A Place to Stand

Those who wish to sing always find a song. — Swedish proverb

If you have ever gone through a toll¹ booth, you know that your relationship to the person in the booth is not the most intimate you’ll ever have. It is one of life’s frequent non-encounters: You hand over some money; you might get change; you drive off. I have been through every one of the 17 toll booths on the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge on thousands of occasions, and never had an exchange worth remembering with anybody.

Late one morning in 1984, headed for lunch in San Francisco, I drove toward one of the booths. I heard loud music. It sounded like a party, or a Michael Jackson concert. I looked around. No other cars with their windows open. No sound trucks. I looked at the toll booth. Inside it, the man was dancing.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m having a party,” he said.

“What about the rest of these people?” I looked over at other booths; nothing moving there.

“They’re not invited.”

I had a dozen other questions for him, but somebody in a big hurry to get somewhere started punching his horn behind me and I drove off. But I made a note to myself: Find this guy again. There’s something in his eye that says there’s magic in his toll booth.

Months later I did find him again, still with the loud music, still having a party.

Again I asked, “What are you doing?”

He said, “I remember you from the last time. I’m still dancing. I’m having the same party.”

I said, “Look. What about the rest of the people”

He said. “Stop. What do those look like to you?” He pointed² down the row of toll booths.

“They look like tool booths.”

“Nooooo imagination!’

I said, “Okay, I give up. What do they look like to you?”

He said, “Vertical³ coffins⁴.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can prove it. At 8:30 every morning, live people get in. Then they die for eight hours. At 4:30, like Lazarus from the dead, they reemerge and go home. For eight hours, brain is on hold, dead on the job. Going through the motions.”

I was amazed. This guy had developed a philosophy, a mythology⁵ about his job. I could not help asking the next question: “Why is it different for you? You’re having a good time.”

He looked at me. “I knew you were going to ask that, “ he said. “I’m going to be a dancer someday.” He pointed to the administration building. “My bosses are in there, and they’re paying for my training.”

Sixteen people dead on the job, and the seventeenth, in precisely⁶ the same situation, figures out a way to live. That man was having a party where you and I would probably not last three days. The boredom⁷! He and I did have lunch later, and he said, “I don’t understand why anybody would think my job is boring. I have a corner office, glass on all sides. I can see the Golden Gate, San Francisco, the Berkeley hills; half the Western world vacations here and I just stroll in every day and practice dancing.”

如果你仔细观察一个收费亭，你就会知道你与亭子里的这个人关系不是最亲密的，这是生命中常常出现的非偶遇者。你递给他一些钱，或许他还要找你些零钱，然后你开车走了。我仔细观察过17家收费亭，并在奥克兰-旧金山海湾大桥千百次路过，却没有一次找钱值得我记起某个人。

1984年的一个上午，很晚了，我驱车去旧金山吃午饭，开到一个收费亭旁边，我听到很响的音乐声。听起来好像在开舞会，或是迈克尔?杰克逊的音乐会。我朝四周看了看。别的汽车没有打开窗户的，也没有宣传车。我朝收费亭里望去，有个人在里边跳舞。

“你在干吗？”我问。

“我在开舞会呢，”他说。

“那其他人呢？”我看了看其他的亭子，没什么动静。

“我没邀请他们。”

我还有十几个问题要问他，但我后面的人急着要去某地，开始按喇叭，我只好开走了。但我在心里告诉自己：还要再找这个人。他眼里有某种东西，告诉我在他的收费亭里一种魔力。

几个月后我又见到了他，音乐仍然很响，舞会还在举行。

我再次问他：“你在做什么呢？”

他说：“我记得你上次问过了。我还在跳舞，还在举行同样的舞会。”

我说：“瞧，其他人呢？”

“打住。”他说，“你看那些东西像什么呢？”他指着那排收费亭。

“看来就像收费亭啊。”

“真是没有想象力！”

我说；“那好，我放弃。你看它们像什么呢？”

他说：“直立的棺材。”

“你在说些什么呀？”

“我可以证实。每早八点半，活的人进去。然后他们死亡八个小时。下午四点半，就像死人中的拉撒路，他们复活回到家中。整整八个小时，头脑思维中断，他们只是呆板地工作，重复着相同的动作。”

我感到非常惊异。这个小伙子发展了一种哲学，创造了一个有关工作的神话。我禁不住又问了一个问题：“为什么你不一样？你过得很快乐。”

他看了看我：“我就知道你会问这个，”他接着说，“总有一天我会成为一个舞蹈家。”我指向行政机关大楼：“我的老板都在那里，他们花钱为我培训。”

十六个人呆板地做着工作，而第十七个，几乎处于同样的情况，却找到另外一种生活方式。那个人在举办的舞会，你我恐怕连三天都坚持不了。无聊！他和我后来确实一起吃过午饭，他说：“我不理解为何每个人都认为我的工作很枯燥。我有一个街角办公室，四周都是玻璃。我可以看见金门海峡、旧金山和伯克利山，半个西方世界都在这儿度假，每天我只是漫步到这里，练习跳舞。”