西班牙文化之旅

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。