I told her as much. “Shut up, you fucker,” she told me. “Everybody knows rich people love to golf.” But when I practiced my swing in the house (I didn’t use a ball, so the only damage I did was to the floor) she demanded that I stop ruining her carpet. “But, Mamaw,” I protested sarcastically, “if you don’t let me practice, I’ll never get to do any business on the golf course. I might as well drop out of high school now and get a job bagging groceries.” “You smart-ass. If I wasn’t crippled, I’d get up right now and smack your head and ass together.”

在我高中的最後一年，我參加了大學高爾夫球隊的試訓。在大約一年的時間里，我從一位老高爾夫職業選手那裡上了高爾夫課。大四前的那個夏天，我在當地的一個高爾夫球場找到了一份工作，這樣我就可以免費練習了。媽媽從來沒有對運動表現出任何興趣，但她鼓勵我學習打高爾夫，因為「那是有錢人做生意的地方」。儘管媽媽以自己的方式聰明，但她對有錢人經商的習慣知之甚少，我告訴了她很多。“閉嘴，你這個混蛋，”她對我說。“每個人都知道有錢人喜歡打高爾夫球。但是當我在家裡練習揮杆時（我沒有使用球，所以我造成的唯一傷害是地板），她要求我停止破壞她的地毯。“可是，媽媽，”我諷刺地抗議道，“如果你不讓我練習，我就永遠不能在高爾夫球場上做任何生意了。我還不如現在從高中輟學，找一份裝袋雜貨的工作。“你這個聰明的屁股。如果我沒有殘廢，我現在就會站起來，把你的頭和屁股一起打。

So she helped me pay for my lessons and asked her baby brother (my uncle Gary), the youngest of the Blanton boys, to find me some old clubs. He delivered a nice set of MacGregors, better than anything we could have afforded on our own, and I practiced as often as I could. By the time golf tryouts rolled around, I had mastered enough of a golf swing not to embarrass myself.

於是她幫我付了學費，還讓她的小弟弟（我的叔叔加里），布蘭頓家最小的男孩，給我找一些老俱樂部。他提供了一套漂亮的麥基嘉，比我們自己買得起的任何東西都要好，我盡可能多地練習。當高爾夫選拔賽開始的時候，我已經掌握了足夠多的高爾夫揮杆技巧，不會讓自己感到尷尬。

I didn’t make the team, though I did show enough improvement to justify practicing with my friends who had made the team, and that was all I really wanted. I learned that Mamaw was right: Golf was a rich person’s game. At the course where I worked, few of our customers came from Middletown’s working-class neighborhoods. On my first day of golf practice, I showed up in dress shoes, thinking that was what golf shoes were. When an enterprising young bully noticed before the first tee that I was wearing a pair of Kmart brown loafers, he proceeded to mock me mercilessly for the next four hours. I resisted the urge to bury my putter in his goddamned ear, remembering Mamaw’s sage advice to “act like you’ve been there.” (A note about hillbilly loyalty: Reminded of that story recently, Lindsay launched into a tirade about how much of a loser the kid was. The incident occurred thirteen years ago.)

我沒有進入團隊，儘管我確實表現出了足夠的進步，可以證明與組成團隊的朋友一起練習是合理的，這就是我真正想要的。我瞭解到媽媽是對的：高爾夫是有錢人的運動。在我工作的課程中，我們的客戶中很少有來自米德爾敦的工人階級社區。在我練習高爾夫的第一天，我穿著正裝鞋出現，以為這就是高爾夫球鞋。當一個有進取心的年輕惡霸在第一個發球臺前注意到我穿著一雙凱馬特棕色樂福鞋時，他在接下來的四個小時里毫不留情地嘲笑我。我忍住了把推桿埋在他該死的耳朵里的衝動，想起了媽媽的聖人建議，“表現得像你去過那裡一樣”。（關於鄉巴佬忠誠的說明：最近想起那個故事，琳賽開始長篇大論，說這個孩子是多麼的失敗者。這起事件發生在十三年前。

I knew in the back of my mind that decisions were coming about my future. All of my friends planned to go to college; that I had such motivated friends was due to Mamaw’s influence. By the time I was in seventh grade, many of my neighborhood friends were already smoking weed. Mamaw found out and forbade me to see any of them. I recognize that most kids ignore instructions like these, but most kids don’t receive them from the likes of Bonnie Vance. She promised that if she saw me in the presence of any person on the banned list, she would run him over with her car. “No one would ever find out,” she whispered menacingly.

我內心深處知道，關於我未來的決定即將到來。我所有的朋友都計劃上大學;我有這麼積極進取的朋友，是由於媽媽的影響。到我上七年級的時候，我的許多鄰居朋友已經在吸食大麻了。媽媽知道了，不准我去看他們。我認識到大多數孩子都忽略了這樣的指示，但大多數孩子不會從邦妮·萬斯（Bonnie Vance）等人那裡得到這些指示。她答應說，如果她看到我出現在禁賽名單上的任何人面前，她會用她的車碾過他。“沒有人會發現，”她威脅性地低聲說。

With my friends headed for college, I figured I’d do the same. I scored well enough on the SAT to overcome my earlier bad grades, and I knew that the only two schools I had any interest in attending—Ohio State and Miami University—would both accept me. A few months before I graduated, I had (admittedly, with little thought) settled on Ohio State. A large package arrived in the mail, filled with financial aid information from the university. There was talk of Pell Grants, subsidized loans, unsubsidized loans, scholarships, and something called “work-study.” It was all so exciting, if only Mamaw and I could figure out what it meant. We puzzled over the forms for hours before concluding that I could purchase a decent home in Middletown with the debt I’d incur to go to college. We hadn’t actually started the forms yet—that would require another herculean effort on another day.

隨著我的朋友去上大學，我想我也會這樣做。我在SAT考試中取得了足夠好的成績，克服了我之前的糟糕成績，我知道我唯一有興趣就讀的兩所學校——俄亥俄州立大學和邁阿密大學——都會接受我。在我畢業前幾個月，我（誠然，幾乎沒有考慮過）在俄亥俄州立大學定居。一個大包裹寄到了郵件中，裡面裝滿了來自大學的經濟援助資訊。有人談論佩爾助學金、補貼貸款、無補貼貸款、獎學金和所謂的「勤工儉學」。。這一切都太令人興奮了，要是媽媽和我能弄清楚這意味著什麼就好了。我們在表格上困惑了幾個小時，然後得出結論，我可以用上大學的債務在米德爾敦買一套像樣的房子。我們實際上還沒有開始表格——這需要在另一天再做一次艱巨的努力。

Excitement turned to apprehension, but I reminded myself that college was an investment in my future. “It’s the only damned thing worth spending money on right now,” Mamaw said. She was right, but as I worried less about the financial aid forms, I began to worry for another reason: I wasn’t ready. Not all investments are good investments. All of that debt, and for what? To get drunk all the time and earn terrible grades? Doing well in college required grit, and I had far too little of it.

興奮變成了憂慮，但我提醒自己，大學是對我未來的投資。“這是現在唯一值得花錢買的東西，”Mamaw說。她是對的，但隨著我對經濟援助表格的擔憂減少，我開始擔心另一個原因：我還沒有準備好。並非所有投資都是好的投資。所有這些債務，為了什麼？一直喝醉，成績不好？在大學里取得好成績需要勇氣，而我所擁有的太少了。

My high school record left much to be desired: dozens of absences and tardy arrivals, and no school activities to speak of. I was undoubtedly on an upward trajectory, but even toward the end of high school, C’s in easy classes revealed a kid unprepared for the rigors of advanced education. In Mamaw’s house, I was healing, yet as we combed through those financial aid papers, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had a long way to go.

我的高中成績還有很多不足之處：數十次缺勤和遲到，沒有任何學校活動可言。毫無疑問，我正處於上升的軌道上，但即使在高中畢業時，在輕鬆課程中的C也表明瞭一個對高等教育的嚴格要求毫無準備的孩子。在媽媽的家裡，我正在康復，但當我們梳理那些經濟援助檔時，我無法擺脫我還有很長的路要走的感覺。

Everything about the unstructured college experience terrified me—from feeding myself healthy food to paying my own bills. I’d never done any of those things. But I knew that I wanted more out of my life. I knew that I wanted to excel in college, get a good job, and give my family the things I’d never had. I just wasn’t ready to start that journey. That’s when my cousin Rachael—a Marine Corps veteran—advised that I consider the Corps: “They’ll whip your ass into shape.” Rachael was Uncle Jimmy’s oldest daughter, and thus the dean of our generation of grandchildren. All of us, even Lindsay, looked up to Rachael, so her advice carried enormous weight.

關於非結構化的大學經歷的一切都讓我感到恐懼——從給自己餵健康的食物到支付自己的帳單。我從來沒有做過這些事情。但我知道我想要從我的生活中得到更多。我知道我想在大學里出類拔萃，找到一份好工作，給我的家人提供我從未擁有過的東西。我只是還沒有準備好開始這段旅程。就在那時，我的表妹瑞秋（Rachael）——一名海軍陸戰隊退伍軍人——建議我考慮海軍陸戰隊：“他們會把你的屁股鞭打得成形。瑞秋是吉米叔叔的大女兒，因此也是我們這一代孫子孫女的院長。我們所有人，包括琳賽，都仰慕瑞秋，所以她的建議非常有分量。

The 9/11 attacks had occurred only a year earlier, during my junior year of high school; like any self-respecting hillbilly, I considered heading to the Middle East to kill terrorists. But the prospect of military service—the screaming drill instructors, the constant exercise, the separation from my family—frightened me. Until Rachael told me to talk to a recruiter—implicitly arguing that she thought I could handle it—joining the Marines seemed as plausible as flying to Mars. Now, just weeks before I owed a tuition deposit to Ohio State, I could think of nothing but the Marine Corps.

9/11襲擊發生在一年前，當時我上高中三年級;像任何有自尊心的鄉巴佬一樣，我考慮前往中東殺死恐怖分子。但服兵役的前景——尖叫的訓練教官、不斷的鍛煉、與家人的分離——讓我感到害怕。直到瑞秋讓我去找一個招聘人員談談——含蓄地爭辯說她認為我能應付——加入海軍陸戰隊似乎就像飛往火星一樣合理。現在，就在我欠俄亥俄州立大學學費押金的幾周前，除了海軍陸戰隊，我什麼也想不起來。

So one Saturday in late March, I walked into a military recruiter’s office and asked him about the Marine Corps. He didn’t try to sell me on anything. He told me I’d make very little money and I might even go to war. “But they’ll teach you about leadership, and they’ll turn you into a disciplined young man.” This piqued my interest, but the notion of J.D. the U.S. Marine still inspired disbelief. I was a pudgy, longhaired kid. When our gym teacher told us to run a mile, I’d walk at least half. I had never woken up before six A.M. And here was this organization promising that I’d rise regularly at five A.M. and run multiple miles per day.

因此，在三月下旬的一個星期六，我走進一個徵兵人員的辦公室，向他詢問了海軍陸戰隊的情況。他沒有試圖向我推銷任何東西。他告訴我，我賺的錢很少，我甚至可能會去打仗。“但他們會教你領導力，他們會把你變成一個有紀律的年輕人。這激起了我的興趣，但美國海軍陸戰隊J.D.的概念仍然激發了我的懷疑。我是一個矮胖的長髮孩子。當我們的體育老師告訴我們要跑一英里時，我至少會走一半。我從來沒有在早上六點之前醒來。這個組織承諾我會定期在早上五點起床，每天跑幾英里。

I went home and considered my options. I reminded myself that my country needed me, and that I’d always regret not participating in America’s newest war. I thought about the GI Bill and how it would help me trade indebtedness for financial freedom. I knew that, most of all, I had no other choice. There was college, or nothing, or the Marines, and I didn’t like either of the first two options. Four years in the Marines, I told myself, would help me become the person I wanted to be. But I didn’t want to leave home. Lindsay had just had her second kid, an adorable little girl, and was expecting a third, and my nephew was still a toddler. Lori’s kids were still babies, too. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to do it. And I knew that if I waited too long, I’d talk myself out of enlisting. So two weeks later, as the Iraq crisis turned into the Iraq war, I signed my name on a dotted line and promised the Marine Corps the first four years of my adult life.

我回到家，考慮了我的選擇。我提醒自己，我的國家需要我，我總是後悔沒有參加美國最新的戰爭。我想到了《退伍軍人權利法案》，以及它將如何説明我用債務換取財務自由。我知道，最重要的是，我別無選擇。有大學，或者什麼都沒有，或者海軍陸戰隊，我不喜歡前兩個選項中的任何一個。我告訴自己，在海軍陸戰隊服役的四年會幫助我成為我想成為的人。但我不想離開家。琳賽剛剛生了她的第二個孩子，一個可愛的小女孩，正在期待第三個孩子，而我的侄子還是個蹣跚學步的孩子。蘿莉的孩子也還是嬰兒。我越想越不想做。我知道，如果我等得太久，我會勸自己不要入伍。因此，兩周后，當伊拉克危機演變成伊拉克戰爭時，我在虛線上簽下了自己的名字，並向海軍陸戰隊承諾了我成年後的頭四年。

At first my family scoffed. The Marines weren’t for me, and people let me know it. Eventually, knowing I wouldn’t change my mind, everyone came around, and a few even seemed excited. Everyone, that is, save Mamaw. She tried every manner of persuasion: “You’re a fucking idiot; they’ll chew you up and spit you out.” “Who’s going to take care of me?” “You’re too stupid for the Marines.” “You’re too smart for the Marines.” “With everything that’s going on in the world, you’ll get your head blown off.” “Don’t you want to be around for Lindsay’s kids?” “I’m worried, and I don’t want you to go.” Though she came to accept the decision, she never liked it. Shortly before I left for boot camp, the recruiter visited to speak with my fragile grandmother. She met him outside, stood up as straight as she could, and glowered at him. “Set one foot on my fucking porch, and I’ll blow it off,” she advised. “I thought she might be serious,” he later told me. So they had their talk while he stood in the front yard.

起初，我的家人嗤之以鼻。海軍陸戰隊不適合我，人們讓我知道了。最終，知道我不會改變主意，每個人都圍了過來，有些人甚至看起來很興奮。每個人，也就是拯救媽媽。她嘗試了各種勸說方式：「你他媽的是個白癡;他們會把你嚼碎，然後把你吐出來。“誰來照顧我？”“你對海軍陸戰隊來說太愚蠢了。”“你對海軍陸戰隊來說太聰明瞭。”“面對世界上正在發生的一切，你會被炸掉腦袋的。”“你不想陪在琳賽的孩子身邊嗎？”“我很擔心，我不想讓你走。”雖然她接受了這個決定，但她從來不喜歡它。在我去新兵訓練營前不久，招聘人員拜訪了我虛弱的祖母。她在外面遇見了他，盡可能直起身子，瞪了他一眼。“一隻腳踩在我該死的門廊上，我會把它炸掉，”她建議道。“我以為她可能是認真的，”他後來告訴我。所以當他站在前院時，他們進行了交談。

My greatest fear when I left for boot camp wasn’t that I’d be killed in Iraq or that I’d fail to make the cut. I hardly worried about those things. But when Mom, Lindsay, and Aunt Wee drove me to the bus that would take me to the airport and on to boot camp from there, I imagined my life four years later. And I saw a world without my grandmother in it. Something inside me knew that she wouldn’t survive my time in the Marines. I’d never come home again, at least not permanently. Home was Middletown with Mamaw in it. And by the time I finished with the Marines, Mamaw would be gone.

當我去新兵訓練營時，我最大的恐懼不是我會在伊拉克被殺，也不是我沒能晉級。我幾乎不擔心這些事情。但是，當媽媽、琳賽和黃阿姨開車送我上車，把我帶到機場，然後從那裡去訓練營時，我想像著四年後的生活。我看到了一個沒有祖母的世界。我內心深處知道，她無法在我在海軍陸戰隊的時光中倖存下來。我再也不會回家了，至少不會永遠回家。家是米德爾敦，裡面有媽媽。當我完成海軍陸戰隊的任務時，媽媽已經走了。

Marine Corps boot camp lasts thirteen weeks, each with a new training focus. The night I arrived in Parris Island, South Carolina, an angry drill instructor greeted my group as we disembarked from the plane. He ordered us onto a bus; after a short trip, another drill instructor ordered us off the bus and onto the famed “yellow footprints.” Over the next six hours, I was poked and prodded by medical personnel, assigned equipment and uniforms, and lost all of my hair. We were allowed one phone call, so I naturally called Mamaw and read off of the card they gave me: “I have arrived safely at Parris Island. I will send my address soon. Goodbye.” “Wait, you little shithead. Are you okay?” “Sorry, Mamaw, can’t talk. But yes, I’m okay. I’ll write as soon as I can.” The drill instructor, overhearing my two extra lines of conversation, asked sarcastically whether I’d made enough time “for her to tell you a fucking story.” That was the first day.

海軍陸戰隊新兵訓練營持續十三周，每個訓練營都有新的訓練重點。我抵達南卡羅來納州帕裡斯島的那天晚上，當我們下飛機時，一位憤怒的演習教官向我的團隊打招呼。他命令我們上一輛公共汽車;經過短暫的旅行后，另一位訓練教練命令我們下車，進入著名的「黃色腳印」。。在接下來的六個小時里，我被醫務人員戳，分配了設備和制服，頭髮都掉了。我們被允許打一個電話，所以我很自然地打電話給媽媽，並讀出他們給我的卡片：“我已經安全抵達帕裡斯島。我會儘快發送我的位址。再見。“等等，你這個小屁孩。你還好嗎？“對不起，媽媽，不能說話。但是，是的，我沒事。我會儘快寫信。操練教官無意中聽到了我多說的兩句話，諷刺地問我是否有足夠的時間“讓她給你講一個他媽的故事”。那是第一天。

There are no phone calls in boot camp. I was allowed only one, to call Lindsay when her half brother died. I realized, through letters, how much my family loved me. While most other recruits—that’s what they called us; we had to earn the title “marine” by completing the rigors of boot camp—received a letter every day or two, I sometimes received a half dozen each night. Mamaw wrote every day, sometimes several times, offering extended thoughts on what was wrong with the world in some and few-sentence streams of consciousness in others. Most of all, Mamaw wanted to know how my days were going and reassure me. Recruiters told families that what most of us needed were words of encouragement, and Mamaw delivered that in spades. As I struggled with screaming drill instructors and physical fitness routines that pushed my out-of-shape body to its limits, I read every day that Mamaw was proud of me, that she loved me, and that she knew I wouldn’t give up. Thanks to either my wisdom or inherited hoarder tendencies, I managed to keep nearly every one of the letters I received from my family.

新兵訓練營中沒有電話。我只被允許在琳賽同父異母的哥哥去世時給她打電話。通過信件，我意識到我的家人是多麼愛我。雖然大多數其他新兵——他們就是這樣稱呼我們的;我們必須通過完成嚴格的新兵訓練營來獲得「海軍陸戰隊」的稱號——每隔一兩天就會收到一封信，有時我每晚都會收到六封信。嬤嬤每天都會寫作，有時甚至寫好幾遍，在一些作品中對世界出了什麼問題提出延伸的思考，而在另一些作品中則以幾句話的意識流提供思考。最重要的是，媽媽想知道我的日子過得怎麼樣，並讓我放心。招聘人員告訴家人，我們大多數人需要的是鼓勵的話語，而Mamaw毫不猶豫地做到了這一點。當我在尖叫的訓練教練和體能訓練中掙扎時，這些訓練將我走樣的身體推向了極限，我每天都讀到媽媽為我感到驕傲，她愛我，她知道我不會放棄。多虧了我的智慧或遺傳的囤積傾向，我設法保留了我從家人那裡收到的幾乎每一封信。

Many of them shed an interesting light on the home I left behind. A letter from Mom, asking me what I might need and telling me how proud she is of me. “I was babysitting [Lindsay’s kids],” she reports. “They played with slugs outside. They squeezed one and killed it. But I threw it away and told them they didn’t because Kam got a little upset, thinking he killed it.” This is Mom at her best: loving and funny, a woman who delighted in her grandchildren. In the same letter, a reference to Greg, likely a boyfriend who has since disappeared from my memory. And an insight into our sense of normalcy: “Mandy’s husband Terry,” she starts, referencing a friend of hers, “was arrested on a probation violation and sent to prison. So they are all doing OK.”

他們中的許多人為我留下的家提供了有趣的啟示。媽媽的一封信，問我可能需要什麼，並告訴我她為我感到驕傲。“我正在照看[琳賽的孩子]，”她報告說。“他們在外面玩蛞蝓。他們擠了一個並殺死了它。但我把它扔掉了，並告訴他們他們沒有，因為卡姆有點不高興，以為是他殺了它。這是媽媽最好的一面：充滿愛心和風趣，一個喜歡孫子孫女的女人。在同一封信中，提到了格雷格，很可能是一個從我的記憶中消失的男朋友。以及對我們常態感的洞察：「曼迪的丈夫特裡，」她開始提到她的一個朋友，「因違反緩刑而被捕並被送進監獄。所以他們都做得很好。

Lindsay also wrote often, sending multiple letters in the same envelope, each on a different-colored piece of paper, with instructions on the back—“Read this one second; this is the last one.” Every single letter contained some reference to her kids. I learned of my oldest niece’s successful potty training; my nephew’s soccer matches; my younger niece’s early smiles and first efforts to reach for things. After a lifetime of shared triumphs and tragedies, we both adored her kids more than anything else. Almost all of the letters I sent home asked her to “kiss the babies and tell them that I love them.”

琳賽也經常寫信，在同一個信封里寄出多封信，每封信都寫在一張不同顏色的紙上，背面有說明——“讀一秒鐘;這是最後一個。每一封信都提到了她的孩子。我聽說我的大侄女成功地進行了如廁訓練;我侄子的足球比賽;我小侄女早起的笑容和第一次伸手去拿東西。在經歷了一生的勝利和悲劇之後，我們都愛她的孩子勝過一切。我寄回家的幾乎所有信件都要求她“親吻嬰兒，告訴他們我愛他們”。

Cut off for the first time from home and family, I learned a lot about myself and my culture. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the military is not a landing spot for low-income kids with no other options. The sixty-nine members of my boot camp platoon included black, white, and Hispanic kids; rich kids from upstate New York and poor kids from West Virginia; Catholics, Jews, Protestants, and even a few atheists.

第一次與家庭和家人隔絕，我學到了很多關於自己和我的文化的知識。與傳統觀點相反，軍隊不是沒有其他選擇的低收入兒童的著陸點。我的新兵訓練營排的六十九名成員包括黑人、白人和西班牙裔孩子;來自紐約州北部的富家子弟和來自西佛吉尼亞州的窮家子弟;天主教徒、猶太人、新教徒，甚至一些無神論者。

I was naturally drawn to those like me. “The person I talk to most,” I wrote to my family in my first letter home, “is from Leslie County, Kentucky. He talks like he’s from Jackson. I was telling him how much bullshit it was that Catholics got all the free time they did. They get it because of the way the church schedule works. He is definitely a country kid, ’cause he said, ‘What’s a Catholic?’ And I told him that it was just another form of Christianity, and he said, ‘I might have to try that out.’” Mamaw understood precisely where he came from. “Down in that part of Kentucky, everybody’s a snake handler,” she wrote back, only partially joking.

我自然而然地被像我這樣的人所吸引。“我最常交談的人，”我在給家人的第一封信中寫道，“來自肯塔基州的萊斯利縣。他說話就像他來自傑克遜一樣。我告訴他，天主教徒得到了他們所做的所有空閒時間，這是多麼胡說八道。他們之所以得到它，是因為教會日程安排的運作方式。他絕對是一個鄉下孩子，因為他說，『什麼是天主教徒？我告訴他，這隻是基督教的另一種形式，他說，『我可能得試一試。媽媽確切地知道他來自哪裡。“在肯塔基州的那個地方，每個人都是馴蛇師，”她回信說，只是半開玩笑。

During my time away, Mamaw showed vulnerability that I’d never seen before. Whenever she received a letter from me, she would call my aunt or sister, demanding that someone come to her house immediately and interpret my chicken scratch. “I love you a big bunch and I miss you a bunch I forget you aren’t here I think you will come down the stairs and I can holler at you it is just a feeling you aren’t really gone. My hands hurt today that arthritis I guess. . . . I’ll go for now write more later love you please take care.” Mamaw’s letters never contained the necessary punctuation and always included some articles, usually from Reader’s Digest, to occupy my time.

在我離開的那段時間里，媽媽表現出了我從未見過的脆弱。每當她收到我的信時，她都會打電話給我的阿姨或姐姐，要求有人立即到她家來解釋我的雞抓。“我非常愛你，我很想念你，我忘了你不在這裡，我想你會從樓梯上下來，我可以對你大喊大叫，這隻是一種感覺，你並沒有真正離開。我的手今天很痛，我猜是關節炎。我現在去，以後再寫，愛你，請保重。媽媽的信中從不包含必要的標點符號，總是包括一些文章，通常來自《讀者文摘》，以佔用我的時間。

She could still be classic Mamaw: mean and ferociously loyal. About a month into my training, I had a nasty exchange with a drill instructor, who took me aside for a half hour, forcing me to alternate jumping jacks, sit-ups, and short sprints until I was completely exhausted. It was par for the course in boot camp, something nearly everyone faced at one point or another. If anything, I was lucky to have avoided it for so long. “Dearest J.D.,” Mamaw wrote when she learned of the incident, “I must say I have been waiting for them dick face bastards to start on you—and now they have. Words aren’t invented to describe how they piss me off. . . . You just keep on doing the best you can do and keep thinking about this stupid asshole with an IQ of 2 thinking he is Bobby bad ass but he wears girls underwear. I hate all of them.” When I read that outburst, I figured Mamaw had gotten it all off her chest. But the next day, she had more to say: “Hello sweet heart all I can think about is them dicks screaming at you that is my job not them fuckers. Just kidding I know you will be what ever you want to be because you are smart something they aren’t and they know it I hate them all really hate their guts. Screaming is part of the game they play . . . you carry on as best you can you will come out ahead.” I had the meanest old hillbilly staunchly in my corner, even if she was hundreds of miles away.

她仍然可以是典型的媽媽：刻薄而兇猛的忠誠。在我訓練大約一個月後，我和一位訓練教練發生了令人討厭的交流，他把我帶到一邊半個小時，強迫我交替跳千斤頂、仰臥起坐和短距離衝刺，直到我完全筋疲力盡。這在新兵訓練營中是正常的，幾乎每個人都在某個時候遇到過這種情況。如果有的話，我很幸運能避免它這麼久。“最親愛的J.D.，”媽媽在得知這件事後寫道，“我必須說，我一直在等他們這些雞巴臉的混蛋開始對你下手——現在他們已經這樣做了。詞語不是為了形容它們如何惹惱我而發明的。你只是繼續盡你所能，繼續想著這個智商為 2 的愚蠢混蛋，認為他是鮑比壞蛋，但他穿著女孩內衣。我討厭他們所有人。當我讀到那次爆發時，我以為媽媽已經把一切都從她的胸膛里拿走了。但第二天，她還有更多話要說：“你好，親愛的，我所能想到的就是他們雞巴對你尖叫，那是我的工作，而不是他們混蛋。開個玩笑，我知道你會成為你想成為的人，因為你很聰明，他們不是，他們知道，我討厭他們，真的很討厭他們的膽量。尖叫是他們玩的遊戲的一部分。你盡你所能地堅持下去，你會走在前面。我有一個最卑鄙的老鄉巴佬堅定地站在我的角落裡，即使她遠在幾百英里之外。

In boot camp, mealtime is a marvel of efficiency. You walk through a cafeteria line, holding your tray for the service staff. They drop all of the day’s offerings on your plate, both because you’re afraid to speak up about your least favorite items and because you’re so hungry that you’d gladly eat a dead horse. You sit down, and without looking at your plate (that would be unprofessional) or moving your head (that would also be unprofessional), you shovel food into your mouth until you’re told to stop. The entire process takes no longer than eight minutes, and if you’re not quite full by the end, you certainly suffer from indigestion (which feels about the same).

在新兵訓練營中，用餐時間是效率的奇跡。你走過自助餐廳的隊伍，拿著你的托盤給服務人員。他們把一天里所有的供品都放在你的盤子里，既因為你害怕說出你最不喜歡的食物，也是因為你太餓了，你很樂意吃一匹死馬。你坐下來，不看你的盤子（那不專業）或移動你的頭（那也是不專業的），你把食物鏟進嘴裏，直到你被告知停下來。整個過程不超過八分鐘，如果你到最後還沒有完全吃飽，你肯定會消化不良（感覺差不多）。

The only discretionary part of the exercise is dessert, set aside on small plates at the end of the assembly line. During the first meal of boot camp, I grabbed the offered piece of cake and marched to my seat. If nothing else tastes good, I thought, this cake shall certainly be the exception. Then my drill instructor, a skinny white man with a Tennessee twang, stepped in front of me. He looked me up and down with his small, intense eyes and offered a query: “You really need that cake, don’t you, fat-ass?” I prepared to answer, but the question was apparently rhetorical, as he smacked the cake out of my hands and moved on to his next victim. I never grabbed the cake again.

練習中唯一可自由支配的部分是甜點，放在裝配線末端的小盤子上。在新兵訓練營的第一頓飯中，我抓起提供的一塊蛋糕，走向我的座位。我想，如果沒有別的好吃的，這個蛋糕肯定是例外。然後我的訓練教練，一個瘦小的白人，留著田納西州的長髮，走到我面前。他用他那雙小而強烈的眼睛上下打量著我，問道：“你真的需要那個蛋糕，不是嗎，胖屁股？”我準備回答，但這個問題顯然是反問，因為他從我手中搶走了蛋糕，然後轉向他的下一個受害者。我再也沒有抓住蛋糕。

There was an important lesson here, but not one about food or self-control or nutrition. If you’d told me that I’d react to such an insult by cleaning up the cake and heading back to my seat, I’d never have believed you. The trials of my youth instilled a debilitating self-doubt. Instead of congratulating myself on having overcome some obstacles, I worried that I’d be overcome by the next ones. Marine Corps boot camp, with its barrage of challenges big and small, began to teach me I had underestimated myself.

這裡有一個重要的教訓，但不是關於食物、自我控制或營養的教訓。如果你告訴我，我會對這種侮辱做出反應，把蛋糕清理乾淨，然後回到座位上，我永遠不會相信你。我年輕時的考驗灌輸了一種令人衰弱的自我懷疑。我沒有祝賀自己克服了一些障礙，而是擔心自己會被下一個障礙所克服。海軍陸戰隊新兵訓練營，伴隨著大大小小的挑戰，開始教會我低估了自己。

Marine Corps boot camp is set up as a life-defining challenge. From the day you arrive, no one calls you by your first name. You’re not allowed to say “I” because you’re taught to mistrust your own individuality. Every question begins with “This recruit”—This recruit needs to use the head (the bathroom); This recruit needs to visit the corpsman (the doctor). The few idiots who arrive at boot camp with Marine Corps tattoos are mercilessly berated. At every turn, recruits are reminded that they are worthless until they finish boot camp and earn the title “marine.” Our platoon started with eighty-three, and by the time we finished, sixty-nine remained. Those who dropped out—mostly for medical reasons—served to reinforce the worthiness of the challenge.

海軍陸戰隊新兵訓練營的設立是一項決定人生的挑戰。從你到達的那天起，沒有人直呼你的名字。你不被允許說“我”，因為你被教導要不信任自己的個性。每個問題都以「這個新兵」開頭——這個新兵需要使用頭部（浴室）;這個新兵需要去看軍人（醫生）。少數帶著海軍陸戰隊紋身到達新兵訓練營的白癡被無情地斥責。在每一個轉捩點上，新兵都會被提醒，在他們完成新兵訓練營並獲得“海軍陸戰隊”頭銜之前，他們一文不值。我們的排開始時有八十三人，到我們結束時，還剩下六十九人。那些輟學的人——主要是因為醫療原因——有助於加強挑戰的價值。

Every time the drill instructor screamed at me and I stood proudly; every time I thought I’d fall behind during a run and kept up; every time I learned to do something I thought impossible, like climb the rope, I came a little closer to believing in myself. Psychologists call it “learned helplessness” when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life. From Middletown’s world of small expectations to the constant chaos of our home, life had taught me that I had no control. Mamaw and Papaw had saved me from succumbing entirely to that notion, and the Marine Corps broke new ground. If I had learned helplessness at home, the Marines were teaching learned willfulness.

每次演習教練對我大喊大叫時，我都驕傲地站著;每次我以為自己在跑步中會落後並跟上;每當我學會做一些我認為不可能的事情，比如爬繩子時，我就會更接近相信自己。心理學家稱之為“習得性無助”，當一個人相信，就像我年輕時所做的那樣，我所做的選擇對我的生活結果沒有影響。從米德爾敦的渺小期望世界到我們家不斷的混亂，生活教會了我無法控制。媽媽和爸爸使我免於完全屈服於這種觀念，海軍陸戰隊開闢了新天地。如果我在家裡學會了無助，那麼海軍陸戰隊正在教我習得的任性。

The day I graduated from boot camp was the proudest of my life. An entire crew of hillbillies showed up for my graduation—eighteen in total—including Mamaw, sitting in a wheelchair, buried underneath a few blankets, looking frailer than I remembered. I showed everyone around base, feeling like I had just won the lottery, and when I was released for a ten-day leave the next day, we caravanned back to Middletown.

我從新兵訓練營畢業的那一天是我一生中最自豪的一天。一大群鄉巴佬參加了我的畢業典禮——總共有十八個人——包括坐在輪椅上的媽媽，埋在幾條毯子下面，看起來比我記得的還要虛弱。我帶大家參觀了基地，感覺自己剛剛中了彩票，第二天我被釋放了十天的假期，我們大篷車回到了米德爾敦。

On my first day home from boot camp, I walked into the barbershop of my grandfather’s old friend. Marines have to keep their hair short, and I didn’t want to slack just because no one was watching. For the first time, the corner barber—a dying breed even though I didn’t know it at the time—greeted me as an adult. I sat in his chair, told some dirty jokes (most of which I’d learned only weeks earlier), and shared some boot camp stories. When he was about my age, he was drafted into the army to fight in Korea, so we traded some barbs about the Army and the Marines. After the haircut, he refused to take my money and told me to stay safe. He’d cut my hair before, and I’d walked by his shop nearly every day for eighteen years. Yet it was the first time he’d ever shaken my hand and treated me as an equal.

從新兵訓練營回家的第一天，我走進了祖父老朋友的理髮店。海軍陸戰隊員必須留短髮，我不想因為沒人看而懈怠。街角的理髮師——一個垂死的品種，儘管我當時並不知道——第一次向我打招呼。我坐在他的椅子上，講了一些骯髒的笑話（其中大部分是我幾周前才學會的），並分享了一些新兵訓練營的故事。當他和我差不多大的時候，他被徵召入伍去北韓作戰，所以我們交換了一些關於陸軍和海軍陸戰隊的倒鉤。理髮后，他拒絕收我的錢，並告訴我要注意安全。他以前給我剪過頭髮，十八年來我幾乎每天都路過他的店。然而，這是他第一次和我握手，平等地對待我。

I had a lot of those experiences shortly after boot camp. In those first days as a marine—all spent in Middletown—every interaction was a revelation. I’d shed forty-five pounds, so many of the people I knew barely recognized me. My friend Nate—who would later serve as one of my groomsmen—did a double take when I extended my hand at a local mall. Perhaps I carried myself a little differently. My old hometown seemed to think so.

新兵訓練營結束后不久，我就有很多這樣的經歷。在作為海軍陸戰隊員的最初幾天里——一切都在米德爾敦度過——每一次互動都是一種啟示。我減掉了四十五磅，我認識的很多人都幾乎認不出我來了。我的朋友內特（Nate）——後來成為我的伴郎之一——在當地一家商場伸出手時，做了兩次。也許我對自己的態度有點不同。我的老家似乎是這麼認為的。

The new perspective went both ways. Many of the foods that I ate once now violated the fitness standards of a marine. In Mamaw’s house, everything was fried—chicken, pickles, tomatoes. That bologna sandwich on toast with crumbled potato chips as topping no longer appeared healthy. Blackberry cobbler, once considered as healthy as any dish built around fruit (blackberries) and grains (flour), lost its luster. I began asking questions I’d never asked before: Is there added sugar? Does this meat have a lot of saturated fat? How much salt? It was just food, but I was already realizing that I’d never look at Middletown the same way again. In a few short months, the Marine Corps had already changed my perspective.

新的觀點是雙向的。我曾經吃過的許多食物現在都違反了海軍陸戰隊員的健身標準。在媽媽的家裡，所有東西都是油炸的——雞肉、泡菜、西紅柿。烤麵包上的博洛尼亞三明治配碎薯片作為澆頭似乎不再健康。黑莓鞋匠，曾經被認為與任何圍繞水果（黑莓）和穀物（麵粉）製作的菜餚一樣健康，現在已經失去了光澤。我開始問以前從未問過的問題：有加糖嗎？這種肉含有大量飽和脂肪嗎？鹽量是多少？那只是食物，但我已經意識到我再也不會以同樣的方式看待米德爾敦了。在短短幾個月內，海軍陸戰隊已經改變了我的觀點。

I soon left home for a permanent assignment in the Marine Corps, and life at home continued on apace. I tried to return as often as I could, and with long weekends and generous Marine Corps leave, I usually saw my family every few months. The kids looked a bit bigger every time I saw them, and Mom moved in with Mamaw not long after I left for boot camp, though she didn’t plan to stay. Mamaw’s health seemed to improve: She was walking better and even putting on a bit of weight. Lindsay and Aunt Wee, as well as their families, were healthy and happy. My greatest fear before I left was that some tragedy would befall my family while I was away, and I’d be unable to help. Luckily, that wasn’t happening.

我很快就離開了家，在海軍陸戰隊擔任長期任務，家裡的生活繼續快速發展。我試著盡可能多地回去，在漫長的週末和慷慨的海軍陸戰隊假期中，我通常每隔幾個月就會見到我的家人。每次我看到孩子們時，他們看起來都大了一點，在我去訓練營后不久，媽媽就搬來和媽媽住在一起，儘管她不打算留下來。媽媽的健康情況似乎有所改善：她走路好多了，甚至體重也增加了一點。Lindsay和Wee阿姨，以及他們的家人，都很健康快樂。在我離開之前，我最大的恐懼是，當我離開時，一些悲劇會降臨到我的家人身上，而我將無能為力。幸運的是，這並沒有發生。

In January 2005, I learned that my unit would head to Iraq a few months later. I was both excited and nervous. Mamaw fell silent when I called to tell her. After a few uncomfortable seconds of dead air, she said only that she hoped the war would end before I had to leave. Though we spoke on the phone every few days, we never spoke of Iraq, even as winter turned to spring and everyone knew I’d be leaving for war that summer. I could tell that Mamaw didn’t want to talk or think about it, and I obliged.

2005年1月，我得知我的部隊將在幾個月後前往伊拉克。我既興奮又緊張。當我打電話告訴她時，媽媽沉默了。在令人不舒服的幾秒鐘的死氣沉沉之後，她只說她希望戰爭能在我不得不離開之前結束。雖然我們每隔幾天就通一次電話，但我們從未談及伊拉克，即使冬去春來，每個人都知道那年夏天我要去打仗。我看得出來，媽媽不想說話，也不想去想這件事，我就答應了。

Mamaw was old, frail, and sick. I no longer lived with her, and I was preparing to go fight a war. Though her health had improved somewhat since I’d left for the Marines, she still took a dozen medications and made quarterly trips to the hospital for various ailments. When AK Steel—which provided health care for Mamaw as Papaw’s widow—announced that they were increasing her premiums, Mamaw simply couldn’t afford them. She barely survived as it was, and she needed three hundred dollars extra per month. She told me as much one day, and I immediately volunteered to cover the costs. She had never accepted anything from me—not money from my paycheck at Dillman’s; not a share of my boot camp earnings. But she accepted my three hundred a month, and that’s how I knew she was desperate.

媽媽年老體弱，病恹恹的。我不再和她住在一起，我正準備去打仗。雖然自從我去海軍陸戰隊后，她的健康情況有所改善，但她仍然服用了十幾種藥物，並每季度去醫院治療各種疾病。當AK Steel（為爸爸的遺孀Mamaw提供醫療保健）宣布他們正在增加她的保費時，Mamaw根本負擔不起。她勉強活了下來，每個月需要多三百美元。有一天，她告訴我這麼多，我立即自願承擔費用。她從來沒有接受過我的任何東西——不是我在迪爾曼的薪水里的錢;不是我新兵訓練營收入的一部分。但她每個月都收了我的三百塊錢，我才知道她很絕望。

I didn’t make a lot of money myself—probably a thousand dollars a month after taxes, though the Marines gave me a place to stay and food to eat, so that money went far. I also made extra money playing online poker. Poker was in my blood—I’d played with pennies and dimes with Papaw and my great-uncles as far back as I could remember—and the online poker craze at the time made it basically free money. I played ten hours a week on small-stakes tables, earning four hundred dollars a month. I had planned to save that money, but instead I gave it to Mamaw for her health insurance. Mamaw, naturally, worried that I had picked up a gambling habit and was playing cards in some mountain trailer with a bunch of card-sharking hillbillies, but I assured her that it was online and legitimate. “Well, you know I don’t understand the fucking Internet. Just don’t turn to booze and women. That’s always what happens to dipshits who get caught up in gambling.”

我自己賺的錢不多——稅後一個月大概有一千美元，儘管海軍陸戰隊給了我一個住處和食物吃，所以錢花得很遠。我還通過在線撲克賺了額外的錢。撲克是我的血液——從我記事起，我就和Papaw和我的叔叔們一起玩過一分錢一分貨——當時的在線撲克熱潮使它基本上是免費的。我每周在小賭注賭桌上玩十個小時，每月賺四百美元。我本來打算把這筆錢存起來，但我卻把它給了媽媽，作為她的健康保險。媽媽自然擔心我養成了賭博的習慣，和一群打牌的鄉巴佬在山上的拖車裡打牌，但我向她保證這是在線的，是合法的。“嗯，你知道我他媽的不懂互聯網。只是不要轉向酒和女人。這總是發生在陷入賭博的傻瓜身上。

Mamaw and I both loved the movie Terminator 2. We probably watched it together five or six times. Mamaw saw Arnold Schwarzenegger as the embodiment of the American Dream: a strong, capable immigrant coming out on top. But I saw the movie as a sort of metaphor for my own life. Mamaw was my keeper, my protector, and, if need be, my own goddamned terminator. No matter what life threw at me, I’d be okay because she was there to protect me.

媽媽和我都喜歡電影《終結者2》。我們大概一起看了五六遍。媽媽將阿諾德·施瓦辛格視為美國夢的化身：一個堅強、有能力的移民脫穎而出。但我把這部電影看作是我自己生活的一種隱喻。媽媽是我的守護者，我的保護者，如果需要的話，也是我自己該死的終結者。無論生活給我帶來什麼，我都會沒事的，因為她在那裡保護我。

Paying for her health insurance made me feel, for the first time in my life, like I was the protector. It gave me a sense of satisfaction that I’d never imagined—and how could I? I’d never had the money to help people before the Marines. When I came home, I was able to take Mom out to lunch, get ice cream for the kids, and buy nice Christmas presents for Lindsay. On one of my trips home, Mamaw and I took Lindsay’s two oldest kids on a trip to Hocking Hills State Park, a beautiful region of Appalachian Ohio, to meet up with Aunt Wee and Dan. I drove the whole way, I paid for gas, and I bought everyone dinner (admittedly at Wendy’s). I felt like such a man, a real grown-up. To laugh and joke with the people I loved most as they scarfed down the meal that I’d provided gave me a feeling of joy and accomplishment that words can’t possibly describe.

支付她的健康保險讓我有生以來第一次覺得自己是保護者。它給了我一種我從未想像過的滿足感——我怎麼能呢？在海軍陸戰隊之前，我從來沒有錢幫助別人。當我回到家時，我可以帶媽媽出去吃午飯，為孩子們買霜淇淋，併為琳賽買漂亮的聖誕禮物。在我回家的一次旅行中，媽媽和我帶著琳賽的兩個大孩子去了俄亥俄州阿巴拉契亞州美麗的霍金山州立公園，與黃阿姨和丹見面。我一路開車，付了汽油費，還給大家買了晚餐（誠然是在溫迪家）。我覺得自己像個男人，一個真正的成年人。和我最愛的人一起笑，開玩笑，因為他們圍著我提供的飯菜，給了我一種無法用言語形容的快樂和成就感。

For my entire life, I had oscillated between fear at my worst moments and a sense of safety and stability at my best. I was either being chased by the bad terminator or protected by the good one. But I had never felt empowered—never believed that I had the ability and the responsibility to care for those I loved. Mamaw could preach about responsibility and hard work, about making something of myself and not making excuses. No pep talk or speech could show me how it felt to transition from seeking shelter to providing it. I had to learn that for myself, and once I did, there was no going back.

在我的一生中，我一直在最糟糕的時刻的恐懼和最好的安全感和穩定感之間搖擺不定。我要麼被壞終結者追趕，要麼被好終結者保護。但我從未感到自己被賦予了力量——從不相信我有能力和責任去照顧我所愛的人。媽媽可以宣揚責任和努力工作，宣揚自己做一些事情，而不是找藉口。沒有任何鼓舞人心的談話或演講可以向我展示從尋求庇護所過渡到提供庇護所的感覺。我必須自己學習，一旦我學會了，就沒有回頭路了。

Mamaw’s seventy-second birthday was in April 2005. Just a couple of weeks before then, I stood in the waiting room of a Walmart Supercenter as car technicians changed my oil. I called Mamaw on the cell phone that I paid for myself, and she told me about babysitting Lindsay’s kids that day. “Meghan is so damned cute,” she told me. “I told her to shit in the pot, and for three hours she just kept on saying ‘shit in the pot, shit in the pot, shit in the pot’ over and over again. I told her she had to stop or I’d get in trouble, but she never did.” I laughed, told Mamaw that I loved her, and let her know that her monthly three-hundred-dollar check was on the way. “J.D., thank you for helping me. I’m very proud of you, and I love you.”

2005年4月是媽媽的72歲生日。就在那之前幾周，我站在沃爾瑪超市的候車室里，汽車技術人員正在為我換油。我用我自己掏錢的手機給媽媽打了電話，她告訴我那天要照看琳賽的孩子。“梅根真是太可愛了，”她告訴我。“我告訴她在鍋里拉，三個小時她只是一遍又一遍地說'鍋里的，鍋里的，鍋里的'。我告訴她她必須停下來，否則我會惹上麻煩，但她從來沒有這樣做。我笑了，告訴媽媽我愛她，並告訴她她每月三百美元的支票即將到來。“J.D.，謝謝你説明我。我為你感到驕傲，我愛你。

Two days later I awoke on a Sunday morning to a call from my sister, who said that Mamaw’s lung had collapsed, that she was lying in the hospital in a coma, and that I should come home as quickly as possible. Two hours later, I was on the road. I packed my dress blue uniform, just in case I needed it for a funeral. On the way, a West Virginia police officer pulled me over for going ninety-four miles an hour on I–77. He asked why I was in such a hurry, and when I explained, he told me that the highway was clear of speed traps for the next seventy miles, after which I’d cross into Ohio, and that I should go as fast as I wanted until then. I took my warning ticket, thanked him profusely, and drove 102 until I crossed the state line. I made the thirteen-hour trip in just under eleven hours.

兩天后，在一個星期天的早晨，我醒來接到姐姐的電話，她說媽媽的肺塌陷了，她躺在醫院昏迷，我應該儘快回家。兩個小時后，我上路了。我收拾了我的藍色制服，以防萬一我需要它參加葬禮。在路上，西佛吉尼亞州的一名員警把我攔了下來，因為我在I-77公路上以每小時94英里的速度行駛。他問我為什麼這麼著急，當我解釋時，他告訴我，在接下來的七十英里里，高速公路上沒有速度陷阱，之後我將進入俄亥俄州，在那之前，我應該以我想要的速度行駛。我拿著警告罰單，向他表示感謝，然後開了102路，直到我越過了州界。我在不到 11 個小時的時間里完成了 13 個小時的旅行。

When I arrived at Middletown Regional Hospital at eleven in the evening, my entire family was gathered around Mamaw’s bed. She was unresponsive, and though her lung had been reinflated, the infection that had caused it to collapse showed no signs of responding to treatment. Until that happened, the doctor told us, it would be torture to wake her—if she could be awakened at all.

當我晚上十一點到達米德爾敦地區醫院時，我們全家人都聚集在媽媽的床邊。她沒有反應，雖然她的肺已經重新充氣，但導致肺部塌陷的感染對治療沒有反應的跡象。在那之前，醫生告訴我們，如果她能被喚醒，喚醒她將是一種折磨。

We waited a few days for signs that the infection was surrendering to the medication. But the signs showed the opposite: Her white blood cell count continued to rise, and some of her organs showed evidence of severe stress. Her doctor explained that she had no realistic chance of living without a ventilator and feeding tube. We all conferred and decided that if, after a day, Mamaw’s white blood cell count increased further, we would pull the plug. Legally, it was Aunt Wee’s sole decision, and I’ll never forget when she tearfully asked whether I thought she was making a mistake. To this day, I’m convinced that she—and we—made the right decision. I guess it’s impossible to know for sure. I wished at the time that we had a doctor in the family.

我們等了幾天，才等到感染向藥物投降的跡象。但跡象卻恰恰相反：她的白細胞計數繼續上升，她的一些器官顯示出嚴重壓力的證據。她的醫生解釋說，沒有呼吸機和餵食管，她就沒有現實的機會。我們都商量並決定，如果一天后，媽媽的白細胞計數進一步增加，我們就會拔掉插頭。從法律上講，這是黃阿姨的唯一決定，我永遠不會忘記她含淚問我是否認為她犯了錯誤。直到今天，我都相信她和我們做出了正確的決定。我想不可能確定。我當時希望我們家裡有一位醫生。

The doctor told us that without the ventilator Mamaw would die within fifteen minutes, an hour at most. She lasted instead for three hours, fighting to the very last minute. Everyone was present—Uncle Jimmy, Mom, and Aunt Wee; Lindsay, Kevin, and I—and we gathered around her bed, taking turns whispering in her ear and hoping that she heard us. As her heart rate dropped and we realized that her time drew near, I opened a Gideon’s Bible to a random passage and began to read. It was First Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verse 12: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” A few minutes later, she was dead.

醫生告訴我們，如果沒有呼吸機，媽媽會在十五分鐘內死亡，最多一個小時。相反，她堅持了三個小時，戰鬥到最後一刻。每個人都在場——吉米叔叔、媽媽和黃阿姨;琳賽、凱文和我——我們圍在她的床邊，輪流在她耳邊竊竊私語，希望她能聽到我們的聲音。當她的心率下降時，我們意識到她的時間快到了，我隨機打開一本基甸聖經，開始閱讀。這是哥林多前書，第13章，第12節：「現在我們透過玻璃，黑暗地看;但後來面對面：現在我知道了一部分;但那時我就知道，就像我被知道一樣。幾分鐘后，她死了。

I didn’t cry when Mamaw died, and I didn’t cry for days thereafter. Aunt Wee and Lindsay grew frustrated with me, then worried: You’re just so stoic, they said. You need to grieve like the rest of us or you’ll burst.

媽媽死的時候我沒有哭，之後好幾天我都沒有哭。黃阿姨和林賽對我感到沮喪，然後擔心：他們說，你太堅忍了。你需要像我們其他人一樣悲傷，否則你會崩潰。

I was grieving in my own way, but I sensed that our entire family was on the verge of collapse, and I wanted to give the impression of emotional strength. We all knew how Mom had reacted to Papaw’s death, but Mamaw’s death created new pressures: It was time to wind down the estate, figure out Mamaw’s debts, dispose of her property, and disburse what remained. For the first time, Uncle Jimmy learned Mom’s true financial impact on Mamaw—the drug rehab charges, the numerous “loans” never repaid. To this day, he refuses to speak to her.

我以自己的方式悲傷，但我感覺到我們整個家庭都處於崩潰的邊緣，我想給人一種情感力量的印象。我們都知道媽媽對爸爸的死有何反應，但媽媽的死創造了新的壓力：現在是時候結束遺產，弄清楚媽媽的債務，處理她的財產，並支付剩餘的。吉米舅舅第一次知道了媽媽對媽媽的真正經濟影響——戒毒費用，無數的“貸款”從未償還。直到今天，他都拒絕和她說話。

For those of us well acquainted with Mamaw’s generosity, her financial position came as no surprise. Though Papaw had worked and saved for over four decades, the only thing of value that remained was the house he and Mamaw had purchased fifty years earlier. And Mamaw’s debts were large enough to eat into a substantial portion of the home’s equity. Lucky for us, this was 2005—the height of the real estate bubble. If she had died in 2008, Mamaw’s estate likely would have been bankrupt.

對於我們這些熟悉媽媽慷慨的人來說，她的財務狀況並不令人驚訝。雖然爸爸已經工作了四十多年，攢了四十多年的錢，但唯一有價值的東西是他和媽媽五十年前買的房子。媽媽的債務大到足以蠶食房屋凈值的很大一部分。幸運的是，這是2005年——房地產泡沫的高峰期。如果她在2008年去世，媽媽的遺產很可能已經破產了。

In her will, Mamaw divided what remained between her three kids, with a twist: Mom’s share was divided evenly between me and Lindsay. This undoubtedly contributed to Mom’s inevitable emotional outburst. I was so caught up in the financial aspects of Mamaw’s death and spending time with relatives I hadn’t seen in months that I didn’t realize Mom was slowly descending to the same place she’d traveled after Papaw’s death. But it’s hard to miss a freight train barreling down on you, so I noticed soon enough.

在她的遺囑中，媽媽將剩下的錢分給了她的三個孩子，但有一個轉折：媽媽的份額在我和琳賽之間平均分配。這無疑促成了媽媽不可避免的情緒爆發。我太沉迷於媽媽去世的財務方面，以及與幾個月未見的親戚共度時光，以至於我沒有意識到媽媽正在慢慢下降到爸爸去世后她旅行過的地方。但是很難錯過一列貨運列車向你駛來，所以我很快就注意到了。

Like Papaw, Mamaw wanted a visitation in Middletown so that all of her friends from Ohio could gather and pay their respects. Like Papaw, she wanted a second visitation and funeral back home in Jackson, at Deaton’s. After her funeral, the convoy departed for Keck, a holler not far from where Mamaw was born that housed our family’s cemetery. In family lore, Keck held an even higher place of honor than Mamaw’s birthplace. Her own mother—our beloved Mamaw Blanton—was born in Keck, and Mamaw Blanton’s younger sister—Aunt Bonnie, nearly ninety herself—owned a beautiful log cabin on the same property. A short hike up the mountain from that log cabin is a relatively flat plot of land that serves as the final resting place for Papaw and Mamaw Blanton and a host of relatives, some born in the nineteenth century. That’s where our convoy was headed, through the narrow mountain roads, to deliver Mamaw to the family who’d crossed over before her.

像爸爸一樣，媽媽想去米德爾敦探望，這樣她所有來自俄亥俄州的朋友都可以聚集在一起表達他們的敬意。像爸爸一樣，她想在傑克遜的家中進行第二次探視和葬禮，在迪頓的家中。在她的葬禮結束后，車隊出發前往凱克，離媽媽出生的地方不遠，那裡是我們家的墓地。在家族傳說中，凱克擁有比媽媽的出生地更高的榮譽地位。她自己的母親——我們敬愛的布蘭頓媽媽——出生在凱克，而布蘭頓媽媽的妹妹——邦妮阿姨，她自己也快九十歲了——在同一處房產上擁有一座美麗的小木屋。從那間小木屋徒步上山一小段路程，就是一塊相對平坦的土地，這裡是爸爸和媽媽布蘭頓以及許多親戚的最後安息之地，其中一些親戚出生於十九世紀。這就是我們車隊要去的地方，穿過狹窄的山路，把媽媽送到比她先過的一家人那裡。

I’ve made that drive with a funeral convoy probably half a dozen times, and every turn reveals a landscape that inspires some memory of fonder times. It’s impossible to sit in the car for the twenty-minute trip and not trade stories about the departed, all of which start out “Do you remember that time . . . ?” But after Mamaw’s funeral, we didn’t recall a series of fond memories about Mamaw and Papaw and Uncle Red and Teaberry and that time Uncle David drove off the side of the mountain, rolled a hundred yards down the hill, and walked away without a scratch. Lindsay and I instead listened to Mom tell us that we were too sad, that we loved Mamaw too much, and that Mom had the greater right to grief because, in her words, “She was my mom, not yours!”

我曾與送葬車隊一起開車六次，每一次轉彎都會發現一處風景，激發了人們對美好時光的回憶。在二十分鐘的旅程中，坐在車裡，不交換關於逝者的故事是不可能的，所有這些故事都以「你還記得那段時間嗎？但是在媽媽的葬禮之後，我們並沒有回憶起關於媽媽和爸爸、紅叔叔和茶莓的一系列美好回憶，那一次大衛叔叔開車離開了山的一側，滾下了山坡一百碼，然後一發不可收拾地走了。相反，琳賽和我聽媽媽告訴我們，我們太難過了，我們太愛媽媽了，媽媽有更大的悲傷權利，因為用她的話說，“她是我的媽媽，不是你的！

I have never felt angrier at anyone for anything. For years, I had made excuses for Mom. I had tried to help manage her drug problem, read those stupid books about addiction, and accompanied her to N.A. meetings. I had endured, never complaining, a parade of father figures, all of whom left me feeling empty and mistrustful of men. I had agreed to ride in that car with her on the day she threatened to kill me, and then I had stood before a judge and lied to him to keep her out of jail. I had moved in with her and Matt, and then her and Ken, because I wanted her to get better and thought that if I played along, there was a chance she would. For years, Lindsay called me the “forgiving child”—the one who found the best in Mom, the one who made excuses, the one who believed. I opened my mouth to spew pure vitriol in Mom’s direction, but Lindsay spoke first: “No, Mom. She was our mom, too.” That said it all, so I continued to sit in silence.

我從來沒有因為任何事情而對任何人感到憤怒。多年來，我一直在為媽媽找藉口。我曾試圖説明她解決毒品問題，閱讀那些關於成癮的愚蠢書籍，並陪她參加NA會議。我忍受了，從不抱怨，父親的形象，他們都讓我感到空虛和對男人的不信任。我同意在她威脅要殺我的那天和她一起坐那輛車，然後我站在法官面前，對他撒謊，讓她免於入獄。我和她、馬特、她和肯一起搬進來，因為我想讓她變得更好，並認為如果我和我一起玩，她就有機會。多年來，琳賽一直稱我為“寬容的孩子”——一個在媽媽身上找到最好的孩子，一個找藉口的人，一個相信的人。我張開嘴想朝媽媽的方向噴出純粹的尖酸刻薄，但琳賽先開口了：“不，媽媽。她也是我們的媽媽。這說明瞭一切，所以我繼續靜靜地坐著。

The day after the funeral, I drove back to North Carolina to rejoin my Marine Corps unit. On the way back, on a narrow mountain back road in Virginia, I hit a wet patch of road coming around a turn, and the car began spinning out of control. I was moving fast, and my twisting car showed no signs of slowing as it hurtled towards the guardrail. I thought briefly that this was it—that I’d topple over that guardrail and join Mamaw just a bit sooner than I expected—when all of a sudden the car stopped. It is the closest I’ve ever come to a true supernatural event, and though I’m sure some law of friction can explain what happened, I imagined that Mamaw had stopped the car from toppling over the side of the mountain. I reoriented the car, returned to my lane, and then pulled off to the side. That was when I broke down and released the tears that I’d held back during the previous two weeks. I spoke to Lindsay and Aunt Wee before restarting my journey, and within a few hours I was back at the base.

葬禮結束后的第二天，我開車回到北卡羅來納州，重新加入我的海軍陸戰隊部隊。在回來的路上，在弗吉尼亞州一條狹窄的山間小路上，我撞上了一條濕漉漉的路面，轉彎時，汽車開始失控。我走得很快，我那輛扭動的汽車在沖向護欄時沒有減速的跡象。我短暫地以為就是這樣——我會翻過護欄，比我預期的更早一點加入媽媽——突然間，車停了下來。這是我最接近真正的超自然事件，雖然我確信一些摩擦定律可以解釋發生了什麼，但我想像媽媽阻止了汽車翻倒在山的一側。我重新調整了車的方向，回到了我的車道，然後把車停在了一邊。就在那時，我崩潰了，釋放了前兩周我忍住的眼淚。在重新開始我的旅程之前，我和琳賽和黃阿姨談了談，幾個小時后我就回到了基地。

My final two years in the Marines flew by and were largely uneventful, though two incidents stand out, each of which speaks to the way the Marine Corps changed my perspective. The first was a moment in time in Iraq, where I was lucky to escape any real fighting but which affected me deeply nonetheless. As a public affairs marine, I would attach to different units to get a sense of their daily routine. Sometimes I’d escort civilian press, but generally I’d take photos or write short stories about individual marines or their work. Early in my deployment, I attached to a civil affairs unit to do community outreach. Civil affairs missions were typically considered more dangerous, as a small number of marines would venture into unprotected Iraqi territory to meet with locals. On our particular mission, senior marines met with local school officials while the rest of us provided security or hung out with the schoolkids, playing soccer and passing out candy and school supplies. One very shy boy approached me and held out his hand. When I gave him a small eraser, his face briefly lit up with joy before he ran away to his family, holding his two-cent prize aloft in triumph. I have never seen such excitement on a child’s face.

我在海軍陸戰隊的最後兩年飛逝而過，基本上平安無事，儘管有兩件事很突出，每件事都說明瞭海軍陸戰隊改變了我的觀點。第一次是在伊拉克的某個時刻，我很幸運地逃脫了任何真正的戰鬥，但它仍然深深地影響了我。作為一名公共事務海軍陸戰隊員，我會隸屬於不同的單位，以了解他們的日常生活。有時我會護送平民媒體，但通常我會拍攝照片或寫關於個別海軍陸戰隊員或他們的工作的短篇小說。在我部署的早期，我隸屬於一個民政部門，從事社區外展工作。民政任務通常被認為更危險，因為少數海軍陸戰隊員會冒險進入未受保護的伊拉克領土與當地人會面。在我們的特殊任務中，高級海軍陸戰隊員會見了當地學校官員，而我們其他人則提供安全保障或與學童一起出去玩，踢足球並分發糖果和學慣用品。一個非常害羞的男孩走近我，伸出手。當我給他一塊小橡皮擦時，他的臉上短暫地閃耀著喜悅的光芒，然後他跑到他的家人身邊，勝利地高舉著他的兩美分獎金。我從未在孩子的臉上看到過如此興奮的表情。

I don’t believe in epiphanies. I don’t believe in transformative moments, as transformation is harder than a moment. I’ve seen far too many people awash in a genuine desire to change only to lose their mettle when they realized just how difficult change actually is. But that moment, with that boy, was pretty close for me. For my entire life, I’d harbored resentment at the world. I was mad at my mother and father, mad that I rode the bus to school while other kids caught rides with friends, mad that my clothes didn’t come from Abercrombie, mad that my grandfather died, mad that we lived in a small house. That resentment didn’t vanish in an instant, but as I stood and surveyed the mass of children of a war-torn nation, their school without running water, and the overjoyed boy, I began to appreciate how lucky I was: born in the greatest country on earth, every modern convenience at my fingertips, supported by two loving hillbillies, and part of a family that, for all its quirks, loved me unconditionally. At that moment, I resolved to be the type of man who would smile when someone gave him an eraser. I haven’t quite made it there, but without that day in Iraq, I wouldn’t be trying.

我不相信頓悟。我不相信變革的時刻，因為轉型比一刻更難。我見過太多人沉浸在改變的真正願望中，但當他們意識到改變實際上是多麼困難時，他們就失去了勇氣。但那一刻，和那個男孩在一起，對我來說非常接近。在我的一生中，我一直對這個世界懷有怨恨。我對我的父母很生氣，生氣我坐公共汽車去學校，而其他孩子卻和朋友一起搭車，生氣我的衣服不是從阿伯克倫比來的，生氣的是我祖父的死，生氣我們住在一個小房子里。這種怨恨並沒有在一瞬間消失，但當我站起來，看著這個飽受戰爭蹂躪的國家的孩子們，他們沒有自來水的學校，以及那個欣喜若狂的男孩時，我開始意識到我是多麼幸運：出生在地球上最偉大的國家，一切現代便利都觸手可及，由兩個充滿愛心的鄉巴佬支援， 作為一個家庭的一部分，儘管有各種怪癖，但無條件地愛我。那一刻，我下定決心要成為那種當有人給他橡皮擦時會微笑的人。我還沒有完全到達那裡，但如果沒有在伊拉克的那一天，我就不會嘗試。

The other life-altering component of my Marine Corps experience was constant. From the first day, with that scary drill instructor and a piece of cake, until the last, when I grabbed my discharge papers and sped home, the Marine Corps taught me how to live like an adult.

在海軍陸戰隊的經歷中，另一個改變我生活的組成部分是不變的。從第一天開始，在那個可怕的演習教官和一塊蛋糕上，直到最後，當我拿起退伍檔飛奔回家時，海軍陸戰隊教我如何像成年人一樣生活。

The Marine Corps assumes maximum ignorance from its enlisted folks. It assumes that no one taught you anything about physical fitness, personal hygiene, or personal finances. I took mandatory classes about balancing a checkbook, saving, and investing. When I came home from boot camp with my fifteen-hundred-dollar earnings deposited in a mediocre regional bank, a senior enlisted marine drove me to Navy Federal—a respected credit union—and had me open an account. When I caught strep throat and tried to tough it out, my commanding officer noticed and ordered me to the doctor.

海軍陸戰隊假設其士兵的最大無知。它假設沒有人教過你任何關於身體健康、個人衛生或個人財務的知識。我選修了關於平衡支票簿、儲蓄和投資的必修課。當我從新兵訓練營回到家時，我的一千五百美元收入存入了一家平庸的地區銀行，一名高級海軍陸戰隊員開車帶我去了海軍聯邦——一個受人尊敬的信用合作社——並讓我開了一個帳戶。當我感染鏈球菌性咽喉炎並試圖強硬起來時，我的指揮官注意到並命令我去看醫生。

We used to complain constantly about the biggest perceived difference between our jobs and civilian jobs: In the civilian world, your boss wasn’t able to control your life after you left work. In the Marines, my boss didn’t just make sure I did a good job, he made sure I kept my room clean, kept my hair cut, and ironed my uniforms. He sent an older marine to supervise as I shopped for my first car so that I’d end up with a practical car, like a Toyota or a Honda, not the BMW I wanted. When I nearly agreed to finance that purchase directly through the car dealership with a 21-percent-interest-rate loan, my chaperone blew a gasket and ordered me to call Navy Fed and get a second quote (it was less than half the interest). I had no idea that people did these things. Compare banks? I thought they were all the same. Shop around for a loan? I felt so lucky to even get a loan that I was ready to pull the trigger immediately. The Marine Corps demanded that I think strategically about these decisions, and then it taught me how to do so.

我們過去常常抱怨我們的工作和文職工作之間最大的區別：在文職世界里，你下班后，你的老闆無法控制你的生活。在海軍陸戰隊，我的老闆不僅確保我做得很好，他還確保我保持房間清潔，剪髮，熨燙制服。他派了一位年長的海軍陸戰隊員來監督我購買我的第一輛車，這樣我最終會得到一輛實用的汽車，比如豐田或本田，而不是我想要的寶馬。當我幾乎同意直接通過汽車轉銷商以 21% 的利率貸款為購買提供資金時，我的監護人炸了一個墊圈，命令我打電話給海軍美聯儲並獲得第二份報價（不到利息的一半）。我不知道人們會做這些事情。比較銀行？我以為他們都是一樣的。貨比三家貸款？我感到非常幸運，甚至得到了一筆貸款，我準備立即扣動扳機。海軍陸戰隊要求我從戰略上思考這些決定，然後它教會了我如何去做。

Just as important, the Marines changed the expectations that I had for myself. In boot camp, the thought of climbing the thirty-foot rope inspired terror; by the end of my first year, I could climb the rope using only one arm. Before I enlisted, I had never run a mile continuously. On my last physical fitness test, I ran three of them in nineteen minutes. It was in the Marine Corps where I first ordered grown men to do a job and watched them listen; where I learned that leadership depended far more on earning the respect of your subordinates than on bossing them around; where I discovered how to earn that respect; and where I saw that men and women of different social classes and races could work as a team and bond like family. It was the Marine Corps that first gave me an opportunity to truly fail, made me take that opportunity, and then, when I did fail, gave me another chance anyway.

同樣重要的是，海軍陸戰隊改變了我對自己的期望。在新兵訓練營中，一想到要爬上三十英尺長的繩索，就會感到恐懼;到第一年結束時，我只能用一隻胳膊爬上繩子。在我入伍之前，我從未連續跑過一英里。在我最後一次體能測試中，我在 19 分鐘內跑了 3 個。在海軍陸戰隊，我第一次命令成年男子做一份工作，看著他們聽;在那裡，我瞭解到領導力更多地取決於贏得下屬的尊重，而不是領導他們;在那裡，我發現了如何贏得這種尊重;在那裡，我看到不同社會階層和種族的男人和女人可以作為一個團隊工作，像家人一樣聯繫在一起。是海軍陸戰隊首先給了我一個真正失敗的機會，讓我抓住了這個機會，然後，當我失敗了時，還是給了我另一個機會。

When you work in public affairs, the most senior marines serve as liaisons with the press. The press is the holy grail of Marine Corps public affairs: the biggest audience and the highest stakes. Our media officer at Cherry Point was a captain who, for reasons I never understood, quickly fell out of favor with the base’s senior brass. Though he was a captain—eight pay grades higher than I was—because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was no ready replacement when he got the ax. So my boss told me that for the next nine months (until my service ended) I would be the media relations officer for one of the largest military bases on the East Coast.

當您從事公共事務工作時，最高級的海軍陸戰隊員會擔任與媒體的聯絡人。新聞界是海軍陸戰隊公共事務的聖杯：最大的受眾和最高的風險。我們在櫻桃角的媒體官是一名上尉，出於我從來不明白的原因，他很快就失去了基地高級管理人員的青睞。雖然他是一名上尉——工資比我高八級——但由於伊拉克和阿富汗的戰爭，當他拿到斧頭時，沒有現成的替代者。所以我的老闆告訴我，在接下來的九個月里（直到我的服役結束），我將擔任東海岸最大的軍事基地之一的媒體關係官。

By then I’d grown accustomed to the sometimes random nature of Marine Corps assignments. This was something else entirely. As a friend joked, I had a face for radio, and I wasn’t prepared for live TV interviews about happenings on base. The Marine Corps threw me to the wolves. I struggled a bit at first—allowing some photographers to take photos of a classified aircraft; speaking out of turn at a meeting with senior officers—and I got my ass chewed. My boss, Shawn Haney, explained what I needed to do to correct myself. We discussed how to build relationships with the press, how to stay on message, and how to manage my time. I got better, and when hundreds of thousands flocked to our base for a biannual air show, our media relations worked so well that I earned a commendation medal.

到那時，我已經習慣了海軍陸戰隊任務有時是隨機的。這完全是另一回事。正如一位朋友開玩笑說的那樣，我有一張廣播的臉，而且我沒有準備好接受關於基地發生的事情的電視直播採訪。海軍陸戰隊把我扔給了狼群。起初，我有點掙扎——允許一些攝影師拍攝機密飛機的照片;在與高級官員的會議上說話不合時宜——我被咬了屁股。我的老闆肖恩·哈尼（Shawn Haney）解釋了我需要做些什麼來糾正自己。我們討論了如何與媒體建立關係，如何保持信息暢通，以及如何管理我的時間。我變得更好了，當數十萬人湧向我們的基地參加一年兩次的航展時，我們的媒體關係運作得非常好，我獲得了一枚表彰獎章。

The experience taught me a valuable lesson: that I could do it. I could work twenty-hour days when I had to. I could speak clearly and confidently with TV cameras shoved in my face. I could stand in a room with majors, colonels, and generals and hold my own. I could do a captain’s job even when I feared I couldn’t.

這次經歷教會了我寶貴的一課：我能做到。必要時，我可以每天工作二十小時。我可以清晰而自信地說話，電視攝像機推到我的臉上。我可以和少校、上校和將軍站在一個房間裡，拿著自己的衣服。我可以做船長的工作，即使我擔心我做不到。

For all my grandma’s efforts, for all of her “You can do anything; don’t be like those fuckers who think the deck is stacked against them” diatribes, the message had only partially set in before I enlisted. Surrounding me was another message: that I and the people like me weren’t good enough; that the reason Middletown produced zero Ivy League graduates was some genetic or character defect. I couldn’t possibly see how destructive that mentality was until I escaped it. The Marine Corps replaced it with something else, something that loathes excuses. “Giving it my all” was a catchphrase, something heard in health or gym class. When I first ran three miles, mildly impressed with my mediocre twenty-five-minute time, a terrifying senior drill instructor greeted me at the finish line: “If you’re not puking, you’re lazy! Stop being fucking lazy!” He then ordered me to sprint between him and a tree repeatedly. Just as I felt I might pass out, he relented. I was heaving, barely able to catch my breath. “That’s how you should feel at the end of every run!” he yelled. In the Marines, giving it your all was a way of life.

感謝我奶奶的所有努力，感謝她所有的「你可以做任何事情;不要像那些認為甲板對他們不利的混蛋一樣“的謾駡，在我入伍之前，這個資訊只是部分地開始。圍繞著我的是另一個資訊：我和像我這樣的人還不夠好;米德爾敦大學沒有培養出常春藤盟校畢業生的原因是一些遺傳或性格缺陷。在我逃脫之前，我不可能看到這種心態的破壞性有多大。海軍陸戰隊用別的東西取而代之，討厭藉口。“全力以赴”是一句口號，在健康或體育課上聽到。當我第一次跑三英里時，對我平庸的二十五分鐘時間印象深刻，一位可怕的高級訓練教練在終點線向我打招呼：“如果你不嘔吐，你就是懶惰！別他媽的偷懶了！然後他命令我在他和一棵樹之間反覆衝刺。就在我覺得自己可能會昏倒的時候，他心軟了。我喘著粗氣，幾乎喘不過氣來。“這就是你每次跑步結束時的感覺！”他喊道。在海軍陸戰隊，全力以赴是一種生活方式。

I’m not saying ability doesn’t matter. It certainly helps. But there’s something powerful about realizing that you’ve undersold yourself—that somehow your mind confused lack of effort for inability. This is why, whenever people ask me what I’d most like to change about the white working class, I say, “The feeling that our choices don’t matter.” The Marine Corps excised that feeling like a surgeon does a tumor.

我並不是說能力無關緊要。這當然有説明。但是，意識到自己低估了自己，這有一種強大的力量——不知何故，你的大腦混淆了缺乏努力和無能。這就是為什麼每當人們問我最想改變白人工人階級的什麼時，我都會說，“感覺我們的選擇並不重要。海軍陸戰隊切除了那種感覺就像外科醫生做腫瘤一樣。

A few days after my twenty-third birthday, I hopped into the first major purchase I’d ever made—an old Honda Civic—grabbed my discharge papers, and drove one last time from Cherry Point, North Carolina, to Middletown, Ohio. During my four years in the Marines, I had seen, in Haiti, a level of poverty I never knew existed. I witnessed the fiery aftermath of an airplane crash into a residential neighborhood. I had watched Mamaw die and then gone to war a few months later. I had befriended a former crack dealer who turned out to be the hardest-working marine I knew.

在我二十三歲生日後的幾天，我跳上了我做過的第一筆大買——一輛舊的本田思域——拿起我的出院文件，最後一次從北卡羅來納州的櫻桃角開車到俄亥俄州的米德爾敦。在海軍陸戰隊服役的四年裡，我在海地看到了我從來不知道的貧困程度。我親眼目睹了一架飛機撞向居民區的火熱後果。我親眼目睹了媽媽的死，幾個月後又去打仗了。我結識了一位前毒販，他原來是我認識的最勤奮的海軍陸戰隊員。

When I joined the Marine Corps, I did so in part because I wasn’t ready for adulthood. I didn’t know how to balance a checkbook, much less how to complete the financial aid forms for college. Now I knew exactly what I wanted out of my life and how to get there. And in three weeks, I’d start classes at Ohio State.

當我加入海軍陸戰隊時，我這樣做的部分原因是我還沒有為成年做好準備。我不知道如何平衡支票簿，更不用說如何填寫大學經濟援助表格了。現在我確切地知道我想要從我的生活中得到什麼以及如何到達那裡。三周后，我將在俄亥俄州立大學開始上課。

Chapter 11

第11章

I arrived for orientation at Ohio State in early September 2007, and I couldn’t have been more excited. I remember every little detail about that day: lunch at Chipotle, the first time Lindsay had ever eaten there; the walk from the orientation building to the south campus house that would soon be my Columbus home; the beautiful weather. I met with a guidance counselor who talked me through my first college schedule, which put me in class only four days per week, never before nine thirty in the morning. After the Marine Corps and its five thirty A.M. wake-ups, I couldn’t believe my good fortune.

2007 年 9 月初，我來到俄亥俄州立大學參加迎新會，我非常興奮。我記得那天的每一個小細節：在Chipotle吃午飯，這是Lindsay第一次在那裡吃飯;從迎新大樓步行到南校區的房子，那裡很快就會成為我在哥倫布的家;美麗的天氣。我遇到了一位輔導員，他向我介紹了我的第一個大學時程表，這使我每周只上課四天，從來沒有在早上九點三十分之前上課。在海軍陸戰隊和它淩晨五點三十分醒來之後，我簡直不敢相信自己的好運氣。

Ohio State’s main campus in Columbus is about a hundred miles away from Middletown, meaning it was close enough for weekend visits to my family. For the first time in a few years, I could drop in on Middletown whenever I felt like it. And while Havelock (the North Carolina city closest to my Marine Corps base) was not too different from Middletown, Columbus felt like an urban paradise. It was (and remains) one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, powered in large part by the bustling university that was now my home. OSU grads were starting businesses, historic buildings were being converted into new restaurants and bars, and even the worst neighborhoods seemed to be undergoing significant revitalization. Not long after I moved to Columbus, one of my best friends began working as the promotions director for a local radio station, so I always knew what was happening around town and always had an in to the city’s best events, from local festivals to VIP seating for the annual fireworks show.

俄亥俄州立大學在哥倫布的主校區距離米德爾敦大約一百英里，這意味著它足夠接近週末探望我的家人。幾年來，我第一次可以隨時去米德爾敦。雖然哈夫洛克（北卡羅來納州離我的海軍陸戰隊基地最近的城市）與米德爾敦沒有太大區別，但哥倫布感覺就像一個城市天堂。它曾經是（現在仍然是）該國發展最快的城市之一，這在很大程度上是由現在我家的繁華大學推動的。俄勒岡州立大學的畢業生開始創業，歷史建築正在被改造成新的餐館和酒吧，即使是最糟糕的社區似乎也在經歷重大的振興。我搬到哥倫布后不久，我最好的朋友之一開始在當地一家廣播電臺擔任宣傳總監，所以我總是知道鎮上發生了什麼，並且總是瞭解這座城市最好的活動，從當地的節日到一年一度的煙花表演的貴賓座位。

In many ways, college was very familiar. I made a lot of new friends, but virtually all of them were from southwest Ohio. My six roommates included five graduates of Middletown High School and one graduate of Edgewood High School in nearby Trenton. They were a little younger (the Marine Corps had aged me past the age of the typical freshman), but I knew most of them from back home. My closest friends had already graduated or were about to, but many stayed in Columbus after graduation. Though I didn’t know it, I was witnessing a phenomenon that social scientists call “brain drain”—people who are able to leave struggling cities often do, and when they find a new home with educational and work opportunities, they stay there. Years later, I looked at my wedding party of six groomsmen and realized that every single one of them had, like me, grown up in a small Ohio town before leaving for Ohio State. To a man, all of them had found careers outside of their hometowns, and none of them had any interest in ever going back.

在許多方面，大學是非常熟悉的。我結交了很多新朋友，但幾乎所有人都來自俄亥俄州西南部。我的六個室友包括五名米德爾敦高中的畢業生和一名特倫頓附近埃奇伍德高中的畢業生。他們年紀小一點（海軍陸戰隊的年齡已經超過了典型的大一新生），但我從家鄉認識他們中的大多數人。我最親密的朋友已經畢業或即將畢業，但許多人畢業後留在了哥倫布。雖然我不知道，但我目睹了一種被社會科學家稱為“人才流失”的現象——能夠離開苦苦掙扎的城市的人經常會這樣做，當他們找到一個有教育和工作機會的新家時，他們就會留在那裡。多年後，我看著我的六位伴郎的婚禮派對，意識到他們每個人都像我一樣，在前往俄亥俄州立大學之前在俄亥俄州的一個小鎮上長大。對一個男人來說，他們都在家鄉以外的地方找到了工作，而且他們都沒有興趣回去。

By the time I started at Ohio State, the Marine Corps had instilled in me an incredible sense of invincibility. I’d go to classes, do my homework, study at the library, and make it home in time to drink well past midnight with my buddies, then wake up early to go running. My schedule was intense, but everything that had made me fear the independent college life when I was eighteen felt like a piece of cake now. I had puzzled through those financial aid forms with Mamaw a few years earlier, arguing about whether to list her or Mom as my “parent/guardian.” We had worried that unless I somehow obtained and submitted the financial information of Bob Hamel (my legal father), I’d be guilty of fraud. The whole experience had made both of us painfully aware of how unfamiliar we were with the outside world. I had nearly failed out of high school, earning Ds and Fs in English I. Now I paid my own bills and earned As in every class I took at my state’s flagship university. I felt completely in control of my destiny in a way that I never had before.

當我開始在俄亥俄州立大學工作時，海軍陸戰隊已經向我灌輸了一種不可思議的無敵感。我會去上課，做作業，在圖書館學習，然後及時回家和我的夥伴們一起喝酒，然後早起去跑步。我的日程安排很緊張，但十八歲時讓我害怕獨立大學生活的一切現在都感覺像是小菜一碟。幾年前，我和媽媽一起在那些經濟援助表格中感到困惑，爭論是否將她或媽媽列為我的“父母/監護人”。我們擔心，除非我以某種方式獲得並提交了鮑勃·哈默爾（我的合法父親）的財務信息，否則我會犯有欺詐罪。整個經歷讓我們倆都痛苦地意識到我們對外面的世界是多麼陌生。我差點從高中畢業，在英語I中獲得了D和F。現在，我支付了自己的帳單，並在我所在州的旗艦大學上的每一門課上都獲得了 A。我感覺自己完全掌控了自己的命運，這是我以前從未有過的。

I knew that Ohio State was put-up-or-shut-up time. I had left the Marine Corps not just with a sense that I could do what I wanted but also with the capacity to plan. I wanted to go to law school, and I knew that to go to the best law school, I’d need good grades and to ace the infamous Law School Admissions Test, or LSAT. There was much I didn’t know, of course. I couldn’t really explain why I wanted to go to law school besides the fact that in Middletown the “rich kids” were born to either doctors or lawyers, and I didn’t want to work with blood. I didn’t know how much else was out there, but the little knowledge I had at least gave me direction, and that was all I needed.

我知道俄亥俄州立大學是要麼關閉，要麼關閉的時候。我離開海軍陸戰隊時，不僅覺得自己可以做自己想做的事，而且還有計劃的能力。我想去法學院，我知道要去最好的法學院，我需要取得好成績，並在臭名昭著的法學院入學考試（LSAT）中取得好成績。當然，還有很多我不知道的。我真的無法解釋為什麼我想去法學院，除了在米德爾敦，“富家子弟”要麼是醫生，要麼是律師，我不想和血打交道。我不知道外面還有多少，但我所擁有的一點知識至少給了我方向，這就是我所需要的。

I loathed debt and the sense of limitation it imposed. Though the GI Bill paid for a significant chunk of my education, and Ohio State charged relatively little to an in-state resident, I still needed to cover about twenty thousand dollars of expenses on my own. I took a job at the Ohio Statehouse, working for a remarkably kind senator from the Cincinnati area named Bob Schuler. He was a good man, and I liked his politics, so when constituents called and complained, I tried to explain his positions. I watched lobbyists come and go and overheard the senator and his staff debate whether a particular bill was good for his constituents, good for his state, or good for both. Observing the political process from the inside made me appreciate it in a way that watching cable news never had. Mamaw had thought all politicians were crooks, but I learned that, no matter their politics, that was largely untrue at the Ohio Statehouse.

我討厭債務和它帶來的限制感。儘管《退伍軍人權利法案》支付了我很大一部分教育費用，而俄亥俄州立大學對州內居民收取的費用相對較低，但我仍然需要自己支付大約兩萬美元的費用。我在俄亥俄州議會大廈找到了一份工作，為辛辛那提地區一位名叫鮑勃·舒勒（Bob Schuler）的非常善良的參議員工作。他是個好人，我喜歡他的政治，所以當選民打電話抱怨時，我試圖解釋他的立場。我看到遊說者來來去去，無意中聽到參議員和他的工作人員辯論某項法案是否對他的選民有利，對他的州有利，或者對兩者都有好處。從內部觀察政治進程使我以一種觀看有線電視新聞從未有過的方式欣賞它。媽媽認為所有的政客都是騙子，但我瞭解到，無論他們的政治立場如何，這在俄亥俄州議會大廈基本上是不真實的。

After a few months at the Ohio Senate, as my bills piled up and I found fewer and fewer ways to make up the difference between my spending and my income (one can donate plasma only twice per week, I learned), I decided to get another job. One nonprofit advertised a part-time job that paid ten dollars an hour, but when I showed up for the interview in khakis, an ugly lime-green shirt, and Marine Corps combat boots (my only non-sneakers at the time) and saw the interviewer’s reaction, I knew that I was out of luck. I barely noticed the rejection email a week later. A local nonprofit did work for abused and neglected children, and they also paid ten dollars an hour, so I went to Target, bought a nicer shirt and a pair of black shoes, and came away with a job offer to be a “consultant.” I cared about their mission, and they were great people. I began work immediately.

在俄亥俄州參議院工作了幾個月後，隨著我的帳單堆積如山，我發現彌補支出和收入差額的方法越來越少（據我所知，一個人每周只能捐獻兩次血漿），我決定再找一份工作。一家非營利組織刊登了一份時薪十美元的兼職工作，但當我穿著卡其色、醜陋的石灰綠色襯衫和海軍陸戰隊戰鬥靴（當時我唯一不穿運動鞋）出現在面試現場時，看到面試官的反應，我知道我不走運了。一周后，我幾乎沒有注意到拒絕電子郵件。當地的一家非營利組織確實為受虐待和被忽視的兒童工作，他們也每小時支付十美元，所以我去了塔吉特，買了一件更好的襯衫和一雙黑色的鞋子，並得到了一份“顧問”的工作機會。我關心他們的使命，他們是偉大的人。我立即開始工作。

With two jobs and a full-time class load, my schedule intensified, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t realize there was anything unusual about my commitments until a professor emailed me about meeting after class to discuss a writing assignment. When I sent him my schedule, he was aghast. He sternly told me that I should focus on my education and not let work distractions stand in my way. I smiled, shook his hand, and said thanks, but I did not heed his advice. I liked staying up late to work on assignments, waking up early after only three or four hours of sleep, and patting myself on the back for being able to do it. After so many years of fearing my own future, of worrying that I’d end up like many of my neighbors or family—addicted to drugs or alcohol, in prison, or with kids I couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of—I felt an incredible momentum. I knew the statistics. I had read the brochures in the social worker’s office when I was a kid. I had recognized the look of pity from the hygienist at the low-income dental clinic. I wasn’t supposed to make it, but I was doing just fine on my own.

由於有兩份工作和全日制課程負擔，我的日程安排更加密集，但我並不介意。直到一位教授給我發了一封電子郵件，說我課後開會討論寫作作業，我才意識到我的承諾有什麼不尋常之處。當我把我的日程安排發給他時，他嚇了一跳。他嚴厲地告訴我，我應該專注於我的教育，不要讓工作分心阻礙我。我微笑著握了握他的手，說了聲謝謝，但我沒有聽從他的勸告。我喜歡熬夜做作業，只睡了三四個小時就早起，拍拍自己的背。經過這麼多年擔心自己的未來，擔心我最終會像我的許多鄰居或家人一樣——吸毒或酗酒，入獄，或者與我不能或不願照顧的孩子在一起——我感到了一種不可思議的動力。我知道統計數據。我小時候在社工辦公室讀過摺頁冊。我從低收入牙科診所的衛生員那裡認出了憐悯的眼神。我不應該成功，但我自己做得很好。

Did I take it too far? Absolutely. I didn’t sleep enough. I drank too much and ate Taco Bell at nearly every meal. A week into what I thought was just a really awful cold, a doctor told me that I had mono. I ignored him and kept on living as though NyQuil and DayQuil were magical elixirs. After a week of this, my urine turned a disgusting brown shade, and my temperature registered 103. I realized I might need to take care of myself, so I downed some Tylenol, drank a couple of beers, and went to sleep.

我是不是走得太遠了？絕對。我睡得不夠。我喝得太多了，幾乎每頓飯都吃塔可鐘。一周后，我以為只是一場非常可怕的感冒，一位醫生告訴我，我得了單聲道。我沒有理會他，繼續生活，就好像 NyQuil 和 DayQuil 是神奇的靈丹妙藥一樣。一個星期後，我的尿液變成了令人作嘔的棕色，我的體溫記錄了 103。我意識到我可能需要照顧好自己，所以我喝了一些泰諾，喝了幾杯啤酒，然後睡覺了。

When Mom found out what was happening, she drove to Columbus and took me to the emergency room. She wasn’t perfect, she wasn’t even a practicing nurse, but she took it as a point of pride to supervise every interaction we had with the health care system. She asked the right questions, got annoyed with doctors when they didn’t answer directly, and made sure I had what I needed. I spent two full days in the hospital as doctors emptied five bags of saline to rehydrate me and discovered that I had contracted a staph infection in addition to the mono, which explained why I grew so sick. The doctors released me to Mom, who wheeled me out of the hospital and took me home to recover.

當媽媽知道發生了什麼事時，她開車去了哥倫布，帶我去了急診室。她並不完美，她甚至不是一名執業護士，但她以監督我們與醫療保健系統的每一次互動為榮。她問了正確的問題，當醫生沒有直接回答時，她對他們感到惱火，並確保我有我需要的東西。我在醫院呆了整整兩天，醫生清空了五袋生理鹽水給我補充水分，發現除了單核糖衣法之外，我還感染了葡萄球菌感染，這解釋了為什麼我病得這麼重。醫生把我放到媽媽那裡，媽媽把我趕出醫院，帶我回家養病。

My illness lasted another few weeks, which, happily, coincided with the break between Ohio State’s spring and summer terms. When I was in Middletown, I split time between Aunt Wee’s and Mom’s; both of them cared for me and treated me like a son. It was my first real introduction to the competing emotional demands of Middletown in a post-Mamaw world: I didn’t want to hurt Mom’s feelings, but the past had created rifts that would likely never go away. I never confronted these demands head-on. I never explained to Mom that no matter how nice and caring she was at any given time—and while I had mono, she couldn’t have been a better mother—I just felt uncomfortable around her. To sleep in her house meant talking to husband number five, a kind man but a stranger who would never be anything to me but the future ex–Mr. Mom. It meant looking at her furniture and remembering the time I hid behind it during one of her fights with Bob. It meant trying to understand how Mom could be such a contradiction—a woman who sat patiently with me at the hospital for days and an addict who would lie to her family to extract money from them a month later.

我的病又持續了幾個星期，令人高興的是，這恰逢俄亥俄州立大學春季和夏季學期之間的休息時間。當我在米德爾敦時，我在黃阿姨和媽媽之間分配時間;他們倆都關心我，把我當兒子一樣對待。這是我第一次真正瞭解米德爾敦在後媽媽世界里相互競爭的情感需求：我不想傷害媽媽的感情，但過去造成了可能永遠不會消失的裂痕。我從未直面這些要求。我從來沒有向媽媽解釋過，無論她在任何時候多麼好，多麼有愛心——雖然我有單腑，但她不可能是一個更好的母親——我只是在她身邊感到不舒服。睡在她家裡意味著和五號丈夫說話，他是一個善良的人，但是一個陌生人，除了未來的前任媽媽先生，他永遠不會成為我。這意味著看著她的傢俱，想起在她和鮑勃的一次爭吵中我躲在傢具後面的那段時間。這意味著要試著理解媽媽怎麼會如此矛盾——一個在醫院耐心地陪我坐了好幾天的女人，一個吸毒者，一個月後會向家人撒謊，從他們那裡榨取錢財。

I knew that my increasingly close relationship with Aunt Wee hurt Mom’s feelings. She talked about it all the time. “I’m your mother, not her,” she’d repeat. To this day, I often wonder whether, if I’d had the courage as an adult that I’d had as a child, Mom might have gotten better. Addicts are at their weakest during emotionally trying times, and I knew that I had the power to save her from at least some bouts of sadness. But I couldn’t do it any longer. I didn’t know what had changed, but I wasn’t that person anymore. Perhaps it was nothing more than self-preservation. Regardless, I couldn’t pretend to feel at home with her.

我知道我和黃阿姨越來越親密的關係傷害了媽媽的感情。她一直在談論這件事。“我是你的母親，不是她，”她重複道。直到今天，我常常在想，如果我作為一個成年人有我小時候的勇氣，媽媽會不會變得更好。癮君子在情緒上最虛弱的時候，我知道我有能力將她從至少一些悲傷中拯救出來。但我不能再這樣做了。我不知道發生了什麼變化，但我不再是那個人了。也許這只不過是自我保護。無論如何，我不能假裝和她在一起有賓至如歸的感覺。

After a few weeks of mono, I felt well enough to return to Columbus and my classes. I’d lost a lot of weight—twenty pounds over four weeks—but otherwise felt pretty good. With the hospital bills piling up, I got a third job (as an SAT tutor at the Princeton Review), which paid an incredible eighteen dollars an hour. Three jobs were too much, so I dropped the job I loved the most—my work at the Ohio senate—because it paid the least. I needed money and the financial freedom it provided, not rewarding work. That, I told myself, would come later.

經過幾個星期的單聲道學習，我感覺很好，可以回到哥倫布和我的班級。我的體重減輕了很多——四個星期內減掉了二十磅——但其他方面感覺還不錯。隨著醫院帳單的堆積，我找到了第三份工作（在《普林斯頓評論》擔任SAT導師），時薪高達18美元。三份工作太多了，所以我放棄了我最喜歡的工作——我在俄亥俄州參議院的工作——因為它的薪水最低。我需要金錢和它提供的財務自由，而不是獎勵工作。我告訴自己，那以後會到來的。

Shortly before I left, the Ohio senate debated a measure that would significantly curb payday-lending practices. My senator opposed the bill (one of the few senators to do so), and though he never explained why, I liked to think that maybe he and I had something in common. The senators and policy staff debating the bill had little appreciation for the role of payday lenders in the shadow economy that people like me occupied. To them, payday lenders were predatory sharks, charging high interest rates on loans and exorbitant fees for cashed checks. The sooner they were snuffed out, the better.

在我離開前不久，俄亥俄州參議院就一項將大大遏制發薪日貸款做法的措施進行了辯論。我的參議員反對這項法案（他是為數不多的這樣做的參議員之一），雖然他從未解釋過原因，但我喜歡認為他和我也許有一些共同點。辯論該法案的參議員和政策工作人員對發薪日貸款人在像我這樣的人所處的影子經濟中的作用幾乎沒有什麼瞭解。對他們來說，發薪日貸款人是掠奪性的鯊魚，對貸款收取高利率，對兌現支票收取高昂的費用。他們越早被扼殺越好。

To me, payday lenders could solve important financial problems. My credit was awful, thanks to a host of terrible financial decisions (some of which weren’t my fault, many of which were), so credit cards weren’t a possibility. If I wanted to take a girl out to dinner or needed a book for school and didn’t have money in the bank, I didn’t have many options. (I probably could have asked my aunt or uncle, but I desperately wanted to do things on my own.) One Friday morning I dropped off my rent check, knowing that if I waited another day, the fifty-dollar late fee would kick in. I didn’t have enough money to cover the check, but I’d get paid that day and would be able to deposit the money after work. However, after a long day at the senate, I forgot to grab my paycheck before I left. By the time I realized the mistake, I was already home, and the Statehouse staff had left for the weekend. On that day, a three-day payday loan, with a few dollars of interest, enabled me to avoid a significant overdraft fee. The legislators debating the merits of payday lending didn’t mention situations like that. The lesson? Powerful people sometimes do things to help people like me without really understanding people like me.

對我來說，發薪日貸款人可以解決重要的財務問題。我的信用很糟糕，這要歸功於許多糟糕的財務決定（其中一些不是我的錯，其中許多是我的錯），所以信用卡是不可能的。如果我想帶一個女孩出去吃飯，或者需要一本書上學，但銀行里沒有錢，我沒有太多選擇。（我本可以問我的阿姨或叔叔，但我迫切地想自己做事。一個星期五的早上，我放下了房租支票，因為我知道如果我再等一天，五十美元的滯納金就會開始生效。我沒有足夠的錢來支付支票，但我那天會得到報酬，下班后可以把錢存入銀行。然而，在參議院度過了漫長的一天后，我忘了在離開前拿薪水。當我意識到這個錯誤時，我已經回家了，州議會大廈的工作人員已經離開了週末。那天，一筆為期三天的發薪日貸款，加上幾美元的利息，使我避免了一筆可觀的透支費。辯論發薪日貸款優點的立法者沒有提到這樣的情況。教訓是什麼？有權勢的人有時會做一些事情來説明像我這樣的人，而沒有真正理解像我這樣的人。

My second year of college started pretty much as my first year had, with a beautiful day and a lot of excitement. With the new job, I was a bit busier, but I didn’t mind the work. What I did mind was the gnawing feeling that, at twenty-four, I was a little too old to be a second-year college student. But with four years in the Marine Corps behind me, more separated me from the other students than age. During an undergraduate seminar in foreign policy, I listened as a nineteen-year-old classmate with a hideous beard spouted off about the Iraq war. He explained that those fighting the war were typically less intelligent than those (like him) who immediately went to college. It showed, he argued, in the wanton way soldiers butchered and disrespected Iraqi civilians. It was an objectively terrible opinion—my friends from the Marine Corps spanned the political spectrum and held nearly every conceivable opinion about the war. Many of my Marine Corps friends were staunch liberals who had no love for our commander in chief—then George W. Bush—and felt that we had sacrificed too much for too little gain. But none of them had ever uttered such unreflective tripe.

我大學二年級的開始和我的第一年差不多，有美好的一天，也有很多興奮。有了新工作，我有點忙，但我不介意工作。我介意的是那種痛苦的感覺，在二十四歲的時候，我有點太老了，不能成為一名二年級的大學生。但是，在我海軍陸戰隊的四年時間里，我與其他學生之間的差距比年齡更大。在一次外交政策本科生研討會上，我聽一位留著醜陋鬍子的19歲同學滔滔不絕地談論伊拉克戰爭。他解釋說，那些打仗的人通常不如那些立即上大學的人（像他一樣）聰明。他認為，這顯示了士兵肆無忌憚地屠殺和不尊重伊拉克平民的方式。客觀上，這是一個可怕的觀點——我在海軍陸戰隊的朋友跨越了政治光譜，對戰爭持有幾乎所有可以想像到的觀點。我的許多海軍陸戰隊朋友都是堅定的自由主義者，他們不愛我們的總司令——當時的喬治·W·布希——並認為我們犧牲了太多，但收穫太少。但是他們都沒有說過這樣不加反思的牛肚。

As the student prattled on, I thought about the never-ending training on how to respect Iraqi culture—never show anyone the bottom of your foot, never address a woman in traditional Muslim garb without first speaking to a male relative. I thought about the security we provided for Iraqi poll workers, and how we studiously explained the importance of their mission without ever pushing our own political views on them. I thought about listening to a young Iraqi (who couldn’t speak a word of English) flawlessly rap every single word of 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” and laughing along with him and his friends. I thought about my friends who were covered in third-degree burns, “lucky” to have survived an IED attack in the Al-Qaim region of Iraq. And here was this dipshit in a spotty beard telling our class that we murdered people for sport.

當學生喋喋不休地講著時，我想到了關於如何尊重伊拉克文化的永無止境的訓練——永遠不要向任何人展示你的腳底，永遠不要在沒有先與男性親戚交談的情況下對穿著傳統穆斯林服裝的女人說話。我想到了我們為伊拉克投票站工作人員提供的安全保障，以及我們如何認真地解釋他們使命的重要性，而從未將我們自己的政治觀點強加給他們。我想聽一個年輕的伊拉克人（他不會說一句英語）完美地說唱 50 Cent 的“In Da Club”的每一個字，然後和他和他的朋友們一起笑。我想到我的朋友們，他們渾身是三度燒傷，“幸運”地在伊拉克基地組織地區的簡易爆炸裝置襲擊中倖存下來。這是個鬍子不一的狗屎，告訴我們班，我們為了運動而殺人。

I felt an immediate drive to finish college as quickly as possible. I met with a guidance counselor and plotted my exit—I’d need to take classes during the summer and more than double the full-time course load during some terms. It was, even by my heightened standards, an intense year. During a particularly terrible February, I sat down with my calendar and counted the number of days since I’d slept more than four hours in a day. The tally was thirty-nine. But I continued, and in August 2009, after one year and eleven months at Ohio State, I graduated with a double major, summa cum laude. I tried to skip my graduation ceremony, but my family wouldn’t let me. So I sat in an uncomfortable chair for three hours before I walked across the podium and received my college diploma. When Gordon Gee, then president of the Ohio State University, paused for an unusually long photograph with the girl who stood in front of me in line, I extended my hand to his assistant, nonverbally asking for the diploma. She handed it to me, and I stepped behind Dr. Gee and down off the podium. I may have been the only graduating student that day to not shake his hand. On to the next one, I thought.

我立刻有一種動力要儘快完成大學學業。我與一位輔導員會面並計劃了我的退出計劃——我需要在暑假上課，在某些學期，全日制課程的負擔會增加一倍以上。即使按照我的高標準，這也是緊張的一年。在一個特別可怕的二月，我坐在日曆上，數著我一天睡超過四個小時的天數。總數是三十九。但我繼續前進，2009 年 8 月，在俄亥俄州立大學學習了一年零 11 個月後，我以優異的成績獲得了雙學位。我試圖跳過我的畢業典禮，但我的家人不允許我。於是，我在一張不舒服的椅子上坐了三個小時，然後才走上講臺，拿到了我的大學文憑。時任俄亥俄州立大學（Ohio State University）校長的戈登·吉（Gordon Gee）停下來與站在我前面排隊的女孩合影時，我向他的助手伸出手，非口頭地要求領取畢業證書。她把它遞給我，我走到Gee博士身後，走下講臺。我可能是那天唯一一個沒有和他握手的畢業生。接下來，我想。

I knew I’d go to law school later the next year (my August graduation precluded a 2009 start to law school), so I moved home to save money. Aunt Wee had taken Mamaw’s place as the family matriarch: She put out the fires, hosted family gatherings, and kept us all from breaking apart. She had always provided me with a home base after Mamaw’s death, but ten months seemed like an imposition; I didn’t like the idea of disrupting her family’s routine. But she insisted, “J.D., this is your home now. It’s the only place for you to stay.”

我知道我會在明年晚些時候去法學院（我八月的畢業使我無法在2009年開始上法學院），所以我搬回家省錢。黃阿姨接替了媽媽的位置，成為家裡的女族長：她撲滅了大火，主持了家庭聚會，並防止我們所有人分崩離析。在媽媽去世后，她一直為我提供一個大本營，但十個月似乎是強加的;我不喜歡打亂她家庭日常生活的想法。但她堅持說：“J.D.，這裡現在是你的家。這是你唯一住的地方。

Those last months living in Middletown were among the happiest of my life. I was finally a college graduate, and I knew that I’d soon accomplish another dream—going to law school. I worked odd jobs to save money and grew closer to my aunt’s two daughters. Every day I’d get home from work, dusty and sweaty from manual labor, and sit at the dinner table to hear my teenage cousins talk about their days at school and trials with friends. Sometimes I’d help with homework. On Fridays during Lent, I helped with the fish fries at the local Catholic church. That feeling I had in college—that I had survived decades of chaos and heartbreak and finally come out on the other side—deepened.

住在米德爾敦的最後幾個月是我一生中最快樂的時光之一。我終於大學畢業了，我知道我很快就會實現另一個夢想——上法學院。為了省錢，我打零工，和姑姑的兩個女兒越來越親近。每天我下班回家，體力勞動滿身灰塵，汗流浹背，坐在餐桌旁聽我十幾歲的表兄弟們談論他們在學校的日子和與朋友的考驗。有時我會幫忙做作業。在大齋節期間的星期五，我在當地天主教堂幫忙炸魚條。我在大學里的那種感覺——我在幾十年的混亂和心碎中倖存下來，終於從另一邊走出來——加深了。

The incredible optimism I felt about my own life contrasted starkly with the pessimism of so many of my neighbors. Years of decline in the blue-collar economy manifested themselves in the material prospects of Middletown’s residents. The Great Recession, and the not-great recovery that followed, had hastened Middletown’s downward trajectory. But there was something almost spiritual about the cynicism of the community at large, something that went much deeper than a short-term recession.

我對自己生活的難以置信的樂觀與許多鄰居的悲觀主義形成了鮮明的對比。藍領經濟多年的衰退體現在米德爾敦居民的物質前景上。大蕭條，以及隨之而來的不太好的復甦，加速了米德爾敦的下滑軌跡。但是，整個社區的憤世嫉俗幾乎是精神上的，這種東西比短期經濟衰退要深刻得多。

As a culture, we had no heroes. Certainly not any politician—Barack Obama was then the most admired man in America (and likely still is), but even when the country was enraptured by his rise, most Middletonians viewed him suspiciously. George W. Bush had few fans in 2008. Many loved Bill Clinton, but many more saw him as the symbol of American moral decay, and Ronald Reagan was long dead. We loved the military but had no George S. Patton figure in the modern army. I doubt my neighbors could even name a high-ranking military officer. The space program, long a source of pride, had gone the way of the dodo, and with it the celebrity astronauts. Nothing united us with the core fabric of American society. We felt trapped in two seemingly unwinnable wars, in which a disproportionate share of the fighters came from our neighborhood, and in an economy that failed to deliver the most basic promise of the American Dream—a steady wage.

作為一種文化，我們沒有英雄。當然不是任何政治家——奧巴馬當時是美國最受尊敬的人（可能現在仍然是），但即使這個國家為他的崛起而欣喜若狂，大多數米德爾頓人也對他持懷疑態度。喬治·W·布希（George W. Bush）在2008年幾乎沒有粉絲。許多人喜歡比爾·柯林頓，但更多的人認為他是美國道德淪喪的象徵，而羅納德·雷根早已去世。我們熱愛軍隊，但在現代軍隊中沒有喬治·巴頓（George S. Patton）的身影。我懷疑我的鄰居甚至能說出一位高級軍官的名字。太空計劃長期以來一直引以為豪，它已經走上了渡渡鳥的道路，隨之而來的是名人宇航員。沒有什麼能將我們與美國社會的核心結構聯繫在一起。我們感到被困在兩場看似無法取勝的戰爭中，其中不成比例的戰士來自我們的社區，以及未能兌現美國夢最基本承諾的經濟——穩定的工資。

To understand the significance of this cultural detachment, you must appreciate that much of my family’s, my neighborhood’s, and my community’s identity derives from our love of country. I couldn’t tell you a single thing about Breathitt County’s mayor, its health care services, or its famous residents. But I do know this: “Bloody Breathitt” allegedly earned its name because the county filled its World War I draft quota entirely with volunteers—the only county in the entire United States to do so. Nearly a century later, and that’s the factoid about Breathitt that I remember best: It’s the truth that everyone around me ensured I knew. I once interviewed Mamaw for a class project about World War II. After seventy years filled with marriage, children, grandchildren, death, poverty, and triumph, the thing about which Mamaw was unquestionably the proudest and most excited was that she and her family did their part during World War II. We spoke for minutes about everything else; we spoke for hours about war rations, Rosie the Riveter, her dad’s wartime love letters to her mother from the Pacific, and the day “we dropped the bomb.” Mamaw always had two gods: Jesus Christ and the United States of America. I was no different, and neither was anyone else I knew.

要理解這種文化分離的意義，你必須明白，我的家人、我的鄰居和我的社區的大部分身份都源於我們對國家的熱愛。我無法告訴你關於Breathitt縣的市長，它的醫療保健服務或它的著名居民的任何事情。但我確實知道這一點：「血腥呼吸」據稱之所以得名，是因為該縣完全用志願者填補了第一次世界大戰的徵兵配額——這是整個美國唯一一個這樣做的縣。將近一個世紀后，我記得最清楚的關於Breathitt的事實：這是我周圍的每個人都確保我知道的真相。我曾經為一個關於二戰的課堂項目採訪了媽媽。在經歷了婚姻、孩子、孫子、死亡、貧困和勝利的七十年之後，媽媽最自豪和最興奮的事情無疑是她和她的家人在二戰期間盡了自己的一份力量。我們談幾分鐘其他所有事情;我們聊了幾個小時，談論戰爭口糧、鉚工羅茜、她父親從太平洋寫給她母親的戰時情書，以及“我們投下炸彈”的那一天。媽媽總是有兩個神：耶穌基督和美國。我也不例外，我認識的其他人也不例外。

I’m the kind of patriot whom people on the Acela corridor laugh at. I choke up when I hear Lee Greenwood’s cheesy anthem “Proud to Be an American.” When I was sixteen, I vowed that every time I met a veteran, I would go out of my way to shake his or her hand, even if I had to awkwardly interject to do so. To this day, I refuse to watch Saving Private Ryan around anyone but my closest friends, because I can’t stop from crying during the final scene.

我是那種被Acela走廊上的人嘲笑的愛國者。當我聽到李·格林伍德（Lee Greenwood）的俗氣國歌“自豪地成為美國人”時，我哽咽了。十六歲時，我發誓每次見到退伍軍人時，我都會不遺餘力地與他或她握手，即使我不得不尷尬地插話。直到今天，除了我最親密的朋友之外，我拒絕在任何人身邊觀看《拯救大兵瑞恩》，因為在最後一幕中我無法停止哭泣。

Mamaw and Papaw taught me that we live in the best and greatest country on earth. This fact gave meaning to my childhood. Whenever times were tough—when I felt overwhelmed by the drama and the tumult of my youth—I knew that better days were ahead because I lived in a country that allowed me to make the good choices that others hadn’t. When I think today about my life and how genuinely incredible it is—a gorgeous, kind, brilliant life partner; the financial security that I dreamed about as a child; great friends and exciting new experiences—I feel overwhelming appreciation for these United States. I know it’s corny, but it’s the way I feel.

媽媽和爸爸告訴我，我們生活在地球上最好、最偉大的國家。這個事實賦予了我的童年以意義。每當艱難時期——當我被年輕時的戲劇和喧囂所淹沒時——我知道更好的日子就在前方，因為我生活在一個允許我做出別人沒有做出的正確選擇的國家。當我今天回想起我的生活，以及它是多麼令人難以置信——一個華麗、善良、輝煌的生活伴侶;我小時候夢寐以求的財務安全;好朋友和激動人心的新體驗——我對這些美國感到無比感激。我知道這很老套，但這就是我的感受。

If Mamaw’s second God was the United States of America, then many people in my community were losing something akin to a religion. The tie that bound them to their neighbors, that inspired them in the way my patriotism had always inspired me, had seemingly vanished.

如果媽媽的第二位神是美國，那麼我社區中的許多人正在失去一些類似於宗教的東西。將他們與鄰居聯繫在一起的紐帶，以我的愛國主義一直激勵我的方式激勵他們的紐帶，似乎已經消失了。

The symptoms are all around us. Significant percentages of white conservative voters—about one-third—believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. In one poll, 32 percent of conservatives said that they believed Obama was foreign-born and another 19 percent said they were unsure—which means that a majority of white conservatives aren’t certain that Obama is even an American. I regularly hear from acquaintances or distant family members that Obama has ties to Islamic extremists, or is a traitor, or was born in some far-flung corner of the world.

癥狀無處不在。相當大比例的白人保守派選民 - 大约三分之一 - 認為奧巴馬是穆斯林。在一項民意調查中，32%的保守派人士表示他們認為奧巴馬是外國出生的，另有19%的人表示他們不確定 - 這意味著大多數白人保守派甚至不確定奧巴馬是美國人。我經常從熟人或遠方的家人那裡聽到奧巴馬與伊斯蘭極端分子有聯繫，或者是叛徒，或者出生在世界的某個偏遠角落。

Many of my new friends blame racism for this perception of the president. But the president feels like an alien to many Middletonians for reasons that have nothing to do with skin color. Recall that not a single one of my high school classmates attended an Ivy League school. Barack Obama attended two of them and excelled at both. He is brilliant, wealthy, and speaks like a constitutional law professor—which, of course, he is. Nothing about him bears any resemblance to the people I admired growing up: His accent—clean, perfect, neutral—is foreign; his credentials are so impressive that they’re frightening; he made his life in Chicago, a dense metropolis; and he conducts himself with a confidence that comes from knowing that the modern American meritocracy was built for him. Of course, Obama overcame adversity in his own right—adversity familiar to many of us—but that was long before any of us knew him.

我的許多新朋友將對總統的這種看法歸咎於種族主義。但總統對許多米德爾頓人來說就像一個陌生人，原因與膚色無關。回想一下，我的高中同學中沒有一個上過常春藤盟校。奧巴馬參加了其中的兩個，並在兩個方面都表現出色。他才華橫溢，富有，說話像個憲法學教授——當然，他確實是。他與我從小崇拜的人沒有任何相似之處：他的口音——乾淨、完美、中性——是外國的;他的資歷令人印象深刻，令人恐懼;他在芝加哥這個人口稠密的大都市生活;他以一種自信行事，這種自信來自於知道現代美國精英政治是為他建立的。當然，奧巴馬靠自己的能力克服了逆境——我們許多人都熟悉的逆境——但那是我們認識他之前很久的事了。

President Obama came on the scene right as so many people in my community began to believe that the modern American meritocracy was not built for them. We know we’re not doing well. We see it every day: in the obituaries for teenage kids that conspicuously omit the cause of death (reading between the lines: overdose), in the deadbeats we watch our daughters waste their time with. Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities. He is a good father while many of us aren’t. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we’re lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it—not because we think she’s wrong but because we know she’s right.

奧巴馬總統出現在當時，我社區中的許多人開始相信現代美國的精英政治不是為他們而建立的。我們知道我們做得不好。我們每天都能看到它：在十幾歲孩子的訃告中，明顯省略了死因（字裡行間讀：過量），在我們看著女兒浪費時間的死節拍中。奧巴馬擊中了我們最深的不安全感的核心。他是一個好父親，而我們中的許多人都不是。他穿西裝上班，而我們穿工作服，如果我們有幸找到工作的話。他的妻子告訴我們，我們不應該給孩子餵某些食物，我們因此討厭她——不是因為我們認為她錯了，而是因為我們知道她是對的。

Many try to blame the anger and cynicism of working-class whites on misinformation. Admittedly, there is an industry of conspiracy-mongers and fringe lunatics writing about all manner of idiocy, from Obama’s alleged religious leanings to his ancestry. But every major news organization, even the oft-maligned Fox News, has always told the truth about Obama’s citizenship status and religious views. The people I know are well aware of what the major news organizations have to say about the issue; they simply don’t believe them. Only 6 percent of American voters believe that the media is “very trustworthy.”²¹ To many of us, the free press—that bulwark of American democracy—is simply full of shit.

許多人試圖將工人階級白人的憤怒和憤世嫉俗歸咎於錯誤資訊。誠然，有一個陰謀論者和邊緣瘋子的行業，他們寫著各種各樣的白癡，從奧巴馬所謂的宗教傾向到他的祖先。但每個主要新聞機構，甚至是經常被誯謗的福克斯新聞，總是對奧巴馬的公民身份和宗教觀點說出真相。我認識的人都很清楚主要新聞機構對這個問題的看法;他們根本不相信他們。只有6%的美國選民認為媒體「非常值得信賴」。。²¹對我們許多人來說，新聞自由——美國民主的堡壘——簡直就是狗屎。

With little trust in the press, there’s no check on the Internet conspiracy theories that rule the digital world. Barack Obama is a foreign alien actively trying to destroy our country. Everything the media tells us is a lie. Many in the white working class believe the worst about their society. Here’s a small sample of emails or messages I’ve seen from friends or family:

由於對媒體的信任度不高，因此無法對統治數位世界的互聯網陰謀論進行檢查。奧巴馬是一個積極試圖摧毀我們國家的外國外國人。媒體告訴我們的一切都是謊言。白人工人階級中的許多人對他們的社會最壞的看法。以下是我從朋友或家人那裡看到的電子郵件或消息的一小部分範例：

        •  From right-wing radio talker Alex Jones on the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, a documentary about the “unanswered question” of the terrorist attacks, suggesting that the U.S. government played a role in the massacre of its own people.

• 右翼電臺談話者亞歷克斯·鐘斯（Alex Jones）在9/11事件十周年之際，拍攝了一部關於恐怖襲擊“懸而未決的問題”的紀錄片，暗示美國政府在屠殺本國人民的過程中發揮了作用。

        •  From an email chain, a story that the Obamacare legislation requires microchip implantation in new health care patients. This story carries extra bite because of the religious implications: Many believe that the End Times “mark of the beast” foretold in biblical prophecy will be an electronic device. Multiple friends warned others about this threat via social media.

• 從電子郵件鏈中，有一個故事稱歐巴馬醫改立法要求在新的醫療保健患者中植入微晶元。由於宗教含義，這個故事帶有額外的咬合力：許多人認為聖經預言中預言的末世“野獸的印記”將是一種電子設備。多位朋友通過社交媒體警告其他人注意這一威脅。

        •  From the popular website WorldNetDaily, an editorial suggesting that the Newtown gun massacre was engineered by the federal government to turn public opinion on gun control measures.

• 來自熱門網站WorldNetDaily的一篇社論表明，紐敦槍支大屠殺是由聯邦政府策劃的，目的是讓公眾輿論轉向槍支管制措施。

        •  From multiple Internet sources, suggestions that Obama will soon implement martial law in order to secure power for a third presidential term.

• 來自多個互聯網來源的建議是，奧巴馬將很快實施戒嚴令，以確保第三個總統任期的權力。

The list goes on. It’s impossible to know how many people believe one or many of these stories. But if a third of our community questions the president’s origin—despite all evidence to the contrary—it’s a good bet that the other conspiracies have broader currency than we’d like. This isn’t some libertarian mistrust of government policy, which is healthy in any democracy. This is deep skepticism of the very institutions of our society. And it’s becoming more and more mainstream.

這樣的例子不勝枚舉。不可能知道有多少人相信這些故事中的一個或多個。但是，如果我們社區三分之一的人質疑總統的出身——儘管所有證據都相反——那麼可以肯定的是，其他陰謀的影響力比我們想要的要廣泛。這不是自由意志主義者對政府政策的不信任，這在任何民主國家都是健康的。這是對我們社會制度的深刻懷疑。它正變得越來越主流。

We can’t trust the evening news. We can’t trust our politicians. Our universities, the gateway to a better life, are rigged against us. We can’t get jobs. You can’t believe these things and participate meaningfully in society. Social psychologists have shown that group belief is a powerful motivator in performance. When groups perceive that it’s in their interest to work hard and achieve things, members of that group outperform other similarly situated individuals. It’s obvious why: If you believe that hard work pays off, then you work hard; if you think it’s hard to get ahead even when you try, then why try at all?

我們不能相信晚間新聞。我們不能相信我們的政客。我們的大學是通往更美好生活的大門，卻縱著反對我們。我們找不到工作。你不能相信這些事情，也不能有意義地參與社會。社會心理學家已經表明，群體信念是績效的強大動力。當群體認為努力工作和取得成就符合他們的利益時，該群體的成員就會勝過其他處境相似的人。原因很明顯：如果你相信努力工作是有回報的，那麼你就會努力工作;如果你認為即使你努力也很難取得成功，那為什麼要嘗試呢？

Similarly, when people do fail, this mind-set allows them to look outward. I once ran into an old acquaintance at a Middletown bar who told me that he had recently quit his job because he was sick of waking up early. I later saw him complaining on Facebook about the “Obama economy” and how it had affected his life. I don’t doubt that the Obama economy has affected many, but this man is assuredly not among them. His status in life is directly attributable to the choices he’s made, and his life will improve only through better decisions. But for him to make better choices, he needs to live in an environment that forces him to ask tough questions about himself. There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day.

同樣，當人們失敗時，這種心態使他們能夠向外看。我曾經在米德爾敦的一家酒吧遇到一位老熟人，他告訴我，他最近辭掉了工作，因為他厭倦了早起。後來我看到他在Facebook上抱怨“奧巴馬經濟”以及它如何影響他的生活。我不懷疑奧巴馬經濟影響了許多人，但這個人肯定不在其中。他在生活中的地位直接歸因於他所做的選擇，只有通過更好的決定，他的生活才會得到改善。但為了讓他做出更好的選擇，他需要生活在一個迫使他對自己提出尖銳問題的環境中。白人工人階級中有一場文化運動，將問題歸咎於社會或政府，而這種運動每天都在獲得追隨者。

Here is where the rhetoric of modern conservatives (and I say this as one of them) fails to meet the real challenges of their biggest constituents. Instead of encouraging engagement, conservatives increasingly foment the kind of detachment that has sapped the ambition of so many of my peers. I have watched some friends blossom into successful adults and others fall victim to the worst of Middletown’s temptations—premature parenthood, drugs, incarceration. What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault.

這就是現代保守派的言論（我是其中之一）無法應對他們最大選民的真正挑戰的地方。保守派非但沒有鼓勵參與，反而越來越多地煽動那種超脫，這種超然已經削弱了我許多同齡人的雄心壯志。我看到一些朋友成長為成功的成年人，而另一些朋友則成為米德爾敦最糟糕的誘惑的受害者——早產兒、吸毒、監禁。成功者與失敗者的區別在於他們對自己生活的期望。然而，右翼的信息越來越多：你是失敗者不是你的錯;這是政府的錯。

My dad, for example, has never disparaged hard work, but he mistrusts some of the most obvious paths to upward mobility. When he found out that I had decided to go to Yale Law, he asked whether, on my applications, I had “pretended to be black or liberal.” This is how low the cultural expectations of working-class white Americans have fallen. We should hardly be surprised that as attitudes like this one spread, the number of people willing to work for a better life diminishes.

例如，我父親從不貶低努力工作，但他不信任一些最明顯的向上流動的途徑。當他得知我決定去耶魯大學法學院時，他問我是否在我的申請中“假裝是黑人還是自由派”。這就是美國工人階級白人的文化期望下降的程度。我們不應該感到驚訝的是，隨著這種態度的蔓延，願意為更好的生活而工作的人數減少了。

The Pew Economic Mobility Project studied how Americans evaluated their chances at economic betterment, and what they found was shocking. There is no group of Americans more pessimistic than working-class whites. Well over half of blacks, Latinos, and college-educated whites expect that their children will fare better economically than they have. Among working-class whites, only 44 percent share that expectation. Even more surprising, 42 percent of working-class whites—by far the highest number in the survey—report that their lives are less economically successful than those of their parents’.

皮尤經濟流動專案（Pew Economic Mobility Project）研究了美國人如何評估他們獲得經濟改善的機會，他們的發現令人震驚。沒有哪個美國人比工人階級的白人更悲觀。超過一半的黑人、拉丁裔和受過大學教育的白人預計他們的孩子在經濟上會比他們過得更好。在工薪階層的白人中，只有44%的人有這種期望。更令人驚訝的是，42%的工人階級白人（迄今為止調查中最高的數位）報告說，他們的生活在經濟上不如父母成功。

In 2010, that just wasn’t my mind-set. I was happy about where I was and overwhelmingly hopeful about the future. For the first time in my life, I felt like an outsider in Middletown. And what turned me into an alien was my optimism.

在2010年，這不是我的心態。我對自己所處的位置感到高興，對未來充滿希望。我有生以來第一次覺得自己像米德爾敦的局外人。把我變成外星人的是我的樂觀。

Chapter 12

第12章

During my first round of law school applications, I didn’t even apply to Yale, Harvard, or Stanford—the mythical “top three” schools. I didn’t think I had a chance at those places. More important, I didn’t think it mattered; all lawyers get good jobs, I assumed. I just needed to get to any law school, and then I’d do fine: a nice salary, a respectable profession, and the American Dream. Then my best friend, Darrell, ran into one of his law school classmates at a popular D.C. restaurant. She was bussing tables, simply because that was the only job available to her. On the next round, I gave Yale and Harvard a try.

在我的第一輪法學院申請中，我甚至沒有申請耶魯大學、哈佛大學或斯坦福大學——神話般的“前三名”學校。我不認為我有機會去那些地方。更重要的是，我認為這並不重要;我以為，所有的律師都能找到好工作。我只需要去任何一所法學院，然後我就會做得很好：一份不錯的薪水，一份受人尊敬的職業，還有美國夢。然後，我最好的朋友達雷爾（Darrell）在華盛頓特區一家受歡迎的餐廳遇到了他的一位法學院同學。她正在忙桌子，只是因為這是她唯一能找到的工作。在下一輪中，我嘗試了耶魯大學和哈佛大學。

I didn’t apply to Stanford—one of the very best schools in the country—and to know why is to understand that the lessons I learned as a kid were sometimes counterproductive. Stanford’s law school application wasn’t the standard combination of college transcript, LSAT score, and essays. It required a personal sign-off from the dean of your college: You had to submit a form, completed by the dean, attesting that you weren’t a loser.

我沒有申請斯坦福大學——美國最好的學校之一——要知道為什麼，就要明白我小時候學到的教訓有時會適得其反。斯坦福大學的法學院申請不是大學成績單、LSAT 分數和論文的標準組合。它需要你所在學院的院長親自簽字：你必須提交一份由院長填寫的表格，證明你不是一個失敗者。

I didn’t know the dean of my college at Ohio State. It’s a big place. I’m sure she is a lovely person, and the form was clearly little more than a formality. But I just couldn’t ask. I had never met this person, never taken a class with her, and, most of all, didn’t trust her. Whatever virtues she possessed as a person, she was, in the abstract, an outsider. The professors I’d selected to write my letters had gained my trust. I listened to them nearly every day, took their tests, and wrote papers for them. As much as I loved Ohio State and its people for an incredible education and experience, I could not put my fate in the hands of someone I didn’t know. I tried to talk myself into it. I even printed the form and drove it to campus. But when the time came, I crumpled it up and tossed it in the garbage. There would be no Stanford Law for J.D.

我不認識我在俄亥俄州立大學的院長。這是一個很大的地方。我敢肯定她是一個可愛的人，而這種形式顯然只不過是一種形式。但我就是不能問。我從未見過這個人，從未和她一起上過課，最重要的是，我不信任她。無論她作為一個人擁有什麼美德，抽象地說，她都是一個局外人。我選擇寫信的教授贏得了我的信任。我幾乎每天都聽他們講課，參加他們的考試，為他們寫論文。儘管我非常熱愛俄亥俄州立大學及其人民，因為它擁有令人難以置信的教育和經歷，但我不能把我的命運掌握在我不認識的人手中。我試著說服自己。我甚至列印了表格並開車去了校園。但時機一到，我就把它揉成一團，扔進了垃圾桶。法學博士不會有斯坦福法學院。

I decided that I wanted to go to Yale more than any other school. It had a certain aura—with its small class sizes and unique grading system, Yale billed itself as a low-stress way to jump-start a legal career. But most of its students came from elite private colleges, not large state schools like mine, so I imagined that I had no chance of admission. Nonetheless, I submitted an application online, because that was relatively easy. It was late afternoon on an early spring day, 2010, when my phone rang and the caller ID revealed an unfamiliar 203 area code. I answered, and the voice on the other line told me that he was the director of admissions at Yale Law, and that I’d been admitted to the class of 2013. I was ecstatic and leaped around during the entire three-minute conversation. By the time he said goodbye, I was so out of breath that when I called Aunt Wee to tell her, she thought I’d just gotten into a car accident.

我決定我比其他任何學校都更想去耶魯。它有一定的光環——憑藉其小班授課和獨特的評分系統，耶魯大學自稱是一種快速開始法律職業的低壓力方式。但它的大多數學生來自精英私立大學，而不是像我這樣的大型公立學校，所以我認為我沒有機會被錄取。儘管如此，我還是在網上提交了申請，因為這相對容易。那是2010年早春的傍晚，我的電話響了，來電顯示顯示一個陌生的203區號。我接了電話，電話那頭的聲音告訴我，他是耶魯大學法學院的招生主任，我被錄取了2013屆。在整個三分鐘的談話中，我欣喜若狂，跳來跳去。當他告別時，我已經氣喘吁吁了，當我打電話給黃阿姨告訴她時，她以為我剛剛出了車禍。

I was sufficiently committed to going to Yale Law that I was willing to accept the two hundred thousand dollars or so in debt that I knew I’d accrue. Yet the financial aid package Yale offered exceeded my wildest dreams. In my first year, it was nearly a full ride. That wasn’t because of anything I’d done or earned—it was because I was one of the poorest kids in school. Yale offered tens of thousands in need-based aid. It was the first time being so broke paid so well. Yale wasn’t just my dream school, it was also the cheapest option on the table.

我有足夠的決心去耶魯大學法學院，我願意接受我知道我會累積的二十萬美元左右的債務。然而，耶魯大學提供的經濟援助計劃超出了我最瘋狂的夢想。在我的第一年，這幾乎是一次完整的旅程。那不是因為我做了什麼或賺了什麼，而是因為我是學校里最窮的孩子之一。耶魯大學提供了數以萬計的基於需求的援助。這是第一次破產，薪水這麼高。耶魯不僅是我夢寐以求的學校，也是我最便宜的選擇。

The New York Times recently reported that the most expensive schools are paradoxically cheaper for low-income students. Take, for example, a student whose parents earn thirty thousand per year—not a lot of money but not poverty level, either. That student would pay ten thousand for one of the less selective branch campuses of the University of Wisconsin but would pay six thousand at the school’s flagship Madison campus. At Harvard, the student would pay only about thirteen hundred despite tuition of over forty thousand. Of course, kids like me don’t know this. My buddy Nate, a lifelong friend and one of the smartest people I know, wanted to go to the University of Chicago as an undergraduate, but he didn’t apply because he knew he couldn’t afford it. It likely would have cost him considerably less than Ohio State, just as Yale cost considerably less for me than any other school.

《紐約時報》最近報導說，對於低收入學生來說，最昂貴的學校卻自相矛盾地便宜。舉個例子，一個學生的父母每年掙三萬——不是很多錢，但也不是貧困水準。這名學生將支付一萬美元購買威斯康星大學（University of Wisconsin）一個選擇性較差的分校，但該校的旗艦麥迪遜校區將支付六千美元。在哈佛，儘管學費超過四萬，但學生只需支付大約一千三百美元。當然，像我這樣的孩子不知道這一點。我的好友內特（Nate）是我的終生朋友，也是我認識的最聰明的人之一，他想去芝加哥大學讀本科，但他沒有申請，因為他知道自己負擔不起。他的成本可能比俄亥俄州立大學低得多，就像耶魯大學對我來說比其他任何學校都要低得多一樣。

I spent the next few months getting ready to leave. My aunt and uncle’s friend got me that job at a local floor tile distribution warehouse, and I worked there during the summer—driving a forklift, getting tile shipments ready for transport, and sweeping a giant warehouse. By the end of the summer, I’d saved enough not to worry about the move to New Haven.

在接下來的幾個月里，我準備離開。我姨媽和叔叔的朋友在當地的一家地磚配送倉庫給我找了一份工作，我在那裡工作了整個夏天——開叉車，準備運輸瓷磚，並清掃一個巨大的倉庫。到夏天結束時，我已經攢夠了錢，不用擔心搬到紐黑文了。

The day I moved felt different from every other time I’d moved away from Middletown. I knew when I left for the Marines that I’d return often and that life might bring me back to my hometown for an extended period (indeed it did). After four years in the Marines, the move to Columbus for college hadn’t seemed all that significant. I’d become an expert at leaving Middletown for other places, and each time I felt at least a little forlorn. But I knew this time that I was never really coming back. That didn’t bother me. Middletown no longer felt like home.

我搬家的那天感覺與我搬離米德爾敦的每一次都不同。當我離開海軍陸戰隊時，我知道我會經常回來，生活可能會讓我回到我的家鄉很長一段時間（確實如此）。在海軍陸戰隊服役四年後，搬到哥倫布上大學似乎並不那麼重要。我成了離開米德爾敦去其他地方的專家，每次我都至少感到有點孤獨。但我知道這一次我再也回不來了。這並沒有打擾我。米德爾敦不再有家的感覺。

On my first day at Yale Law School, there were posters in the hallways announcing an event with Tony Blair, the former British prime minister. I couldn’t believe it: Tony Blair was speaking to a room of a few dozen students? If he came to Ohio State, he would have filled an auditorium of a thousand people. “Yeah, he speaks at Yale all the time,” a friend told me. “His son is an undergraduate.” A few days after that, I nearly bumped into a man as I turned a corner to walk into the law school’s main entrance. I said, “Excuse me,” looked up, and realized the man was New York governor George Pataki. These sorts of things happened at least once a week. Yale Law School was like nerd Hollywood, and I never stopped feeling like an awestruck tourist.

在我進入耶魯法學院的第一天，走廊上貼滿了海報，宣佈與英國前首相托尼·布萊爾（Tony Blair）舉行活動。我簡直不敢相信：托尼·布萊爾（Tony Blair）正在對一個有幾十個學生的房間講話？如果他來到俄亥俄州立大學，他會坐滿一千人的禮堂。“是的，他一直在耶魯演講，”一位朋友告訴我。“他的兒子是本科生。”幾天后，當我轉過拐角走進法學院的正門時，我差點撞到一個男人。我說，“對不起，”抬起頭，意識到那個人是紐約州州長喬治·帕塔基。這些事情每周至少發生一次。耶魯法學院就像好萊塢的書，我從未停止過像一個令人敬畏的遊客的感覺。

The first semester was structured in a way to make life easy on students. While my friends in other law schools were overwhelmed with work and worrying about strict grading curves that effectively placed you in direct competition with your classmates, our dean asked us during orientation to follow our passions, wherever they might lead, and not worry so much about grades. Our first four classes were graded on a credit/no credit basis, which made that easy. One of those classes, a constitutional law seminar of sixteen students, became a kind of family for me. We called ourselves the island of misfit toys, as there was no real unifying force to our team—a conservative hillbilly from Appalachia, the supersmart daughter of Indian immigrants, a black Canadian with decades’ worth of street smarts, a neuroscientist from Phoenix, an aspiring civil rights attorney born a few minutes from Yale’s campus, and an extremely progressive lesbian with a fantastic sense of humor, among others—but we became excellent friends.

第一學期的結構是為了讓學生的生活更輕鬆。當我在其他法學院的朋友被工作壓得喘不過氣來，擔心嚴格的評分曲線實際上讓你與同學直接競爭時，我們的院長在迎新會上要求我們追隨我們的激情，無論他們可能走向何方，不要太擔心成績。我們的前四門課是以學分/無學分為基礎評分的，這很容易。其中一門課，一個有16名學生參加的憲法研討會，對我來說就像一個家庭。我們稱自己為格格不入的玩具之島，因為我們的團隊沒有真正的團結力量——一個來自阿巴拉契亞的保守鄉巴佬，一個超級聰明的印度移民的女兒，一個擁有數十年街頭智慧的加拿大黑人，一個來自鳳凰城的神經科學家，一個有抱負的民權律師，出生在耶魯大學校園幾分鐘的地方，以及一個非常進步的女同性戀者，有著奇妙的幽默感， 等等，但我們成了很好的朋友。

That first year at Yale was overwhelming, but in a good way. I’d always been an American history buff, and some of the buildings on campus predated the Revolutionary War. Sometimes I’d walk around campus searching for the placards that identified the ages of buildings. The buildings themselves were breathtakingly beautiful—towering masterpieces of neo-Gothic architecture. Inside, intricate stone carvings and wood trim gave the law school an almost medieval feel. You’d even sometimes hear that we went to HLS (Hogwarts Law School). It’s telling that the best way to describe the law school was a reference to a series of fantasy novels.

在耶魯的第一年是壓倒性的，但以一種好的方式。我一直是美國歷史愛好者，校園裡的一些建築早於獨立戰爭。有時我會在校園裡走來走去，尋找標明建築物年齡的標語牌。這些建築本身令人歎為觀止，是新哥特式建築的高聳傑作。在內部，錯綜複雜的石雕和木飾給法學院帶來了近乎中世紀的感覺。你有時甚至會聽說我們去了HLS（霍格沃茨法學院）。描述法學院的最佳方式是參考一系列奇幻小說，這很能說明問題。

Classes were hard, and sometimes required long nights in the library, but they weren’t that hard. A part of me had thought I’d finally be revealed as an intellectual fraud, that the administration would realize they’d made a terrible mistake and send me back to Middletown with their sincerest apologies. Another part of me thought I’d be able to hack it but only with extraordinary dedication; after all, these were the brightest students in the world, and I did not qualify as such. But that didn’t end up being the case. Though there were rare geniuses walking the halls of the law school, most of my fellow students were smart but not intimidatingly so. In classroom discussions and on tests, I largely held my own.

上課很辛苦，有時需要在圖書館度過漫長的夜晚，但並不難。我的一部分以為我最終會被揭露為一個知識份子的騙子，政府會意識到他們犯了一個可怕的錯誤，並把我送回米德爾敦，並向他們最誠摯的道歉。我的另一部分認為我能夠破解它，但只有非凡的奉獻精神;畢竟，這些是世界上最聰明的學生，而我沒有資格成為這樣的學生。但事實並非如此。雖然在法學院的大廳裡走來走去的天才很少見，但我的大多數同學都很聰明，但並不令人生畏。在課堂討論和考試中，我基本上堅持自己的觀點。

Not everything came easy. I always fancied myself a decent writer, but when I turned in a sloppy writing assignment to a famously stern professor, he handed it back with some extraordinarily critical commentary. “Not good at all,” he scribbled on one page. On another, he circled a large paragraph and wrote in the margin, “This is a vomit of sentences masquerading as a paragraph. Fix.” I heard through the grapevine that this professor thought Yale should accept only students from places like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Princeton: “It’s not our job to do remedial education, and too many of these other kids need it.” That committed me to changing his mind. By the end of the semester, he called my writing “excellent” and admitted that he might have been wrong about state schools. As the first year drew to a close, I felt triumphant—my professors and I got along well, I had earned solid grades, and I had a dream job for the summer—working for the chief counsel for a sitting U.S. senator.

並非一切都來得容易。我一直認為自己是一個體面的作家，但當我把一份草率的寫作作業交給一位以嚴厲著稱的教授時，他把作業還給了他，並附上了一些非常批判的評論。“一點也不好，”他在一頁紙上潦草地寫道。在另一張照片上，他圈了一大段，並在空白處寫道：“這是一堆偽裝成段落的句子。修復。我從小道消息中聽說，這位教授認為耶魯大學應該只接受來自哈佛、耶魯、斯坦福和普林斯頓等地的學生：「做補習教育不是我們的工作，其他孩子中有太多人需要補習教育。這讓我不得不改變他的想法。到學期結束時，他稱我的寫作“優秀”，並承認他對公立學校的看法可能是錯誤的。第一年快要結束時，我感到很得意——我的教授和我相處得很好，我的成績很好，而且我在暑假有一份夢寐以求的工作——為一位現任美國參議員的首席法律顧問工作。

Yet, for all of the joy and intrigue, Yale planted a seed of doubt in my mind about whether I belonged. This place was so beyond the pale for what I expected of myself. I knew zero Ivy League graduates back home; I was the first person in my nuclear family to go to college and the first person in my extended family to attend a professional school. When I arrived in August 2010, Yale had educated two of the three most recent Supreme Court justices and two of the six most recent presidents, not to mention the sitting secretary of state (Hillary Clinton). There was something bizarre about Yale’s social rituals: the cocktail receptions and banquets that served as both professional networking and personal matchmaking events. I lived among newly christened members of what folks back home pejoratively call the “elites,” and by every outward appearance, I was one of them: I am a tall, white, straight male. I have never felt out of place in my entire life. But I did at Yale.

然而，儘管有所有的喜悅和陰謀，耶魯在我心中種下了一顆懷疑我是否屬於自己的種子。這個地方超出了我對自己的期望。我在家鄉認識零常春藤盟校的畢業生;我是我的核心家庭中第一個上大學的人，也是我大家庭中第一個上專業學校的人。當我在2010年8月到達耶魯大學時，耶魯大學已經教育了三位最高法院大法官中的兩位和最近六位總統中的兩位，更不用說現任國務卿希拉蕊·柯林頓了。耶魯大學的社交儀式有些奇怪：雞尾酒會和宴會既是專業的社交活動，也是個人婚介活動。我生活在家鄉被人們貶低地稱為「精英」的新成員中，從每一個外表來看，我都是他們中的一員：我是一個高大、白人、直男。在我的一生中，我從未感到格格不入。但我在耶魯做到了。

Part of it has to do with social class. A student survey found that over 95 percent of Yale Law’s students qualified as upper-middle-class or higher, and most of them qualified as outright wealthy. Obviously, I was neither upper-middle-class nor wealthy. Very few people at Yale Law School are like me. They may look like me, but for all of the Ivy League’s obsession with diversity, virtually everyone—black, white, Jewish, Muslim, whatever—comes from intact families who never worry about money. Early during my first year, after a late night of drinking with my classmates, we all decided to stop at a New Haven chicken joint. Our large group left an awful mess: dirty plates, chicken bones, ranch dressing and soda splattered on the tables, and so on. I couldn’t imagine leaving it all for some poor guy to clean up, so I stayed behind. Of a dozen classmates, only one person helped me: my buddy Jamil, who also came from a poorer background. Afterward, I told Jamil that we were probably the only people in the school who’d ever had to clean up someone else’s mess. He just nodded his head in silent agreement.

其中一部分與社會階層有關。一項學生調查發現，耶魯大學法學院超過95%的學生有資格成為中上階層或更高階層，其中大多數人有資格成為徹頭徹尾的富人。顯然，我既不是中上層階層階級，也不是富人。在耶魯法學院，很少有人像我一樣。他們可能看起來像我，但儘管常春藤盟校對多樣性的癡迷，幾乎每個人——黑人、白人、猶太人、穆斯林等等——都來自從不擔心錢的完整家庭。在我第一年年初，在和同學們喝了一夜酒後，我們都決定在紐黑文的一家雞肉店停下來。我們一大群人留下了一團糟：髒盤子、雞骨頭、牧場調味品和濺在桌子上的蘇打水，等等。我無法想像把這一切留給一個可憐的傢伙來清理，所以我留下來了。在十幾個同學中，只有一個人説明了我：我的朋友賈米爾，他也來自一個較貧窮的背景。後來，我告訴賈米爾，我們可能是學校里唯一一個不得不收拾別人爛攤子的人。他只是默默地點了點頭。

Even though my experiences were unique, I never felt like a foreigner in Middletown. Most people’s parents had never gone to college. My closest friends had all seen some kind of domestic strife in their life—divorces, remarriages, legal separations, or fathers who spent some time in jail. A few parents worked as lawyers, engineers, or teachers. They were “rich people” to Mamaw, but they were never so rich that I thought of them as fundamentally different. They still lived within walking distance of my house, sent their kids to the same high school, and generally did the same things the rest of us did. It never occurred to me that I didn’t belong, even in the homes of some of my relatively wealthy friends.

儘管我的經歷很獨特，但我從不覺得自己是米德爾敦的外國人。大多數人的父母從未上過大學。我最親密的朋友都經歷過生活中的某種家庭衝突——離婚、再婚、合法分居，或者父親在監獄里呆了一段時間。一些父母是律師、工程師或教師。對媽媽來說，他們是“有錢人”，但他們從來沒有富裕到我認為他們有根本的不同。他們仍然住在我家的步行距離之內，把他們的孩子送到同一所高中，並且通常做著和我們其他人一樣的事情。我從來沒有想過我不屬於這裡，即使在我一些相對富有的朋友的家裡也是如此。

At Yale Law School, I felt like my spaceship had crashed in Oz. People would say with a straight face that a surgeon mother and engineer father were middle-class. In Middletown, $160,000 is an unfathomable salary; at Yale Law School, students expect to earn that amount in the first year after law school. Many of them are already worried that it won’t be enough.

在耶魯法學院，我覺得我的宇宙飛船在奧茲國墜毀了。人們會板著臉說，外科醫生的母親和工程師的父親是中產階級。在米德爾敦，160,000 美元是一份深不可測的薪水;在耶魯大學法學院，學生希望在法學院畢業后的第一年獲得這筆錢。他們中的許多人已經擔心這還不夠。

It wasn’t just about the money or my relative lack of it. It was about people’s perceptions. Yale made me feel, for the first time in my life, that others viewed my life with intrigue. Professors and classmates seemed genuinely interested in what seemed to me a superficially boring story: I went to a mediocre public high school, my parents didn’t go to college, and I grew up in Ohio. The same was true of nearly everyone I knew. At Yale, these things were true of no one. Even my service in the Marine Corps was pretty common in Ohio, but at Yale, many of my friends had never spent time with a veteran of America’s newest wars. In other words, I was an anomaly.

這不僅僅是關於錢或我相對缺乏錢的問題。這是關於人們的看法。耶魯讓我有生以來第一次感覺到，別人對我的生活充滿好奇。教授和同學們似乎對一個在我看來很無聊的故事很感興趣：我上了一所平庸的公立高中，我的父母沒有上過大學，我在俄亥俄州長大。我認識的幾乎每個人都是這樣。在耶魯，這些事情對任何人都不是真的。在俄亥俄州，即使我在海軍陸戰隊服役也很常見，但在耶魯大學，我的許多朋友從未與美國最新戰爭的老兵共度時光。換句話說，我是一個異常。

That’s not exactly a bad thing. For much of that first year in law school, I reveled in the fact that I was the only big marine with a Southern twang at my elite law school. But as law school acquaintances became close friends, I became less comfortable with the lies I told about my own past. “My mom is a nurse,” I told them. But of course that wasn’t true anymore. I didn’t really know what my legal father—the one whose name was on my birth certificate—did for a living; he was a total stranger. No one, except my best friends from Middletown whom I asked to read my law school admissions essay, knew about the formative experiences that shaped my life. At Yale, I decided to change that.

這並不是一件壞事。在法學院第一年的大部分時間里，我陶醉於這樣一個事實，即我是精英法學院中唯一一個擁有南方人頭銜的大海軍陸戰隊員。但隨著法學院的熟人成為親密的朋友，我對自己過去的謊言變得不那麼自在了。“我媽媽是一名護士，”我告訴他們。但當然，這不再是真的了。我真的不知道我的合法父親——我出生證明上的名字——是靠什麼謀生的;他是一個完全陌生的人。除了我在米德爾敦最好的朋友，我要求他們閱讀我的法學院入學論文，沒有人知道塑造我一生的成長經歷。在耶魯，我決定改變這種狀況。

I’m not sure what motivated this change. Part of it is that I stopped being ashamed: My parents’ mistakes were not my fault, so I had no reason to hide them. But I was concerned most of all that no one understood my grandparents’ outsize role in my life. Few of even my closest friends understood how utterly hopeless my life would have been without Mamaw and Papaw. So maybe I just wanted to give credit where credit is due.

我不確定是什麼促使了這種變化。部分原因是我不再感到羞愧：我父母的錯誤不是我的錯，所以我沒有理由隱瞞它們。但我最擔心的是，沒有人理解我祖父母在我生命中的巨大作用。即使是我最親密的朋友，也很少有人明白，如果沒有媽媽和爸爸，我的生活會是多麼絕望。所以也許我只是想在應得的功勞上給予功勞。

Yet there’s something else. As I realized how different I was from my classmates at Yale, I grew to appreciate how similar I was to the people back home. Most important, I became acutely aware of the inner conflict born of my recent success. On one of my first visits home after classes began, I stopped at a gas station not far from Aunt Wee’s house. The woman at the nearest pump began a conversation, and I noticed that she wore a Yale T-shirt. “Did you go to Yale?” I asked. “No,” she replied, “but my nephew does. Do you?” I wasn’t sure what to say. It was stupid—her nephew went to school there, for Christ’s sake—but I was still uncomfortable admitting that I’d become an Ivy Leaguer. The moment she told me her nephew went to Yale, I had to choose: Was I a Yale Law student, or was I a Middletown kid with hillbilly grandparents? If the former, I could exchange pleasantries and talk about New Haven’s beauty; if the latter, she occupied the other side of an invisible divide and could not to be trusted. At her cocktail parties and fancy dinners, she and her nephew probably even laughed about the unsophisticates of Ohio and how they clung to their guns and religion. I would not join forces with her. My answer was a pathetic attempt at cultural defiance: “No, I don’t go to Yale. But my girlfriend does.” And then I got in my car and drove away.

然而，還有別的東西。當我意識到我與耶魯的同學們有多麼不同時，我越來越意識到我與家鄉的人是多麼相似。最重要的是，我敏銳地意識到我最近的成功所帶來的內心衝突。開學後我第一次回家時，在離黃阿姨家不遠的一家加油站停了下來。最近的加油站的那位女士開始交談，我注意到她穿著一件耶魯T恤。“你去耶魯了嗎？”我問。“不，”她回答說，“但我的侄子知道。你呢？我不知道該說什麼。這很愚蠢——看在基督的份上，她的侄子在那裡上學——但我仍然不願意承認自己會成為常春藤盟校的學生。當她告訴我她的侄子去了耶魯大學的那一刻，我不得不做出選擇：我是耶魯大學法學院的學生，還是一個有鄉巴佬祖父母的米德爾敦孩子？如果是前者，我可以寒暄幾句，聊聊紐黑文的美;如果是後者，她佔據了無形鴻溝的另一邊，不值得信任。在她的雞尾酒會和豪華晚宴上，她和她的侄子甚至可能嘲笑俄亥俄州的樸素，以及他們如何堅持自己的槍支和宗教。我不會和她聯手。我的回答是對文化反抗的可悲嘗試：“不，我不去耶魯。但我的女朋友知道。然後我上了車，開車走了。

This wasn’t one of my prouder moments, but it highlights the inner conflict inspired by rapid upward mobility: I had lied to a stranger to avoid feeling like a traitor. There are lessons to draw here, among them what I’ve noted already: that one consequence of isolation is seeing standard metrics of success as not just unattainable but as the property of people not like us. Mamaw always fought that attitude in me, and for the most part, she was successful.

這不是我最自豪的時刻之一，但它凸顯了快速向上流動所激發的內心衝突：我對一個陌生人撒謊，以避免感覺自己像個叛徒。這裡有一些教訓可以吸取，其中包括我已經注意到的：孤立的一個後果是將成功的標準標準視為不僅無法實現，而且是與我們不同的人的財產。媽媽總是與我這種態度作鬥爭，而且大多數情況下，她都成功了。

Another lesson is that it’s not just our own communities that reinforce the outsider attitude, it’s the places and people that upward mobility connects us with—like my professor who suggested that Yale Law School shouldn’t accept applicants from non-prestigious state schools. There’s no way to quantify how these attitudes affect the working class. We do know that working-class Americans aren’t just less likely to climb the economic ladder, they’re also more likely to fall off even after they’ve reached the top. I imagine that the discomfort they feel at leaving behind much of their identity plays at least a small role in this problem. One way our upper class can promote upward mobility, then, is not only by pushing wise public policies but by opening their hearts and minds to the newcomers who don’t quite belong.

另一個教訓是，強化局外人態度的不僅僅是我們自己的社區，還有向上流動將我們聯繫在一起的地方和人——就像我的教授建議耶魯法學院不應該接受來自非著名公立學校的申請者一樣。沒有辦法量化這些態度如何影響工人階級。我們確實知道，美國工人階級不僅不太可能攀登經濟階梯，而且即使他們已經達到頂峰，他們也更有可能跌落。我想，他們在拋棄大部分身份時感到的不適至少在這個問題中起了很小的作用。因此，我們的上層階層階級促進向上流動的一種方式不僅是推動明智的公共政策，而且要向不太有歸屬感的新移民敞開心扉。

Though we sing the praises of social mobility, it has its downsides. The term necessarily implies a sort of movement—to a theoretically better life, yes, but also away from something. And you can’t always control the parts of your old life from which you drift. In the past few years, I’ve vacationed in Panama and England. I’ve bought my groceries at Whole Foods. I’ve watched orchestral concerts. I’ve tried to break my addiction to “refined processed sugars” (a term that includes at least one too many words). I’ve worried about racial prejudice in my own family and friends.

雖然我們歌頌社會流動性，但它也有其缺點。這個詞必然意味著一種運動——理論上更好的生活，是的，但也遠離某些東西。而且你不能總是控制你偏離的舊生活部分。在過去的幾年裡，我在巴拿馬和英國度假。我在 Whole Foods 買了雜貨。我看過管弦樂音樂會。我試圖打破對「精製加工糖」 （一個至少包含一個太多單詞的術語）的成癮。我擔心自己的家人和朋友會有種族偏見。

None of these things is bad on its own. In fact, most of them are good—visiting England was a childhood dream; eating less sugar improves health. At the same time, they’ve shown me that social mobility isn’t just about money and economics, it’s about a lifestyle change. The wealthy and the powerful aren’t just wealthy and powerful; they follow a different set of norms and mores. When you go from working-class to professional-class, almost everything about your old life becomes unfashionable at best or unhealthy at worst. At no time was this more obvious than the first (and last) time I took a Yale friend to Cracker Barrel. In my youth, it was the height of fine dining—my grandma’s and my favorite restaurant. With Yale friends, it was a greasy public health crisis.

這些事情本身都不是壞事。事實上，他們中的大多數都很好——訪問英國是兒時的夢想;少吃糖可以改善健康。與此同時，他們向我展示了社會流動性不僅關乎金錢和經濟，還關乎生活方式的改變。富人和有權勢的人不僅僅是有錢有勢;他們遵循一套不同的規範和習俗。當你從工人階級變成職業階層時，你過去生活的幾乎所有事情都變得不合時宜，往壞了說是不健康的。這一點在我第一次（也是最後一次）帶耶魯朋友去Cracker Barrel時表現得最為明顯。在我年輕的時候，那是高級餐廳的巔峰時期——我奶奶的餐廳和我最喜歡的餐廳。對於耶魯的朋友來說，這是一場油膩的公共衛生危機。

These aren’t exactly major problems, and if given the option all over again, I’d trade a bit of social discomfort for the life I lead in a heartbeat. But as I realized that in this new world I was the cultural alien, I began to think seriously about questions that had nagged at me since I was a teenager: Why has no one else from my high school made it to the Ivy League? Why are people like me so poorly represented in America’s elite institutions? Why is domestic strife so common in families like mine? Why did I think that places like Yale and Harvard were so unreachable? Why did successful people feel so different?

這些都不是大問題，如果重新來一次，我會用一點社交不適來換取我心跳加速的生活。但當我意識到在這個新世界里，我是文化的外星人時，我開始認真思考從我十幾歲起就一直困擾著我的問題：為什麼我的高中沒有其他人進入常春藤盟校？為什麼像我這樣的人在美國精英機構中的代表性如此之低？為什麼家庭衝突在像我這樣的家庭中如此普遍？為什麼我認為像耶魯和哈佛這樣的地方如此遙不可及？為什麼成功人士感覺如此不同？

Chapter 13

第13章

As I began to think a bit more deeply about my own identity, I fell hard for a classmate of mine named Usha. As luck would have it, we were assigned as partners for our first major writing assignment, so we spent a lot of time during that first year getting to know each other. She seemed some sort of genetic anomaly, a combination of every positive quality a human being should have: bright, hardworking, tall, and beautiful. I joked with a buddy that if she had possessed a terrible personality, she would have made an excellent heroine in an Ayn Rand novel, but she had a great sense of humor and an extraordinarily direct way of speaking. Where others might have asked meekly, “Yeah, maybe you could rephrase this?” or “Have you thought about this other idea?” Usha would say simply: “I think this sentence needs work” or “This is a pretty terrible argument.” At a bar, she looked up at a mutual friend of ours and said, without a hint of irony, “You have a very small head.” I had never met anyone like her.

當我開始更深入地思考自己的身份時，我深深地愛上了我的一個名叫烏莎的同學。幸運的是，我們被指派為我們第一個主要寫作任務的合作夥伴，所以我們在第一年花了很多時間相互瞭解。她似乎是某種基因異常，是人類應該具備的所有積極品質的結合：聰明、勤奮、高大和美麗。我和一個朋友開玩笑說，如果她擁有可怕的性格，她會成為安·蘭德小說中的優秀女主角，但她很有幽默感，說話方式非常直接。其他人可能會溫順地問，“是的，也許你可以改寫一下？”或者“你有沒有想過另一個想法？”烏莎會簡單地說：「我認為這句話需要改進」或「這是一個非常糟糕的論點」。。在一家酒吧里，她抬頭看著我們的一個共同朋友，不帶一絲諷刺地說：“你的腦袋很小。我從未見過像她這樣的人。

I had dated other girls before, some serious, some not. But Usha occupied an entirely different emotional universe. I thought about her constantly. One friend described me as “heartsick” and another told me he had never seen me like this. Toward the end of our first year, I learned that Usha was single, and I immediately asked her out. After a few weeks of flirtations and a single date, I told her that I was in love with her. It violated every rule of modern dating I’d learned as a young man, but I didn’t care.

我以前和別的女孩約會過，有些是認真的，有些不是。但烏莎佔據了一個完全不同的情感世界。我不停地想著她。一位朋友形容我「傷心欲絕」，另一位朋友告訴我，他從未見過我這樣。第一年快結束時，我得知烏莎是單身，我立即約她出去。經過幾個星期的調情和一次約會，我告訴她我愛上了她。它違反了我年輕時學到的每一條現代約會規則，但我不在乎。

Usha was like my Yale spirit guide. She’d attended the university for college, too, and knew all of the best coffee shops and places to eat. Her knowledge went much deeper, however: She instinctively understood the questions I didn’t even know to ask, and she always encouraged me to seek opportunities that I didn’t know existed. “Go to office hours,” she’d tell me. “Professors here like to engage with students. It’s part of the experience here.” In a place that always seemed a little foreign, Usha’s presence made me feel at home.

烏莎就像我的耶魯精神嚮導。她也上過大學，知道所有最好的咖啡店和吃飯的地方。然而，她的知識要深入得多：她本能地理解我甚至不知道要問的問題，她總是鼓勵我去尋找我不知道存在的機會。“去上班時間，”她會告訴我。這裡的教授喜歡與學生互動。這是這裏體驗的一部分。在一個看起來總是有點陌生的地方，烏莎的存在讓我有賓至如歸的感覺。

I went to Yale to earn a law degree. But that first year at Yale taught me most of all that I didn’t know how the world worked. Every August, recruiters from prestigious law firms descend on New Haven, hungry for the next generation of high-quality legal talent. The students call it FIP—short for Fall Interview Program—and it’s a marathon week of dinners, cocktail hours, hospitality suite visits, and interviews. On my first day of FIP, just before second-year classes began, I had six interviews, including one with the firm I most coveted—Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP (Gibson Dunn for short)—which had an elite practice in Washington, D.C.

我去耶魯大學攻讀法律學位。但在耶魯的第一年，我學到了最重要的一點，那就是我不知道這個世界是如何運作的。每年八月，來自著名律師事務所的招聘人員都會來到紐黑文，渴望下一代高素質的法律人才。學生們稱之為 FIP（秋季面試計劃的縮寫），這是一個馬拉松式的晚餐、雞尾酒會、招待套房參觀和面試的一周。在我進入FIP的第一天，就在二年級課程開始之前，我進行了六次面試，其中包括我最夢寐以求的公司——Gibson， Dunn & Crutcher， LLP（簡稱Gibson Dunn）——這家公司在華盛頓特區擁有精英業務。

The interview with Gibson Dunn went well and I was invited to their infamous dinner at one of New Haven’s fanciest restaurants. The rumor mill informed me that the dinner was a kind of intermediate interview: We needed to be funny, charming, and engaging, or we’d never be invited to the D.C. or New York offices for final interviews. When I arrived at the restaurant, I thought it a pity that the most expensive meal I’d ever eaten would take place in such a high-stakes environment.

對吉布森·鄧恩（Gibson Dunn）的採訪進行得很順利，我被邀請參加他們在紐黑文最高檔餐廳之一舉行的臭名昭著的晚宴。謠言工廠告訴我，晚宴是一種中間面試：我們需要有趣、迷人、引人入勝，否則我們永遠不會被邀請到華盛頓特區或紐約的辦公室進行最後的面試。當我到達餐廳時，我覺得很遺憾，我吃過的最昂貴的一頓飯會發生在如此高風險的環境中。

Before dinner, we were all corralled into a private banquet room for wine and conversation. Women a decade older than I was carried around wine bottles wrapped in beautiful linens, asking every few minutes whether I wanted a new glass of wine or a refill on the old one. At first I was too nervous to drink. But I finally mustered the courage to answer yes when someone asked whether I’d like some wine and, if so, what kind. “I’ll take white,” I said, which I thought would settle the matter. “Would you like sauvignon blanc or chardonnay?”

晚餐前，我們都被關在一個私人宴會廳裡喝酒聊天。比我大十歲的女人被提著用漂亮的亞麻布包裹的酒瓶，每隔幾分鐘就問我是要一杯新酒還是舊酒續杯。起初我太緊張了，不敢喝酒。但當有人問我是否想要一些葡萄酒，如果想要，想要什麼樣的酒時，我終於鼓起勇氣回答了“是”。“我會拿白色的，”我說，我以為這樣可以解決這個問題。“你想要長相思還是霞多麗？”

I thought she was screwing with me. But I used my powers of deduction to determine that those were two separate kinds of white wine. So I ordered a chardonnay, not because I didn’t know what sauvignon blanc was (though I didn’t) but because it was easier to pronounce. I had just dodged my first bullet. The night, however, was young.

我以為她在搞砸我。但是我用我的推理能力來確定這是兩種不同的白葡萄酒。所以我點了一杯霞多麗，不是因為我不知道長相思是什麼（儘管我不知道），而是因為它更容易發音。我剛剛躲過了第一顆子彈。然而，夜晚還很年輕。

At these types of events, you have to strike a balance between shy and overbearing. You don’t want to annoy the partners, but you don’t want them to leave without shaking your hand. I tried to be myself; I’ve always considered myself gregarious but not oppressive. But I was so impressed by the environment that “being myself” meant staring slack-jawed at the fineries of the restaurant and wondering how much they cost.

在這些類型的活動中，您必須在害羞和霸道之間取得平衡。你不想惹惱合作夥伴，但你不希望他們不握手就離開。我試著做我自己;我一直認為自己是合群的，但不是壓迫性的。但這裡的環境給我留下了深刻的印象，以至於“做我自己”意味著鬆弛地盯著餐廳的華麗裝飾，想知道它們要花多少錢。

The wineglasses look like they’ve been Windexed. That dude did not buy his suit at the three-suits-for-one sale at Jos. A. Bank; it looks like it’s made from silk. The linens on the table look softer than my bedsheets; I need to touch them without being weird about it. Long story short, I needed a new plan. By the time we sat down for dinner, I’d resolved to focus on the task at hand—getting a job—and leave the class tourism for later.

酒杯看起來像是被打碎了。那傢伙沒有在喬斯·A·班克（Jos. A. Bank）的三套西裝拍賣會上買他的西裝;它看起來像是用絲綢製成的。桌上的床單看起來比我的床單還柔軟;我需要觸摸它們而不感到奇怪。長話短說，我需要一個新計劃。當我們坐下來吃晚飯時，我已經下定決心專注於手頭的任務——找一份工作——然後把班級旅遊留到以後。

My bearing lasted another two minutes. After we sat down, the waitress asked whether I’d like tap or sparkling water. I rolled my eyes at that one: As impressed as I was with the restaurant, calling the water “sparkling” was just too pretentious—like “sparkling” crystal or a “sparkling” diamond. But I ordered the sparkling water anyway. Probably better for me. Fewer contaminants.

我的方位又持續了兩分鐘。我們坐下后，女服務員問我是要自來水還是蘇打水。我翻了個白眼：儘管我對這家餐廳印象深刻，但稱水為“波光粼粼”實在是太自命不凡了——就像“波光粼粼”的水晶或“波光粼粼”的鑽石一樣。但我還是點了蘇打水。可能對我來說更好。更少的污染物。

I took one sip and literally spit it out. It was the grossest thing I’d ever tasted. I remember once getting a Diet Coke at a Subway without realizing that the fountain machine didn’t have enough Diet Coke syrup. That’s exactly what this fancy place’s “sparkling” water tasted like. “Something’s wrong with that water,” I protested. The waitress apologized and told me she’d get me another Pellegrino. That was when I realized that “sparkling” water meant “carbonated” water. I was mortified, but luckily only one other person noticed what had happened, and she was a classmate. I was in the clear. No more mistakes.

我喝了一口，然後把它吐了出來。這是我吃過的最噁心的東西。我記得有一次在地鐵上買了健怡可樂，卻沒有意識到噴泉機沒有足夠的健怡可樂糖漿。這正是這個高檔地方的「蘇打水」的味道。“那水有問題，”我抗議道。女服務員向我道歉，並告訴我她會再給我買一杯培露。那時我意識到「蘇打水」意味著「碳酸」水。我感到很羞愧，但幸運的是，只有一個人注意到發生了什麼，她是她的同學。我很清楚。不再有錯誤。

Immediately thereafter, I looked down at the place setting and observed an absurd number of instruments. Nine utensils? Why, I wondered, did I need three spoons? Why were there multiple butter knives? Then I recalled a scene from a movie and realized there was some social convention surrounding the placement and size of the cutlery. I excused myself to the restroom and called my spirit guide: “What do I do with all these damned forks? I don’t want to make a fool of myself.” Armed with Usha’s reply—“Go from outside to inside, and don’t use the same utensil for separate dishes; oh, and use the fat spoon for soup”—I returned to dinner, ready to dazzle my future employers.

緊接著，我低頭看了看這個地方的設置，觀察到了數量荒謬的樂器。九件器皿？我想知道，為什麼我需要三把勺子？為什麼有多把黃油刀？然後我回想起電影中的一個場景，並意識到圍繞餐具的位置和大小存在一些社會習俗。我藉口去洗手間，打電話給我的精神嚮導：“我該怎麼處理這些該死的叉子？我不想自欺欺人。有了烏莎的回答——“從外面到裡面，不要用同一個器皿來盛不同的菜;哦，用胖勺子煲湯“——我回到晚餐，準備讓我未來的僱主眼花繚亂。

The rest of the evening was uneventful. I chatted politely and remembered Lindsay’s admonition to chew with my mouth closed. Those at our table talked about law and law school, firm culture, and even a little politics. The recruiters we ate with were very nice, and everyone at my table landed a job offer—even the guy who spit out his sparkling water.

晚上剩下的時間很平靜。我彬彬有禮地聊了幾句，想起了琳賽的告誡，要閉著嘴咀嚼。我們桌上的人談論了法律和法學院，公司文化，甚至還有一點政治。和我們一起吃飯的招聘人員都很好，我桌上的每個人都得到了工作機會——甚至包括那個吐出蘇打水的人。

It was at this meal, on the first of five grueling days of interviews, that I began to understand that I was seeing the inner workings of a system that lay hidden to most of my kind. Our career office had emphasized the importance of sounding natural and being someone the interviewers wouldn’t mind sitting with on an airplane. It made perfect sense—after all, who wants to work with an asshole?—but it seemed an odd emphasis for what felt like the most important moment of a young career. Our interviews weren’t so much about grades or résumés, we were told; thanks to a Yale Law pedigree, one foot was already in the door. The interviews were about passing a social test—a test of belonging, of holding your own in a corporate boardroom, of making connections with potential future clients.

正是在這頓飯上，在五天艱苦的採訪的第一天，我開始明白，我看到了一個對我大多數人來說隱藏的系統的內部運作。我們的職業辦公室強調了聽起來很自然的重要性，並且是面試官不介意坐在飛機上的人。這很有道理——畢竟，誰願意和一個混蛋一起工作呢?——但對於一個年輕職業生涯中最重要的時刻來說，這似乎是一個奇怪的強調。我們被告知，我們的面試與其說是成績或簡歷，不如說是關於成績或簡歷;多虧了耶魯大學法學院的血統，一隻腳已經踏進了門。面試是關於通過社會測試的——對歸屬感的考驗，在公司董事會中保持自己的地位，與潛在的未來客戶建立聯繫。

The most difficult test was the one I wasn’t even required to take: getting an audience in the first place. All week I marveled at the ease of access to the most esteemed lawyers in the country. All of my friends had at least a dozen interviews, and most led to job offers. I had sixteen when the week began, though by the end I was so spoiled (and exhausted) by the process that I turned down a couple of interviews. Two years earlier, I had applied to dozens of places in the hope of landing a well-paying job after college but was rebuffed every time. Now, after only a year at Yale Law, my classmates and I were being handed six-figure salaries by men who had argued before the United States Supreme Court.

最困難的測試是我甚至不需要參加的測試：首先要吸引觀眾。整個星期，我都驚歎於能夠輕鬆獲得該國最受尊敬的律師。我所有的朋友都至少參加了十幾次面試，大多數都獲得了工作機會。當這一周開始時，我有16個，儘管到最後我被這個過程寵壞了（和筋疲力盡），以至於我拒絕了幾次面試。兩年前，我申請了幾十個地方，希望在大學畢業后找到一份高薪工作，但每次都被拒絕了。現在，在耶魯大學法學院學習了一年後，我和我的同學們就得到了在美國最高法院辯論的人的六位數薪水。

It was pretty clear that there was some mysterious force at work, and I had just tapped into it for the first time. I had always thought that when you need a job, you look online for job postings. And then you submit a dozen résumés. And then you hope that someone calls you back. If you’re lucky, maybe a friend puts your résumé at the top of the pile. If you’re qualified for a very high-demand profession, like accounting, maybe the job search comes a bit easier. But the rules are basically the same.

很明顯，有某種神秘的力量在起作用，而我剛剛第一次接觸到它。我一直認為，當你需要工作時，你會在網上尋找招聘資訊。然後你提交了十幾份簡歷。然後你希望有人給你回電話。如果你幸運的話，也許一個朋友會把你的簡歷放在最前面。如果你有資格從事一個需求量很大的職業，比如會計，也許找工作會容易一些。但規則基本相同。

The problem is, virtually everyone who plays by those rules fails. That week of interviews showed me that successful people are playing an entirely different game. They don’t flood the job market with résumés, hoping that some employer will grace them with an interview. They network. They email a friend of a friend to make sure their name gets the look it deserves. They have their uncles call old college buddies. They have their school’s career service office set up interviews months in advance on their behalf. They have parents tell them how to dress, what to say, and whom to schmooze.

問題是，幾乎每個遵守這些規則的人都失敗了。那一周的採訪告訴我，成功人士正在玩一個完全不同的遊戲。他們不會在就業市場上充斥著簡歷，希望一些僱主能給他們面試機會。他們建立網路。他們給朋友的朋友發電子郵件，以確保他們的名字得到應有的外觀。他們讓他們的叔叔稱他們為大學老夥伴。他們讓學校的職業服務辦公室提前幾個月代表他們安排面試。他們有父母告訴他們如何穿衣，說什麼，和誰聊天。

That doesn’t mean the strength of your résumé or interview performance is irrelevant. Those things certainly matter. But there is enormous value in what economists call social capital. It’s a professor’s term, but the concept is pretty simple: The networks of people and institutions around us have real economic value. They connect us to the right people, ensure that we have opportunities, and impart valuable information. Without them, we’re going it alone.

這並不意味著你的簡歷或面試表現的強度無關緊要。這些事情當然很重要。但是，經濟學家所說的社會資本具有巨大的價值。這是一個教授的術語，但概念很簡單：我們周圍的人和機構網路具有真正的經濟價值。他們將我們與合適的人聯繫起來，確保我們有機會，並傳遞有價值的資訊。沒有他們，我們只能單打獨鬥。

I learned this the hard way during one of my final interviews of the marathon FIP week. At that point, the interviews were like a broken record. People asked about my interests, my favorite classes, my expected legal specialty. Then they asked if I had any questions. After a dozen tries, my answers were polished, and my questions made me sound like a seasoned consumer of law firm information. The truth was that I had no idea what I wanted to do and no idea what field of law I expected to practice in. I wasn’t even sure what my questions about “firm culture” and “work-life balance” meant. The whole process was little more than a dog and pony show. But I didn’t seem like an asshole, so I was coasting.

在馬拉松FIP周的最後一次採訪中，我艱難地學到了這一點。在這一點上，採訪就像一個破紀錄。人們問我的興趣，我最喜歡的課程，我期望的法律專業。然後他們問我是否有任何問題。經過十幾次嘗試，我的答案得到了完善，我的問題讓我聽起來像是一個經驗豐富的律師事務所信息消費者。事實是，我不知道我想做什麼，也不知道我希望在哪個法律領域執業。我甚至不確定我關於“公司文化”和“工作與生活平衡”的問題是什麼意思。整個過程只不過是一場狗和小馬的表演。但我看起來不像個混蛋，所以我在滑行。

Then I hit a wall. The last interviewer asked me a question I was unprepared to answer: Why did I want to work for a law firm? It was a softball, but I’d gotten so used to talking about my budding interest in antitrust litigation (an interest that was at least a little fabricated) that I was laughably unprepared. I should have said something about learning from the best or working on high-stakes litigation. I should have said anything other than what came from my mouth: “I don’t really know, but the pay isn’t bad! Ha ha!” The interviewer looked at me like I had three eyes, and the conversation never recovered.

然後我撞到了牆上。最後一位面試官問了我一個我沒有準備好回答的問題：我為什麼想在律師事務所工作？這是一場壘球比賽，但我已經習慣了談論我對反壟斷訴訟的萌芽興趣（這種興趣至少有點捏造），以至於我可笑地毫無準備。我應該說一些關於向最好的人學習或從事高風險訴訟的事情。我應該說些什麼，而不是從我嘴裡說出來：“我真的不知道，但薪水還不錯！哈哈！面試官看著我，就像我有三隻眼睛一樣，談話再也沒有恢復過來。

I was certain I was toast. I had flubbed the interview in the worst way. But behind the scenes, one of my recommenders was already working the phones. She told the hiring partner that I was a smart, good kid and would make an excellent lawyer. “She raved about you,” I later heard. So when the recruiters called to schedule the next round of interviews, I made the cut. I eventually got the job, despite failing miserably at what I perceived was the most important part of the recruiting process. The old adage says that it’s better to be lucky than good. Apparently having the right network is better than both.

我確信我是乾杯。我以最糟糕的方式在採訪中失敗了。但在幕後，我的一位推薦人已經在使用手機了。她告訴招聘夥伴，我是一個聰明、好的孩子，會成為一名優秀的律師。“她對你讚不絕口，”我後來聽說。因此，當招聘人員打電話安排下一輪面試時，我成功了。我最終得到了這份工作，儘管在我認為是招聘過程中最重要的部分慘遭失敗。有句老話說，運氣好，好運氣好。顯然，擁有正確的網路比兩者都好。

At Yale, networking power is like the air we breathe—so pervasive that it’s easy to miss. Toward the end of our first year, most of us were studying for The Yale Law Journal writing competition. The Journal publishes lengthy pieces of legal analysis, mostly for an academic audience. The articles read like radiator manuals—dry, formulaic, and partially written in another language. (A sampling: “Despite grading’s great promise, we show that the regulatory design, implementation, and practice suffer from serious flaws: jurisdictions fudge more than nudge.”) Kidding aside, Journal membership is serious business. It is the single most significant extracurricular activity for legal employers, some of whom hire only from the publication’s editorial board.

在耶魯，網路力量就像我們呼吸的空氣一樣，無處不在，很容易被忽視。第一年快結束時，我們大多數人都在為《耶魯法學雜誌》的寫作比賽而學習。《華爾街日報》發表冗長的法律分析文章，主要面向學術讀者。這些文章讀起來就像散熱器手冊——枯燥、公式化，而且部分是用另一種語言寫的。（抽樣：“儘管分級有很大的希望，但我們表明，監管設計、實施和實踐存在嚴重缺陷：司法管轄區的捏造多於推動。撇開玩笑不談，《華爾街日報》的會員資格是一件嚴肅的事情。對於合法僱主來說，這是最重要的課外活動，其中一些僱主只從該出版物的編輯委員會中僱用。

Some kids came to the law school with a plan for admission to The Yale Law Journal. The writing competition kicked off in April. By March, some people were weeks into preparation. On the advice of recent graduates (who were also close friends), a good friend had begun studying before Christmas. The alumni of elite consulting firms gathered together to grill each other on editorial techniques. One second-year student helped his old Harvard roommate (a first-year student) design a study strategy for the final month before the test. At every turn, people were tapping into friendship circles and alumni groups to learn about the most important test of our first year.

一些孩子來到法學院，計劃進入《耶魯法學雜誌》。寫作比賽於4月拉開帷幕。到三月份，一些人已經準備了數周。在應屆畢業生（他們也是密友）的建議下，一位好朋友在耶誕節前開始學習。精英諮詢公司的校友們齊聚一堂，就編輯技巧互相討論。一位二年級學生説明他的哈佛室友（一年級學生）設計了考試前最後一個月的學習策略。每時每刻，人們都在利用朋友圈和校友團體來了解我們第一年最重要的考試。

I had no idea what was going on. There was no Ohio State alumni group—when I arrived, I was one of two Ohio State graduates at the entire law school. I suspected the Journal was important, because Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor had been a member. But I didn’t know why. I didn’t even know what the Journal did. The entire process was a black box, and no one I knew had the key.

我不知道發生了什麼。沒有俄亥俄州立大學的校友會——當我到達時，我是整個法學院的兩名俄亥俄州立大學畢業生之一。我懷疑《華爾街日報》很重要，因為最高法院大法官索尼婭·索托馬約爾（Sonia Sotomayor）曾是該雜誌的成員。但我不知道為什麼。我什至不知道《華爾街日報》是做什麼的。整個過程就像一個黑匣子，我認識的人都沒有鑰匙。

There were official channels of information. But they telegraphed conflicting messages. Yale prides itself on being a low-stress, noncompetitive law school. Unfortunately, that ethos sometimes manifests itself in confused messaging. No one seemed to know what value the credential actually held. We were told that the Journal was a huge career boost but that it wasn’t that important, that we shouldn’t stress about it but that it was a prerequisite for certain types of jobs. This was undoubtedly true: For many career paths and interests, Journal membership was merely wasted time. But I didn’t know which career paths that applied to. And I was unsure how to find out.

有官方的信息管道。但他們電報的資訊相互矛盾。耶魯大學以成為一所低壓力、非競爭性的法學院而自豪。不幸的是，這種精神有時會表現為混亂的信息傳遞。似乎沒有人知道證書的實際價值。我們被告知，《華爾街日報》是一個巨大的職業提升，但它並不那麼重要，我們不應該強調它，但它是某些類型工作的先決條件。這無疑是正確的：對於許多職業道路和興趣來說，期刊會員資格只是浪費時間。但我不知道這適用於哪些職業道路。我不確定如何找出答案。

It was around this time that Amy Chua, one of my professors, stepped in and told me exactly how things worked: “Journal membership is useful if you want to work for a judge or if you want to be an academic. Otherwise, it’s a waste. But if you’re unsure what you want to do, go ahead and try out.” It was million-dollar advice. Because I was unsure what I wanted, I followed it. Though I didn’t make it during my first year, I made the cut during my second year and became an editor of the prestigious publication. Whether I made it isn’t the point. What mattered was that, with a professor’s help, I had closed the information gap. It was like I’d learned to see.

大約在這個時候，我的一位教授艾米·蔡（Amy Chua）介入並告訴我事情的確切運作方式：“如果你想為法官工作或想成為一名學者，期刊會員資格很有用。否則，這是一種浪費。但如果你不確定自己想做什麼，那就去嘗試吧。這是價值百萬美元的建議。因為我不確定自己想要什麼，所以我跟著它走了。雖然我在第一年沒有成功，但我在第二年成功晉級，並成為這家著名出版物的編輯。我是否成功不是重點。重要的是，在一位教授的説明下，我縮小了信息鴻溝。就像我學會了看東西一樣。

This wasn’t the last time Amy helped me navigate unfamiliar terrain. Law school is a three-year obstacle course of life and career decisions. One the one hand, it’s nice to have so many opportunities. On the other hand, I had no idea what to do with those opportunities or any clue which opportunities served some long-term goal. Hell, I didn’t even have a long-term goal. I just wanted to graduate and get a good job. I had some vague notion that I’d like to do public service after I repaid my law school debt. But I didn’t have a job in mind.

這不是艾米最後一次説明我駕馭不熟悉的地形。法學院是人生和職業決策的三年障礙課程。一方面，有這麼多機會真是太好了。另一方面，我不知道如何處理這些機會，也不知道哪些機會可以實現一些長期目標。見鬼，我甚至沒有一個長期目標。我只是想畢業並找到一份好工作。我有一些模糊的想法，我想在還清法學院的債務後從事公共服務。但我心裏沒有工作。

Life didn’t wait. Almost immediately after I committed to a law firm, people started talking about clerkship applications for after graduation. Judicial clerkships are one-year stints with federal judges. It’s a fantastic learning experience for young lawyers: Clerks read court filings, research legal issues for a judge, and even help the judge draft opinions. Every former clerk raves about the experience, and private-sector employers often shell out tens of thousands in signing bonuses for recent clerks.

生活沒有等待。幾乎在我加入一家律師事務所后，人們就開始談論畢業后的文員申請。司法書記員是在聯邦法官那裡任職一年。對於年輕律師來說，這是一次奇妙的學習經歷：書記員閱讀法庭檔，為法官研究法律問題，甚至説明法官起草意見。每個前文員都對這段經歷讚不絕口，私營部門的僱主經常為新文員支付數萬美元的簽約獎金。

That’s what I knew about clerkships, and it was completely true. It was also very superficial: The clerkship process is infinitely more complex. First you have to decide what kind of court you want to work for: a court that does a lot of trials or a court that hears appeals from lower courts. Then you have to decide which regions of the country to apply to. If you want to clerk for the Supreme Court, certain “feeder” judges give you a greater chance of doing so. Predictably, those judges hire more competitively, so holding out for a feeder judge carries certain risks—if you win the game, you’re halfway to the chambers of the nation’s highest court; if you lose, you’re stuck without a clerkship. Sprinkled on top of these factors is the reality that you work closely with these judges. And no one wants to waste a year getting berated by an asshole in black robes.

這就是我對文員的瞭解，這是完全正確的。這也是非常膚淺的：見習過程要複雜得多。首先，你必須決定你想為什麼樣的法院工作：一個進行大量審判的法院，還是一個審理下級法院上訴的法院。然後，您必須決定申請該國的哪些地區。如果你想成為最高法院的書記員，某些「支線」法官會給你更大的機會。可以預見的是，這些法官的聘用更具競爭力，因此堅持使用支線法官會帶來一定的風險——如果你贏了比賽，你就已經進入了美國最高法院的一半;如果你輸了，你就被困在沒有書記員的位置。除了這些因素之外，還有你與這些評委密切合作的現實。沒有人願意浪費一年的時間被一個穿黑袍的混蛋斥責。

There’s no database that spits out this information, no central source that tells you which judges are nice, which judges send people to the Supreme Court, and which type of work—trial or appellate—you want to do. In fact, it’s considered almost unseemly to talk about these things. How do you ask a professor if the judge he’s recommending you to is a nice lady? It’s trickier than it might seem.

沒有資料庫可以吐出這些資訊，也沒有中央來源告訴你哪些法官是好的，哪些法官把人送到最高法院，以及你想做哪種類型的工作——審判或上訴。事實上，談論這些事情被認為是幾乎不合時宜的。你怎麼問教授他推薦你的法官是否是一位好女士？這比看起來更棘手。

So to get this information, you have to tap into your social network—student groups, friends who have clerked, and the few professors who are willing to give brutally honest advice. By this point in my law school experience, I had learned that the only way to take advantage of networking was to ask. So I did. Amy Chua told me that I shouldn’t worry about clerking for a prestigious feeder judge because the credential wouldn’t prove very useful, given my ambitions. But I pushed until she relented and agreed to recommend me to a high-powered federal judge with deep connections to multiple Supreme Court justices.

因此，要獲得這些資訊，你必須利用你的社交網路——學生團體、做過書記員的朋友，以及少數願意給出殘酷誠實建議的教授。在我法學院的經歷中，我瞭解到利用網路的唯一方法就是詢問。所以我做到了。艾米·蔡（Amy Chua）告訴我，我不應該擔心為一位享有盛譽的支線法官擔任書記員，因為考慮到我的雄心壯志，證書不會很有用。但我堅持不懈，直到她心軟，同意將我推薦給一位與多位最高法院大法官有著深厚聯繫的位高權重的聯邦法官。

I submitted all the materials—a résumé, a polished writing sample, and a desperate letter of interest. I didn’t know why I was doing it. Maybe, with my Southern drawl and lack of a family pedigree, I felt like I needed proof that I belonged at Yale Law. Or maybe I was just following the herd. Regardless of the reason, I needed to have this credential.

我提交了所有的材料——一份簡歷、一份精美的寫作樣本和一封絕望的意向書。我不知道我為什麼要這樣做。也許，由於我的南方血統和缺乏家庭血統，我覺得我需要證明我屬於耶魯法學院。或者也許我只是跟著牛群走。不管是什麼原因，我都需要有這個證書。

A few days after I submitted my materials, Amy called me into her office to let me know that I had made the short list. My heart fluttered. I knew that all I needed was an interview and I’d get the job. And I knew that if she pushed my application hard enough, I’d get the interview.

在我提交材料幾天后，艾米把我叫到她的辦公室，告訴我我已經進入了候選名單。我的心撲通撲通的跳動。我知道我需要的只是一個面試，我就會得到這份工作。我知道，如果她足夠努力地推動我的申請，我就會得到面試。

That was when I learned the value of real social capital. I don’t mean to suggest that my professor picked up the phone and told the judge he had to give me an interview. Before she did that, my professor told me that she wanted to talk to me very seriously. She turned downright somber: “I don’t think you’re doing this for the right reasons. I think you’re doing this for the credential, which is fine, but the credential doesn’t actually serve your career goals. If you don’t want to be a high-powered Supreme Court litigator, you shouldn’t care that much about this job.”

從那時起，我才知道真正的社會資本的價值。我並不是說我的教授拿起電話告訴法官他必須接受我的採訪。在她這樣做之前，我的教授告訴我，她想非常認真地和我交談。她變得非常憂鬱：「我不認為你這樣做是出於正確的原因。我認為你這樣做是為了證書，這很好，但證書實際上並不能為你的職業目標服務。如果你不想成為一名高權重的最高法院訴訟律師，你就不應該那麼在意這份工作。

She then told me how hard a clerkship with this judge would be. He was demanding to the extreme. His clerks didn’t take a single day off for an entire year. Then she got personal. She knew I had a new girlfriend and that I was crazy about her. “This clerkship is the type of thing that destroys relationships. If you want my advice, I think you should prioritize Usha and figure out a career move that actually suits you.”

然後她告訴我，在這位法官那裡做書記員是多麼困難。他的要求達到了極致。他的店員整整一年沒有休息過一天。然後她變得個人化了。她知道我有了一個新女朋友，而且我對她很著迷。“這種文員工作是那種破壞人際關係的事情。如果你想要我的建議，我認為你應該優先考慮Usha，並找出一個真正適合你的職業發展。

It was the best advice anyone has ever given me, and I took it. I told her to withdraw my application. It’s impossible to say whether I would have gotten the job. I was probably being overconfident: My grades and résumé were fine but not fantastic. However, Amy’s advice stopped me from making a life-altering decision. It prevented me from moving a thousand miles away from the person I eventually married. Most important, it allowed me to accept my place at this unfamiliar institution—it was okay to chart my own path and okay to put a girl above some shortsighted ambition. My professor gave me permission to be me.

這是任何人給我的最好的建議，我接受了。我告訴她撤回我的申請。不可能說我是否會得到這份工作。我可能過於自信了：我的成績和簡歷都很好，但不是很好。然而，艾米的建議阻止了我做出改變人生的決定。它阻止了我離開我最終結婚的人一千英里。最重要的是，它讓我接受了自己在這個陌生機構中的位置——可以規劃自己的道路，也可以讓一個女孩超越一些短視的野心。我的教授允許我做我自己。

It’s hard to put a dollar value on that advice. It’s the kind of thing that continues to pay dividends. But make no mistake: The advice had tangible economic value. Social capital isn’t manifest only in someone connecting you to a friend or passing a résumé on to an old boss. It is also, or perhaps primarily, a measure of how much we learn through our friends, colleagues, and mentors. I didn’t know how to prioritize my options, and I didn’t know that there were other, better paths for me. I learned those things through my network—specifically, a very generous professor.

很難給這個建議一個美元價值。這種事情會繼續帶來紅利。但不要搞錯了：這些建議具有切實的經濟價值。社會資本不僅體現在有人將你與朋友聯繫起來，或者將簡歷傳遞給老老闆。它也是，或者說主要是衡量我們通過朋友、同事和導師學到了多少。我不知道如何確定我的選擇的優先順序，也不知道還有其他更好的道路適合我。我通過我的人際網路學到了這些東西——特別是一位非常慷慨的教授。

My education in social capital continues. For a time, I contributed to the website of David Frum, the journalist and opinion leader who now writes for The Atlantic. When I was ready to commit to one D.C. law firm, he suggested another firm where two of his friends from the Bush administration had recently taken senior partnerships. One of those friends interviewed me and, when I joined his firm, became an important mentor. I later ran into this man at a Yale conference, where he introduced me to his old buddy from the Bush White House (and my political hero), Indiana governor Mitch Daniels. Without David’s advice, I never would have found myself at that firm, nor would I have spoken (albeit briefly) to the public figure I most admired.

我在社會資本方面的教育仍在繼續。有一段時間，我為大衛·弗魯姆（David Frum）的網站撰稿，大衛·弗魯姆（David Frum）是記者和意見領袖，現在為《大西洋月刊》（The Atlantic）撰稿。當我準備承諾去華盛頓特區的一家律師事務所時，他推薦了另一家律所，他的兩個布什政府朋友最近在那裡獲得了高級合夥伴。其中一位朋友面試了我，當我加入他的公司時，我成為了一位重要的導師。後來我在耶魯大學的一次會議上遇到了這個人，他把我介紹給了他在布希白宮的老朋友（也是我的政治英雄），印第安那州州長米奇·丹尼爾斯。如果沒有大衛的建議，我永遠不會在那家公司工作，也不會與我最欽佩的公眾人物交談（儘管是簡短的）。

I did decide that I wanted to clerk. But instead of walking into the process blindly, I came to know what I wanted out of the experience—to work for someone I respected, to learn as much as I could, and to be close to Usha. So Usha and I decided to go through the clerkship process together. We landed in northern Kentucky, not far from where I grew up. It was the best possible situation. We liked our judicial bosses so much that we asked them to officiate our wedding.

我確實決定要當文員。但是，我沒有盲目地進入這個過程，而是知道我想要從這段經歷中得到什麼——為我尊敬的人工作，盡可能多地學習，並與烏莎親近。因此，我和烏莎決定一起完成見習過程。我們降落在肯塔基州北部，離我長大的地方不遠。這是最好的情況。我們非常喜歡我們的司法老闆，以至於我們請他們主持我們的婚禮。

This is just one version of how the world of successful people actually works. But social capital is all around us. Those who tap into it and use it prosper. Those who don’t are running life’s race with a major handicap. This is a serious problem for kids like me. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of things I didn’t know when I got to Yale Law School:

這隻是成功人士世界實際運作方式的一個版本。但社會資本無處不在。那些利用它並使用它的人會繁榮昌盛。那些不這樣做的人正在以重大障礙進行人生比賽。對於像我這樣的孩子來說，這是一個嚴重的問題。以下是我進入耶魯法學院時不知道的事情的非詳盡清單：

That you needed to wear a suit to a job interview.

你需要穿西裝去面試。

That wearing a suit large enough to fit a silverback gorilla was inappropriate.

穿著足夠大的西裝來容納銀背大猩猩是不合適的。

That a butter knife wasn’t just decorative (after all, anything that requires a butter knife can be done better with a spoon or an index finger).

黃油刀不僅僅是裝飾性的（畢竟，任何需要黃油刀的東西都可以用勺子或食指做得更好）。

That pleather and leather were different substances.

皮革和皮革是不同的物質。

That your shoes and belt should match.

你的鞋子和腰帶應該匹配。

That certain cities and states had better job prospects.

某些城市和州有更好的就業前景。

That going to a nicer college brought benefits outside of bragging rights.

去一所更好的大學帶來了吹牛之外的好處。

That finance was an industry that people worked in.

金融業是人們從事的行業。

Mamaw always resented the hillbilly stereotype—the idea that our people were a bunch of slobbering morons. But the fact is that I was remarkably ignorant of how to get ahead. Not knowing things that many others do often has serious economic consequences. It cost me a job in college (apparently Marine Corps combat boots and khaki pants aren’t proper interview attire) and could have cost me a lot more in law school if I hadn’t had a few people helping me every step of the way.

媽媽總是憎恨鄉巴佬的刻板印象——認為我們的人民是一群流口水的白癡。但事實是，我對如何取得成功一無所知。不知道許多其他人所做的事情往往會帶來嚴重的經濟後果。這讓我在大學里失去了一份工作（顯然海軍陸戰隊的戰鬥靴和卡其色褲子不是合適的面試服裝），如果我沒有幾個人説明我走好每一步，我可能會在法學院付出更多的代價。

Chapter 14

第14章

As I started my second year of law school, I felt like I’d made it. Fresh off a summer job at the U.S. Senate, I returned to New Haven with a wealth of new friends and experiences. I had this beautiful girlfriend, and I had a great job at a nice law firm almost in hand. I knew that kids like me weren’t supposed to get this far, and I congratulated myself for having beaten the odds. I was better than where I came from: better than Mom and her addiction and better than the father figures who’d walked out on me. I regretted only that Mamaw and Papaw weren’t around to see it.

當我開始進入法學院的第二年時，我覺得我已經成功了。剛結束在美國參議院的暑期工作，我帶著豐富的新朋友和經驗回到了紐黑文。我有個漂亮的女朋友，我在一家不錯的律師事務所找到了一份很棒的工作。我知道像我這樣的孩子不應該走到這一步，我祝賀自己戰勝了困難。我比我來自哪裡要好：比媽媽和她的毒癮要好，比那些對我出門的父親形象要好。我只後悔媽媽和爸爸沒有在身邊看到它。

But there were signs that things weren’t going so well, particularly in my relationship with Usha. We’d been dating for only a few months when she stumbled upon an analogy that described me perfectly. I was, she said, a turtle. “Whenever something bad happens—even a hint of disagreement—you withdraw completely. It’s like you have a shell that you hide in.”

但有跡象表明事情進展得並不順利，尤其是在我和烏莎的關係中。我們約會了幾個月，她偶然發現了一個完美地描述我的比喻。她說，我是一隻。“每當有不好的事情發生時，哪怕是一絲分歧，你都會完全退縮。這就像你有一個藏身的殼。

It was true. I had no idea how to deal with relationship problems, so I chose not to deal with them at all. I could scream at her when she did something I didn’t like, but that seemed mean. Or I could withdraw and get away. Those were the proverbial arrows in my quiver, and I had nothing else. The thought of fighting with her reduced me to a morass of the qualities I thought I hadn’t inherited from my family: stress, sadness, fear, anxiety. It was all there, and it was intense.

這是真的。我不知道如何處理人際關係問題，所以我選擇根本不處理它們。當她做了我不喜歡的事情時，我可以對她大喊大叫，但這似乎很卑鄙。或者我可以退出並離開。那是我箭袋裡的箭，我沒有別的了。一想到要和她吵架，我就陷入了我以為我沒有從家人那裡繼承的品質的泥潭：壓力、悲傷、恐懼、焦慮。一切都在那裡，而且很激烈。

So I tried to get away, but Usha wouldn’t let me. I tried to break everything off multiple times, but she told me that was stupid unless I didn’t care about her. So I’d scream and I’d yell. I’d do all of the hateful things that my mother had done. And then I’d feel guilty and desperately afraid. For so much of my life, I’d made Mom out to be a kind of villain. And now I was acting like her. Nothing compares to the fear that you’re becoming the monster in your closet.

所以我試圖逃跑，但烏莎不讓我。我多次試圖打破一切，但她告訴我，除非我不在乎她，否則這是愚蠢的。所以我會尖叫，我會大喊大叫。我會做我母親做過的所有可惡的事情。然後我會感到內疚和極度害怕。在我生命的大部分時間里，我把媽媽塑造成一個惡棍。現在我表現得像她一樣。沒有什麼能比得上你成為壁櫥里的怪物的恐懼。

During that second year of law school, Usha and I traveled to D.C. for follow-up interviews with a few law firms. I returned to our hotel room, dejected that I had just performed poorly with one of the firms I really wanted to work for. When Usha tried to comfort me, to tell me that I’d probably done better than I expected, but that even if I hadn’t, there were other fish in the sea, I exploded. “Don’t tell me that I did fine,” I yelled. “You’re just making an excuse for weakness. I didn’t get here by making excuses for failure.”

在法學院的第二年，烏莎和我前往華盛頓特區，對幾家律師事務所進行了後續採訪。我回到酒店房間，沮喪地發現我剛剛在我真正想為之工作的一家公司表現不佳。當烏莎試圖安慰我，告訴我我可能比我預期的要好，但即使我沒有，海裡還有其他魚，我爆炸了。“別告訴我我做得很好，”我喊道。“你只是在為軟弱找藉口。我不是通過為失敗找藉口而走到這一步的。

I stormed out of the room and spent the next couple of hours on the streets of D.C.’s business district. I thought about that time Mom took me and our toy poodle to Middletown’s Comfort Inn after a screaming match with Bob. We stayed there for a couple of days, until Mamaw convinced Mom that she had to return home and face her problems like an adult. And I thought about Mom during her childhood, running out the back door with her mother and sister to avoid another night of terror with her alcoholic father. I was a third-generation escaper.

我衝出房間，在華盛頓特區商業區的街道上度過了接下來的幾個小時。我想起了媽媽在與鮑勃的尖叫比賽后帶我和我們的玩具貴賓犬去米德爾敦的舒適旅館的那次。我們在那裡呆了幾天，直到媽媽說服媽媽，她必須回家，像成年人一樣面對她的問題。我想起了小時候的媽媽，她和媽媽和姐姐一起跑出後門，以避免和她酗酒的父親一起度過另一個恐怖的夜晚。我是第三代逃亡者。

I was near Ford’s Theatre, the historic location where John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln. About half a block from the theater is a corner store that sells Lincoln memorabilia. In it, a large Lincoln blow-up doll with an extraordinarily large grin gazes at those walking by. I felt like this inflatable Lincoln was mocking me. Why the hell is he smiling? I thought. Lincoln was melancholy to begin with, and if any place invoked a smile, surely it wouldn’t be a stone’s throw away from the place where someone shot him in the head.

我當時在福特劇院附近，約翰·威爾克斯·布斯（John Wilkes Booth）拍攝亞伯拉罕·林肯（Abraham Lincoln）的歷史地點。距離劇院大約半個街區的地方有一家街角商店，出售林肯紀念品。在照片中，一個巨大的林肯吹氣娃娃帶著非常燦爛的笑容凝視著路過的人。我覺得這輛充氣林肯在嘲笑我。他到底為什麼笑？我以為。林肯一開始就很憂鬱，如果有哪個地方能喚起他的微笑，那肯定離有人朝他頭部開槍的地方只有一箭之遙。

I turned the corner, and after a few steps I saw Usha sitting on the steps of Ford’s Theatre. She had run after me, worried about me being alone. I realized then that I had a problem—that I must confront whatever it was that had, for generations, caused those in my family to hurt those whom they loved. I apologized profusely to Usha. I expected her to tell me to go fuck myself, that it would take days to make up for what I’d done, that I was a terrible person. A sincere apology is a surrender, and when someone surrenders, you go in for the kill. But Usha wasn’t interested in that. She calmly told me through her tears that it was never acceptable to run away, that she was worried, and that I had to learn how to talk to her. And then she gave me a hug and told me that she accepted my apology and was glad I was okay. That was the end of it.

我轉過拐角，走了幾步后，我看到烏莎坐在福特劇院的台階上。她追著我跑，擔心我一個人。那時我意識到我有一個問題——我必須面對世世代代導致我家人傷害他們所愛的人的一切。我向烏莎道歉。我以為她會告訴我去他媽的，我需要幾天才能彌補我所做的一切，我是一個可怕的人。真誠的道歉就是投降，當有人投降時，你就去殺人。但烏莎對此並不感興趣。她流著眼淚平靜地告訴我，逃跑是絕對不能接受的，她很擔心，我必須學會如何與她交談。然後她給了我一個擁抱，告訴我她接受了我的道歉，很高興我沒事。事情就這樣結束了。

Usha hadn’t learned how to fight in the hillbilly school of hard knocks. The first time I visited her family for Thanksgiving, I was amazed at the lack of drama. Usha’s mother didn’t complain about her father behind his back. There were no suggestions that good family friends were liars or backstabbers, no angry exchanges between a man’s wife and the same man’s sister. Usha’s parents seemed to genuinely like her grandmother and spoke of their siblings with love. When I asked her father about a relatively estranged family member, I expected to hear a rant about character flaws. What I heard instead was sympathy and a little sadness but primarily a life lesson: “I still call him regularly and check up on him. You can’t just cast aside family members because they seem uninterested in you. You’ve got to make the effort, because they’re family.”

烏莎還沒有學會如何在鄉巴佬學校的硬敲中戰鬥。我第一次在感恩節拜訪她的家人時，我驚訝於沒有戲劇性。烏莎的母親沒有在背後抱怨她的父親。沒有跡象表明好家庭朋友是騙子或背刺者，一個男人的妻子和同一個男人的妹妹之間沒有憤怒的交流。烏莎的父母似乎真的很喜歡她的祖母，並充滿愛意地談論他們的兄弟姐妹。當我問她父親一個相對疏遠的家庭成員時，我本以為會聽到關於性格缺陷的咆哮。相反，我聽到的是同情和一點悲傷，但主要是人生的教訓：“我仍然定期打電話給他，檢查他。你不能因為家人似乎對你不感興趣就把他們拋在一邊。你必須付出努力，因為他們是一家人。

I tried to go to a counselor, but it was just too weird. Talking to some stranger about my feelings made me want to vomit. I did go to the library, and I learned that behavior I considered commonplace was the subject of pretty intense academic study. Psychologists call the everyday occurrences of my and Lindsay’s life “adverse childhood experiences,” or ACEs. ACEs are traumatic childhood events, and their consequences reach far into adulthood. The trauma need not be physical. The following events or feelings are some of the most common ACEs:

我試著去找輔導員，但這太奇怪了。和某個陌生人談論我的感受讓我想嘔吐。我確實去了圖書館，我瞭解到我認為司空見慣的行為是相當緊張的學術研究的主題。心理學家將我和琳賽生活中的日常事件稱為“不良童年經歷”，或稱ACE。ACE是創傷性的童年事件，其後果會一直影響到成年期。創傷不一定是身體上的。以下事件或感覺是一些最常見的 ACE：

        •  being sworn at, insulted, or humiliated by parents

• 被父母咒罵、侮辱或羞辱

        •  being pushed, grabbed, or having something thrown at you

• 被推搡、抓住或被人扔東西

        •  feeling that your family didn’t support each other

• 感覺家人沒有互相支援

        •  having parents who were separated or divorced

• 父母分居或離婚

        •  living with an alcoholic or a drug user

• 與酗酒者或吸毒者同住

        •  living with someone who was depressed or attempted suicide

• 與抑鬱或自殺未遂的人同住

        •  watching a loved one be physically abused.

• 眼睜睜地看著親人受到身體虐待。

ACEs happen everywhere, in every community. But studies have shown that ACEs are far more common in my corner of the demographic world. A report by the Wisconsin Children’s Trust Fund showed that among those with a college degree or more (the non–working class), fewer than half had experienced an ACE. Among the working class, well over half had at least one ACE, while about 40 percent had multiple ACEs. This is really striking—four in every ten working-class people had faced multiple instances of childhood trauma. For the non–working class, that number was 29 percent.

ACE無處不在，每個社區。但研究表明，ACE在我所在的人口世界中更為常見。威斯康星州兒童信託基金的一份報告顯示，在擁有大學學位或更高學位的人（非工人階級）中，只有不到一半的人經歷過ACE。在工人階級中，超過一半的人至少有一個ACE，而大約40%的人有多個ACE。這確實令人震驚——每十個工人階級中就有四個面臨過多次童年創傷。對於非工人階級來說，這個數位是29%。

I gave a quiz to Aunt Wee, Uncle Dan, Lindsay, and Usha that psychologists use to measure the number of ACEs a person has faced. Aunt Wee scored a seven—higher even than Lindsay and me, who each scored a six. Dan and Usha—the two people whose families seemed nice to the point of oddity—each scored a zero. The weird people were the ones who hadn’t faced any childhood trauma.

我給黃阿姨、丹叔叔、琳賽和烏莎做了一個測驗，心理學家用它來衡量一個人面臨的ACE數量。黃阿姨得了7分，甚至比琳賽和我都得了6分還要高。丹和烏莎——這兩個人的家庭看起來好到奇怪的地步——每人都得了零分。奇怪的人是那些沒有經歷過任何童年創傷的人。

Children with multiple ACEs are more likely to struggle with anxiety and depression, to suffer from heart disease and obesity, and to contract certain types of cancers. They’re also more likely to underperform in school and suffer from relationship instability as adults. Even excessive shouting can damage a kid’s sense of security and contribute to mental health and behavioral issues down the road.

患有多種ACE的兒童更有可能與焦慮和抑鬱作鬥爭，患有心臟病和肥胖症，並患上某些類型的癌症。他們也更有可能在學校表現不佳，並在成年後遭受人際關係不穩定的困擾。即使是過度的喊叫也會損害孩子的安全感，並導致未來的心理健康和行為問題。

Harvard pediatricians have studied the effect that childhood trauma has on the mind. In addition to later negative health consequences, the doctors found that constant stress can actually change the chemistry of a child’s brain. Stress, after all, is triggered by a physiological reaction. It’s the consequence of adrenaline and other hormones flooding our system, usually in response to some kind of stimulus. This is the classic fight-or-flight response that we learn about in grade school. It sometimes produces incredible feats of strength and bravery from ordinary people. It’s how mothers can lift heavy objects when their children are trapped underneath, and how an unarmed elderly woman can fight off a mountain lion with her bare hands to save her husband.

哈佛大學的兒科醫生研究了童年創傷對心靈的影響。除了後來的負面健康後果外，醫生們還發現，持續的壓力實際上會改變孩子大腦的化學成分。畢竟，壓力是由生理反應引發的。這是腎上腺素和其他激素充斥我們系統的結果，通常是對某種刺激的反應。這是我們在小學學到的經典戰鬥或逃跑反應。它有時會從普通人身上產生令人難以置信的力量和勇敢的壯舉。當孩子被困在下面時，母親如何舉起重物，以及手無寸鐵的老婦人如何徒手擊退美洲獅以拯救她的丈夫。

Unfortunately, the fight-or-flight response is a destructive constant companion. As Dr. Nadine Burke Harris put it, the response is great “if you’re in a forest and there’s a bear. The problem is when that bear comes home from the bar every night.” When that happens, the Harvard researchers found, the sector of the brain that deals with highly stressful situations takes over. “Significant stress in early childhood,” they write, “. . . result[s] in a hyperresponsive or chronically activated physiologic stress response, along with increased potential for fear and anxiety.” For kids like me, the part of the brain that deals with stress and conflict is always activated—the switch flipped indefinitely. We are constantly ready to fight or flee, because there is constant exposure to the bear, whether that bear is an alcoholic dad or an unhinged mom. We become hardwired for conflict. And that wiring remains, even when there’s no more conflict to be had.

不幸的是，戰鬥或逃跑的反應是一個破壞性的持續伴侶。正如納丁·伯克·哈裡斯（Nadine Burke Harris）博士所說，“如果你在森林裡，有一隻熊，反應很好。問題是那隻熊每天晚上從酒吧回家的時候。哈佛大學的研究人員發現，當這種情況發生時，大腦中處理高度壓力情況的部分就會接管。“童年早期的重大壓力，”他們寫道，“......導致過度反應或慢性啟動的生理應激反應，以及恐懼和焦慮的可能性增加。對於像我這樣的孩子來說，大腦中處理壓力和衝突的部分總是被啟動的——開關會無限期地翻轉。我們隨時準備戰鬥或逃跑，因為經常接觸熊，無論那隻熊是酗酒的爸爸還是精神錯亂的媽媽。我們天生就喜歡衝突。即使不再有衝突，這種聯繫仍然存在。

It’s not just fighting. By almost any measure, American working-class families experience a level of instability unseen elsewhere in the world. Consider, for instance, Mom’s revolving door of father figures. No other country experiences anything like this. In France, the percentage of children exposed to three or more maternal partners is 0.5 percent—about one in two hundred. The second highest share is 2.6 percent, in Sweden, or about one in forty. In the United States, the figure is a shocking 8.2 percent—about one in twelve—and the figure is even higher in the working class. The most depressing part is that relationship instability, like home chaos, is a vicious cycle. As sociologists Paula Fornby and Andrew Cherlin found, a “growing body of literature suggests that children who experience multiple transitions in family structure may fare worse developmentally than children raised in stable two-parent families and perhaps even than children raised in stable, single-parent families.”

這不僅僅是戰鬥。幾乎無論以何種標準衡量，美國工人階級家庭都經歷了世界其他地方從未見過的不穩定程度。例如，想想媽媽的父親形象的旋轉門。沒有其他國家經歷過這樣的事情。在法國，接觸三個或三個以上母性伴侶的兒童比例為0.5%，約為兩百分之一。第二高的份額是瑞典的2.6%，約佔四分之一。在美國，這個數位是令人震驚的8.2%，大約是十二分之一，而在工人階級中，這個數位甚至更高。最令人沮喪的是，關係不穩定，就像家庭混亂一樣，是一個惡性循環。正如社會學家保拉·福恩比（Paula Fornby）和安德魯·切林（Andrew Cherlin）所發現的那樣，“越來越多的文獻表明，在家庭結構中經歷多次轉變的兒童可能比在穩定的雙親家庭中長大的孩子在發育上表現得更差，甚至可能比在穩定的單親家庭中長大的孩子更糟糕。

For many kids, the first impulse is escape, but people who lurch toward the exit rarely choose the right door. This is how my aunt found herself married at sixteen to an abusive husband. It’s how my mom, the salutatorian of her high school class, had both a baby and a divorce, but not a single college credit under her belt before her teenage years were over. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Chaos begets chaos. Instability begets instability. Welcome to family life for the American hillbilly.

對於許多孩子來說，第一個衝動是逃跑，但蹣跚走向出口的人很少選擇正確的門。我的姨媽就是這樣發現自己在十六歲時嫁給了一個虐待她的丈夫。這就是我的媽媽，她高中班上的問候者，既生了孩子又離婚了，但在她十幾歲的時候，她沒有得到一個大學學分。從煎鍋中取出，放入火中。混沌導致混沌。不穩定導致不穩定。歡迎來到美國鄉巴佬的家庭生活。

For me, understanding my past and knowing that I wasn’t doomed gave me the hope and fortitude to deal with the demons of my youth. And though it’s cliché, the best medicine was talking about it with the people who understood. I asked Aunt Wee if she had similar relationship experiences, and she answered almost reflexively: “Of course. I was always ready for battle with Dan,” she told me. “Sometimes I’d even brace myself for a big argument—like physically put myself in a fighting position—before he stopped speaking.” I was shocked. Aunt Wee and Dan have the most successful marriage I’ve seen. Even after twenty years, they interact like they started dating last year. Her marriage got even better, she said, only after she realized that she didn’t have to be on guard all the time.

對我來說，瞭解我的過去，知道我不是註定要失敗的，這給了我希望和毅力來對付我年輕時的惡魔。雖然這是陳詞濫調，但最好的葯是與理解它的人談論它。我問黃阿姨她有沒有類似的戀愛經歷，她幾乎是條件反射地回答：“當然。我隨時準備與丹戰鬥，“她告訴我。“有時我甚至會為他停止說話之前做好大爭吵的準備——比如讓自己處於戰鬥狀態。”我很震驚。黃阿姨和丹的婚姻是我見過的最成功的婚姻。即使過了二十年，他們仍然像去年開始約會一樣互動。她說，她的婚姻變得更好了，只是因為她意識到自己不必一直保持警惕。

Lindsay told me the same. “When I fought with Kevin, I’d insult him and tell him to do what I knew he wanted to do anyway—leave. He’d always ask me, ‘What’s wrong with you? Why do you fight with me like I’m your enemy?’” The answer is that, in our home, it was often difficult to tell friend from foe. Sixteen years later, though, and Lindsay is still married.

琳賽也對我說了同樣的話。“當我和凱文吵架時，我會侮辱他，告訴他做我知道他想做的事情——離開。他總是問我，『你怎麼了？你為什麼和我打架，就像我是你的敵人一樣？答案是，在我們家裡，往往很難分辨敵友。然而，十六年後，琳賽仍然結婚了。

I thought a lot about myself, about the emotional triggers I’d learned over eighteen years of living at home. I realized that I mistrusted apologies, as they were often used to convince you to lower your guard. It was an “I’m sorry” that convinced me to take that fateful car ride with Mom more than a decade earlier. And I began to understand why I used words as weapons: That’s what everyone around me did; I did it to survive. Disagreements were war, and you played to win the game.

我想了很多關於我自己，關於我十八年在家生活所學到的情感觸發因素。我意識到我不信任道歉，因為它們經常被用來說服你放鬆警惕。正是一句“對不起”說服了我十多年前和媽媽一起乘坐那輛決定命運的汽車。我開始明白為什麼我用文字作為武器：我周圍的每個人都這樣做;我這樣做是為了生存。分歧是戰爭，而你是為了贏得比賽而玩的。

I didn’t unlearn these lessons overnight. I continue to struggle with conflict, to fight the statistical odds that sometimes seem to bear down on me. Sometimes it’s easier knowing that the statistics suggest I should be in jail or fathering my fourth illegitimate child. And sometimes it’s harder—conflict and family breakdown seem like the destiny I can’t possibly escape. In my worst moments, I convince myself that there is no exit, and no matter how much I fight old demons, they are as much an inheritance as my blue eyes and brown hair. The sad fact is that I couldn’t do it without Usha. Even at my best, I’m a delayed explosion—I can be defused, but only with skill and precision. It’s not just that I’ve learned to control myself but that Usha has learned how to manage me. Put two of me in the same home and you have a positively radioactive situation. It’s no surprise that every single person in my family who has built a successful home—Aunt Wee, Lindsay, my cousin Gail—married someone from outside our little culture.

我沒有在一夜之間忘記這些教訓。我繼續在衝突中掙扎，與有時似乎壓在我身上的統計賠率作鬥爭。有時，知道統計數據表明我應該入獄或生下我的第四個私生子會更容易。有時更難——衝突和家庭破裂似乎是我無法逃脫的命運。在我最糟糕的時刻，我說服自己沒有出口，無論我如何與老惡魔戰鬥，它們就像我的藍眼睛和棕色頭髮一樣是遺產。可悲的事實是，沒有烏莎，我做不到。即使在我最好的時候，我也是一個延遲的爆炸——我可以被化解，但只有技巧和精確度。這不僅是我學會了控制自己，而且烏莎也學會了如何管理我。把我兩個人放在同一個家裡，你就有了陽性放射性的情況。毫不奇怪，我家裡每一個成功建家的人——黃阿姨、琳賽、我的表弟蓋爾——都嫁給了我們這個小文化之外的人。

This realization shattered the narrative I told about my life. In my own head, I was better than my past. I was strong. I left town as soon as I could, served my country in the Marines, excelled at Ohio State, and made it to the country’s top law school. I had no demons, no character flaws, no problems. But that just wasn’t true. The things I wanted most in the entire world—a happy partner and a happy home—required constant mental focus. My self-image was bitterness masquerading as arrogance. A few weeks into my second year of law school, I hadn’t spoken to Mom in many months, longer than at any point in my life. I realized that of all the emotions I felt toward my mother—love, pity, forgiveness, anger, hatred, and dozens of others—I had never tried sympathy. I had never tried to understand my mom. At my most empathetic, I figured she suffered from some terrible genetic defect, and I hoped I hadn’t inherited it. As I increasingly saw Mom’s behavior in myself, I tried to understand her.

這種認識打破了我對自己生活的敘述。在我自己的腦海中，我比過去更好。我很堅強。我儘快離開了小鎮，在海軍陸戰隊為我的國家服務，在俄亥俄州立大學表現出色，並進入了美國頂尖的法學院。我沒有惡魔，沒有性格缺陷，沒有問題。但事實並非如此。我在這個世界上最想要的東西——一個快樂的伴侶和一個幸福的家——需要持續的精神集中。我的自我形象是偽裝成傲慢的苦澀。在我法學院第二年的幾個星期里，我已經好幾個月沒有和媽媽說話了，比我生命中的任何時候都要長。我意識到，在我對母親的所有情感中——愛、憐悯、寬恕、憤怒、仇恨和其他幾十種——我從未嘗試過同情。我從來沒有試圖理解我媽媽。在我最善解人意的時候，我認為她患有某種可怕的遺傳缺陷，我希望我沒有遺傳它。當我越來越多地看到媽媽的行為時，我試圖理解她。

Uncle Jimmy told me that, long ago, he’d walked in on a discussion between Mamaw and Papaw. Mom had gotten herself in some trouble and they needed to bail her out. These bailouts were common, and they always came with theoretical strings attached. She had to budget, they’d tell her, and they’d put her on some arbitrary plan they’d designed themselves. The plan was the cost of their help. As they sat and discussed things, Papaw buried his head in his hands and did something Uncle Jimmy had never seen him do: He wept. “I’ve failed her,” he cried. He kept on repeating, “I’ve failed her; I’ve failed her; I’ve failed my baby girl.”

吉米舅舅告訴我，很久以前，他走進了媽媽和爸爸之間的討論。媽媽給自己惹了麻煩，他們需要保釋她。這些救助很常見，而且總是附帶理論上的條件。她必須做預算，他們會告訴她，他們會讓她參加他們自己設計的一些任意計劃。這個計劃是他們幫助的代價。當他們坐下來討論事情時，爸爸把頭埋在手裡，做了一件吉米叔叔從未見過他做過的事情：他哭了。“我辜負了她，”他哭著說。他不停地重複，「我辜負了她;我辜負了她;我辜負了我的寶貝女兒。

Papaw’s rare breakdown strikes at the heart of an important question for hillbillies like me: How much of our lives, good and bad, should we credit to our personal decisions, and how much is just the inheritance of our culture, our families, and our parents who have failed their children? How much is Mom’s life her own fault? Where does blame stop and sympathy begin?

對於像我這樣的鄉巴佬來說，Papaw 罕見的崩潰觸及了一個重要問題的核心：我們的生活，無論好壞，我們有多少應該歸功於我們的個人決定，有多少只是我們的文化、我們的家庭和我們辜負了孩子的父母的遺產？媽媽的生活有多少是她自己的錯？責備從哪裡停止，同情從哪裡開始？

All of us have opinions. Uncle Jimmy reacts viscerally to the idea that any of the blame for Mom’s choices can be laid at Papaw’s feet. “He didn’t fail her. Whatever happened to her, it’s her own damned fault.” Aunt Wee sees things in much the same way, and who can blame her? Just nineteen months younger than Mom, she saw the worst of Mamaw and Papaw and made her own share of mistakes before coming out on the other side. If she can do it, then so should Mom. Lindsay has a bit more sympathy and thinks that just as our lives left us with demons, Mom’s life must have done the same to her. But at some point, Lindsay says, you have to stop making excuses and take responsibility.

我們每個人都有意見。吉米叔叔發自內心地認為，媽媽的選擇的任何責任都可以歸咎於爸爸的腳下。“他沒有讓她失望。無論她發生了什麼事，都是她自己該死的錯。黃阿姨看待事物的方式大致相同，誰能責怪她呢？她只比媽媽小十九個月，她看到了媽媽和爸爸最糟糕的一面，在走出來之前也犯了自己的錯誤。如果她能做到，那麼媽媽也應該做到。琳賽多了一點同情，認為就像我們的生活給我們留下了惡魔一樣，媽媽的生活也一定對她做了同樣的事情。但在某些時候，琳賽說，你必須停止找藉口並承擔責任。

My own view is mixed. Whatever might be said about my mom’s parents’ roles in my life, their constant fighting and alcoholism must have taken its toll on her. Even when they were children, the fighting seemed to affect my aunt and mother differently. While Aunt Wee would plead with her parents to calm down, or provoke her father in order to take the heat off her mother, Mom would hide, or run away, or collapse on the floor with her hands over her ears. She didn’t handle it as well as her brother and sister. In some ways, Mom is the Vance child who lost the game of statistics. If anything, my family is probably lucky that only one of them lost that game.

我自己的看法好壞參半。不管怎麼說我媽媽的父母在我生活中的角色，他們不斷的爭吵和酗酒一定對她造成了傷害。甚至在他們還是孩子的時候，戰鬥似乎對我的阿姨和母親產生了不同的影響。當黃阿姨懇求她的父母冷靜下來，或者激怒她的父親以減輕她母親的熱量時，媽媽會躲起來，或者逃跑，或者雙手捂住耳朵癱倒在地板上。她沒有像她的兄弟姐妹那樣處理得那麼好。在某種程度上，媽媽是輸掉統計遊戲的萬斯孩子。如果有的話，我的家人可能很幸運，他們中只有一個人輸掉了那場比賽。

What I do know is that Mom is no villain. She loves Lindsay and me. She tried desperately to be a good mother. Sometimes she succeeded; sometimes she didn’t. She tried to find happiness in love and work, but she listened too much to the wrong voice in her head. But Mom deserves much of the blame. No person’s childhood gives him or her a perpetual moral get-out-of-jail-free card—not Lindsay, not Aunt Wee, not me, and not Mom.

我所知道的是，媽媽不是惡棍。她愛琳賽和我。她拚命地想做一個好母親。有時她成功了;有時她沒有。她試圖在愛情和工作中尋找幸福，但她聽了太多腦海中錯誤的聲音。但媽媽應該受到很多責備。沒有人的童年會給他或她一張永遠的道德出獄卡——不是琳賽，不是黃阿姨，不是我，也不是媽媽。

Throughout my life, no one could inspire such intense emotions as my mom, not even Mamaw. When I was a kid, I loved her so much that when a kindergarten classmate made fun of her umbrella, I punched him in the face. When I watched her succumb again and again to addiction, I hated her and wished sometimes that she would take enough narcotics to rid me and Lindsay of her for good. When she lay sobbing in bed after another failed relationship, I felt a rage that could have driven me to kill.

在我的一生中，沒有人能像我媽媽那樣激發如此強烈的情感，甚至媽媽也不行。當我還是個孩子的時候，我非常愛她，以至於當一個幼兒園同學取笑她的雨傘時，我一拳打在他的臉上。當我看著她一次又一次地屈服於毒癮時，我討厭她，有時希望她能服用足夠的麻醉劑，讓我和琳賽永遠擺脫她。當她在另一段失敗的戀情後躺在床上抽泣時，我感到一種憤怒，可能會驅使我殺人。

Toward the end of law school, Lindsay called to tell me that Mom had taken to a new drug—heroin—and had decided to give rehab another try. I didn’t know how many times Mom had been to rehab, how many nights she’d spent in the hospital barely conscious because of some drug. So I shouldn’t have been surprised or all that bothered, but “heroin” just has a certain ring to it; it’s like the Kentucky Derby of drugs. When I learned of Mom’s newest substance of choice, I felt a cloud hanging over me for weeks. Maybe I had finally lost all hope for her.

法學院快要畢業時，琳賽打電話告訴我，媽媽服用了一種新藥——海洛因，並決定再試一次戒毒。我不知道媽媽去過多少次康復中心，有多少個晚上她因為某種藥物而在醫院裡幾乎失去知覺。所以我不應該感到驚訝或煩惱，但「海洛因」只是有一定的光環;這就像毒品的肯塔基賽馬會。當我得知媽媽最新選擇的物質時，我感到一陲笼罩著我好幾個星期。也許我終於對她失去了所有的希望。

The emotion Mom inspired then was not hatred, or love, or rage, but fear. Fear for her safety. Fear for Lindsay having to deal yet again with Mom’s problems while I lived hundreds of miles away. Fear most of all that I hadn’t escaped a goddamned thing. Months away from graduating from Yale Law, I should have felt on top of the world. Instead, I found myself wondering the same thing I’d wondered for much of the past year: whether people like us can ever truly change.

媽媽激發的情緒不是憎恨、愛或憤怒，而是恐懼。擔心她的安全。我擔心琳賽不得不再次處理媽媽的問題，而我住在幾百英里之外。最可怕的是我沒有逃脫一個該死的東西。距離耶魯大學法學院畢業還有幾個月的時間，我應該覺得自己站在了世界之巔。相反，我發現自己想知道過去一年大部分時間都在想的同樣的事情：像我們這樣的人是否真的能改變。

When Usha and I graduated, the crew that watched me walk across the stage numbered eighteen, including my cousins Denise and Gail, the daughters, respectively, of Mamaw’s brothers David and Pet. Usha’s parents and uncle—fantastic people, though considerably less rowdy than our crew—made the trip, too. It was the first time that her family met mine, and we behaved. (Though Denise had some choice words for the modern “art” at the museum we visited!)

當烏莎和我畢業時，看著我走過舞臺的工作人員有十八個人，包括我的表妹鄧尼斯和蓋爾，他們分別是媽媽的兄弟大衛和佩特的女兒。烏莎的父母和叔叔——很棒的人，雖然沒有我們的船員那麼吵鬧——也參加了這次旅行。這是她的家人第一次見到我的家人，我們表現得很乖巧。（儘管鄧尼斯在我們參觀的博物館里對現代“藝術”有一些選擇！

Mom’s bout with addiction ended as they always did—in an uneasy truce. She didn’t make the trip to see me graduate, but she wasn’t using drugs at that moment, and that was all right with me. Justice Sonya Sotomayor spoke at our commencement and advised that it was okay to be unsure about what we wanted to do with ourselves. I think she was talking about our careers, but for me it had a much broader meaning. I had learned much about law at Yale. But I’d also learned that this new world would always seem a bit foreign to me, and that being a hillbilly meant sometimes not knowing the difference between love and war. When we graduated, that’s what I was most unsure about.

媽媽與毒癮的對抗一如既往地結束了——在一個不安的休戰中。她沒有去看我畢業，但那一刻她沒有吸毒，這對我來說沒關係。索尼婭·索托馬約爾（Sonya Sotomayor）法官在我們的畢業典禮上發言，並建議不確定我們想對自己做什麼是可以的。我認為她是在談論我們的職業生涯，但對我來說，它有更廣泛的意義。我在耶魯大學學到了很多關於法律的知識。但我也瞭解到，這個新世界對我來說總是有點陌生，作為一個鄉巴佬意味著有時不知道愛情和戰爭之間的區別。當我們畢業時，這是我最不確定的事情。

Chapter 15

第15章

What I remember most is the fucking spiders. Really big ones, like tarantulas or something. I stood at a window of one of those sleazy roadside motels, separated from a woman (who certainly hadn’t majored in hospitality management) by a thick pane of glass. The light from her office illuminated a few spiderwebs suspended between the building and the makeshift sun blocker that seemed primed to collapse on top of me. On each web was at least one giant spider, and I thought that if I looked away from them for too long, one of those ghastly creatures would jump on my face and suck my blood. I’m not even afraid of spiders, but these things were big.

我記得最深的是那些該死的蜘蛛。真的很大，比如狼蛛什麼的。我站在一家骯髒的路邊汽車旅館的窗戶前，與一個女人（她當然沒有主修酒店管理）隔著一塊厚厚的玻璃。她辦公室的燈光照亮了懸掛在建築物和臨時防曬罩之間的幾張蜘蛛網，這些防曬霜似乎已經準備好在我身上坍塌了。每張網上至少有一隻巨大的蜘蛛，我想如果我把目光從它們身上移開太久，那些可怕的生物之一就會跳到我的臉上吸我的血。我什至不怕蜘蛛，但這些東西很大。

I wasn’t supposed to be here. I’d structured my entire life to avoid just these types of places. When I thought of leaving my hometown, of “getting out,” it was from this sort of place that I wanted to escape. It was past midnight. The streetlight revealed the silhouette of a man sitting halfway in his truck—the door open, his feet dangling to the side—with the unmistakable form of a hypodermic needle sticking from his arm. I should have been shocked, but this was Middletown, after all. Just a few weeks earlier, the police had discovered a woman passed out at the local car wash, a bag of heroin and a spoon in the passenger seat, the needle still protruding from her arm.

我不應該在這裡。我的整個生活都是為了避免這些類型的地方。當我想到離開我的家鄉，想“走出去”時，我想逃離的就是這種地方。已經過了午夜。路燈照亮了一個男人的輪廓，他坐在卡車的一半——車門開著，他的腳懸在一邊——他的手臂上插著一根明顯的皮下注射針頭。我應該感到震驚，但這畢竟是米德爾敦。就在幾周前，警方在當地洗車場發現一名婦女昏倒，乘客座位上有一袋海洛因和一把勺子，針頭仍然從她的手臂上伸出。

The woman running the hotel that night was the most pitiful sight of all. She might have been forty, but everything about her—from the long, gray, greasy hair, the mouth empty of teeth, and the frown that she wore like a millstone—screamed old age. This woman had lived a hard life. Her voice sounded like a small child’s, even a toddler’s. It was meek, barely audible, and very sad.

那天晚上經營酒店的女人是最可憐的景象。她可能已經四十歲了，但她身上的一切——從長長的、灰色的、油膩的頭髮、嘴裏沒有牙齒，到她像磨石一樣皺著的眉頭——都在尖叫著衰老。這個女人過著艱苦的生活。她的聲音聽起來像個小孩的聲音，甚至像個蹣跚學步的孩子的聲音。它很溫順，幾乎聽不見，而且非常悲傷。

I gave the woman my credit card, and she was clearly unprepared. “Normally, people pay cash,” she explained. I told her, “Yeah, but like I said on the phone, I’m going to pay with a credit card. I can run to an ATM if you’d prefer.” “Oh, I’m sorry, I guess I forgot. But it’s okay, we’ve got one of those machines around here somewhere.” So she retrieved one of those ancient card-swiping machines—the kind that imprints the card’s information on a yellow slip of paper. When I handed her the card, her eyes seemed to plead with me, as if she were a prisoner in her own life. “Enjoy your stay,” she said, which struck me as an odd instruction. I had told her on the phone not an hour earlier that the room wasn’t for me, it was for my homeless mother. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

我把我的信用卡給了那個女人，她顯然沒有準備好。“通常，人們支付現金，”她解釋道。我告訴她，“是的，但就像我在電話裡說的，我要用信用卡付款。如果你願意，我可以跑到自動取款機上。“哦，對不起，我想我忘了。但沒關係，我們這附近有一台這樣的機器。於是，她找回了一台古老的刷卡機——那種將刷卡資訊印在一張黃色紙條上的機器。當我把卡片遞給她時，她的眼神似乎在懇求我，彷彿她是自己生活中的囚犯。“祝你住得愉快，”她說，這讓我覺得這是一個奇怪的指示。一個小時前，我在電話裡告訴她，這個房間不是給我的，而是給我無家可歸的母親的。“好吧，”我說。“謝謝。”

I was a recent graduate of Yale Law School, a former editor of the prestigious Yale Law Journal, and a member of the bar in good standing. Just two months earlier, Usha and I were married on a beautiful day in Eastern Kentucky. My entire family showed up for the occasion, and we both changed our name to Vance—giving me, finally, the same name as the family to which I belonged. I had a nice job, a recently purchased home, a loving relationship, and a happy life in a city I loved—Cincinnati. Usha and I had returned there for a year after law school for one-year clerkships and had built a home with our two dogs. I was upwardly mobile. I had made it. I had achieved the American Dream.

我是耶魯大學法學院的應屆畢業生，曾是著名的《耶魯法學雜誌》的編輯，也是信譽良好的律師。就在兩個月前，我和烏莎在肯塔基州東部一個美麗的日子裡結婚了。我全家都出席了這個場合，我們倆都把名字改成了萬斯——終於，我的名字和我所屬的家庭一樣。我有一份不錯的工作，最近買了一套房子，一段充滿愛的關係，在我熱愛的城市辛辛那提過著幸福的生活。烏莎和我從法學院畢業后回到那裡做了一年的見習，並和我們的兩隻狗一起建了一個家。我是向上移動的。我成功了。我實現了美國夢。

Or at least that’s how it looked to an outsider. But upward mobility is never clean-cut, and the world I left always finds a way to reel me back in. I don’t know the precise chain of events that led me to that hotel, but I knew the stuff that mattered. Mom had begun using again. She’d stolen some family heirlooms from her fifth husband to buy drugs (prescription opiates, I think), and he’d kicked her out of the house in response. They were divorcing, and she had nowhere to go.

或者至少在局外人看來是這樣。但向上流動從來都不是一帆風順的，我離開的世界總能找到一種方法把我拉回來。我不知道導致我到那家酒店的確切事件鏈，但我知道重要的事情。媽媽又開始用了。她從第五任丈夫那裡偷了一些傳家寶來買毒品（我想是處方鴉片），作為回應，他把她趕出了家門。他們要離婚了，她無處可去。

I’d sworn to myself that I’d never help Mom again, but the person who made that oath to himself had changed. I was exploring, however uneasily, the Christian faith that I’d discarded years earlier. I had learned, for the first time, the extent of Mom’s childhood emotional wounds. And I had realized that those wounds never truly heal, even for me. So when I discovered that Mom was in dire straits, I didn’t mutter insults under my breath and hang up the phone. I offered to help her.

我曾對自己發誓，我再也不會幫助媽媽了，但對自己發誓的人變了。我正在探索，儘管很不安，我多年前就拋棄了基督教信仰。我第一次瞭解到媽媽童年情感創傷的程度。我意識到，即使對我而言，這些傷口也永遠不會真正癒合。所以當我發現媽媽陷入困境時，我沒有低聲嘀咕侮辱，掛斷了電話。我主動提出説明她。

I tried to call a Middletown hotel and give them my credit card information. The cost for a week was a hundred and fifty dollars, and I figured that would give us time to come up with a plan. But they wouldn’t accept my card over the phone, so at eleven P.M. on a Tuesday night, I drove from Cincinnati to Middletown (about an hour’s drive each way) to keep Mom from homelessness.

我試著打電話給米德爾敦的一家酒店，給他們我的信用卡資訊。一個星期的費用是一百五十美元，我想這會讓我們有時間想出一個計劃。但是他們不接受我的電話卡，所以在星期二晚上十一點，我從辛辛那提開車到米德爾敦（單程大約一個小時的車程），以防止媽媽無家可歸。

The plan I developed seemed relatively simple. I’d give Mom enough money to help her get on her feet. She’d find her own place, save money to get her nursing license back, and go from there. In the meantime, I’d monitor her finances to ensure that she stayed clean and on track financially. It reminded me of the “plans” Mamaw and Papaw used to put together, but I convinced myself that this time things would be different.

我制定的計劃似乎相對簡單。我會給媽媽足夠的錢來説明她站起來。她會找到自己的地方，攢錢拿回她的護士執照，然後從那裡出發。與此同時，我會監控她的財務狀況，以確保她保持清白，財務狀況良好。這讓我想起了媽媽和爸爸曾經制定的“計劃”，但我說服自己，這次情況會有所不同。

I’d like to say that helping Mom came easily. That I had made some peace with my past and was able to fix a problem that had plagued me since elementary school. That, armed with sympathy and an understanding of Mom’s childhood, I was able to patiently help Mom deal with her addiction. But dealing with that sleazy motel was hard. And actively managing her finances, as I planned to do, required more patience and time than I had.

我想說的是，幫助媽媽來得容易。我已經與我的過去和解了，並且能夠解決從小學開始困擾我的問題。懷著對媽媽童年的同情和理解，我能夠耐心地幫助媽媽處理她的毒癮。但是與那個骯髒的汽車旅館打交道是很困難的。正如我計劃的那樣，積極管理她的財務狀況需要比我更多的耐心和時間。

By the grace of God, I no longer hide from Mom. But I can’t fix everything, either. There is room now for both anger at Mom for the life she chooses and sympathy for the childhood she didn’t. There is room to help when I can, when finances and emotional reserves allow me to care in the way Mom needs. But there is also recognition of my own limitations and my willingness to separate myself from Mom when engagement means too little money to pay my own bills or too little patience left over for the people who matter most. That’s the uneasy truce I’ve struck with myself, and it works for now.

靠著上帝的恩典，我不再躲避媽媽。但我也無法解決所有問題。現在，既有對媽媽選擇的生活的憤怒，也有對她沒有選擇的童年的同情的空間。當我有能力時，當經濟和情感儲備允許我以媽媽需要的方式照顧時，我就可以提供説明。但也認識到我自己的局限性，我願意將自己與媽媽分開，因為訂婚意味著我的錢太少，無法支付自己的帳單，或者為最重要的人留下的耐心太少。這就是我與自己達成的不安的休戰協定，它現在有效。

People sometimes ask whether I think there’s anything we can do to “solve” the problems of my community. I know what they’re looking for: a magical public policy solution or an innovative government program. But these problems of family, faith, and culture aren’t like a Rubik’s Cube, and I don’t think that solutions (as most understand the term) really exist. A good friend, who worked for a time in the White House and cares deeply about the plight of the working class, once told me, “The best way to look at this might be to recognize that you probably can’t fix these things. They’ll always be around. But maybe you can put your thumb on the scale a little for the people at the margins.”

人們有時會問我是否認為我們可以做些什麼來“解決”我所在社區的問題。我知道他們在尋找什麼：一個神奇的公共政策解決方案或一個創新的政府計劃。但這些家庭、信仰和文化問題並不像魔方，我不認為解決方案（正如大多數人所理解的那樣）真的存在。一位在白宮工作過一段時間的好朋友，非常關心工人階級的困境，他曾經告訴我，“看待這個問題的最好方法可能是認識到你可能無法解決這些問題。他們將永遠在身邊。但也許你可以把你的拇指放在天平上，為邊緣的人服務。

There were many thumbs put on my scale. When I look back at my life, what jumps out is how many variables had to fall in place in order to give me a chance. There was my grandparents’ constant presence, even when my mother and stepfather moved far away in an effort to shut them out. Despite the revolving door of would-be father figures, I was often surrounded by caring and kind men. Even with her faults, Mom instilled in me a lifelong love of education and learning. My sister always protected me, even after I’d physically outgrown her. Dan and Aunt Wee opened their home when I was too afraid to ask. Long before that, they were my first real exemplars of a happy and loving marriage. There were teachers, distant relatives, and friends.

我的體重秤上有很多大拇指。當我回顧自己的生活時，跳出的是有多少變數必須落到位才能給我一個機會。我的祖父母經常在場，即使我的母親和繼父為了把他們拒之門外而搬到了很遠的地方。儘管有準父親的旋轉門，但我經常被有愛心和善良的男人包圍。即使有缺點，媽媽也向我灌輸了對教育和學習的終生熱愛。我姐姐總是保護我，即使我的身體已經長大了。丹和黃阿姨在我不敢問的時候打開了他們的家。早在那之前，他們就是我幸福和充滿愛的婚姻的第一個真正典範。有老師，有遠房親戚，有朋友。

Remove any of these people from the equation, and I’m probably screwed. Other people who have overcome the odds cite the same sorts of interventions. Jane Rex runs the transfer students’ office at Appalachian State University. Like me, she grew up in a working-class family and was its first member to attend college. She’s also been married for nearly forty years and has raised three successful kids of her own. Ask what made a difference in her life, and she’ll tell you about the stable family that empowered her and gave her a sense of control over her future. And she’ll tell you about the power of seeing enough of the world to dream big: “I think you have to have good role models around you. One of my very good friends, her father was the president of the bank, so I got to see different things. I knew there was another life out there, and that exposure gives you something to dream for.”

把這些人中的任何一個從等式中剔除，我可能就完蛋了。其他克服困難的人也引用了同樣的干預措施。簡·雷克斯（Jane Rex）在阿巴拉契亞州立大學（Appalachian State University）負責轉學生辦公室。和我一樣，她在一個工人階級家庭長大，是第一個上大學的成員。她也結婚近四十年，並撫養了三個成功的孩子。問她的生活有什麼變化，她會告訴你穩定的家庭賦予了她力量，讓她對自己的未來有了掌控感。她會告訴你，看到足夠多的世界的力量，讓你有遠大的夢想：“我認為你身邊必須有好的榜樣。我的一個好朋友，她的父親是銀行的行長，所以我看到了不同的東西。我知道外面還有另一種生活，而這種接觸會給你帶來一些夢想。

My cousin Gail is one of my all-time favorite people: She’s one of the first of my mom’s generation, the Blanton grandchildren. Gail’s life is the American Dream personified: a beautiful house, three great kids, a happy marriage, and a saintly demeanor. Outside of Mamaw Blanton, a virtual deity in the eyes of us grandkids and great-grandkids, I’ve never heard anyone else called “the nicest person in the world.” For Gail, it’s an entirely deserved title.

我的表妹蓋爾是我一直以來最喜歡的人之一：她是我媽媽那一代的第一代人之一，布蘭頓的孫子孫女。蓋爾的生活是美國夢的化身：漂亮的房子、三個可愛的孩子、幸福的婚姻和聖潔的舉止。除了媽媽布蘭頓，我們孫子和曾孫眼中的虛擬神，我從未聽說過其他人被稱為“世界上最好的人”。對於蓋爾來說，這是一個當之無愧的頭銜。

I assumed that Gail had inherited her storybook life from her parents. No one’s that nice, I thought, especially not someone who’s suffered any real adversity. But Gail was a Blanton, and, at heart a hillbilly, and I should have known that no hillbilly makes it to adulthood without a few major screwups along the way. Gail’s home life provided its own emotional baggage. She was seven when her dad walked out and seventeen when she graduated from high school, planning for college at Miami University. But there was a catch: “Mom told me I couldn’t go to college unless I broke up with my boyfriend. So I moved out the day after graduation, and by August, I was pregnant.”

我以為蓋爾從她的父母那裡繼承了她的故事書生活。我想，沒有人那麼好，尤其是那些遭受過任何真正逆境的人。但蓋爾是布蘭頓人，而且，本質上是一個鄉巴佬，我應該知道，沒有一個鄉巴佬能長大成人，一路上沒有幾次重大的失誤。蓋爾的家庭生活提供了自己的情感包袱。當她父親離開時，她七歲，高中畢業時她十七歲，計劃在邁阿密大學上大學。但有一個問題：「媽媽告訴我，除非我和男朋友分手，否則我不能上大學。所以我畢業后的第二天就搬出去了，到了八月，我懷孕了。

Almost immediately, her life began to disintegrate. Racial prejudice bubbled to the surface when she announced that a black baby was joining the family. Announcements led to arguments, and then one day Gail found herself without a family. “I didn’t hear from any of our relatives,” Gail told me. “My mom said she never wanted to hear my name again.”

幾乎立刻，她的生活開始瓦解。當她宣佈一個黑人嬰兒加入這個家庭時，種族偏見浮出水面。公告引發了爭吵，然後有一天蓋爾發現自己沒有家人。“我沒有收到任何親戚的消息，”蓋爾告訴我。“我媽媽說她再也不想聽到我的名字了。

Given her age and the lack of family support, it’s hardly surprising that her marriage soon ended. But Gail’s life had grown considerably more complex: She hadn’t just lost her family, she’d gained a young daughter who depended entirely on her. “It completely changed my life—being a mom was my identity. I might have been a hippie, but now I had rules—no drugs, no alcohol, nothing that was going to lead to social services taking my baby away.”

考慮到她的年齡和缺乏家庭支援，她的婚姻很快就結束了也就不足為奇了。但蓋爾的生活變得更加複雜：她不僅失去了家人，還得到了一個完全依賴她的小女兒。“這完全改變了我的生活——當媽媽是我的身份。我可能是一個嬉皮士，但現在我有了規則——沒有毒品，沒有酒精，沒有任何東西會導致社會服務帶走我的孩子。

So here’s Gail: teenage single mom, no family, little support. A lot of people would wilt in those circumstances, but the hillbilly took over. “Dad wasn’t really around,” Gail remembered, “and hadn’t been in years, and I obviously wasn’t speaking to Mom. But I remember the one lesson I took from them, and that was that we could do anything we wanted. I wanted that baby, and I wanted to make it work. So I did it.” She got a job with a local telephone company, worked her way up the ladder, and even returned to college. By the time she remarried, she had hit one hell of a stride. The storybook marriage to her second husband, Allan, is just icing on the cake.

所以這是蓋爾：十幾歲的單身媽媽，沒有家人，幾乎沒有支援。在這種情況下，很多人會枯萎，但鄉巴佬接管了。“爸爸真的不在身邊，”蓋爾回憶道，“而且已經很多年沒有去過了，我顯然沒有和媽媽說話。但我記得我從他們那裡學到的一個教訓，那就是我們可以做任何我們想做的事。我想要那個孩子，我想讓它發揮作用。所以我做到了。她在當地一家電話公司找到了一份工作，一路向上爬，甚至回到了大學。當她再婚時，她已經邁出了一大步。與她的第二任丈夫艾倫的故事書般的婚姻只是錦上添花。

Some version of Gail’s story often rears its head where I grew up. You watch as teenagers find themselves in dire straits, sometimes of their own making and sometimes not. The statistics are stacked high against them, and many succumb: to crime or an early death at worst, domestic strife and welfare dependency at best. But others make it. There’s Jane Rex. There’s Lindsay, who blossomed in the midst of Mamaw’s death; Aunt Wee, who put her life on track after ditching an abusive husband. Each benefited from the same types of experiences in one way or another. They had a family member they could count on. And they saw—from a family friend, an uncle, or a work mentor—what was available and what was possible.

蓋爾故事的某些版本經常在我長大的地方浮現。你看著青少年發現自己陷入了可怕的困境，有時是他們自己造成的，有時不是。統計數據對他們不利，許多人屈服於犯罪或早逝，最壞的情況是家庭衝突和福利依賴。但其他人做到了。還有簡·雷克斯。有琳賽，她在媽媽的死中綻放;黃阿姨，在拋棄虐待丈夫後，她的生活走上了正軌。每個人都以這樣或那樣的方式從相同類型的經驗中受益。他們有一個可以依靠的家人。他們從家人朋友、叔叔或工作導師那裡看到了什麼是可用的，什麼是可能的。

Not long after I began thinking about what might help the American working class get ahead, a team of economists, including Raj Chetty, published a groundbreaking study on opportunity in America. Unsurprisingly, they found that a poor kid’s chances of rising through the ranks of America’s meritocracy were lower than most of us wanted. By their metrics, a lot of European countries seemed better than America at the American Dream. More important, they discovered that opportunity was not spread evenly over the whole country. In places like Utah, Oklahoma, and Massachusetts, the American Dream was doing just fine—as good or better than any other place in the world. It was in the South, the Rust Belt, and Appalachia where poor kids really struggled. Their findings surprised a lot of people, but not me. And not anyone who’d spent any time in these areas.

在我開始思考什麼可以幫助美國工人階級取得成功后不久，包括拉傑·切蒂（Raj Chetty）在內的一組經濟學家發表了一項關於美國機會的開創性研究。不出所料，他們發現一個窮孩子在美國精英階層中晉陞的機會比我們大多數人想要的要低。從他們的指標來看，許多歐洲國家在美國夢方面似乎比美國更好。更重要的是，他們發現機會並沒有均勻地分佈在全國。在猶他州、奧克拉荷馬州和馬薩諸塞州等地，美國夢做得很好——與世界上任何其他地方一樣好或更好。在南部、鏽帶和阿巴拉契亞，窮孩子真正掙扎的地方。他們的發現讓很多人感到驚訝，但不是我。而不是任何在這些領域呆過的人。

In a paper analyzing the data, Chetty and his coauthors noted two important factors that explained the uneven geographic distribution of opportunity: the prevalence of single parents and income segregation. Growing up around a lot of single moms and dads and living in a place where most of your neighbors are poor really narrows the realm of possibilities. It means that unless you have a Mamaw and Papaw to make sure you stay the course, you might never make it out. It means that you don’t have people to show you by example what happens when you work hard and get an education. It means, essentially, that everything that made it possible for me, Lindsay, Gail, Jane Rex, and Aunt Wee to find some measure of happiness is missing. So I wasn’t surprised that Mormon Utah—with its strong church, integrated communities, and intact families—wiped the floor with Rust Belt Ohio.

在一篇分析數據的論文中，切蒂和他的合著者指出了解釋機會地理分佈不均的兩個重要因素：單親父母的普遍性和收入隔離。在很多單身父母身邊長大，生活在一個大多數鄰居都很窮的地方，這確實縮小了可能性的範圍。這意味著除非你有一個媽媽和爸爸來確保你堅持到底，否則你可能永遠無法成功。這意味著你沒有人以身作則地向你展示當你努力工作並接受教育時會發生什麼。從本質上講，這意味著，讓我、琳賽、蓋爾、簡·雷克斯和黃阿姨能夠找到某種程度的幸福的一切都消失了。因此，我並不感到驚訝，猶他州摩門教——擁有強大的教會、融合的社區和完整的家庭——用俄亥俄州鏽帶擦地板。

There are, I think, policy lessons to draw from my life—ways we might put our thumb on that all-important scale. We can adjust how our social services systems treat families like mine. Remember that when I was twelve I watched Mom get hauled away in a police cruiser. I’d seen her get arrested before, but I knew that this time was different. We were in the system now, with social worker visits and mandated family counseling. And a court date hanging over my head like a guillotine blade.

我認為，可以從我的生活中吸取一些政策教訓——我們可以把拇指放在這個最重要的尺度上。我們可以調整我們的社會服務系統如何對待像我這樣的家庭。還記得我十二歲的時候，我看著媽媽被一輛警車拖走。我以前見過她被捕，但我知道這次不同。我們現在在系統中，有社會工作者的訪問和強制性的家庭諮詢。法庭日期像斷頭台刀一樣懸在我頭上。

Ostensibly, the caseworkers were there to protect me, but it became very obvious, very early in the process, that they were obstacles to overcome. When I explained that I spent most of my time with my grandparents and that I’d like to continue with that arrangement, they replied that the courts would not necessarily sanction such an arrangement. In the eyes of the law, my grandmother was an untrained caretaker without a foster license. If things went poorly for my mother in the courts, I was as likely to find myself with a foster family as I was with Mamaw. The notion of being separated from everyone and everything I loved was terrifying. So I shut my mouth, told the social workers everything was fine, and hoped that I wouldn’t lose my family when the court hearing came.

從表面上看，個案工作者在那裡是為了保護我，但很明顯，在這個過程的早期，他們是需要克服的障礙。當我解釋說我大部分時間都和祖父母在一起，我想繼續這種安排時，他們回答說法院不一定會批准這樣的安排。在法律眼中，我的祖母是一個沒有寄養執照的未經訓練的看護人。如果我母親在法庭上的情況很糟糕，我很可能會發現自己和一個寄養家庭在一起，就像我和媽媽在一起一樣。與我所愛的所有人和一切分開的想法是可怕的。於是我閉上了嘴，告訴社工一切都很好，並希望在法庭聽證會到來時我不會失去我的家人。

That hope panned out—Mom didn’t go to jail, and I got to stay with Mamaw. The arrangement was informal: I could stay with Mom if I wanted, but if not, Mamaw’s door was always open. The enforcement mechanism was equally informal: Mamaw would kill anyone who tried to keep me from her. This worked for us because Mamaw was a lunatic and our entire family feared her.

這個希望實現了——媽媽沒有進監獄，我得和媽媽呆在一起。這個安排是非正式的：如果我願意，我可以和媽媽呆在一起，但如果不願意，媽媽的門總是敞開的。執行機制同樣是非正式的：媽媽會殺死任何試圖讓我遠離她的人。這對我們有用，因為媽媽是個瘋子，我們全家都害怕她。

Not everyone can rely on the saving graces of a crazy hillbilly. Child services are, for many kids, the last pieces of the safety net; if they fall through, precious little remains to catch them.

不是每個人都能依靠瘋狂的鄉巴佬的救命恩典。對於許多孩子來說，兒童服務是安全網的最後一塊;如果它們掉下來了，剩下的寶貴東西就很少了。

Part of the problem is how state laws define the family. For families like mine—and for many black and Hispanic families—grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles play an outsize role. Child services often cut them out of the picture, as they did in my case. Some states require occupational licensing for foster parents—just like nurses and doctors—even when the would-be foster parent is a grandmother or another close family member. In other words, our country’s social services weren’t made for hillbilly families, and they often make a bad problem worse.

部分問題在於州法律如何定義家庭。對於像我這樣的家庭以及許多黑人和西班牙裔家庭來說，祖父母、堂兄弟姐妹、阿姨和叔叔扮演著巨大的角色。兒童服務機構經常將他們排除在外，就像我的情況一樣。一些州要求寄養父母（就像護士和醫生一樣）獲得職業許可，即使潛在的寄養父母是祖母或其他近親。換句話說，我們國家的社會服務不是為鄉巴佬家庭提供的，而且它們經常使糟糕的問題變得更糟。

I wish I could say this was a small problem, but it’s not. In a given year, 640,000 children, most of them poor, will spend at least some time in foster care. Add that to the unknown number of kids who face abuse or neglect but somehow avoid the foster care system, and you have an epidemic—one that current policies exacerbate.

我希望我能說這是一個小問題，但事實並非如此。在某一年，有64萬名兒童，其中大多數是貧困兒童，將至少在寄養中度過一段時間。再加上數量不詳的孩子面臨虐待或忽視，但以某種方式避開寄養系統，你就有了流行病——一種當前政策加劇的流行病。

There are other things we can do. We can build policies based on a better understanding of what stands in the way of kids like me. The most important lesson of my life is not that society failed to provide me with opportunities. My elementary and middle schools were entirely adequate, staffed with teachers who did everything they could to reach me. Our high school ranked near the bottom of Ohio’s schools, but that had little to do with the staff and much to do with the students. I had Pell Grants and government-subsidized low-interest student loans that made college affordable, and need-based scholarships for law school. I never went hungry, thanks at least in part to the old-age benefits that Mamaw generously shared with me. These programs are far from perfect, but to the degree that I nearly succumbed to my worst decisions (and I came quite close), the fault lies almost entirely with factors outside the government’s control.

我們還可以做其他事情。我們可以在更好地瞭解像我這樣的孩子遇到什麼障礙的基礎上制定政策。我一生中最重要的一課不是社會沒有為我提供機會。我的小學和中學完全足夠，配備了老師，他們盡其所能聯繫我。我們的高中在俄亥俄州的學校中排名墊底，但這與教職員工關係不大，而與學生關係很大。我有佩爾助學金和政府補貼的低息學生貸款，使大學負擔得起，併為法學院提供基於需求的獎學金。我從來沒有挨過餓，至少在一定程度上要歸功於媽媽慷慨地與我分享的養老福利。這些計劃遠非完美，但就我幾乎屈服於我最糟糕的決定的程度而言（我非常接近），錯誤幾乎完全在於政府無法控制的因素。

Recently, I sat down with a group of teachers from my alma mater, Middletown High. All of them expressed the worry, in one form or another, that society devoted too many resources too late in the game. “It’s like our politicians think college is the only way,” one teacher told me. “For many, it’s great. But a lot of our kids have no realistic shot of getting a college degree.” Another said: “The violence and the fighting, it’s all they’ve seen from a very young age. One of my students lost her baby like she’d lost her car keys—had no idea where it went. Two weeks later, her child turned up in New York City with the father, a drug dealer, and some of his family.” Short of a miracle, we all know what kind of life awaits that poor baby. Yet there’s precious little to support her now, when an intervention might help.

最近，我和母校米德爾敦高中的一群老師坐下來。他們都以這樣或那樣的形式表達了對社會在遊戲中投入太多資源的擔憂。“這就像我們的政客認為上大學是唯一的出路，”一位老師告訴我。“對許多人來說，這很棒。但是我們的很多孩子都沒有獲得大學學位的現實機會。另一位說：「暴力和戰鬥，這是他們從很小的時候就看到的一切。我的一個學生失去了她的孩子，就像她丟失了她的車鑰匙一樣——不知道它去了哪裡。兩周后，她的孩子和父親、毒販和他的一些家人一起出現在紐約市。沒有奇跡，我們都知道等待那個可憐的嬰兒的將是什麼樣的生活。然而，現在幾乎沒有什麼可以支援她的東西，而干預可能會有所説明。

So I think that any successful policy program would recognize what my old high school’s teachers see every day: that the real problem for so many of these kids is what happens (or doesn’t happen) at home. For example, we’d recognize that Section 8 vouchers ought to be administered in a way that doesn’t segregate the poor into little enclaves. As Brian Campbell, another Middletown teacher, told me, “When you have a large base of Section 8 parents and kids supported by fewer middle-class taxpayers, it’s an upside-down triangle. There’re fewer emotional and financial resources when the only people in a neighborhood are low-income. You just can’t lump them together, because then you have a bigger pool of hopelessness.” On the other hand, he said, “put the lower-income kids with those who have a different lifestyle model, and the lower-income kids start to rise up.” Yet when Middletown recently tried to limit the number of Section 8 vouchers offered within certain neighborhoods, the federal government balked. Better, I suppose, to keep those kids cut off from the middle class.

因此，我認為任何成功的政策計劃都會認識到我以前高中的老師每天所看到的：對於這些孩子中的許多人來說，真正的問題是在家裡發生（或沒有發生）的事情。例如，我們認識到第8節代金券的管理方式不應將窮人隔離成小飛地。正如另一位米德爾敦的老師布萊恩·坎貝爾（Brian Campbell）告訴我的那樣，“當你擁有大量第8節的父母和孩子，而中產階級納稅人較少時，這是一個倒立的三角形。當一個社區中唯一的人是低收入者時，情感和財務資源就會減少。你不能把它們混為一談，因為那樣你就會有更大的絕望。另一方面，他說，“把低收入的孩子和那些生活方式不同的孩子放在一起，低收入的孩子就會開始崛起。然而，當米德爾敦最近試圖限制某些社區提供的第 8 節代金券數量時，聯邦政府猶豫不決。我想，最好是讓這些孩子與中產階級隔絕。

Government policy may be powerless to resolve other problems in our community. As a child, I associated accomplishments in school with femininity. Manliness meant strength, courage, a willingness to fight, and, later, success with girls. Boys who got good grades were “sissies” or “faggots.” I don’t know where I got this feeling. Certainly not from Mamaw, who demanded good grades, nor from Papaw. But it was there, and studies now show that working-class boys like me do much worse in school because they view schoolwork as a feminine endeavor. Can you change this with a new law or program? Probably not. Some scales aren’t that amenable to the proverbial thumb.

政府政策可能無力解決我們社區的其他問題。小時候，我把學校的成就與女性氣質聯繫在一起。男子氣概意味著力量、勇氣、戰鬥的意願，以及後來在女孩身上的成功。成績好的男孩是「娘娘腔」或「基佬」。。我不知道我從哪裡得到這種感覺。當然不是來自要求取得好成績的媽媽，也不是來自爸爸。但它就在那裡，現在的研究表明，像我這樣的工薪階層男孩在學校的表現要差得多，因為他們認為學業是女性的努力。你能用新的法律或計劃改變這一點嗎？可能不是。有些鱗片不適合眾所周知的拇指。

I’ve learned that the very traits that enabled my survival during childhood inhibit my success as an adult. I see conflict and I run away or prepare for battle. This makes little sense in my current relationships, but without that attitude, my childhood homes would have consumed me. I learned early to spread my money out lest Mom or someone else find it and “borrow” it—some under the mattress, some in the underwear drawer, some at Mamaw’s house. When, later in life, Usha and I consolidated finances, she was shocked to learn that I had multiple bank accounts and small past-due balances on credit cards. Usha still sometimes reminds me that not every perceived slight—from a passing motorist or a neighbor critical of my dogs—is cause for a blood feud. And I always concede, despite my raw emotions, that she’s probably right.

我瞭解到，使我在童年時期能夠生存的特質抑制了我成年後的成功。我看到衝突，我逃跑或準備戰鬥。這在我現在的關係中沒什麼意義，但如果沒有這種態度，我童年的家就會吞噬我。我很早就學會了把錢攤開，以免媽媽或別人發現並“借”錢——有的在床墊下，有的在內衣抽屜里，有的在媽媽家。在後來的生活中，當烏莎和我合併財務時，她震驚地發現我有多個銀行帳戶和信用卡上的小額逾期餘額。烏莎有時仍然會提醒我，並不是每一個被察覺到的輕視——來自路過的駕車者或批評我的狗的鄰居——都會導致血仇。我總是承認，儘管我的情緒很原始，但她可能是對的。

A couple of years ago, I was driving in Cincinnati with Usha, when somebody cut me off. I honked, the guy flipped me off, and when we stopped at a red light (with this guy in front of me), I unbuckled my seat belt and opened the car door. I planned to demand an apology (and fight the guy if necessary), but my common sense prevailed and I shut the door before I got out of the car. Usha was delighted that I’d changed my mind before she yelled at me to stop acting like a lunatic (which has happened in the past), and she told me that she was proud of me for resisting my natural instinct. The other driver’s sin was to insult my honor, and it was on that honor that nearly every element of my happiness depended as a child—it kept the school bully from messing with me, connected me to my mother when some man or his children insulted her (even if I agreed with the substance of the insult), and gave me something, however small, over which I exercised complete control. For the first eighteen or so years of my life, standing down would have earned me a verbal lashing as a “pussy” or a “wimp” or a “girl.” The objectively correct course of action was something that the majority of my life had taught me was repulsive to an upstanding young man. For a few hours after I did the right thing, I silently criticized myself. But that’s progress, right? Better that than sitting in a jail cell for teaching that asshole a lesson about defensive driving.

幾年前，我和烏莎一起在辛辛那提開車，當時有人打斷了我。我按了喇叭，那傢伙把我甩開了，當我們在紅燈處停下來時（這個人在我前面），我解開安全帶，打開車門。我打算要求道歉（必要時與那個人打架），但我的常識佔了上風，我在下車前關上了車門。烏莎很高興我改變了主意，然後她對我大喊大叫，讓我不要再表現得像個瘋子了（過去也發生過這種情況），她告訴我，她為我抵制我的自然本能而感到自豪。另一個司機的罪過是侮辱了我的榮譽，正是在這種榮譽上，我小時候幸福的幾乎每一個元素都取決於這種榮譽——它使學校的惡霸不惹我，當某個男人或他的孩子侮辱她時，將我與母親聯繫起來（即使我同意侮辱的實質）， 並給了我一些東西，無論多麼小，我都可以完全控制它。在我生命的前十八年左右的時間里，站起來會讓我被罵成“貓”或“懦夫”或“女孩”。客觀正確的行動方針是我一生中大部分時間教給我的東西，對一個正直的年輕人來說是令人厭惡的。在我做正確的事後的幾個小時里，我默默地批評自己。但這就是進步，對吧？這比坐在牢房裡給那個混蛋上一堂關於防禦性駕駛的課要好。

Conclusion

結論

Shortly before Christmas last year, I stood in the kids’ section of a Washington, D.C., Walmart, shopping list in hand, gazing at toys and talking myself out of each of them. That year, I had volunteered to “adopt” a needy child, which meant that I was given a list by the local branch of the Salvation Army and told to return with a bag of unwrapped Christmas gifts.

去年耶誕節前不久，我站在華盛頓特區沃爾瑪的兒童區，手裡拿著購物清單，凝視著玩具，並說服自己擺脫每一個玩具。那一年，我自告奮勇地“領養”了一個有需要的孩子，這意味著救世軍當地分會給了我一份名單，並告訴我要帶著一袋未包裝的聖誕禮物回來。

It sounds pretty simple, but I managed to find fault with nearly every suggestion. Pajamas? Poor people don’t wear pajamas. We fall asleep in our underwear or blue jeans. To this day, I find the very notion of pajamas an unnecessary elite indulgence, like caviar or electric ice cube makers. There was a toy guitar that I thought looked both fun and enriching, but I remembered the electronic keyboard my grandparents had given me one year and how one of Mom’s boyfriends meanly ordered me to “shut that fucking thing up.” I passed on learning aids for fear of appearing condescending. Eventually I settled on some clothes, a fake cell phone, and fire trucks.

這聽起來很簡單，但我設法對幾乎所有建議都挑剔。睡衣？窮人不穿睡衣。我們穿著內衣或藍色牛仔褲入睡。直到今天，我仍然覺得睡衣的概念是一種不必要的精英放縱，就像魚子醬或電冰塊機一樣。有一把玩具吉他，我覺得它看起來既有趣又豐富，但我想起了我祖父母一年送給我的電子琴，以及媽媽的一個男朋友如何卑鄙地命令我“把那個該死的東西閉嘴”。我把學習輔助工具傳給別人，怕顯得居高臨下。最終，我買了一些衣服、一部假手機和消防車。

I grew up in a world where everyone worried about how they’d pay for Christmas. Now I live in one where opportunities abound for the wealthy and privileged to shower their generosity on the community’s poor. Many prestigious law firms sponsor an “angel program,” which assigns a child to a lawyer and provides a wish list of gifts. Usha’s former courthouse encouraged judicial employees to adopt a kid for the holidays—each a child of someone who previously went through the court system. Program coordinators hoped that if someone else purchased presents, the child’s parents might feel less tempted to commit crimes in order to provide. And there’s always Toys for Tots. During the past few Christmas seasons, I’ve found myself in large department stores, buying toys for kids I’ve never met.

我成長在一個每個人都擔心如何支付耶誕節費用的世界里。現在，我生活在一個富人和特權階層有機會向社區的窮人慷慨解囊的地方。許多著名的律師事務所贊助了一個「天使計劃」，該計劃將一個孩子分配給律師，並提供一份禮物的願望清單。烏沙的前法院鼓勵司法雇員在假期收養一個孩子——每個孩子都是以前通過法院系統的人的孩子。項目協調員希望，如果其他人購買了禮物，孩子的父母可能會減少為了提供禮物而犯罪的誘惑。而且總是有適合兒童的玩具。在過去的幾個耶誕節期間，我發現自己在大型百貨公司，為我從未見過的孩子購買玩具。

As I shop, I’m reminded that wherever I fell on the American socioeconomic ladder as a child, others occupy much lower rungs: children who cannot depend on the generosity of grandparents for Christmas gifts; parents whose financial situations are so dire that they rely on criminal conduct—rather than payday loans—to put today’s hot toys under the tree. This is a very useful exercise. As scarcity has given way to plenty in my own life, these moments of retail reflection force me to consider just how lucky I am.

當我購物時，我想起了我小時候在美國社會經濟階梯上的哪個地方，其他人佔據的階梯要低得多：不能依賴祖父母慷慨購買聖誕禮物的孩子;父母的財務狀況如此糟糕，以至於他們依靠犯罪行為——而不是發薪日貸款——將今天的熱門玩具放在樹下。這是一個非常有用的練習。隨著稀缺性在我自己的生活中讓位於豐富，這些零售反思的時刻迫使我考慮我是多麼幸運。

Still, shopping for low-income kids reminds me of my childhood and of the ways that Christmas gifts can serve as domestic land mines. Every year the parents in my neighborhood would begin an annual ritual very different from the one I’ve become accustomed to in my new material comfort: worrying about how to give their kids a “nice Christmas,” with niceness always defined by the bounty underneath the Christmas tree. If your friends came over the week before Christmas and saw a barren floor beneath the tree, you would offer a justification. “Mom just hasn’t gone shopping yet” or “Dad’s waiting for a big paycheck at the end of the year, and then he’ll get a ton of stuff.” These excuses were meant to mask what everyone knew: All of us were poor, and no amount of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles memorabilia would change that.

儘管如此，為低收入家庭的孩子購物還是讓我想起了我的童年，以及聖誕禮物可以成為家庭地雷的方式。每年，我家附近的父母都會開始一年一度的儀式，這與我在新的物質享受中習慣的儀式截然不同：擔心如何給他們的孩子一個“美好的耶誕節”，聖誕樹下的賞金總是定義美好。如果你的朋友在耶誕節前一周過來，看到樹下有一片荒蕪的地板，你會提供一個理由。“媽媽還沒去購物”或“爸爸在等年底拿到大筆薪水，然後他會得到一大堆東西。這些藉口是為了掩蓋每個人都知道的事實：我們所有人都很窮，再多的忍者神龜紀念品也無法改變這一點。

No matter our financial position, our family somehow managed to spend just more than we had on holiday shopping. We didn’t qualify for credit cards, but there were many ways to spend money you didn’t have. You could write a future date on a check (a practice called “post-dating”) so the recipient couldn’t cash it until you had money in the bank. You could draw a short-term loan from a payday lender. If all else failed, you could borrow money from the grandparents. Indeed, I recall many winter conversations in which Mom pleaded with Mamaw and Papaw to lend her money to ensure that their grandchildren had a nice Christmas. They’d always protest Mom’s understanding of what made Christmas nice, but they’d still give in. It might be the day before Christmas, but our tree would be piled high with the trendiest gifts even as our family savings dwindled from very little to nothing, then from nothing to something less than that.

無論我們的財務狀況如何，我們的家人不知何故設法花的錢比我們在假日購物上的花費還要多。我們沒有資格使用信用卡，但有很多方法可以花掉你沒有的錢。你可以在支票上寫上未來的日期（這種做法稱為“約會後”），這樣收款人就無法兌現，直到你在銀行里有錢。您可以從發薪日貸方獲得短期貸款。如果一切都失敗了，你可以向祖父母借錢。事實上，我記得許多冬天的談話，媽媽懇求媽媽和爸爸借錢給她，以確保他們的孫子孫女過一個愉快的耶誕節。他們總是會抗議媽媽對聖誕節美好的理解，但他們仍然會屈服。雖然是耶誕節的前一天，但我們家的積蓄從很少到一無所有，然後從一無所有到更少，我們的樹上會堆滿最時髦的禮物。

When I was a baby, Mom and Lindsay frantically searched for a Teddy Ruxpin doll, a toy so popular that every store in town sold out. It was expensive and, as I was only two, unnecessary. But Lindsay still remembers the day wasted searching for the toy. Mom somehow received a tip about a stranger who was willing to part with one of his Ruxpins at a significant markup. Mom and Lindsay traveled to his house to fetch the trinket that stood between a child who could barely walk and the Christmas of his dreams. The only thing I remember of old Teddy is finding him in a box years later, his sweater tattered and his face covered in crusted snot.

當我還是個嬰兒的時候，媽媽和琳賽瘋狂地尋找泰迪魯斯平娃娃，這個玩具非常受歡迎，鎮上的每家商店都賣光了。它很貴，而且因為我只有兩歲，所以沒有必要。但琳賽仍然記得尋找玩具的那一天。媽媽不知何故收到了一個關於一個陌生人的提示，他願意以顯著的加價與他的一個 Ruxpins 分開。媽媽和琳賽去他家取小飾品，這個小飾品擋在一個幾乎不能走路的孩子和他夢想中的耶誕節之間。關於老泰迪，我唯一記得的就是多年後在一個盒子里發現他，他的毛衣破爛不堪，臉上沾滿了結痂的鼻涕。

It was the holiday season that taught me about tax refunds, which I gathered were free bits of money sent to the poor in the new year to save them from the financial indiscretions of the old one. Income tax refunds were the ultimate backstops. “We can definitely afford this; we’ll just pay for it with the refund check” became a Christmas mantra. But the government was fickle. There were few moments more anxious than the one when Mom came home from the tax preparer in early January. Sometimes the refund exceeded expectations. But when Mom learned that Uncle Sam couldn’t cover the Christmas splurge because her “credits” weren’t as high as she had hoped, that could ruin your whole month. Ohio Januaries are depressing enough as it is.

正是假期教會了我退稅的知識，我收集的退稅是在新的一年裡寄給窮人的免費錢，以使他們免於舊年的財務輕率。所得稅退稅是最終的後盾。“我們絕對負擔得起;我們只會用退款支票來支付它“成為耶誕節的口頭禪。但政府是善變的。沒有什麼比一月初媽媽從報稅員那裡回家時更焦慮的時刻了。有時退款超出預期。但是，當媽媽得知山姆大叔無法支付耶誕節的揮霍，因為她的“信用”沒有她希望的那麼高時，這可能會毀了你的整個月。俄亥俄州的一月已經足夠令人沮喪了。

I assumed that rich people celebrated Christmas just like us, perhaps with fewer financial worries and even cooler presents. Yet I noticed after my cousin Bonnie was born that Christmastime at Aunt Wee’s house had a decidedly different flavor. Somehow my aunt and uncle’s children ended up with more pedestrian gifts than I had come to expect as a child. There was no obsession with meeting a two- or three-hundred-dollar threshold for each child, no worry that a kid would suffer in the absence of the newest electronic gadget. Usha often received books for Christmas. My cousin Bonnie, at the age of eleven, asked her parents to donate her Christmas gifts to Middletown’s needy. Shockingly, her parents obliged: They didn’t define their family’s Christmas holiday by the dollar value of gifts their daughter accumulated.

我以為有錢人和我們一樣慶祝耶誕節，也許財務上的擔憂更少，禮物更酷。然而，在我的表妹邦妮出生後，我注意到黃阿姨家的耶誕節有一種截然不同的味道。不知何故，我姨媽和叔叔的孩子最終得到了比我小時候預期的更多的行人禮物。他們不執著於滿足每個孩子兩三百美元的門檻，也不擔心孩子在沒有最新電子產品的情況下會受苦。烏莎經常在耶誕節收到書。我的表妹邦妮（Bonnie）在11歲時，要求她的父母將她的聖誕禮物捐贈給米德爾敦的窮人。令人震驚的是，她的父母有義務：他們沒有用女兒積累的禮物的美元價值來定義他們家的耶誕節假期。

However you want to define these two groups and their approach to giving—rich and poor; educated and uneducated; upper-class and working-class—their members increasingly occupy two separate worlds. As a cultural emigrant from one group to the other, I am acutely aware of their differences. Sometimes I view members of the elite with an almost primal scorn—recently, an acquaintance used the word “confabulate” in a sentence, and I just wanted to scream. But I have to give it to them: Their children are happier and healthier, their divorce rates lower, their church attendance higher, their lives longer. These people are beating us at our own damned game.

然而，你想定義這兩個群體和他們的捐贈方式——富人和窮人;受過教育和未受過教育;上層階級和工人階級——他們的成員越來越多地佔據著兩個不同的世界。作為一個從一個群體到另一個群體的文化移民，我敏銳地意識到他們的差異。有時我以一種近乎原始的蔑視來看待精英成員——最近，一個熟人在一句話中使用了“混淆”這個詞，我只想尖叫。但我必須告訴他們：他們的孩子更快樂、更健康，他們的離婚率更低，他們的教會出席率更高，他們的壽命更長。這些人在我們自己該死的遊戲中擊敗我們。

I was able to escape the worst of my culture’s inheritance. And uneasy though I am about my new life, I cannot whine about it: The life I lead now was the stuff of fantasy during my childhood. So many people helped create that fantasy. At every level of my life and in every environment, I have found family and mentors and lifelong friends who supported and enabled me.

我能夠逃脫我文化遺產中最糟糕的遺產。雖然我對我的新生活感到不安，但我不能抱怨它：我現在的生活是我童年時期的幻想。這麼多人幫助創造了這種幻想。在我生活的各個層面和每個環境中，我都找到了支持和説明我的家人、導師和終生的朋友。

But I often wonder: Where would I be without them? I think back on my freshman year of high school, a grade I nearly failed, and the morning when Mom walked into Mamaw’s house demanding a cup of clean urine. Or years before that, when I was a lonely kid with two fathers, neither of whom I saw very often, and Papaw decided that he would be the best dad he could be for as long as he lived. Or the months I spent with Lindsay, a teenage girl acting as a mother while our own mother lived in a treatment center. Or the moment I can’t even remember when Papaw installed a secret phone line in the bottom of my toy box so that Lindsay could call Mamaw and Papaw if things got a little too crazy. Thinking about it now, about how close I was to the abyss, gives me chills. I am one lucky son of a bitch.

但我經常想：如果沒有他們，我會在哪裡？我回想起我高中一年級的時候，我差點不及格，那天早上媽媽走進媽媽家，要一杯乾淨的尿液。或者在那之前的幾年裡，當我還是一個孤獨的孩子，有兩個父親，我都不經常見到他們，爸爸決定只要他活著，他就會成為最好的父親。或者我和琳賽一起度過的幾個月，琳賽是一個十幾歲的女孩，而我們自己的母親住在治療中心。或者那一刻，我什至不記得爸爸什麼時候在我的玩具盒底部安裝了一條秘密電話線，這樣如果事情變得有點太瘋狂，琳賽就可以打電話給媽媽和爸爸。現在想想，想到我離深淵有多近，讓我不寒而慄。我是一個幸運的婊子。

Not long ago, I had lunch with Brian, a young man who reminded me of fifteen-year-old J.D. Like Mom, his mother caught a taste for narcotics, and like me, he has a complicated relationship with his father. He’s a sweet kid with a big heart and a quiet manner. He has spent nearly his entire life in Appalachian Kentucky; we went to lunch at a local fast-food restaurant, because in that corner of the world there isn’t much else to eat. As we talked, I noticed little quirks that few others would. He didn’t want to share his milk shake, which was a little out of character for a kid who ended every sentence with “please” or “thank you.” He finished his food quickly and then nervously looked from person to person. I could tell that he wanted to ask a question, so I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and asked if he needed anything. “Y—Yeah,” he started, refusing to make eye contact. And then, almost in a whisper: “I wonder if I could get a few more french fries?” He was hungry. In 2014, in the richest country on earth, he wanted a little extra to eat but felt uncomfortable asking. Lord help us.

不久前，我和布萊恩共進午餐，他讓我想起了15歲的J.D.。和媽媽一樣，他的母親也染上了毒品的嗜好，和我一樣，他和父親的關係也很複雜。他是一個可愛的孩子，心胸寬廣，舉止安靜。他幾乎一生都在肯塔基州的阿巴拉契亞度過;我們去當地的一家速食店吃午飯，因為在世界的那個角落，沒有太多東西可以吃。當我們交談時，我注意到了其他人很少會遇到的小怪癖。他不想分享他的奶昔，這對於一個以“請”或“謝謝”結束每個句子的孩子來說有點不合時宜。他很快吃完了食物，然後緊張地從一個人看向另一個人。我看得出來，他想問一個問題，所以我用胳膊摟住他的肩膀，問他需要什麼。“是的，”他開始說，拒絕眼神交流。然後，幾乎是低聲說：「我想知道我能不能再吃幾根炸薯條？他餓了。2014年，在地球上最富有的國家，他想多吃一點東西，但覺得問得不舒服。主幫助我們。

Just a few months after we saw each other last, Brian’s mom died unexpectedly. He hadn’t lived with her in years, so outsiders might imagine that her death was easier to bear. Those folks are wrong. People like Brian and me don’t lose contact with our parents because we don’t care; we lose contact with them to survive. We never stop loving, and we never lose hope that our loved ones will change. Rather, we are forced, either by wisdom or by the law, to take the path of self-preservation.

就在我們最後一次見面的幾個月後，布萊恩的媽媽意外去世了。他已經很多年沒有和她住在一起了，所以外人可能會認為她的死更容易忍受。那些人錯了。像布萊恩和我這樣的人不會因為我們不在乎而與父母失去聯繫;為了生存，我們失去了與他們的聯繫。我們永遠不會停止愛，我們永遠不會失去希望，我們所愛的人會改變。相反，無論是出於智慧還是出於法律，我們都被迫走上自我保護的道路。

What happens to Brian? He has no Mamaw or Papaw, at least not like mine, and though he’s lucky enough to have supportive family who will keep him out of foster care, his hope of a “normal life” evaporated long ago, if it ever existed. When we met, his mother had already permanently lost custody. In his short life, he has already experienced multiple instances of childhood trauma, and in a few years he will begin making decisions about employment and education that even children of wealth and privilege have trouble navigating.

布萊恩怎麼了？他沒有媽媽或爸爸，至少不像我一樣，儘管他很幸運有支援他的家人，可以讓他遠離寄養，但他對“正常生活”的希望很久以前就消失了，如果它曾經存在過的話。當我們見面時，他的母親已經永久失去了監護權。在他短暫的一生中，他已經經歷了多次童年創傷，幾年後，他將開始做出關於就業和教育的決定，即使是富有和特權的孩子也難以駕馭。

Any chance he has lies with the people around him—his family, me, my kin, the people like us, and the broad community of hillbillies. And if that chance is to materialize, we hillbillies must wake the hell up. Brian’s mom’s death was another shitty card in an already abysmal hand, but there are many cards left to deal: whether his community empowers him with a sense that he can control his own destiny or encourages him to take refuge in resentment at forces beyond his control; whether he can access a church that teaches him lessons of Christian love, family, and purpose; whether those people who do step up to positively influence Brian find emotional and spiritual support from their neighbors.

他的任何機會都在於他周圍的人——他的家人、我、我的親戚、像我們這樣的人，以及廣大的鄉巴佬社區。如果這個機會要實現，我們鄉巴佬必須醒來。布萊恩媽媽的死是本已糟糕的手中的另一張爛牌，但還有很多牌需要處理：他的社區是否賦予他一種可以控制自己命運的感覺，還是鼓勵他在對他無法控制的力量的怨恨中尋求庇護;他是否能進入一個教導他基督徒的愛、家庭和目的的教會;那些挺身而出對布萊恩產生積極影響的人是否從鄰居那裡得到了情感和精神上的支援。

I believe we hillbillies are the toughest goddamned people on this earth. We take an electric saw to the hide of those who insult our mother. We make young men consume cotton undergarments to protect a sister’s honor. But are we tough enough to do what needs to be done to help a kid like Brian? Are we tough enough to build a church that forces kids like me to engage with the world rather than withdraw from it? Are we tough enough to look ourselves in the mirror and admit that our conduct harms our children?

我相信我們鄉巴佬是這個世界上最強硬的人。我們拿著電鋸去那些侮辱我們母親的人的藏身之處。我們讓年輕男人穿棉內衣來保護姊妹的榮譽。但是，我們是否足夠堅強，可以做需要做的事情來説明像布萊恩這樣的孩子？我們是否足夠堅強，可以建立一個教會，迫使像我這樣的孩子與世界接觸，而不是退出世界？我們是否足夠堅強，可以照照鏡子，承認我們的行為傷害了我們的孩子？

Public policy can help, but there is no government that can fix these problems for us.

公共政策可以提供説明，但沒有政府可以為我們解決這些問題。

Recall how my cousin Mike sold his mother’s house—a property that had been in our family for over a century—because he couldn’t trust his own neighbors not to ransack it. Mamaw refused to purchase bicycles for her grandchildren because they kept disappearing—even when locked up—from her front porch. She feared answering her door toward the end of her life because an able-bodied woman who lived next door would not stop bothering her for cash—money, we later learned, for drugs. These problems were not created by governments or corporations or anyone else. We created them, and only we can fix them.

回想一下我的表弟邁克是如何賣掉他母親的房子的——這處房產已經在我們家住了一個多世紀了——因為他不能相信自己的鄰居不會洗劫它。媽媽拒絕為她的孫子購買自行車，因為它們不斷從她的前廊消失，即使被鎖著。她害怕在她生命的盡頭應門，因為住在隔壁的一位身體健全的女人不會停止為現金而煩惱——我們後來才知道，錢是為了毒品。這些問題不是由政府、公司或其他任何人造成的。我們創造了它們，只有我們才能修復它們。

We don’t need to live like the elites of California, New York, or Washington, D.C. We don’t need to work a hundred hours a week at law firms and investment banks. We don’t need to socialize at cocktail parties. We do need to create a space for the J.D.s and Brians of the world to have a chance. I don’t know what the answer is, precisely, but I know it starts when we stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better.

我們不需要像加利福尼亞、紐約或華盛頓特區的精英那樣生活。我們不需要每周在律師事務所和投資銀行工作一百個小時。我們不需要在雞尾酒會上社交。我們確實需要為世界上的 JD 和 Brians 創造一個機會的空間。我不知道答案是什麼，確切地說，但我知道，當我們停止責怪奧巴馬或布希或不露面的公司，並問問自己我們能做些什麼來讓事情變得更好時，它就開始了。

I wanted to ask Brian whether, like me, he had bad dreams. For nearly two decades, I suffered from a terrible recurring nightmare. The first time it came to me, I was seven, fast asleep in my great Mamaw Blanton’s bed. In the dream, I’m trapped in large conference room in a large tree house—as if the Keebler elves had just finished a massive picnic and their tree house were still adorned with dozens of tables and chairs. I’m there alone with Lindsay and Mamaw, when all of a sudden Mom charges through the room, tossing tables and chairs as she goes. She screams, but her voice is robotic and distorted, as if filtered through radio static. Mamaw and Lindsay run for a hole in the floor—presumably the exit ladder from the tree house. I fall behind, and by the time I reach the exit, Mom is just behind me. I wake up, right as she’s about to grab me, when I realize not just that the monster has caught me but that Mamaw and Lindsay have abandoned me.

我想問布萊恩，他是否和我一樣，做過噩夢。在將近二十年的時間里，我遭受了一個可怕的反覆出現的噩夢。我第一次見到它的時候，我七歲，在我偉大的布蘭頓媽媽的床上睡著了。在夢中，我被困在一個大樹屋的大會議室里——就好像基布勒精靈剛剛結束了一次大規模的野餐，他們的樹屋裡還裝飾著幾十張桌子和椅子。我和琳賽和媽媽獨自一人在那裡，突然間媽媽衝進房間，邊走邊扔桌子和椅子。她尖叫著，但她的聲音是機械的和扭曲的，彷彿被無線電靜電過濾了。媽媽和琳賽跑向地板上的一個洞——大概是樹屋的出口梯子。我落後了，當我到達出口時，媽媽就在我身後。我醒來，就在她要抓住我的時候，我意識到不僅怪物抓住了我，而且媽媽和琳賽已經拋棄了我。

In different versions, the antagonist changes form. It has been a Marine Corps drill instructor, a barking dog, a movie villain, and a mean teacher. Mamaw and Lindsay always make an appearance, and they always make it to the exit just ahead of me. Without fail, the dream provokes pure terror. The first time I had it, I woke up and ran to Mamaw, who was up late watching TV. I explained the dream and begged her never to leave me. She promised that she wouldn’t and stroked my hair until I fell asleep again.

在不同的版本中，拮抗劑會改變形式。它曾是海軍陸戰隊的演習教官，吠叫的狗，電影反派和卑鄙的老師。媽媽和琳賽總是露面，他們總是在我前面走到出口。毫無疑問，這個夢激起了純粹的恐怖。我第一次吃它時，我醒來跑去找媽媽，她看電視到很晚。我解釋了這個夢，並懇求她永遠不要離開我。她答應不會，撫摸著我的頭髮，直到我再次入睡。

My subconscious had spared me for years, when, out of nowhere, I had the dream again a few weeks after I graduated from law school. There was a crucial difference: The subject of the monster’s ire wasn’t me but my dog, Casper, with whom I’d lost my temper earlier in the night. There was no Lindsay and no Mamaw. And I was the monster.

我的潛意識已經饒了我好幾年了，當我從法學院畢業幾周后，我突然又做了一個夢。有一個關鍵的區別：怪物憤怒的物件不是我，而是我的狗卡斯珀，我晚上早些時候對它發了脾氣。沒有琳賽，也沒有媽媽。而我就是那個怪物。

I chased my poor dog around the tree house, hoping to catch him and throttle him. But I felt Casper’s terror, and I felt my shame at having lost my temper. I finally caught up to him, but I didn’t wake up. Instead, Casper turned and looked at me with those sad, heart-piercing eyes that only dogs possess. So I didn’t throttle him; I gave him a hug. And the last emotion I felt before waking was relief at having controlled my temper.

我在樹屋裡追著我可憐的狗，希望能抓住他並限制他。但是我感受到了卡斯帕的恐懼，我為自己發脾氣而感到羞恥。我終於追上了他，但我沒有醒來。相反，卡斯帕轉過身來，用只有狗才有的悲傷、刺透心靈的眼睛看著我。所以我沒有限制他;我給了他一個擁抱。醒來前，我感受到的最後一種情緒是控制住了自己的脾氣。

I got out of bed for a glass of cold water, and when I returned, Casper was staring at me, wondering what on earth his human was doing awake at such an odd hour. It was two o’clock in the morning—probably about the same time it was when I first woke from the terrifying dream over twenty years earlier. There was no Mamaw to comfort me. But there were my two dogs on the floor, and there was the love of my life lying in bed. Tomorrow I would go to work, take the dogs to the park, buy groceries with Usha, and make a nice dinner. It was everything I ever wanted. So I patted Casper’s head and went back to sleep.

我下床喝了一杯冷水，當我回來時，卡斯帕正盯著我看，想知道他的人類在這樣一個奇怪的時刻醒來到底在做什麼。那是淩晨兩點鐘——大概是二十多年前我第一次從可怕的夢中醒來的時候。沒有媽媽來安慰我。但是地板上躺著我的兩隻狗，床上躺著我一生的摯愛。明天我會去上班，帶狗去公園，和烏莎一起買雜貨，做一頓豐盛的晚餐。這是我想要的一切。於是我拍了拍卡斯珀的頭，繼續睡覺。

Acknowledgments

確認

Writing this book was among the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life. I learned much I didn’t know about my culture, my neighborhood, and my family, and I relearned much that I had forgotten. I owe a great deal to many people. In no particular order:

寫這本書是我一生中最具挑戰性和最有意義的經歷之一。我學到了很多我不瞭解的關於我的文化、我的社區和我的家庭的知識，我重新學到了很多我忘記的東西。我欠很多人很多。排名不分先後：

Tina Bennett, my wonderful agent, believed in the project even before I did. She encouraged me when I needed it, pushed me when I needed it, and guided me through a publication process that initially scared the hell out of me. She has the heart of a hillbilly and the mind of a poet, and I’m honored to call her a friend.

蒂娜·貝內特（Tina Bennett）是我出色的經紀人，甚至在我之前就相信了這個專案。她在我需要的時候鼓勵我，在我需要的時候推動我，並指導我完成最初讓我感到害怕的出版過程。她有鄉巴佬的心和詩人的頭腦，我很榮幸稱她為朋友。

Besides Tina, the person who deserves the most credit for this book’s existence is Amy Chua, my Yale contracts professor, who convinced me that both my life and the conclusions I drew from it were worth putting down on paper. She has the wisdom of a respected academic and the confident delivery of a Tiger Mother, and there were many times that I needed (and benefitted) from both.

除了蒂娜之外，這本書的存在最值得稱讚的人是我的耶魯大學合同教授艾米·蔡（Amy Chua），她說服了我，我的生活和我從中得出的結論都值得寫在紙上。她擁有受人尊敬的學者的智慧和虎媽的自信，很多時候我需要（並從中受益）兩者。

The entire team at Harper deserves tremendous credit. Jonathan Jao, my editor, helped me think critically about what I wanted the book to accomplish and had the patience to help me accomplish it. Sofia Groopman gave the book a fresh eye when it was desperately needed. Joanna, Tina, and Katie guided me through the publicity process with warmth and skill. Tim Duggan took a chance on this project and me when he had little reason to do so. For all of them, and their work on my behalf, I’m very thankful.

Harper的整個團隊都值得稱讚。我的編輯喬納森·饒（Jonathan Jao）説明我批判性地思考了我希望這本書完成什麼，並耐心地説明我完成它。索菲亞·格魯普曼（Sofia Groopman）在迫切需要這本書時給了它新的視角。喬安娜、蒂娜和凱蒂以熱情和技巧指導我完成了宣傳過程。蒂姆·杜根（Tim Duggan）在這個專案上抓住了機會，而我卻沒有理由這樣做。對於他們所有人，以及他們為我所做的工作，我非常感謝。

Many people read various drafts and offered important feedback, from questioning the choice of a word in a particular sentence to doubting the wisdom of deleting an entire chapter. Charles Tyler read a very early draft and forced me to hone in on a few core themes. Kyle Bumgarner and Sam Rudman offered helpful feedback early in the writing process. Kiel Brennan-Marquez, who has had the official and unofficial burden of teaching me writing for many years, read and critiqued multiple drafts. I appreciate all of their efforts.

許多人閱讀了各種草稿並提供了重要的反饋，從質疑特定句子中單詞的選擇到懷疑刪除整章是否明智。查理斯·泰勒（Charles Tyler）讀了一份非常早期的草稿，並迫使我磨練了幾個核心主題。Kyle Bumgarner 和 Sam Rudman 在寫作過程的早期提供了有用的反饋。基爾·布倫南-瑪律克斯（Kiel Brennan-Marquez）多年來一直承擔著教我寫作的官方和非官方責任，他閱讀並批評了多份草稿。我感謝他們的所有努力。

I’m grateful to the many people who opened up about their lives and work, including Jane Rex, Sally Williamson, Jennifer McGuffey, Mindy Farmer, Brian Campbell, Stevie Van Gordon, Sherry Gaston, Katrina Reed, Elizabeth Wilkins, JJ Snidow, and Jim Williamson. They made the book better by exposing me to new ideas and experiences.

我感謝許多敞開心扉談論他們的生活和工作的人，包括簡·雷克斯、莎莉·威廉姆森、詹妮弗·麥格菲、明迪·法默、布萊恩·坎貝爾、史蒂夫·范·戈登、雪麗·加斯頓、卡特里娜·裡德、伊麗莎白·威爾金斯、JJ Snidow 和吉姆·威廉姆森。他們通過讓我接觸到新的想法和經驗，使這本書變得更好。

I’ve been fortunate to have Darrell Stark, Nate Ellis, Bill Zaboski, Craig Baldwin, Jamil Jivani, Ethan (Doug) Fallang, Kyle Walsh, and Aaron Kash in my life, and I consider each of them more brother than friend. I’ve been fortunate, too, to have mentors and friends of incredible ability, each of whom ensured that I had access to opportunities I simply didn’t deserve. They include: Ron Selby, Mike Stratton, Shannon Arledge, Shawn Haney, Brad Nelson, David Frum, Matt Johnson, Judge David Bunning, Reihan Salam, Ajay Royan, Fred Moll, and Peter Thiel. Many of these folks read versions of the manuscript and provided critical feedback.

我很幸運在我的生活中有達雷爾·斯塔克、內特·埃利斯、比爾·扎博斯基、克雷格·鮑德溫、賈米爾·吉瓦尼、伊桑（道格）法朗、凱爾·沃爾什和亞倫·卡什，我認為他們每個人都是兄弟而不是朋友。我也很幸運，擁有能力非凡的導師和朋友，他們每個人都確保我有機會獲得我根本不配得的機會。他們包括：羅恩·塞爾比、邁克·斯特拉頓、香農·阿利奇、肖恩·哈尼、布拉德·尼爾森、大衛·弗魯姆、馬特·詹森、大衛·邦寧法官、雷漢·薩拉姆、阿賈伊·羅揚、弗雷德·莫爾和彼得·蒂爾。這些人中的許多人閱讀了手稿的版本，並提供了批評性的反饋。

I owe an incredible amount to my family, especially those who opened their hearts and shared memories, no matter how difficult or painful. My sister Lindsay Ratliff and Aunt Wee (Lori Meibers) deserve special thanks, both for helping me write this book and for supporting me throughout my life. I’m also grateful to Jim Vance, Dan Meibers, Kevin Ratliff, Mom, Bonnie Rose Meibers, Hannah Meibers, Kameron Ratliff, Meghan Ratliff, Emma Ratliff, Hattie Hounshell Blanton, Don Bowman (my dad), Cheryl Bowman, Cory Bowman, Chelsea Bowman, Lakshmi Chilukuri, Krish Chilukuri, Shreya Chilukuri, Donna Vance, Rachael Vance, Nate Vance, Lilly Hudson Vance, Daisy Hudson Vance, Gail Huber, Allan Huber, Mike Huber, Nick Huber, Denise Blanton, Arch Stacy, Rose Stacy, Rick Stacy, Amber Stacy, Adam Stacy, Taheton Stacy, Betty Sebastian, David Blanton, Gary Blanton, Wanda Blanton, Pet Blanton, Teaberry Blanton, and every crazy hillbilly I’ve ever had the honor to call my kin.

我欠我的家人很多，尤其是那些敞開心扉並分享回憶的人，無論多麼困難或痛苦。我的姐姐琳賽·拉特利夫（Lindsay Ratliff）和黃阿姨（Lori Meibers）值得特別感謝，他們説明我寫了這本書，並在我的一生中支援了我。我也感謝吉姆·萬斯、丹·梅伯斯、凱文·拉特利夫、媽媽、邦妮·羅斯·梅伯斯、漢娜·梅伯斯、卡梅隆·拉特利夫、梅根·拉特利夫、艾瑪·拉特利夫、哈蒂·豪謝爾·布蘭頓、唐·鮑曼（我爸爸）、謝麗爾 鮑曼、科里·鮑曼、切爾西·鮑曼、拉克希米·奇盧庫里、克里什·奇盧庫里、什雷亞·奇盧庫里、唐娜·萬斯、瑞秋·萬斯、內特·萬斯、莉莉·哈德森·萬斯、黛西·哈德森·萬斯、蓋爾·胡貝爾、艾倫·胡貝爾、 邁克·胡伯、尼克·胡伯、鄧尼斯·布蘭頓、阿奇·史黛西、羅斯·史黛西、里克·史黛西、琥珀·史黛西、亞當·史黛西、塔赫頓·史黛西、貝蒂·塞巴斯蒂安、大衛·布蘭頓、加里·布蘭頓、旺達·布蘭頓、寵物·布蘭頓、蒂貝里·布蘭頓，以及我有幸稱呼我為親人的每一個瘋狂的鄉巴佬。

Last, but certainly not least, is my darling wife, Usha, who read every single word of my manuscript literally dozens of times, offered needed feedback (even when I didn’t want it!), supported me when I felt like quitting, and celebrated with me during times of progress. So much of the credit for both this book and the happy life I lead belongs to her. Though it is one of the great regrets of my life that Mamaw and Papaw never met her, it is the source of my greatest joy that I did.

最後，但同樣重要的是，我親愛的妻子烏莎，她把我手稿的每一個字都讀了幾十遍，提供了必要的反饋（即使我不想要它！），在我想放棄的時候支援我，並在進步的時候和我一起慶祝。這本書和我過著的幸福生活，很大程度上都歸功於她。雖然媽媽和爸爸從未見過她是我一生中最大的遺憾之一，但這是我最大的快樂之源。

Notes

筆記

  1.   Razib Khan, “The Scots-Irish as Indigenous People,” Discover (July 22, 2012), http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2012/07/the-scots-irish-as-indigenous-people/#.VY8zEBNViko.

1. Razib Khan，“作為土著人民的蘇格蘭-愛爾蘭人”，《發現》（2012 年 7 月 22 日），第 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2012/07/the-scots-irish-as-indigenous-people/#.VY8zEBNViko 頁。

  2.   “Kentucky Feudist Is Killed,” The New York Times (November 3, 1909).

2.“肯塔基封建主義者被殺”，《紐約時報》（1909 年 11 月 3 日）。

  3.   Ibid.

[3] 同上。

  4.   Phillip J. Obermiller, Thomas E. Wagner, and E. Bruce Tucker, Appalachian Odyssey: Historical Perspectives on the Great Migration, (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000), Chapter 1.

4. Phillip J. Obermiller、Thomas E. Wagner 和 E. Bruce Tucker，《阿巴拉契亞奧德賽：大遷徙的歷史視角》，（康涅狄格州韋斯特波特：Praeger，2000 年），第 1 章。

  5.   Ibid.; Khan, “The Scots-Irish as Indigenous People.”

[5] 同上;汗，“作為土著人民的蘇格蘭-愛爾蘭人”。

  6.   Jack Temple Kirby, “The Southern Exodus, 1910–1960: A Primer for Historians,” The Journal of Southern History 49, no. 4 (November 1983), 585–600.

6.傑克·坦普爾·柯比（Jack Temple Kirby），“南方出埃及記，1910-1960：歷史學家入門”，《南方歷史雜誌》第49期，第4期（1983年11月），第585-600頁。

  7.   Ibid.

7. 同上。

  8.   Ibid., 598.

8. 同上，第598頁。

  9.   Carl E. Feather, Mountain People in a Flat Land: A Popular History of Appalachian Migration to Northeast Ohio, 1940–1965 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998), 4.

9. Carl E. Feather，《平坦土地上的山民：阿巴拉契亞移民到俄亥俄州東北部的通俗歷史，1940-1965》（雅典：俄亥俄大學出版社，1998 年），第 4 頁。

10.   Obermiller, Appalachian Odyssey, 145.

10. 奧伯米勒，阿巴拉契亞奧德賽，145。

11.   Kirby, “The Southern Exodus,” 598.

11.柯比，「南方出埃及記」，598。

12.   Elizabeth Kneebone, Carey Nadeau, and Alan Berube, “The Re-Emergence of Concentrated Poverty: Metropolitan Trends in the 2000s,” Brookings Institution (November 2011), http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2011/11/03-poverty-kneebone-nadeau-berube.

12. Elizabeth Kneebone、Carey Nadeau 和 Alan Berube，“集中貧困的重新出現：2000 年代的大都市趨勢”，布魯金斯學會（2011 年 11 月），第 http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2011/11/03-poverty-kneebone-nadeau-berube 頁。

13.   “Nice Work if You Can Get Out,” The Economist (April 2014), http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21600989-why-rich-now-have-less-leisure-poor-nice-work-if-you-can-get-out.

13. “如果你能出去，那就幹得好”，《經濟學人》（2014 年 4 月），第 http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21600989-why-rich-now-have-less-leisure-poor-nice-work-if-you-can-get-out 頁。

14.   Robert P. Jones and Daniel Cox, “Beyond Guns and God.” Public Religion Institute (2012), http://publicreligion.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/WWC-Report-For-Web-Final.pdf.

14.羅伯特·鐘斯（Robert P. Jones）和丹尼爾·考克斯（Daniel Cox），“超越槍支和上帝”。公共宗教研究所（2012年），http://publicreligion.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/WWC-Report-For-Web-Final.pdf。

15.   American Hollow (documentary), directed by Rory Kennedy (USA, 1999).

15.《美國空洞》（紀錄片），導演：羅里·甘迺迪（美國，1999年）。

16.   Linda Gorman, “Is Religion Good for You?,” The National Bureau of Economic Research, http://www.nber.org/digest/oct05/w11377.html.

16.琳達·戈爾曼（Linda Gorman），“宗教對你有好處嗎？”，美國國家經濟研究局，http://www.nber.org/digest/oct05/w11377.html。

17.   Raj Chetty, et al., “Equality of Opportunity Project.” Equality of Opportunity.” 2014. http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org. (The authors’ “Rel. Tot. variable” measures religiosity in a given region. The South and Rust Belt score much lower than many regions of the country.)

17. Raj Chetty 等人，“機會平等專案”。機會均等。2014. http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org.（作者的“Rel. Tot.變數“衡量特定地區的宗教信仰。南部和鏽帶的得分遠低於該國許多地區。

18.   Ibid.

18. 同上。

19.   Carol Howard Merritt, “Why Evangelicalism Is Failing a New Generation,” The Huffington Post: Religion (May 2010), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-howard-merritt/why-evangelicalism-is-fai_b_503971.html.

19.卡羅爾·霍華德·梅裡特（Carol Howard Merritt），“為什麼福音派正在失敗新一代”，《赫芬頓郵報：宗教》（2010年5月），第 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-howard-merritt/why-evangelicalism-is-fai_b_503971.html 頁。

20.   Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York: Scribner, 2008).

20. 里克·珀爾斯坦（Rick Perlstein），《尼克鬆蘭：總統的崛起和美國的分裂》（紐約：斯克里布納，2008 年）。

21.   “Only 6% Rate News Media as Very Trustworthy,” Rasmussen Report. February 28, 2013, http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/february_2013/only_6_rate_news_media_as_very_trustworthy (accessed November 17, 2015).

21. “只有 6% 的人認為新聞媒體非常值得信賴，”拉斯穆森報告。2013年2月28日，HTTP：//www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/february_2013/only_6_rate_news_media_as_very_trustworthy（2015年11月17日訪問）。

About the Author

關於作者

J .D. VANCE grew up in the Rust Belt city of Middletown, Ohio, and the Appalachian town of Jackson, Kentucky. He enlisted in the Marine Corps after high school and served in Iraq. A graduate of the Ohio State University and Yale Law School, he has contributed to the National Review and is a principal at a leading Silicon Valley investment firm. Vance lives in San Francisco with his wife and two dogs.

JD VANCE在俄亥俄州米德爾敦的鏽帶城市和肯塔基州的阿巴拉契亞小鎮傑克遜長大。高中畢業后，他加入了海軍陸戰隊，並在伊拉克服役。他畢業於俄亥俄州立大學和耶魯大學法學院，曾為《國家評論》撰稿，並且是矽谷一家領先投資公司的負責人。萬斯與妻子和兩隻狗住在三藩市。

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