The Road to Championship 充滿荊棘的榮譽之路

蔣素華

丹尼爾·詹姆斯·布朗的《激流男孩》（The Boys in the Boat）以傳記的形式，從喬伊的視角，講述了來自美國華盛頓州的九個小伙子克服種種艱難險阻，在客場及賽道不利的情況下，在1936年柏林舉辦的奧運會上一舉奪得八槳賽艇奧運金牌的感人經歷。他們的事跡震驚劃艇界，轟動全世界！

主人公喬伊和他的隊友幾乎全部來自社會底層，而且當時的美國正值經濟大蕭條時期。五歲時喬伊就失去了親生母親，因受后媽的排擠，10歲的喬伊多次被家人寄居于他人家中，15歲開始就被迫獨自生活，有時靠采野菜捕魚蝦果腹。為了養活自己他還干過各種超強度的體力活，因此也練就了強壯的體魄和驚人的毅力，以及對團隊的強烈歸屬感。

So began Joes life in exile（背井離鄉）. Thula would no longer cook for him， so every morning before school and again every evening he trudged（跋涉）down the wagon road（馬車道）to the cookhouse at the bottom of the mountain to work for the company cook， Mother Cleveland， in exchange for breakfast and dinner. His job was to carry heavy trays of food—plates heaped up（堆起來）high with hotcakes and bacon in the morning and with slabs（厚片）of meat and steaming potatoes in the evenings—from the cookhouse to the adjoining（比鄰的）dining hall， where miners and sawyers（礦工和鋸木工）in dirty overalls（工作服）sat at long tables covered with white butcher paper， talking loudly and eating ravenously（貪婪地，狼吞虎咽地）. As the men finished their meals， Joe hauled（拖，拉）their dirty dishes back to the cookhouse. In the evenings he trudged back up the mountain to the schoolhouse to chop more wood， do his schoolwork， and sleep as best he could.

He fed himself and made his way， but his world had grown dark， narrow， and lonely. There were no boys his age whom he could befriend in the camp. His closest companions—his only companions since moving to Boulder City—had always been his father and Harry Junior. Now living in the schoolhouse， he pined for（渴望，思念）the times when the three of them had formed a kind of confederation（同盟）of resistance to Thulas increasing sourness（乖僻）， sneaking out behind the cabin（從船艙后偷偷溜走）to toss a ball（投球）around among the pine trees（松樹）or to roughhouse（斗毆）in the dust， or sitting at the piano， pounding out（連續猛擊）their favorite songs whenever she was safely out of earshot（聽不見）.

One autumn day the schoolteacher took Joe and the rest of his students on a natural-history field trip into the woods. He led them to an old， rotten stump（樹樁）on which a large white fungus（銀耳）was growing—a rounded， convoluted（盤繞的）mass of creamy folds and wrinkles. The teacher plucked（拔除）the fungus off the stump， held it aloft（在……上面）， and proclaimed（宣布）it a cauliflower mushroom（花椰菜菇）， Sparassis（甘藍菌屬）radicata（毛頭乳菇）. Not only was it edible（可食用的）， the teacher exclaimed， but it was delicious when stewed（燉）slowly. The revelation（出乎意料的事，啟示）that one could find free food just sitting on a stump in the woods landed on Joe like a thunderbolt（雷電，霹靂）. That night he lay in his bunk（床鋪）in the schoolhouse， staring into the dark rafters（椽）above， thinking. There seemed to be more than a schoolroom science lesson in the discovery of the fungus. If you simply kept your eyes open， it seemed， you just might find something valuable in the most unlikely of places. The trick was to recognized a good thing when you saw it， no matter how odd or worthless it might at first appear， no matter who else might just walk away and leave it behind.

Over the next few weeks， things continued to unravel（走向失敗）at the Rantz house on Silberhorn Road. A week after the financial crash， wild dogs began to appear daily on the farm. Dozens of families had simply walked away from their homes and farms in Sequim that fall， many leaving dogs behind to fend for（照料）themselves. Now packs of them began chasing the cows all over the Rantz property， relentlessly（無情地）nipping at（緊追猛咬）their legs. The bellowing（吼叫的）， distressed cows lumbered（緩慢地移動）among the stumps until they were exhausted and stopped giving the milk that was the farms principal cash product. Two weeks later， minks（貂）stole into the henhouse and slaughtered（屠殺）dozens of chickens， leaving their bloody corpses piled up in the corners. A few nights later， they did it again， almost as if for sport， and now the egg money dwindled（減少）away.

Rain was still pounding the roof of the half-finished house in Sequim when Joe woke up the next morning. A wind had come up during the night， and it moaned（發出蕭蕭聲）in the tops of the fir trees（冷杉）behind the house. Joe lay in bed for a long time， listening， remembering the days he had spent lying in bed in his aunts attic（閣樓）in Pennsylvania listening to the mournful（悲傷的）sound of trains in the distance， with fear and aloneness weighting on him， pressing down on his chest， pushing him into the mattress（床墊）. The feeling was back. He did not want to get up， did not really care if he ever got up.

Finally， though， he did get up. He made a fire in the woodstove， put water on to boil， fried some bacon， and made some coffee. Very slowly， as he ate the bacon and the coffee cleared his mind， the spinning（旋轉，指胡思亂想）in his head began to diminish（減弱）and he found himself creeping up（慢慢爬上）on a new realization. He opened his eyes and seized it， took it in， comprehended it all at once， and found that it came accompanied by a fierce determination， a sense of rising resolution. He was sick and tired of finding himself in this position—scared and hurt and abandoned and endlessly asking himself why. Whatever else came his way， he wasnt going to let anything like this happen again. From now on， he would make his own way， find his own route to happiness， as his father had said. Hed prove to his father and to himself that he could do it. He wouldnt become a hermit（隱居者）. He like other people too much for that， and friends could help push away the loneliness. He would never again let himself depend on them， though， nor on his family， nor on anyone else， for his sense of who he was. He would survive， and he would do it on his own.

The smell and taste of the bacon had stimulated his appetite mightily（強烈地）， and he was still hungry. He got up and rummaged（翻找）through the kitchen to take inventory（實地清點盤存）. There wasnt much to be found—a few boxes of oatmeal（燕麥片）， a jar of pickles（醬菜）， some eggs from the chickens that had survived the mink attacks， a half a head of cabbage and some bologna（一種大臘腸）in the icebox. Not much for a fifteen-year-old boy already approaching six feet.

He made some oatmeal and sat back down to think further. His father had always taught him that there was a solution to every problem. But he had always stressed that sometimes the solution wasnt where people would ordinarily expect it to be， that you might have to look in unexpected places and think in new and creative ways to find the answers you were looking for. He remembered the mushrooms on the rotten logs（木頭）in Boulder City. He could survive on his own， he figured， if he just kept his wits about him， if he kept his eyes open for opportunities， and if he didnt allow his life to be dictated（支配）by other peoples notions of what he should do.

Over the next few weeks and months， Joe began to learn to fend entirely for himself. He drove iron stakes（樁）into the ground to fortify（加固）the chicken coop（雞窩）against future mink attacks and treasured the few eggs he gathered every morning. He foraged（搜尋）in the dripping woods for mushrooms， and with all the recent rain he found basketfuls of them—beautiful， fluted（有凹槽的）， orange chanterelles（雞油菌）and fat， meaty king boletes（牛肝菌）that he fried in some bacon grease（油脂）Thula had save in a tin can. He gathered the last of the autumns blackberries， netted the last of the fish from the pool behind the waterwheel（水輪）， picked watercress（西洋菜）and added the berries and made salads of them.

Berries and watercress would only go so far， though. It was clear that he was going to need some money in his pocket. He drove downtown in the old Franklin his father had left behind and parked on Washington Street， where he sat on the hood（汽車引擎蓋）and played his banjo（班卓琴）and sang， hoping for spare change（零錢）. He soon found that there was no such thing as spare change in 1929.

The crash had started on Wall Street， but it quickly brought down communities from coast to coast. Downtown Sequim was desolate（荒涼的）. The State Bank of Sequim was still afloat but would fail within months. More and more storefronts（店面）were boarded up（用木板圍住）every day.

Joe dug deeper into his imagination. Months before， he and his friend Harry Secor had discovered a spot on the Dungeness River where huge Chinook salmon（大鱗大麻哈魚）—some as much as four feet long—lay in a deep， green， swirling pool， waiting to spawn（產卵）. Joe found a gaff hook（魚鉤）in the barn（倉庫）and began to carry it secreted（隱藏）in his pocket.