2019.12.01 弗兰克-辛纳屈对美国的教诲

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IDEAS
What Frank Sinatra Taught Me About America
He looked at me as if he knew that I too had a dream.

By Niall Williams
Frank SInatra
WR / AP
DECEMBER 1, 2019
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About the author: Niall Williams is a novelist. His most recent book is This Is Happiness.

When I was 23, I came to America for the first time with my soon-to-be wife, and settled in her hometown of Katonah, New York. I was a Dubliner who knew the United States only through its literature, and I felt every bit as alien as my resident-alien card suggested.

My dream was to become a writer but I needed a job. Eventually, I found one opening boxes of books at Fox & Sutherland’s, the famous old book, camera, and record store in Mount Kisco. The books department was the jurisdiction of Herman Fox, a man of short-stature in his 80s with round-rimmed glasses and large black shoes. All day Mr. Fox wandered the aisles, straightening books and leaning on his customers. Actually leaning. He’d hold on to your shoulder for support and, while he had you there, he’d take something off the nearest shelf: “This one’s good.”


In this tactic, Mr. Fox’s all-time favorite was Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Each morning Mr. Fox would place copies of the book on various shelves, so one was always near at hand. On my first morning, perhaps forgetting that I was an employee, he took my arm and brought us over to a shelf. He picked out the fat paperback edition, and opened it to what I later discovered was not a random page.

“Read it out,” he said.

“America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”

He passed no comment, but patted the cover gently, like you might the head of a favored child.

In those days, bookselling still had an air of genteel transaction. It was commerce, yes, but of ideas and language. In Fox & Sutherland’s, many families had accounts, and never paid in cash. Prices were not mentioned, but, under Mr. Fox’s gaze, were carefully noted in the account books. In a gesture both enlightened and pragmatic, the staff were encouraged to bring home any books they wanted to read, and so for me the store served as a further education, enabling me to read more widely than any curriculum would.


But the company of books brought me no closer to being an actual writer. And as the days went by, my ambition began to seem what it was, a dream of youth.

One summer afternoon, two men came into the bookstore together. One was broad, in white shirt and khaki trousers, the other shorter, in a blue shirt and a low baseball cap. Alice, a bookseller, first realized who they were. She came to the counter and mouthed: Frank Sinatra.

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Almost immediately, everyone in the store knew: Frank Sinatra was the short figure in the baseball cap. In Records, staff acknowledged him by putting on Songs for Swingin’ Lovers. It played out over the sound system. The man in the baseball hat didn’t react. He kept his focus on the shelves while his voice was everywhere around him. The man next to him was Robert F. Wagner, the three-time mayor of New York City.

Now, I’m not sure whether Mr. Fox knew either of them right away. What he did know was we had a customer with three hardcovers under his arm. Mr. Fox motioned for me to go fetch the books so the customer wouldn’t have to carry them.

In Dublin, when he wasn’t listening to Pavarotti, my father listened to Sinatra. He sat in the small front room on his own and played his music. He never said I should give up listening to Bob Dylan; he never said, ‘‘That’s not singing, this is,’’ or otherwise revealed how the music spoke to his inner life, but I knew.

So when I was crossing the short distance of Fox & Sutherland’s to take the books, I was also crossing an enormous one. I was crossing one of time and distance, of geography and generation, of fathers and sons, and also the one that lay between Alien and American. No one seemed more American to me than Frank Sinatra.


‘‘I’ll take those to the counter, sir.’’

At the sound of my voice, the baseball cap tilted up—I was much taller—and then I saw his eyes. The blue of Sinatra’s eyes was like nothing I had ever seen. In the many times I have told this story, I can never convey how extraordinary his gaze was, how it stopped me.

He creased a smile and handed me the hardcovers, then moved on through the aisles. No customer approached him. There was only me, coming and going, taking books from him.

Mr. Fox held on to the counter, watching the books pile up. But he eventually shuffled over to the most famous customer ever to come into his bookstore. Once he got to him, he grasped his arm and took a copy of Democracy in America off the shelf. He opened his favorite page and let Sinatra read it. I watched the words work on him.

Sinatra took three copies, and then brought Mr. Fox, as Mr. Fox brought him, back to the counter. I put the de Tocquevilles in a fourth shopping bag. I noted them in the account book, which now ran to several pages. By habit, I had searched the Rolodex for any account under Sinatra, and finding none, had the surreal experience of my hand writing F Sinatra in the box for the account name. I had totted up the bill and then, under some pressure with Ol’ Blue Eyes standing in front of me, added on the three Democracies. The total came to more than $800, the single largest book sale in the history of Fox & Sutherland’s.


I didn’t look up; I pushed the written account across the counter toward the customer. Above us, Songs for Swingin’ Lovers was on repeat; we were at “Too Marvelous for Words.”

What Frank Sinatra didn’t do next was reach for his wallet. It didn’t seem to occur to him, as though wallets were not in his realm. He did not look at or make the slightest gesture toward the dotted line for “Customer Signature.” Nor did Mr. Fox motion him toward it. Instead, he motioned toward me and said, “He’ll carry them to your car.”

Out into a blaze of sunlight then, behind the two men, I carried the four shopping bags of books.

Back in the store, Mr. Fox was already turning the encounter into sales; he was too genteel to discuss money, but not too genteel to make it. From now on, he could pick any book and say, ‘‘Frank Sinatra bought that one,’’ and the magic of that phrase would work. He’d get that $800 back, and more.

The mayor popped open the immaculate trunk of a powder-blue Cadillac, and into it I placed the books. The mayor got into the car, and started the engine.


Then Frank Sinatra turned to me. I wasn’t expecting a tip, nor was one offered. Neither was I expecting what happened next. Sinatra looked at me. Actually looked.

It was a look I have never forgotten, and have often revisited. In it was all that could never be said about a skinny kid from New Jersey who had dreamed, who had once been as young as I was, as skinny as I was, and was here now on this far side looking back at me, as if he knew that I too had a dream.

‘‘Thanks, sonny,’’ he said.

To the young man I was then, Ireland had been a narrow place of confinement, restriction, but in the sunlit car park of Fox & Sutherland’s I felt a doorway opening, one that opened even wider when I actually read Democracy in America. De Tocqueville had traveled the country when he was nearly the same age as I was, and recognized America’s characteristic individualism, the permission it granted, the way it even urged you to—for lack of a better phrase—go for it.

That weekend I called my father in Dublin.

‘‘Is everything all right?’’


I didn’t say that I had started writing. I didn’t say, ‘‘I’m going to be a writer.’’ Irish sons don’t say such things to their fathers, or at least they didn’t then. But I wanted to tell him something had changed, so I said, ‘‘Do you know who came into the bookshop? Frank Sinatra.’’

The phone line hummed with that under-the-sea hum that reminded you that you were not only far away, but in another world.

And then, my father delivered the long, considered, and complex nature of his response in precise form.

‘’That’s America,’’ he said.

Niall Williams is a novelist. His most recent book is This Is Happiness.



理念
弗兰克-辛纳屈对美国的教诲
他看着我，好像他知道我也有一个梦想。

作者：尼亚尔-威廉姆斯
弗兰克-西纳特拉
WR / AP
2019年12月1日
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关于作者。尼尔-威廉姆斯是一位小说家。他最近的作品是《这就是幸福》。

23岁时，我和即将成为我妻子的人第一次来到美国，并在她的家乡纽约州卡托纳市定居。我是一个都柏林人，只通过美国的文学作品了解美国，我觉得自己就像我的外国人居留证上写的那样，很陌生。

我的梦想是成为一名作家，但我需要一份工作。最终，我在基斯科山著名的旧书、相机和唱片店Fox & Sutherland's找到了一份打开书箱的工作。图书部是赫尔曼-福克斯的管辖范围，他80多岁时身材矮小，戴着圆框眼镜，穿着大黑鞋。整天，福克斯先生在过道上徘徊，整顿书籍，靠在顾客身上。实际上是倚靠。他会抓着你的肩膀做支撑，当他抓着你的时候，他会从最近的书架上拿一些东西。"这个很好。"


在这种策略中，福克斯先生一直以来最喜欢的是亚历克西斯-德-托克维尔的《美国的民主》。每天早上，福克斯先生都会把这本书的副本放在不同的书架上，所以总有一本在附近。在我的第一个早晨，也许是忘记了我是一名雇员，他拉着我的胳膊，把我们带到一个书架前。他挑了一本肥大的平装版，打开一看，我后来发现并不是随意的一页。

"读出来，"他说。

"美国之所以伟大，是因为她是好的，如果美国不再是好的，她也就不再是伟大的。

他没有发表评论，只是轻轻地拍了拍封面，就像你拍一个受宠的孩子的头一样。

在那些日子里，卖书仍然有一种优雅的交易氛围。是的，它是商业，但却是思想和语言的商业。在福克斯和萨瑟兰书店，许多家庭都有账户，而且从不以现金支付。价格没有被提及，但在福克斯先生的注视下，价格被仔细地记在账本上。在一个既开明又务实的姿态下，员工们被鼓励把他们想读的书带回家，因此对我来说，这家商店起到了进一步教育的作用，使我能够比任何课程更广泛地阅读。


但书的陪伴并没有使我更接近成为一名真正的作家。随着时间的流逝，我的雄心壮志开始显得力不从心，只是一个青春的梦想。

一个夏天的下午，两个男人一起走进书店。一个很宽大，穿着白衬衫和卡其色长裤，另一个较矮，穿着蓝衬衫，戴着低矮的棒球帽。爱丽丝，一个书商，首先意识到他们是谁。她走到柜台前，嘴里念叨着。弗兰克-西纳特拉。

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几乎在第一时间，店里的每个人都知道：弗兰克-辛纳屈是那个戴着棒球帽的矮个子。在记录中，工作人员通过播放《摇摆情人之歌》来承认他。这首歌在音响系统中播放出来。戴棒球帽的人没有任何反应。他把注意力放在书架上，而他的声音在他周围到处都是。他旁边的人是罗伯特-F-瓦格纳，三届纽约市市长。

现在，我不确定福克斯先生是否马上就认识他们中的任何一个。他所知道的是我们有一个顾客，他的胳膊下有三本精装书。福克斯先生示意我去拿书，这样顾客就不用拿了。

在都柏林，当他不听帕瓦罗蒂的歌时，我父亲听的是辛纳屈。他一个人坐在小前厅里，播放他的音乐。他从来没有说过我应该放弃听鲍勃-迪伦；他从来没有说过，"那不是唱歌，这才是，"或者以其他方式揭示音乐如何与他的内心世界对话，但我知道。

因此，当我穿过福克斯和萨瑟兰的短距离去拿书的时候，我也在跨越一个巨大的距离。我跨越了时间和距离，跨越了地理和世代，跨越了父子，也跨越了外国人和美国人之间的距离。在我看来，没有人比弗兰克-辛纳屈更像美国人。


''我把这些拿到柜台去，先生。

听到我的声音，棒球帽倾斜起来，我长高了许多，然后我看到了他的眼睛。西纳特拉的眼睛的蓝色是我从未见过的。在我多次讲述这个故事的过程中，我永远无法表达他的目光是多么的与众不同，它是如何让我停下脚步的。

他皱着眉头笑了笑，把精装书递给我，然后继续穿过过道。没有顾客接近他。只有我，来来往往，从他那里拿书。

福克斯先生守在柜台前，看着书堆积如山。但他最终还是走到了有史以来进入他的书店的最有名的顾客面前。他一走到他面前，就抓住他的胳膊，从书架上拿下一本《美国的民主》。他打开他最喜欢的那一页，让辛纳特拉读了起来。我看着这些文字在他身上发挥作用。

辛纳屈拿了三本，然后把福克斯先生，就像福克斯先生带他一样，带回到柜台前。我把德-托克维尔的书放在第四个购物袋里。我把它们记在账本上，现在账本已经有好几页了。习惯上，我在账本上寻找辛纳屈名下的任何账户，但没有找到，于是有了一种超现实的经历，我在账户名称的方框里写下了F-辛纳屈。我合计了一下账单，然后，在 "蓝眼睛 "站在我面前的某种压力下，把三个民主国家的钱加了进去。总数超过了800美元，这是福克斯和萨瑟兰书店历史上最大的一次图书销售。


我没有抬头；我把写好的账目推到柜台对面的顾客面前。在我们上方，《摇摆情人之歌》正在重复播放；我们正处于 "妙不可言 "的状态。

弗兰克-辛纳屈接下来没有做的是伸手去拿他的钱包。他似乎没有想到这一点，好像钱包不在他的领域内。他没有看，也没有对 "客户签名 "的虚线做最轻微的手势。福克斯先生也没有向他示意。相反，他向我示意，说："他会把它们带到你的车上。"

然后，我背着四个购物袋的书走到阳光下，跟在两人后面。

回到店里，福克斯先生已经把这次邂逅变成了销售；他太有风度了，不会讨论钱的问题，但也不至于太有风度，不会赚钱。从现在起，他可以挑选任何一本书，然后说："弗兰克-辛纳屈买了这本书，"这句话的魔力就会发挥作用。他可以拿回那800美元，甚至更多。

市长打开了一辆粉蓝色凯迪拉克的完美后备箱，我把书放进去。市长上了车，并启动了引擎。


然后弗兰克-西纳特拉转向我。我并不指望得到小费，也没有得到小费。我也没料到接下来会发生什么。西纳特拉看着我。真的看了。

那是一个我永远不会忘记的眼神，并经常重温。这里面包含了对一个来自新泽西州的瘦弱孩子的所有评价，他曾有过梦想，他曾像我一样年轻，像我一样瘦弱，现在在这个遥远的地方回望着我，似乎他知道我也有一个梦想。

''谢谢，孩子，''他说。

对于当时的年轻人来说，爱尔兰是一个狭窄的禁锢、限制之地，但在福克斯和萨瑟兰的阳光停车场，我感觉到一个门洞在打开，当我真正读到《美国的民主》时，这个门洞开得更大。德-托克维尔在与我几乎同龄时曾游历过这个国家，他认识到美国特有的个人主义，它给予的许可，它甚至敦促你--缺乏一个更好的措辞--去做它。

那个周末，我给我在都柏林的父亲打电话。

''一切都好吗？


我没有说我已经开始写作。我没有说，"我将成为一名作家"。爱尔兰的儿子不会对他们的父亲说这样的话，或者至少他们当时不会。但我想告诉他有什么变化，所以我说："你知道谁进了书店吗？弗兰克-辛纳屈'。

电话线发出那种海底的嗡嗡声，提醒你，你不仅在远方，而且在另一个世界。

然后，我父亲以精确的形式表达了他的答复的漫长、深思熟虑和复杂的性质。

''这就是美国，''他说。

尼尔-威廉姆斯是一位小说家。他最近的书是《这就是幸福》。