《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 98 (233):換到公路行

We set off for our fake American road trip across Bali, me and this cool young Indonesian musical genius in exile, the back of our car filled with guitars and beer and the Balinese equi-valent of American road trip food—fried rice crackers and dreadfully flavored indigenous can-dies. The details of our journey are a bit blurry to me now, smudged over my distracting thoughts of Felipe and by the weird haziness that always accompanies a road trip in any country of the world. What I do remember is that Yudhi and I speak American the entire time—a language I hadn't spoken in so long. I'd been speaking English a lot during this year, of course, but not American, and definitely not the sort of hip-hop American Yudhi likes. So we just indulge it, turning ourselves into MTV-watching adolescents as we drive along, razz-ing each other like teenagers in Hoboken, calling each other dude and man and some-times—with great tenderness—homo. A lot of our dialogue revolves around affectionate in-sults to each other's mothers.

"Dude, what'd you do with the map?"

"Why don't you ask your mother what I did with the map?"

"I would, man, but she's too fat." And so forth.

We don't even penetrate the interior of Bali; we just drive along the coast, and it's beaches, beaches, beaches for a whole week. Sometimes we take a little fishing boat out to an island, see what's going on out there. There are so many kinds of beaches in Bali. We hang out one day along the long southern California-style groovy white sand surf of Kuta, then head up to the sinister black rocky beauty of the west coast, then we pass that invisible Balinese dividing line over which regular tourists never seem to go, up to the wild beaches of the north coast where only the surfers dare to tread (and only the crazy ones, at that). We sit on the beach and watch the dangerous waves, watch the lean brown and white Indonesian and Western surf-cats slice across the water like zippers ripping open the backs of the ocean's blue party dress. We watch the surfers wipe out with bone-breaking hubris against the coral and rocks, only to go back out again to surf another wave, and we gasp and say, "Dude, that is totally MESSED UP."

Just as intended, we forget for long hours (purely for Yudhi's benefit) that we are in Indonesia at all as we tool around in this rented car, eating junk food and singing American songs, having pizza everywhere we can find it. When we are overcome by evidence of the Bali-ness of our surroundings, we try to ignore it and pretend we're back in America. I'll ask, "What's the best route to get past this volcano?" and Yudhi will say, "I think we should take I-95," and I'll counter, "But that'll take us right through Boston in the middle of rush-hour traffic . . ." It's just a game, but it sort of works.

Sometimes we discover calm stretches of blue ocean and we swim all day, permitting each other to start drinking beer at 10:00 AM ("Dude—it's medicinal"). We make friends with everyone we encounter. Yudhi is the kind of guy who—when he's walking down the beach and he sees a man building a boat—will stop and say, "Wow! Are you building a boat?" And his curiosity is so perfectly winning that the next thing you know we've been invited to come live with the boat-builder's family for a year.

我和這位處於流放狀態、年輕的印尼音樂天才，動身展開假美國式的環島公路行，車子後座滿載吉他、啤酒，以及相當於美國公路旅行食品的巴厘島食物——炸米餅和味道恐怖的土產糖果。旅程細節，如今對我而言已有些模糊，因爲心中充滿對斐利貝的雜念，還因爲在任何國家做公路旅行始終會有奇特的朦朧感。但我記得尤弟和我自始至終說着美語——我許久未說的語言。這一年我自然說了不少英語，美語卻不然，而且絕不是尤弟喜歡的那種嘻哈美語。因此我們大說特說，把自己變成看MTV的青少年，開着車，像紐約郊區的青少年嘲弄彼此，叫彼此"好傢伙"和"老兄"，時而柔情蜜意地稱彼此"玻璃"。我們的對話經常環繞着對彼此母親的親密侮辱。

"好傢伙，你拿地圖幹什麼？"

"何不問你娘我拿地圖幹什麼？"

"老兄，我會的，只不過她太肥。"諸如此類。

我們甚至未深入巴厘島內陸，我們只是沿着海岸行駛，整個禮拜都是海灘、海灘、海灘。有時我們搭小漁船出海到某個島上，看那兒有什麼好玩的。巴厘島有各式各樣的海灘。我們某天在庫塔的南加州式白沙海灘閒晃，而後上行前往西岸兇險的黑巖岸海灘，然後跨越似乎未見一般遊客前往的分界線，到達北岸，唯有瘋狂的衝浪者才勇於踏上的狂烈海灘。我們坐在海邊觀看危險的海浪，看着精瘦、棕膚色和白膚色的印尼與西方衝浪軍劃過水面，猶如扯開大海的藍色晚宴服背後的拉鍊。我們看着衝浪者帶着傲骨衝向珊瑚與岩石，回來的時候卻又衝着另一波海浪，我們倒抽一口氣說："好傢伙，完全一團糟啊。"

我們如同原本的打算，長時間（爲尤弟着想）完全遺忘自己身在印尼的現實，駕着租來的車，吃垃圾食物，唱美國歌，到處找比薩餅吃。當我們被身在巴厘島的證據壓倒時，便予以忽視，假裝自己還在美國。我會問："通過這座火山最好走哪條路？"尤弟便說："我想該走"I-95"。"我反駁："可是那會剛好碰上波士頓的塞車時段……"雖然只是遊戲，卻多少奏效。

有時我們發現綿延不絕的平靜碧海，便游泳一整天，准許對方在早上十點開始喝啤酒（"好傢伙——這藥有效。"）我們和每個遇上的人交朋友。尤弟是那種走在海邊看見有人造船，就停下來說"哇！你在造船嗎？"的那種人。他的好奇心如此迷人，沒過多久，我們便得到去造船人家裏住上一年的邀請。