00:09
大家好,欢迎收听悦读FM 倾听文字的声音网络广播
这一期让我们一起来欣赏来自美国作家皮特哈米尔的一篇著名的小小说
Going Home
我是本期节目主播
滴滴
They were going to Fort Lauderdale.
Three boys and three girls.
When they boarded the bus, they were carrying sandwiches and wine in paper bags,
dreaming of golden beaches and sea tides
as the grey cold of New York vanished behind them.
As the bus passed through New Jersey,
they began to notice Vengo.
He sat in front of them, dressed in a plain ill-fitting suit,
never moving, his dusty face masking his age.
He chewed the inside of his lip,
frozen into some personal cocoon of silence.
Deep into the night,
outside Washington,
the bus pulled into Howard Johnson's restaurant and everyone got off except Vengo.
He sat rooted in his seat,
and the young people began to wonder about him,
trying to imagine his life situation.
Perhaps he was a sea captain,
a runaway from his wife,
an old soldier going home.
When they went back to the bus,
one of the girls sat beside him and introduced herself.
'We're going to Florida,'
she said.
'I hear it's beautiful there at this time of the year.'
'Oh, it is,'
he said quietly,
as if remembering something he may have attempted to forget.
'Want some coke?'
He smiled and took one,
then thanked her and retreated back into silence.
After a while,she went back to the others,
and Vengo nodded in sleep.
In the morning,
they awoke outside another Howard Johnson's,
and this time Vengo went in with the group.
The same girl insisted that he join them.
He seemed very shy,
and ordered black coffee,
and smoked nervously as the young people chatted about sleeping on beaches.
03:06
When they returned to the bus,
the girl sat with Vengo once again,
and after a short time,
slowly and painfully,
he told his story.
He had been in jail in New York for the past four years,
and now,
he was going back home.
'Are you married?'
'I'm not sure,'
'You're not sure?'
'Well,'
'I wrote to my wife when I was in the can.'
'I told her that I was going to be away a long time,
and that if she couldn't stand it,
if the kids kept asking questions,
if it hurts too much,
well,
she could just forget me,
that I would understand.'
'Find another and rebuild your life,
and forget me.'
'She's a wonderful lady,'
'Really something,'
'I told her she would not have to write me,'
'She didn't,'
'Not for three and one half years.'
'And you're going home,'
'Now,not knowing?'
'Yeah,'
he said shyly.
'Well,'
'Last week,when I was sure the parole was coming through,'
'I wrote her again.'
'We used to live in Brunswick,'
'Just before Jacksonville,'
'There's a big oak tree just as you come into town,'
'I told her that if she take me back,'
'She should put a yellow handkerchief on the tree,'
'And I'd get off the bus and come home,'
'But if she didn't want me to come home,'
'Forget me,'
'No handkerchief,'
'And I'd keep on going.'
'Wow,'
'The girl said,'
'Wow,'
'She told the others,'
'And soon all of them were in it,'
'Caught up in the approach to Brunswick,'
'Looking at the pictures,'
'Lingo showed to them of his wife and three children,'
'The woman,'
'Pretty in a plain way,'
'The children,though uninformed,'
'In the cracked,'
'Much-handled photos,'
'Now they were twenty miles from Brunswick,'
'And the young people took over window seats the right side,'
'Waiting for the approach of the great oak tree,'
'The bus acquired a dark hushed mood,'
'Full of the silence of absence and lost years,'
'Lingo stopped looking,'
'Tightening his face into the ex-con's hand,'