《渺小一生》:“唔，他的確長(zhǎng)得很帥?！?/h1>

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2020年03月06日

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　 Unsurprisingly, Smegma Cake 2 wasn’t very good. It wasn’t even hard core, really; more ska-like, bouncy and meandering (“Something happened to their sound!” JB yelled into his ear during one of the more prolonged numbers, “Phantom Snatch 3000.” “Yeah,” he yelled back, “it sucks!”). Midway through the concert (each song seeming to last twenty minutes) he grew giddy, at both the absurdity of the band and the crammedness of the space, and began inexpertly moshing with JB, the two of them sproinging off their neighbors and bystanders until everyone was crashing into one another, but cheerfully, like a bunch of tipsy toddlers, JB catching him by the shoulders and the two of them laughing into each other’s faces. It was in these moments that he loved JB completely, his ability and willingness to be wholly silly and frivolous, which he could never be with Malcolm or Jude—Malcolm because he was, for all his talk otherwise, interested in propriety, and Jude because he was serious.

不意外，包皮垢二號(hào)不怎么行。他們演奏的甚至不是硬核舞曲，而更像牙買(mǎi)加的斯卡曲風(fēng)，歡快而悠閑。（“他們的音響出了問(wèn)題！”杰比在他們表演一首特別長(zhǎng)的歌《抓鬼三千》時(shí)，在他耳邊大喊。“是啊，”他也喊回去，“爛透了！”）演唱會(huì)中途（每首歌似乎都有二十分鐘長(zhǎng)），因?yàn)槟莻€(gè)樂(lè)團(tuán)太荒謬，加上場(chǎng)地太擠，他開(kāi)始頭昏眼花，于是跟著杰比一起亂跳亂扭，兩個(gè)人感染了周?chē)娜?，最后大家撞?lái)撞去，開(kāi)心得不得了，像是一群搖擺學(xué)步的小孩。杰比兩手抓住他的肩膀，兩個(gè)人相對(duì)大笑。在這些時(shí)刻，他真是愛(ài)死了杰比，愛(ài)他那種樂(lè)意顯得徹底愚蠢又可笑的本事，那是他無(wú)法跟馬爾科姆或裘德共享的——馬爾科姆其實(shí)很在乎得體與否，即使他嘴上不承認(rèn)；裘德則是本來(lái)就很?chē)?yán)肅。

　 Of course, this morning he had suffered. He woke in JB’s corner of Ezra’s loft, on JB’s unmade mattress (nearby, on the floor, JB himself snored juicily into a pile of peaty-smelling laundry), unsure how, exactly, they’d gotten back over the bridge. Willem wasn’t normally a drinker or a stoner, but around JB he occasionally found himself behaving otherwise. It had been a relief to return to Lispenard Street, its quiet and clean, the sunlight that baked his side of the bedroom hot and loafy between eleven a.m. and one p.m. already slanting through the window, Jude long gone for the day. He set his alarm and fell instantly asleep, waking with enough time only to shower and swallow an aspirin before hurrying to the train.

當(dāng)然，今天早上他就慘了。他在埃茲拉那層樓的杰比住處醒來(lái)，躺在杰比亂糟糟的床墊上（旁邊的地板上，杰比正朝著一堆有泥煤味的臟衣服起勁地打鼾），不確定他們到底是怎么過(guò)橋回到曼哈頓的。威廉通常不喝酒也不嗑藥，但跟杰比在一起，他偶爾會(huì)不知不覺(jué)破例?；氐嚼贡炯{街真是讓人松了一口氣，里頭安靜又整潔，中午的兩小時(shí)把他那一側(cè)臥室烤得又熱又昏的陽(yáng)光已經(jīng)西斜，照進(jìn)窗子來(lái)，裘德早已出門(mén)上班。他設(shè)了鬧鐘，上床立刻睡著，醒來(lái)時(shí)只來(lái)得及沖澡、吞下一顆阿司匹林，就匆匆趕去搭乘地鐵。

　 The restaurant where he worked had made its reputation on both its food—which was complicated without being challenging—and the consistency and approachability of its staff. At Ortolan they were taught to be warm but not familiar, accessible but not informal. “It’s not Friendly’s,” his boss, Findlay, the restaurant’s general manager, liked to say. “Smile, but don’t tell people your name.” There were lots of rules such as these at Ortolan: Women employees could wear their wedding rings, but no other jewelry. Men shouldn’t wear their hair longer than the bottom of their earlobes. No nail polish. No more than two days’ worth of beard. Mustaches were to be tolerated on a case-by-case basis, as were tattoos.

他工作的奧爾托蘭餐廳，以食物（復(fù)雜而毫無(wú)挑戰(zhàn)性）和員工水平整齊劃一又親切而聞名。在這里，他們被教導(dǎo)要溫暖但不過(guò)分親昵，親切但不隨便。“我們這里可不是友善連鎖餐館。”他的上司、餐廳的總經(jīng)理芬利喜歡說(shuō)，“保持微笑，但不要告訴客人你的名字。”奧爾托蘭有很多類(lèi)似的規(guī)定：女性員工可以戴婚戒，但是其他珠寶不行；男性員工的頭發(fā)長(zhǎng)度不能超過(guò)耳垂；不準(zhǔn)涂指甲油；胡子不能超過(guò)兩天沒(méi)刮；唇上的小胡子可以留，但也得看情況；刺青也是視情況而定。

　 Willem had been a waiter at Ortolan for almost two years. Before Ortolan, he had worked the weekend brunch and weekday lunch shift at a loud and popular restaurant in Chelsea called Digits, where the customers (almost always men, almost always older: forty, at least) would ask him if he was on the menu, and then laugh, naughty and pleased with themselves, as if they were the first people to ever ask him that, instead of the eleventh or twelfth that shift alone. Even so, he always smiled and said, “Only as an appetizer,” and they’d retort, “But I want an entrée,” and he would smile again and they would tip him well at the end.

威廉在奧爾托蘭當(dāng)侍者快兩年了。來(lái)奧爾托蘭之前，他曾在切爾西一家很吵、很受歡迎的“數(shù)字”餐廳待過(guò)，當(dāng)班時(shí)段是周末早午餐和工作日午餐期間，那里的顧客（幾乎全是男性，年紀(jì)偏大，至少40歲）會(huì)問(wèn)他在不在菜單上，然后放肆地大笑，很自得其樂(lè)，以為自己是第一個(gè)問(wèn)他這種問(wèn)題的人，其實(shí)他光是那天就已經(jīng)被問(wèn)了超過(guò)十次。即使如此，他總是微笑說(shuō)：“只能當(dāng)開(kāi)胃菜。”然后顧客會(huì)回答：“可是我想要主菜。”他聽(tīng)了再度微笑，最后顧客會(huì)給他很多小費(fèi)。

　 It had been a friend of his from graduate school, another actor named Roman, who’d recommended him to Findlay after he’d booked a recurring guest role on a soap opera and had quit. (He was conflicted about accepting the gig, he told Willem, but what could he do? It was too much money to refuse.) Willem had been glad for the referral, because besides its food and service, the other thing that Ortolan was known for—albeit among a much smaller group of people—was its flexible hours, especially if Findlay liked you. Findlay liked small flat-chested brunette women and all sorts of men as long as they were tall and thin and, it was rumored, not Asian. Sometimes Willem would stand on the edge of the kitchen and watch as mismatched pairs of tiny dark-haired waitresses and long skinny men circled through the main dining room, skating past one another in a weirdly cast series of minuets.

當(dāng)初，他一個(gè)研究生時(shí)期的朋友羅曼被一個(gè)肥皂劇找去演常駐的小配角，辭掉了侍者工作（他告訴威廉，他本來(lái)很猶豫要不要接這個(gè)演出工作，但是他還能怎樣？這個(gè)戲的報(bào)酬實(shí)在太多了，讓人無(wú)法拒絕）。于是，他把威廉推薦給芬德利。威廉很高興換到這里來(lái)上班，因?yàn)槌耸澄锖头?wù)，奧爾托蘭餐廳還有一個(gè)圈內(nèi)人才知道的特色，就是上班時(shí)間很有彈性，尤其是芬德利喜歡你的話(huà)。芬德利喜歡嬌小平胸的褐發(fā)女子，以及任何高瘦的男人，此外還有謠傳說(shuō)他不喜歡亞裔人。有時(shí)威廉會(huì)站在廚房邊，看著那些不協(xié)調(diào)的、嬌小、深色頭發(fā)的女侍者和高瘦的男侍者在主餐廳里穿梭，像在跳著詭異的小步舞曲。

　 Not everyone who waited at Ortolan was an actor. Or to be more precise, not everyone at Ortolan was still an actor. There were certain restaurants in New York where one went from being an actor who waited tables to, somehow, being a waiter who was once an actor. And if the restaurant was good enough, respected enough, that was not only a perfectly acceptable career transition, it was a preferable one. A waiter at a well-regarded restaurant could get his friends a coveted reservation, could charm the kitchen staff into sending out free dishes to those same friends (though as Willem learned, charming the kitchen staff was less easy than he’d thought it would be). But what could an actor who waited tables get his friends? Tickets to yet another off-off-Broadway production for which you had to supply your own suit because you were playing a stockbroker who may or may not be a zombie, and yet there was no money for costumes? (He’d had to do exactly that last year, and because he didn’t have a suit of his own, he’d had to borrow one of Jude’s. Jude’s legs were about an inch longer than his, and so for the duration of the run he’d had to fold the pants legs under and stick them in place with masking tape.)

奧爾托蘭餐廳的侍者并非都是演員。說(shuō)得更精確一點(diǎn)，奧爾托蘭餐廳的侍者并不全是現(xiàn)役演員。紐約的一些餐廳里，去工作的人剛開(kāi)始是兼差端盤(pán)子的演員，后來(lái)不知怎的，就成了以前演過(guò)戲的侍者了。如果餐廳夠好、夠受尊重，那么改行不光完全可以接受，還非常理想。在一家評(píng)價(jià)很好的餐廳當(dāng)侍者，可以幫朋友弄到他們渴望的座位，還可以巴結(jié)廚房人員送免費(fèi)的菜色招待這些朋友（不過(guò)威廉后來(lái)發(fā)現(xiàn)，巴結(jié)廚房人員沒(méi)他原先以為的那么容易）。但一個(gè)端盤(pán)子的演員能幫他的朋友弄到什么？一出外外百老匯的戲票？你在里頭演戲，還得自己掏腰包買(mǎi)西裝，因?yàn)槟阊莸氖枪善苯?jīng)紀(jì)人，可能是僵尸也可能不是，卻連西裝都穿不起（他去年就遇到一次這樣的狀況，因?yàn)樗麤](méi)有西裝，只好跟裘德借。裘德的腿比他長(zhǎng)了大約一英寸，演出期間他只得把褲腳折起來(lái)，用膠帶黏?。?。

　 It was easy to tell who at Ortolan was once an actor and was now a career waiter. The careerists were older, for one, and precise and fussy about enforcing Findlay’s rules, and at staff dinners they would ostentatiously swirl the wine that the sommelier’s assistant poured them to sample and say things like, “It’s a little like that Linne Calodo Petite Sirah you served last week, José, isn’t it?” or “Tastes a little minerally, doesn’t it? This a New Zealand?” It was understood that you didn’t ask them to come to your productions—you only asked your fellow actor-waiters, and if you were asked, it was considered polite to at least try to go—and you certainly didn’t discuss auditions, or agents, or anything of the sort with them. Acting was like war, and they were veterans: they didn’t want to think about the war, and they certainly didn’t want to talk about it with naïfs who were still eagerly dashing toward the trenches, who were still excited to be in-country.

在奧爾托蘭，很容易看出誰(shuí)以前當(dāng)過(guò)演員，現(xiàn)在改行當(dāng)侍者。首先，放棄演戲的專(zhuān)職侍者年紀(jì)較長(zhǎng)，嚴(yán)格遵守芬德利的規(guī)則，很把它們當(dāng)回事，而且員工晚餐時(shí)，他們會(huì)奢華地轉(zhuǎn)著侍酒師助理倒給他們?cè)嚭鹊钠咸丫?，說(shuō)些評(píng)語(yǔ)，類(lèi)似“有點(diǎn)像上星期那瓶Linne Calodo酒莊的小西拉。何塞，對(duì)吧？”或是“喝起來(lái)有點(diǎn)礦石味，不是嗎？這是新西蘭的酒？”可想而知，你不會(huì)邀請(qǐng)他們?nèi)タ茨愕膽?，你只?huì)邀請(qǐng)端盤(pán)子的演員同行，因?yàn)槿绻阊?qǐng)了，他們至少要想辦法去，否則顯得沒(méi)禮貌。你自然不會(huì)跟他們討論選角試演或經(jīng)紀(jì)人，或任何這類(lèi)事情。演戲這一行就像打仗，而他們是退休老兵，不愿再想戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)的事情，而且鐵定不想跟那些還起勁地朝壕溝里沖、還因?yàn)閬?lái)到戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)而興奮的天真之輩討論戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。

　 Findlay himself was a former actor, but unlike the other former actors, he liked to—or perhaps “liked” was not the word; perhaps the more accurate word would be simply “did”—talk about his past life, or at least a certain version of it. According to Findlay, he had once almost, almost booked the second lead in the Public Theater production of A Bright Room Called Day (later, one of the waitresses had told them that all of the significant roles in the play were for women). He had understudied a part on Broadway (for what production was never made clear). Findlay was a walking career memento mori, a cautionary tale in a gray wool suit, and the still-actors either avoided him, as if his particular curse were something contagious, or studied him closely, as if by remaining in contact with him, they could inoculate themselves.

芬德利自己以前也是演員，但不像其他前演員，他喜歡（或許不該說(shuō)“喜歡”，更精確的字眼是“會(huì)”）談?wù)撘郧暗纳睿蛑辽倌撤N版本的生活。根據(jù)芬德利的說(shuō)法，他有回差點(diǎn)拿到在紐約公共劇院演出《一個(gè)叫白晝的明亮房間》（A Bright Room Called Day）的第二主角（稍后，一名女侍跟他們說(shuō)，這出戲的所有重要角色都是女人）。他在一出百老匯舞臺(tái)劇當(dāng)過(guò)替補(bǔ)演員（至于是哪出戲，他從來(lái)沒(méi)講）。芬德利是個(gè)活生生的演員生涯死亡警告，一則穿著灰色羊毛西裝的警世故事，那些還在當(dāng)演員的不是避開(kāi)他，好像他的詛咒有傳染性，就是仔細(xì)研究他，似乎只要跟他保持接觸，自己就能免疫。

　 But at what point had Findlay decided he would give up acting, and how had it happened? Was it simply age? He was, after all, old: forty-five, fifty, somewhere around there. How did you know that it was time to give up? Was it when you were thirty-eight and still hadn’t found an agent (as they suspected had happened to Joel)? Was it when you were forty and still had a roommate and were making more as a part-time waiter than you had made the year you decided to be a full-time actor (as they knew had happened to Kevin)? Was it when you got fat, or bald, or got bad plastic surgery that couldn’t disguise the fact that you were fat and bald? When did pursuing your ambitions cross the line from brave into foolhardy? How did you know when to stop? In earlier, more rigid, less encouraging (and ultimately, more helpful) decades, things would be much clearer: you would stop when you turned forty, or when you got married, or when you had kids, or after five years, or ten years, or fifteen. And then you would go get a real job, and acting and your dreams for a career in it would recede into the evening, a melting into history as quiet as a briquette of ice sliding into a warm bath.

但芬德利究竟是在哪個(gè)時(shí)間點(diǎn)決定放棄表演，又是怎么決定的呢？只是因?yàn)槟昙o(jì)到了嗎？畢竟他老了：45、50歲之類(lèi)的。你怎么知道放棄的時(shí)候到了？會(huì)是因?yàn)槟?8歲，還沒(méi)找到經(jīng)紀(jì)人嗎（他們懷疑喬爾就是這樣）？會(huì)是因?yàn)槟?0歲了，還在跟別人合租公寓，而且兼差當(dāng)侍者一年賺的錢(qián)比你當(dāng)全職演員還要多嗎（他們都知道凱文就是這樣）？會(huì)是因?yàn)槟闩至嘶蚨d了，或整形手術(shù)做得太差，掩飾不了你又胖又禿的事實(shí)？你胸懷野心一路追逐，到哪個(gè)時(shí)間點(diǎn)會(huì)變得不再勇敢，或只是有勇無(wú)謀？你怎么知道什么時(shí)候該停下來(lái)？在二三十年前，在那些比較僵化、比較不鼓勵(lì)人（到頭來(lái)比較有幫助）的年代，狀況會(huì)清楚得多：你年過(guò)四十就會(huì)停下來(lái)，可能是結(jié)婚了、有了子女，或是你已經(jīng)入行五年、十年、十五年，然后你會(huì)找個(gè)真正的工作。表演和你成為演員的夢(mèng)想就遁入夜晚，融入歷史，安靜得就像一塊冰磚滑入一池溫暖的浴缸水中。

　 But these were days of self-fulfillment, where settling for something that was not quite your first choice of a life seemed weak-willed and ignoble. Somewhere, surrendering to what seemed to be your fate had changed from being dignified to being a sign of your own cowardice. There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, and that any sort of compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault. Would Willem work for year upon year at Ortolan, catching the same trains to auditions, reading again and again and again, one year maybe caterpillaring an inch or two forward, his progress so minute that it hardly counted as progress at all? Would he someday have the courage to give up, and would he be able to recognize that moment, or would he wake one day and look in the mirror and find himself an old man, still trying to call himself an actor because he was too scared to admit that he might not be, might never be?

但現(xiàn)在是講求自我實(shí)現(xiàn)的時(shí)代，勉強(qiáng)接受現(xiàn)狀、不去追求你人生的最?lèi)?ài)，好像意志太薄弱、太墮落了。不知怎的，屈服于你看似注定的命運(yùn)不再是有尊嚴(yán)的事情，而只顯得你很懦弱。有些時(shí)候，要得到幸福的壓力簡(jiǎn)直是沉重的，仿佛幸福是每個(gè)人都應(yīng)該也可以獲得的，任何中途的妥協(xié)都是你的錯(cuò)。威廉也會(huì)一年接一年在奧爾托蘭餐廳工作，搭同樣的幾班地鐵去參加選角試演，一次又一次念著臺(tái)詞，每年或許往前邁進(jìn)了一或兩英寸，進(jìn)展微小到根本很難算得上是進(jìn)展？他有一天也會(huì)鼓起勇氣放棄，意識(shí)到那個(gè)時(shí)刻的來(lái)臨？還是有一天醒來(lái)，看著鏡子，發(fā)現(xiàn)自己已經(jīng)是個(gè)老頭，卻還自稱(chēng)是演員，只因?yàn)樗ε?，不敢承認(rèn)他可能不是，并且永遠(yuǎn)都不會(huì)是一個(gè)演員？

　 According to JB, the reason Willem wasn’t yet successful was because of Willem. One of JB’s favorite lectures to him began with “If I had your looks, Willem,” and ended with, “And now you’ve been so fucking spoiled by things coming to you so easily that you think everything’s just going to happen for you. And you know what, Willem? You’re good-looking, but everyone here is good-looking, and you’re just going to have to try harder.”

根據(jù)杰比的說(shuō)法，威廉還沒(méi)成功的原因，在于威廉自己。杰比最?lèi)?ài)教訓(xùn)他的說(shuō)辭，一開(kāi)始總是：“威廉，如果我長(zhǎng)得像你這么帥……”最后總是這么結(jié)束：“結(jié)果你現(xiàn)在他媽的被慣壞了，因?yàn)槟銖男【吞樌?，搞得你以為一切都可以憑空得到?？墒悄阒绬幔?，雖然你長(zhǎng)得帥，可是這個(gè)圈子里頭每個(gè)人都長(zhǎng)得很帥，所以你得更努力才行。”

　 Even though he thought this was sort of ironic coming from JB (Spoiled? Look at JB’s family, all of them clucking after him, pushing on him his favorite foods and just-ironed shirts, surrounding him in a cloud of compliments and affection; he once overheard JB on the phone telling his mother he needed her to get him more underwear, and that he’d pick it up when he went to see her for Sunday dinner, for which, by the way, he wanted short ribs), he understood what he meant as well. He knew he wasn’t lazy, but the truth was that he lacked the sort of ambition that JB and Jude had, that grim, trudging determination that kept them at the studio or office longer than anyone else, that gave them that slightly faraway look in their eyes that always made him think a fraction of them was already living in some imagined future, the contours of which were crystallized only to them. JB’s ambition was fueled by a lust for that future, for his speedy arrival to it; Jude’s, he thought, was motivated more by a fear that if he didn’t move forward, he would somehow slip back to his past, the life he had left and about which he would tell none of them. And it wasn’t only Jude and JB who possessed this quality: New York was populated by the ambitious. It was often the only thing that everyone here had in common.

雖然他覺(jué)得這種話(huà)從杰比口中說(shuō)出來(lái)，實(shí)在有點(diǎn)諷刺（慣壞了？看看杰比的家人，全都圍著他打轉(zhuǎn)，送上他最?lèi)?ài)吃的菜和剛燙好的襯衫，用種種贊美和愛(ài)意包圍他。他有回不小心聽(tīng)到杰比在電話(huà)上告訴他母親，要她去幫他買(mǎi)些內(nèi)褲，等他星期天回去看她時(shí)跟她拿，順便告訴她星期天的晚餐他想吃牛小排），但是他也明白杰比的意思。他知道自己并不是懶，但他就是缺乏杰比和裘德的那種野心，那種堅(jiān)定、不辭辛勞的決心，讓他們?cè)诠ぷ魇一蜣k公室待得比任何人都久，讓他們眼中有那種微微的心不在焉。威廉覺(jué)得，仿佛有一部分的他們已經(jīng)活在想象的未來(lái)中，而那個(gè)未來(lái)的輪廓，只有他們才看得見(jiàn)。杰比的野心源自他渴求那個(gè)未來(lái)，渴望自己趕緊抵達(dá)；而裘德的野心，威廉覺(jué)得，是因?yàn)楹ε伦约喝绻粖^力往前，就會(huì)不小心退回過(guò)去那段他已經(jīng)離開(kāi)、從此絕口不提的人生。擁有這種特性的人不光是裘德和杰比而已，有野心的人都會(huì)來(lái)紐約。這往往是紐約人的唯一共同點(diǎn)。

　 Ambition and atheism: “Ambition is my only religion,” JB had told him late one beery night, and although to Willem this line sounded a little too practiced, like he was rehearsing it, trying to perfect its careless, throwaway tone before he someday got to say it for real to an interviewer somewhere, he also knew that JB was sincere. Only here did you feel compelled to somehow justify anything short of rabidity for your career; only here did you have to apologize for having faith in something other than yourself.

除了野心，還有無(wú)神論。“野心是我唯一的宗教。”有回喝啤酒喝到半夜，杰比這么告訴他。盡管威廉覺(jué)得這句話(huà)聽(tīng)起來(lái)太順，好像他一直在排練，設(shè)法要把那種不在意、順口說(shuō)出的口氣練到完美，以便有朝一日受訪(fǎng)時(shí)可以真的說(shuō)出來(lái)，但威廉也知道杰比說(shuō)這句話(huà)是真心的。只有在紐約，你才會(huì)覺(jué)得，如果自己沒(méi)為事業(yè)發(fā)瘋似的拼命，多少得辯駁一下；只有在紐約，你才要為自己不夠自我中心、不夠目中無(wú)人而道歉。

　 The city often made him feel he was missing something essential, and that that ignorance would forever doom him to a life at Ortolan. (He had felt this in college as well, where he knew absolutely that he was the dumbest person in their class, admitted as a sort of unofficial poor-white-rural-dweller-oddity affirmative-action representative.) The others, he thought, sensed this as well, although it seemed to truly bother only JB.

這個(gè)城市常常讓他覺(jué)得自己缺少某些基本要素，而這會(huì)害他注定一輩子待在奧爾托蘭餐廳（他大學(xué)時(shí)也有這種感覺(jué)，當(dāng)時(shí)他知道自己一定是同屆最笨的學(xué)生，學(xué)校錄取他是因?yàn)槟撤N非正式的保障弱勢(shì)群體的措施，把他當(dāng)成“少數(shù)農(nóng)村貧窮白人居民”的代表）。他覺(jué)得其他人也感覺(jué)到了，雖然唯一不滿(mǎn)的人只有杰比。

　 “I don’t know about you sometimes, Willem,” JB once said to him, in a tone that suggested that what he didn’t know about Willem wasn’t good. This was late last year, shortly after Merritt, Willem’s former roommate, had gotten one of the two lead roles in an off-Broadway revival of True West. The other lead was being played by an actor who had recently starred in an acclaimed independent film and was enjoying that brief moment of possessing both downtown credibility and the promise of more mainstream success. The director (someone Willem had been longing to work with) had promised he’d cast an unknown as the second lead. And he had: it was just that the unknown was Merritt and not Willem. The two of them had been the final contenders for the part.

“威廉，我有時(shí)候真搞不懂你。”杰比有回跟他說(shuō)，口氣暗示他搞不懂的部分不是什么好事。那是去年年底，之前不久，威廉的前任室友梅里特拿到一出外百老匯重演舊劇《真實(shí)的西部》（True West）的第二主角。演第一主角的男演員才剛主演了一部備受贊譽(yù)的獨(dú)立電影，短期內(nèi)享受著他在百老匯擁有的權(quán)力，同時(shí)擁有著獲得更多主流成功的希望。導(dǎo)演（威廉一直渴望跟他合作）向那位演員保證，會(huì)找個(gè)沒(méi)有名氣的演員當(dāng)?shù)诙鹘牵舱f(shuō)到做到：只不過(guò)這個(gè)沒(méi)名氣的演員是梅里特，而非威廉。兩個(gè)人在爭(zhēng)取這個(gè)角色時(shí)，都進(jìn)入了最后決選。

　 His friends had been outraged on his behalf. “But Merritt doesn’t even know how to act!” JB had groaned. “He just stands onstage and sparkles and thinks that’s enough!” The three of them had started talking about the last thing they had seen Merritt in—an all-male off-off-Broadway production of La Traviata set in nineteen-eighties Fire Island (Violetta—played by Merritt—had been renamed Victor, and he had died of AIDS, not tuberculosis)—and they all agreed it had been barely watchable.

他的好友很替他憤慨。“可是梅里特根本不會(huì)演戲！”杰比抱怨，“他只會(huì)站在舞臺(tái)上發(fā)亮，以為這樣就夠了！”他們?nèi)碎_(kāi)始說(shuō)起上一回他們看梅里特演戲——那是一出外外百老匯的實(shí)驗(yàn)劇作《茶花女》，改編為清一色男性演出，背景設(shè)定在20世紀(jì)80年代的法爾島（女主角維奧莉塔由梅里特飾演，改名為維克托，最后死于艾滋病而非肺結(jié)核）——大家公認(rèn)這出戲幾乎不值得看。

　 “Well, he does have a good look,” he’d said, in a weak attempt to defend his absent former roommate.

“唔，他的確長(zhǎng)得很帥。”威廉當(dāng)時(shí)說(shuō)，有點(diǎn)想為不在場(chǎng)的前任室友辯護(hù)。

　 “He’s not that good-looking,” Malcolm said, with a vehemence that surprised all of them.

“沒(méi)帥到那個(gè)地步。”馬爾科姆說(shuō)，那種強(qiáng)烈的口氣把大家都嚇到了。

　 “Willem, it’ll happen,” Jude consoled him on the way back home after dinner. “If there’s any justice in the world, it’ll happen. That director’s an imbecile.” But Jude never blamed Willem for his failings; JB always did. He wasn’t sure which was less helpful.

“威廉，總有一天會(huì)實(shí)現(xiàn)的。”晚餐后，裘德在回家的路上安慰他，“如果世界上有公平正義，那么總會(huì)實(shí)現(xiàn)的。那個(gè)導(dǎo)演是笨蛋。”裘德從來(lái)不會(huì)責(zé)怪威廉失敗，但杰比會(huì)。他不知道哪個(gè)人講的比較沒(méi)幫助。

　 He had been grateful for their anger, naturally, but the truth was, he didn’t think Merritt was as bad as they did. He was certainly no worse than Willem himself; in fact, he was probably better. Later, he’d told this to JB, who responded with a long silence, stuffed with disapproval, before he started lecturing Willem. “I don’t know about you sometimes, Willem,” he began. “Sometimes I get the sense you don’t even really want to be an actor.”

當(dāng)然，他一直很感激他們替他打抱不平，但其實(shí)他認(rèn)為梅里特不像他們講的那么糟糕。他當(dāng)然不會(huì)比威廉差；事實(shí)上，大概還更好。稍后，他在電話(huà)里這么告訴杰比，而杰比的反應(yīng)是先沉默許久，滿(mǎn)肚子不滿(mǎn)，然后才又開(kāi)始教訓(xùn)威廉。“有時(shí)候我真搞不懂你，威廉。”他說(shuō)，“有時(shí)候我覺(jué)得，你根本就不是真心想當(dāng)演員。”