319: And the Call Was Coming from the Basement - This American Life
You are using an outdated browser.
您正在使用过时的浏览器。
Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience.
请升级您的浏览器或激活 Google Chrome 浏览器内嵌框架以改善您的体验。
Sign up for a free Life Partners trial, and you can watch the video “A Night of Stories and Improv.”
注册免费试用《Life Partners》,您可以观看视频“故事与即兴表演之夜”。
00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #319 | October 27, 2023 319: And the Call Was Coming from the Basement Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 319 集 | 2023 年 10 月 27 日 319:召唤从地下室传来 注:《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作的,旨在让人们听到。
If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page.
如果可以的话,我们强烈建议您收听音频,其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的,可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue Ira Glass Well, I hold in my hand a ghost story that comes from a publication that is not really known for its tales of the supernatural.
序言 艾拉·格拉斯 嗯,我手里拿着一个鬼故事,它来自一家并不以超自然故事闻名的出版物。
I'm talking about the American Journal of Opthalmalogy, a medical journal.
我说的是《美国眼科杂志》,一本医学杂志。
This is from a 1921 edition.
这是 1921 年的版本。
And just in case your subscription lapsed during World War I, I'm just going to read from one of these articles.
以防万一您的订阅在第一次世界大战期间失效,我将阅读其中一篇文章。
This is a letter that a doctor sent in.
这是一封医生寄来的信。
It's from one of his patients, actually, this letter.
实际上,这封信是他的一位病人写来的。
She's identified as Mrs. H.
她被确认为 H 女士。
And in the letter, she's describing a very strange series of events that happened to her and her family starting when they moved into a rambling old house on November 15, 1921.
在信中,她描述了从 1921 年 11 月 15 日她和家人搬进一栋杂乱的老房子开始,发生在她和她的家人身上的一系列非常奇怪的事件。
This house was out of repair, had no electricity.
这所房子年久失修,没有电。
It was lit by gas lights-- a very gloomy house.
房子里亮着煤气灯——非常阴暗。
Albert Donnay is the person who unearthed this article.
艾伯特·唐奈 (Albert Donnay) 是这篇文章的发现者。
And he agreed to come into the studio and read from Mrs. H's account of what happened to them.
他同意进入工作室并阅读 H 女士对他们发生的事情的描述。
"Mr. H and I had not been in the house more than a couple of days when we felt very depressed.
“H 先生和我呆在家里才几天,就感到非常沮丧。
The house was overpoweringly quiet.
屋子里出奇的安静。
The servants walked about on thickly carpeted floors so quietly that I could not even hear them at their work."
仆人们在铺着厚地毯的地板上走来走去,声音非常小,我什至听不到他们工作的声音。”
I love how no story of this era can be complete without servants padding about.
我喜欢这个时代的故事,如果没有仆人走来走去,就不完整。
And they had many servants.
他们有很多仆人。
"One morning, I heard footsteps in the room over my head.
“一天早上,我听到头顶上方的房间里有脚步声。
I hurried up the stairs.
我赶紧走上楼梯。
To my surprise, the room was empty.
令我惊讶的是,房间里空无一人。
I passed into the next room, and then into all the rooms on that floor, and then to the floor above, to find that I was the only person in that part of the house.
我走进隔壁的房间,然后走进该层的所有房间,然后到上面的楼层,发现我是房子那部分唯一的人。
Sometimes after I've gone to bed, the noises from the store room are tremendous, as if furniture was being piled against the door, as if china was being moved about, and occasionally, a long and fearful sigh or a wail.
有时我上床睡觉后,储藏室里的噪音很大,好像家具堆在门边,好像瓷器被搬动,偶尔还有一声长长的、可怕的叹息或哀号。
Sometimes as I walk along the hall, I feel as if someone was following me, going to touch me.
有时候,当我沿着大厅走的时候,我感觉好像有人在跟着我,想要碰我。
You cannot understand it if you've not experienced it.
如果你没有经历过,你就无法理解它。
But it's real.
但这是真实的。
As I was dressing for breakfast one morning, B, who is four years old, came to my room and asked me why I'd called him.
一天早上,当我穿好衣服准备吃早餐时,四岁的 B 来到我的房间,问我为什么打电话给他。
I told him I had not called him, that I had not been in his room.
我告诉他我没有给他打电话,我也没有去过他的房间。
With big and startled eyes, he said, 'Who was it then that called me?
他睁着大眼睛,惊讶地说:“那是谁打电话给我的?”
Who made that pounding noise?' I told him it was undoubtedly the wind rattling his window.
是谁发出了那重重的声音?我告诉他,毫无疑问是风吹动了他的窗户。
'No,' he said, 'It was not that.
“不,”他说,“不是那样的。”
It was somebody that called me.
是有人给我打电话的。
Who was it?' And so on he talked, insisting that he'd been called and for me to explain who it had been."
是谁?他就这样一直说话,坚持说他接到了电话,并要求我解释一下是谁。”
It gets worse.
情况变得更糟。
The adults and the children are held down in their beds by unseen figures.
大人和孩子都被看不见的人影压在床上。
Beds shake.
床摇晃。
The plants die, and their children feel weak.
植物死了,它们的孩子感到虚弱。
They have no energy.
他们没有能量。
They get severe headaches.
他们会感到严重头痛。
"Some nights, after I'd been in bed for a while, I felt as if the bedclothes were jerked off me.
“有些晚上,当我在床上躺了一段时间后,我感觉好像床单被从我身上扯了下来。
And I've also felt as if I'd been struck on the shoulder.
我也感觉自己的肩膀好像受到了重击。
One night, I woke up and saw sitting on the foot of my bed a man and a woman.
一天晚上,我醒来,看到床脚上坐着一男一女。
The woman was young, dark, and slight and wore a large picture hat.
那女人年轻、肤色黝黑、身材瘦小,戴着一顶大帽子。
I was paralyzed and could not move."
我全身瘫痪,无法动弹。”
And so finally, her brother-in-law comes to them, she writes, with a thought about what might be happening.
她写道,最后,她的姐夫来到了他们身边,思考着可能会发生什么。
Her husband's brother comes to them in January and says that perhaps they're being poisoned.
一月份,她丈夫的兄弟来找他们,说他们可能中毒了。
He'd read a story about a family poisoned by gas who had similar curious delusions.
他读过一个关于一家人被煤气中毒的故事,他们也有类似的奇怪幻想。
And he advised them to see a professor about this at once.
他建议他们立即就此事去找教授。
A quick investigation shows that the furnace is actually sending carbon monoxide fumes into the house, instead of up the chimney.
一项快速调查表明,炉子实际上是将一氧化碳烟雾送入房屋,而不是从烟囱上升。
They fix that, and the ghostly hauntings stop.
他们解决了这个问题,幽灵的困扰就停止了。
They don't feel sick anymore either, which makes a lot of sense, says Albert Donnay.
他们也不再感到不舒服,这很有意义,阿尔伯特·唐奈说。
When he's not poking around old medical archives, he's an environmental health engineer and a toxicologist, who spends a lot of his time warning people about carbon monoxide seeping into homes.
当他不翻阅旧的医学档案时,他是一名环境健康工程师和毒理学家,他花了很多时间警告人们一氧化碳渗入家庭。
And he says fumes like this wouldn't just come from the furnace of an old house.
他说这样的烟雾不仅仅来自老房子的火炉。
The kind of gas that they used in gas lights in that area had as much carbon monoxide as a car's exhaust.
他们在该地区的煤气灯中使用的气体含有与汽车尾气一样多的一氧化碳。
And he says carbon monoxide gas can account for everything that this family experienced.
他说一氧化碳气体可以解释这个家庭所经历的一切。
No question about it.
毫无疑问。
Carbon monoxide poisoning can cause all manner of hallucinations-- audio, visual, feeling strange things on their skin when there was nothing there.
一氧化碳中毒会导致各种幻觉——听觉、视觉、感觉皮肤上有奇怪的东西,而实际上什么都没有。
People often report that they hear noises in their ears, bells ringing, rushing sounds.
人们经常报告说他们听到耳朵里有噪音、铃声、急促的声音。
What's amazing about this story is what a completely traditional ghost story it is.
这个故事的神奇之处在于它是一个完全传统的鬼故事。
I feel like everything that happens to them, I've heard in some ghost story at some point or another.
我觉得发生在他们身上的一切,我都在某个鬼故事里听过。
And then it turns out to be carbon monoxide poisoning.
结果是一氧化碳中毒。
And I gotta say, I can't tell if I feel sort of relieved that there's a totally rational explanation or kind of disappointed.
我必须说,我不知道我是因为有一个完全合理的解释而感到松了口气,还是感到有点失望。
I totally share that perspective.
我完全同意这个观点。
It's kind of disappointing to find that it's not some otherworldly explanation.
发现这不是某种超凡脱俗的解释有点令人失望。
It is kind of like a killjoy story for Halloween.
这有点像万圣节的扫兴故事。
I'm not going to go there.
我不会去那里。
Ira Glass Well, it's Halloween, and this little example shows you what kind of boring killjoy trouble you can get into when you start applying rationality and facts to a perfectly good scary story, a story that never wanted to hurt anyone.
艾拉·格拉斯(Ira Glass):好吧,现在是万圣节,这个小例子向您展示了当您开始将理性和事实应用到一个完美的恐怖故事(一个不想伤害任何人的故事)中时,您会陷入什么样的无聊杀戮麻烦。
From WBEZ Chicago, it's a special Halloween edition of our show, which we're calling-- scary music cue, please-- And the Call Was Coming From the Basement.
来自 WBEZ 芝加哥,这是我们节目的万圣节特别版,我们称之为——可怕的音乐提示,请——电话来自地下室。
These stories are all absolutely true.
这些故事都是绝对真实的。
And carbon monoxide, or let me just say, any of your carbon-based gases figure not at all into any of them.
一氧化碳,或者我只是说,任何碳基气体根本不属于其中任何一个。
Our show today in four scary acts, including the true scary stories that you and listeners like you called into our scary story hotline, and a story in which David Sedaris walks among the dead.
我们今天的节目有四场恐怖表演,包括您和像您一样的听众拨打我们的恐怖故事热线的真实恐怖故事,以及大卫·塞达里斯在死者中行走的故事。
Stay with us.
留在我们身边。
Act One: The Hills Have Eyes Ira Glass Act One, The Hills Have Eyes.
第一幕:山有眼 艾拉·格拉斯 第一幕,山有眼。
Well, one kind of scary story is when something that usually is not dangerous becomes transformed.
嗯,一种可怕的故事是通常不危险的东西发生了变化。
You know, when something fluffy or funny becomes murderous, like little dolls that come to life, or ventriloquist dummies, or clowns, or little woodland creatures.
你知道,当一些毛茸茸或有趣的东西变得凶残时,比如复活的小娃娃,或口技假人,或小丑,或林地小生物。
Alex Blumberg has one such absolutely true tale.
亚历克斯·布隆伯格(Alex Blumberg)就有这样一个绝对真实的故事。
He was a producer on our show back when we first ran this episode.
当我们第一次播放这一集时,他是我们节目的制片人。
Today's show is a rerun.
今天的节目是重播。
Here's Alex.
这是亚历克斯。
Michelle and her husband lived in the woods at the end of a long, half mile driveway off a little-used dirt road.
米歇尔和她的丈夫住在一条半英里长的车道尽头的树林里,车道旁边是一条很少有人使用的土路。
They loved it there, surrounded by trees and mountains but still only an hour and a half by train from New York City.
他们喜欢那里,周围环绕着树木和山脉,但距离纽约市仅一个半小时的火车车程。
One weekend morning, as was their custom, they went out for a short walk.
一个周末的早晨,按照他们的习惯,他们出去散步。
It was a beautiful winter day, almost a foot of snow on the ground.
那是一个美丽的冬日,地上的积雪几乎有一英尺厚。
They got to the road and turned around to head back up the drive.
他们到了马路边,转身沿着车道往回走。
My husband tends to walk faster than I do, and he was wanting to sort of do a little jog.
我丈夫走得比我快,他想做一点慢跑。
And I said, OK, then, why don't you just kind of go ahead?
我说,好吧,那你为什么不继续呢?
So he went on home, and I had just started on the driveway.
于是他就回家了,而我刚开始走上车道。
And I looked down the straightaway, and I saw this animal that was pretty far down.
我顺着方向往下看,看到这只动物就在很远的地方。
And then I saw it.
然后我看到了。
I said, oh, it looks like a raccoon.
我说,哦,它看起来像一只浣熊。
I would say it was at least 150 to 200 feet.
我想说至少有 150 到 200 英尺。
It was pretty far away.
距离很远。
And I'm looking at it, and I'm thinking, well, it's going to go up into the woods.
我看着它,我想,好吧,它会进入树林。
But it started walking towards me.
但它开始向我走来。
And then I realized it hasn't seen me yet, and I sort of just waved my arm a little bit.
然后我意识到它还没有看到我,我只是稍微挥了一下手臂。
And then all of a sudden, it sees me.
然后突然,它看到了我。
And the second it was aware of me, it just bolted towards me.
当它意识到我的时候,它就冲向我。
I mean, there wasn't a second of a hesitation.
我的意思是,没有一秒钟的犹豫。
It was like, oh my god.
就像,天哪。
It's like, oh my god.
就像,天啊。
It's coming right at me.
它正向我而来。
I turned, and I started to run.
我转身,开始奔跑。
I was trying to outrun it.
我试图超越它。
And I kept turning to see if the animal was bearing down on me, and it was getting closer.
我不停地转头看那只动物是否向我逼近,而且它越来越近了。
And it was now within 5 or 10 feet behind me.
现在它就在我身后 5 或 10 英尺以内。
And the whole time, I mean from the moment the raccoon saw me, it hissed and snarled.
我的意思是,从浣熊看到我的那一刻起,它就一直发出嘶嘶声和咆哮声。
I mean, it was [HISSING].
我的意思是,那是[嘶嘶声]。
The feeling was, all it cared about was attacking me.
感觉是,它只关心攻击我。
So I don't even know what I was thinking, but I ran off the drive, thinking, well, I'll get away from it.
所以我什至不知道自己在想什么,但我跑出了车道,心想,好吧,我会摆脱它的。
Well, as I run off the drive, it jumps onto my thigh, and I fall into the snow, kind of down behind a rock.
好吧,当我跑出车道时,它跳到了我的大腿上,我掉进了雪地里,有点跌倒在一块岩石后面。
And then the next thing I see is his mouth is around my right thigh.
然后我接下来看到的是他的嘴在我的右大腿周围。
The raccoon was about 30 pounds.
浣熊重约30磅。
Michelle, a slight woman, was about 115.
米歇尔是个身材瘦小的女人,大约 115 岁。
She was wearing a big parka and snow pants, so the raccoon wasn't able to get a good grip.
她穿着一件大派克大衣和雪裤,所以浣熊无法很好地抓住她。
Using all her body weight and both hands, she was able to pull it off her leg and pin it in the snow, away from her body.
她用尽全身的重量和双手,将它从腿上拉下来,然后将其钉在雪地里,远离她的身体。
I'm pushing its face into the snow so that it would keep putting its head up and snarling.
我把它的脸按进雪里,这样它就会继续抬起头咆哮。
And then it would keep trying with its claws to scratch at me.
然后它就会不断地用爪子抓我。
But I kept leaning on it and then pushing it into the snow.
但我一直靠着它,然后把它推到雪里。
And I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, "Help.
我用尽全力尖叫:“救命。
Somebody help me.
有人帮助我。
I'm being attacked." I mean, I'm just-- and I'm thinking, the closest neighbor, it's a house that they're sort of weekenders, and often, they're not there.
我正在被攻击。”我的意思是,我只是——我在想,最近的邻居,这是他们周末度假的房子,而且通常他们都不在那里。
And it seemed like no one was coming out of their house.
而且似乎没有人从他们的房子里出来。
And I'm a half a mile from my house.
我距离我家半英里。
And I'm thinking, nobody is going to help me.
我在想,没有人会帮助我。
And so it was after about five minutes, I stopped screaming.
大约五分钟后,我停止了尖叫。
And I just started thinking, what am I going to do?
我开始思考,我该怎么办?
This raccoon was behaving in a way that normal raccoons never behave, like it was possessed.
这只浣熊的行为方式是正常浣熊从未有过的,就像它被附身一样。
And that's because in some sense, it was.
那是因为从某种意义上来说,确实如此。
It had rabies, a disease that even scientists who study it called diabolical.
它患有狂犬病,这种疾病甚至被研究狂犬病的科学家称为“恶魔”。
It's a virus that attacks the aggression centers of the brain.
这是一种攻击大脑攻击中心的病毒。
It switches off all an animal's natural inhibitions, including fear and pain.
它关闭动物的所有自然抑制,包括恐惧和疼痛。
At the same time, it floods the animal's body with adrenaline, making it stronger and more relentless.
同时,它会让动物的身体充满肾上腺素,使其变得更强大、更无情。
Animals which are normally shy and easily scared away turn into tireless, ferocious monsters.
平时害羞、容易被吓跑的动物变成了不知疲倦、凶猛的怪物。
They become nothing but a vehicle for the virus, attacking anything that moves in order to spread the disease.
它们只不过是病毒的载体,攻击任何为了传播疾病而移动的东西。
Which meant for Michelle, she couldn't just try and fling the raccoon away because it would come after her again.
这对米歇尔来说意味着,她不能只是试图把浣熊扔掉,因为它会再次追赶她。
She couldn't outrun it.
她无法超越它。
Any trees she could climb, the raccoon could climb faster.
任何她能爬的树,浣熊都能爬得更快。
Then Michelle remembered that although she usually didn't bring her cell phone with her on walks, that day, she actually had.
米歇尔这才想起来,虽然平时她散步的时候都不带手机,但那天,她居然带了。
The question was how to get it out of her pocket.
问题是如何把它从她的口袋里拿出来。
She needed both hands to hold the raccoon down.
她需要双手才能按住浣熊。
She was wearing big mittens.
她戴着大手套。
But eventually, after many attempts, she was able to get the phone out and toss it in the snow.
但最终,经过多次尝试,她终于把手机拿出来,扔到了雪地里。
Using the speaker phone, she called her house.
她用免提电话给她家打电话。
She got her grown son, Alex.
她有了已经长大的儿子亚历克斯。
And I was screaming.
我尖叫起来。
I was screaming at the top of my lungs.
我声嘶力竭地尖叫。
And he acted like it was like a joke, and it was because the microphone on the phone was being pinned, where it had this sort of strange noise.
他表现得就像是在开玩笑一样,因为手机上的麦克风被固定住了,所以才会有这种奇怪的声音。
And I thought to myself-- because it sounded like he was about to hang up, like it was someone doing a prank.
我心里想——因为听起来他好像要挂断电话,就像有人在恶作剧一样。
And in my head, I said, you have to calm down.
我在心里说,你必须冷静下来。
I said, Alex.
我说,亚历克斯。
I said, I've been attacked on the driveway by a raccoon.
我说,我在车道上被浣熊袭击了。
Within five minutes, her husband, her son, Alex, and his girlfriend were there.
五分钟之内,她的丈夫、儿子亚历克斯和他的女朋友就到了。
Her son grabbed a big fallen branch and laid it across the raccoon's back.
她的儿子抓起一根掉落的大树枝,把它放在浣熊的背上。
He stood on one end.
他站在一端。
Michelle stood on the other.
米歇尔站在另一边。
The two of us are now holding this raccoon, which is still hissing and snarling and clawing.
我们两个现在抱着这只浣熊,它仍在发出嘶嘶声、咆哮声和爪子声。
And my husband, he says, I'm going to get a tire iron out of the car and try hitting it and to kill it.
我的丈夫,他说,我要从车里拿出一个轮胎熨斗,尝试击打它并杀死它。
So he goes and gets this tire iron out of the car.
于是他去把轮胎熨斗从车里拿出来。
And he starts to hit it, and he figures he'll hit it once or twice and he'll kill it.
他开始击打它,他认为击中它一两次就可以杀死它。
Well, he starts hitting it, and he probably hit it between 15 and 20 times.
好吧,他开始击球,他可能击球 15 到 20 次。
And it's still snarling and clawing.
它仍在咆哮和抓伤。
So then I said to my son's girlfriend, Olga, I said, Olga.
然后我对我儿子的女朋友奥尔加说,我说,奥尔加。
I said, go to the house, and get a knife.
我说,进屋去,拿把刀。
And in the meantime, my son takes the tire iron, and my son starts beating on the raccoon.
与此同时,我的儿子拿走了轮胎熨斗,我的儿子开始殴打浣熊。
So for at least five minutes, they're taking turns beating this raccoon.
所以至少有五分钟,他们轮流殴打这只浣熊。
And about at the point where Olga is coming back and gets out of the car with these two big knives, the raccoon had died.
就在奥尔加带着这两把大刀回来并下车时,浣熊已经死了。
What Michelle didn't know at the time was that her encounter was not an isolated incident.
米歇尔当时不知道的是,她的遭遇并不是一个孤立的事件。
There's a rabies epidemic in New York, which started in the '90s.
纽约州狂犬病流行于上世纪九十年代。
In 1989, there were only 55 rabid animal cases in the entire state.
1989年,全州仅发生55例动物狂犬病病例。
By 1993, the number had reached almost 3,000.
到1993年,这个数字已达到近3000人。
In 2004, a rabid otter swam up and attacked a six-year-old at a public beach.
2004年,一只患有狂犬病的水獭在公共海滩游上并袭击了一名六岁的儿童。
The child came out of the water with the otter clinging by its teeth to his arm.
孩子从水里出来,水獭用牙齿咬住了他的手臂。
And one woman I spoke to told me that a rabid raccoon latched itself onto her leg in the middle of the day on her suburban street when she was getting out of her car after a trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond.
一位与我交谈过的女士告诉我,中午,当她从床上、巴斯和其他地方出去后下车时,一只狂犬病的浣熊在她郊区的街道上咬住了她的腿。
She said the police had to shoot the raccoon five times before it finally died.
她说,警察向浣熊开了五枪才最终死掉。
Rabies is almost 100% fatal in humans if the vaccine isn't administered right after exposure.
如果在接触狂犬病后不立即接种疫苗,狂犬病对人类几乎 100% 致命。
And the '90s brought the first human deaths from rabies in the state in half a century.
20 世纪 90 年代,该州出现了半个世纪以来首例狂犬病死亡病例。
There have been three to date.
迄今为止已经有三个了。
Two of them were children bitten by rabid bats in their sleep.
其中两名是在睡梦中被狂犬病蝙蝠咬伤的儿童。
Which brings me to a quick public service announcement.
这让我想到了一个简短的公共服务公告。
A bat can bite you in your sleep without you even knowing it and without leaving a mark.
蝙蝠可能会在你睡梦中咬你,而你甚至不知道它,也不会留下痕迹。
So if you find one in a room with the sleeping person, you have to catch it and have it tested.
因此,如果你在睡觉的人所在的房间里发现了它,你必须抓住它并进行测试。
And if you can't catch it, you should go to a doctor.
如果你没有感染,你应该去看医生。
I'm serious.
我是认真的。
I learned about this, it freaked me out, and now I want to tell people.
我了解到这件事,它吓坏了我,现在我想告诉人们。
For Michelle, of course, there was no doubt of exposure.
对于米歇尔来说,暴露无疑是毫无疑问的。
She had two fang marks on her leg, raccoon blood all over her clothes, and a battered raccoon carcass in a plastic bag.
她的腿上有两道牙痕,衣服上沾满了浣熊的血,塑料袋里还装着一具破烂的浣熊尸体。
But getting treatment proved to be its own type of horror story.
但事实证明,接受治疗本身就是一个恐怖故事。
First, she called the vet, who told her to call the Health Department.
首先,她打电话给兽医,兽医让她打电话给卫生部门。
She called the Health Department, but they were closed on weekends, so she left a message and called another Health Department in a different county.
她给卫生部门打电话,但他们周末不营业,所以她留言并给另一个县的另一个卫生部门打电话。
Same thing.
同样的事情。
Eventually, she just went to the emergency room on her own, where she was told that this wasn't an emergency.
最终,她独自去了急诊室,医生告诉她这不是紧急情况。
She had 10 to 14 days before she needed to get a shot, and she should just call the Health Department again after the weekend.
她还有 10 到 14 天的时间需要注射疫苗,她应该在周末后再次致电卫生部门。
Early Monday morning, the guy from the Health Department where she left her first message on Saturday called her back.
周一一大早,周六她第一条留言所在的卫生部门的人就给她回了电话。
She told them everything was fine.
她告诉他们一切都很好。
She'd been to the hospital.
她去过医院。
And I said, well, I was told I had 10 to 14 days.
我说,好吧,我被告知我有 10 到 14 天的时间。
And he says, you don't have 10 to 14 days.
他说,你没有 10 到 14 天的时间。
You have 72 hours from the moment that you are bitten.
从被咬的那一刻起,您有 72 小时的时间。
He says, you must have a shot by the end of today.
他说,今天结束之前你必须打一针。
The man on the phone wasn't in Michelle's county, so he told her to go to her own Health Department, and they would give her the shot.
电话里的那个人不在米歇尔所在的县,所以他告诉她去她自己的卫生部门,他们会给她注射疫苗。
But when she called there, they said they needed to test the carcass for rabies first, which meant sending it to the rabies laboratory two hours away in Albany.
但当她打电话到那里时,他们说需要先对尸体进行狂犬病检测,这意味着将其送往两小时外的奥尔巴尼的狂犬病实验室。
Michelle begged them to just give her the shot first and worry about Albany later, so they made arrangements for her to go to the closest hospital in yet another county.
米歇尔恳求他们先给她打一针,然后再担心奥尔巴尼,所以他们安排她去另一个县最近的医院。
So my husband and I go.
于是我和老公就去了。
And of course, we have to wait time in the emergency room, and then we get in.
当然,我们必须在急诊室等待一段时间,然后才能进去。
And then when we're inside, then someone comes and tells me that I live in Putnam County and I'm in a hospital in Westchester, and that they can't give me the shots.
然后当我们进去时,有人过来告诉我,我住在普特南县,在韦斯特切斯特的一家医院里,他们不能给我注射疫苗。
Oh my god.
我的天啊。
Michelle So I am so distraught at this point.
米歇尔所以我现在非常心烦意乱。
And I start crying.
我开始哭泣。
The first time during this whole episode, I should point out, that you actually cried, right?
我应该指出,在整个情节中,你第一次真的哭了,对吧?
Yes, this was.
是的,这是。
This was the first time that I cried.
这是我第一次哭。
I was-- you know.
我是——你知道的。
I--
我——
You survived the attack by the raccoon.
你在浣熊的袭击中幸存下来。
You survived hitting it over the head with a tire iron 50 times.
你用轮胎熨斗敲打它的头部 50 次,却幸存下来。
And then the thing that finally brought you to your knees was the US health care system.
最终让你屈服的是美国的医疗保健系统。
Yes, that's exactly right.
是的,完全正确。
So I started to cry.
于是我开始哭泣。
And I just said, isn't there-- I said, what's the problem?
我只是说,不是吗——我说,有什么问题吗?
And then I'm starting to learn that rabies immunoglobulin is a very expensive shot.
然后我开始了解到狂犬病免疫球蛋白是一种非常昂贵的疫苗。
And the retail price of it was something like $3,200 or $3,500.
它的零售价约为 3,200 美元或 3,500 美元。
Finally, they gave her the shot, but they gave it to her in the wrong place-- the buttocks, and not in her arm like they were supposed to.
最后,他们给她注射了疫苗,但注射的位置不对——臀部,而不是像他们应该的那样注射在她的手臂上。
And then she needed five follow-up shots, but she couldn't find a doctor to give her any.
然后她需要注射五次后续疫苗,但她找不到医生给她注射疫苗。
She called eight doctors, and none of them would even see her until she threatened to call the State Board of Health.
她给八位医生打电话,但他们都不愿意见她,直到她威胁要给州卫生委员会打电话。
Eventually, she got the shots, and today, everything is fine, except Michelle doesn't see her home in the woods the way she once did-- as a peaceful refuge.
最终,她拍了照片,今天,一切都很好,只是米歇尔不再像以前那样将她在树林里的家视为一个和平的避难所。
I mean, I felt so betrayed by nature.
我的意思是,我感觉自己被大自然背叛了。
That's actually how I felt.
这实际上就是我的感受。
I felt that nature betrayed me.
我觉得大自然背叛了我。
Because I would take walks every day in the woods, and I had never felt threatened.
因为我每天都会在树林里散步,而且我从来没有感到受到威胁。
And I remember waking up the next day and thinking that all of the hills around me, that there were raccoons standing on all these hills, waiting until I got out the door, and they were going to come running toward-- it was like the army waiting for its victim to come.
我记得第二天醒来,我想到我周围的所有山丘,所有这些山丘上都站着浣熊,等着我走出门,它们就会跑过来——就像军队在等待受害者的到来。
And I had this image that these raccoons were just all going to come down from the hills.
我有这样的印象:这些浣熊都会从山上下来。
And if I ever go to walk and I don't have the cell phone, I will always feel a little fear.
如果我去散步而没有手机,我总会感到有点害怕。
Years before her attack, Michelle went on safari in South Africa.
在袭击发生前几年,米歇尔去南非旅行。
She saw lions and giraffes and rhinos.
她看到了狮子、长颈鹿和犀牛。
Coming up her drive at night, after she got home from the trip, she peered into the woods around her house and imagined that there were wild animals out there, like there had been on safari.
晚上,旅行结束回家后,她沿着车道行驶,凝视着房子周围的树林,想象着外面有野生动物,就像狩猎时那样。
Now she says she doesn't wonder about it anymore.
现在她说她不再想这个了。
She knows for a fact there are wild animals out there, and it's not a comforting thought.
她知道外面有野生动物,但这并不是一个令人欣慰的想法。
Alex Blumberg, these days, he's a podcast impresario and the host of the podcast, Without Fail.
亚历克斯·布隆伯格(Alex Blumberg),如今,他是一名播客经理兼播客“Without Fail”的主持人。
Act Two: The Hitcher Ira Glass Act Two, The Hitcher.
第二幕:搭车人 艾拉·格拉斯 第二幕,搭车人。
OK, I believe that we have all learned an important lesson about rabies and bats and raccoons, not to mention a lesson about carbon monoxide.
好吧,我相信我们都已经学到了关于狂犬病、蝙蝠和浣熊的重要教训,更不用说关于一氧化碳的教训了。
And so to introduce this next story, I don't think there's much more I need to say right now than hitchhiking is dangerous or can be dangerous.
因此,在介绍下一个故事时,我认为现在无需多说,搭便车很危险或可能很危险。
It can be bad.
这可能很糟糕。
And if you don't believe me, Bill Eville tells this true story of what happened to him and his brother.
如果你不相信我,比尔·埃维尔讲述了这个发生在他和他兄弟身上的真实故事。
When I was 12 and my older brother, Jim, 14, our parents dropped us off at one of those agricultural fairs, the kind with the big Ferris wheel, blue ribbon pigs, and hot dog eating contests.
当我 12 岁和我的哥哥吉姆 14 岁的时候,我们的父母送我们去参加一个农业集市,那种有大型摩天轮、蓝丝带猪和吃热狗比赛的集市。
This was on Martha's Vineyard and usually our parents went with us.
这是在玛莎葡萄园岛,通常我们的父母和我们一起去。
But Jim and I were getting older.
但吉姆和我都在变老。
He was a teenager now, and we wanted to do it alone.
他现在已经十几岁了,我们想独自完成这件事。
There were girls to impress.
有一些女孩可以给人留下深刻的印象。
We were told to call home for a ride when we were ready.
我们被告知准备好后就打电话回家搭车。
But at the end of the night, we decided it would be cooler to hitchhike.
但到了晚上,我们决定搭便车会更凉爽。
We weren't scared.
我们并不害怕。
This was 1977 and Martha's Vineyard still a relatively sleepy island.
那是 1977 年,玛莎葡萄园岛仍然是一个相对沉睡的岛屿。
Everyone hitchhiked there.
每个人都搭便车去那里。
It didn't take us long to get a ride, some guy heading to Edgartown to meet his friends.
没过多久我们就搭上了车,有人要去埃德加敦见他的朋友。
We lived in Oak Bluffs-- out of his way-- but he said he could take us halfway home.
我们住在奥克布拉夫斯——远离他——但他说他可以带我们回家一半。
Jim and I didn't even think about saying no. We were too excited for the adventure to begin.
吉姆和我根本没想过拒绝。我们太兴奋了,以至于不敢开始冒险。
True to his word, the guy dropped us off halfway home.
正如他所说,那家伙在半路上送我们下车。
This was out by the big bridge along the beach road.
这是在沿着海滩路的大桥旁边。
During the day, this spot is filled with people jumping off the railing into the water, but at night, no one goes there.
白天,这里挤满了从栏杆跳入水中的人,但到了晚上,就没有人去那里了。
No swimmers, or fishermen, or even kids looking to get high.
没有游泳者、渔民,甚至没有想要吸毒的孩子。
Jim and I stood by the side of the road, listening to the ocean pound the sand and the wind blow through the dunes.
吉姆和我站在路边,听着大海拍打沙子的声音和风吹过沙丘的声音。
We peered into the darkness, hoping to see headlights.
我们凝视着黑暗,希望能看到车头灯。
But there was nothing, just the moon and some stars and a gnawing feeling we had made a big mistake.
但什么也没有,只有月亮和一些星星,还有一种痛苦的感觉,我们犯了一个大错误。
After about 20 minutes of standing around, we finally saw a car approaching.
等了大约20分钟后,我们终于看到一辆车驶来。
"Get in front," Jim said, "And try to look small and pathetic." This wasn't hard to do.
“走到前面,”吉姆说,“尽量让自己看起来渺小而可怜。”这并不难做到。
The car flew by us, kicking up sand, which stung my legs.
汽车从我们身边飞过,扬起沙子,刺痛了我的腿。
"Crap!" I yelled.
“糟糕!”我喊道。
But then the tires locked up, and the car fishtailed.
但随后轮胎锁死,汽车出现鱼尾状。
It skidded to a stop about 100 yards away.
车子猛地滑行,停在了大约 100 米外。
We ran to the car.
我们跑向汽车。
It was a big white cruiser with four doors.
这是一艘有四扇门的大型白色巡洋舰。
I yanked open the back door, jumped in, and slid on my butt to the far window.
我猛地打开后门,跳了进去,用屁股滑向远处的窗户。
There were three people up front.
前面有三个人。
The driver was hunched over the wheel and wore his hair in a thick afro.
司机弓着背坐在方向盘上,留着浓密的非洲式发型。
A woman sat in the middle.
中间坐着一个女人。
She had straight blond hair with a crooked part running down the center.
她有一头金色的直发,中间有一头弯曲的头发。
Another guy, so tall his head almost touched the roof of the car, rode shotgun .
另一个家伙,头高得几乎要碰到车顶了,骑着霰弹枪。
"Thanks for stopping," I said.
“谢谢你停下来,”我说。
"We're headed to Oak Bluffs." No one said a word.
“我们要去奥克布拉夫斯。”没有人说一句话。
I turned to the open door where Jim still stood.
我转向敞开的门,吉姆仍然站在那儿。
"Come on," I said.
“来吧,”我说。
"Get in." Jim hesitated.
“进来。”吉姆犹豫了。
He looked into the car and shook his head back and forth.
他朝车里看了看,前后摇了摇头。
Then the driver began revving the engine.
然后司机开始加速发动机。
I saw my brother take a deep breath.
我看到弟弟深深地吸了一口气。
Then he climbed in and joined me.
然后他爬了进去并加入了我。
His door barely closed when the car took off.
当汽车启动时,他的车门几乎没有关上。
We moved fast, swerving in and out of our lane.
我们开得很快,时而进时出车道。
No one talked the entire ride.
整个旅程中没有人说话。
By the time we reached Oak Bluffs, I decided I didn't want these people to know where we lived.
当我们到达奥克布拉夫斯时,我决定不想让这些人知道我们住在哪里。
"Right here will be fine," I said, just past Waban Park, down near where the Sea View Hotel used to be.
“就在这里就可以了,”我说,就在瓦班公园旁边,靠近海景酒店曾经的位置。
The car didn't slow down.
车子并没有减速。
Thinking the driver didn't hear me, I tried again.
我以为司机没有听到我的声音,我又试了一次。
"We'd like to be let out now," I said.
“我们希望现在就可以出去,”我说。
We drove by Ocean Park, the flying horses carousel, and then the harbor with all the boats tucked in for the night in their berths.
我们开车经过海洋公园、飞马旋转木马,然后是港口,所有的船只都停泊在泊位过夜。
The whole time, I kept asking to be let out, trying to make it sound like each spot I pointed to was the one we really preferred.
整个过程中,我一直要求让我们出去,试图让我所指的每个地方听起来都是我们真正喜欢的地方。
But there was no reaction.
但没有任何反应。
We just kept moving.
我们只是继续前进。
Eventually, we passed the last house along the Methodist campground, where the Sunday before, I had climbed the stage at the old tabernacle and sang with my cousins before a crowd of hundreds, "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." We began to climb the hill that led out of town, and I grew silent.
最终,我们经过了卫理公会露营地的最后一栋房子,前一个周日,我爬上旧圣堂的舞台,和我的表兄弟在数百人面前唱着“雨滴不断落在我的头上”。我们开始爬上通往城外的小山,我沉默了。
Jim took up where I left off.
吉姆接着我上次停下的地方。
Recently, his voice had changed and he had a new, deep baritone.
最近,他的声音发生了变化,变成了新的低沉男中音。
When his voice cracked, making him sound like a little kid again, he stopped talking, too.
当他的声音沙哑,听起来又像个小孩子时,他也不再说话了。
I tried to convince myself it was just a joke-- scare the crap out of some kids on a boring Saturday night.
我试图说服自己这只是个玩笑——在一个无聊的周六晚上吓坏了一些孩子。
And I almost believed this.
我几乎相信了这一点。
But then, about 15 minutes outside of town, we took a left turn to a graveyard.
但随后,在出城大约 15 分钟后,我们左转来到了一片墓地。
Jim and I knew this graveyard.
吉姆和我熟悉这个墓地。
We had relatives buried there, old whaling captains who helped settle the island back in the 1600s.
我们的亲戚埋在那里,他们是早在 1600 年代帮助定居该岛的老捕鲸船长。
We came up here sometimes with our grandfather to pay our respects.
有时我们会和祖父一起来这里表达敬意。
It was a heavily wooded place with trails that twisted deep into the forest.
这是一个树木繁茂的地方,小路蜿蜒深入森林深处。
During the day, it was fun to run along these trails, jumping out from behind a rock or bush to scare each other.
白天,沿着这些小径奔跑,从岩石或灌木丛后面跳出来吓唬对方是很有趣的。
We had never been up here at night, though.
不过,我们晚上从来没有来过这里。
I grabbed my brother's hand and pulled myself into his lap.
我抓住哥哥的手,把自己拉到他的腿上。
Jim hugged me tight and rested his cheek against mine.
吉姆紧紧地拥抱着我,把他的脸颊贴在我的脸上。
He had recently started shaving, and I could feel the hint of razor stubble.
他最近开始刮胡子,我能感觉到剃须刀胡茬的味道。
This helped calm me down.
这让我平静下来。
Jim was the older brother.
吉姆是哥哥。
He would know what to do.
他会知道该怎么做。
The car swerved and began circling a large Jesus statue near the front of the graveyard.
汽车突然转向,开始绕着墓地前面的一座巨大的耶稣雕像转。
I was thrown from Jim's lap and landed in the opposite foot well.
我从吉姆的腿上被抛出,落在另一只脚的井里。
I scrambled back up as fast as I could.
我以最快的速度爬了回来。
But before I could reach my brother's lap again, Jim opened his door and jumped out of the car.
但在我再次到达哥哥的腿上之前,吉姆打开车门跳下了车。
We were still moving fast, and the open door flapped in the wind.
我们仍然快速前进,敞开的门在风中拍打。
I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up.
我感觉到有一只手放在我的肩膀上,我抬起头来。
It was the tall man.
正是那个高个子男人。
His fingers were strong and dug into my collarbone.
他的手指很有力,掐进了我的锁骨。
I ducked back into the seat well and crawled to the door.
我躲回座位上,爬向门口。
The man still held me by the shoulder, but I pushed as hard as I could with my legs.
那人仍然抓住我的肩膀,但我用腿用力推。
When I leapt from the car, he lost his grip.
当我从车上跳下来时,他失去了控制。
For a moment, I floated in the air.
一瞬间,我漂浮在空中。
When I hit the ground, I rolled for a long time.
当我落地时,我滚了很长时间。
I got up and ran towards the woods.
我站起来,向树林跑去。
I could see a light in the distance and headed for it.
我看到远处有光,就朝它走去。
The woods opened up into a small clearing, and there was a house and a party in full swing.
树林里出现了一小块空地,那里有一栋房子,一场聚会正在热火朝天地进行。
Lots of people stood outside, drinking around a keg.
很多人站在外面,围着一个小桶喝酒。
As soon as I reached the lawn, I turned around to look for my brother.
一到草坪,我就转身去找哥哥。
He was still back in the graveyard, running down one of the dirt roads with the car right behind him.
他仍然回到墓地里,沿着一条土路奔跑,汽车就在他身后。
"Jim," I screamed.
“吉姆,”我尖叫道。
"Jim, over here." A crowd had formed around me, but I didn't look at them.
“吉姆,在这里。”我周围聚集了一群人,但我没有看他们。
I just kept screaming my brother's name.
我只是不停地喊着我哥哥的名字。
And then he was there, bursting through the woods and running across the lawn, until a clothesline flattened him.
然后他就在那里,冲破树林,跑过草坪,直到一根晾衣绳把他压扁了。
I ran to him, kneeled down, and put my hand on his chest.
我跑到他身边,跪下来,把手放在他的胸口上。
"You OK?" I asked.
“你还好吗?”我问。
"Yeah," he said.
“是的,”他说。
"You?" Before I could answer, a tall kid with thick glasses squatted down next to us.
“你?”还没等我回答,一个戴着厚眼镜的高个子孩子就在我们旁边蹲了下来。
"What the hell is going on?" he asked.
“到底是怎么回事?”他问道。
Jim and I stood up, began telling everyone what had happened.
吉姆和我站起来,开始告诉大家发生了什么事。
While we were talking, four guys from the party ran off to the graveyard.
正当我们说话的时候,队伍里的四个人跑到了墓地里。
The car's headlights were still visible, moving through the woods, looking for us.
汽车的前灯仍然清晰可见,在树林里移动,寻找我们。
There was shouting, and then the headlights disappeared.
一阵叫喊声响起,然后车头灯就消失了。
When the guys returned, they said the car took off before they could get the license plate.
当这些人回来时,他们说汽车在他们拿到车牌之前就开走了。
The tall kid with the glasses walked to the keg, poured two beers into blue plastic cups, and offered them to us.
戴眼镜的高个子走到小桶前,将两瓶啤酒倒入蓝色塑料杯中,递给我们。
Jim and I chugged them down and asked for more.
吉姆和我把它们吞下去,然后要了更多。
Later, two women gave us a ride home.
后来,两个女人送我们回家。
I refused to sit in the back seat and rode up front with the driver.
我拒绝坐在后座,而是和司机一起坐在前面。
Her name was Betsy, and she had long brown hair and tanned skin.
她的名字叫贝特西,有一头棕色的长发和晒黑的皮肤。
Her father owned The Flying Horses and I had seen her around town.
她父亲拥有飞马乐队,我在城里见过她。
On the drive home, she rubbed my hair and put her arm around my shoulder.
在开车回家的路上,她揉了揉我的头发,用手臂搂住了我的肩膀。
When we reached our house, Betsy walked with us to the front door and stood on the porch while we told our parents what had happened.
当我们到达家时,贝特西和我们一起走到前门,站在门廊上,我们告诉父母发生了什么事。
Mom bent down so her face was level with mine.
妈妈弯下腰,让她的脸与我的脸齐平。
Dad stood next to Jim.
爸爸站在吉姆旁边。
My parents were very young.
我的父母非常年轻。
Mom even got carded sometimes at R rated movies.
妈妈有时甚至在观看 R 级电影时被罚牌。
Dad wore a thick mustache and looked good in a tight white T-shirt.
爸爸留着浓密的小胡子,穿着紧身白T恤,看上去很帅气。
While we were talking, my grandparents, who had already gone to bed, came down the stairs in their bathrobes.
我们说话的时候,爷爷奶奶已经上床睡觉了,穿着浴袍走下楼梯。
"Close the door," Gram said.
“关上门,”奶奶说。
"You're letting in the mosquitoes." Betsy patted me on the cheek and then walked back to her car.
“你让蚊子进来了。”贝特西拍拍我的脸颊,然后走回她的车。
The rest of us went into the living room, where Jim and I told our story once more.
我们其他人走进客厅,吉姆和我再次讲述了我们的故事。
"What do you think?" Grandpa asked.
“你怎么认为?”爷爷问道。
"Should we call the police?" For a moment, no one spoke.
“我们要不要报警?”一时间没有人说话。
"It's late," Dad finally said.
“已经很晚了。”爸爸终于说道。
"I think the boys have had enough for one night." Gram patted my head.
“我想孩子们已经受够了一晚了。”奶奶拍拍我的头。
"It's over, and everyone's safe," she said.
“一切都结束了,每个人都安全了,”她说。
"No need to drag it out." I looked at Mom.
“没必要拖出来。”我看着妈妈。
She nodded, and so I did the same, not because I agreed, but I didn't disagree either.
她点点头,我也跟着点了点头,不是因为我同意,而是我也没有不同意。
I was just glad to be home.
我很高兴回到家。
"Let's go to bed," Dad said.
“我们去睡觉吧,”爸爸说。
"There's tennis in the morning."
“早上有网球比赛。”
Mom walked me to my bedroom, an old store room I had cleaned out at the beginning of the summer so I could finally have a room of my own.
妈妈陪我走进卧室,这是我在初夏时清理掉的一间旧储藏室,这样我终于可以拥有一间自己的房间了。
After she tucked me in, I laid there and tried to think about tennis and Labor Day weekend, just three days away.
她给我掖好被子后,我躺在那里,试着回想网球和劳动节周末,距离比赛只有三天了。
In a little over a week, I would officially be a seventh grader.
再过一周多一点,我就正式成为七年级学生了。
But I couldn't concentrate.
但我无法集中注意力。
I kept seeing the people in the front seat of that car.
我一直看到那辆车前座上的人。
Maybe they had followed Betsy's car home from the graveyard and were waiting outside to get me.
也许他们跟着贝特西的车从墓地回家,正在外面等着接我。
I rubbed my shoulder where the tall man had grabbed me and got out of bed.
我揉了揉肩膀,那个高个子男人抓住了我,然后下了床。
I changed out of my pajamas into jeans and my favorite green basketball T-shirt.
我脱下睡衣,换上牛仔裤和我最喜欢的绿色篮球 T 恤。
Then I laid down on the floor and slid underneath my bed.
然后我躺在地板上,滑到床底下。
For a moment, I felt safe and hidden, but it didn't last.
有一瞬间,我感到安全和隐藏,但这种感觉并没有持续多久。
I got up and walked to Jim's room.
我起身走向吉姆的房间。
But when I got there, I realized I didn't want to go in.
但当我到达那里时,我发现我并不想进去。
I continued down the hall and stood outside my parents' bedroom.
我继续穿过走廊,站在父母的卧室外面。
I could hear them talking quietly together.
我能听到他们在一起小声说话。
I almost knocked on their door.
我差点就敲他们的门了。
Instead, I turned away and moved on to the front room, where my youngest brother, Ted, slept.
相反,我转身走向前屋,我最小的弟弟特德就睡在那里。
Ted was six years old.
特德六岁。
He'd been asleep when we came home and so didn't know what had happened.
我们回家时他已经睡着了,所以不知道发生了什么事。
I crawled into bed with him and started crying, really crying, so that I had to stuff a pillow in my mouth to keep the noise in.
我和他一起爬到床上开始哭泣,真的哭了,所以我不得不在嘴里塞上一个枕头来阻止噪音。
Ted woke up, but didn't say anything at first.
特德醒了,但一开始什么也没说。
He just patted me on the back.
他只是拍拍我的背。
Then he asked me what was wrong.
然后他问我怎么了。
But I couldn't speak.
但我无法说话。
I could only cry and hope he kept patting me.
我只能哭泣,希望他继续拍拍我。
And he did, until I finally fell asleep.
他也这么做了,直到我终于睡着了。
Bill Eville in New York.
比尔·埃维尔在纽约。
Coming up, David Sedaris sees dead people and other scary stories that are absolutely true in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
接下来,当我们的节目继续进行时,大卫·塞达里斯在芝加哥公共广播电台的一分钟内看到了死人和其他绝对真实的恐怖故事。
Act Three: And The Call Was Coming From...the Listeners!
第三幕:呼唤来自……听众!
Ira Glass Well, it's This American Life.
艾拉·格拉斯(Ira Glass):好吧,这就是《美国生活》。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Each week on our program, we choose a theme and bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme.
在我们的节目中,我们每周都会选择一个主题,并为您带来有关该主题的各种不同类型的故事。
Today's show, And the Call was Coming From the Basement.
今天的节目,电话来自地下室。
We have scary stories for Halloween, all of them absolutely true.
我们为万圣节准备了恐怖故事,所有故事都绝对真实。
We've arrived at act three of our program.
我们已经进入了计划的第三幕。
Act Three, And the Call was Coming From the Listeners.
第三幕,听众的呼唤。
Today's show is a rerun, but back when first did this show, we invited you-- yes, you-- to call a special 800 number that we set up here at our radio show to tell us your true scary stories.
今天的节目是重播,但在第一次播放这个节目时,我们邀请您——是的,就是您——拨打我们在广播节目中设置的特殊 800 号码,告诉我们您真实的恐怖故事。
Hundreds of people called with all kinds of stories.
数百人打电话讲述了各种各样的故事。
Here's a selection.
这是一个选择。
My name is Erica Parks.
我叫艾丽卡·帕克斯。
This is from when I was, I guess, 18.
我猜这是我18岁时的事。
I worked at a dollhouse supply store, so I was already sort of in a creepy environment.
我在一家玩具屋用品店工作,所以我已经处于一个令人毛骨悚然的环境中。
There was little doll heads and hair and eyeballs.
有小娃娃头、头发和眼球。
I'd come home after closing up the shop at about 10:00 at night.
晚上10:00左右我就关店回家了。
And I didn't have my own car at the time, so I would either get a ride from my parents, or my dad would let me use his Tracker and I would drive myself home.
当时我没有自己的车,所以我要么让父母搭车,要么我爸爸让我使用他的追踪器,我自己开车回家。
So I was driving myself home this night.
所以今晚我自己开车回家。
And since I was driving my dad's Tracker, I would have expected him to be home.
由于我开着我爸爸的追踪器,我本来以为他会在家。
And I pulled into the house, and all the lights were out.
我把车开进屋里,所有的灯都灭了。
And I don't know if you've ever had the feeling where you know someone's watching you, I guess, or-- even though all the signs are that no one's home, you can feel that there's someone present.
我不知道你是否曾经有过这样的感觉:你知道有人在看着你,我猜,或者——尽管所有迹象都表明家里没人,但你可以感觉到有人在场。
So I parked in front of the house.
于是我把车停在了房子前面。
I walked up the front steps and let myself in.
我走上前面的台阶,走了进去。
It was completely black.
它完全是黑色的。
I remember whispering, "Hello?
我记得我轻声说道:“喂?
Is there anybody home?" And all of a sudden, in the stairwell, the shape of a man and what I saw later was a baseball bat-- but it could have been anything to me at the time-- reared up out of the dark stairwell.
家里有人吗?”突然,在楼梯间,一个男人的身影从黑暗的楼梯间中竖起,后来我看到的是一根棒球棒——但当时对我来说可能是任何东西。
And that's when I knew I was dead, murdered, mutilated, something horrible.
就在那时我知道我已经死了,被谋杀了,被肢解了,这是一件可怕的事情。
And dropped to the ground-- apparently without even a yelp of protest, pretty much just a whimper-- into fetal position.
然后倒在地上——显然连一声抗议都没有,几乎只是一声呜咽——呈胎儿姿势。
And I heard laughing, and the light turned on.
我听到笑声,灯就亮了。
It was my dad.
是我爸爸。
This is his idea of a joke.
这是他的玩笑想法。
And then later, he claimed that it was a character building test and that now I knew myself better.
后来,他声称这是一次性格塑造测试,现在我更了解自己了。
I knew that I needed to be prepared for being mugged or attacked in the dark because I didn't even try to defend myself.
我知道我需要做好在黑暗中被抢劫或攻击的准备,因为我什至没有尝试保护自己。
But that moment when my dad reared it on the stairs-- and it could have been just about anybody-- was one of the scariest moments of my life.
但当我父亲把它举到楼梯上的那一刻——它可能是任何人——是我一生中最可怕的时刻之一。
: Hi, my name is Amy Mackinnon.
:嗨,我叫艾米·麦金农。
I was about 2 and 1/2, and it was told around my little neighborhood that a monster had escaped from the local insane asylum.
我当时大约 2 岁又 1/2 岁,我的小邻居听说有一个怪物从当地的疯人院逃走了。
That's what my parents told my brothers and me and our friends' parents told them.
这就是我的父母告诉我和我的兄弟以及我们朋友的父母的。
And the monster was tall, and green, and really quiet, and ferocious.
怪物很高,绿色,非常安静,而且凶猛。
So they had to cancel Halloween.
所以他们不得不取消万圣节。
And we were, of course, devastated, but my parents said, well, because Halloween is canceled, we'll have a party in the basement, in our basement.
当然,我们很伤心,但我父母说,好吧,因为万圣节被取消了,我们将在地下室举办派对,在我们的地下室。
We'll have all of the friends over from the neighborhood because it would just be too dangerous to be out in the dark with a monster on the loose.
我们会把附近所有的朋友都叫过来,因为在黑暗中带着怪物逍遥法外太危险了。
So my mother decorated our basement.
所以我妈妈装饰了我们的地下室。
She did a fantastic job.
她做得非常出色。
The best part I remember were the donuts that were hanging from a clothesline.
我记得最好的部分是挂在晾衣绳上的甜甜圈。
So the party is going really well.
所以聚会进展得很顺利。
All of the kids are there.
所有的孩子都在那里。
There are a few mothers there.
那里有几个母亲。
The music's playing.
音乐正在播放。
And all of a sudden, we heard a boom from upstairs.
突然,我们听到楼上传来轰隆声。
And one mother said, shh, shh.
一位母亲说,嘘,嘘。
And the music stopped.
音乐停止了。
And my mother was near me.
我的母亲就在我身边。
And then we heard boom, boom.
然后我们听到轰隆隆的声音。
And it was dead silence in the basement.
地下室里一片死寂。
And a mother said, "What was that?" And another mother said, "I think it's the monster."
一位母亲问道:“那是什么?”另一位母亲说:“我认为这是怪物。”
And all of a sudden, we heard the basement door creaking open.
突然,我们听到地下室的门吱吱地打开了。
And then I saw this enormous black boot on the first step.
然后我在第一步看到了这只巨大的黑色靴子。
Boom.
繁荣。
And then the next.
然后是下一个。
Boom.
繁荣。
Very slowly, I could see the boots, the legs, the enormous chest, and sticking straight out, two arms.
慢慢地,我可以看到靴子、腿、巨大的胸部,以及笔直伸出的两条手臂。
And the monster came down the stairs so slowly with this green face.
怪物脸色发青,缓慢地从楼梯上下来。
Its black suit was too short for it.
它的黑色套装对它来说太短了。
It had bolts coming out of either side of its neck.
它的脖子两侧都有螺栓。
Once the arms were visible, chaos in the basement.
当手臂露出来时,地下室一片混乱。
Kids screaming, running everywhere.
孩子们尖叫着,到处乱跑。
My mother was next to me.
我妈妈就在我旁边。
I, not quite three, grabbed hold of her thigh, and I can remember digging my fingers into her leg, trying desperately to claw onto something, screaming.
我,还不到三岁,抓住了她的大腿,我记得我的手指伸进她的腿,拼命地试图抓住什么东西,尖叫着。
And I wet my pants.
我尿湿了裤子。
And I can remember seeing my older brother Scott race for a toy chest that was under the stairs.
我还记得看到我的哥哥斯科特竞相寻找楼梯下的玩具箱。
And I can see his eyes, meeting his eyes as he slowly lowered the lid.
我可以看到他的眼睛,当他慢慢地合上眼睑时,他们的目光相遇了。
And I was so angry that I wasn't with him.
我很生气,因为我没有和他在一起。
I can remember my other brothers, Rob and Michael, leaping for the basement window.
我记得我的其他兄弟,罗布和迈克尔,跳向地下室的窗户。
And there must have been something under it that helped them propel them out the window.
它下面一定有什么东西帮助他们把他们推出窗外。
They jumped out the window with a friend.
他们和一个朋友一起跳出了窗外。
They ran down the street to a phone booth, somehow had a quarter, and called the police.
他们沿着街道跑到一个电话亭,不知怎么拿到了25美分,然后报了警。
Meanwhile, the kids are screaming, and screaming, and screaming everywhere.
与此同时,孩子们到处都在尖叫、尖叫、尖叫。
And the monster is bewildered.
而怪物也很困惑。
He's looking around.
他环顾四周。
His arms are still outstretched.
他的双臂仍然张开。
He's not saying anything.
他什么也没说。
He's not grabbing for anyone.
他不抢任何人。
And I'm still screaming.
我还在尖叫。
My ears hurt because I'm screaming so loudly.
我的耳朵很痛,因为我大声尖叫。
And then the monster looked at me, and he said, "It's OK, Amy.
然后怪物看着我,他说:“没关系,艾米。
It's OK.
没关系。
It's OK." But I couldn't hear him anymore.
没关系。”但我再也听不到他的声音了。
The next thing I remember is being in a little makeshift bed in my parents' kitchen.
我记得的下一件事是躺在父母厨房里一张临时搭建的小床上。
And my mother was there.
我妈妈也在场。
And later, after my father had showered, I can remember him walking to the kitchen.
后来,父亲洗完澡后,我记得他走向厨房。
I turned my head and could see his feet.
我转过头,看到了他的脚。
And then he crouched down to talk to me.
然后他蹲下来跟我说话。
He said, "Amy--" But before he could get another word out, I threw up on his shoes.
他说:“艾米——”但在他能说出另一个词之前,我吐在了他的鞋子上。
Hi.
你好。
This is Jesse Vorhees.
这是杰西·沃希斯。
I don't know if this is the kind of scary story you're looking for, but it's the scariest thing that's probably ever happened in my life.
我不知道这是否是您正在寻找的恐怖故事,但这可能是我一生中发生过的最恐怖的事情。
My mom had surgery for bladder cancer and got her bladder removed.
我妈妈因膀胱癌接受了手术并切除了膀胱。
And I spent the night in the hospital with her the night after her surgery.
她手术后的那天晚上,我在医院陪她过夜。
And I guess when you're ventilated for long enough artificially, your body sort of forgets to breathe for itself.
我猜当你人工通气时间足够长时,你的身体就会忘记自己呼吸。
And so after she came out of her surgery, it took a number of hours.
因此,当她从手术中出来后,花了几个小时。
She was sort of breathing in these ragged gasps.
她的呼吸有些急促。
And sometimes it would take her a long time before she took her next breath.
有时她要花很长时间才能进行下一次呼吸。
And so my job was sort of to make sure that she didn't-- or at least the job I gave myself was to make sure there wasn't too long between her breaths.
所以我的工作就是确保她不会——或者至少我给自己的工作是确保她的呼吸间隔不会太长。
And so I would nudge her or wake her up a little bit if it took too long.
因此,如果时间太长,我会轻推她或叫醒她。
And so I was beside her in her hospital room while she was sleeping.
所以当她睡觉时,我就在她的病房里陪在她身边。
And I was trying to stay awake.
我试图保持清醒。
And I think she went in around midnight, and around probably 2:00 in the morning or so, I think I fell asleep.
我想她是在午夜左右进去的,大概是凌晨 2:00 左右,我想我睡着了。
So around 4:00 in the morning, I heard the nurse starting to open up the door.
凌晨4:00左右,我听到护士开始开门。
And I suddenly realized I had fallen asleep.
我突然意识到我睡着了。
And so I listened in the dark for her next breath, and I didn't hear it.
于是我在黑暗中倾听她的下一次呼吸,但我没有听到。
And I became convinced that she wasn't going to breathe again and that just because I had fallen asleep, she was gone.
我确信她不会再呼吸了,只是因为我睡着了,她就消失了。
I think it's actually probably the most scared I've ever been in my life.
我想这实际上可能是我一生中最害怕的一次。
And I think what was so scary about it was that there was just no way of getting it back, that something stupid like falling asleep, and there was nothing I was ever going to be able to do to change it.
我认为最可怕的是,没有办法恢复它,像睡着这样愚蠢的事情,我无法做任何事情来改变它。
And then a couple of seconds later, I heard her breathe again.
几秒钟后,我再次听到她的呼吸声。
And then it was all over.
然后一切都结束了。
And it's strange because nobody knew what had gone on but me.
这很奇怪,因为除了我之外没有人知道发生了什么。
Nobody really knew that anything scary had happened but me.
除了我之外,没有人真正知道发生了可怕的事情。
Whew.
呼。
That's my story.
这就是我的故事。
Thanks to everybody who called our special scary stories hotline.
感谢所有拨打我们特别恐怖故事热线的人。
If you're keeping track, the scary things that we have learned so far today that we must avoid at all costs are these.
如果你留意的话,我们今天到目前为止所了解到的、我们必须不惜一切代价避免的可怕事情就是这些。
Number one, carbon monoxide.
第一,一氧化碳。
Number two, rabid animals.
第二,狂犬病动物。
Number three, hitchhiking.
第三,搭便车。
Number four, your own parents.
第四,你自己的父母。
Act Four: Graveyard Shift Ira Glass This actually brings us to Act Four, where we're going to learn a few more things to avoid.
第四幕:墓地轮班 Ira Glass 这实际上把我们带到了第四幕,在这里我们将学习更多需要避免的事情。
Act Four, Graveyard Shift.
第四幕,墓地轮班。
The ghosts and skeletons and monsters who rise from the grave on Halloween are a kind of fake children's story version of death.
万圣节那天从坟墓里复活的鬼魂、骷髅和怪物是一种虚假的儿童故事版的死亡。
But one Halloween a couple of years ago, David Sedaris decided that he was going to go for the real thing on Halloween.
但几年前的一个万圣节,大卫·塞达里斯 (David Sedaris) 决定在万圣节搞点真正的事情。
He was going for the real thing, the medical examiner's office-- the morgue, basically-- the morgue, a place filled with actual dead people.
他要去的是真正的东西,法医办公室——基本上就是太平间——太平间,一个装满了真正死人的地方。
He read his account of what happened there in front of a live audience at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis.
他在明尼阿波利斯奥菲姆剧院的现场观众面前宣读了他对所发生事件的描述。
The thing about dead people is that they look really dead-- fake almost, like models made of wax.
死人的特点是,他们看起来真的死了——几乎是假的,就像蜡制的模型一样。
This I learned at a medical examiner's office I visited in the fall of 1997.
这是我在 1997 年秋天拜访法医办公室时了解到的。
While the bodies seemed unreal, the tools used to pick them apart were disturbingly familiar.
虽然这些尸体看起来不真实,但用来拆解它们的工具却令人不安地熟悉。
It might be different in places with better funding, but here, they used hedge clippers to snip through rib cages.
在资金充足的地方可能会有所不同,但在这里,他们使用树篱剪剪断肋骨。
Chest cavities were emptied of blood with cheap metal soup ladles, the kind they use in cafeterias.
用他们在自助餐厅使用的廉价金属汤勺排空胸腔内的血液。
And the autopsy tables were lubricated with whatever dish detergent happened to be on sale.
尸检台上用的是市面上出售的任何洗洁精来润滑。
Also familiar were the songs-- oldies, mainly, that issued from the blood spattered clock radio and formed a kind of soundtrack.
同样熟悉的还有那些歌曲——主要是老歌,它们从血迹斑斑的时钟收音机中发出,形成了一种配乐。
When I was young, I associated Three Dog Night with my seventh grade shop teacher, who proudly identified himself as the group's biggest fan.
当我年轻的时候,我把三狗之夜与我七年级的商店老师联系在一起,他自豪地称自己是该团体的最大粉丝。
Now, though, whenever I hear "Joy to the World," I think of a fibroid tumor positioned upon a Styrofoam plate.
但现在,每当我听到“世界欢乐”时,我就会想到聚苯乙烯泡沫板上的肌瘤。
Funny how that happens.
有趣的是,这是怎么发生的。
While at the medical examiner's office, I dressed in a protective suit, complete with a bonnet and a pair of Tyvek booties.
在法医办公室时,我穿着防护服,戴着帽子和一双特卫强靴子。
Citizens were disemboweled, one right after another.
公民一个接一个地被开膛破肚。
And on the surface, I'm sure I seemed fine with it.
从表面上看,我确信我对此感到满意。
Then at night, I'd return to my hotel, double lock the door, and stand under the shower until all the soap and shampoo was used up.
然后到了晚上,我会回到酒店,锁上门,站在淋浴下,直到所有肥皂和洗发水用完。
The people in the next room must have wondered what was going on.
隔壁房间的人肯定想知道发生了什么事。
An hour of running water and then this blubbery voice-- "I do believe in spooks.
一个小时的流水,然后是这个哭闹的声音——“我确实相信有幽灵。
I do believe in spooks.
我确实相信幽灵。
I do, I do, I do, I do, I do."
我愿意,我愿意,我愿意,我愿意,我愿意。”
It's not like I'd walked into this completely unprepared.
我并不是毫无准备地走进这件事的。
Even as a child, I was fascinated by death, not in a spiritual sense, but an aesthetic one.
当我还是个孩子的时候,我就对死亡着迷,不是在精神意义上,而是在审美意义上。
A hamster or guinea pig would pass away, and after burying the body, I'd dig it back up, over and over, until all that remained was a shoddy pelt.
仓鼠或豚鼠会去世,埋葬尸体后,我会一遍又一遍地把它挖回来,直到剩下的只是一张劣质的毛皮。
That earned me a certain reputation, especially when I moved on to other people's pets.
这为我赢得了一定的声誉,尤其是当我转向别人的宠物时。
Igor, they called me.
伊戈尔,他们打电话给我。
Wicked.
邪恶。
Spooky.
幽灵般的。
But I think my interest was actually fairly common, at least amongst adolescent boys.
但我认为我的兴趣实际上相当普遍,至少在青春期男孩中是这样。
At that age, death is something that happens only to animals and grandparents.
在那个年纪,死亡只会发生在动物和祖父母身上。
And studying it is like a science project-- the good kind that doesn't involve homework.
研究它就像一个科学项目——一种不需要家庭作业的好项目。
Most kids grow out of it, but the passing of time only heightened my curiosity.
大多数孩子长大后都会摆脱这种情况,但时间的流逝只会增强我的好奇心。
As a teenager, I saved up my babysitting money and bought a $75 copy of Medicolegal Investigations of Death, a sort of bible for forensic pathologists.
十几岁的时候,我攒了保姆的钱,买了一本价值 75 美元的《法医死亡调查》,这是法医病理学家的圣经。
It shows what you might look like if you bit an extension cord while standing in a shallow pool of water, if you were crushed by a tractor, struck by lightning, strangled with a spiral or a non-spiral telephone cord, hit with a claw hammer, burned, shot, drowned, stabbed, or feasted upon by wild or domestic animals.
它显示了如果您站在浅水池中咬住延长线、被拖拉机碾压、被闪电击中、被螺旋或非螺旋电话线勒死、被羊角锤击中、被烧伤、枪击、淹死、刺伤或被野生或家畜吃掉,您可能会是什么样子。
The captions read like really great poem titles, my favorite being, "Extensive Mildew on the Face of a Recluse." I stared at that picture for hours on end, hoping it might inspire me, but I know nothing about poetry.
标题读起来就像真正伟大的诗题,我最喜欢的是“隐士脸上的大面积霉菌”。我连续几个小时盯着那张照片,希望它能启发我,但我对诗歌一无所知。
And the best I came up with was pretty lame.
我想出的最好的办法也很蹩脚。
Behold the recluse looking pensive.
看那隐士一脸沉思。
Mildew, though, is quite extensive.
然而,霉菌的范围相当广泛。
On his head, both aft and fore, he maybe should have got out more.
在他的头上,无论是船尾还是船头,他也许应该多出去一些。
I know nothing about biology either.
我对生物学也一无所知。
The pathologist tried to educate me, but I was too distracted by the grotesque.
病理学家试图教育我,但我对这怪诞的事情太分心了。
My discovery, for instance, that if you jumped from a tall building and land on your back, your eyes will pop out of your head and hang by bloody cables.
例如,我的发现是,如果你从高楼跳下并仰面着地,你的眼睛就会从头上弹出,并被血淋淋的电缆吊住。
"Like those joke glasses," I said to the chief medical examiner.
“就像那些玩笑眼镜一样,”我对首席法医说。
The man was nothing if not professional.
这个人如果不专业的话就什么都不是。
And his response to my observations was always the same.
他对我的观察的反应总是一样的。
"Well," he'd sigh.
“好吧,”他叹了口气。
"Not really."
“并不真地。”
After a week in the autopsy suite, I still couldn't open a Denny's menu without wanting to throw up.
在尸检室呆了一个星期后,我仍然无法打开丹尼的菜单而不想呕吐。
At night, I'd close my eyes and see the buckets of withered hands stored in the morgue's secondary cooler.
晚上,我闭上眼睛,看到停尸房的二级冷却器里存放着一桶桶枯干的手。
They had brains, too, a whole wall of them shelved like preserves in a general store.
它们也有大脑,一整面墙的大脑都像杂货店里的蜜饯一样被搁置起来。
Then there were the bits and pieces, a forsaken torso, a pretty blond scalp, a pair of eyes floating in a baby food jar.
然后还有一些碎片,一个被遗弃的躯干,一个漂亮的金发头皮,一双漂浮在婴儿食品罐中的眼睛。
Put them all together, and you had an incredibly bright secretary, who could type like the wind, but never answer the telephone.
把它们放在一起,你就有了一位非常聪明的秘书,他打字如风,但从不接电话。
I'd lie awake thinking of things like this, but then my mind would return to the freshly dead, who are most often whole, or at least, whole-ish.
我会醒着地躺在床上思考这样的事情,但随后我的思绪就会回到刚死去的人身上,他们通常是完整的,或者至少是完整的。
Most of them were delivered naked, zipped up in identical body bags.
他们中的大多数人都是赤裸裸的,装在同样的裹尸袋里,拉上拉链。
Family members were not allowed inside the building.
家庭成员不得进入大楼。
And so the corpses had no context.
所以这些尸体没有任何背景。
Unconnected to the living, they were like these strange creatures, related only to one another.
他们与生者没有任何联系,就像这些奇怪的生物一样,只彼此相关。
A police report would explain that Mrs. Daniels had been killed when a truck lost control and drove through the front window of a hamburger stand.
警方报告解释说,丹尼尔斯夫人是在一辆卡车失控冲进汉堡摊前窗时丧生的。
She had been a customer waiting in line.
她是一位正在排队等候的顾客。
In cases like hers, I needed more than a standard report.
对于像她这样的情况,我需要的不仅仅是一份标准报告。
There had to be a reason this woman was run down, as without one, the same thing might happen to me.
这个女人的崩溃一定是有原因的,如果没有原因,同样的事情也可能发生在我身上。
Three men are shot to death while attending a child's christening.
三名男子在参加儿童洗礼时被枪杀。
And you tell yourself, sure, they were hanging out with the wrong crowd.
然后你告诉自己,当然,他们和错误的人群一起出去玩。
But buying a hamburger-- I buy hamburgers.
但是买汉堡——我买汉堡。
Or I used to, anyway.
无论如何,我曾经也是这样。
This medical examiner's office was in the western United States, in a city where guns are readily available and drivers are known to shoot each other over parking spaces.
这位法医办公室位于美国西部,这座城市的枪支随处可见,而且司机在停车位上互相开枪也是众所周知的。
The building was low-slung and mean looking, set on the far edge of the downtown area, between the railroad tracks and a rubber stamp manufacturer.
这座建筑低矮,看上去很简陋,坐落在市中心的最边缘,在铁轨和橡皮图章制造商之间。
In the lobby was a potted plant and the receptionist who kept a can of Mountain Glen air freshener in her desk drawer.
大厅里有一盆盆栽,接待员在她的办公桌抽屉里放了一罐格伦山空气清新剂。
"For decomps," she explained, meaning those who had died alone and rotted a while before being found.
“为了腐烂,”她解释道,指的是那些独自死去并在被发现之前腐烂了一段时间的人。
We had such a case on Halloween-- an elderly man who had tumbled from a ladder while replacing a light bulb.
我们在万圣节就遇到过这样一个案例——一位老人在更换灯泡时从梯子上摔下来。
Four and 1/2 days on the floor of his un-air-conditioned home.
在他没有空调的家的地板上呆了四又 1/2 天。
And as the bag was unzipped, the room filled with what the attending pathologist termed, "the smell of job security." The autopsy took place in the morning and was the best argument for the buddy system I had ever seen.
当袋子的拉链被拉开时,房间里充满了主治病理学家所说的“工作保障的气味”。尸检在早上进行,这是我见过的对伙伴系统最好的论据。
Never live alone, I told myself.
永远不要独自生活,我告诉自己。
Before you change a light bulb, call someone from the other room and have them watch until you're finished.
在更换灯泡之前,请打电话给另一个房间的人并让他们看着,直到完成为止。
By this point in my stay, my list of don'ts covered three pages and included such reminders as, never fall asleep in a dumpster, never drive a convertible behind a flatbed truck, never get drunk near a train, never get old.
在我逗留期间,我的“不该做”清单已经长达三页,其中包括这样的提醒:永远不要在垃圾箱里睡着,永远不要在平板卡车后面开敞篷车,永远不要在火车附近喝醉,永远不要变老。
I hadn't timed my visit to coincide with Halloween, but that's the way it worked out.
我没有将访问时间安排在万圣节期间,但结果就是这样。
You think that most of the casualties would involve trick or treaters hit by cars or done in by tainted candy.
你认为大多数伤亡都涉及到被汽车撞到或被受污染的糖果弄死的“不给糖就捣蛋”的人。
But actually, the day was just like any other.
但实际上,这一天和其他日子没什么两样。
In the morning, we had our decomposed senior, and after lunch, I accompanied a female pathologist to a murder trial.
早上,我们接见了腐烂的前辈,午饭后,我陪一位女病理学家去参加谋杀案审判。
She had performed the victim's autopsy and was testifying on behalf of the prosecution.
她对受害人进行了尸检,并代表检方作证。
There were plenty of things that should have concerned me-- the blood spatter evidence, the trajectory of the bullets.
有很多事情应该让我担心——血迹、子弹的轨迹。
But all I could concentrate on was the defendant's mother, who'd come to court wearing cutoff jeans and a Ghostbusters T-shirt.
但我能集中注意力的只有被告的母亲,她穿着牛仔裤和捉鬼敢死队 T 恤出庭。
It couldn't have been easy for her, but still you had to wonder, what would she consider a dress-up occasion?
这对她来说并不容易,但你仍然想知道,她会认为什么场合是盛装打扮的?
After the trial, I watched as another female pathologist collected maggots from a spinal column found in the desert.
审判结束后,我看到另一位女病理学家从沙漠中发现的脊柱中收集蛆虫。
There was a decomposed head, too, and before leaving work, she planned to simmer it and study the exposed cranium for contusions.
还有一个腐烂的头,在下班之前,她打算将其慢火煮一下,检查暴露的头盖骨是否有挫伤。
I was asked to pass this information along to the chief medical examiner.
我被要求将此信息传递给首席法医。
And looking back, I perhaps should have chosen my words more carefully.
现在回想起来,我也许应该更谨慎地选择我的措辞。
"Fire up the kettle," I told him.
“把水壶烧起来,”我告诉他。
"Old-fashioned skull boil at 5:00 PM."
“老式头骨在下午 5:00 沸腾。”
It was, of course, the fear talking.
当然,这是恐惧在说话。
That, and a pathetic desire to appear casual-- one of the gang.
还有一种可悲的愿望,那就是表现得随意——成为这帮人中的一员。
That evening, instead of returning to my hotel, I sat around with the transporters, one of whom had recently been ticketed for using the carpool lane and then argued, unsuccessfully, that the dead body he was carrying in the back constituted a second passenger.
那天晚上,我没有返回酒店,而是和运输人员坐在一起,其中一名运输人员最近因使用拼车车道而被开罚单,然后辩称他在后座运载的尸体是第二名乘客,但没有成功。
It was just the four of us until around midnight, when a tipsy man in a Daytona Beach sweatshirt came to the front gate and asked for a tour.
直到午夜时分,只有我们四个人,一个穿着代托纳比奇运动衫的醉汉来到前门,要求参观。
When told no, he gestured toward an idling car and got his girlfriend to ask.
当被告知“不”时,他指着一辆空转的汽车并让女友询问。
The young woman was lovely and flirtatious, and as she pressed herself against the bars, I imagined her lying upon an autopsy table, her organs piled in a glistening heap beside her.
这个年轻女子可爱又轻浮,当她把自己压在栏杆上时,我想象她躺在尸检台上,她的器官在她旁边堆成闪闪发光的一堆。
I now looked at everyone this way.
我现在这样看着每个人。
And it worried me that I'd never be able to stop.
我担心我永远无法停止。
This was the consequence of seeing too much and understanding the horrible truth.
这是看到太多并了解可怕真相的结果。
No one is safe.
没有人是安全的。
The world is not manageable.
世界是无法管理的。
The trick-or-treater may not be struck down on Halloween, but sooner or later, he is going to get it, as am I, and everyone I have ever cared about.
不给糖就捣蛋的人可能不会在万圣节被打倒,但他迟早会得到它,就像我和我曾经关心过的每个人一样。
It goes without saying that for the next few weeks, I was not much fun to live with.
不用说,在接下来的几周里,我的生活并没有多少乐趣。
In early November, I returned home and repelled every single person I came into contact with.
11月初,我回到家,排斥了所有接触过的人。
Gradually, though, my gloominess wore off.
但渐渐地,我的忧郁情绪消失了。
By Thanksgiving, I was imagining people naked rather than dead and naked.
到了感恩节,我想象人们赤身裸体,而不是赤身裸体地死去。
And this was an improvement.
这是一个进步。
A week later, I was back to smoking in bed.
一周后,我又开始在床上抽烟了。
And just as I thought that I'd put it all behind me, I went to my neighborhood grocery store and saw an elderly woman slip on a grape.
正当我以为我已经把这一切抛在脑后时,我去了附近的杂货店,看到一位老妇人踩到了葡萄滑倒了。
She fell hard.
她重重地摔倒了。
And after running to her side, I took her by the arm.
跑到她身边后,我抓住了她的手臂。
"You really have to watch yourself in this produce aisle." I know it, she said.
“在农产品货架上你真的必须小心。”我知道,她说。
"I could have broken my leg." "Actually," I told her, "you could have been killed." The woman attempted to stand, but I wouldn't let her.
“我可能会摔断腿。” “事实上,”我告诉她,“你可能会被杀。”那女人试图站起来,但我不让她站起来。
"I'm serious," I told her.
“我是认真的,”我告诉她。
"People die this way.
“人们就这样死去。
I've seen it."
我见过。”
Her expression changed then and became fearful, rather than merely pain.
她的表情随之发生了变化,变得恐惧,而不仅仅是痛苦。
It was the look you get when facing some sudden and insurmountable danger-- the errant truck, the shaky ladder, the crazy person who holds you too tight and insists with ever increasing urgency that everything you know and love can be undone by a grape.
当你面对突然出现的、无法克服的危险时,你会看到这样的表情——失控的卡车、摇摇晃晃的梯子、疯狂的人把你抱得太紧,并越来越紧迫地坚持认为你所知道和所爱的一切都可以用一颗葡萄来消除。
David Sedaris is the author of several books, most recently Calypso.
David Sedaris 是多本书的作者,最近一本是《Calypso》。
Well, our program was produced today by Jane Marie and myself, with Alex Blumberg, Diane Cook, Lisa Pollak, Alissa Shipp, Alix Spiegel, and Nancy Updike.
嗯,我们今天的节目是由 Jane Marie 和我本人以及 Alex Blumberg、Diane Cook、Lisa Pollak、Alissa Shipp、Alix Spiegel 和 Nancy Updike 制作的。
Senior producer for today's show was Julie Snyder.
今天节目的高级制片人是朱莉·斯奈德。
Additional production on the rerun from Jessica Lussenhopp, Katherine Rae Mondo, Stowe Nelson, and Matt Tierney.
杰西卡·鲁森霍普、凯瑟琳·雷·蒙多、斯托·尼尔森和马特·蒂尔尼对重播版进行了额外制作。
Music help today from Jessica Hopper.
今天杰西卡·霍珀的音乐帮助。
Our website, thisamericanlife.org.
我们的网站 thisamericanlife.org。
This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.
《美国生活》由公共广播电台 PRX 向公共广播电台播出。
Thank you, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torey Malatia, who, he-- he-- he's coming up behind me.
一如既往地感谢我们项目的联合创始人 Torey Malatia 先生,他,他,他在我身后。
[HISSING] No!
[嘶嘶声]不!
Back next week, I hope, with more stories of This American Life.
我希望下周能带来更多《美国生活》的故事。
This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
《This American Life》与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作,并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。