Hazardous Cravings - Tin House
Ours was a Dairy Queen of the old style, a classic DQ: shaped like a gambrel barn, a mural of Dennis the Menace eating a cone on an outside wall.
我们的房间是老式的冰雪皇后，是一个经典的 DQ：形状像一个 gambrel 谷仓，外墙上有一幅威胁丹尼斯正在吃甜筒的壁画。
Our DQ had no indoor seating and closed every winter—in rural New Jersey, nobody wanted ice cream after November.
我们的 DQ 没有室内座位，每年冬天都会关门——在新泽西州的乡村，十一月之后就没有人想要冰淇淋了。
Customers placed their orders through small sliding windows as high as a grown man’s waist.
顾客通过与成年男子腰部齐高的小滑动窗下订单。
The only cooked food on the menu was hot dogs, which we stored in a vat of vinegar brine and reluctantly microwaved for those customers who couldn’t be dissuaded from ordering them—usually truckers who’d gotten lost off the highway.
菜单上唯一的熟食是热狗，我们将其存放在一桶醋盐水中，然后不情愿地用微波炉加热，以供那些无法阻止的顾客（通常是在高速公路上迷路的卡车司机）享用。
I started working there a month before my fourteenth birthday, a month before I was able, legally, to work.
我在十四岁生日前一个月开始在那里工作，也就是在我能够合法工作之前一个月。
I lied on my application and a friend on staff vouched for me.
我在申请中撒了谎，一位工作人员朋友为我作了担保。
I suspect, now, that he hadn’t done this out of loyalty, but self-preservation: he was chubby and feared being teased about his weight.
现在我怀疑他这样做不是出于忠诚，而是出于自我保护：他很胖，害怕因为体重而被嘲笑。
But next to me he looked smaller, even normal.
但在我旁边，他看起来更小，甚至正常。
That summer I weighed 230 pounds.
那年夏天我的体重是230磅。
I learned early to revel in DQ’s greatest perk: eating the ice cream.
我很早就学会了享受 DQ 最大的福利：吃冰淇淋。
Our franchise never adopted the strict Taylorist principles of most chain restaurants.
我们的特许经营权从未采用大多数连锁餐厅严格的泰勒主义原则。
We were free from the restrictions of measuring spoons, cones sized by the ounce, scoop rubrics for Blizzards, fudge pump limits on sundaes, and, most importantly, there were no records of how much employees ate.
我们不受量匙、按盎司测量甜筒大小、暴雪的勺子规则、圣代软糖泵限制的限制，而且最重要的是，没有关于员工吃了多少的记录。
The rule was one treat every shift—no one followed this rule.
规则是每班一个人招待——没有人遵守这个规则。
I would start my shifts with a small Blizzard—some unfamiliar flavor, under the guise of mastering the menu—and, throughout the day, periodically eat small cups of soft serve loaded with syrups and candies, mixing the concoctions together with spoons, creating rustic, miniature Blizzards I could easily discard should the boss come downstairs from her office.
我会从一杯小暴雪开始我的轮班——一些不熟悉的味道，打着掌握菜单的幌子——然后，一整天，定期吃一小杯装满糖浆和糖果的软饮料，用勺子将混合物混合在一起，创造出质朴的微型暴雪，如果老板从办公室下楼，我可以很容易地扔掉。
I always volunteered to chop the frozen peanut butter cups because the task let me sneak whole cups with impunity.
我总是自愿切碎冷冻花生酱杯，因为这项任务让我可以偷偷地偷偷地吃掉整杯花生酱而不受惩罚。
Whenever I passed the hard ice cream freezer, I’d slide open the lid and use my finger to scrape off a chunk of cookie dough or mint chocolate chip, slip it right into my mouth.
每当我经过硬冰淇淋冰箱时，我都会滑开盖子，用手指刮下一块饼干面团或薄荷巧克力片，然后将其滑入我的嘴里。
And then there were the mistakes.
然后就是错误。
A titanium freezer housed a little city of toppled cones, ugly sundaes, undercandied Blizzards, and shakes.
钛制冰柜里装着一座小城市，里面有倒塌的甜筒、丑陋的圣代、低糖的暴风雪和奶昔。
Though our boss, Stasia, had no way to measure the number of treats we made for ourselves, she did keep track of mistakes.
尽管我们的老板斯塔西娅无法衡量我们为自己制作的款待的数量，但她确实记录了错误。
She threatened to dock the cost from our paychecks.
她威胁要从我们的工资中扣除费用。
So whenever coworkers made mistakes, they offered the ice cream to me.
所以每当同事犯错时，他们就会把冰淇淋递给我。
I liked protecting our paychecks with my eating, but eating in front of people carried an inescapable shame.
我喜欢通过吃饭来保护我们的薪水，但在人们面前吃饭是一种不可避免的耻辱。
Being fat was a sign of a spiritual shortcoming, I believed.
我相信，肥胖是精神缺陷的表现。
To combat these feelings, I ate with enthusiasm in front of my coworkers, spooning the ice cream and saying, Mmm and This is amazing, embodying the gluttonous fat boys we all knew from TV.
为了对抗这些感觉，我在同事面前热情地吃着，舀着冰淇淋说，嗯，这太棒了，体现了我们在电视上认识的贪吃的胖男孩。
Performing my fatness let me control it, flatten its fangs.
表演我的肥胖让我控制它，压平它的獠牙。
It was safer to orchestrate the laughter than to be mocked unaware.
精心策划笑声比在不知不觉中被嘲笑更安全。
At fourteen, I already had fixed ideas about the value of my body and understood how to exploit my size to entertain others.
十四岁时，我已经对自己身体的价值有了固定的想法，并了解如何利用自己的身材来娱乐他人。
At DQ, I served as a prop comic, my stomach my prop.
在DQ，我担任道具漫画，我的胃就是道具。
Lifting my shirt, regardless of context, could add levity to any situation.
无论在什么情况下，提起我的衬衫都会给任何情况增添轻松感。
My ass served as a copious target for goosing.
我的屁股成了很多人嘲笑的目标。
Often I held my head under the soft-serve machine, pretending to pump a rope of vanilla right into my mouth.
我常常把头放在冰淇淋机下面，假装把一串香草直接送进嘴里。
This wasn’t a unique joke—other employees had tried it—but my weight made the scene funnier.
这并不是一个独特的笑话——其他员工也尝试过——但我的体重让这个场景变得更有趣。
Just as my weight made mundane tasks like hauling out trash or scrubbing benches hilarious.
就像我的体重让倒垃圾或擦洗长凳等平凡的任务变得有趣一样。
Sometimes I talked about the girls I liked, which spurred pitying chuckles.
有时我谈到我喜欢的女孩，这会引起怜悯的笑声。
I spent a rainy, customer-less Sunday repeatedly singing No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak” into a spoon for a coworker getting over a breakup, attentive to how the gap between my gelatinous figure and Gwen Stefani’s lithe femininity enhanced the performance—two years later, after I lost sixty pounds, this coworker would tell me I was no longer fun.
在一个下雨、没有顾客的周日，我不断地对着勺子唱着 No Doubt 的《Don’t Speak》，为一位同事从分手的阴影中走出来，并注意我凝胶般的身材和格温·史蒂芬妮 (Gwen Stefani) 轻盈的女性气质之间的差距如何增强了表演——两年后，在我减掉了 60 磅之后，这位同事会告诉我，我不再有趣了。
Near the end of my first year at DQ, I learned to make a face with my stomach.
在 DQ 的第一年快结束时，我学会了用肚子做鬼脸。
Though I performed this trick mostly for upperclassmen at school, when my coworkers told my boss about it, she called me up to her office.
虽然我在学校主要为高年级学生表演这个技巧，但当我的同事告诉我的老板时，她把我叫到她的办公室。
From behind her desk, she said, “Let me see it, this face,” her tone soberly eager.
她在办公桌后面说道：“让我看看，这张脸。”她的语气中带着清醒的渴望。
We were alone.
我们独自一人。
Two freezers hummed at my back; behind her, calendars, photos of Athens and Thessaloniki, and aged dollar bills hung on the wood-paneled wall.
两台冰箱在我背后嗡嗡作响；她身后的木板墙上挂着日历、雅典和塞萨洛尼基的照片以及陈旧的美元钞票。
It didn’t occur to me to feel nervous or strange.
我没想到会感到紧张或奇怪。
Lifting my shirt gave me purpose.
掀起衬衫给了我目标。
This, I believed, was what I offered to people.
我相信，这就是我向人们提供的。
I lifted my shirt, folded my flab into lips.
我掀起衬衫，将下垂的赘肉含在嘴唇上。
I spent my first two summers as Dairy Queen’s obese clown.
头两个夏天我都是作为冰雪皇后的肥胖小丑度过的。
But in my sophomore year of high school, I fell in love with a girl who did not love me back.
但在我高二的时候，我爱上了一个不爱我的女孩。
I thought she might love me if I were skinny.
我想如果我瘦的话她可能会爱我。
I was fifteen, 245 pounds.
我当时十五岁，体重245磅。
A friend agreed to lift with me after school.
一位朋友同意放学后和我一起抬车。
He’d spot me and say, “You wanna be a pussy all of your life or just half?” I’d think of the girl I loved and say, “Half.”
他会发现我并说：“你想当一辈子还是半辈子？”我会想起我爱的女孩并说：“一半。”
I started jogging in the mornings, accompanied by my heavy breathing and thumping, dinosaur feet.
我开始早上慢跑，伴随着粗重的呼吸和恐龙般的重击声。
As cars approached, I sped into sprints, proving how fast I could run—but once they drove out of sight, I slugged back to a panting, pause-ridden walk.
当汽车驶近时，我加速冲刺，证明自己能跑得有多快——但一旦它们驶出视线，我又开始气喘吁吁、停顿下来。
I played basketball through sweltering afternoons.
我在炎热的下午打篮球。
I bought Lean Cuisine meals by the dozen and even carried one like a cross whenever I went to a friend’s house.
我买了十几份精益美食，甚至每次去朋友家都会像十字架一样带着一份。
As the other boys mowed through pizza and chips, I’d stand in the kitchen watching a plastic tray spin in the microwave.
当其他男孩切披萨和薯条时，我站在厨房里看着塑料托盘在微波炉中旋转。
At first, my friends supported this habit.
起初，我的朋友们支持这个习惯。
They were not immune to the feel-good story of fat loss.
他们也未能幸免于减脂的美好故事。
But as I continued to order salads in public, to sneak low-fat Wheat Thins into movies, to snap sugar-free gum, they grew unnerved by my dieting.
但当我继续在公共场合点沙拉、在电影中偷偷吃低脂小麦片、吃无糖口香糖时，他们对我的节食感到不安。
Ex-NFL players like Dan Marino and Lawrence Taylor weren’t yet hocking Nutrisystem on TV.
像丹·马里诺和劳伦斯·泰勒这样的前 NFL 球员还没有在电视上使用 Nutrisystem。
Dieting remained shameful for men.
节食对于男性来说仍然是可耻的。
It betrayed a time-honored masculine truth: men succeeded despite their appearances.
它背叛了一个由来已久的男性真理：男人无论外表如何都能成功。
By losing weight, I challenged this truth, disturbing the friends who took it for granted.
通过减肥，我挑战了这个真理，打扰了那些认为这是理所当然的朋友。
“When are you gonna quit it?” my friends would say.
“你打算什么时候戒掉它？”我的朋友们会说。
“Aren’t you skinny enough?” We all had something to lose from my loss.
“你还不够瘦吗？”我们都因为我的损失而失去了一些东西。
They feared they would lose the uncomplicated entertainment of mocking my body, and I feared losing my reason for being invited to parties.
他们担心他们会失去嘲笑我身体的简单娱乐，而我担心失去被邀请参加聚会的理由。
But the skinnier I became, the more my friends called me fat, the humor born out of incongruity—like heavyset me imitating Gwen Stefani—and a reminder that they would never forget who I had been.
但我越瘦，我的朋友们就越发说我胖，这种幽默源于不协调——就像体格魁梧的我模仿格温·史蒂芬妮——提醒他们永远不会忘记我是谁。
No matter how much weight I lost, I would remain a fat kid in their minds, just as I would remain this way in my own.
无论我减掉多少体重，在他们心目中我仍然是个胖孩子，就像我在自己心目中仍然是个胖孩子一样。
Fatness was a permanent psychological state.
肥胖是一种永久的心理状态。
I could not thin my way out of the mind-set—the paranoia that people were judging me, assuming me clumsy, mocking what I had eaten, mocking that I had eaten, blaming me for noxious smells, itching to slap my stomach, assuming my body disgusting and gross and good for nothing other than entertainment—but I tried.
我无法摆脱这样的心态——人们在评判我，认为我笨拙，嘲笑我吃的东西，嘲笑我吃的东西，指责我发出有毒的气味，渴望拍打我的胃，认为我的身体恶心、粗俗，除了娱乐之外没有任何用处——但我尝试了。
I quit eating dinner with my mother and stepfather.
我不再和母亲和继父一起吃晚饭了。
They were both overweight and I considered their bodies a threatening vision of what I might become.
他们都超重，我认为他们的身体是对我可能成为的威胁的愿景。
As they ate creamy, meat-heavy pastas while watching the Food Network, I sat in my room poking at skinless grilled chicken breasts.
当他们一边看美食频道一边吃着奶油味的肉质意大利面时，我坐在房间里戳着去皮的烤鸡胸肉。
My mother had dieted for most of her adult life.
我母亲成年后的大部分时间都在节食。
She treated my distance with a mix of pride and relief: maybe her son would find a way out.
她带着自豪和宽慰的心情对待我的距离：也许她的儿子会找到出路。
At first, Dairy Queen’s offerings hardly tempted me.
起初，冰雪皇后的产品几乎没有吸引我。
The obvious rules of dieting simplified my behavior.
明显的节食规则简化了我的行为。
Dieting Alex didn’t eat S’mores Blizzards or coffee-banana shakes or handfuls of Heath bar bits straight from the bag.
节食的亚历克斯没有直接从袋子里吃巧克力棒，也没有吃咖啡香蕉奶昔或一把希思棒。
I replaced the desire for sweets with thoughts about spinach or the girl I loved or being a pussy for only half of my life.
我用对菠菜或我爱的女孩或只做了半辈子的阴户的想法取代了对甜食的渴望。
Working around female coworkers made restraint second nature.
在女同事身边工作使克制成为第二天性。
I absorbed phrases like I can’t and I shouldn’t and Only a little and Just for today.
我吸收了诸如“我不能”、“我不应该”、“只有一点”和“就为了今天”之类的短语。
They praised me for bringing microwave meals to my shift.
他们称赞我在轮班时带了微波炉餐。
If I did eat ice cream, I ate what the women ate: baby cones topped with a dollop of soft serve, rolled in a carnival of rainbow sprinkles.
如果我确实吃冰淇淋，我也会吃女人们吃的东西：小甜筒，上面撒上一团软冰淇淋，卷在狂欢节的彩虹糖屑中。
By the end of my third summer at DQ, I was sixteen and 181 pounds.
在 DQ 的第三个夏天结束时，我已经 16 岁，体重 181 磅。
I stopped loving the girl I loved, out of convenience.
出于方便，我不再爱我所爱的女孩。
She still had no interest in me.
她对我还是没有兴趣。
Near the end of my junior year, my weight fluctuated between 177 and 186 pounds.
大三快结束时，我的体重在 177 磅到 186 磅之间波动。
I weighed myself twice every day.
我每天称体重两次。
I performed complicated workout routines alone in the back corner of the school weight room.
我独自在学校举重室的后角进行了复杂的锻炼。
I avoided all cheeses and sauces, most mirrors.
我避免使用所有奶酪和酱汁，以及大多数镜子。
I began drinking coffee.
我开始喝咖啡。
I spent hours roaming grocery stores, committing calorie counts to memory.
我花了几个小时在杂货店闲逛，把卡路里数记在心里。
I pinched my stomach every few minutes, disturbed by the slightest hint of excessive flab.
我每隔几分钟就捏捏自己的肚子，因为一丝过度松弛的迹象就会让我不安。
One evening after dinner at home, while showering off the crust of exercise sweat, I felt bloated from eating a little too much and lodged my finger in my throat until I expelled a few hunks of dinner.
一天晚上，吃完晚饭后，我在家里洗掉运动时流下的汗水，突然吃得太多，感觉有点胀，我把手指卡在喉咙里，直到把几块晚餐吐出来。
I was surprised by how easily the food came up, how much better I felt seeing the soggy chewed-up bits on the floor of the tub.
我很惊讶食物竟然这么容易就端上来了，看到浴缸地板上湿漉漉的咀嚼过的碎片我感觉好多了。
I removed the drain plug and toed the food down.
我取下排水塞，把食物放下来。
Rationalizing what happened was easy: I had eaten too much.
将发生的事情合理化很容易：我吃得太多了。
I felt uncomfortable with so much food in my stomach.
胃里有这么多食物，我感到不舒服。
It would be stupid to live with discomfort.
生活在不适中是愚蠢的。
Throwing up in the shower seemed too anomalous to cause harm.
洗澡时呕吐似乎太反常，不会造成伤害。
I could not possibly have an eating disorder, I reassured myself—not only that night, but also in the nights that followed, as I continued to purge in the shower.
我不可能有饮食失调症，我向自己保证——不仅是那天晚上，而且是在接下来的几个晚上，当我继续在淋浴中净化时。
In the midst of this, I started my fourth summer at DQ.
在此期间，我开始了在 DQ 的第四个夏天。
Stasia now considered me a trusted employee.
斯塔西娅现在认为我是一名值得信赖的员工。
This was rare for men at our DQ.
这对于我们 DQ 的男性来说是很少见的。
I’d outlasted a dozen others who’d quit after a few weeks to earn real money bailing hay or installing stone walls around pools.
我比其他十几个人活得更久，他们几周后就辞职了，靠倒干草或在水池周围安装石墙来赚钱。
The masculinity required to perform manual labor always seemed beyond my abilities.
从事体力劳动所需的男子气概似乎总是超出我的能力范围。
My dieting had transformed me into a paradox of masculinity and emasculation, making me perfect for DQ.
我的节食让我变成了一个兼具男子气概和男性气质的悖论，使我成为 DQ 的完美选择。
I could just as easily lug a refrigerator up the steps as I could ice flowers onto a cake.
我可以轻松地将冰箱拖上台阶，就像我可以将鲜花冰冻在蛋糕上一样。
I performed no single job especially well—but I did everything competently.
我没有哪一项工作做得特别好，但我每件事都做得很出色。
For this reason, I was often the last employee on shift as Stasia sat upstairs in her office counting receipts.
出于这个原因，当斯塔西娅坐在楼上办公室清点收据时，我经常是最后一个轮班的员工。
I felt unique in this position.
我在这个职位上感到独一无二。
That all changed, however, the night Boots showed up at DQ.
然而，当 Boots 出现在 DQ 的那天晚上，一切都改变了。
Seconds before I could shut off the Dairy Queen sign, a slick red Civic swung into the parking lot.
就在我关掉冰雪皇后标志的几秒钟前，一辆光滑的红色思域开进了停车场。
I had just finished sweeping and mopping and scrubbing the floors.
我刚刚扫完、拖地、擦地板。
Stasia had promised to do one of those jobs, but she was four months pregnant.
斯塔西娅曾答应做其中一项工作，但她已经怀孕四个月了。
We both understood her promise as strictly rhetorical.
我们都把她的承诺理解为严格的修辞。
I shut off the lights.
我关掉灯。
The driver, I thought, would get the hint.
我想司机会明白的。
But the driver approached the employees’ entrance and hammered his fist on the aluminum door.
但司机走到员工入口处，用拳头敲击铝门。
I squeezed my face between an upright fridge and the window, studied the man.
我把脸挤在立式冰箱和窗户之间，审视着这个男人。
I would come to know him as Boots, Stasia’s twenty-one-year-old cousin.
我后来才知道他是布茨，斯塔西娅二十一岁的表弟。
He lived in the smoky, congested part of New Jersey, the New Jersey people imagine when asked to picture New Jersey.
他住在新泽西州烟雾缭绕、交通拥堵的地区，当人们被要求描绘新泽西州时，他会想象到新泽西州。
Starting that fall, I would later discover, he would move in with Stasia and her husband and serve as a manager during the day, since the other employees would be at school, letting Stasia stay home with her son.
后来我发现，从那年秋天开始，他会搬去与斯塔西娅和她的丈夫住在一起，并在白天担任经理，因为其他员工都在学校，让斯塔西娅留在家里陪她的儿子。
He paced beneath a spray of yellow light, meanly smoking a cigarette.
他在黄色灯光下踱步，卑鄙地抽着烟。
He looked bored but flickered with anger.
他看起来很无聊，但又闪烁着愤怒的光芒。
He wore straight leg jeans and scuffed loafers, a blue button-down shirt unbuttoned one button too deep.
他穿着直筒牛仔裤和磨损的乐福鞋，蓝色系扣衬衫的扣子解得太深了。
Dimples dented his cheeks.
他的脸颊上有酒窝。
A cross necklace nested in the mossy hair on his chest.
一条十字架项链镶嵌在他胸前长满青苔的头发中。
His presumptuousness annoyed me.
他的自以为是让我很恼火。
Sure, I made him the cone—I felt like I had to—but later that night, as we were leaving DQ, I sprawled on the hood of his Civic like a pinup girl.
当然，我给他做了锥体——我觉得我必须这么做——但那天晚上晚些时候，当我们离开 DQ 时，我像海报女郎一样趴在他的 Civic 引擎盖上。
I resented him for the cone, and I wanted to make Stasia laugh—even thinner, I had a habit of excessive displays for attention.
我对他的甜筒感到不满，我想让斯塔西娅笑——甚至更瘦，我有过度展示注意力的习惯。
Boots yanked me off the hood, his face red with baffled rage.
布茨把我从兜帽上拉下来，他的脸因莫名其妙的愤怒而涨红。
“I don’t even know you,” he said.
“我什至不认识你，”他说。
He pointed at a spot on his hood, claiming I’d dented it.
他指着兜帽上的一个地方，声称是我把它弄凹了。
He demanded I pay.
他要求我付钱。
“For what?” I asked, embarrassed and offended by the suggestion that I weighed enough to damage his hood.
“为了什么？”我问道，因为我的体重足以损坏他的兜帽，我感到尴尬和冒犯。
Stasia agreed.
斯塔西娅同意了。
“There’s nothing,” she said.
“什么也没有，”她说。
My ride pulled into the lot.
我的车停进了停车场。
I slipped into the passenger seat, assuming that Boots, like the rest of the cousins who visited Stasia, wouldn’t show up again until some future holiday.
我溜进乘客座位，假设布茨和其他拜访斯塔西娅的表兄弟一样，要到未来的某个假期才会再次出现。
All service industry jobs instill disdain for customers.
所有服务行业的工作都会灌输对顾客的蔑视。
Disdain makes the job bearable.
蔑视使这份工作变得可以忍受。
You might get paid less than minimum wage, might survive off measly tips, but at least you’re not one of those dopes wanting food.
你的工资可能低于最低工资，可能靠微薄的小费过活，但至少你不是那些想要食物的傻瓜之一。
At Dairy Queen, this common disdain was intensified by a hatred of fatness, which made being fat at DQ differ greatly from being slim.
在冰雪皇后，这种普遍的蔑视因对肥胖的憎恨而加剧，这使得在 DQ 肥胖与苗条有很大不同。
My coworkers now seemed comfortable mocking overweight customers in my presence.
现在，我的同事们似乎很乐意在我面前嘲笑超重的顾客。
During shift overlaps, I’d hear stories of chubby children and adults audacious enough to order large Blizzards or large shakes or triple scoop cones.
在轮班重叠期间，我会听到胖乎乎的孩子和成年人的故事，他们大胆地点了大份的暴风雪、大份的奶昔或三勺甜筒。
The servers never thought of themselves as cruel.
服务员从来不认为自己是残忍的。
They never said cruel things to a person’s face—they had never said anything to mine—but these conversations terrified me.
他们从来没有当着别人的面说过残酷的话——他们也从来没有对我说过任何话——但这些谈话让我感到害怕。
As a child, I’d plowed through large cookie dough Blizzards and Oreo shakes, and I winced with shame wondering whether past employees had ridiculed me.
小时候，我吃过大饼干面团暴雪和奥利奥奶昔，我羞愧地皱起眉头，想知道过去的员工是否嘲笑我。
This didn’t lead me to defend the husky kids who came to DQ.
这并没有让我为来到 DQ 的哈士奇孩子辩护。
I was desperate to distance myself from the child I’d been, so I adopted the ethos of the restaurant: I mocked, I disparaged, I teased, convinced that doing so prevented me from becoming the subject of coworkers’ insults.
我迫切地想要与小时候的自己保持距离，所以我采用了餐厅的精神：我嘲笑、我贬低、我取笑，并确信这样做可以防止我成为同事侮辱的对象。
Stasia sometimes said she could only hire skinny employees.
斯塔西娅有时说她只能雇用骨瘦如柴的员工。
I was an exception, of course, but she insisted she’d known I would take off the weight.
当然，我是个例外，但她坚称她知道我会减肥。
She grasped at practical reasons for privileging thinner employees.
她抓住了优先考虑较瘦员工的实际原因。
The corridors were slender and employees needed to slide past each other in these halls during rushes.
走廊很细长，高峰期间，员工们需要在这些大厅里互相擦肩而过。
Thinner, I learned to contort myself, to squeeze, to scrunch, to shrivel my shoulders, to twist myself into a sliver.
瘦下来后，我学会了扭曲自己、挤压、挤压、萎缩肩膀，把自己扭成一条条。
Thinner, I discovered how often employees touched one another.
瘦下来之后，我发现员工之间互相接触的频率有多高。
During rushes, hands slid across shoulders and backs, down the length of each other’s arms, creating connective tissue between every employee—never erotic, merely reaching and touching to indicate, I am here, I am with you, when we were too busy to talk.
在高峰期，双手滑过肩膀和背部，沿着彼此手臂的长度滑动，在每个员工之间建立结缔组织——从不色情，只是伸手触摸来表明，当我们忙得无暇交谈时，我在这里，我和你在一起。
Over my first two years, coworkers waited at the ends of halls for me to pass, and no one touched me during rushes.
在我的头两年里，同事们在走廊尽头等我过去，在高峰期没有人碰我。
I was validated by those hands on my back, the contact suggesting I wasn’t disgusting.
那些放在我背上的手证实了我的存在，这种接触表明我并不令人厌恶。
I constantly feared I would lose this community.
我一直担心我会失去这个社区。
Dieting had been simple.
节食很简单。
It had given me rules, structured my life.
它给了我规则，构建了我的生活。
As I lost weight, people supported me, but they owed me nothing now that I was skinny.
当我减肥时，人们支持我，但现在我瘦了，他们不欠我什么。
Why did I still eat Lean Cuisines as others ate pizza?
为什么我仍然吃精益美食，而其他人却吃披萨？
Why was I always bringing Olestra Pringles to parties?
为什么我总是带着 Olestra Pringles 去参加聚会？
I resembled a normal sixteen-year-old boy and was expected to eat like one—ravenously, carelessly.
我就像一个正常的十六岁男孩一样，被要求像他一样吃东西——狼吞虎咽，漫不经心。
On occasion, I gave in to this pressure, then spent the following days flinchy with guilt, restricting myself to fewer than one thousand daily calories.
有时，我会屈服于这种压力，然后在接下来的几天里因内疚而畏缩，将自己每天的卡路里摄入量限制在一千卡路里以内。
I understood the precariousness of my size.
我了解我的身材的不稳定。
Every few years, my mother would stick to a diet, take off weight, then put it back on only a couple months later, growing depressed in the process.
每隔几年，我母亲就会坚持节食，减轻体重，然后几个月后又恢复过来，在这个过程中变得沮丧。
I feared the same would happen to me.
我担心同样的事情也会发生在我身上。
Over the course of that summer, as purging in the shower became routine, clogged drains made my mother suspicious.
那个夏天，随着淋浴间的清洗成为例行公事，堵塞的排水管让我母亲产生了怀疑。
I moved to the toilet, purging while the shower ran to mute the sound of gagging.
我走到厕所，一边冲洗一边淋浴，以消除呕吐的声音。
I grew skillful.
我变得熟练了。
I sucked down four glasses of water before starting, fastidiously wiped the splatter from walls, washed my face to prevent pimples from forming where my ring finger rubbed my cheek.
开始前，我喝了四杯水，小心翼翼地擦掉墙上的泼溅物，洗了脸，防止无名指摩擦脸颊的地方长痘痘。
I never brushed my teeth afterward—online, I had read that bristles scraped off acid-weakened enamel—but I rinsed with watered-down Listerine.
此后我再也没有刷牙——我在网上读到，刷毛会刮掉酸弱的牙釉质——但我用兑水的李施德林漱口。
Purging allowed me to live two lives simultaneously: the insatiable and the restricted.
净化让我可以同时过两种生活：贪得无厌的生活和受限制的生活。
I could maintain my weight while partaking in the gluttony expected of me.
我可以在享受我所期望的暴饮暴食的同时保持体重。
It helped my body stay relevant, and employed.
它帮助我的身体保持相关性并就业。
That fall, Boots moved in with Stasia and began working full-time at DQ.
那年秋天，Boots 搬到 Stasia 住，并开始在 DQ 全职工作。
Stasia tapped me to train him.
斯塔西娅让我训练他。
She liked the entertainment this promised: Boots complaining to her about me, me complaining to her about him.
她喜欢这样带来的娱乐：布茨向她抱怨我，我向她抱怨他。
Perhaps she envisioned the training devolving into Springer-like fits of drama.
也许她设想训练会演变成施普林格式的戏剧。
The outcome proved emotionally draining for both Boots and me.
事实证明，这个结果让布茨和我都精疲力竭。
During his training, I came to envy Boots, the way I envied most men.
在他的训练期间，我开始羡慕布茨，就像我羡慕大多数男人一样。
He was free from the belief that his body demanded constant attention.
他不再相信自己的身体需要持续关注。
Boots wasn’t fat—not like I had been fat—but he did have a paunch, some flab under the chin.
布茨并不胖——不像我以前那样胖——但他确实有一个小腹，下巴下面有些松弛。
Residuals from playing offensive lineman in high school: a position that championed ample flesh.
高中时担任进攻前锋的残留：这个位置提倡充足的肉体。
I thought of flesh as an enemy.
我认为肉体是敌人。
I spent shifts wondering whether I deserved a pinch of Butterfinger or whether I could get away with purging the chocolate cone I’d eaten in a moment of weakness.
我花了很多时间思考自己是否应该吃一点黄油手指，或者我是否可以把我在虚弱时吃下的巧克力甜筒倒掉。
Boots ate with unselfconscious abandon, the way I had eaten in my early days, concocting with a mad scientist’s frenzy, mixing hard ice cream with soft serve, marshmallow topping with cherries, mint syrup with Heath bits—flavor combinations be damned—just to test how it tasted.
布茨毫不自觉地放纵地吃着，就像我早年吃的那样，疯狂科学家的疯狂调制，将硬冰淇淋与软冰淇淋混合，棉花糖上撒上樱桃，薄荷糖浆与希思碎片一起吃——该死的味道组合——只是为了测试它的味道。
It was hard for me to be around this, but I fulfilled my duty to train him nevertheless.
面对这样的情况对我来说很困难，但我还是履行了训练他的职责。
We barely spoke for the rest of the year.
这一年剩下的时间我们几乎没有说话。
Come March, I was seventeen, a senior, and broke, ready to start my fifth year at DQ.
三月到来时，我十七岁了，是一名大四学生，身无分文，准备开始在 DQ 的第五年。
Stasia asked me to help prepare for the opening.
斯塔西娅请我帮忙准备开幕式。
When I arrived, an unfamiliar silver sedan idled in the parking lot.
当我到达时，一辆陌生的银色轿车停在停车场。
Boots stepped out of the driver’s seat, weighing forty fewer pounds.
靴子从驾驶座上走下来，重量减轻了四十磅。
“Big Al,” he called me, which nobody called me.
“大阿尔，”他叫我，但没有人这样称呼我。
“How was the winter, Big Al?” His smile rattled in the center of his face.
“冬天过得怎么样，大阿尔？”他的笑容挂在脸上。
He moved stiffly, his arms advancing with cautious intention, as if his body were a rented tuxedo.
他动作僵硬，双臂小心翼翼地向前推进，仿佛他的身体是一件租来的燕尾服。
He puffed his chest, sucked in his stomach.
他挺起胸膛，吸了吸肚子。
His shirt rippled curtain-like in the breeze.
他的衬衫在微风中像窗帘一样飘动。
He pulled me in for a back-patting hug.
他把我拉过来，拍拍我的背，拥抱我。
His kindness made me uneasy—but a sense of kindness swelled in me too.
他的仁慈让我感到不安——但我心中也升起了一股仁慈的感觉。
Weight loss seemed to eclipse everything we had disliked about each other.
减肥似乎掩盖了我们彼此不喜欢的一切。
We were so desperate for dieting to transform us on emotional, even spiritual, levels—we longed to have become new people, not merely thinner forms of ourselves—that we immediately assumed we had the makings of friends.
我们如此渴望通过节食来改变我们的情感、甚至精神层面——我们渴望成为新的人，而不仅仅是瘦弱的自己——以至于我们立即认为我们具备了交朋友的条件。
Boots isn’t so bad, I thought.
我想，靴子也不错。
I’d just never seen his true self.
我只是从未见过他的真实自我。
After backing out of the hug, Boots squeezed my biceps.
退出拥抱后，布茨挤压了我的二头肌。
“You been lifting?” he asked.
“你一直在举重吗？”他问道。
His fingers plunged into fat.
他的手指陷入了脂肪之中。
“Why don’t you flex?”
“你为什么不弯曲？”
I twisted out of his grip, feeling insulted.
我挣脱了他的掌控，感觉自己受到了侮辱。
Of course I had been lifting.
当然，我一直在举重。
Boots flexed for me.
靴子为我弯曲。
His muscle looked like a tennis ball zipped under his skin.
他的肌肉看起来就像一个在他皮肤下拉动的网球。
Stasia arrived.
斯塔西娅来了。
After I worked all day lugging boxes and cleaning machines, she paid me seventy dollars in cash, ten dollars short to account for the pizza she’d bought us for lunch, the pizza I hadn’t touched.
在我搬运箱子和清洁机器一整天后，她付给我七十美元现金，还差十美元来支付她为我们午餐买的披萨，我没有碰过的披萨。
On the ride home, I stopped at the supermarket for chips, cookies, peanut butter, and cereal.
在回家的路上，我在超市停下来买薯条、饼干、花生酱和麦片。
I’d been bingeing more frequently over the winter, and seeing a skinnier Boots spurred my desire to binge—I feared I seemed fatter beside him.
整个冬天我暴饮暴食的频率越来越高，看到更瘦的布茨激发了我暴饮暴食的欲望——我担心我在他身边显得更胖。
It was also the first time in weeks that I had enough money to waste on food.
这也是几周以来我第一次有足够的钱可以浪费在食物上。
I needed to put it to use, and as I roamed the aisles, I twitched with a sense of nervous delight knowing there’d be more money to come.
我需要利用它，当我在过道上漫步时，我因一种紧张而喜悦的感觉而抽搐，因为我知道会有更多的钱来。
I drove home with a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch buckled into the passenger seat like a date.
我开车回家，把一盒肉桂吐司脆饼像枣子一样扣在乘客座位上。
I reached into the box between shifting gears, driving with my body angled to the right, the car veering onto the shoulder.
我在换挡之间把手伸进变速箱，身体向右倾斜，汽车转向路肩。
By the time I got home, only sugary dust remained.
当我回到家时，只剩下糖粉了。
I regretted not buying a second box—they were on sale.
我后悔没有买第二盒——它们正在打折。
Once my mother was sleeping, I retrieved the food from the car, opening the bags outside to reduce the crinkle of plastic.
妈妈睡着后，我从车里取出食物，在外面打开袋子，以减少塑料的褶皱。
I ate in the living room, lying on my stomach—which let me delay the pain of my stomach expanding—as late-night TV muted my munching.
我在客厅里吃饭，趴着——这让我延缓了胃部膨胀的疼痛——因为深夜电视让我的咀嚼声静音了。
I always balanced the salty with sweet.
我总是平衡咸与甜。
That night, after a few minutes of chocolate Turtle Chex Mix sugared my mouth, I reacted with a tower of Pringles before pivoting over to yogurt pretzels, then into the Ritz Chips, ending the binge with spoons of creamy peanut butter.
那天晚上，在吃了几分钟巧克力 Turtle Chex Mix 后，我吃了一塔品客薯片 (Pringles)，然后转向酸奶椒盐卷饼，然后吃 Ritz Chips，最后用几勺奶油花生酱结束了暴饮暴食。
I cycled through the foods, salty-sweet-salty-sweet, until the bags were just about empty—I never ate everything—then stood, punched by the sudden enormity of my gut, and stumbled off to the downstairs bathroom.
我循环浏览食物，咸的、甜的、咸的、甜的，直到袋子几乎空了——我从来没有吃过所有的东西——然后站起来，突然巨大的肠胃猛烈地撞击着我，跌跌撞撞地走向楼下的浴室。
Here, I abandoned the hasty practicality of purging while the shower was running.
在这里，我放弃了在淋浴时进行匆忙清洗的实用性。
Downstairs purges were ritualistic, often beginning with ten minutes of listening to indie pop bands like Mates of State or The Go!
楼下的清洗是仪式性的，通常是从听独立流行乐队如 Mates of State 或 The Go! 十分钟开始。
Team or Arcade Fire to pump myself up.
Team 或 Arcade Fire 让自己打起精神。
The downstairs bathroom connected to the laundry room, and I normally stood shirtless in the doorway between the two, laundry room lights at my back, the bathroom unlit, and flexed for the mirror.
楼下的浴室与洗衣房相连，我通常赤裸上身站在两者之间的门口，洗衣房的灯在我背后，浴室没有开灯，我弯腰对着镜子。
The lighting enhanced my musculature.
灯光增强了我的肌肉。
Abs bubbled out of my stomach.
腹肌从我的胃里冒出来。
Clavicle piped into my chest, balanced above cinder-block pecs.
锁骨伸入我的胸部，平衡在煤渣块般的胸肌上方。
I manically flexed as music blared through my headphones, swallowing glasses of water, dancing a little, waiting to find the rhythm of this particular purge, the way children wait for the rhythm of double Dutch before jumping in.
当音乐从耳机里传出时，我疯狂地弯曲，吞下一杯水，跳起舞来，等待找到这种特殊净化的节奏，就像孩子们在跳进去之前等待双重荷兰语的节奏一样。
When it hit me I’d strip off the headphones and slide down to the toilet, drape a towel over my head to muffle the gagging, and press two fingers into my mouth.
当它袭击我时，我会摘下耳机，滑到厕所，用毛巾盖住头上以捂住呕吐物，然后将两根手指按进嘴里。
Afterward, groggy and empty, a fleeting high would cloud my head.
随后，我的头昏昏沉沉、空虚，一阵短暂的兴奋笼罩在我的头上。
I’d grope back to the living room, where the TV continued to play.
我摸索着回到客厅，电视还在继续播放。
Dairy Queen opened on the fourth Monday in March.
冰雪皇后于三月的第四个星期一开业。
Stasia stayed home with her son, leaving Boots in charge.
斯塔西娅和儿子待在家里，让布茨负责。
As a high school senior, I was granted early release from school to work.
作为一名高中生，我被允许提前放学去工作。
I showed up at 1:00 PM on weekdays to relieve Boots for an hour during the slowest stretch of the day.
我在工作日下午 1:00 出现，在一天中最慢的时段为 Boots 缓解一个小时的时间。
Whenever I worked alone, DQ transformed into the Zone of Hazardous Cravings.
每当我独自工作时，DQ 就会变成危险渴望区。
Refusing to eat in front of people was easy.
拒绝在人们面前吃饭很容易。
Alone, however, nothing could distract me from my scooped-out, rumbling stomach and the desire to eat everything in the restaurant.
然而，独自一人时，没有什么可以分散我的注意力，让我的肚子咕咕叫，我想把餐厅里的所有东西都吃掉。
The terror I once felt about losing the community of the slender had evolved into the terror of spending an hour alone surrounded by sweets.
我曾经对失去苗条社区的恐惧已经演变成对独自度过一个小时被糖果包围的恐惧。
It had become clear I was hurting myself.
很明显我正在伤害自己。
Blood now speckled my vomit.
我的呕吐物上现在沾满了血。
My throat crackled and burned.
我的喉咙噼啪作响，火辣辣的。
My heart sputtered when I lifted.
当我抬起来的时候，我的心狂跳起来。
I did not want purging to kill me—but I still dreaded putting on weight.
我不想让净化杀死我——但我仍然害怕体重增加。
If I ate at DQ, I couldn’t throw up.
如果我在 DQ 吃饭，我就不会呕吐。
Doing so meant abandoning the register.
这样做意味着放弃登记册。
The only safe option was refusing to eat.
唯一安全的选择是拒绝进食。
Or stopping after one serving.
或者吃一份后停止。
In the Zone of Hazardous Cravings, I harbored romantic notions about being satisfied by one small cup of plain vanilla.
在危险渴望区，我怀有浪漫的想法，只要喝一小杯原味香草就可以得到满足。
I imagined letting a single peanut butter cup dissolve in my mouth.
我想象着让一杯花生酱溶解在我的嘴里。
I circled the restaurant, lifting the lids on the Reese’s Pieces or Twix, slamming them shut, sliding open the hard ice cream freezer, sliding it shut, only to lift the lids two minutes later, letting my hand hover closer this time, closer next time.
我绕着餐厅转了一圈，掀起Reese’s Pieces或Twix的盖子，猛地关上，滑开硬冰淇淋冰箱，滑上它，两分钟后才掀起盖子，这次让我的手靠近，下次靠近。
Sometimes I performed push-ups and crunches on the thin stretch of floor between a chest freezer and the wall, standing up to find dirt flaking the sticky parts of my palms.
有时，我会在冷藏柜和墙壁之间的薄薄地板上做俯卧撑和仰卧起坐，站起来发现手掌粘性部分上有污垢剥落。
I wished for a stream of customers to distract me, but at this hour, customers rarely showed.
我希望顾客络绎不绝，分散我的注意力，但这个时候很少有顾客出现。
There was only me and my desire and candy and ice cream and the threat of my heart ready to quit if I burdened myself with a binge.
只有我和我的欲望、糖果和冰淇淋，以及我内心的威胁，如果我暴饮暴食，我就会放弃。
On rare days, I withheld from eating until Boots returned.
在极少数的日子里，我会不吃东西，直到布茨回来。
But my defiance tended to flatline after a few minutes, and the hands hovering over the candies would plunge into their tubs, the fingernails tapping the soft-serve handle would grip it and twist, freeing a tube of vanilla.
但几分钟后，我的反抗趋于平缓，悬停在糖果上的手会伸进盒子里，指甲敲击软冰淇淋手柄会抓住它并扭转，释放出一管香草。
I was always relieved when Boots returned from his break.
当布茨休息完回来时，我总是松了一口气。
I looked forward to the hours we spent together talking about food.
我期待着我们一起谈论食物的时间。
“You know the Big Star vanilla has twice as much fat as DQ vanilla?” Boots might say, noting the knock-off soft serve in our machines.
“你知道 Big Star 香草的脂肪含量是 DQ 香草的两倍吗？”布茨可能会说，注意到我们机器中的仿冒软发球。
“That’s why I never eat it—it’s delicious, but like eight grams of fat in an ounce.
“这就是为什么我从不吃它——它很美味，但就像每盎司含有八克脂肪。
Come on.”
来吧。”
No one else at DQ cared so much about not eating food.
DQ 里没有人如此关心不吃东西。
Especially not the one other male employee, a varsity linebacker who ate two large Blizzards every shift, plus the meals his parents delivered.
尤其是另一名男员工，一名校队后卫，每个班次都要吃两杯大暴雪，再加上他父母送来的饭菜。
He ate the way men were supposed to—and the employees marveled at his consumption, pleased to see it feeding his football performances.
他按照男人应该吃的方式吃饭，员工们对他的饮食感到惊讶，很高兴看到它有助于他的足球表现。
The female employees spoke of their body anxieties with bored reluctance, on the few occasions they discussed them around me.
女员工们在我身边的时候，偶尔会无聊地不情愿地谈论她们对身体的焦虑。
But for Boots and me, the only topics worth discussing were getting thinner, the bodies of athletes we admired, the varsity linebacker’s body, the excessive number of calories in our soft serve, how to make our bodies appealing to women, and morning workout routines.
但对于布茨和我来说，唯一值得讨论的话题是变瘦、我们欣赏的运动员的身体、校队线卫的身体、软发球中过多的卡路里、如何让我们的身体对女性有吸引力，以及早上的锻炼习惯。
An exasperated vulnerability crept into our voices.
我们的声音里潜藏着一种恼怒的脆弱。
“I worry it isn’t enough to walk on the treadmill for an hour,” Boots would say, then put a hand on his stomach.
“我担心在跑步机上走一个小时还不够，”布茨会说，然后把手放在肚子上。
“What matters are miles,” I’d reassure him.
“重要的是里程，”我向他保证。
“I run three miles, you walk three miles.
“我跑三英里，你走三英里。
The difference in calories burned is negligible.” Our openness made us feel grateful but embarrassed.
燃烧的卡路里差异可以忽略不计。”我们的开放让我们感到感激但又感到尴尬。
Discussing food and body anxieties—such womanly topics—suggested we had failed somehow as men.
讨论食物和身体的焦虑——这些女性化的话题——表明我们作为男人在某种程度上是失败的。
Alone, we could talk for hours about these anxieties, but with coworkers near, we became stilted and distant, like lovers trying to hide an affair.
独自一人时，我们可以谈论这些焦虑几个小时，但当同事在附近时，我们变得生硬而疏远，就像恋人试图隐藏外遇一样。
During our shifts, we sat on the counter axing plastic spoons into freezer-burned fat-free sugar-free vanilla hard ice cream.
轮班期间，我们坐在柜台上用塑料勺子将塑料勺子切入冷冻燃烧的无脂无糖香草硬冰淇淋中。
We convinced ourselves we loved this flavor—despite its chemical taste and crystal consistency.
我们说服自己，我们喜欢这种味道——尽管它有化学味道和晶体稠度。
I hid its flavorlessness under sprinkles; Boots doused it in strawberry syrup.
我用洒水掩盖了它的无味；靴子把它浸在草莓糖浆里。
Many days Boots rambled on about “getting big,” which differed greatly from becoming fat.
很多天布茨都在喋喋不休地谈论“变大”，这与变胖有很大不同。
Big meant Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, The Rock.
大意味着施瓦辛格、卢·费里尼奥、巨石强森。
His admiration for bigness served as a corrective to conversations about slimming down.
他对大块头的钦佩纠正了有关减肥的谈话。
It was natural for men to discuss body anxieties if they wanted a muscular build.
如果男性想要拥有肌肉发达的身材，那么讨论身体焦虑是很自然的事情。
Boots stood four inches shorter than me and concluded, somewhat wistfully, that his body couldn’t become meaningfully big.
布茨比我矮四英寸，他略带渴望地得出结论，他的身体不可能变得大得有意义。
So he pictured the muscles on me.
所以他想象了我身上的肌肉。
“You could be huge,” he’d tell me.
“你可以变得很大，”他告诉我。
“You’ve got the perfect frame to stack on some muscle.” He envisioned my neck thick as a tire, deltoids like basketballs under my sleeves.
“你已经拥有了完美的框架来锻炼一些肌肉。”他想象我的脖子像轮胎一样粗，三角肌像我袖子下的篮球。
I always told him to quit it.
我总是告诉他放弃它。
I was so committed to thinness, so obsessed with reduction, that bigness, even as a masculine vision of health, seemed threatening.
我如此执着于瘦身，如此痴迷于减肥，以致于即使作为男性对健康的看法，庞大也似乎具有威胁性。
Muscle did not last forever, I knew.
我知道，肌肉不会永远持续下去。
Muscle devolved into fat.
肌肉退化为脂肪。
Getting big set you up for obesity.
变大会让你容易肥胖。
Though I lifted regularly, I always kept my reps high, the weight far below my maximum, and gave great attention to core exercises I discovered in online videos meant for and performed by women.
尽管我定期举重，但我总是保持较高的次数，重量远低于我的最大重量，并且非常注重我在在线视频中发现的针对女性的核心练习。
Boots’s insistence that I had the frame to stack on muscle seemed like an attack: no matter how much weight I lost, my body would always be big.
布茨坚持认为我必须拥有可以叠加肌肉的框架，这似乎是一种攻击：无论我减掉多少体重，我的身体总是很大。
On other days we picked at our sugar-free ice cream, debating the best types of lettuce.
其他日子里，我们挑选无糖冰淇淋，讨论最好的生菜类型。
I championed romaine and believed in the indefatigable power of spinach.
我拥护生菜，并相信菠菜的不知疲倦的力量。
I loved eating it straight from the bag, piling greens on top of baked barbecue Lay’s.
我喜欢直接从袋子里拿出来吃，把蔬菜堆在烤好的乐事烧烤上面。
Boots preferred iceberg.
靴子更喜欢冰山。
“It’s like eating water!” I’d tell him, as incensed as if he’d insulted my mother.
“就像吃水一样！”我会告诉他，就像他侮辱了我的母亲一样愤怒。
“Exactly,” he said.
“完全正确，”他说。
Nutrients never mattered to Boots.
对于布茨来说，营养成分从来不重要。
He just wanted to keep off the fat.
他只是想远离脂肪。
To emphasize this, he slipped out to smoke every hour.
为了强调这一点，他每小时都会溜出去抽烟。
During those five-minute windows, I’d consume as much as I could: soft serve, peanut butter cups, Heath bits, butterscotch dip, waffle cones, messing it together and shoveling it in too quickly to chew.
在这五分钟的时间里，我会尽可能多地吃东西：软冰淇淋、花生酱杯、希思块、奶油糖果酱、华夫饼甜筒，把它们混在一起，然后很快地把它们塞进去，以至于无法咀嚼。
The intensity of these binges exceeded how I had eaten when I started the job.
这些暴饮暴食的强度超过了我刚开始工作时的饮食强度。
These were pure expressions of shame, absent of performance, my desire uncorked and emptied onto the floor.
这些纯粹是羞耻的表达，缺乏表演，我的欲望被打开并倒在地板上。
Once I finished, I’d trash the cup, then fold more trash over the top before taking a swig of mint syrup to reset my breath.
完成后，我会把杯子扔掉，然后在上面折叠更多的垃圾，然后喝一大口薄荷糖浆来恢复呼吸。
I constantly worried Boots would discover me eating.
我一直担心布茨会发现我在吃东西。
To him, I was proof that someone chubby could keep off the weight.
对他来说，我证明了胖子可以减肥。
I was a testimonial, the most minor of gods.
我是一个见证，是最小的神。
My thinness offered him hope.
我的瘦弱给了他希望。
Whenever he caught me plucking Snickers bits out of their bin or licking a baby-sized cone of soft-serve vanilla, he’d say, “Big Al, what’re you doing?” meaning, Big Al, don’t let me down, or, Big Al, you’re a fraud, or, Big Al, I’m watching you.
每当他发现我从垃圾箱里拿出士力架碎片或舔婴儿大小的软冰淇淋时，他就会说：“大阿尔，你在做什么？”意思是，大阿尔，别让我失望，或者，大阿尔，你是个骗子，或者，大阿尔，我在看着你。
I’m paying attention.
我正在注意。
And today I’m winning the battle.
今天我赢得了这场战斗。
Thinness became a competition between us.
瘦成了我们之间的竞争。
We never compared ourselves directly, but when Boots said, “I ran on the treadmill for an hour this morning,” the implication was “You ran for only twenty-five minutes.” I loved to point at his dinners—salads avalanched in creamy white dressings—and remark that dressing defeated the purpose of salad.
我们从来没有直接比较过自己，但当布茨说“我今天早上在跑步机上跑了一个小时”时，言下之意就是“你只跑了二十五分钟”。我喜欢指着他的晚餐——沙拉里铺满了乳白色的调料——并说调料违背了沙拉的目的。
We kept each other on track.
我们让彼此保持在正轨上。
We considered our competition an expression of love.
我们认为我们的比赛是爱的表达。
The myth some overweight people believe—the myth we believed—is that losing weight will strip the world of its cruelties.
一些超重的人所相信的神话——我们所相信的神话——是减肥将使世界摆脱残酷。
Like all myths, this is based in fact but largely untrue.
像所有的神话一样，这是基于事实的，但很大程度上是不真实的。
Sure: People might smile at you more in the street.
当然：在街上人们可能会对你微笑更多。
Sure: Grocery clerks might let it slide if you’re a few dollars short of the bill.
当然：如果你的账单少了几美元，杂货店店员可能会放过你。
Sure: People might look at you eating in public and not think, Look at that fat motherfucker fucking eating again.
当然：人们可能会看着你在公共场合吃东西，而不是想，看看那个胖混蛋又在吃东西。
More likely—in my case, at least—is that you internalize those callous, external voices after losing the weight.
更有可能的是——至少就我而言——减肥后你会内化那些冷酷的、外在的声音。
The ridicule does not disappear; it merely migrates to the mind and becomes even crueler, incessantly present.
嘲笑并没有消失；它只是迁移到头脑中，变得更加残酷，持续存在。
For Boots and me, the myth of losing weight was amplified by a second myth: all men deserve beautiful women.
对于布茨和我来说，减肥的神话被第二个神话放大了：所有男人都应该拥有美丽的女人。
Boots and I saw that myth play out in any number of sitcoms, movies, in front of our faces at work: Stasia’s husband, who owned our DQ, was pudgy and balding, a chain-smoker, with a voice like a slab of steak.
布茨和我在很多情景喜剧、电影中、在我们工作时的面前看到了这样的神话：斯塔西娅的丈夫，我们 DQ 的老板，身材矮胖，谢顶，烟瘾很大，声音像一块牛排。
Stasia loved him nevertheless.
尽管如此，斯塔西娅还是爱他。
It seemed not to matter whether a man was ugly, dumpy, stupid, testy, ignorant, tiny, funny, furry, courageous, or bland: that man still deserved a beautiful woman.
一个男人是丑陋、矮胖、愚蠢、暴躁、无知、渺小、滑稽、毛茸茸、勇敢还是平淡似乎并不重要：那个男人仍然值得一个美丽的女人。
Did Boots and I deserve women?
我和布茨值得拥有女人吗？
Probably not.
可能不会。
But we had believed that once we shed our heavier frames women would swarm our bodies, begging to love us.
但我们相信，一旦我们摆脱了沉重的身材，女人就会涌入我们的身体，乞求爱我们。
The women didn’t arrive.
女人们还没有到。
This baffled us both.
这让我们俩都很困惑。
And we refused to consider the obvious reasons: we were shallow and temperamental and mean.
我们拒绝考虑显而易见的原因：我们肤浅、脾气暴躁、刻薄。
I could be cruel to people I believed were stupider than me.
我可能对那些我认为比我愚蠢的人很残忍。
Boots lived with a classically masculine anger, his aimless wrath always one inconvenience away from replacing his happy-go-lucky demeanor.
布茨生活在一种典型的男性愤怒之中，他漫无目的的愤怒总是会带来一些不便，无法取代他无忧无虑的举止。
Our personalities sucked.
我们的个性很糟糕。
But what, we wondered, did personality have to do with being loved?
但我们想知道，性格与被爱有什么关系呢？
Perhaps nothing.
也许什么也没有。
In May, Boots started dating a woman he met at a bar.
五月，布茨开始与他在酒吧认识的一位女士约会。
He showed me a grainy photo on his flip phone.
他给我看了他翻盖手机上一张颗粒状的照片。
“She’s hot, right?”
“她很性感，对吧？”
I told him sure but didn’t elaborate.
我肯定地告诉了他，但没有详细说明。
I enjoyed withholding approval from Boots.
我喜欢拒绝博茨的批准。
“You don’t think she’s hot?” He zoomed in and out.
“你不觉得她很性感吗？”他放大又缩小。
“I mean, she’s pretty.
“我的意思是，她很漂亮。
You gotta admit that, Al.
你必须承认这一点，艾尔。
She’s not banging—but those banging girls you see on TV don’t really exist.”
她不是在敲打——但你在电视上看到的那些敲打的女孩实际上并不存在。”
“Yeah, yeah,” I told him.
“是的，是的，”我告诉他。
Men like Boots seemed to date women exclusively to show other men who they were dating.
像布茨这样的男人与女人约会似乎只是为了向其他男人展示他们正在约会的人。
I believed myself more civilized, though I had no way to know for sure.
我相信自己更加文明，尽管我无法确定。
Only two girls had kissed me up to that point in my life.
到目前为止，我一生中只有两个女孩吻过我。
Neither had wanted to date me.
两人都不想和我约会。
“But you just gotta get what you can.
“但你必须得到你能得到的。
I bet you could get somebody banging, Al, but it takes so much work.
我打赌你可以让人敲打，阿尔，但这需要很多工作。
You gotta be smart.” He loaded a small cup with vanilla soft serve, took one bite, and threw the rest out.
你一定要聪明一点。”他在一个小杯子里装了香草软冰淇淋，咬了一口，然后把剩下的扔了出去。
“I think you’re too picky.
“我觉得你太挑剔了。
A meathead like me can’t really be picky.
像我这样的肉蛋，真的不能挑剔。
I gotta get what I can—and she’s great, that’s not what I’m saying.
我必须尽我所能——她很棒，但这不是我要说的。
But if you want a girl, Al, take it from me, you gotta stop being so picky.
但如果你想要一个女孩，阿尔，就从我这里夺走吧，你就不能再那么挑剔了。
You run and you lift and you’re funny—it shouldn’t be hard for you to find a girl.”
你跑步，你举重，你很有趣——找到一个女孩对你来说应该不难。”
I told him okay.
我告诉他好吧。
He’d given me the same pep talk any number of times.
他曾多次对我说过同样的鼓舞人心的话。
I could have taken it as a compliment, proof that Boots believed in me, but after weeks of being reminded that no woman would date me, the puzzled tone of his support seemed insidious, potentially cruel.
我本可以将其视为一种恭维，证明布茨相信我，但在连续几周被提醒没有女人会和我约会之后，他支持的困惑语气似乎是阴险的，可能是残酷的。
Perhaps I was damaged in irredeemable ways.
也许我受到了无法挽回的伤害。
“I mean, if I can get a girl, then you totally can,” he said.
“我的意思是，如果我能找到一个女孩，那么你也完全可以，”他说。
“What is it?
“那是什么？
What are you doing?”
你在做什么？
Rankings were given on a scale of 1 to 5, with the easiest foods to throw up ranked number 1, and the hardest 5.
排名按 1 到 5 级进行，最容易呕吐的食物排名第 1，最难的食物排名第 5。
Wheat Thins, for reference, were a 3—though they were easy to expel they were often eaten too quickly without receiving sufficient chews and emerged from the throat angled and sharp, leaving cuts that did not heal for days.
作为参考，小麦薄片的等级为 3，尽管它们很容易被排出，但它们经常在没有得到充分咀嚼的情况下被吃得太快，并且从喉咙中出来时呈角度且锋利，留下的伤口数天都无法愈合。
All heavily spiced corn chips, like Doritos or Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, were 4s.
所有重口味玉米片，如多力多滋 (Doritos) 或火烈鸟热奇多 (Flamin' Hot Cheetos)，均为 4 颗。
Though similar to Wheat Thins in their ease of emergence, they burned going down and burned coming up—however, the store-brand snack mix, which contained knock-off versions of Doritos and Cheetos, was a 3.
虽然在易于出现方面与小麦薄片类似，但它们会向下燃烧并向上燃烧 - 然而，商店品牌的零食组合（包含山寨版的多力多滋和奇多）是 3。
The mix could satisfy an entire binge for under five dollars.
这种组合只需不到五美元就可以满足整个狂欢。
Peanut butter was a 5 and all but impossible to throw up but I loved the taste too much to avoid it.
花生酱是5分，几乎不可能吐出来，但我太喜欢它的味道了，无法避免它。
Normally, after I emptied out all the Wheat Thins and cereal shards I continued poking in search of the peanut butter.
通常情况下，当我清空所有的小麦片和谷物碎片后，我会继续戳寻找花生酱。
The effort rarely ended successfully.
这种努力很少能成功。
Lettuce and spinach were 1s, which was a bummer.
生菜和菠菜都是 1 秒，这真是太糟糕了。
Some things I didn’t mind keeping down.
有些事情我不介意保留下来。
Ice cream was difficult to rank.
冰淇淋很难排名。
It always came up immediately—smoothly coating the throat—but I never trusted that what I threw up included everything I had eaten.
它总是立即出现——光滑地覆盖着喉咙——但我从不相信我吐出的东西包括我吃过的所有东西。
Semiliquid foods raced through the intestines, I decided.
我决定，半流质食物会快速穿过肠道。
Ice cream turned into fat the second it crossed the glottis.
冰淇淋一穿过声门就变成了脂肪。
Had I been serious about staying thin, I would have avoided it at all costs.
如果我认真地想保持苗条，我会不惜一切代价避免它。
Boots sucked down a four-pack of Red Bull every day.
布茨每天要喝四罐红牛。
He chain-smoked, emptied thermoses of coffee during his shifts.
他在轮班期间不停地抽烟，倒空热水瓶里的咖啡。
And, one afternoon, he returned from his break wielding a grocery bag glutted with packs of green pills.
一天下午，他休息回来，手里拿着一个装满绿色药丸的购物袋。
“They’re totally natural,” Boots told me, holding a diet pill in front of my face.
“它们是完全天然的，”布茨告诉我，他把一颗减肥药放在我面前。
It looked like clipped grass squeezed in plastic.
它看起来就像是用塑料挤压的剪下来的草。
“Try it,” he said, begging for exemption by association.
“试试吧，”他请求协会豁免。
I declined.
我拒绝了。
Vomiting blood and erratic heartbeats may not have stopped me from purging, but I did draw a line at stimulants stronger than coffee.
吐血和不稳定的心跳可能并没有阻止我净化，但我确实对比咖啡更强的兴奋剂划清了界限。
Stimulants screamed: I can’t do this on my own!
兴奋剂尖叫：我一个人做不到！
I preferred the nonsynthetic process of purging.
我更喜欢非合成的净化过程。
I needed nothing but willpower to purge.
我只需要意志力来净化。
Boots washed down two pills with a long swallow of Red Bull.
靴子喝了一大口红牛，吞下了两粒药。
“I don’t even need to work out.
“我什至不需要锻炼。
Just sitting here, Al, I’m burning fat.
艾尔，就坐在这里，我正在燃烧脂肪。
Take one,” he said.
拿一个，”他说。
He patted the pooch on my tummy.
他拍拍我的肚子上的狗。
Again I declined.
我再次拒绝了。
I was terrified that the pills would work.
我很害怕这些药片会起作用。
Taking one would become taking them regularly, then obsessively, until they snuffed my heart like fingers pinching a flame.
服用一个就会变成定期服用，然后是痴迷地服用，直到它们像手指捏着火焰一样扼杀我的心。
But I couldn’t confess this to Boots.
但我无法向布茨坦白这一点。
Perhaps we weren’t, as I’d liked to believe, enacting some vulnerable version of masculinity but applying its worst expectations—sacrificing our bodies, refusing to care for ourselves—to a traditionally feminine project: becoming thinner.
也许我们并没有像我愿意相信的那样，表现出某种脆弱的男性气质，而是将其最糟糕的期望——牺牲我们的身体，拒绝照顾自己——应用到一个传统的女性项目上：变得更苗条。
Because as open as we were with each other, we nevertheless refused to acknowledge the damage we caused to ourselves.
因为尽管我们彼此坦诚相待，但我们仍然拒绝承认我们对自己造成的伤害。
We couldn’t.
我们不能。
We lacked the language to see our sickness as sickness.
我们缺乏语言来将我们的疾病视为疾病。
He could not be “anorexic,” just as I could not be “bulimic.” For men, those words were locked houses.
他不可能“厌食症”，就像我不可能“暴食症”一样。对于男人来说，这些话就是锁着的房子。
After taking the pills, Boots loaded a spoon with vanilla, then threw it away.
服完药后，布茨在勺子里盛了香草，然后把它扔掉了。
“Stasia doesn’t like me taking them, but I gotta.
“斯塔西娅不喜欢我拿它们，但我必须这么做。
My girl needs me hot.
我的女孩需要我的热情。
I don’t have enough to keep her around if I’m fat.” Like me, he defined himself exclusively in terms of his body.
如果我胖了，我就没有足够的钱养活她了。”和我一样，他完全根据自己的身体来定义自己。
He couldn’t fathom his girlfriend liking anything about him but his thinness.
他无法理解他的女朋友除了喜欢他的瘦以外还喜欢他的什么。
I knew he needed a compliment, like the ones he gave me, but I was envious of Boots.
我知道他需要赞美，就像他给我的那些赞美一样，但我很羡慕布茨。
He didn’t deserve to date someone before me.
他不值得在我之前和某人约会。
I’d lost weight before him.
我比他先减肥了。
It should have been me frightened of losing someone—but instead I feared remaining alone.
本来应该是我害怕失去某人，但我却害怕独自一人。
“I won’t tell her,” I said, meaning Stasia, meaning, You need to keep taking the pills.
“我不会告诉她，”我说，指的是斯塔西娅，意思是，你需要继续服药。
When he left, I slipped a pack of pills into my pocket.
当他离开时，我把一包药塞进口袋里。
After work, I hid them under the spare tire in my trunk.
下班后，我把它们藏在后备箱的备胎下面。
I debated taking them just about every day.
我几乎每天都在争论是否要服用它们。
I’d feel too sleepy to run and think, Maybe a pill.
我会感到太困了，无法跑步并思考，也许是一颗药。
I’d binge enthusiastically at work, fail to throw up, and think, I’ll just take a pill.
我会在工作中热情地暴饮暴食，但没有呕吐，然后想，我就吃一颗药吧。
After hours of watching TV?
看几个小时电视后？
In the morning before school?
早上上学前？
Before dinner with friends?
和朋友一起吃晚饭之前？
But pill popping would have undermined the narrative I’d created for myself: I was healthy; I threw up only on occasion; Boots was the sick one.
但吃药会破坏我为自己创造的叙述：我很健康；我很健康；我很健康；我很健康。我只是偶尔呕吐；布茨就是那个病态的人。
I needed him to be sicker than I was.
我需要他比我病得更严重。
Taking pills would’ve collapsed the distance I had contrived between our disorders.
服用药物会缩短我与疾病之间的距离。
After two months, I threw the package away.
两个月后，我把包裹扔掉了。
The summer proceeded as expected.
夏天如期进行。
Boots and I held the same conversations about getting big, women, and food.
布茨和我就变大、女人和食物进行了同样的对话。
Sometimes I told him I loved him, because it made him uncomfortable, but also because I meant it: I was grateful for Boots.
有时我告诉他我爱他，因为这让他不舒服，但也因为我是认真的：我很感激布茨。
Most men mocked me if I talked about food or my body, but Boots and I had discovered a way to be open with each other without the threat of ridicule lancing our feelings.
如果我谈论食物或我的身体，大多数男人都会嘲笑我，但布茨和我找到了一种彼此敞开心扉的方式，而不会受到嘲笑的威胁而伤害我们的感情。
Sure, there were limits to the vulnerability we shared.
当然，我们共享的漏洞是有限度的。
But those limits exceeded the boundaries I kept with other men.
但这些限制超出了我与其他男人保持的界限。
At the end of the summer, I started college in Queens, all but abandoning Boots to his life at DQ.
夏末，我开始在皇后区上大学，几乎放弃了 Boots，继续在 DQ 的生活。
We promised to keep in touch, but I didn’t truly talk to him until the following spring.
我们答应保持联系，但直到第二年春天我才真正和他交谈。
During my first year of college, I frequently ventured into Manhattan to visit a friend, Hannah, who was studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
在大学第一年，我经常冒险去曼哈顿拜访一位在时装技术学院学习的朋友汉娜。
She had also worked at Dairy Queen, and midway through March, she told me Boots was coming into the city.
她也曾在冰雪皇后工作过，三月中旬，她告诉我布茨要进城了。
We made plans to go clubbing.
我们计划去泡吧。
He came in on a Friday.
他星期五进来的。
That night, I subwayed into Manhattan wearing the finest clothes I owned: a tight white Ben Sherman T-shirt and dark baggy jeans.
那天晚上，我穿着我拥有的最好的衣服乘地铁进入曼哈顿：一件紧身白色 Ben Sherman T 恤和深色宽松牛仔裤。
I had been exercising compulsively leading up to Boots’s arrival.
在布茨到来之前，我一直在强迫性地锻炼身体。
That morning, I spent three hours in the gym, working out until I emptied my body of sweat, continuing until I was drowsy.
那天早上，我在健身房里锻炼了三个小时，一直锻炼到把全身的汗都排空，一直锻炼到昏昏欲睡。
On the subway, I tensed my abs for ten seconds, stretched it to twenty, to thirty.
在地铁上，我紧张腹肌十秒，拉伸到二十秒、三十秒。
I had added eleven pounds of flab since coming to college.
自从上大学以来，我的体重增加了十一磅。
Hannah was too kind to confirm this.
汉娜太友善了，没有证实这一点。
But I feared Boots had grown skinnier and would look at me like Somebody’s off the wagon.
但我担心布茨变得更瘦了，会像某人失去了活力一样看着我。
I walked to Hannah’s dorm clenching my stomach and arms.
我捂着肚子和手臂走向汉娜的宿舍。
I did push-ups against a light post in front of her building.
我对着她大楼前的一根灯柱做俯卧撑。
Boots and Hannah found me in the middle of a set.
布茨和汉娜发现我在一场演出中。
He did not appear any thinner, a relief.
他看上去并没有瘦下来，这让我松了口气。
The sight of him, though, blanketed me in nostalgia.
然而，一看到他，我就充满了怀旧之情。
Despite putting on weight, I had only gotten sicker at college.
尽管体重增加了，但我在大学时病情却更加严重。
The last five weekends, I’d hid in my dorm bingeing on Pop-Tarts and Entenmann’s donuts.
过去的五个周末，我躲在宿舍里狂吃馅饼和恩滕曼甜甜圈。
Boots presented a portal back to the safety of DQ, where bingeing had felt like less of a problem, something I could control.
Boots 提供了一个回到 DQ 安全环境的入口，在那里暴饮暴食不再是一个问题，而是我可以控制的。
I raced over and jumped into his arms.
我赶紧跑过去，跳进他的怀里。
He caught me, spinning a little as we patted each other on the back.
他接住了我，我们拍着对方的背，我旋转了一下。
We had never done anything like this before.
我们以前从未做过这样的事情。
I was pleased that Boots played along.
我很高兴布茨配合。
Hannah led us to a friend’s dorm suite.
汉娜带我们去了朋友的宿舍。
On the short walk we talked about Stasia, then her son, then new Blizzard flavors.
在短短的步行路程中，我们谈论了斯塔西娅，然后是她的儿子，然后是暴雪的新口味。
Then we ran out of topics.
然后我们就没有话题了。
“Big Al hitting the club,” Boots kept saying, though I worried I wouldn’t get in wearing my baggy jeans, with my chipmunky face, lacking a fake, and I thought of myself as a burden.
“大阿尔在俱乐部里，”布茨不停地说，尽管我担心我穿着宽松的牛仔裤，长着一张花栗鼠的脸，没有假货，无法进去，而且我认为自己是一个负担。
But Boots assured me that as long as we went with women, we would be fine.
但布茨向我保证，只要我们和女人在一起，就没有问题。
I trusted his expertise.
我相信他的专业知识。
At the suite, he and I stood in the kitchen sipping from a bottle of schnapps.
在套房里，他和我站在厨房里喝着一瓶杜松子酒。
I hadn’t eaten all day and the liquor loosened me quickly.
我一整天都没吃东西，酒很快就让我放松了。
Hannah and her friends, by comparison, knew how to drink.
相比之下，汉娜和她的朋友们更懂得喝酒。
They measured their shots and followed each with tall glasses of water.
他们测量了自己的投篮量，然后每人都端着高脚杯水。
After Hannah and I took a shot she told me to cool it.
汉娜和我拍了一张照片后，她让我冷静下来。
Boots and I settled into a corner where no one could see us continue to drink.
布茨和我坐在一个没人能看到我们继续喝酒的角落里。
We discussed his aspirations and worries.
我们讨论了他的愿望和担忧。
He didn’t want to start work at DQ in a week—but there were no other options.
他不想在一周内开始在 DQ 工作，但没有其他选择。
Stasia was pregnant with her second son.
斯塔西娅怀上了她的第二个儿子。
She needed his help.
她需要他的帮助。
He wanted to go back to school—his girlfriend wanted that for him—but he had no idea what to study.
他想回到学校——他的女朋友希望他这么做——但他不知道要学什么。
Plus, Stasia gave him a raise when she heard he wanted to go back to school.
另外，当斯塔西娅听说他想重返学校时，给了他加薪。
“What should I do, Al?”
“我该怎么办，阿尔？”
Listening to Boots, I twisted with a mix of pity and guilt.
听着布茨的话，我的身体因怜悯和愧疚而扭曲。
I had defined myself as the smart one between us.
我把自己定义为我们之间最聪明的人。
Now he expected me to fix his problems.
现在他希望我能解决他的问题。
But his question exposed both my ineptitude and the limits of our relationship.
但他的问题暴露了我的无能和我们关系的局限性。
What we had shared existed exclusively at Dairy Queen.
我们分享的东西只存在于冰雪皇后。
Here, in this Manhattan dorm, we shared only shame: mine for being unable to help, his for needing my help.
在这里，在曼哈顿的宿舍里，我们共同感到羞耻：我的无能为力，他的需要我的帮助。
“That’s tough,” I told him.
“这很难，”我告诉他。
I suggested we take a shot.
我建议我们去尝试一下。
Hannah caught us sipping from the bottle.
汉娜发现我们正在喝瓶子里的酒。
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“你在干什么？”她问道。
I was too slurry to tell her I had to throw up.
我实在太糊涂了，无法告诉她我必须吐了。
But she already knew.
但她已经知道了。
She fed me slices of white bread that our host reluctantly offered.
她喂了我几片白面包，这是我们的主人不情愿地递给我的。
Boots cheered me on as I ate.
当我吃饭时，靴子为我加油。
“Get it down, Al.
“记下来，艾尔。
You’re a trooper.” I drank two glasses of water, stuffed bread in my mouth.
你是一名士兵。”我喝了两杯水，嘴里塞了面包。
“We’re hitting the club.
“我们正在冲击俱乐部。
Al’s gonna pick up a lady.”
艾尔要去接一位女士。”
I echoed him: I’m a trooper.
我附和他：我是一名士兵。
I’m hitting the club.
我要去俱乐部了。
I’m gonna pick up a lady.
我要去接一位女士。
The other women watched me wobble, embarrassed for Hannah and Boots and wondering when I would leave.
其他女人看着我摇摇晃晃，为汉娜和布茨感到尴尬，并想知道我什么时候离开。
Hannah apologized.
汉娜道歉了。
The bread rocketed up my chest.
面包飞快地升到了我的胸口。
I woke up groggy in Hannah’s bed with bread jammed in my pockets.
我在汉娜的床上昏昏沉沉地醒来，口袋里塞着面包。
Hannah snored on the floor.
汉娜在地板上打呼噜。
Under the covers beside me was Boots, our faces facing each other’s feet.
我旁边的被子下面是布茨，我们的脸相对着对方的脚。
I tensed, thinking about the previous night.
我紧张起来，回想起昨晚的事。
Boots had come into the city to escape his life and instead he’d spent the evening watching me vomit.
布茨来到这座城市是为了逃避他的生活，相反他整个晚上都在看着我呕吐。
I wished I could give the advice he needed, that I could compliment him, at least tell him everything was going to be okay.
我希望我能给他需要的建议，我可以赞美他，至少告诉他一切都会好起来的。
But I didn’t.
但我没有。
I wouldn’t.
我不会。
What was the cause of my silence?
我沉默的原因是什么？
What was the point?
重点是什么？
During those years, I had no words for harming myself.
那些年，我无话可说伤害自己。
Nobody did.
没有人这样做。
Even at our most open, Boots and I spoke in code to each other, because code was the only language we knew.
即使在我们最开放的时候，布茨和我也用代码交流，因为代码是我们唯一知道的语言。
It came closest to the truth of our condition.
它最接近我们的真实情况。
But we had no desire to speak in this language again.
但我们不想再用这种语言说话了。
We had exhausted its purposes.
我们已经用尽了它的目的。
This wasn’t the last time we saw each other, but it may as well have been.
这不是我们最后一次见面，但也可能是。
The following summer we would share a few shifts, though never alone, never under the conditions our friendship required.
接下来的夏天，我们会一起轮班，但从来都不是单独的，也不是在我们友谊所要求的条件下。
In Hannah’s bed, lying next to Boots, I decided that I was a problem for people.
在汉娜的床上，躺在布茨旁边，我决定我给人们带来了麻烦。
This insight alighted like a butterfly on my finger, before fluttering into the pulping beak of a bird.
这种洞察力就像一只蝴蝶落在我的手指上，然后飞进一只鸟的喙中。
I pinched my stomach, thinking, Don’t be a problem to people.
我捏着自己的肚子，心想，别给别人添麻烦了。
I squeezed the bread in my pocket.
我把面包塞进口袋里。
I dragged a hunk of it to my tongue.
我把一大块拖到舌头上。
The rustling roused Boots from his sleep.
沙沙声把布茨从睡梦中惊醒。
“Al?” he said, leaning up to look at me.
“阿尔？”他说，倾身看着我。
“Are you eating?”
“你在吃饭吗？”
There were only so many ways I could lie.
我能撒谎的方式就这么多。
I could have pretended to be sleeping.
我本来可以假装睡觉的。
I could have mumbled, “Nah,” as if I were too sleepy to properly answer.
我本可以咕哝着“不”，就好像我太困了，无法正确回答一样。
I could’ve waited for the bread to break down into mush.
我本可以等待面包分解成糊状。
I could have waved him away, raced to the bathroom, chewing the rest of the bread in the hall.
我本可以挥手让他走开，然后跑到卫生间，嚼着大厅里剩下的面包。
Instead, I looked at the ceiling.
相反，我看着天花板。
“Yeah,” I told him.
“是的，”我告诉他。
“I’m starving.”
“我饿死了。”
Alex McElroy ‘s writing appears in the Atlantic , New England Review , Conjunctions , and elsewhere.
亚历克斯·麦克尔罗伊的文章发表在《大西洋月刊》、《新英格兰评论》、《连词》和其他刊物上。
He is the author of the chapbook Daddy Issues .
他是《爸爸问题》小册子的作者。