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.

有時候，在毫無預兆的情況下，父親會半夜醉醺醺地出現在我們家門口，結結巴巴地講著酒話，時而大笑幾聲，滿嘴酒氣。砰!砰!砰!大力敲著門，懇求母親為他開門。

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.

他要么剛剛喝完酒回來，或賭了幾把，要么兩者皆有。他揮霍著我們本可以用于日常開銷的血汗錢，還浪費了我們迫切需要的時間——和父親在一起的時間。

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世紀70年代末。我的父母離婚了。那時，母親獨自一人撫養著我們幾個兒子。她是一位新上任的老師。父親原本是一名鄉間酒館的駐場樂師，后來成了建筑工人。

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.

他喋喋不休地說自己計劃為我們做什么、買什么。事實上，他根本不打算做任何事情。一個在血緣關系上本應該愛我們的人，實際上并不懂得對孩子而言什么才是真正的愛，也不知道什么是傷害。

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.

對他來說，這是一種并無惡意的游戲，它讓我們時而興奮，時而覺得像在乞討。但這實際上是一種侵蝕性的殘酷欺騙，它巧妙卻又不公平地將他對我們缺乏感情和物質投入這一責任轉移到我們身上。我不相信他的話，對他完全不信任。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.

也許是他與自己的父親及其復雜的家庭關系，使他變得冷酷。也許是他生活的不幸所造成的痛苦和內疚使然。誰知道呢。不管是什么，反正它把他從我們這里偷走了，特別是從我這里。

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.

當我的兄弟們沒完沒了地談論怎樣拆解破壞再重修東西時，我卻在許許多多個晚上潛心閱讀和思考。我最喜歡的書是我叔叔給的一套百科全書。這些書讓我探索超越我成長天地以外的大世界，足不出戶隨心旅行，做那些遠非我生活所能承載的美夢。

But losing myself in my own mind also meant that I was completely lost to my father.

但沉醉在自我意識里，也意味著在父親眼中我變得完全陌生了。

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.

他能明白我兄弟們那種打打鬧鬧闖世界的方式，卻從不懂我心田開智慧的那一套。他不理解我，就干脆無視我——不僅情感關懷欠奉，對我根本視若無睹。他從來沒有擁抱過我，從沒拍過我的后背，也不會搭我的肩膀或撥弄一下我的頭發。

My best memories of him were from his episodic attempts at engagement.

他留給我的最美好回憶是他時不時地嘗試和我們接觸。

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.

這些插曲中持續時間最長的是，每隔一兩個月，他會來接我們，沿著州際公路驅車把我們帶到卡車司機樂園。這是一個破爛、煙霧繚繞的載貨汽車停車場，有加油站、一家便利店、一個小小的用餐區，還有穿過背后一扇門即可到達的一間游戲室。

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.

父親給我們每個人一把硬幣，我們一直玩到輸光硬幣才停下來。他就坐在用餐區前面，一邊喝咖啡，一邊挑剔著餐廳里食物的份量太少。

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.

我喜歡那些日子。對我來說，卡車司機樂園的確是一個天堂。硬幣和游戲充滿了樂趣，只是容易被遺忘。最寶貴的是父親能來。但是，當然了，好景不長。事實的確如此。時而，他會努力擠出時間，但每次都不會持續很長時間。

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.

直到年齡漸長，我才找到一些可以體現其父愛的證據。

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.

當Commodore 64型個人電腦上市時，我下定決心要買一臺，即使它的價格超出了我母親的支付能力。于是我決定自己賺錢。那年夏天，我給能找到的每一個庭院割草，每家賺幾美元，但錢還是不夠。于是父親答應幫我去籌集剩下的錢。他驅車帶我去鎮上南面的一家西瓜農場，把批發買來的西瓜裝上卡車，帶著我去附近的地方把西瓜賣出去。

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，他來接我。我們閑聊了一會兒，但這不是重點。重要的是他和我聊天。那時我已是一個青少年，但那卻是我第一次與他獨處。他笑著，并多次在向別人介紹 “這是我的兒子，”這樣四個字，被他用一種明顯的自豪語氣傳達著。那是我生命中最美好的時光。

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.

雖然他從未說過他愛我，但我會認定，那天是他愛我這一事實成立的最大證據。他從沒想過對我造成任何傷害。他只是不知道用什么方式來愛我。他并不是一個壞心腸的人。

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.

所以我拾起這些偶然出現的片段，并堅持認為它們是最珍貴的東西。我將它們珍藏著，在冷漠的記憶長河中，這些溫暖的片段最為窩心。

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.

我的經歷只是表明：不管父親曾經與你如何疏遠，無論他對你造成了多深的傷害，無論你們之間的紐帶是如何破裂的，你仍有時間、有空間，并且有必要去找尋哪怕是能證明父愛的最小的證據。

“My boy.”

(正如)“我的兒子。”