签名小小的，字迹潦草。 难以辨认。 可他认得出来。 比尔·波特。
推销员比尔·波特。
82 From his easy chair he hears the wind lash his house and the rain pound the street outside his home. He must dress warmly tomorrow. He's sleepy. With great care he climbs the stairs to his bedroom.
83 In time, the lights go off. 84 Morning will be here soon. 他坐在安乐椅上，只听得呼啸的大风猛烈地冲击着他的屋子，大雨击打着屋外的街面。明天他得穿得暖和些。他觉得睏了，他小心翼翼地爬上楼就寝。 没过一会儿，灯就灭了。 早晨很快就会来临。
When children take up ways of making a living that differ greatly from their parents, differences in outlook can easily arise. This is what Alfred Lubrano found. Brought up in the family of a building worker, education led him to develop different interests and ambitions from his father. Here he writes about how this affected their relationship.
当子女的谋生方式与父母大相径庭时，很容易产生观念上的差异。 这正是艾尔弗雷德·卢布拉诺的发现。他在一个建筑工人的家庭里长大，他所受的教育使他产生了不同于父亲的兴趣与抱负。他在本文中叙述了这一差异如何影响着他们的父子关系。
Bricklayer's Boy
Alfred Lubrano
1 My father and I were both at the same college back in the mid 1970s. While I was in class at Columbia, he was laying bricks not far up the street, working on a campus building. 砖瓦匠的儿子
艾尔弗雷德·卢布拉诺
二十世纪七十年代中期，我和父亲同在一所大学里。我在哥伦比亚大学上学，他在同一条街不远的地方砌砖，在校园的一处建筑工地上干活。
2 Sometimes we'd hook up on the subway going home, he with his tools, I with my books. We didn't chat much about what went on during the day. My father wasn't interested in Dante, I wasn't up on arches. We'd share a New York Post and talk about the Mets.
有时我俩一起坐地铁回家，他提着工具，我拿着书本。我俩不怎么聊白天的事。我父亲对但丁没有兴趣，我也不懂拱门什么的。我俩看一份《纽约邮报》，谈论大都会棒球队的比赛情况。
3 My dad has built lots of places in New York City he can't get into: colleges, apartments, office towers. He makes his living on the outside. Once the walls are up, a place takes on a
different feel for him, as if he's not welcome anymore. It doesn't bother him, though. For my father, earning the cash that paid for my entry into a fancy, bricked-in institution was satisfaction enough. (1) We didn't know it then, but those days were the start of a branching off, a redefining of what it means to be a workingman in our family. Related by blood, we're separated by class, my father and I. Being the white-collar son of a blue-collar man means being the hinge on the door between two ways of life.
我爸爸建造了纽约市的许多他进不去的建筑：大学，公寓，办公大楼。他在建筑物的外面谋生。一旦高墙耸起，这建筑给他的感受就变了，他好像不再受到欢迎。不过他对此并不在意。对我父亲来说，挣点钱好让我进入一所高档的、用砖墙围起来的大学就读就挺满足了，就像他自己进去一样。当时我俩并未意识到这一点，但那就是我们之间开始拉开距离的日子，是开始在家庭内部重新界定劳动者的意义的日子。我们父子俩血脉相连，却分属不同的阶级。作为一个蓝领工人的白领儿子，就等于是两种不同生活方式之间的大门上的铰链。
4 It's not so smooth jumping from Italian old-world style to U.S. yuppie in a single generation. Despite the myth of mobility in America, the true rule, experts say, is rags to rags, riches to riches. Maybe 10 percent climb from the working to the professional class. My father has had a tough time accepting my decision to become a mere newspaper reporter, a field that pays just a little more than construction does. He wonders why I haven't cashed in on that multi-brick education and taken on some lawyer-lucrative job. After bricklaying for thirty years, my father promised himself I'd never lay bricks for a living. He figured an education would somehow rocket me into the upwardly mobile, and load some serious money into my pockets. (2) What he didn't count on was his eldest son breaking blue-collar rule No. 1: Make as much money as you can, to pay for as good a life as you can get.
仅在一代人的时间里，从旧的意大利生活方式一跃而成为美国的雅皮士不是件容易事。虽说美国有社会阶层上下流动的神话，专家们却指出，真实的情况是，穷者穷，富者富。或许有百分之十的人从工人阶级爬到专业技术阶层。我父亲好不容易才接受了我当一名普通报纸记者的决定，因为这个行当的收入只略高于建筑业。他不明白，我为什么不利用他砌砖赚钱付学费让我获得的大学教育，找一份诸如律师那种收入丰厚的工作。我父亲砌了30年的墙，他发誓不让我靠砌墙谋生。他以为我受过教育就能一步登天加入向上流社会流动的行列，并赚上大把大把的钞票把衣袋装得鼓鼓的。他没有想到的是，他的大儿子打破了蓝领规则的第一条：赚尽可能多的钱，过尽可能好的生活。
5 He'd tell me about it when I was nineteen, my collar already fading to white. I was the college boy who handed him the wrong wrench on help-around-the-house Saturdays. \make a lot of money,\hammer a nail into a wall for you.\ 我19岁时他就跟我这么说了，那时我的衣领已经开始变白。我是在大学念书的儿子，星期六在家里帮忙时递给他的扳手总是不对。“你最好赚好多好多钱，”我的手巧的蓝领父亲告诫道。“你将来连墙上钉个钉子也要雇人帮忙。”
6 In 1980, after college and graduate school, I was offered my first job, on a daily paper in Columbus, Ohio. I broke the news in the kitchen, where all the family business is discussed. My mother wept as if it were Vietnam. My father had a few questions: \Where the hell is
Ohio?\
1980年，我读了大学又读了研究生毕业后，俄亥俄州哥伦比亚市的一份日报给了我第一个工作。我在厨房里说了这事，因为家里的事都是在厨房里谈论的。我母亲哭了，好像是去越南打仗似的。我父亲问了几个问题：“俄亥俄？俄亥俄到底在哪儿？”
7 I said it's somewhere west of New York City, that it was like Pennsylvania, only more so. I told him I wanted to write, and these were the only people who'd take me.
我说是在纽约城西面一个地方，就像宾夕法尼亚州一样，只是更往西。我跟他说我想写作，只有他们肯给我这份工作。
8 \on the side?\
“为什么你就不能找个收入高一点的好工作呢，比如在纽约做广告，边工作边写作？”
9 \ “广告是撒谎，”我说。“我要报道事实。”
10 \truth?\the old man exploded, his face reddening as it does when he's up twenty stories in high wind. \\happy with your family,\my father said, spilling blue-collar rule No. 2. \what makes you happy. After that, it all comes down to dollars and cents. What gives you comfort besides your family? Money, only money.\
“事实？”老头气炸了，脸涨得通红，就像他顶着狂风站在20层楼高的地方。“什么是事实？”我说就是真实的生活，报道真实的生活会使我幸福。“你跟家人一起就是幸福，”我父亲说，无意中道出了蓝领规则的第二条。“那才是让你幸福的东西。除了这，一切都归结为美元、金钱。除了你的家还有什么给你安慰？钱，只有钱。”
11 During the two weeks before I moved, he reminded me that newspaper journalism is a dying field, and I could do better. No longer was I the good son who studied hard. I was hacking people off.
临行前的两个星期里，他提醒我说，报纸新闻是个行将消亡的行当，我完全可以有个更好的前程。我不再是那个用功听话的孩子。我让人大失所望.
12 One night, though, my father brought home some heavy tape and that clear, plastic bubble stuff you pack your mother's second-string dishes in. \my father said to me before he sealed the boxes and helped me take them to UPS. \wants,\said my good-byes, my father took me aside and pressed five $100 bills into my hands. \he said over my weak protests. \
可是，一天晚上，我父亲带回家一些粗胶纸和透明的塑料泡沫材料，就是人家用来装母亲的备用餐具的那种。“看来你做不了这个事，”父亲对我说。接着他封好箱子并帮我把箱子拿到联邦快运公司。“这是他要做的事，”我动身去哥伦比亚那天，父亲对母亲说。“你有什么办法呢？”我道别后，父亲把我拉到一边，往我手里塞了5张100元的票子。我稍微推辞了一下。他就说，“拿着吧， 别告诉你妈就是了。”
13 When I broke the news about what the paper was paying me, my father suggested I get a part-time job to supplement my income. \out by the city editor for something trivial, I made the mistake of telling my father during a visit home. \the rage building. \ 当我跟他们说了报社给我多少薪水时，父亲建议我找个兼职以弥补工资的不足。“也许你可以开出租车。”有一次，为了件小事我被本地新闻编辑责骂，我犯了个错，回家时把这事跟父亲讲了。“他们简直就不付你什么工钱，把你差来差去，欺人太甚了，”他跟我说着，火气就上来了。“下一次，你要卡着那家伙的脖子，告诉他，他是个大混蛋。”
14 My father isn't crazy about his life. He wanted to be a singer and actor when he was young, but his Italian family expected money to be coming in. (3) My dad learned a trade, as he was supposed to, and settled into a life of pre-scripted routine. 我父亲对自己的生活并不心满意足。他年轻时想当歌唱家和演员，可他的意大利家庭等着钱用。爸爸就像家人期望的那样，学了一门手艺，过上了一种预先设计好的生活。
15 Although I see my dad infrequently, my brother, who lives at home, is with the old man every day. Chris has a lot more blue-collar in him than I do, despite his management-level career. Once in a while he'll bag a lunch and, in a nice wool suit, meet my father at a construction site and share sandwiches.
我虽然不经常见到爸爸，但我弟弟住在家里，天天和老爸在一起。克里斯虽然身为管理人员，却比我更像蓝领。他不时地会装上一袋午餐，穿着考究的毛料西装，在建筑工地上与父亲相会，跟他一起吃三明治。
16 It was Chris who helped my dad most when my father tried to change his life several months ago. My dad wanted a civil-service bricklayer foreman's job that wouldn't be so physically demanding. There was a written test that included essay questions about construction work. My father hadn't done anything like it in forty years. Every morning before sunrise, Chris would be ironing a shirt and my father would sit at the kitchen table and read aloud his practice essays on how to wash down a wall, or how to build a tricky corner. Chris would suggest words and approaches.
几个月前，当父亲想改变一下自己的生活时，是克里斯给了父亲最大的帮助。父亲想当行政部门砌砖工人的领班，这活儿对体力的要求不是太高。想做这份工作，要参加笔试，回答有关建筑工作的一些问题。父亲有40年没做过这样的事情了。每天太阳还没有出来，克里斯在一边熨烫衬衣，父亲坐在厨房餐桌旁，大声朗读他练习写的怎么洗刷墙壁，怎么砌一个难砌的墙角的回答。克里斯则提出建议，用什么词儿，如何回答。
17 It was so hard for my dad. He had to take a prep course in a junior high school three nights a week after work for six weeks. At class time, the outside men would come in, twenty-five construction workers squeezing themselves into little desks. Tough blue-collar guys armed with No. 2 pencils leaning over and scratching out their practice essays, cement in their hair, tar on their pants, their work boots too big and clumsy to fit under the desks.
这真是难为了老父。一连6个星期,他下班后每星期3个晚上得去一所初中上培训班。
上课的时候，这些常年在外面干活的人走进教室，25个建筑工人，一个个挤坐在小小的桌椅里。干重活的蓝领工人握着2号铅笔，趴在桌子上费力地书写他们练习回答的文字，头发里沾着水泥，裤子上蹭着沥青，工作靴又笨又重，小桌子下面都放不大下。
18 \nervous?\coaching, for putting him through school this time. My father thinks he did okay, but he's still awaiting the test results. (4) In the meantime, he takes life the blue-collar way, one brick at a time. “期终考试是不是都这样？”父亲在电话里会问我。“你以前也一直这么紧张吗？”我跟他说是的。我跟他说写文章向来不容易。他感谢我和克里斯辅导他，帮助他这次完成了学业。父亲觉得自己考得不错，不过他还在等考试成绩出来。与此同时，他继续他的蓝领生活，一步一个脚印。
19 When we see each other these days, my father still asks how the money is. Sometimes he reads my stories; usually he likes them, although he recently criticized one piece as being a bit sentimental.
如今，我俩见面时，父亲仍要问我挣多少钱。有时他读我写的报道；他通常还喜欢，不过最近他批评我的一篇报道有点感情用事。
20 During one of my visits to Brooklyn not long ago, he and I were in the car, on our way to buy toiletries, one of my father's weekly routines. \know, you're not as successful as you could be,\restaurants, better clothes.\five or six similar big issues that are replayed like well-worn videotapes. I wanted to fast-forward this thing when we stopped at a red light.
不久前我回布鲁克林，和他坐在车里，去买化妆用品。这是父亲每星期要干的事情。“我说，你是可以干得好一些的，”他又开始了，还是蓝领风格直来直去。“你读书时挺卖力。你理应上好一点的饭店，穿好一点的衣裳。”又来了，我心想，又是老一套。我敢肯定每家人家都有那么5、6个类似的经常争论的大问题，就像反复放了多遍老掉牙的录像带。我们在一个红灯前停下时，我想着要把这事快快带过去。
21 Just then my father turned to me, solemn and intense. \man to do something he likes and get paid for it -- that's fantastic.\light changed, and we drove on. To thank him for the understanding, I sprang for the deodorant and shampoo. For once, my father let me pay.
就在那时，父亲转身看着我，满脸严肃认真。“我羡慕你，”他轻声道。“一个人能做自己喜欢做的事，还能挣钱――真是好极了。”他对着我微笑，变绿灯了，我们继续往前开。为了感谢他的理解，我冲上前去，买了除臭剂和香波，这一次父亲总算让我付了钱。