Scrap

Moxie Marlinspike@moxieI found some old journal entries. This one is probably circa ~2006, just titled “Scrap:” 我翻到了一些旧日记。这一篇大概写于 2006 年左右，标题就叫“废料（Scrap）”：

I moved to Pittsburgh at the right time in my life, but at the wrong time of year. Coming from the west coast, I was actually naive enough to be excited about the prospect of winter. I imagined nothing but snowball fights, snow angles, icicles on the eves, and that muffled crunch of loose snow under your feet. I thought I’d be doing nothing but riding sleds and watching snowflakes drift down past the street lights at night. 我搬到匹兹堡时，正值我人生的好时候，却选错了季节。从西海岸过来，我竟然天真地对冬天充满期待。我脑海里全是打雪仗、堆雪人、屋檐下的冰柱，还有脚踩在松软积雪上那种沉闷的咯吱声。我以为自己每天只会滑雪橇，看着雪花在路灯下飘落。

It turns out, however, that winter doesn’t quite resemble this fantasy, and that it’s also the kind of thing you really want to ease into. The house we moved into didn’t have working utilities, much less effective heating, and January wasn’t the best time to be standing in the basement with a pipe wrench, doing my best to install gas lines without being able to feel my fingers. There were days when I literally couldn’t apply the thread sealant to the black iron, because it had frozen in the tube. 然而事实证明，冬天并不完全像幻想中那样美好，而且它也不是那种你能轻易适应的东西。我们搬进的那栋房子水电设施都无法使用，更别提有效的供暖了。一月份站在地下室里，手里拿着管钳，在手指冻得毫无知觉的情况下努力安装煤气管道，这绝不是什么好差事。有好几天，我甚至无法把螺纹密封胶涂在黑铁管上，因为它在管子里冻住了。

So we had this house, and it was a wreck, and it was well below zero. But it was beautiful that we had anything at all. Just like a squat, the first order of business was to get something that approximated a flushing toilet. After that, we started tearing out walls, putting in plumbing, and trying to eek everything that we could out of forgotten pallets and scrap lumber. 所以，我们有了这栋房子，它破烂不堪，室外气温远低于零度。但能拥有这一切本身就很美好。就像非法占屋一样，首要任务是弄出一个勉强能用的抽水马桶。在那之后，我们开始拆墙、铺设管道，并试图从被遗忘的托盘和废木料中榨取一切可用的东西。

At one point we pulled a cast-iron bathtub out of a bathroom, and not having any immediate place to put it, temporarily set it outside — right up against the back of the house. The next morning I stepped out back, and it was gone. Totally vanished. It hadn’t even been 24 hours, and somehow a really heavy cast-iron bathtub had disappeared from our back yard. It seemed like such a random theft — who in their right mind would spontaneously coordinate an operation to move something of that size? 有一次，我们从浴室里拆出了一个铸铁浴缸，因为没地方放，就暂时把它放在了屋后——紧贴着房子后墙。第二天早上我走到后院，它不见了。彻底消失了。还不到 24 小时，一个沉重的铸铁浴缸竟然就这么从我们的后院消失了。这看起来像是一场随机的盗窃——谁会脑子进水了，临时起意去搬运这么大件的东西？

I didn’t yet realize that where San Francisco has scroungers, Pittsburgh has scrappers. The hunt isn’t for kitchy coffee mugs or spare furniture. It’s for raw metals. So several months later when we pulled out another cast-iron bathtub, this one with a large hole rusted through the bottom of it, I knew just how to get rid of it. We simply put it in the back yard. 我当时还没意识到，旧金山有拾荒者，而匹兹堡有“废料猎人”。他们的目标不是那些俗气的咖啡杯或闲置家具，而是金属原材料。所以几个月后，当我们拆出另一个底部锈穿了一个大洞的铸铁浴缸时，我知道该怎么处理它了。我们直接把它放在了后院。

The next day I was looking out the window when I saw an old pickup truck drive through the ally. It had all kinds of metal pipes and appliance parts jutting out the plywood sides which had been erected to try and contain as much metal in the bed of the truck as possible. Two guys hopped out, sized up the tub, and wrangled it into the truck. 第二天，我从窗户往外看，看到一辆旧皮卡车开过小巷。车斗两侧加装了胶合板，以便装载更多的金属，各种金属管和电器零件从板子间伸出来。两个人跳下车，打量了一下浴缸，然后把它搬上了车。

They continued around the block and pulled up next to a dumpster that we’d been steadily filling with moldy carpet out front. I waved. “ALRIGHT IF WE PULL THIS DUCTWORK OUT OF THIS DUMPSTER?!” “No problem at all.” 他们绕过街区，停在我们屋前一个装满发霉地毯的垃圾箱旁。我挥了挥手。“我们可以把这垃圾箱里的管道拆走吗？！”“没问题！”

Upon closer inspection, these two were quite the team. One bulky, one scrappy, both getting old. They almost reminded you of something out of a Walter Matthou movie, where they’d both gone hard of hearing, so all communication between them was done by yelling — even if they were standing only inches apart. I gathered that one was named Ron, the other Wade, and that their voices were continually horse. 仔细一看，这两人真是绝配。一个魁梧，一个瘦小，都上了年纪。他们简直就像沃尔特·马修电影里的角色，两人都听力不好，所以交流全靠吼——哪怕他们站得只有几英寸远。我了解到其中一个叫罗恩，另一个叫韦德，他们的嗓子一直都是沙哑的。

After they’d gotten the ductwork into the truck, one of them looked the house up and down. “SAY, YOU GOT ANYTHING ELSE IN THERE?” “Well,” I said, “we do have an old broken gas furance in the basement.” Wade looked at Ron. “YOU WANNA GO CHECK IT OUT RON?” “ALRIGHT I’LL GO CHECK IT OUT!” 把管道装上车后，其中一人上下打量了一下房子。“嘿，你里面还有别的东西吗？”“嗯，”我说，“地下室里有个坏掉的旧煤气炉。”韦德看着罗恩。“你想去看看吗，罗恩？”“好，我去看看！”

So Ron followed me down into the basement. He jerked the furnace around to get a feel for the weight, nodded to himself, and counted the steps up to the first floor. Back outside, Ron and Wade had a quick conference. “HOW’S IT LOOK RON?” “IT’S HEAVY WADE. REAL HEAVY. 17 STEPS.” They mulled it over, before turning to where I was standing two feet away and yelling “ALRIGHT WE’LL DO IT.” 于是罗恩跟着我下到地下室。他晃了晃炉子感受重量，对自己点了点头，然后数了数通往一楼的台阶。回到外面，罗恩和韦德快速商量了一下。“怎么样，罗恩？”“很重，韦德。真的很重。17 级台阶。”他们琢磨了一会儿，然后转向站在两英尺外的我，大喊道：“好吧，我们干了。”

I went down with them, to supervise, but was quickly roped into the heavy lifting. The first thing I noticed was that moving scrap for a living doesn’t make you a very good mover. They didn’t even bother trying to tip the furnace down, and instead just knocked the thing straight over with a resounding crash. We sort of carry/dragged it over to the steps, where the real work began. 我和他们一起下去监督，但很快就被拉去干重活了。我注意到的第一件事是，靠搬运废料为生并不代表你是个专业的搬运工。他们甚至懒得把炉子放倒，而是直接把它推倒，发出一声巨响。我们连抬带拖地把它弄到台阶边，真正的苦差事开始了。

The stairway from the basement back up to the first floor is just wide enough for the furnace. There are 13 steps up, then a small landing for a 180degree turn, then the remaining 4 steps to the first floor. Our original linup was with Wade (the big one) in front of the furnace, with me and Ron (the scrappy ones) below the furnace. These guys were not afraid to make noise. Every time they went to lift, they were moaning or yelling or cursing almost embarrasingly loudly. 从地下室通往一楼的楼梯刚好够炉子通过。先是 13 级台阶，然后是一个小平台用于 180 度转弯，接着是剩下的 4 级台阶通往一楼。我们最初的站位是韦德（大块头）在炉子前面，我和罗恩（瘦小个）在炉子下面。这些人一点也不怕吵。每次用力抬的时候，他们都会发出呻吟、大喊或咒骂，声音大得让人尴尬。

We tried moving it up a few steps before Wade finally shouted “RON! YOU KNOW I CAN’T DO THIS! I’VE ONLY GOT THREE TOES!” I wondered if I’d heard Wade correctly, and he responded “the sugars” when I looked at him somewhat quizzically. So Ron and Wade traded places, such that now Ron was in front and I was down below with the big guy. 我们试着往上挪了几级台阶，韦德终于大喊道：“罗恩！你知道我干不了这个！我只有三个脚趾了！”我怀疑自己听错了，当我困惑地看着他时，他回答说“是糖尿病（the sugars）”。于是罗恩和韦德换了位置，现在罗恩在前面，我和那个大块头在下面。

In fact, both him and I could barely fit in the stairwell at the same time. We’d lift a step at a time, and it took us a solid 45 minutes to make it up the first flight and into the landing. The furnace just barely fit through the doorway from the stairwell to the landing, but a pipe jutting out of it got stuck in a wall. So Wade and I were left standing on the basement side of the furnace, with the whole thing blocking the door, while Ron was out on the landing side of the furnace. 事实上，我和他几乎无法同时挤在楼梯间里。我们一级一级地往上抬，足足花了 45 分钟才爬完第一段楼梯到达平台。炉子勉强穿过了从楼梯间到平台的门口，但上面伸出的一根管子卡在了墙里。于是，韦德和我被困在炉子的地下室那一侧，整个炉子堵住了门口，而罗恩则在平台的另一侧。

Suddenly, Wade turned to me and asked “HEY, IS THERE ANOTHER WAY OUT OF THIS BASEMENT?” “Actually, no this is the only entrance.” He started looking around frantically. “I… I… I GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE! I’M CLAUSTRAUPHOBIC! GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” He continued yelling, but also started trying to pull the furnace back down towards us, which would have crushed us for sure. I could barely fi 突然，韦德转向我问道：“嘿，这地下室还有别的出口吗？”“其实没有，这是唯一的入口。”他开始惊慌失措地四处张望。“我……我……我得离开这儿！我有幽闭恐惧症！快他妈让我出去！”他一边大喊，一边开始试图把炉子往我们这边拉，这肯定会把我们压扁。我几乎无法……