A Place to Stand
Those who wish to sing always find a song. ― Swedish proverb
If you have ever gone through a toll booth, you know that your relationship to the person in the booth is not the most intimate you’ll ever have. It is one of life’s frequent non-encounters: You hand over some money; you might get change; you drive off. I have been through every one of the 17 toll booths on the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge on thousands of occasions, and never had an exchange worth remembering with anybody.
Late one morning in 1984, headed for lunch in San Francisco, I drove toward one of the booths. I heard loud music. It sounded like a party, or a Michael Jackson concert. I looked around. No other cars with their windows open. No sound trucks. I looked at the toll booth. Inside it, the man was dancing.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m having a party,” he said.
“What about the rest of these people?” I looked over at other booths; nothing moving there.
“They’re not invited.”
I had a dozen other questions for him, but somebody in a big hurry to get somewhere started punching his horn behind me and I drove off. But I made a note to myself: Find this guy again. There’s something in his eye that says there’s magic in his toll booth.
Months later I did find him again, still with the loud music, still having a party.
Again I asked, “What are you doing?”
He said, “I remember you from the last time. I’m still dancing. I’m having the same party.”
I said, “Look. What about the rest of the people”
He said. “Stop. What do those look like to you?” He pointed down the row of toll booths.
“They look like tool booths.”
“Nooooo imagination!’
I said, “Okay, I give up. What do they look like to you?”
He said, “Vertical coffins.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can prove it. At 8:30 every morning, live people get in. Then they die for eight hours. At 4:30, like Lazarus from the dead, they reemerge and go home. For eight hours, brain is on hold, dead on the job. Going through the motions.”
I was amazed. This guy had developed a philosophy, a mythology about his job. I could not help asking the next question: “Why is it different for you? You’re having a good time.”
He looked at me. “I knew you were going to ask that, “ he said. “I’m going to be a dancer someday.” He pointed to the administration building. “My bosses are in there, and they’re paying for my training.”
Sixteen people dead on the job, and the seventeenth, in precisely the same situation, figures out a way to live. That man was having a party where you and I would probably not last three days. The boredom! He and I did have lunch later, and he said, “I don’t understand why anybody would think my job is boring. I have a corner office, glass on all sides. I can see the Golden Gate, San Francisco, the Berkeley hills; half the Western world vacations here and I just stroll in every day and practice dancing.”
如果你仔細觀察一個收費亭，你就會知道你與亭子里的這個人關系不是最親密的，這是生命中常常出現的非偶遇者。你遞給他一些錢，或許他還要找你些零錢，然后你開車走了。我仔細觀察過17家收費亭，并在奧克蘭-舊金山海灣大橋千百次路過，卻沒有一次找錢值得我記起某個人。
1984年的一個上午，很晚了，我驅車去舊金山吃午飯，開到一個收費亭旁邊，我聽到很響的音樂聲。聽起來好像在開舞會，或是邁克爾•杰克遜的音樂會。我朝四周看了看。別的汽車沒有打開窗戶的，也沒有宣傳車。我朝收費亭里望去，有個人在里邊跳舞。
“你在干嗎?”我問。
“我在開舞會呢，”他說。
“那其他人呢?”我看了看其他的亭子，沒什么動靜。
“我沒邀請他們。”
我還有十幾個問題要問他，但我后面的人急著要去某地，開始按喇叭，我只好開走了。但我在心里告訴自己：還要再找這個人。他眼里有某種東西，告訴我在他的收費亭里一種魔力。
幾個月后我又見到了他，音樂仍然很響，舞會還在舉行。
我再次問他：“你在做什么呢?”
他說：“我記得你上次問過了。我還在跳舞，還在舉行同樣的舞會。”
我說：“瞧，其他人呢?”
“打住。”他說，“你看那些東西像什么呢?”他指著那排收費亭。
“看來就像收費亭啊。”
“真是沒有想象力!”
我說;“那好，我放棄。你看它們像什么呢?”
他說：“直立的棺材。”
“你在說些什么呀?”
“我可以證實。每早八點半，活的人進去。然后他們死亡八個小時。下午四點半，就像死人中的拉撒路，他們復活回到家中。整整八個小時，頭腦思維中斷，他們只是呆板地工作，重復著相同的動作。”
我感到非常驚異。這個小伙子發展了一種哲學，創造了一個有關工作的神話。我禁不住又問了一個問題：“為什么你不一樣?你過得很快樂。”
他看了看我：“我就知道你會問這個，”他接著說，“總有一天我會成為一個舞蹈家。”我指向行政機關大樓：“我的老板都在那里，他們花錢為我培訓。”
十六個人呆板地做著工作，而第十七個，幾乎處于同樣的情況，卻找到另外一種生活方式。那個人在舉辦的舞會，你我恐怕連三天都堅持不了。無聊!他和我后來確實一起吃過午飯，他說：“我不理解為何每個人都認為我的工作很枯燥。我有一個街角辦公室，四周都是玻璃。我可以看見金門海峽、舊金山和伯克利山，半個西方世界都在這兒度假，每天我只是漫步到這里，練習跳舞。”
