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Occasionally, without warning, the drunken wreckage of my father would wash up on our doorstep, late at night, stammering, laughing, reeking of booze. Bang! Bang! Bang! Beating on the door, pleading to my mother to open it.有时候，在毫无预兆的情况下，父亲会半夜醉醺醺地出现在我们家门口，结结巴巴地讲着酒话，时而大笑几声，满嘴酒气。砰！砰！砰！大力敲着门，恳求母亲为他开门。

He was on his way home from drinking, gambling, or some combination thereof, squandering money that we could have used and wasting time that we desperately needed.他要么刚刚喝完酒回来，或赌了几把，要么两者皆有。他挥霍着我们本可以用于日常开销的血汗钱，还浪费了我们迫切需要的时间——和父亲在一起的时间。

It was the late-1970s. My parents were separated. My mother was now raising a gaggle of boys on her own. She was a newly minted schoolteacher. He was a juke-joint musician-turned-construction worker.那是20世纪70年代末。我的父母离婚了。那时，母亲独自一人抚养着我们几个儿子。她是一位新上任的老师。父亲原本是一名乡间酒馆的驻场乐师，后来成了建筑工人。

He spouted off about what he planned to do for us, buy for us. In fact, he had no intention of doing anything. The one man who was supposed to be genetically programmed to love us, in fact, lacked the understanding of what it truly meant to love a child—or to hurt one.他喋喋不休地说自己计划为我们做什么、买什么。事实上，他根本不打算做任何事情。一个在血缘关系上本应该爱我们的人，实际上并不懂得对孩子而言什么才是真正的爱，也不知道什么是伤害。

To him, this was a harmless game that kept us excited and begging. In fact, it was a cruel, corrosive deception that subtly and unfairly shifted the onus of his lack of emotional and financial investment from him to us. I lost faith in his words and in him. I wanted to stop caring, but I couldn’t.对他来说，这是一种并无恶意的游戏，它让我们时而兴奋，时而觉得像在乞讨。但这实际上是一种侵蚀性的残酷欺骗，它巧妙却又不公平地将他对我们缺乏感情和物质投入这一责任转移到我们身上。我不相信他的话，对他完全不信任。我想不去在乎他，但我做不到。

Maybe it was his own complicated relationship to his father and his father’s family that rendered him cold. Maybe it was the pain and guilt associated with a life of misfortune. Who knows. Whatever it was, it stole him from us, and particularly from me.也许是他与自己的父亲及其复杂的家庭关系，使他变得冷酷。也许是他生活的不幸所造成的痛苦和内疚使然。谁知道呢。不管是什么，反正它把他从我们这里偷走了，特别是从我这里。

While my brothers talked ad nauseam about breaking and fixing things, I spent many of my evenings reading and wondering. My favorite books were a set of encyclopedias given by my uncle. They allowed me to explore the world beyond my world, to travel without leaving, to dream dreams greater than my life would otherwise have supported.当我的兄弟们没完没了地谈论怎样拆解破坏再重修东西时，我却在许许多多个晚上潜心阅读和思考。我最喜欢的书是我叔叔给的一套百科全书。这些书让我探索超越我成长天地以外的大世界，足不出户随心旅行，做那些远非我生活所能承载的美梦。

But losing myself in my own mind also meant that I was completely lost to my father.但沉醉在自我意识里，也意味着在父亲眼中我变得完全陌生了。

He could relate to my brothers’ tactile approaches to the world but not to my cerebral one. Not understanding me, he simply ignored me—not just emotionally, but physically as well. Never once did he hug me, never once a pat on the back or a hand on the shoulder or a tousling of the hair.他能明白我兄弟们那种打打闹闹闯世界的方式，却从不懂我心田开智慧的那一套。他不理解我，就干脆无视我——不仅情感关怀欠奉，对我根本视若无睹。他从来没有拥抱过我，从没拍过我的后背，也不会搭我的肩膀或拨弄一下我的头发。

My best memories of him were from his episodic attempts at engagement.他留给我的最美好回忆是他时不时地尝试和我们接触。

During the longest of these episodes, once every month or two, he would come pick us up and drive us down the interstate to Trucker’s Paradise, a seedy, smoke-filled, truck stop with gas pumps, a convenience store, a small dining area and a game room through a door in the back.这些插曲中持续时间最长的是，每隔一两个月，他会来接我们，沿着州际公路驱车把我们带到卡车司机乐园。这是一个破烂、烟雾缭绕的载货汽车停车场，有加油站、一家便利店、一个小小的用餐区，还有穿过背后一扇门即可到达的一间游戏室。

My dad gave each of us a handful of quarters, and we played until they were gone. He sat up front in the dining area, drinking coffee and being particular about the restaurant’s measly offerings.父亲给我们每个人一把硬币，我们一直玩到输光硬币才停下来。他就坐在用餐区前面，一边喝咖啡，一边挑剔着餐厅里食物的份量太少。

I loved these days. To me, Trucker’s Paradise was paradise. The quarters and the games were fun but easily forgotten. It was the presence of my father that was most treasured. But, of course, these trips were short-lived. And so it was. Every so often he would make some sort of effort, but every time it wouldn’t last.我喜欢那些日子。对我来说，卡车司机乐园的确是一个天堂。硬币和游戏充满了乐趣，只是容易被遗忘。最宝贵的是父亲能来。但是，当然了，好景不长。事实的确如此。时而，他会努力挤出时间，但每次都不会持续很长时间。

It wasn’t until I was much older that I would find something that I would be able to cling to as evidence of my father’s love.直到年龄渐长，我才找到一些可以体现其父爱的证据。

When the Commodore 64 personal computer debuted, I convinced myself that I had to have it even though its price was out of my mother’s range. So I decided to earn the money myself. I mowed every yard I could find that summer for a few dollars each, yet it still wasn’t enough. So my dad agreed to help me raise the rest of the money by driving me to one of the watermelon farms south of town, loading up his truck with wholesale melons and driving me around to sell them.当Commodore 64型个人电脑上市时，我下定决心要买一台，即使它的价格超出了我母亲的支付能力。于是我决定自己赚钱。那年夏天，我给能找到的每一个庭院割草，每家赚几美元，但钱还是不够。于是父亲答应帮我去筹集剩下的钱。他驱车带我去镇上南面的一家西瓜农场，把批发买来的西瓜装上卡车，带着我去附近的地方把西瓜卖出去。

He came for me before daybreak. We made small talk, but it didn’t matter. The fact that he was talking to me was all that mattered. I was a teenager by then, but this was the first time that I had ever spent time alone with him. He laughed and repeatedly introduced me as “my boy,” a phrase he relayed with a palpable sense of pride. It was one of the best days of my life.天亮前，他来接我。我们闲聊了一会儿，但这不是重点。重要的是他和我聊天。那时我已是一个青少年，但那却是我第一次与他独处。他笑着，并多次在向别人介绍 “这是我的儿子，”这样四个字，被他用一种明显的自豪语气传达着。那是我生命中最美好的时光。

Although he had never told me that he loved me, I would cling to that day as the greatest evidence of that fact. He had never intended me any wrong. He just didn’t know how to love me right. He wasn’t a mean man.虽然他从未说过他爱我，但我会认定，那天是他爱我这一事实成立的最大证据。他从没想过对我造成任何伤害。他只是不知道用什么方式来爱我。他并不是一个坏心肠的人。

So I took these random episodes and clung to them like a thing most precious, squirreling them away for the long stretches of coldness when a warm memory would prove most useful.所以我拾起这些偶然出现的片段，并坚持认为它们是最珍贵的东西。我将它们珍藏着，在冷漠的记忆长河中，这些温暖的片段最为窝心。

It just goes to show that no matter how estranged the father, no matter how deep the damage, no matter how shattered the bond, there is still time, still space, still a need for even the smallest bit of evidence of a father’s love.我的经历只是表明：不管父亲曾经与你如何疏远，无论他对你造成了多深的伤害，无论你们之间的纽带是如何破裂的，你仍有时间、有空间，并且有必要去找寻哪怕是能证明父爱的最小的证据。

“My boy.”（正如）“我的儿子。”