Essay
Listening to a Cold Engine at Six
六点，听一台冷发动机
The shutter of the shop faces east, so at six the light comes in flat and grey and lands on the tool bench before it reaches the cars. I open up, put the kettle on the small gas burner, and stand in the doorway for a minute. The dirt road is already busy with carts and a few taxis that need nothing from me yet.
What the Owner Cannot Hear
A man brought in a Corolla that rattled. He had already replaced the plugs, the wires, the fuel filter. He stood beside me while I listened with the hood up, and he kept talking, the way people do when they are paying by the hour. I asked him to be quiet. It was the tappets, one of them loose, a small dry click under the louder noise.
An engine tells you everything, if you stop adding your own voice to it.
My father taught me that in this same yard, when I was twelve and could barely reach over a fender. He would put his hand flat on the valve cover and wait. He said the metal has a rhythm and your job is to hear where the rhythm is wrong. I still do it that way. I do not own a diagnostic machine. Most of the time I do not need one.
Three Glasses Before Noon
The tea is green, cheap, and too sweet, and I drink it from a glass with a chip in the rim that I have had for years. The first glass is before I touch a car. The second is when the parts man comes. The third is at eleven, when the sun gets over the roof and the shop turns into an oven and nobody wants to work anyway.
There are scars across the back of my left hand, a line on the right thumb that never quite set straight. I could tell you the year of each one but not the day. A wrench slips, a bracket cuts, a hot manifold teaches you patience. The hands are the part of me that keeps the record. The rest of me forgets.
By four the light has moved off the bench and the road is louder and someone is always honking at nothing. I wash my hands with powdered soap, which does not really work, and I close the shutter and walk home. On the way I can still hear the last engine I fixed, and I check it in my head, slowly, all the way to my door.
中文译文
铺子的卷帘门朝东，六点的时候光平平地、灰灰地进来，先落在工作台上，才轮到车。我开门，把小煤气炉上的水壶坐上，在门口站一会儿。土路上已经有板车和几辆出租车，它们暂时还用不着我。
车主听不见的那种声音
一个人开来一辆卡罗拉，说是有杂音。火花塞、高压线、汽油滤芯，他全换过了。我支起引擎盖听，他站在旁边一直说话，像按钟点付钱的人那样。我请他安静。是气门挺柱，有一颗松了，在更响的噪声底下发出一声干涩的轻响。
发动机什么都会告诉你，只要你不再往里添自己的声音。
这是我父亲在同一个院子里教我的，那年我十二岁，踮起脚才够得着翼子板。他会把手掌平放在气门室盖上，等着。他说金属是有节拍的，你的活儿就是听出节拍在哪里错了。我到今天还是这么做。我没有诊断电脑，大多数时候也用不着。
中午之前的三杯
茶是绿茶，便宜，甜得过分，我用一只杯口缺了个角的玻璃杯喝，那杯子跟了我很多年。第一杯在碰车之前。第二杯是配件商来的时候。第三杯在十一点，太阳翻过屋顶，铺子成了烤炉，谁也不想干活。
左手手背上有几道疤，右手拇指上有一条始终没长直的线。每道疤是哪一年，我说得出；哪一天，说不上来。扳手滑一下，卡箍割一下，滚烫的排气歧管教你耐心。手是我身上记事的那部分，其余的都忘了。
四点，光从工作台上挪走了，路上更吵，总有人对着空气按喇叭。我用去污粉洗手，其实洗不干净，然后拉下卷帘门往家走。路上我还听得见最后修的那台发动机，在脑子里一节一节复核，一直核到家门口。
