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| 2010/05/17 20:29:36瀏覽513｜回應0｜推薦2 | |
| 廢氣
by C. K. Williams May 24, 2010 the New Yorker 我的孫子要法拉利，我買一輛給他，為什麼不？ 第二輛是賓士，第三輛保時捷，為什麼不？ 人事多變—我的祖父只要那輛載卡多 我出生前一年一個冰冷的羅徹斯特夜晚 他側滑穿過柵門而入，一頭猛力撞上一列火車 我孫子的車要價一美元，廣大收藏的一部分 裡頭有賽車，敞篷車，貨車，甚至古董車 來自我首度擁有車的年代，一輛車齡五年其貌不揚的綠色雪佛蘭， 不像羅威的父親那輛那麼新穎—「引擎蓋鍍金，」 羅威寫道，而且，斬釘截鐵地，「是他最好的朋友。」 我也珍惜我的雪佛蘭，雖然它相較之下步履蹣跚 不能與朋友的奧茲相比，其在一年除夕超車越過我們 派對之後以時速一百一沿派克路駛去。 我推斷我祖父為他的貨車洋洋得意，還有他的駕駛技術， 但我祖母會嘟囔抱怨，「他是一個爛駕駛。」 我們是好駕駛，我們肯定，比好還更好— 難道我們不是幾乎住在車子裡？最美好的部分 即使是約會，難道不是你後座載著女友出遊？ 此刻，時速達一百，難到我們彼此相愛 不是因為我們的輪胎貼附地面，而生命永無止境？ 我還沒看過渥荷的版畫，有關肢解的年輕人 被拋出撞毀的遺骸。我還見識不多，除了車子， 正如我的孫子，他知曉每一廠商，型號， 熟記極速與零到一百的數據，而他會爭論不休 為了某人偷了另一個人的什麼東西。 我的祖父是一位社會主義者，在那字眼仍可使用的時候。 他甚至競選州議員，雖然沒有意外地輸了— 他不太有錢，擁有一間販賣糖果與報紙的商店， 而何以他需要那輛破舊的貨車，我祖母 臨死之前還在抱怨說，那對她而言仍是一個謎。 我第一次差點出車禍死掉的時候，傳動軸削斷， 我們的後輪彈跳著越過我們，我們失控打轉 在車多的高速公路，離一棵樹一碼遠的地方煞住， 很像卡謬死時的照片中的那棵樹 有他出版商的跑車悽慘地纏繞其上。 時間間隔如此短暫，我瘋汽車不久 開始著迷閱讀卡繆—薛西佛斯告訴我何以 自殺不是正途，雖然那時似乎如此。 他到底說了什麼？我不認為有多少關於愛， 那些將成為我現在的理由：愛，家庭，詩，藝術。 我有時想像我的雪佛蘭 忠心耿耿，像一隻狗。 那是死期到來之前；我的與其他所有人的。 安妮塞克頓的父親死於車內：親愛的安妮也確認過了。 波拉克，賽波得，哈柏斯坦，衛斯特；湯姆密克斯，行行好吧； 我差點，四次了，還有我祖父查理克斯丁。 我第一次想念的人，我如果當時在場 我知道我可以拯救的人：緩慢連續踩踏煞車，我會告訴他， 而且我們會滑向鐵軌，在美麗的雪景中等待。 他會提供一些智慧好傳授給我的孫子們， 火車框榔行過，我們的氣息交融蒸騰。 Exhaust by C. K. Williams May 24, 2010 My grandson wants a Ferrari. I buy one for him. Why not? The second a Mercedes. The third a Porsche. Why not? How things change—my grandfather wanted only the pickup one icy Rochester night the year before I was born he skidded through a gate in and plowed head on into a train. My grandsons’ cars cost a dollar, part of a vast collection of racers, convertibles, trucks, even antiques from the time I had my first car, a five-year-old ungainly green Chevy, not like Lowell’s father’s spanking new one—“with gilded hoofs,” wrote Lowell, and, slashingly, “his best friend.” I treasured my Chevy, too, though it plodded compared with a friend’s Olds that sped us one New Year’s Eve after the parties down the Parkway at a hundred and ten. My grandfather I gather was vain of his truck, and his driving, but my grandmother would grumble, “He was a terrible driver.” We were good drivers, we were certain, better than good— didn’t we all but live in our cars? Wasn’t the best part even of a date when you made out with your girlfriend in back? Right now, hitting a hundred, don’t we love each other for how our tires are glued to the pavement and life has no end? I hadn’t seen Warhol’s print yet of mangled teen-agers spilled from their wreck. I didn’t see much then beyond cars, like my grandsons, who know every make, model, top speed and zero to sixty by heart, and who’ll squabble because one has stolen another’s X-something or other. My grandfather was a Socialist when that word still could be used. He even ran for state senate, though not surprisingly lost— he was hardly well off, with a store that sold candy and papers, and why he needed that broken-down truck, my grandmother still complained on her deathbed, was a mystery to her. The first time I was almost killed in a car, an axle sheared, our back wheel bounced past us, we spun out of control over a busy highway, and pulled up a yard from a tree, much like the tree in the photo of the death of Camus with his publisher’s sports car gruesomely wrapped around it. Such a short time between my automobile madness and my rapture reading Camus—Sisyphus telling me why suicide wasn’t the route, though at the time it could seem so. What did he say exactly? I don’t think there was much about love, which would be my reason now: love, family, poetry, art. I sometimes imagined my Chevy was devoted to me, like a dog. That was before death arrived; mine and everyone else’s. Anne Sexton’s father died in a car: dear Anne made certain to, too. Pollock, Sebald, Halberstam, West; Tom Mix, for god’s sake; me nearly, four times, and my grandfather Charles Kasdin. Whom for the first time I miss, and whom if I’d been there I know I could have saved: Pump the brakes gently, I’d tell him, and we’d glide up to the rails, and wait in the beautiful snow. He’d offer some wisdom to hand on to my grandsons, the train clattering by us, the mingling steam of our breath. |
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