Chapter 12 Section 3

Brian drives south, looking for signs to the bridge.A low-ceilinged dredger floated down the river, emitting a strong stench.He sensed that ancient omen of impending misfortune.This is not well-known, but little-known: every time he crossed the bridge, something terrible happened.The higher the bridge and the wider the span, the stronger the sense of suffocating abyss.The bridge spans a wide and historic river.The bridge gave him the real feeling that he was doing some kind of Möbius gyration, veering to one side, losing the tight connection to the name and the place and the taste of the food, to the weekends spent with relatives, to himself as Similar to the unborn state, suspended in the generic space.

He saw it later, in the distance, a steel crossbar, attached to cables, sloping to the side of the river-bank fence.He followed the signs, drove onto the circular lane and started to cross the bridge.He chose the upper deck because a Lincoln driving ahead had made that choice.Lincoln and Washington keep me safe.The radio kept ringing with incoming calls from listeners, some trying to attract people's attention and some talking.It's sidewalk cheer, sidewalk rap.He imagined queues of underground souls waiting to get on the radio bands and broadcast incognito news.He listened to these voices with a dignified expression.The clamor was so intense, almost a life force, that it carried the Ohio man through the anxieties of the white man, across the bridge, to the Jersey City side.

He looks for Route 46 West.He had written down the directions the man had given him on the phone.The man gave the route and the street in a tone that sounded like an automatic answering machine.Brian realized that many tourists had already driven across the bridge. He wrote the directions on the hotel's letterhead, put them on the seat next to him, and glanced at them every ten seconds.After a mile on West 46, he saw the said Exxon gas station, then turned south on Route 63 and drove the three miles to the spot restaurant.Later, he turned left, out of traffic, into a residential area, and finally began to relax into the loop on Kennedy—another late president—Boulevard.

He drove into a side street and came to an old wooden house.Marvin Lundy came out to answer the door, a stooped old man, about sixty years old, with the typical shambling gait of old people, holding a burnt cigar in his hand.Brian felt like a retired stand-up comedian who couldn't live a minute without monopolizing the conversation.He followed the old man through two dark aquarium-like rooms and into the basement.It's a spacious, furnished room that houses Marvin Lundy's collection of baseball memorabilia. "If my wife was around, she'd make us tea and serve freshly baked muffins. Other than that, nothing else has changed."

In the room, there is a dazzling array of items, which are displayed one by one in a very tasteful way.Flannel sweatshirts hang from the walls, baseball caps pinned to the visor, and old newspapers are framed.Full of reverence, Brian turned around and watched carefully.A few personal bats were in the custom-made closet, some were game bats with a very nice paint job, and some had turpentine on them.And the stadium seats, each one stamped like a rare plant species—Abbetts Field, Chabre Park, Griffiths Stadium.He really wanted to reach out and touch an old trapper's glove that stood on a pedestal.Its yellow surface is cracked, scratched by spikes, or baked by the sun, giving it the appearance of age.However, he finally withdrew his hand back.He sees a signed baseball in a Plexiglas case.He leans over display cases that display pictures of cigarettes, ball ticket stubs, signed contracts of famous players, 19th-century baseball tabletop game items, bubble gum wrappers—they're pink to resemble Brian's masculine complexion when he was young , their names are like a poem, drifting back to the past decades.

"A drizzle of strawberry jam on a toasted muffin is so unique that it eclipses all pastries since the Renaissance." None of this counts as shocking stuff.They're funny, even touching, but not great, not memorable.What could be described as wonderful, quirky and breathtaking is the vast collection that is displayed along the opposite wall.One is a replica of the ancient Paul Field scoreboard, about twenty-four feet long and twelve feet high, from floor to ceiling, and includes the Chesterfield cigarette logo and slogan, a Longines clock, Replicas of club windows and parapets.Finally, there's the hand-punched scoreboard with the innings of the famous 1951 playoffs.

"Eat it while it's hot. She has set strict rules, don't waste time, Eleanor, if the temperature of the muffins is not baked enough, the whole effect will be greatly reduced." Brian stood in front of the scoreboard, looking at Marvin, hoping for his permission to touch it. "I hired a draftsman, a carpenter, an electrician, and a sign painter. He wasn't a furniture painter, he was a very temperamental craftsman. I showed them pictures and they dimensioned and sketched so they could keep the The original proportions and colors, including the goal logo and the letter E on it indicating an error. Where do you live?"

"Phoenix city." "Never been." In the slightly brighter light of the basement, he saw that Marvin Lundy's hair was a protruding mass of synthetic fibers, light brown, brushed forward, glossy.It made him think of Las Vegas, pinky rings, and prostate cancer. He told Marvin: "I grew up in the Midwest. The Cleveland Indians, that's the team I rooted for. I was on a business trip, flew in here last night, and saw an article in an airline magazine about you. And your collection. I would love to contact you and have a look at these things." He was wearing a Baby Ruth evening jacket, and he reached over to adjust the silk lapels.

"My daughter wants me to meet you," said Marvin, "and she thinks I'm becoming something—" "hermit." "Old hermit with half a stomach left. So my picture is in 20,000 airplane seat bags. That's how she goes out and meets people. They put me in a puke bag with me." "I went to a car show and was touched," Brian said. "What touch?" "A car from the '50s. I don't know what touches it." "You're not happy with yourself. You feel like you're missing something and don't know what it is. You're alone in your circle of life. You have a job and a family and a fully expressive will at your age .The whole purpose of this is to prepare for death, the legal process is completed before death, all the documents are signed. The property left after death is easily convertible, they can be turned into cash. The world you once had is the same as As vast as the observable universe is, you are now a lost speck. You look at vintage cars and recall a purpose, a destination."

"It's ridiculous, isn't it? But it's probably harmless, too." "There's no such thing as harmless," Marvin said. "You feel anxiety, fear, the feeling that the Cold War is slowly ending. It makes you feel like it's hard to breathe." Brian pushed the turnstiles that had been removed from the old course and it creaked a little cutely. "Cold War? I don't think the Cold War will end. If I see the end of the Cold War, that's good, I'll be relieved," he said. "Let me explain something that you probably haven't noticed."

Marvin sat in an armchair beside an ancient equipment box with the words Boston Red Stockings embossed in oil.He motioned to a chair on the other side of the box, and Brian walked over and sat down. "It takes leaders on both sides to keep the Cold War going. It's a constant, honest, reliable. The moment tensions and confrontations end is the day the worst nightmares begin. All the power and intimidation at the disposal of nations will Seep from personal blood. You will no longer be the main—what am I going to say?" "I'm not sure." "The point of reference. Because other forces are going to come in, make demands, be aggressive. The Cold War is your friend, and it needs to come first." "What first place?" "You don't know what primacy? The whole thing is designed to give you dominance in the world, don't you know that? You saw what they did in the UK. Forty thousand women surrounded an air force base and protested against the deployment of nukes and missiles. Some of the demonstrators were men in women's clothing. They also called in Buddhists to beat drums." Brian didn't know how to respond.He wanted to talk about old players, about the size of the stadium, about the nicknames of the players, about the towns that formed the minor leagues.That's why he came here, to satisfy his craving, to hear anecdotes from his master, to tell tales of foolish games and quarrels handed down, of those deadly fights at dusk, of Marvin's long Stories collected over half a century.That memory sits deep inside and instinctively separates baseball from other sports. Marvin sat there, staring at the scoreboard, the burnt end of the cigar slightly broken. "I thought we'd talk about baseball." "We're talking about baseball. That's baseball. Look at the clock," Marvin said, "stopped at 3:58. Why? Because at that moment, Thomson hit that home run, beat Branca." Brian called him Blank. "Or because that was the day we found out that the Russians had tested the atomic bomb. Do you know anything about that match?" "What?" Brian asked. "There are 20,000 empty seats in the stadium, do you know why?" "what reason?" "You'll laugh at me to my face." "No, I will not." "Well, you are my guest and I hope you feel comfortable." "It was an important game that year, why are there so many open seats?" "A big game over the years," Marvin said. "many years." "Because certain events have the nature of unconscious fear. I firmly believe from the bottom of my heart that people feel some catastrophe in the air and are not concerned with who is going to win the game. Some terrible force that may erase - that word How do you say it?" "erase." "Yeah, erasing. It would probably erase the race thing. You see, throughout the '50s, people stayed indoors and only went outside when they were driving. The parks were different back then than they are now, see So many people. There were very few museum-goers back then, just knights in armor and a sleepy-eyed guard guarding exhibits spanning seven hundred years." "in other words." "In other words, there was a secret psychology back then: stay home because the threat of war was in the air." "You're saying that people at the time had an intuition about that day." "As if they knew that. They felt that there might be a connection between the two: one being that game and the other being some major event that happened on the other side of the world." "That game has a special meaning." "Neither the day before nor the day after. That match was a fight to the death between two feuding rivals in the same city. One had a hunch that it had something to do with something bigger. Event-related. They ruminate on these questions in their minds: Do they want to get out and join the crowd? If something terrible happens, the course is the worst place to be. Do they stay home, open up the maple decking? A new TV in a built-in cabinet, watching the game with the family? Common sense tells them they should choose the latter." To his surprise, Brian didn't refute the claim.Brian didn't necessarily believe it, but he didn't open his mouth to refute it.In the basement of an old log home in Clifford Park, New Jersey, he temporarily believed it one weekend afternoon.It came from Marvin Lundy's mouth to Brian's ear.It's true in a lyrical sense, true in a sense that doesn't have to be proven, true in a sense that's improbable, unacceptable.However, it is not entirely ahistorical, and there is some element of real inner narrative in it. "The whole thing is very interesting," Marvin said. "Listen, they made the atomic bomb with an emissive core about the size of a baseball." "I always thought it was about the size of a grapefruit." "Baseballs used in the major leagues are no longer than nine inches in circumference, as described in the rulebook." He crossed Erlang's legs, put a finger into his ear, and scratched it.Marvin has big ears.Only then did Brian realize that the faint music was coming from somewhere in the house.Perhaps, he could have heard the music all along and just didn't realize it.The music mingled with the hum of the basement, the sound of planes over Newark, and the whine of cars speeding down the highway in the distance.A controlled mourning sound seemed to go away with an ancient rhyme. "People can sense invisible things. But when something is in front of them, they can be completely blind." "What do you mean?" Brian asked. "This Gorbachev is walking around with that thing on his head. It's a birthmark. What does he have?" "That's right, it's a birthmark." "It's big, isn't it?" "Yes, quite large." "It's very obvious, you can see it at a glance. Am I right?" "Well, that's right." "And, millions of people see this stuff in the papers every day, right?" "Yes, they can." "They open the paper and they see this man with the big birthmark on the top of his head, right?" "Well, of course." "What does the birthmark mean?" Marvin asked. "Why does it have to mean?" "You only see the surface." "That's his face," Brian said, "his head, a blemish, a birthmark." "That's not what I saw." "What do you see?" "You ask, let me tell you." Marvin saw the first signs of a total collapse of the Soviet system.It was on the man's head, a map of Latvia. When he explained it with a serious face, he believed that Gorbachev had sent this signal: the Soviet Union was facing turmoil erupting from within the republics. "You think it's the birthmark on his head? Let me think about it." "Oh, sorry, if you rotated the map of Latvia 90 degrees so that the eastern border was on top, it would have the exact shape of the birthmark on Gorbachev's head. In other words, when he was sleeping at night, his wife came up and handed Give him a glass of water, an aspirin, and all she sees is Latvia." Brian racked his brains to imagine the shape of the burgundy blotch on Gorbachev's head, trying to relate it to his memory of the geography exam he had taken that hot afternoon.Back then, the physical urge and the anticipation of the end of the semester made slight pains in the extremities.After many years, the melody lines gradually appeared in his mind at this time, like a lullaby, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania.However, he couldn't remember the shape of those maps for a moment, and couldn't remember the exact outlines of those half-hidden anatomical drawings. Marvin once again set his sights on the scoreboard. "People collect this, collect that, always collect, collect. There are people who specialize in collections related to wartime Germany. Fans of Nazi objects. There are many people who are looking for collections that deal with major historical subjects. Does this mean that the house Is it full of inconsequential stuff? What word am I looking for to say someone vaccinated your arm muscle?" "harmless." "Yes, harmless. How about me? Harmless. This is history, the back cover, from back cover to cover. Happiness, tragedy, despair." Marvin turned his gaze to the other side. "In this box, I have one thing, and it took me twenty-two years to get it." Brian throws a hint. "I stalked, searched, found it, and bought it a year and a half ago. I put it in the bottom of the box, out of sight, and didn't put it on display." At this time, the person who looked at the scoreboard was replaced by Brian. Marvin said gloomily, "It's Bobby Thomson's home run baseball, and I got it back from the clues that were going around in the trade. At first, there wasn't even a search, only A person of interest, someone's phone number or name, just a few clues I've been looking for." He stopped talking and lit his cigar.The cigar had been stored for a long time and was broken. It looked like a soybean sausage thrown away in the school cafeteria.But, Brian felt, collectors needed cigars, even if their eyes were irritated by the smoke. For the remaining three hours, Marvin talked about his search for this baseball.He forgot some people's names and got some people's names wrong.He forgot the exact location of many cities and got them in the wrong time zone.He described how, following false leads, he ended up in remote places.He had climbed the stairs, entered the attic, rummaged through old boxes, rummaged through old granny's underwear and pictures of dead people. "At that point, I asked myself a thousand times, why would I want this thing? What's the point of it? Who owns it?" In narrative, the whole epic of wanderings is sometimes brief and sometimes exhaustive.Brian was sure the man was just being careless in his telling.The process of finding this baseball itself was obviously very difficult, highly competitive, labor-intensive, and costly. For a while, Marvin hired someone who worked in the photo lab and had access to special equipment.The two studied news photos that had been taken of that baseball flying into the left-field stands at Paul Field.They carefully observed the enlarged and enhanced photos, and went to the photo agency to check the relevant files.Marvin also had himself smuggled into newspaper reference rooms, news agencies, and major magazines. "I've seen thousands of pictures, because according to the theory of points that make up reality, if you analyze the points, you can get all the knowledge." His voice was slightly husky when he spoke, and it sounded like random radio noise from some kind of signal jamming. He obtained original negatives and purchased darkroom equipment.He wears a magnifying glass around his neck as he eats, and lists of contacts and glossy photographs are strewn around the house.In several rooms, clothes are hung on a rope to dry, with enlarged photos clipped on them.His wife and children had flown to England to visit relatives and friends - for some reason Marvin had married an English wife. He hired a private eye with a bloody nose.They placed ads in the profile sections of sports magazines, hoping to find someone sitting in the 35th arrondissement—the spot where the baseball flew off—on game day. They also studied the photographs in detail, refining the images and breaking them down into tiny parts. Of course, there are long journeys, pulling suitcases through empty train stations, and traveling on ice-covered planes in the cold winter.He dragged his tired body around—these two words he couldn't hear now.He entered other people's homes, entered other people's lives.In fact it was, looking very embarrassed, holding out his auburn hands, asking people what they remembered and what they forgot. 1. The widow who lived on Long Island turned a spoon in a cup. 2. There was a gospel singer named the famous bookkeeper.She kept a baseball in the jar that held her lover's ashes. 3. The boat in the San Francisco dock—Marvin wouldn't even mention that one now. 4. The man in Dave Smith County, Texas — the heart of the middle of nowhere. 5. A lot of people with the face of Jesus.Some of the young people had beards and sandals on their feet, while others had beards, bare feet and gold-rimmed glasses. 6. Marvin feels lost in America, wandering in cities without commercial centers. 7. What's the name of the woman who lives on Long Island?Her husband was at the game, and she served instant coffee to guests in mugs she bought from the Doll Museum. 8. The Copts in Detroit - never mind, it's complicated, there's rioting and arson in the distance, tanks are rolling into the streets. 9. In Marvin's narrative details are confused, other people's recollections are mixed with his own, and with out-of-time. 10. A tornado blows down, rolling up an evil vortex, passing over the treetops, and flying debris across the sky. 11. Whose husband is that person in the sequence Marvin analyzes?He was in a hurry, reaching for the baseball, and everything in her house was fleeting. 12. Take the transparent elevator and walk along the outer wall of a building. 13. That boat in the dock—it's not pleasant to talk about now. 14. What an air of mystery pervaded him, every street was in some sort of extreme astonishment. Brian listened to all of these situations and heard the music stop and start again.This is not the second time he heard the same piano piece, maybe it was the eighth or ninth time.Listening to Marvin's theory of the points that constitute reality, he felt that in this subject of relentless search for photographs, there was an underlying force, some archetype that he could not precisely define. "I've asked a thousand times, how long am I looking for it? Why do I want it? Where is it?" He placed an ad for a clip of the game filmed by an amateur.He obtained a video, several minutes long, filmed by a man who was in the bleachers at the time.The action is sketchy, with a massive crowd swarming over the left-field barrier.He found an optical printing device and reproduced the video.He zooms in on images, repositions them, analyzes them, breaks them down into slow motion frame by frame, and combines several seconds of film into a single image.He pored over the smallest areas of footage, looking for grains of data, looking for missing pixels.It's akin to what a meticulous study of the Talmud takes, zooming in on the frame and letting it fade away, trying to make out a man's face and decipher a name engraved on an anklet worn by a woman. Brian felt ashamed that others were so obsessed, but he was neither hot nor angry.The voice he heard in his heart was soft, weak, and far away, telling him not to continue to work hard. Marvin's wife and children came back and left again.The whole house turned into a mental hospital, and there were faint images everywhere, including weird faces that were segmented, and a mole on the chin of an old man.Each image is made up of crystal clear dots.That grainy, halide, silver stuff builds up in the emulsion.Once you see a point, you have entered the channel of knowing the hidden information, sliding into the smallest activity. That's what technology does.It eliminates shadows, repairs the past that makes people feel confused and disorganized, and presents reality in front of our eyes. Marvin opened the box. The baseball was wrapped in tissue paper and placed in a vintage red and white striped Spalding basketball box.Inside the box are also stacks of photographs, letters and other material related to the search.There were birth certificates, passports, affidavits, handwritten wills, detailed inventories, and bloodstained clothes in Ziploc bags. He picked up a big manila bag and pulled out several framed photographs for Brian to see. Marvin said that this group of photos is a scene of scrambling for a baseball, with groups of people grabbing each other and grabbing each other.In that last photo, the man in the white shirt is standing there, looking serious, staring at the exit ramp, looking very powerful, with big eyes, looking at someone, maybe the one who is grabbing the baseball people.But while Marvin knew how to read the tiny dots that made up the pixels, he couldn't find a sure way to turn the men on the ramp around and see the face of the man with the baseball. "However, you recognized the man in the white shirt." "This is based on the picture of the water bed advertisement on the back cover of the magazine, and the information on the personnel information column." "You went to see the man's wife." "That was years after the game, though. He was dead by then. The widow was sitting in a deserted house, turning the spoon in the glass. I tried to get her to say if he told her about that game, that baseball, or whatever. She said, What game? I tried to explain it. But it’s been over twenty years. What game? What ball?” A woman comes down the stairs with a tray of coffee and cheesecake.She seems to be a character stepped out of Marvin's story, a character who takes physical form from memory.Marvin closed the box and told her to put the tray on top of it.She was his daughter, Clarice, who was determined to take care of him despite her father's objections. "I didn't hear you coming in. She's like a Chinese, she walks softly." "You are talking, even if I am an armed robber who is committing a crime, you can't hear anything." She was in her late thirties, blond, with the build of a gymnast.She told Brian that she lived a ten-minute drive away and worked as a courthouse stenographer.He might easily fall in love with the sitcom tone of her voice, the curve of her thighs under her linen skirt, he thought. "We're almost done talking, Clarice." "It's been so long, it's endless. The guest may have other things to do." "What could be the matter with him?" "It's going to be dark soon." "Darkness, light, those are the words." The baseball box overturned on the floor, and the photos slid out and spread around the box.The baseball is exposed, but still in the crumpled tissue paper.Clarice pulled up a chair and shared the cake with Marvin, sort of finishing the baseball talk together. "I've been looking for a man named Jackson or Judson. Clarice, how many years?" "Let's get back to the topic." "Because the indirect cue says he's the one I should be interested in. At this point, the ball has a special history, and I'm slowly figuring out how to make the different things connect and fit perfectly. However, I can't pin down on that guy, Or how do you say it?" "Sure," Brian said. "Can't pin down his correct name. At this point, forget about that tape. I'm using rumors and dreams, which include extrasensory perception of that game, something subterranean, a consciousness, and I'm in Heard it in a dream." "Don't talk, father, don't talk." "Also, there was this woman. I was trying to find Judson Jackson Johnson. This woman knew my name from the souvenir market and used to call me collect, day and night. She said she had What I was looking for. She said she kept it in a little box with a lock on the outside and it disappeared years ago." "Genevieve Rauch." "I can't remember the name." "Genevieve Rauch," his daughter said, "the two of them trying to nail down the basics, and that's it." "Signs," Brian said. "Maybe, it's at least a glimmer of hope for finding her baseball." "The marks and scratches," Marvin said, "and the logo, if I'm right, and the signature of the president of the baseball league at the time. Her memory is hard to pin down, and I don't quite believe what she said. Later, she talked about to other things. This woman has a special chromosome in her body and is always changing the subject. Many times I want to hang up." "And then he did," Clarice said. "A man driving a car." "A man was driving on the road when he was shot and killed. It was identified that the victim was the long-lost husband of Genevieve Rauch. It was also identified that his name was Jadi Rauch, Judson Rauch. And so the two leads come together. It takes a murder to bring out the connection." Marvin leaned his head against the top of the case and took a sip of coffee; Brian gazed at the wretched clump of wig on his head. "When I used to have a good appetite, I could eat a whole cake without knowing it." Clarice explains Marvin's trip to Dave Smith County, Texas.He hired a lawyer on the behalf of Genevieve Rauch and finally found the baseball.It is sealed in a bag as collateral number and deposited in the office of the real estate company secretary.Police seized the victim's body, the car and its contents, including the baseball.It's in a cardboard box of junk. Marvin smoked the long thin cheap cigar. "I went to the Bronx and got this cheesecake. The bakery was clean, and I gave you the map, the brochure, and the man who spoke five languages, what's his name? But you couldn't find it to it." "translate." "Translation," said Marvin. The cheesecake was luscious and delicious, with the personality of a warm-hearted uncle from a wealthy family.That uncle knew a lot of dirty jokes and was willing to indulge himself too much and die in his lover's arms. "Finally," Brian said, "you finally got this baseball." "I followed the clues until October 4, 1951, which was the day after the match." "How did you support it financially over the course of so many years? The cost of the long-term travel, the final purchase, all of that cost money." "I used to own a chain of stores locally - dry cleaners. After my wife died, I sold it. I don't need it anymore, it's annoying to run." "Laundry King Marvin." His daughter said a little emotionally, a little regretfully, with irony in her tone, obviously proud, and a little pathetic humor and so on. She told her father that he was going to see a doctor the next morning.He listened as if he were listening to the news on TV, his eyes fixed on India with indifference.She picked up the tray and walked up the stairs.In Brian's imagination, he followed her into his car.Later, he pulls over on the side of the road, looks her in the eye, then slams on the gas and takes her to a roadside inn.He opened the room, went in, and took off the other person's clothes with his teeth and tongue, without saying a word during the whole process. He listened to the music wafting through the house, the lamentation of the piano keyboard.He finally identified the underlying character in Marvin's quest story, the indirect nature of those laborious activities, that re-engagement, those enhanced photographs.It was an eerie replay of political murder detection in the 1960s, trying to piece together a crucial moment from the fragments and outlines.Marvin borrowed a strong motif in the darkroom in order to identify simple white objects bouncing across a court. "Right now, we know what we found in the final stages, from Genevieve Rauch, to Judson Rauch, to Lundy. But what about the beginning?" "Now that you ask, let me tell you. There's a man whose name is Charles, let me see, Charles Wainwright, the manager of an advertising agency. I have a whole thread about the baseball owner The clues finally came to him." "In the end it's not about going back to that game itself." "I don't have the last link to connect the baseball in Wainwright's hand to the one hit by Bobby Thomson." He looked at the wall clock on the scoreboard with disappointment in his eyes. "Some time slots are missing and I have to find them. You have to think about mortality when you're dealing with events that happened many years ago. Wainwright is dead, and his son, Charles Wainwright Jr., is now forty-two. , using the name Chuck. I’ve wanted to talk to him for a long time. He was last seen as an engineer on a cargo plane, commuting regularly—do you like that word?” "Regular commute." "In the Baltic," said Marvin, "come to that." "what?" "You should pay attention to that mark above Gorbachev's head and see if it changes shape." "Shape change? It's been growing on his head." "do you know?" "What, you think it's a recent one?" "You know that? It's been growing on his head?" “是胎记。”布赖恩说。 “不过，这是官方传记的说法。让我告诉你我的观点吧。我觉得，假如我被政府雇用，从事那份敏感的工作，在他没戴帽子的时候，我每一分钟都会从外太空拍照，查核那个胎记的形状，看它是否出现变化。它现在的形状是拉脱维亚。不过，明天早上可能是西伯利亚——他们正在释放那里的犯人。” 他看着他的雪茄。 “只有你分析了相关的构成点之后，实在才会出现。” 这时，他吃力地站起来。 “当冷战结束时，你就无法看到街上的某个女人，你脑袋里就会出现那种莫名其妙的幻想了，就是你今天出现的幻想。” “色情的。不过，它们之间的联系是什么呢？” “你生活中的每一项特权，你心里的每一个念头，全都取决于两个大国给这个星球带来威胁的能力。你不知道吗？” “这一点真令人吃惊。” “一旦这威胁开始消退，你就不知道了。” "what?" “你是迷失的历史人物。” 拜访看来结束了。但是，主人把他带到楼梯旁边分成格子的壁龛前。这里存放着他收集的棒球比赛录像和录音资料，电台和电视转播的比赛音像。数百盒磁带依次摆放，其中有最早的比赛资料。 “有的人保存这些球棒，这些球，通过口耳相传的方式，让这些往事保留下来。有的人还知道许多球员的绰号。我在自己的地下室墙壁上保存着伟大的历史。听我说，你会看到，我这样做是正确的。将来，有人会出大价钱收集这些东西。这里所说的是极度渴望的心情，他们会开出天价的。” 布赖恩希望这个人说话可以更委婉一些，客气一些。他最后一次看了计分牌，这时觉得它是一件很有特色的藏品，然而略带一点葬礼的味道。它有浓缩的品质，让保护、精确比例和值得尊重的历史集于一体，可以形成一种陵墓的忧郁氛围。 两人上了楼梯，穿过幽暗的房间，到了大门口。马文站在那里，嘴里衔着已经熄灭的雪茄。 “男人们到这里观看我的藏品。” "Ok." “他们来到这里，不想离开。电话响了，是家人打来的——他在什么地方呢？这是失踪男人的联谊。” "I see." "What's your name?" “布赖恩·格拉斯克。” “很高兴认识你。”马文说。 布赖恩问马文，是否有一条路线，可以不经过乔治华盛顿大桥直接返回曼哈顿？这里到处都是隧道，马文说了两个方向，每个方案都有若干选择。傻瓜布赖恩眯缝着眼睛，点了点头，不过，他心里知道，他上车之后是不会记住这些东西的。 他驱车沿着收费高速公路行驶。雾霭中映射金色的落日余晖，曼哈顿时隐时现。高速行驶的卡车发出震耳欲聋的轰鸣，他的小车在声浪中晃动。司机们坐在高高的驾驶室内，有的在吃东西，有的在豪饮，有的在吸毒，有的在观看色情录像。那些庞然大物飞驰而过，形成的气流似乎要把他的小车赶下收费公路。他经过大型油库，一排排白色大圆筒矗立在沼泽地上，那些储油罐分成了一个个小区域。油罐车排成长龙，在油库的路上爬行。他路过长臂叉腰的电力塔架，然后进入一大片浓烟喷吐、焚烧卡车轮胎的地方。飞机缓缓下降，码头上屹立着成排的旋转式起重机。他看到各种各样的广告牌，其中包括赫兹租车公司、阿维斯租车公司、雪佛兰拓荒者，还有万宝路香烟、马牌轮胎、固特异轮胎。他觉得，起降的飞机、排成长龙的汽车、汽车上的轮胎、汽车驾驶员丢进烟灰缸的烟头——周围广告牌上所有这些东西都以系统方式联系起来，形成某种自我指涉的关系。这样的关系具有一种神经紧张性，具有一种不可逃避性，仿佛那些广告牌能够生成现实。当然，他想到了马文。 他经过纽瓦克机场时才意识到已经驶过了所有出口和它们相连的路口。他寻找一个不那么拥挤的出口，一个没有卡车的乡村出口。他后来发现，他驶上了一条两车道柏油路，自己在毫无把握的情况下，穿越长满香蒲的泥沼。他闻到空气中飘过一阵阵浓盐水的刺鼻气味，道路这时进入一道弯，路面上出现了沙砾和野草。 他下了车，爬上泥土堆成的堤坝。一阵狂风刮过，让他眼泪汪汪，他的目光掠过狭窄的河水，看到对岸有一个凸起的土丘。它是棕红色的，顶上平坦，像是一座纪念碑。远处的山顶上，落日绽放出余晖。布赖恩以为自己出现了幻觉，看到了亚利桑那州的孤山。然而，眼前的一切都是真实的，而且是人造的。成群的海鸥在那里盘旋。他知道，这只可能是一样东西——史坦顿岛上的弗雷什基尔斯垃圾填埋场。 这就是他的纽约之行的目的地。按照计划，他上午要在这里见一批勘察员和工程师。在三千英亩宽的场地上，垃圾堆积如山，车道环绕其中，推土机不停地工作，把垃圾推向新的作业面。布赖恩看着眼前的情景，觉得精神振奋。驳船正在卸货，清扫船划过水面，搜集漂浮的垃圾。他看见，在控制雨水溢流的高大的排水管道上，一批维护工正在工作。有的人戴着面具，身穿丁烯防护服，站在垃圾结构的底部，在一些分离开来的材料中寻找有毒废物。这是科幻小说和史前文献中描写的情景。在每天二十四小时中，垃圾不断运来，数百名工人昼夜不停地工作，有的操作带有金属轮子的车辆压缩垃圾，有的用钻开凿通风口，让甲烷排出来。海鸥一边俯冲，一边鸣叫；一排带着长鼻子式吸管的卡车正在收集散落的垃圾。 他想象，自己看到的是建设宏伟的吉萨金字塔的情景，不过眼前这个比它大二十五倍。洒水车把加了香精的水喷到进入场地的道路上。他觉得，这个现场非常激动人心。他们创新途径，辛勤劳动，通过这种经过反复思考的方式，把尽可能多的垃圾填埋入日益缩小的空间中。远处，世贸大厦依稀可见，他在那个理念与这个理念之间，找到一种具有诗意的平衡。大桥、隧道、驳船、拖船、槽式船坞、集装箱船，构成了这些运输活动。贸易和联系最后都集中在这个达到庞大的结构中。这个工程是有机的，在不断生长，变化，它的形状用计算机标绘出来，每一天，每一个小时都在修订。数年之后，这将是从波士顿到迈阿密这一段大西洋沿岸上的最高山峰。布赖恩觉得深受启发。他望着高耸的垃圾堆，心里第一次明白了他的工作的意义。他所做的工作意义不在于工程、运输或者资源控制方面，而在于如何影响人们的行为、习惯和冲动方式，在于如何影响人们无法控制的需要和单纯的希望。也许，还在于影响人们的激情，肯定可以影响人们的过度耗费和放纵，影响人们大手大脚的生活方式。这里的问题是，如何对这种大规模新陈代谢进行控制，不让它淹没我们的生活？ 这个垃圾填埋场让他有了直观的感觉，看到了废物之流是如何终结的。所有物欲，所有渴望，所有经过深思熟虑的念头，这一切全在这里集中起来，其中包括人们曾经热情追求后来肆意放弃的东西。他曾经见过的垃圾填埋场不下一百处，但是没有哪一个像眼前的一样，如此迅速地增长。是啊，触目惊心，令人担忧。他知道，这里冒出的恶臭味会顺风飘散，进入方圆数英里之内每个家庭的餐厅。当人们在夜里听到什么响动时，他们是否想到，他们周围的堆积如山的垃圾正在崩塌，滑向他们的住宅？他们是否想到，电影中吞噬一切的恐怖巨兽正在阻塞他们的大门和窗户？ 一阵微风吹来，臭气飘过垃圾堆。 布赖恩深吸了一口气，臭味灌入他的肺部。这是他渴望的挑战，冲击了他心里的自满，触及了他心里隐约存在的羞愧感。理解所有这一切，深入这个秘密的内部。这个垃圾山头摆在这里，没有什么遮蔽，然而似乎没有谁看到它，没有谁考虑过如何处理它。除了那些工程师、团队成员和本地居民之外，没有谁知道它在这里的存在。一种独一无二的文化沉淀，堆到顶端的重量高达五千万吨，然后进行分割，切块。没有讨论到它，但是那些男人和女人试着去管理它。他第一次将自己视为一个秘密教团的成员。这批人是行家里手，是创造未来的先知达人，是城市规划者，是废品管理者，是处理混合物的技师，是空中花园的景观设计师。他们利用各种已经使用、被人丢弃、遭到腐蚀、充满欲望的物品，将来要在这里建造一座公园。 最大的秘密正是展现在我们面前的这些东西。这是马文·伦迪的话语，仿佛是从他喉咙中手术留下的裂缝中冒出来的，干巴巴的，显得滞重，在布赖恩的脑袋里回荡。 一阵微风吹过，臭气从废品山上刮来。 微粒和碎片闪闪发光，泥土的覆盖层中夹着彩色的布条。那是服装制作中心丢弃的织物残片，它们在风中不停地晃动。也许，那个蓝绿色的东西是比基尼泳装的碎片，曾经属于在皇后区工作的某个女秘书。布赖恩发现，他可以创造一幅令人醉心痴迷的画面：她长着一双黑眼睛，阅读低俗小报，涂抹趾甲。她从泡沫塑料盒中取出午餐，吃了起来。他送给她礼物，她递给他避孕套。动画在这里结束，新闻纸、指甲砂锉、性感内裤，这些东西全被轰鸣的推土机翻了出来。想一想他自己的数量巨大的精子吧，它们带着突出额头这一家族特征的历史，被困在人称拉姆西斯法老的尸体袋的避孕套中，在垃圾堆深处滚动。 他看见，几只海鸥在附近盘旋，一百来只海鸥站在斜坡上，全都朝着同一个方向，一动不动，神情专注，呈现出鸟类特有的漂亮姿态，等着起飞的信号。