19-5-6【英语美文】《脑中子弹》一个讽刺作家的生命最后几秒，人生不该只有黑色记忆

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"Bullet in theBrain"

By Tobias Wolff – edited version

1.       Anders couldn't get to the bankuntil just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuckbehind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. He was never in thebest of tempers anyway, Anders - a bookcritic known for his elegant savagery with which he reviewed.

2.       With the line still very long,one of the tellers stuck a "POSITION CLOSED" sign in herwindow and walked to the back of the bank, where she leaned against a desk andbegan to pass the time with a man shuffling papers. The women in front of Anders watched the teller with hatred. "Oh,that's nice," one of them said. She turned to Anders and added, confident:"One of those little human touches that keep us coming back for more."

3.       Anders felt his own towering hatred of the teller, but heimmediately turned it to the cry-baby in front of him. "Damned unfair,"he said. "Tragic, really." She stood her ground. "I didn't say it was tragic," she said. "Ijust think it's a very lousy way to treat your customers." "Unforgivable,"Anders said. "Heaven will take note." She simply stared past him andsaid nothing. Anders saw that the other woman, her friend, was looking in thesame direction. And then the tellers stopped what they were doing, and thecustomers slowly turned, and silence came over the bank.

4.       Two men wearing black ski masks and blue business suits werestanding to the side of the door. One of them had a pistol pressed against theguard's neck. The other man had a shotgun. "Keep your big mouthshut!" the man with the pistol said, though no one had spoken a word."One of you tellers hits the alarm, you're all dead meat. Got it?"

5.       The tellers nodded. "Oh,bravo, " Anders said. "Dead meat." He turned to the woman infront of him. "Great script,eh?"  The man with the shotgun wentover to the tellers, handing each of them a hefty bag. When he cameto the empty position he asked:  "Whose slot is that?" Anders watched the teller. She turned to theman pointing at herself with a trembling finger. "Mine," she said."Then get your ugly feet in action and fill that bag."  "There you go," Anders said to thewoman in front of him. "Justice is done." "Hey! Bright boy! DidI tell you talk?" "No," Anders said. "Then shut your trap." "Did you hearthat?" Anders said. "'Bright boy.' Right out of 'The Killers'."

6.       "Please be quiet,"the woman said. "Hey, you deaf or what?" The man with the shotgunwalked over to Anders. He poked theweapon into Anders' gut. "You think I'm playing games?' "No,"Anders said, staring into the man's eyes, which were clearly visible behind theholes in the mask: pale blue, and rawly red-rimmed. The man's left eyelidkept twitching. He breathed out a piercing, ammoniac smell that shocked Andersmore than anything that had happened.

7.       "You like me, brightboy?" he said. "No," Anders said. "Then stop looking atme." Anders fixed his gaze on the man's shiny shoes. "Not down there.Up there." He stuck the pistol under Anders' chin and pushed it upwarduntil Anders was looking at the ceiling. "You think you can mess with me?" "No." "messwith me again, you're history. Capiche?"Anders burst out laughing. He covered his mouth with both hands and said,"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," then snorted helplessly through his fingers and said, " Capiche - oh, God,capiche," and at that the man with the pistol raised the pistol and shotAnders right in the head.

8.       The bullet smashed Anders' skull and ploughed through his brain and exited behindhis right ear. Once in the brain, the bullet made Anders suddenly think of ascene that "passed before his eyes." It brought back memories of onesummer afternoon some forty years ago.

9.       It is worth noting what Andersdid not remember. He did not remember his first lover, Sherry, or what he hadmost madly loved about her, before it came to irritate him. Anders did not remember his wife, whom he had alsoloved before she exhausted him with her predictability,or his daughter, now a sullen professorof economics. He did not remember standing just outside his daughter's door asshe lectured her bear about his naughtiness and described the truly appalling punishments ‘Paws’ wouldreceive unless he changed his ways.

10.   Anders did not remember hisdying mother saying of his father, "I should have stabbed him in hissleep." He did not remember deliberately crashing his father's car in to atree, or waking himself up with laughter. He did not remember when he began to dreadthe heap of books on his desk with boredom and dread, or when he grew angry atwriters for writing them. He did not remember when everything began to remindhim of something else.

11.   This is what he remembered: heat.A baseball field. Yellow grass, the whirr of insects, himself leaning against atree as the boys of the neighbourhood gather and start to quarrel about theirpositions in a ball game. He looks on as the others argue.  It has become tedious to Anders: an oppression,like the heat. "Shortstop,"the boy says. "Short's the best position they is." Anders turns andlooks at him. The others will think he's being a jerk, ragging the kidfor his grammar. But that isn't it, not at all - it's that Anders is strangely roused by those final two words, by their pure unexpectedness. He startsrepeating them to himself.

12.   The bullet is already in thebrain; it will do its work and leave the troubled skull behind. That can't behelped. But for now Anders can still make time. Time for the shadows tolengthen on the grass, time for the tethered dog to bark at the flying ball, time for the boy in the field to softly chant, “They is, they is, they is”.