The Paperboy’s Secret送报童的秘密
My first job in journalism—long before I knew that I wanted to write, and decades before I became a foreign correspondent—was delivering newspapers for the Columbia Missourian. I started at 5 A.M. on February 1, 1979, during one of those cold, snowy winters that used to be common in mid-Missouri. The front page featured a photograph of two local children playing in the snow, and a fifty-four-point headline carried news from a distant world: “TRIUMPHANT KHOMEINI RETURNS TO TEHRAN.” The paper consisted of thirty-four pages, and had a cover price of fifteen cents. Along with my older sister, Amy, I folded the newspapers and set out with a list of addresses. Our father accompanied us on the first day, but after that we were on our own.我从事的第一份新闻工作是为《哥伦比亚密苏里人报》（Columbia Missourian）送报，那时我还不知道自己想写作，更没想过几十年后会成为一名驻外记者。1979年2月1日凌晨5点，我开始了这份工作。那是一个典型的密苏里中部寒冬，大雪纷飞。报纸头版刊登了一张当地孩子在雪中玩耍的照片，五十四磅的大号标题报道着远方的世界：“霍梅尼凯旋回到德黑兰”。这份报纸共有三十四页，售价十五美分。我和姐姐艾米把报纸折好，拿着地址清单出发了。第一天父亲陪着我们，但从那以后，我们就得靠自己了。
Amy and I planned to share the route, and our earnings would help pay the fees at a summer camp. At the age of nine, I was probably too young to deliver papers, but Amy, at thirteen, was almost certainly too old. She was striking, with black hair, a fair complexion, and cat-green eyes; people noticed Amy wherever she went. During the spring, we alternated paper-route days, but I could tell that she didn’t enjoy it. A few times, she woke me at 5 A.M., claimed to be sick, and asked me to substitute. I noticed that Amy tended to feel bad on Wednesdays and Sundays, when the paper was heavy with extra ads and special sections.艾米和我计划分担这条路线，赚的钱用来支付夏令营的费用。九岁时我可能太小了，不适合送报，但十三岁的艾米显然又太大了。她长得很漂亮，黑发、白皙的皮肤，还有一双猫眼绿的眼睛；无论走到哪里，人们总会注意到她。春天时，我们轮流负责送报，但我看得出她并不喜欢。好几次，她凌晨5点把我叫醒，假装生病让我替她。我发现艾米通常在周三和周日感到不适，因为这两天的报纸很厚，夹着额外的广告和特刊。
We had always gotten along well, perhaps because our personalities were so different. Amy was easygoing and extroverted, and I was not; she thrived at school, which I hated. Almost everything that my sister disliked about the paper route was something that appealed to me. I liked waking up early, and I liked the repetition. I liked the fresh smell of the newspapers that were dropped off in a stack every morning at the end of our driveway. I liked the official paperwork: the stop notices, the new-subscriber slips. The Missourian’s circulation department sent these forms in white envelopes that read:我们一直相处得很好，也许是因为我们的性格截然不同。艾米随和外向，而我则不然；她在学校如鱼得水，而我却很讨厌学校。姐姐讨厌送报的几乎每一件事，恰恰都是我喜欢的。我喜欢早起，喜欢重复性的工作。我喜欢每天清晨堆放在车道尽头的报纸散发出的那种清新气息。我喜欢那些正式的文书工作：停报通知、新订阅者单据。《密苏里人报》发行部用白色信封寄来这些表格，上面写着：
Mostly, I liked the silence and solitude. Back then, in a small Midwestern city, almost nobody exercised before dawn, and dog-walkers were rare. The one I saw most frequently was on the address list that I had memorized: Glenn Wood, 110 South Garth Avenue. The first time I did the route alone, he was out in front of his house with his dog. He introduced himself, and he told me that the dog was named Sadie. Then he gave me a quarter.最重要的是，我喜欢那份宁静与孤独。那时，在这个中西部小城，几乎没人会在黎明前锻炼，遛狗的人也很少见。我最常碰见的一个人就在我背熟的地址清单上：南加斯大道110号的格伦·伍德。我第一次独自送报时，他正带着狗在房前。他做了自我介绍，告诉我那条狗叫萨迪。然后他给了我一枚二十五美分的硬币。
I came home excited. The route paid a little more than a dollar a day, so a quarter tip was significant. A couple of days later, Mr. Wood gave me another quarter. When I mentioned his name to my parents, they recognized him as the city clerk who signed municipal notices that appeared in the paper. He was in his early sixties, and part of his face was covered with a large purple birthmark. My mother referred to such discolorations, in respectful terms, as “raspberries”—a quiet woman at our church had a similar blemish. Like all physical deformities, raspberries were a sign of inner goodness, or at least that was an idea I had picked up from the Bible and from things the priest said in sermons.我兴奋地回到家。这条路线每天的报酬略多于一美元，所以这枚硬币的小费意义重大。几天后，伍德先生又给了我一枚。当我向父母提起他的名字时，他们认出他是市政书记官，报纸上刊登的市政公告都有他的签名。他六十出头，半边脸上有一块很大的紫色胎记。母亲出于尊重，把这种变色称为“覆盆子”——我们教堂里一位文静的女士也有类似的胎记。就像所有的生理缺陷一样，这种“覆盆子”被视为内心善良的标志，至少这是我从《圣经》和牧师的布道中学到的观念。
Mr. Wood also greeted Amy on her paper mornings, but he rarely tipped her. It was unusual for an adult to show more interest in me; even at nine, I recognized that Amy possessed some magnetism that I lacked. After a while, I stopped mentioning the quarters, because I worried that Amy might demand half the money. In truth, she wasn’t likely to do such a thing, but that would have been my own response, so it seemed prudent to protect against it.伍德先生在艾米送报的早晨也会和她打招呼，但他很少给她小费。成年人对我表现出比对艾米更多的兴趣是很反常的；即使在九岁时，我也意识到艾米身上有一种我所缺乏的魅力。过了一段时间，我不再提起那些硬币，因为我担心艾米可能会要求平分这笔钱。事实上，她不太可能这样做，但这会是我自己的反应，所以防患于未然似乎很谨慎。
In July, Amy and I spent all our paper-route earnings to attend the camp, which was in Minnesota. A number of older boys developed crushes on Amy there, and I was rushed to the emergency room to receive stitches after slicing my left wrist open with a scalpel during a crafts unit. I had never seen so much blood; I could tell that the two young counsellors who drove me to the hospital were terrified. Not long after we returned home, Amy quit the paper route. By now, I was ten, and smart enough to recognize that only a sucker would work all year to send himself away in the summer. I never went back to camp, and eventually I decided on two goals of my own. I wanted to become Carrier of the Year, and I wanted to save enough money to buy a car when I turned sixteen.七月，艾米和我把送报赚的所有钱都花在了去明尼苏达州的夏令营上。在那里，一些大男孩迷上了艾米，而我在手工课上用手术刀割伤了左手腕，被紧急送往急诊室缝针。我从未见过那么多血；我看得出送我去医院的那两位年轻辅导员吓坏了。我们回家没多久，艾米就辞掉了送报的工作。当时我已经十岁，聪明得足以意识到，只有傻瓜才会整年工作，只为了把自己送去夏令营。我再也没去过夏令营，最终我定下了两个目标。我想成为“年度最佳送报员”，并存够钱在十六岁时买一辆车。
On many mornings, I saw Mr. Wood. He often asked about school and sports, and he told me that he had been a baseball coach and a Boy Scout leader. He was active in the local Methodist church. At some point, he started putting the quarters into my pocket himself. He would press close, and put his arm around me, and then I would feel his hand inside my pocket. I sensed that this wasn’t right, but it happened so subtly that I couldn’t even say how it began. After a while, it became almost normal. Like the quarters, this was something I didn’t mention when I got home.很多个早晨，我都会见到伍德先生。他经常问起学校和体育运动的情况，告诉我他曾是一名棒球教练和童子军领袖。他在当地的卫理公会教堂很活跃。不知从什么时候起，他开始亲自把硬币塞进我的口袋。他会靠得很近，搂住我，然后我就能感觉到他的手伸进了我的口袋。我感觉到这不对劲，但事情发生得如此微妙，以至于我甚至无法说出它是如何开始的。过了一段时间，这变得几乎正常了。就像那些硬币一样，这是我回家后绝口不提的事。
Columbia had around sixty thousand residents, and it was home to two competing papers, with the Daily Tribune delivered in the afternoon. Both papers announced Carrier of the Year in October, to commemorate International Newspaper Carrier Day. This occasion was often marked by an official proclamation from the city’s mayor:哥伦比亚市有大约六万居民，拥有两份相互竞争的报纸，其中《每日论坛报》（Daily Tribune）在下午投递。两份报纸都会在十月宣布“年度最佳送报员”，以纪念国际送报员日。这一场合通常会伴随着市长发布的官方公告：
During my third year, my friend Eric Neuner won Carrier of the Year. The Missourian published a picture of Eric receiving his award from James Kirkpatrick, the Missouri secretary of state. Eric was a year older than me, a good athlete and a voracious reader. He was the only other carrier I knew who read almost everything in the newspapers he delivered. That had become part of my morning routine: halfway through folding papers, I took a break to read the sports section, and then, after I got home, I tried to finish the newspaper at breakfast. I skimmed most political and international news, but I read everything about local accidents, arrests, and scandals. I loved the syndicated “Dear Abby” column, especially the headlines:第三年，我的朋友埃里克·纽纳赢得了“年度最佳送报员”。《密苏里人报》刊登了埃里克从密苏里州州务卿詹姆斯·柯克帕特里克手中接过奖项的照片。埃里克比我大一岁，是个优秀的运动员，也是个贪婪的读者。他是我认识的唯一一个几乎阅读自己投递的所有报纸内容的送报员。这已经成了我早晨例行公事的一部分：折报折到一半，我会休息一下读读体育版，回家后，我会在吃早餐时试图看完报纸。我通常略读政治和国际新闻，但会阅读所有关于当地事故、逮捕和丑闻的内容。我喜欢联合报系的“亲爱的艾比”（Dear Abby）专栏，尤其是那些标题：
The first step toward becoming Carrier of the Year was to win Carrier of the Month. Candidates were disqualified if they received more than four customer complaints, and they had to participate in subscription drives. In the afternoons, I went door to door, trying to persuade people to take the Missourian. I learned that, despite my shyness, I was good at selling. I liked the nervousness I felt after pushing a strange doorbell, knowing that I would have to perform my sales pitch.成为“年度最佳送报员”的第一步是赢得“月度最佳送报员”。如果收到超过四次客户投诉，候选人就会被取消资格，而且必须参加订阅推广活动。下午，我挨家挨户敲门，试图说服人们订阅《密苏里人报》。我发现，尽管我很害羞，但我很擅长推销。我喜欢在按响陌生人的门铃后感到的那种紧张感，因为我知道接下来必须进行推销演说。
It took me a little more than a year to win Carrier of the Month. The announcement appeared on March 8, 1980, on page 3, along with the international headlines:我花了一年多的时间才赢得了“月度最佳送报员”。获奖公告出现在1980年3月8日的第3版上，旁边是国际新闻标题：
The article included a photograph, along with my grade and home address. In those days, publishing such details wasn’t considered risky for a child; the paper did the same thing for its Safe Bike Rider of the Week feature. The article about my award noted that I stood just four feet three inches tall, and it quoted a subscriber. “He’s so tiny that some mornings his papers drag,” she said. “He’s a swell little fellow.” I received a free haircut from Fantastic Sam’s, a banana split from Baskin-Robbins, and five dollars.文章里附了一张照片，还有我的年级和家庭住址。在那个年代，公布这些细节并不被认为对孩子有风险；报纸在每周的“安全骑行者”专栏中也这样做。关于我获奖的文章提到我身高只有四英尺三英寸（约1.3米），并引用了一位订户的话。“他太小了，有时候报纸都拖在地上，”她说。“他是个可爱的小家伙。”我得到了一次免费理发、一份香蕉船和五美元。
Size was my worst handicap as a carrier. I was so small that I had been held back in school, but even with a year’s advantage I remained among the shortest in my grade. I was naturally coördinated, and I believed that I was one of the fastest folders in the history of paperboys. Each step of the process—grab the paper, fold it twice, wrap the rubber band—was so quick and fluid that I imagined my hands as a Road Runner blur. Carriers often became obsessed with speed and efficiency. Eric, who was much bigger than me, rigged a bike with saddlebags to balance his load. My friend Brian Fick bought a Casio digital watch and timed how long it took him to bicycle his route every morning. Brian decided to skip the rubber bands, using instead the plastic bags that the Missourian gave us for rainy days, because he believed that they slid more quickly out of the canvas sack.体型是我作为送报员最大的劣势。我太小了，以至于在学校留过级，但即便有一年的优势，我依然是班里最矮的学生之一。我的协调性很好，我相信自己是送报员历史上折报速度最快的人之一。整个过程的每一步——抓报、折两下、套橡皮筋——都如此迅速流畅，我感觉自己的双手就像“跑路者”（Road Runner）一样模糊。送报员经常沉迷于速度和效率。比我壮实得多的埃里克改装了一辆带有鞍袋的自行车来平衡负荷。我的朋友布莱恩·菲克买了一块卡西欧数字手表，记录自己每天骑车完成路线的时间。布莱恩决定省掉橡皮筋，改用《密苏里人报》在雨天提供的塑料袋，因为他认为这样能让报纸更快地从帆布袋里滑出来。
My route was hilly, and I carried more than forty papers. Nowadays, it’s easy to forget how large newspapers used to be. A page from the Missourian was two inches wider and nearly three inches longer than a page from today’s New York Times, and the typical Sunday Missourian, with sixty or more pages, weighed about a pound. I couldn’t handle such weight on a bike, so I walked, cutting through yards and finding gaps in fences and hedges. If I passed through the neighborhood later in the day as a civilian, I recognized thin ribbons of worn yellow grass crossing the green lawns. I was the only person who knew what those ribbons represented—the secret ways I walked every morning.我的路线多山路，我背着四十多份报纸。如今，人们很容易忘记报纸曾经有多大。《密苏里人报》的一页纸比今天的《纽约时报》宽两英寸，长近三英寸，典型的周日版《密苏里人报》有六十多页，重约一磅。我无法在自行车上处理这种重量，所以我选择步行，穿过院子，寻找围栏和树篱间的缝隙。如果我后来以普通人的身份经过那个街区，我能认出绿草地上那些细细的、磨损的黄色草带。我是唯一知道那些草带代表什么的人——那是我每天早晨行走的秘密路径。
Most of the year, apart from summer, I delivered in darkness. Lights went on in certain houses at certain times, and I could tell if I was running late by the patterns of illuminated windows. In one Carrier of the Month feature, the Missourian quoted the winner (Mike Wagner, twelve years old, 2 Lucerne Court). “I get to see things other people don’t see,” Wagner said, without elaborating. I felt the same way, although I also had a horror-fascination with the idea that someday I would come across a dead body. In addition to winning Carrier of the Year, Eric Neuner achieved renown when he stumbled upon a trail of blood early one morning on Edgewood Avenue, after somebody had injured himself trying to break into a car. The paper occasionally ran stories about crimes or fires that had been reported by Missourian carriers. (January 12, 1982: “YOUTH TIPS OFF POLICE TO THEFT AT WIDOW’S HOME.”)一年中的大部分时间（除了夏天），我都是在黑暗中送报。某些房子的灯会在特定时间亮起，通过灯光图案我能判断自己是否迟到了。在一次“月度最佳送报员”专题报道中，《密苏里人报》引用了获奖者（12岁的迈克·瓦格纳，卢塞恩法院2号）的话。“我能看到别人看不到的东西，”瓦格纳说，没有详述。我也有同感，尽管我内心也有一种恐怖的迷恋，幻想着有一天会撞见一具尸体。除了赢得“年度最佳送报员”外，埃里克·纽纳还因为一天清晨在埃奇伍德大道上发现了一串血迹而闻名，当时有人在试图破窗入室盗窃时受了伤。报纸偶尔会刊登由送报员报告的犯罪或火灾故事。（1982年1月12日：“少年向警方举报寡妇家失窃案。”）
One morning, I was taking a shortcut beside a house on South Garth Avenue when I happened to see a high-school student getting dressed inside. The boy was a year older than Amy, who I knew found him cute. He stood in his underwear in front of a low window. We were about ten feet apart, separated by the pane of glass, and I froze. Then, very carefully, I tried to walk away. But he must have heard something, and his head snapped up. For an instant, it felt as though our eyes met. I hoped that it was only my imagination—I knew it was hard to see outside from a lit room.一天早晨，我正抄近路经过南加斯大道的一所房子，碰巧看到一名高中生在里面穿衣服。那个男孩比艾米大一岁，我知道艾米觉得他很帅。他只穿着内衣站在一扇低矮的窗户前。我们相距约十英尺，中间隔着一块玻璃，我僵住了。然后，我非常小心地试图走开。但他一定听到了什么，猛地抬起头。那一瞬间，感觉我们的目光交汇了。我希望这只是我的想象——我知道从明亮的房间里很难看清外面。
The following morning, the window had been covered with a makeshift curtain. For days, I feared that the boy’s parents would complain to the paper or to my parents. The headlines had made it clear that people could get arrested for such things. (November 23, 1980: “PEEPING TOM: AN OVERLOOKED PROBLEM THAT SHOULD BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.”) I prepared explanations—it wasn’t intentional, this is where I walk every morning—but I knew that nobody would believe me.第二天早晨，那扇窗户已经用临时的窗帘遮住了。接下来的几天，我一直担心那个男孩的父母会向报社或我的父母投诉。头条新闻清楚地表明，人们会因为这种事被捕。（1980年11月23日：“偷窥狂：一个应该被认真对待的被忽视的问题。”）我准备好了借口——这不是故意的，我每天早上都走这条路——但我知道没人会相信我。
In boyhood, guilt was a constant companion. It tagged along wherever I went; there was always something I had done, some hidden mistake or private atrocity, that was on the verge of being discovered. I often got in trouble at school, usually for making other kids laugh in class, and I dreaded the angry notes that teachers included in my report cards. A couple of times, I shoplifted baseball cards from the local drugstore. I slipped a pack or two into my shorts, and then I paid for one at the counter, being sure to smile and make eye contact. It was easy, but afterward I felt bad, and I stopped before it became a habit.童年时，内疚如影随形。它跟着我走到任何地方；总有一些我做过的事、隐藏的错误或私下的暴行，随时可能被发现。我经常在学校惹麻烦，通常是因为在课堂上逗其他孩子笑，我非常害怕老师在成绩单里写的愤怒评语。有几次，我在当地的药店偷过棒球卡。我把一两包卡片塞进短裤里，然后去柜台付其中一包的钱，确保自己微笑着与店员进行眼神交流。这很容易，但事后我感觉很糟，在养成习惯之前我就停止了。
I attended a small Catholic school, and periodically all the students were escorted into the church in order to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The screened confessional booths were situated in the back, but it was also possible to meet a priest face to face. Anybody who chose this option had to walk past the altar to the front of the church, where the priest waited in a small room. Perhaps because of this visibility, it became a point of pride for tough-minded boys to scorn the screens. In our opinion, only girls and weaklings slunk to the back; it felt good to stride before the congregation with your head high.我上的是一所小型天主教学校，学生们会定期被带到教堂进行忏悔圣事。带屏风的忏悔室位于后方，但也可以选择与牧师面对面交流。任何选择这种方式的人都必须走过祭坛，来到教堂前方的牧师等待的小房间。也许是因为这种公开性，坚强的男孩们以鄙视屏风为荣。在我们看来，只有女孩和软弱的人才会溜到后面；昂首挺胸地走在会众面前感觉很好。
But once I was sitting across from the priest my courage evaporated. I mumbled through some ten-cent sins—I disobeyed my parents, I was mean to my sister—and got out as quickly as possible. On my way back to the pew, the guilt was still there, loping doggedly at my side.但一旦坐在牧师对面，我的勇气就烟消云散了。我含糊地嘟囔了一些微不足道的罪过——我不听父母的话，我对姐姐刻薄——然后尽快逃了出来。在回长椅的路上，内疚感依然存在，顽固地跟在我身边。
A couple of times, I thought about mentioning Mr. Wood to the priest. Something in my mind shut off when he touched me: my body would freeze, and I would think about nothing until it was over and the quarter was safely inside my pocket. Mr. Wood smoked cigars, and the heavy scent was often on his clothes when he came close. Occasionally, he pretended to miss the pocket, and his hand slipped inside my pants. “Whoops!” he would say. “Sorry about that.” At those moments, I felt the touch of his fingers, and I flinched and pulled away.有几次，我想过向牧师提起伍德先生的事。当他触碰我时，我脑子里的某处就会关闭：我的身体会僵住，直到一切结束，硬币安全地放进口袋，我才会什么都不想。伍德先生抽雪茄，他靠近时，衣服上常有浓重的气味。偶尔，他假装没对准口袋，手滑进我的裤子里。“哎呀！”他会说。“抱歉啊。”在那一刻，我感觉到他手指的触碰，我畏缩着退开了。
He seemed to sense when I became too uncomfortable. A week or more might pass before he put his arm around me again, and during the interlude he remained friendly. He was the only person on the route who talked to me regularly. His children were much older than me, and I told myself that this was the source of his affection—he was a father, after all. His wife rarely joined him on his walks; the few times I met her, she didn’t say much. After a while, Mr. Wood asked if I wanted to earn some extra money on Saturdays. His fraternal lodge, the Odd Fellows, organized a group of boys who sold soft drinks at University of Missouri football games.他似乎能感觉到我何时变得太不自在。可能会过一周甚至更久他才会再次搂住我，而在那期间他依然表现得友好。他是报纸路线上唯一经常与我交谈的人。他的孩子比我大得多，我告诉自己这就是他对我表现出关心的原因——毕竟他是一位父亲。他的妻子很少陪他散步；我见过她几次，她话不多。过了一段时间，伍德先生问我周六想不想赚点外快。他的兄弟会组织“奇人会”（Odd Fellows）组织了一群男孩在密苏里大学的橄榄球比赛中卖软饮料。
I decided not to say anything to the priest. I knew from the past that most of my worries turned out to be baseless. After I saw the high-school boy getting dressed, there wasn’t any fallout. Maybe he hadn’t recognized me, or maybe he just hadn’t thought much about it. In my experience, invisibility was part of childhood. It was like the illuminated windows on a darkened street—I saw more of other people than they could see of me.我决定什么也不跟牧师说。我从过去的经验中知道，我的大多数担忧最终都是毫无根据的。在那次看到高中生穿衣服之后，并没有发生任何后果。也许他没认出我，或者他根本没把这当回事。以我的经验，隐形是童年的一部分。就像黑暗街道上亮着的窗户——我看到别人的东西比他们能看到我的多得多。
My home was less than a mile from the campus of the University of Missouri. My father taught in the sociology department, and many professors, some of them well known, lived in our neighborhood. I delivered the paper to 408 Thilly Avenue, which belonged to an English professor and a fiction writer who had co-founded the Missouri Review. A famous biologist had built the house at 504 Westmount Avenue. My father told me that 106 West Lathrop Road, an old, slightly run-down two-story at the edge of the woods, had once been occupied by a strange, great man named Thorstein Veblen. According to my father, Veblen had lived in the basement, which he entered and exited through a window.我家距离密苏里大学校园不到一英里。我父亲在社会学系任教，许多教授，其中一些很有名，都住在我们社区。我给西利大道408号送报，那属于一位英语教授和小说家，他曾共同创办了《密苏里评论》。一位著名的生物学家建造了西蒙特大道504号的房子。父亲告诉我，西拉斯罗普路106号，那是一栋位于树林边缘、略显破旧的两层小楼，曾经住着一位古怪的伟人，名叫托斯丹·凡勃伦。据父亲说，凡勃伦住在地下室，通过窗户进出。
Whenever I passed the house, I imagined somebody clambering through the window wells. Veblen’s name was hard to remember, but I connected the house and its basement to the phrase “conspicuous consumption.” Long before I understood the term, I was taken with its poetry. That was true of many of my father’s work words: “methodology,” “longitudinal,” “social deviance.”每当我经过那栋房子，我就会想象有人爬过窗井。凡勃伦的名字很难记，但我把这栋房子及其地下室与“炫耀性消费”（conspicuous consumption）这个词联系在了一起。早在理解这个词之前，我就被它的诗意所吸引。父亲工作中的许多词汇也是如此：“方法论”、“纵向的”、“社会偏差”。
He used these terms casually, and he loved telling stories. If he heard something vivid or shocking, he couldn’t stop himself from repeating it, not even to a child. Because of my father, I knew that one house on my route, 703 Westmount Avenue, had been home to an alcoholic who killed himself in the attic. A few doors down, another man blew out his brains with a gun. Various other homes stood as narrative monuments to failed marriages and post-tenure crackups. To this day, if I think of a certain red brick house, I can hear my father describing how the professor who lived there suddenly started failing all his students for no reason. From an early age, I recognized that the university was a place where adults might behave erratically.他随口使用这些术语，并且喜欢讲故事。如果他听到什么生动或令人震惊的事情，他忍不住要复述，即使是对着孩子。因为父亲，我知道我路线上的703号房曾住着一个在阁楼自杀的酒鬼。隔几家，另一个人用枪轰掉了自己的脑袋。其他许多房子也成了婚姻失败和终身教职后精神崩溃的叙事纪念碑。直到今天，如果我想到某栋红砖房，我还能听到父亲描述住在里面的教授如何突然无缘无故地让所有学生不及格。很小的时候我就意识到，大学是一个成年人行为可能变得反复无常的地方。
Thorstein Veblen was the kind of character who appealed to my father. Veblen, an economist and a sociologist, became famous after publishing “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” in 1899. His social commentary reflected disgust with the unfettered capitalism of the Gilded Age, and his cynical aphorisms became widely quoted. (“Always and everywhere invention is the mother of necessity.”) Veblen taught at the University of Chicago, but he was let go on account of relentless philandering. The same thing got him dismissed from his next position, at Stanford. In 1911, with diminishing options, he arrived at M.U., where a former student headed the economics department. The former student found Veblen a job, and he let him live in the basement of his home on Lathrop.托斯丹·凡勃伦正是那种吸引我父亲的人物。作为经济学家和社会学家的凡勃伦，在1899年出版《有闲阶级论》后声名大噪。他的社会评论反映了对镀金时代不受限制的资本主义的厌恶，他愤世嫉俗的格言被广为引用。（“发明永远且到处都是必要之母。”）凡勃伦曾在芝加哥大学任教，但因不断风流韵事而被解雇。同样的原因让他从下一份工作（斯坦福大学）中被辞退。1911年，在选择日益减少的情况下，他来到密苏里大学，那里的一位前学生主管经济系。那位前学生为凡勃伦找了份工作，并让他住在自己拉斯罗普路家中的地下室里。
An elderly colleague of my father remembered seeing Veblen on campus. He had been a thin, gloomy figure, and it was a mystery why women were attracted to him. A story the colleague told, which my father loved repeating, was that university officials warned Veblen that they were aware of his reputation for having seduced the wives of administrators at Stanford. They told him that such behavior would not be tolerated at M.U. “Oh, I’ve seen your administrators’ wives,” Veblen responded. “You have nothing to worry about.”父亲的一位年长同事记得在校园里见过凡勃伦。他是一个瘦削、忧郁的人物，女性为何会被他吸引一直是个谜。那位同事讲过一个父亲很喜欢复述的故事：大学官员警告凡勃伦，他们知道他在斯坦福大学勾引行政人员妻子的名声。他们告诉他，这种行为在密苏里大学是不会被容忍的。“哦，我见过你们行政人员的妻子，”凡勃伦回答道。“你们没什么可担心的。”
The story may have been apocryphal, but it rings true to descriptions in “Thorstein Veblen and His America,” a 1934 biography. The book gives a lively account of the six years that Veblen spent in Columbia, which he loathed. When the Chamber of Commerce offered a prize for a new city slogan, Veblen proposed that the town be described as a woodpecker hole in “a rotten stump called Missouri.” Veblen typically gave every student in his class the same grade, an M, or Medium, the equivalent of a C. If a student needed a higher mark for some scholarship or application, Veblen simply changed it. Once, administrators confronted him about the carelessness of his grading. “My grades are like lightning,” Veblen replied. “They are liable to strike anywhere.” The biography notes the same detail that captured my imagination as a child: Veblen went in and out of his basement apartment through a window.这个故事可能是杜撰的，但在1934年的传记《托斯丹·凡勃伦与他的美国》中的描述听起来很真实。该书生动地记录了凡勃伦在哥伦比亚度过的六年，他非常厌恶这里。当商会为新的城市标语悬赏时，凡勃伦建议将该镇描述为“密苏里这根烂树桩上的啄木鸟洞”。凡勃伦通常给班上所有学生同样的成绩，即M（中等），相当于C。如果学生为了奖学金或申请需要更高的分数，凡勃伦就直接改掉。有一次，行政人员质问他评分的随意性。“我的成绩就像闪电，”凡勃伦回答道。“它们随时可能击中任何地方。”传记中提到了那个从小就引起我想象的细节：凡勃伦通过窗户进出他的地下室公寓。
As a graduate student, my father was mentored by a Chinese American sociologist named Peter Kong-ming New, who gave him some advice: Never accept an appointment as chair of your department. If anybody insists that you undertake some administrative task, do it so poorly that he never asks again.作为研究生，我父亲曾受教于一位名叫彼得·孔明·纽（Peter Kong-ming New）的华裔美国社会学家，他给了父亲一个建议：永远不要接受系主任的任命。如果有人坚持让你承担行政任务，就做得极其糟糕，这样他就永远不会再找你了。
My father followed this advice like the Gospel. He was a devoted teacher, and he liked research, but he refused to have anything to do with administration. In the various M.U. stories that he told, many of them funny and cynical, one of the ugliest words was “dean.” Other nasty names included “provost” and “chancellor.” In this respect, he followed a long tradition of social scientists who apply caustic commentary to their host institutions. At M.U., Thorstein Veblen had written a vicious screed about university administrations called “The Higher Learning in America.” He told a colleague that the subtitle would be “A Study in Total Depravity.” Unsurprisingly, M.U. declined to publish it.父亲像奉行福音一样遵循这个建议。他是一位敬业的老师，喜欢研究，但拒绝参与任何行政工作。在他讲述的各种关于密苏里大学的故事中，许多既有趣又愤世嫉俗，其中最丑陋的词之一就是“院长”。其他讨厌的头衔还包括“教务长”和“校长”。在这方面，他遵循了社会科学家对主办机构进行尖刻评论的悠久传统。在密苏里大学，托斯丹·凡勃伦曾写过一篇关于大学行政管理的恶毒文章，名为《美国的高等教育》。他告诉一位同事，副标题将是“一项关于彻底堕落的研究”。不出所料，密苏里大学拒绝出版它。
By avoiding administrative duties, my father also guaranteed himself a low salary. He rarely received much of a raise, and anybody who read the Missourian knew that the university was struggling. (August 2, 1981, front page: “M.U. PAY PLUMMETS TO BIG EIGHT CELLAR.”) But this created little distress in our household. My religious mother liked to quote Matthew: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”通过避免行政职责，父亲也保证了自己的低薪。他很少涨工资，任何读过《密苏里人报》的人都知道大学正处于困境。（1981年8月2日，头版：“密苏里大学薪资跌至八大盟校底层。”）但这并没有给我们家造成什么困扰。虔诚的母亲喜欢引用《马太福音》：“骆驼穿过针的眼，比财主进神的国还容易。”
I often heard that verse at Mass, but I wasn’t very old before I recognized that virtually nobody other than my parents took it seriously. My mother was critical of people who seemed grasping or financially ambitious, and she celebrated volunteerism. One of my parents’ highest aspirations for a child was to someday join the Peace Corps. They volunteered at the local mental hospital, and my father often took me to help out at a soup kitchen. When my school struggled to find a P.E. instructor, my parents agreed to teach it twice a week for no pay.我经常在弥撒中听到那句经文，但在我很小的时候就意识到，除了我父母，几乎没人把它当回事。母亲批评那些看起来贪婪或有经济野心的人，并赞美志愿服务。父母对孩子最高的期望之一就是将来能加入和平队。他们在当地的精神病院做志愿者，父亲经常带我去施粥处帮忙。当学校难以找到体育老师时，父母同意每周两次免费授课。
My father’s many stories never touched on personal finance. The topic bored him, and in any case there was nothing to talk about: he saved nothing and made no investments. My parents packed me and my three sisters into a beige AMC Hornet, a flagship of nineteen-seventies American automotive decline. After my youngest sister entered school, my mother returned to work in a manner that seemed calculated to generate the least possible income. She enrolled as a graduate student, spent years researching a thesis about nineteenth-century Jewish immigration to Missouri, and finally taught history as an adjunct at a small college.父亲的许多故事从不涉及个人理财。这个话题让他感到无聊，反正也没什么可谈的：他不存钱，也不做任何投资。父母把我三个姐妹塞进一辆米色的AMC大黄蜂车里，那是七十年代美国汽车衰落的标志。最小的妹妹上学后，母亲重返工作岗位，其方式似乎经过精心计算，以产生尽可能少的收入。她注册成为研究生，花了几年时间研究关于十九世纪犹太移民到密苏里的论文，最终在一所小型学院担任兼职历史教师。
In contrast, I was obsessed with money. The newspapers that I delivered were full of dollar signs: during the era of Carter and Reagan, the prime interest rate sometimes exceeded twenty per cent, and unemployment was as high as ten per cent. The Missourian ran a column called “Inflation Fighters,” which offered tips for home economy: cornmeal can be used as a facial cleanser; stale beer is good for setting hair; it’s better to fill a gas tank only halfway, because a lighter car gets better mileage. As the economy staggered along, “Inflation Fighters” became increasingly desperate: “Why waste money on tape when you can make your own? Muslin can be melted with one part oil, six parts wax and ten points resin to produce adhesive tape.”相比之下，我却对金钱着迷。我投递的报纸里充满了美元符号：在卡特和里根时代，优惠利率有时超过百分之二十，失业率高达百分之十。《密苏里人报》有一个名为“通胀斗士”的专栏，提供家庭经济小贴士：玉米粉可以用作洗面奶；陈啤酒适合定型头发；最好只加半箱油，因为车轻更省油。随着经济步履蹒跚，“通胀斗士”变得越来越绝望：“当你能自制胶带时，何必浪费钱呢？将平纹细布与一份油、六份蜡和十份树脂混合熔化，就能做出胶带。”
Other carriers also fixated on money. The Missourian was delivered by more than sixty children, most of them boys, and periodically the paper sponsored an event for us at its office or at a local pizzeria. These get-togethers were often covered by the newspaper, and in photographs I am invariably in the front row, looking small and eager. One year, carriers were invited to a free movie at the Biscayne Theatre. Whoever organized this screening was smart enough to keep the aftermath out of the paper. The film was “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” which, for a group of children who set out alone every morning before dawn, was unbelievably terrifying. I attended with Eric Neuner and his younger brother Paul, who couldn’t have been older than seven or eight. Paul dashed out of the theatre to vomit; recently, when I spoke with the brothers, they could recall specific scenes and actors with startling clarity. Eric told me that he had recurring nightmares about the movie well into adulthood.其他送报员也专注于金钱。《密苏里人报》由六十多名孩子投递，大多是男孩，报社定期在办公室或当地披萨店为我们举办活动。这些聚会经常被报纸报道，照片里我总是站在前排，看起来既渺小又热切。有一年，送报员们被邀请去比斯坎剧院看免费电影。组织这场放映的人很聪明，没把后续报道写进报纸里。电影是《人体异形》，对于一群每天凌晨独自出发的孩子来说，这简直太恐怖了。我和埃里克·纽纳以及他年幼的弟弟保罗一起去，保罗当时顶多七八岁。保罗冲出剧院呕吐；最近我和这对兄弟交谈时，他们还能以惊人的清晰度回忆起特定的场景和演员。埃里克告诉我，他成年后还会反复做关于这部电影的噩梦。
The Neuners were among the most entrepreneurial of the carriers. They bought a lawnmower and subcontracted other kids to cut grass around the neighborhood. Paul was the first paperboy I knew who bought stocks. He invested with a child’s eye, purchasing shares in Coca-Cola and the Wrigley Company. After Paul acquired Coke stock, he forbade his family to consume Pepsi products. Each year, like all Wrigley investors, Paul was mailed an annual report and some sticks of gum.纽纳兄弟是送报员中最有创业精神的。他们买了一台割草机，分包给其他孩子在街区周围割草。保罗是我认识的第一个买股票的送报员。他以孩子的眼光进行投资，购买了可口可乐和箭牌公司的股票。保罗买了可口可乐股票后，禁止家人喝百事可乐产品。每年，像所有箭牌投资者一样，保罗都会收到一份年度报告和一些口香糖。
I nagged at my father to help me invest, but he had never bought a stock in his life. Another paperboy, Sam Abadir, took a bus downtown and found a stockbroker’s office. Sam decided that the trading fees were too high unless you invested at scale, which was also my conclusion. I opened a certificate of deposit at the local bank instead. The year that I turned twelve, my mother wrote a note in her journal describing me as “Amy’s banker and confidant.” Amy knew that if she ran low on cash, her little brother would front her a loan. A few times, my parents asked for the same thing. It made me feel proud; there was often an old-soul quality to us paperboys. I still have a letter that Eric mailed me the summer I went to camp, reassuring me that my folks were staying out of trouble. He wrote, “Your parents are doing a great job on your paper route. I see them every morning.”我缠着父亲帮我投资，但他这辈子从没买过股票。另一个送报员萨姆·阿巴迪尔坐公交车去市中心找了一家股票经纪公司。萨姆认为除非规模化投资，否则交易费太高，这也是我的结论。于是我在当地银行开了一个定期存款账户。我十二岁那年，母亲在日记中写道，我是“艾米的银行家和知己”。艾米知道如果她缺钱，她的小弟弟会给她贷款。有几次，父母也向我提出同样的要求。这让我感到自豪；我们这些送报员身上常有一种老灵魂的特质。我至今还保留着我去夏令营那个夏天埃里克寄给我的信，他向我保证我父母没惹麻烦。他写道：“你父母在帮你送报方面做得很好。我每天早上都能见到他们。”
I knew that customer relations were my best chance to win Carrier of the Year. Each December, I made holiday cards by hand and delivered them with the newspaper; usually, this generated the equivalent of two months’ pay in tips. Once, I tried the same thing at Easter, but the response rate was low. (It never occurred to me that some subscribers might not celebrate Easter, perhaps because my mother had yet to research her thesis.) On snowy days, I went to subscribers’ homes and offered to shovel their driveways for a fee. After Mr. Wood invited me to join his group of boys at the M.U. football stadium, I worked every home-game Saturday. I walked up and down the stands with a tray of sodas; each time I refilled the tray, I was given a dollar. Most of the other carriers I knew did the same thing for different organizations; Eric and Paul sold drinks with a group that was organized by the local Little League. All of us kept an eye out for drunks, who tipped better. Alcohol was banned at the stadium, but the Missourian ran stories about smuggling techniques. Some fans injected vodka into oranges with hypodermic needles.我知道客户关系是我赢得“年度最佳送报员”的最佳机会。每年十二月，我都会亲手制作节日贺卡并随报纸投递；通常这能带来相当于两个月工资的小费。有一次，我尝试在复活节这样做，但反响很差。（我从未想过有些订户可能不过复活节，也许是因为母亲当时还没研究她的论文。）下雪天，我到订户家提供收费铲雪服务。伍德先生邀请我加入他在密苏里大学橄榄球场的男孩小组后，我每个周六的主场比赛都去工作。我提着一托盘汽水在看台上走来走去；每次补满托盘，我都会得到一美元。我认识的大多数送报员都为不同的组织做同样的事；埃里克和保罗与当地小联盟组织的一个团体一起卖饮料。我们都留意醉鬼，因为他们给的小费更多。球场内禁止饮酒，但《密苏里人报》报道过走私技巧。一些球迷用皮下注射针头将伏特加注入橙子中。
Once, my school assigned me to interview somebody in city government. I asked Mr. Wood, who invited me to stop by his home in the evening. Years later, my father said that some instinct told him to accompany me. We sat in the Woods’ living room while I conducted the interview. But my father’s instinct didn’t approach the point of suspicion. Mr. Wood was among the most popular figures in local government, and people admired the volunteer projects that he organized with teen-age boys. These projects were covered periodically in the Missourian. (December 18, 1981: “YOUTHS SHOVEL SNOW TO SERVE.”)有一次，学校指派我采访一位市政府官员。我问了伍德先生，他邀请我晚上去他家。多年后，父亲说某种直觉告诉他要陪我一起去。我们坐在伍德家的客厅里，我进行了采访。但父亲的直觉并没有达到怀疑的程度。伍德先生是当地政府中最受欢迎的人物之一，人们钦佩他组织的青少年志愿者项目。这些项目定期在《密苏里人报》上报道。（1981年12月18日：“少年铲雪服务。”）
Columbia was two hours by car from St. Louis and Kansas City, the nearest cities of any size. The town was remote, but the presence of the university meant that its provincialism was that of a self-contained world. The Missourian localized big events: in 1981, two days after President Reagan was shot, the paper featured a Columbia high-school grad who, as a Secret Service agent, had helped subdue John Hinckley, Jr. If something happened overseas, reporters sought out international students at M.U. who might be willing to comment. In January, 1980, the paper explained why foreign news mattered:哥伦比亚距离圣路易斯和堪萨斯城这两个最近的中型城市有两小时车程。小镇很偏远，但大学的存在意味着它的地方主义是一个自给自足的世界。报纸将重大事件本土化：1981年，里根总统遇刺两天后，报纸专题报道了一位哥伦比亚高中毕业生，他作为特勤局特工，曾协助制服小约翰·欣克利。如果海外发生什么事，记者会寻找可能愿意发表评论的密苏里大学国际学生。1980年1月，报纸解释了为什么外国新闻很重要：
The pedagogical tone reflected the fact that the Missourian was a teaching newspaper, staffed and published by M.U.’s School of Journalism. No other journalism school in the country produced a daily community paper, and many famous media figures had started out as Missourian reporters, including Seymour Topping, who was the managing editor of the Times in the late seventies and early eighties.这种说教式的语气反映了《密苏里人报》是一份教学报纸，由密苏里大学新闻学院负责运营和出版。全国没有其他新闻学院制作每日社区报纸，许多著名的媒体人物都是从《密苏里人报》的记者起步的，包括在七十年代末和八十年代初担任《时报》执行主编的西摩·托平。
The Daily Tribune also had an excellent reputation, in part because it hired reporters and editors who had been trained at the Missourian. People sometimes said that Columbia had more journalists per capita than anywhere else in America. Periodically, the Missourian’s editorial page acknowledged the town’s support:《每日论坛报》也享有盛誉，部分原因是它聘用了在《密苏里人报》受过训练的记者和编辑。人们有时说，哥伦比亚的人均记者数量比美国任何地方都多。报纸的社论版会定期感谢小镇的支持：
Over time, I became a more sophisticated reader of the paper. I especially liked quotations, the way a voice came to life in a story. A sixth-grade English teacher was the first person to tell me that I should think about writing as a career. But it never crossed my mind that someday I might work at the Missourian or become a journalist. I assumed, in a vague way, that I would grow up to be a professor like my father. Between the stories that my father told and the stories that appeared in the paper, my view of university life was impossibly colorful. The Missourian had some gifted writers, and they had a nose for the best campus stories. In 1982, when a Playboy photographer rented a cheap suite at the Holiday Inn East to scout prospects for the magazine’s “Girls of the Big Eight” issue, five hundred women showed up, including a Missourian reporter. She coolly documented the scene’s details—a Polaroid camera, three cases of Rock and Roll Beer—along with the photographer’s casual misogyny. (“Many of the girls who come in are a little on the heavy side. And they think we can do miracles with them.”)随着时间的推移，我成了一个更成熟的报纸读者。我特别喜欢引语，喜欢故事中声音鲜活起来的方式。一位六年级英语老师是第一个告诉我应该考虑把写作作为职业的人。但我从未想过有一天我会在《密苏里人报》工作或成为一名记者。我模糊地认为，我会像父亲一样长大成为一名教授。在父亲讲的故事和报纸上的故事之间，我对大学生活的看法变得不可思议地丰富多彩。报纸有一些天才的作家，他们对校园里最好的故事有敏锐的嗅觉。1982年，当一名《花花公子》摄影师在假日酒店东店租了一间廉价套房，为杂志的“八大盟校女孩”特刊物色人选时，五百名女性出现了，其中包括一名《密苏里人报》记者。她冷静地记录了现场的细节——一台拍立得相机、三箱摇滚啤酒——以及摄影师随意的厌女症。（“很多来的女孩都有点胖。她们以为我们能创造奇迹。”）
One year, after a sophomore decided to use a shotgun as a prop for an anti-suicide speech in class, the story made page 1, with a classic lede:有一年，一名大二学生决定在课堂上使用猎枪作为反自杀演讲的道具，这个故事登上了头版，并配有一个经典的导语：
The writer described a classmate diving beneath a desk, screaming, “Don’t do it!” I liked stories with action, and I would read anything about fraternities or sororities. My father griped constantly about Greek life, a nemesis of M.U. professors since at least the days of Veblen. (According to the biography, Veblen once told a student, “I don’t say that I will fail any member of a sorority or fraternity, but no member of such an organization has ever yet passed one of my courses.”) The Missourian covered so many frat fires that it almost qualified as a regular beat; the houses tended to ignite because of carelessness and poorly managed kitchens. Occasionally, the newspaper documented the quantity of beer consumed at a party with the same precision that it used to report the G.D.P. On September 11, 1982, a ninety-one-keg party at Phi Kappa Theta merited a page-7 headline (“FRATERNITY BASH IRKS UNIVERSITY”), along with a golly-gee quote from the fraternity’s president: “We threw the party with good intent. Our purpose was not to get the campus drunk. We had no idea it would get so big.”作者描述了一位同学钻到桌子底下尖叫“别做傻事！”我喜欢有动作的故事，任何关于兄弟会或姐妹会的内容我都会读。父亲经常抱怨希腊生活，那是自凡勃伦时代以来密苏里大学教授们的宿敌。（据传记记载，凡勃伦曾对学生说：“我不是说我会让任何姐妹会或兄弟会的成员不及格，但该组织的成员还没有人能通过我的课程。”）报纸报道了太多的兄弟会火灾，以至于几乎可以算作常规报道；房子着火往往是因为粗心大意和管理不善的厨房。偶尔，报纸会像报道GDP一样精确地记录派对上消耗的啤酒量。1982年9月11日，Phi Kappa Theta兄弟会举行了一场九十一桶的派对，登上了第7版标题（“兄弟会狂欢惹恼大学”），并配有一句来自兄弟会主席的“天哪”式引语：“我们怀着好意举办了派对。我们的目的不是让校园喝醉。我们没想到规模会变得这么大。”
I delivered to two fraternities. The sketchiest part of my route ran near campus, where residential neighborhoods gave way to some frat buildings and low-rent student housing. That was where I finally came across a body. Early one morning, I was climbing the interior stairway of a decrepit apartment building when I looked up and saw two motionless feet. The shoe soles faced me, heels touching, forming the shape of a V. For what seemed like a very long while, I didn’t move. Then, gathering my courage, I continued climbing. Step by step, the rest of the body came into view: legs, torso, head. He was a fully dressed man with a beard and greasy hair, flat on his back on a landing. I stopped, heart pounding. Then I knelt, listened closely, took a whiff, and made my diagnosis: drunk.我给两个兄弟会送过报。我路线上最混乱的部分经过校园附近，那里住宅区变成了兄弟会建筑和低租金学生公寓。那是我最终撞见尸体的地方。一天清晨，我正爬上一栋破旧公寓楼的内部楼梯，抬头看到两只一动不动的脚。鞋底对着我，脚后跟相触，形成了一个V字形。在很长一段时间里，我一动不动。然后，鼓起勇气，我继续往上爬。一步一步，身体的其他部分显露出来：腿、躯干、头。他是一个穿着整齐、留着胡子、头发油腻的男人，平躺在楼梯平台上。我停下脚步，心跳加速。然后我跪下，仔细听了听，闻了闻，做出了诊断：醉了。
The largest fraternity I delivered to was Sigma Alpha Epsilon. It was housed in an impressive white building in the neoclassical-revival style, with six Ionic columns. I always approached the house from the back, following one of my secret pathways through a neighboring yard. On dark Sunday mornings, after Missouri Tigers game days, crossing the fraternity’s lawn was like entering an artillery field’s zone of fire. Various objects had been tossed from the two-level porch and lay scattered across the grass. There might be articles of clothing, both male and female. Once, I found a billiard ball, which I pocketed. The most common spent projectiles on the S.A.E. lawn were beer cans and bottles. After Columbia implemented a five-cent deposit law, I would collect as many empties as would fit inside my canvas sack.我投递的最大兄弟会是西格玛·阿尔法·爱普西隆（Sigma Alpha Epsilon）。它坐落在一栋令人印象深刻的新古典主义复兴风格的白色建筑里，有六根爱奥尼柱。我总是从后面接近这栋房子，沿着我的一条秘密路径穿过邻居的院子。在密苏里老虎队比赛日过后的周日清晨，穿过兄弟会的草坪就像进入了炮火区。各种物品从二层门廊扔下来，散落在草地上。可能有男女衣物。有一次，我发现了一个台球，把它装进了口袋。草坪上最常见的废弃弹药是啤酒罐和瓶子。哥伦比亚实施五美分押金法后，我会尽可能多地收集空瓶子装进我的帆布袋里。
Each spring, the S.A.E. members dug a grave in their lawn. The first year I saw this, it scared the living hell out of me. Walking across the grass, I stumbled upon a long pit and a wooden coffin, its shape shadowy in the predawn light. The second year, I was less surprised, and after that the annual appearance of a coffin and an open grave became a normal sign of springtime. As a boy, I never knew the purpose of this strange ritual. It wasn’t covered in the Missourian, and I must not have mentioned it to my parents, who had no memory of it years later. That was also typical of childhood, when many strange and unsettling things were accepted without explanation.每年春天，SAE成员都会在草坪上挖一个坟墓。第一年我看到这个时，吓得要死。走过草地时，我偶然发现了一个长坑和一口木棺材，在黎明前的光线下显得阴森恐怖。第二年，我没那么惊讶了，此后，棺材和开挖的坟墓每年出现成了春天的正常标志。作为一个男孩，我从不知道这个奇怪仪式的目的。报纸没有报道过，我肯定也没向父母提过，多年后他们对此毫无记忆。这也是童年的典型特征，许多奇怪和令人不安的事情在没有解释的情况下就被接受了。
Recently, I tracked down some S.A.E. members from that era. They explained that the coffin was connected to a fictional figure called Paddy Murphy. Different chapters had their own versions, but the M.U. Paddy Murphy was somebody who had died from alcohol poisoning. Each year, a different brother played Paddy, lying in the coffin, where he was roasted by a series of mock eulogies. The coffin had been acquired by a brother with a summer job in a mortuary in St. Louis. He had driven the two hours to Columbia on Interstate 70 with the coffin sitting upright in the passenger seat of an open convertible.最近，我找到了那个时代的几位SAE成员。他们解释说，棺材与一个叫帕迪·墨菲（Paddy Murphy）的虚构人物有关。不同的分会版本各异，但密苏里大学的帕迪·墨菲是一个死于酒精中毒的人。每年，不同的兄弟扮演帕迪，躺在棺材里，接受一系列模拟悼词的嘲讽。这口棺材是一个在圣路易斯殡仪馆做暑期工的兄弟弄来的。他开着一辆敞篷车，棺材竖在副驾驶座上，在70号州际公路上开了两个小时回到哥伦比亚。
On April 24, 1981, the Missourian ran an unsigned comment at the top of the Opinion page:1981年4月24日，《密苏里人报》在观点版顶部刊登了一条未署名的评论：
By then, I was nearly twelve, and strong enough that I had started using a bicycle on my route. One thing I liked about biking was that I could greet Mr. Wood but not stop. Even before the bicycle, I had made it clear that I didn’t want him touching me anymore. There was never a confrontation, but I found ways to keep my distance. When he asked if I wanted to participate in his youth group at the Odd Fellows Lodge, I told him that I was too busy.到那时，我快十二岁了，身体也够强壮，开始骑自行车送报了。我喜欢骑车的一个原因是可以跟伍德先生打个招呼就走，不必停下来。甚至在骑车之前，我就已经明确表示过不想让他再碰我。虽然从未发生过正面冲突，但我总能找到办法与他保持距离。当他问我想不想参加他在“奇人社”（Odd Fellows Lodge）举办的青少年活动时，我告诉他我太忙了。
I had read enough stories in the paper to know that Mr. Wood’s behavior was wrong. But I still had some confusion, because he was so admired in the community. The Missourian editorial noted that Mr. Wood had been a Scoutmaster and a Sunday-school teacher, and it mentioned his plans:我曾在报纸上读过足够多的故事，知道伍德先生的行为是错误的。但我仍然感到困惑，因为他在社区里备受推崇。《密苏里人报》的社论提到，伍德先生曾担任童子军领队和主日学老师，并提到了他的计划：
During the years that I delivered it, the Missourian remained the same size, averaging about thirty pages a day, and the circulation was stable. I had no idea that newspapers or carriers might have an uncertain future. But recently, while rereading issues from those years, I recognized signs of trouble. A 1983 feature about a spate of mergers noted that Columbia had become the third-smallest American city that still had competing dailies. In 1981, the Sunday edition ran a feature—“MAKE ROOM FOR DATA”—about the first wave of home computers. The writer referred to something called the Source, which could transmit information between machines:在我送报的那些年里，《密苏里人报》的规模保持不变，每天平均约三十页，发行量也很稳定。我当时根本不知道报纸或送报员的未来可能充满变数。但最近，当我重读那些年的旧报纸时，我发现了问题的迹象。1983年一篇关于一系列并购案的专题文章指出，哥伦比亚市已成为美国仍有两家日报竞争的城市中第三小的城市。1981年，周日版刊登了一篇关于第一波家用电脑浪潮的专题报道——“为数据腾出空间”（MAKE ROOM FOR DATA）。作者提到了一个叫“源”（the Source）的东西，它可以在机器之间传输信息：
As a boy, I was oblivious to such predictions, and I also didn’t realize that the Missourian was struggling to find carriers. Periodically, a story appeared about somebody getting attacked on the job. In 1980, an adult woman carrier was robbed and sexually assaulted on her Missourian route; a couple of years later, a fourteen-year-old newspaper vender was held up at knifepoint. The paper sometimes celebrated carriers with descriptions of the job, which didn’t sound particularly appealing:作为一个男孩，我对这些预测一无所知，也没意识到《密苏里人报》在招募送报员方面正面临困难。报纸上不时会出现有人在工作中遇袭的报道。1980年，一名成年女送报员在她的路线上遭到抢劫和性侵；几年后，一名十四岁的报童被人持刀抢劫。报纸有时会通过描述这份工作来赞美送报员，但这听起来并不怎么吸引人：
I was bitten by dogs repeatedly, with the worst offender being a cairn terrier on South Garth. The animal was tiny but vicious, and he often left my ankles bleeding. My father called the animal-control office, which was notoriously unreliable; in this case, someone there talked to the owner a couple of times and then gave up. She was in her thirties, a distracted woman living alone in a run-down rental. Somebody suggested doggy treats, but the animal ignored them and made a beeline for my leg. After that, my father consulted with our mailman, who went to his truck and returned with a large cannister of mace. The cannister featured an image of an angry mutt with saliva dripping from its jaws.我曾多次被狗咬伤，最凶的那只是南加斯大道上一只凯恩梗。那只狗虽然体型很小，但非常凶狠，经常咬得我脚踝流血。我父亲给动物管理部门打了电话，但那里出了名的不靠谱；在这种情况下，那里的人跟狗主人谈过几次后就放弃了。狗主人是个三十多岁的女人，独自住在一间破旧的出租屋里，整天心不在焉。有人建议用狗零食，但那只狗根本不理会，径直朝我的腿冲过来。在那之后，我父亲咨询了我们的邮递员，邮递员回到车里，拿出一大罐防狼喷雾。罐子上印着一只流着口水的愤怒杂种狗的图案。
My father accompanied me the first morning I tried the spray. I always believed that, in comparison with him, I was growing up weak and soft. He told exotic stories about his childhood, in a working-class part of Los Angeles where fights had been common. As a boy, he had tattooed his left hand with a pachuco mark, a cross-shaped symbol near the thumb that was popular with the Chicano gangsters in his neighborhood. My father had dark skin, and by his forties the mark was hard to make out. But in his teen-age years it had been distinct enough to get noticed, unhappily, by his future father-in-law the first time they met.我第一次尝试使用喷雾的那天早上，父亲陪着我。我一直认为，与他相比，我长得软弱娇气。他讲过许多关于自己童年的传奇故事，那是在洛杉矶的一个工人阶级社区，打架斗殴是常事。小时候，他在左手上纹了一个“帕楚科”（pachuco）标记，那是拇指附近一个十字形的符号，在他那个街区的奇卡诺黑帮中很流行。我父亲皮肤黝黑，到了四十多岁时，那个标记已经很难辨认了。但在他十几岁时，这个标记非常明显，以至于他未来的岳父第一次见到他时，很不高兴地注意到了它。
My father told me to hold my ground when the dog charged. The terrier came up snarling, and I hit him in the face with a long, heavy stream. He collapsed against the trunk of a tree, where I sprayed him again. His breathing became increasingly labored. “I think he might die,” my father said. But then, like some demented jack-in-the-box, the terrier popped up and charged again. In the course of the following days, he seemed to develop an immunity to the spray.父亲叮嘱我，当狗冲过来时要站稳脚跟。那只梗犬咆哮着冲上来，我对着它的脸喷了一股又长又猛的喷雾。它瘫倒在一棵树干旁，我又对着它喷了一次。它的呼吸变得越来越沉重。“我觉得它可能会死，”父亲说。但随后，它就像一个疯狂的弹簧玩偶一样跳了起来，再次冲了过来。在接下来的几天里，它似乎对这种喷雾产生了免疫力。
Every generation romanticizes the struggles of its youth. Like many people my age, I complain about helicopter parents, and I speak fondly of long unsupervised days during childhood. But I’m also under no illusions about the ways in which that world was a hard place. It’s obvious in the papers that I once delivered, which feature many stories about terrible accidents involving children—drowning in icy ponds or getting electrocuted after climbing utility poles.每一代人都将自己年轻时的挣扎浪漫化。像我这个年纪的许多人一样，我抱怨“直升机父母”，并深情地怀念童年时期无人监管的长长日子。但我对那个世界艰难的一面也毫不抱幻想。这一点在我曾经送过的报纸上显而易见，上面刊登了许多关于儿童遭遇可怕事故的故事——比如在冰冷的池塘里溺水，或者爬上电线杆触电身亡。
There was also a lot of victim-blaming. In 1979, a woman wrote to “Dear Abby” complaining about getting rejected from jobs she applied to because she was overweight. “Face it, most fat women are not as attractive as their slim sisters,” Abby counselled. “So, do yourself a favor and quit asking for ‘kindness’ from others. See your doctor about a diet.” Two other advice seekers worked at a clothing store where their male boss had drilled holes so that he could peer into the dressing room. “A confrontation is not necessary,” Abby responded. “Every morning check the dressing room wall for holes, then cover them with adhesive paper. Do this routinely and your boss will soon realize that you are onto his dirty little peeping game.” This approach seemed common when authorities were uninterested or incompetent. If you have a problem, fix it yourself.当时也存在很多受害者有罪论。1979年，一位女士写信给“艾比信箱”（Dear Abby），抱怨自己因超重而被求职单位拒绝。“面对现实吧，大多数胖女人都没有苗条的姐妹们有吸引力，”艾比建议道，“所以，帮自己一个忙，别再向别人乞求‘善意’了。去看看医生，减减肥吧。”另外两位寻求建议的人在一家服装店工作，她们的男老板在更衣室墙上钻了孔，以便窥视。艾比回复说：“没必要发生冲突。每天早上检查一下更衣室墙上是否有洞，然后用胶带纸贴上。养成这个习惯，你的老板很快就会意识到你已经发现了他的卑劣窥视游戏。”当权威机构不感兴趣或无能为力时，这种方法似乎很常见。如果你遇到了问题，那就自己解决。
After the dog mace failed, I borrowed my friend Joe Kopine’s Crosman BB pistol. Joe had purchased the gun because of its powerful air-cartridge system. It looked like a real weapon, with heavy black metal; a bright-orange tip would have seemed absurd to a boy of that era. I packed the pistol with the newspapers in my canvas bag. The next time the dog appeared, I drew the gun, held steady with both hands, and pulled the trigger. The dog leaped straight into the air, spinning and yelping. In the following week, I shot him another five or six times. And that was all it took; he never attacked again.在防狼喷雾失效后，我借用了朋友乔·科派恩（Joe Kopine）的Crosman气枪。乔买这把枪是因为它有强大的气瓶系统。它看起来像真枪，有着沉重的黑色金属外壳；在那个年代，如果加上一个亮橙色的枪口，那看起来会很荒谬。我把手枪和报纸一起塞进帆布包里。下次那只狗再出现时，我掏出枪，双手稳稳握住，扣动了扳机。那只狗跳到半空中，又转又叫。在接下来的一个星期里，我又射了它五六次。这就足够了；它再也没有攻击过我。
On the afternoon of May 4, 1982, my father told me that there was something we needed to talk about. He didn’t want to do it at home, and he looked upset. We set off together, on foot, in the direction of campus.1982年5月4日下午，父亲告诉我有些事情需要谈谈。他不想在家里谈，看起来很心烦。我们一起步行向校园方向走去。
He was uncharacteristically quiet. I was nearly thirteen, and I had mostly figured out how to get along in school. The longer we walked, the more I sensed that my father was upset by something other than a teacher’s bad report.他一反常态地沉默。我快十三岁了，已经基本摸清了如何在学校里与人相处。我们走得越远，我就越感觉到父亲心烦意乱的原因不仅仅是因为老师的一份差评。
He found a bench in the university’s Peace Park. It was a beautiful afternoon, and students were outside enjoying the sunshine. After we sat down, he said, “I wanted to tell you that Mr. Wood was arrested. It’s in the Tribune today. It will be in the Missourian tomorrow.”他在大学的和平公园找了一张长椅坐下。那是一个美丽的下午，学生们都在外面享受阳光。坐下后，他说：“我想告诉你，伍德先生被捕了。今天《论坛报》上登了。明天《密苏里人报》也会登。”
Initially, I didn’t know what to say. Then I asked why Mr. Wood had been arrested.起初，我不知道该说什么。然后我问伍德先生为什么被捕。
“He was caught with a teen-age boy on a bus,” my father said. “He was arrested for sodomy.” There was a pause. “Do you know what that means?”“他在公交车上被发现和一个十几岁的男孩在一起，”父亲说，“他因鸡奸罪被捕。”停顿了一下，他问：“你知道那是什么意思吗？”
I nodded slowly. Sodomy appeared periodically in articles about arrests, although it confused me—the word seemed to describe different things. The part in the Bible about Sodom also lacked key details. But I wasn’t going to ask those questions now.我慢慢地点了点头。有关逮捕的报道中偶尔会出现“鸡奸”这个词，尽管这让我感到困惑——这个词似乎描述的是不同的事情。圣经中关于所多玛（Sodom）的部分也缺乏关键细节。但我现在不想问那些问题。
“I know that Mr. Wood often talked to you on the paper route,” my father said. “We need to know if he did anything to you. If he touched you or did anything inappropriate.”“我知道伍德先生经常在送报路上跟你说话，”父亲说，“我们需要知道他有没有对你做过什么。如果他碰过你或者做过任何不恰当的事。”
Now I understood why his mood hadn’t been recognizable. For the first time, I saw true fear in my father’s eyes. I thought for a moment before answering.现在我明白了为什么他之前的情绪那么反常。我第一次在父亲眼中看到了真正的恐惧。我思考了一会儿才回答。
“No,” I said. “Nothing happened. He didn’t do anything to me.”“没有，”我说，“什么都没发生。他没对我做过什么。”
“Are you sure?” my father said. “It’s important that we know. If he did anything, the police need to talk to you.”“你确定吗？”父亲问，“我们需要知道真相。如果他做过什么，警察需要跟你谈谈。”
“I’m sure,” I said.“我确定，”我说。
His face relaxed, and he said that he was glad that he had accompanied me when I went to the Woods’ home for my school project. “Who knows what he was planning,” my father said. “The story in the paper said that he has been molesting boys for years.”他的脸色缓和了一些，说很高兴我去做学校项目时他陪我去了伍德家。“谁知道他当时在打什么主意，”父亲说，“报纸上的故事说他多年来一直在猥亵男孩。”
I asked what would happen to Mr. Wood.我问伍德先生会怎么样。
“He’ll go to prison,” my father said. “They do terrible things to child molesters in prison.”“他会进监狱，”父亲说，“在监狱里，他们会对猥亵儿童的人做可怕的事情。”
I asked if he was already there.我问他现在已经在监狱里了吗。
“No. They have to have a trial. He’ll be at home until then. You haven’t been seeing him outside in the mornings recently, have you?”“没有。他们必须先审判。在那之前他会待在家里。你最近早上在外面没见过他吧？”
“No.”“没有。”
“Good,” he said. “Make sure you don’t have any contact with him.”“很好，”他说，“确保不要和他有任何接触。”
Walking home that sunny afternoon, I sensed my father’s relief, and I felt as though I had protected him from something awful. But already I was wondering what I would do if I saw Mr. Wood again.那个阳光明媚的下午走回家时，我感受到了父亲的宽慰，也觉得我保护了他免受某种可怕事情的伤害。但我已经在想，如果再见到伍德先生，我该怎么办。
The following morning, the stack of newspapers was waiting at the end of the driveway. I carried them inside and read the front page:第二天早上，一叠报纸放在车道尽头。我把它们拿进屋里，读了头版：
There was a photograph of Mr. Wood from before his arrest. The story said that he had taken a job in retirement as a school-bus driver, and one day a parent became suspicious.报纸上有一张伍德先生被捕前的照片。报道称，他退休后找了一份校车司机的工作，有一天，一位家长产生了怀疑。
I folded all the papers and went outside. The closer I got to 110 South Garth Avenue, the more nervous I felt. But the lights were off at the house. I threw the paper onto the porch and continued down the silent street.我把报纸都折好，走到外面。越靠近南加斯大道110号，我就越紧张。但房子里的灯是灭的。我把报纸扔到门廊上，沿着安静的街道继续走。
Throughout summer and fall, reports about Mr. Wood’s case appeared in the Missourian and the Tribune. My parents didn’t discuss these articles with me or my sisters, and I was careful to read them only when I was alone.整个夏天和秋天，关于伍德先生案件的报道不断出现在《密苏里人报》和《论坛报》上。父母没有和我或我的姐妹们讨论这些文章，我小心翼翼地只在独处时阅读它们。
On June 21, 1982, in a federal court in Washington, D.C., John Hinckley, Jr., was found not guilty by reason of insanity. The following morning, that story appeared on the Missourian’s front page, and a headline on page 7 read “MENTAL EXAM OK’D FOR WOOD.” Wood’s lawyer seemed to be attempting the strategy that had worked for Hinckley, entering a plea of not guilty on account of “mental disease or defect.” At the time of the arrest, Wood had admitted to Detective Dale Richardson that he had abused boys repeatedly since 1938, and that pedophilia “was something he couldn’t control.” One Missourian article quoted the officer:1982年6月21日，在华盛顿特区的一家联邦法院，约翰·欣克利（John Hinckley, Jr.）被判因精神错乱而无罪。第二天早上，这个故事出现在《密苏里人报》的头版，第7页的一条标题写着“伍德获准接受精神检查”。伍德的律师似乎试图采用欣克利成功使用的策略，以“精神疾病或缺陷”为由提出无罪抗辩。被捕时，伍德曾向戴尔·理查森侦探承认，他自1938年以来多次猥亵男孩，并称恋童癖是“他无法控制的事情”。《密苏里人报》的一篇文章引用了这位警官的话：
The detective seemed to downplay the crimes. A story in the Tribune noted:这位侦探似乎在淡化这些罪行。《论坛报》的一篇报道指出：
There were many references to Wood paying his victims and buying them gifts. The boys were not named, but I believed that some of them had sold drinks alongside me at M.U. games. With each story, I felt a rush of guilt. I had no word for what I had experienced—in those days, grooming was something that happened to dogs and horses. All I knew was that my mother and Matthew had been right. Greed was weakness, and Mr. Wood had exploited it; he had given me quarters because I had wanted them desperately. I believed that I was partly at fault for what had happened.报道中多次提到伍德给受害者钱并购买礼物。男孩们的名字没有被公开，但我相信其中一些人曾和我一起在密苏里大学的比赛中卖过饮料。每看到一篇报道，我都会感到一阵内疚。我无法用语言描述我所经历的一切——在那个年代，“诱导”（grooming）通常只用于描述驯养狗和马。我只知道我母亲和马修是对的。贪婪是弱点，而伍德先生利用了这一点；他给了我硬币，因为我当时极其渴望得到它们。我相信对于发生的一切，我也有部分责任。
I also knew that I should have told my father the truth. But the stories in the paper convinced me that I had done the right thing. I didn’t want to talk to those police; I didn’t want to stand in that courtroom; I didn’t want to appear in these articles:我也知道我本该告诉父亲真相。但报纸上的故事让我确信自己做对了。我不想跟那些警察谈话；我不想站在法庭上；我不想出现在这些文章里：
Wood’s lawyer asked the judge to dismiss the charges because the youths were “accomplices in the very crime.” This motion was considered but then denied. Eventually, a number of the charges were dropped, as part of a plea bargain, and Wood’s lawyer pushed for no jail time. Wood had been evaluated by a psychiatrist who had been a professor at the university’s medical school, and the psychiatrist testified that Wood should not pose a threat to the community. “Taking into account human error, the chances are there should be no repetition of this behavior,” he said. He also told the court that young boys who engage in voluntary homosexual acts with adults usually recover, and that such contacts are often “loving, caring, positive relationships.”伍德的律师要求法官驳回指控，理由是这些青少年是“犯罪本身的同谋”。这一动议经过考虑后被驳回。最终，作为认罪协议的一部分，多项指控被撤销，伍德的律师极力争取免于监禁。伍德曾接受过一位大学医学院教授的精神病学家评估，该医生作证称伍德不会对社区构成威胁。“考虑到人为因素，这种行为应该不会重演，”他说。他还告诉法庭，与成年人进行自愿同性行为的年轻男孩通常会恢复，而且这种接触往往是“充满爱、关怀和积极的关系”。
A number of prominent citizens appeared as character witnesses. H. Clyde Wilson, Jr., a former mayor, testified about Wood’s contributions to city government, and he said that no “useful purpose” would be served if he were incarcerated. The Missourian described the defense lawyer’s closing statement:一些知名人士出庭作证。前市长小克莱德·威尔逊（H. Clyde Wilson, Jr.）谈到了伍德对市政府的贡献，并表示如果将他监禁将毫无“实际意义”。《密苏里人报》描述了辩护律师的结案陈词：
From the day I learned of the arrest, I sensed that Mr. Wood would find a way to see me again. In the end, it happened under cover of a heavy storm. On rainy mornings, I couldn’t ride my bike, and neighbors were much less likely to be outside.从得知他被捕的那天起，我就预感到伍德先生会找到办法再次见到我。最终，这发生在一场暴风雨的掩护下。在雨天早上，我没法骑自行车，邻居们也不太可能出门。
That day, I placed the paper onto his porch, and suddenly he was behind me; I hadn’t seen him in the downpour. “I’m sorry,” he said.那天，我把报纸放在他的门廊上，突然他出现在我身后；在倾盆大雨中我没看到他。“对不起，”他说。
“I’m not supposed to see you!” I said, but my voice sounded childlike in the storm. I saw that he was weeping, and suddenly my body went limp and I began to sob. He wrapped his arms around me, repeating those two words over and over. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. The interaction probably lasted less than a minute, but it felt like forever. Finally, I pulled away and ran.“我不应该见你！”我说，但我的声音在风雨中显得很幼稚。我看到他在哭泣，突然间我的身体瘫软下来，开始抽泣。他用双臂抱住我，一遍又一遍地重复那两个词。对不起，对不起，对不起。这次互动可能不到一分钟，但感觉就像永恒。最后，我挣脱开跑了。
At the end of the street, I huddled beneath a tree until my breathing was under control. When I returned home, I made sure that my face betrayed nothing.在街道尽头，我蜷缩在一棵树下，直到呼吸平复。当我回到家时，我确保自己的表情没有流露出任何异常。
On the morning of September 28, 1982, before folding the papers, I found the headline, on page 8:1982年9月28日早上，在折叠报纸之前，我在第8页发现了这个标题：
The article quoted the circuit judge Frank Conley. “I don’t think there is a case that has cost me more personal anguish as a judge than this case,” he told the defendant. “I’ve seen a lot of the good that you have done.” He continued, “But so much of the good has been ruined by that which is bad.” He referred to the psychiatrist’s characterization of Wood’s contact with the boys. “This court is not of the opinion that this was a loving, caring relationship,” he said. “It was a very vile relationship.” The judge issued a sentence of ten years in prison, for five counts of sodomy.文章引用了巡回法官弗兰克·康利（Frank Conley）的话。“作为一名法官，我认为没有哪个案件比这个案件更让我感到个人痛苦，”他告诉被告，“我看到了你所做的许多好事。”他继续说，“但其中很大一部分美好被那些丑恶的事情毁了。”他提到了精神病学家对伍德与男孩接触的描述。“本法庭不认为这是一种充满爱和关怀的关系，”他说，“这是一种非常卑劣的关系。”法官因五项鸡奸罪判处他十年监禁。
Judge Conley’s mother lived on my route, and I threw the paper onto her porch. For the first time in months, I didn’t feel nervous on South Garth. At 110, the house was dark, the way it had been every morning since the arrest.康利法官的母亲住在我的路线上，我把报纸扔到了她的门廊上。几个月来，我第一次在南加斯大道上不再感到紧张。110号的房子一片漆黑，就像被捕后的每个早晨一样。
Beginning that fall, a number of terrible stories about boys appeared in the paper. In southern Missouri, a woman and her boyfriend were arrested after locking her seven-year-old son in the basement for three months. When authorities found the boy, he weighed thirty-two pounds. The Missourian quoted the woman’s explanation for her boyfriend’s treatment of the child. “He didn’t like him,” she said. “He didn’t want him to come out of the basement.” Another local court case involved two adult Boy Scout troop leaders who, during a camp-out, branded their Scouts on the buttocks with a red-hot coat hanger that had been shaped like male genitals. A college student in Columbia was arrested and sentenced to prison after shooting his former foster father in the back of the head. For years, the man had taken in multiple foster children, always boys, and he repeatedly paddled them, took nude photographs, and administered enemas, which he tape recorded so that he could replay the children’s moans. The college student had complained to a family-services agency and received no response, so he used a .22-calibre pistol that had been borrowed from a neighbor. If you have a problem, fix it yourself. After he was sentenced to five years, the young man told the Missourian, “I always figured I’d spend some time.”从那个秋天开始，报纸上出现了一些关于男孩的可怕故事。在密苏里州南部，一名女子和她的男友在将她七岁的儿子锁在地下室三个月后被捕。当当局找到这个男孩时，他只有32磅重。《密苏里人报》引用了该女子对男友虐待孩子的解释。“他不喜欢他，”她说，“他不想让他从地下室出来。”另一个当地法庭案件涉及两名成年的童子军领袖，他们在露营期间，用烧红的、形状像男性生殖器的衣架在童子军的臀部上烙印。哥伦比亚市一名大学生在枪杀其前养父后被捕并判刑。多年来，那个男人收养了多个寄养儿童，全都是男孩，他反复鞭打他们，拍摄裸照，并进行灌肠，还录下声音以便反复播放孩子们的呻吟。这名大学生曾向家庭服务机构投诉但未得到回应，于是他使用了从邻居那里借来的.22口径手枪。如果你遇到了问题，那就自己解决。在被判五年监禁后，这名年轻人告诉《密苏里人报》：“我早就想到自己会坐牢的。”
These stories prompted anguished letters and editorials. Citizens wondered if something was wrong with society, and they debated whether Glenn Wood had deserved to go to jail. The husband of one of Wood’s daughters wrote to the Tribune:这些故事引发了痛苦的信件和社论。市民们怀疑社会是否出了问题，并争论格伦·伍德是否罪有应得。伍德的一位女婿给《论坛报》写信说：
Richardson, who had helped conduct the initial investigation, published a response. In earlier stories, the detective had seemed to minimize the impact of Wood’s crimes. But now he set the record straight:曾协助进行初步调查的理查森发表了回应。在早期的报道中，这位侦探似乎在淡化伍德罪行的影响。但现在他澄清了事实：
Recently, when reviewing these articles, I recognized many phrases and details, because I had read them so obsessively as a thirteen-year-old. Another Missourian story appeared on September 8, 1982, under the headline “IOWA NEWSBOY VANISHES; SEARCH PARTY STUMPED.” A paperboy named John Gosch, who was my age, had disappeared on a Sunday morning. Gosch became one of the first missing children to be featured on milk cartons.最近，在回顾这些文章时，我认出了许多短语和细节，因为我在十三岁时曾痴迷地阅读过它们。《密苏里人报》在1982年9月8日刊登了另一篇报道，标题为“爱荷华州报童失踪；搜救队束手无策”。一个和我同龄的报童名叫约翰·戈什（John Gosch），他在一个周日早上失踪了。戈什成为了第一批被印在牛奶盒上的失踪儿童之一。
He also became one of the reasons that children stopped working as carriers. Last year, I met with Bruce Moore, who had started working at the Missourian in 1982, eventually becoming circulation manager. “You were one of the last kids to deliver the newspaper by bike,” Moore told me. “It happened not because the Missourian didn’t want to hire kids. It was because society dictated it was unsafe for kids to be delivering at that time in the dark.”他也成了孩子们不再从事送报工作的原因之一。去年，我见到了布鲁斯·摩尔（Bruce Moore），他于1982年开始在《密苏里人报》工作，最终成为了发行经理。“你是最后一批骑自行车送报的孩子之一，”摩尔告诉我，“这并不是因为《密苏里人报》不想雇佣孩子。而是因为社会认为在那个黑暗的时代，让孩子去送报是不安全的。”
Nearly forty-four years after Gosch disappeared, his case remains unsolved. When I read the old Missourian story, one detail echoed in my memory. On the morning the boy vanished, his parents found the wagon that he used to haul the heavy Sunday edition of the Des Moines Register. Gosch’s mother was quoted: “Every single paper was in his wagon.”在戈什失踪近四十四年后，他的案件仍未破获。当我读到那篇旧的《密苏里人报》报道时，一个细节在我的记忆中回响。在那个男孩失踪的早晨，他的父母发现了用来运送沉重的《得梅因纪事报》周日版的推车。戈什的母亲曾说：“每一份报纸都在他的推车里。”
I never won Carrier of the Year. By the final stage of my career, I knew that it wouldn’t happen, because I had recognized patterns. Children tended to win early—that was why I was named Carrier of the Month when I was only ten. My analysis was that the Missourian wanted to encourage younger carriers, and by the time they got older they were probably on the way out, so it wasn’t worth wasting awards on them. This was a good life lesson, one that would have made sense to Thorstein Veblen: the longer you work for a company, the less you are valued.我从未获得过“年度最佳送报员”称号。在职业生涯的最后阶段，我知道这不会发生，因为我已经认清了模式。孩子们往往在早期获奖——这就是为什么我才十岁就被评为“月度最佳送报员”。我的分析是，《密苏里人报》希望鼓励年轻的送报员，等到他们长大一点，可能就快要离职了，所以没必要在他们身上浪费奖项。这是一个很好的人生教训，索尔斯坦·凡勃伦（Thorstein Veblen）一定会认同：你在一家公司工作的时间越长，你就越不被重视。
My last day on the job turned out to be Wednesday, August 22, 1984. On that morning, the top headline read “GOP CONVENTION PASSES BATTLE PLAN: FORD UNLEASHES ON MONDALE.” The paper was sixty-two pages, with a price of twenty-five cents, and it weighed 15.4 ounces. The size was significant because, while carrying an unusually heavy bag and taking a tight turn on my bike in a parking lot, I skidded out and fractured my left tibia. I lay in the parking lot shouting until somebody called an ambulance.我工作的最后一天是1984年8月22日，星期三。那天早上，头条新闻是“共和党大会通过作战计划：福特对蒙代尔发起猛攻”。报纸有六十二页，售价二十五美分，重15.4盎司。这个重量很重要，因为当时我背着一个异常沉重的包，在停车场骑车急转弯时，我滑倒并摔断了左胫骨。我躺在停车场大喊，直到有人叫了救护车。
Before the accident, I had already been thinking about quitting. On the next International Newspaper Carrier Day, when the Missourian announced its Carrier of the Year, it also ran a small notice:在事故发生前，我就已经在考虑辞职了。在下一个“国际报童日”，当《密苏里人报》宣布其年度最佳送报员时，也发布了一则小通知：
Two other mornings from that final period remain vivid in my mind. One was when the S.A.E. house caught fire. On a bitterly cold January morning in 1984, I approached the house through the back lawn and saw that the porch had burned and been gutted. Firefighters had recently left; water from their hoses had frozen into beautiful icy tendrils that ran along the pillared porch.那段最后时期的另外两个早晨至今仍历历在目。一个是S.A.E.兄弟会房子着火的时候。在1984年一个严寒的1月早晨，我穿过后院走近那栋房子，看到门廊已经被烧毁并掏空。消防员刚离开不久；消防水管里的水冻成了美丽的冰丝，顺着柱廊流下。
The other morning was at some point after Glenn Wood went to prison. I never saw him again, but once, while delivering the papers, I encountered his wife on the sidewalk. She was walking the dog, and I said hello.另一个早晨是在格伦·伍德入狱后的某个时候。我再也没见过他，但有一次，在送报时，我在人行道上遇到了他的妻子。她正在遛狗，我跟她打了声招呼。
The woman said nothing. Our eyes met, and I saw that her face was full of cold fury. A wave of guilt and shame washed over me, and I hurried past. Along with the last time I saw her husband, that encounter remains one of my most awful memories from childhood.那个女人什么也没说。我们的目光交汇，我看到她的脸上充满了冰冷的愤怒。一股内疚和羞耻感涌上心头，我匆匆走过。连同我最后一次见到她丈夫的经历，那次邂逅依然是我童年中最可怕的记忆之一。
After turning sixteen, I used my paperboy savings to buy a 1974 Dodge Dart. The car was Mississippi brown and as long as a city block; in high school, I loved its absolute uncoolness. The fact that my parents never saved a cent paid off when I was admitted to Princeton University. I qualified for Pell grants and large amounts of financial aid, and I entered the university determined to become a writer. For the first three semesters, I applied to the introductory course in creative writing, submitting short stories, but each time I was rejected. I felt hopelessly provincial: nothing important or interesting had ever happened to me. I never considered writing about Mr. Wood, because the memory was too painful.十六岁后，我用送报攒下的钱买了一辆1974年的道奇Dart。那辆车是密西西比棕色的，长得像一个街区；在高中时，我爱极了它那种绝对的“不酷”。父母从未存过一分钱的事实，在我被普林斯顿大学录取时得到了回报。我获得了佩尔助学金（Pell grants）和大量的经济援助，进入大学时，我决心成为一名作家。前三个学期，我申请了创意写作入门课程，提交了短篇小说，但每次都被拒绝。我感到自己无可救药地狭隘：我身上从未发生过任何重要或有趣的事情。我从未想过写关于伍德先生的事，因为那段记忆太痛苦了。
My parents still live in the house where I grew up. They must be among a minuscule number of octogenarians in this country who subscribe to two daily papers in print. Columbia is now the second-smallest community in America with separately owned competing newspapers. The Tribune, like many papers, has suffered after corporate buyouts and staff reductions. But the Missourian thrives, because it is subsidized by the university. Last year, I met with Elizabeth Conner Stephens, the executive editor, in the paper’s spacious offices, at the edge of campus. It felt like a vibrant, old-fashioned newsroom; even in summer, fifty student reporters were busy on staff. “The reason it works for us is we’ve been doing it since 1908,” Stephens said. “It’s been baked into our curriculum.”我的父母依然住在那个我长大的房子里。他们一定是这个国家为数不多的订阅两份纸质日报的八旬老人之一。哥伦比亚市现在是美国第二小的拥有独立竞争报纸的社区。《论坛报》像许多报纸一样，在公司收购和裁员后遭受了重创。但《密苏里人报》依然繁荣，因为它由大学资助。去年，我在校园边缘报社宽敞的办公室里见到了执行编辑伊丽莎白·康纳·斯蒂芬斯（Elizabeth Conner Stephens）。这里感觉像是一个充满活力、老派的新闻编辑室；即使在夏天，也有五十名学生记者在忙碌工作。“它之所以对我们有效，是因为我们从1908年就开始这么做了，”斯蒂芬斯说，“它已经融入了我们的课程体系。”
Recently, when I talked with other former carriers, they all mentioned how the job had shaped their adult selves. At the age of twenty-four, Eric Neuner founded NuShoe, which eventually grew to become one of the largest shoe-repair companies in the world. Eric believed that his paperboy obsession with efficiency was one reason he had been good at organizing factories in San Diego and Mexico. He often meets other C.E.O.s from our generation who delivered newspapers as children. Eric also remarked that such a job is impossible to imagine today. “I wouldn’t let my kids go out at five in the morning,” he said.最近，当我与其他前送报员交谈时，他们都提到这份工作是如何塑造了他们成年后的性格。二十四岁时，埃里克·诺伊纳（Eric Neuner）创立了NuShoe，最终发展成为全球最大的鞋类维修公司之一。埃里克认为，他作为报童时对效率的痴迷，是他能够成功组织圣地亚哥和墨西哥工厂的原因之一。他经常遇到我们这一代同样在童年时期送过报纸的其他CEO。埃里克还表示，今天很难想象还有这样的工作。“我不会让我的孩子在清晨五点就出门，”他说。
Like Eric and many other former carriers, I have never been able to sleep late. To this day, I am uncomfortable around dogs. I am good with money. I fulfilled my parents’ dreams by joining the Peace Corps, but after returning and writing a book about the experience I took the first advance check, called a college friend at Credit Suisse, and started learning how to invest. I know the verse: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a freelance writer to survive if he can’t manage his finances. I retain an appetite for silence and solitude, and I can keep a secret. I never told a soul about Mr. Wood until I was thirty years old. I still feel an occasional twinge of guilt, because my life and my marriage have gone well, and I suspect that this might not be true for others who were harmed. For more than four decades, I have saved one of the Missourians I was carrying when I broke my leg. Now the pages are yellowed; the rubber band rotted away years ago. I placed the newspaper on my desk when I began to write this story. ♦像埃里克和许多其他前送报员一样，我一直无法睡懒觉。直到今天，我在狗身边仍感到不自在。我擅长理财。我通过加入和平队实现了父母的梦想，但在回来并写了一本关于这段经历的书后，我拿到了第一笔预付款，给我在瑞士信贷银行的大学同学打了电话，开始学习如何投资。我知道那句经文：骆驼穿过针眼比自由撰稿人如果不能理财而生存要容易得多。我依然渴望安静和独处，并且能够保守秘密。直到三十岁，我从未向任何人提起过伍德先生。我偶尔还会感到一丝内疚，因为我的生活和婚姻都很顺利，我怀疑那些曾经受过伤害的人可能并非如此。四十多年来，我一直保留着摔断腿那天我送的其中一份《密苏里人报》。现在报纸已经泛黄；橡皮筋多年前就烂掉了。当我开始写这个故事时，我把这份报纸放在了书桌上。♦