那里有家旧货店。一个老人开的。我们有次从他那里买过一台旧冰箱。卡洛斯的一箱子杂志卖了一块钱。那铺面很小，只有一格脏兮兮的窗户透光。他从来不开灯，除非你带了买东西的钱。于是我们，我和蕾妮，在昏暗中张望，看见各种各样的物什。几张脚朝天的桌子、一排排的圆角冰箱、你一捶它就会向空中喷吐灰尘的沙发和一百台看不大起来的电视。一样东西摞在另一样上面，形成了店里一条条细长的甬道。你很容易就迷失了方向。
店主是个黑人，他不太说话。如果你不太熟悉的话，可能在里面过好长时间，才会注意到有一副金色眼镜在黑暗中游动。自以为聪明的蕾妮会和所有的老人交谈，她问他许多问题。我呢，从来没和他说过什么，除去那次花一角钱买了一个自由女神像。
可是蕾妮，我有次听到她问，这里这个是什么，老人说，这个，是音乐盒。我飞快地转身，以为他在说一个漂亮的盒子，上面印着花朵，里面有个芭蕾舞小人的那种。但老人指的地方没有那样的东西。那只是一个旧木盒，里面有一张大的黄铜录音片，上面有些小洞洞。接着他启动了它，忽然间响起来千百样的声音。好像被他这一弄，有一百万只飞蛾从蒙灰的家具上，从天鹅颈状的阴影中，从我们的骨头里翻飞出来。又好像是一骨碌儿水滴。或是木琴，轻轻地一拨弦，发出如同手指滑过金属梳齿的声音。
然后我不知道为什么，不得不背过身去，装做我不是那么在意那个盒子，免得蕾妮看到我有多傻。可是蕾妮更傻，已经在问价钱，我看到她的手指伸到裤袋里摸钱去了。
这个，老人说着合上盖子，这个不卖。
Gil's Furniture Bought&Sold
There is a junk store. An old man owns it. We bought a used refrigerator from him once, and Carlos sold a box of magazines for a dollar. The store is small with just a dirty window for light. He doesn't turn the lights on unless you got money to buy things with, so in the dark we look and see all kinds of things, me and Nenny. Tables with their feet upside-down and rows and rows of refrigerators with round corners and couches that spin dust in the air when you punch them and a hundred T. V.'s that don't work probably. Everything is on top of everything so the whole store has skinny aisles to walk through. You can get lost easy.
The owner, he is a black man who doesn't talk much and sometimes if you didn't know better you could be in there a long time before your eyes notice a pair of gold glasses floating in the dark. Nenny who thinks she is smart and talks to any old man, asks lots of questions. Me, I never said nothing to him except once when I bought the Statue of Liberty for a dime.
But Nenny, I hear her asking one time how's this here and the man says, This, this is a music box, and I turn around quick thinking he means a pretty box with flowers painted on it, with a ballerina inside. Only there's nothing like that where this old man is pointing, just a wood box that's old and got a big brass record in it with holes. Then he starts it up and all sorts of things start happening. It's like all of a sudden he let go a million moths all over the dusty furniture and swan-neck shadows and in our bones. It's like drops of water. Or like marimbas only with a funny little plucked sound to it like if you were running your fingers across the teeth of a metal comb.
And then I don't know why, but I have to turn around and pretend I don't care about the box so Nenny won't see how stupid I am. But Nenny, who is stupider, already is asking how much and I can see her fingers going for the quarters in her pants pocket.
This, the old man says shutting the lid, this ain't for sale.
