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A Plate of Peas 一盘豌豆
My grandfather died when I was a small boy, and my grandmother started
staying with us for about six months every year. She lived in a room that
doubled as my father's office, which we referred to as "the back room." She
carried with her a powerful aroma. I don‘t know what kind of perfume she used,
but it was the double-barreled, ninety-proof, knockdown,
render-the-victim-unconscious, moose-killing variety. She kept it in a huge
atomizer and applied it frequently and liberally. It was almost impossible to go
into her room and remain breathing for any length of time. When she would leave
the house to go spend six months with my Aunt Lillian, my mother and sisters
would throw open all the windows, strip the bed, and take out the curtains and
rugs. Then they would spend several days washing and airing things out, trying
frantically to make the pungent odor go away.
This, then, was my grandmother at the time of the infamous pea
incident.
It took place at the Biltmore Hotel, which, to my eight-year-old mind, was
just about the fancies place to eat in all of Providence. My grandmother, my
mother, and I were having lunch after a morning spent shopping. I grandly
ordered a salisbury steak, confident in the knowledge that beneath that fancy
name was a good old hamburger with gravy. When brought to the table, it was
accompanied by a plate of peas. I do not like peas now. I did not like peas
then. I have always hated peas. It is a complete mystery to me why anyone would
voluntarily eat peas. I did not eat them at home. I did not eat them at
restaurants. And I certainly was not about to eat them now. "Eat your peas," my
grandmother said.
"Mother," said my mother in her warning voice. "He doesn‘t like peas. Leave
him alone."
My grandmother did not reply, but there was a glint in her eye and a grim
set to her jaw that signaled she was not going to be thwarted. She leaned in my
direction, looked me in the eye, and uttered the fateful words that changed my
life: "I'll pay you five dollars if you eat those peas."
I had absolutely no idea of the impending doom. I only knew that five
dollars was an enormous, nearly unimaginable amount of money, and as awful as
peas were, only one plate of them stood between me and the possession of that
five dollars. I began to force the wretched things down my throat.
My mother was livid. My grandmother had that self-satisfied look of someone
who has thrown down an unbeatable trump card. "I can do what I want, Ellen, and
you can‘t stop me." My mother glared at her mother. She glared at me. No one can
glare like my mother. If there were a glaring Olympics, she would undoubtedly
win the gold medal.
I, of course, kept shoving peas down my throat. The glares made me nervous,
and every single pea made me want to throw up, but the magical image of that
five dollars floated before me, and I finally gagged down every last one of
them. My grandmother handed me the five dollars with a flourish. My mother
continued to glare in silence. And the episode ended. Or so I thought.
My grandmother left for Aunt Lillian's a few weeks later. That night, at
dinner, my mother served two of my all-time favorite foods, meatloaf and mashed
potatoes. Along with them came a big, steaming bowl of peas. She offered me some
peas, and I, in the very last moments of my innocent youth, declined. My mother
fixed me with a cold eye as she heaped a huge pile of peas onto my plate. Then
came the words that were to haunt me for years.
"You ate them for money," she said. "You can eat them for love."
Oh, despair! Oh, devastation! Now, too late, came the dawning realization
that I had unwittingly damned myself to a hell from which there was no
escape.
"You ate them for money. You can eat them for love."
What possible argument could I muster against that? There was none. Did I
eat the peas? You bet I did. I ate them that day and every other time they were
served thereafter. The five dollars were quickly spent. My grandmother passed
away a few years later. But the legacy of the peas lived on, as it lives on to
this day. If I so much as curl my lip when they are served (because, after all,
I still hate the horrid little things), my mother repeats the dreaded words one
more time: "You ate them for money," she says. "You can eat them for love." |
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发表于 2016-7-10 11:31:21