《回家(Going Home)》故事介绍
2013-03-20 10:40阅读：
1971年10月14日《纽约邮报》刊登了一个故事，故事的名字叫《Going
Home》(回家)：长途车上坐着一位沉默不语的男子，在同车的年轻游客的盘问下终于开了口。原来他刚从监狱出来，释放前曾写信给妻子：如果她已另有归宿，他也不责怪她；如果她还爱着他，愿意他回去，就在镇口的老橡树上系一根黄丝带；如果没有黄丝带，他就会随车而去，永远不会去打扰她……汽车快到目的地了，车上的人们都坐在靠窗户的位上往外看，只有这位男子不敢张望，他害怕迎面而来的可能是失望……突然间，全车的人都沸腾起来：远远望去，镇口的老橡树上挂了几十上百条黄丝带，这些黄丝带像欢迎的旗帜迎风飘扬……
英文原文：
Going Home
I first heard this story a few years
ago from a girl I had met in New York's Greenwich Village.
Probably the story is one of those mysterious bits of folklore that
reappear every few year, to be told anew in one form or another.
However, I still like to think that it really did happen,
somewhere, sometime.
They were going to Fort Lauderdale
-- three boys and three girls -- and when they boarded the bus,
they were carrying sandwiches and wine in paper bags,dreaming of golden beaches and sea tides as the gray,
cold spring of Now
York vanished behind them.
As the bus passed through New Jersey, they began to notice Vingo.
He sat in front of them, dressed in a
plain, ill-fitting suit, never moving, his dusty face masking his
age. He kept chewing the inside of his lip a lot, frozen
into complete silence.
Deep into the night, outside Washington, the bus pulled into Howard
Johnson's, and everybody got off except Vingo. He sat rooted in his
seat, and the young people began to wonder about him, trying to
imagine his life:perhaps he was a sea
captain, a runaway from his
wife, an old soldier going
home. When they went back to the bus, one of the girls sat
beside him and introduced herself.
'We're going to Florida,' she said brightly. 'I hear it's really
beautiful.'
'It is,' he said quietly, as if
remembering something he had tried to forget.
'Want
some wine?' she said. He smiled and took a swig from the bottle. He
thanked her and retreated again into his silence. After a while,
she went back to the others, and Vingo nodded in sleep.
In the morning, they awoke outside another Howard Johnson's, and
this time Vingo went in. The girl insisted that he join them. He
seemed very shy, and ordered black coffee and smoked nervously as
the young people chattered about sleeping on beaches. When they
returned to the bus, the girl sat with Vingo again, and after a
while, slowly and painfully,
he began to tell his story. He had
been in jail in New York for the past four years, and now he was
going home.
'Are you
married?'
'I don't know.'
'You don't know?' she said.
'Well, when I was in jail I wrote to my
wife,' he said. 'I told her that I was going to be away a long
time, and that if she couldn't stand it, if the kids kept asking
questions, if it hurt her too much, well, she could just forget me.
I'd understand. Get a new guy , I said -- she's a wonderful woman,
really something -- and forget about me. I told her she didn't have
to write me. And she didn't. Not for three and a half
years.'
'And you're going home
now, not knowing?'
'Yeah,' he said shyly. 'Well, last week, when I was sure the parole
was coming through, I wrote her again. We used to
live in Brunswick, just Before Jacksonville, and there's
a big oak tree just as
you come into town, I told her that if she didn't have a new guy
and if she'd take me back, she should put a yellow handkerchief on the tree, and I'd
get off and come home. If she didn't
want me, forget it -- no handkerchief, and I'd go on
through.'
'Wow,' the girl exclaimed.
'Wow.'
She told the others, and soon all of them were in it, caught up in
the approach of Brunswick, looking at the pictures Vingo showed
them of his wife and three children -- the woman handsome in a
plain way, the children still unformed in the much-handled
snapshots.
Now they were 20 miles
from Brunswick, and the young people took over window seats on the
right side, waiting for the approach of the great oak
tree.Vingo stopped looking, tightening
his face, as if fortifying himself against still another
disappointment.
Then Brunswick was 10 miles, and then five. Then, suddenly, all of
the young people were up out of their seats, screaming and shouting
and crying, doing small dances of joy. All except Vingo.
Vingo sat there stunned, looking at the oak tree. It was covered with
yellow handkerchiefs --
20 of them, 30 of them, maybe
hundreds, a tree that stood like a banner of welcome billowing in the wind.
As the young people shouted, the old
con slowly rose from his seat and made his way to the front of the
bus to go home.
