我的姐妹金纳 My Sister Gina
在我14岁的那年夏天，母亲带着我住在得克萨斯州的科珀斯克里斯蒂港。1981年6月，我们在北海滩租下了这套小公寓。搬进去没几天，我遇到了一个叫金纳的女孩，她与其他一些人住在我家公寓后面的房子里。我之所以称那些人为“其他人”，是因为天真的我对他们的了解少得可怜。有时候，一些牙买加人会去拜访那些人，他们在那所房子里住几天，然后就离开了。几年后，我才了解了牙买加人的重要地位。对于与金纳一起住的人，我了解得不太多，后来也没有兴趣去了解。许多成年人经常会聚在那所房子的附近，不过他们只是在那所房子门外的前面，那里有音乐，我们这些孩子则自由地玩耍。
金纳比我小一岁半，我想，人们会说，她是因为在某种意义上无家可归，才与这些人住在一起的。金纳是一个长相漂亮的女孩，有着美丽的笑容、漂亮的金发和蓝色的眼睛。虽然才13岁，可是她对街道的熟悉程度已经超出了同龄孩子。金纳不知道她的父亲是谁，她的母亲是一个酒鬼。金纳有一个姐姐住在康涅狄格州，姐姐的丈夫是一个海员。除了我，没有人要金纳，我就像爱妹妹一样爱护着金纳。
起初，在学校的公车上，我与金纳总是怒目而视。金纳是一个性格强硬的孩子，必要的时候总是摆出一副凶恶小孩的架势，我想这是她采取的一种自我保护。在学校里过了一周多，我们开始说话了。因为在住的地方，只有我们两个孩子年纪相仿，于是很快就变得形影不离了。我的父母离婚了，除非有什么非谈不可的事情外，他们两个从来不说话。金纳没有一个真正的家，而我只是从600公里以外的密西西比的家搬到了现在的这个地方，不过我想念以前的家。当意识到我们两个人有着同样的伤痛时，不离了。我和金纳走到一起，成了无法分开的朋友。我和金纳不在一个班级上课，她比我低一个年级。然而从下午放学坐上学校公车直到晚上上床睡觉前的这段时间，我们都在一起。
我们住在海滩上。在天气暖和的时候，我就会在下了学校公车后匆忙跑回家里，把家务活做完，因为这些活在母亲下班回家之前必须干完。做完家务，我飞快地穿上泳衣，与金纳碰头后，就一起拿着毛巾，一边抽着烟一边向沙滩走去。沙滩离我们的住处也就5分钟的路程，穿过一条马路就到了。金纳吸烟，这一点也不足为奇。认识金纳后，我也开始吸烟了，我从不去想，如果母亲发现了这件事情将会作何。在某种程度上，我猜自己只是想效仿她所具有的潇洒气质。多年以后，我才认识到金纳的内心所承受的巨大悲伤。
大概过了半个学年，金纳的姐姐让她过去与她们一起在康涅狄格州生活。金纳的姐姐知道她的处境和住所，我不明白她为什么过了这么长时间才叫金纳过去。金纳的母亲一直酗酒，我想金纳一定是过不下去了，才离家出走，此后她就住在了我家后面。至少金纳自己说过，她的母亲不要她了。
金纳的离开令我非常伤心，同时，我也为她能同姐姐一起生活而感到高兴。我想，她与家人在一起，生活会过得好些。我们一周至少通两次信。4个月后，她又回来了，并给我讲了几件使她不想继续住下去的事。我对这些事却另有看法。
时间如流水般逝去，一学年马上就要结束了，我也即将迎来自己的15岁生日。母亲带我搬到了18英里以外的塔夫特，金纳与另外一个人继续住在科珀斯，但我们仍然通信保持联系。我们搬走6个月后，金纳又一次没有地方可住了。修女们就开始寻找可以收养她的人，那样她就不用去孤儿院了。后来，我听说金纳被一个女人收养了，不久就和那个女人19岁的儿子有了暧昧关系，那时她才14岁。发生这件事情后，那个女人就让金纳搬走了。事实上，在从那个家搬出来之后，金纳仍不时地与那个男的见面。金纳开始变得无所谓了，她非常想找一个人来按照她所理解的方式来爱她，但是她为此付出了代价。
在某种意义上，我们成为金纳的收养人这件事，引起了我的忧虑。因为我与母亲的生活本来就是捉襟见肘，几乎没钱支付账单，有几次就因为支付不起电费而被断电。我爱金纳，母亲从金纳的身上也多少看到了自己的不幸，因此也同情她，然而我很担心家里的状况无法再多养活一个人。我们在一起的日子很快乐！不久各自都有了男朋友，并且每个周末都要一起出去。我们甚至一起逃学。有一次被抓到了，被关了一整天的禁闭，因此错过了拍校照。在那年学校的年鉴上，照片上本该有我的地方被放了一个腰间系着镜头筒的卡通人物，并注着：“没有照片”。我认为，那事实上成为金纳不能与我们继续住在一起的原因之一，母亲不想我被她影响。我现在已经成了母亲，更能体会这种心情了。
金纳是一个野性的女孩，无法忍受长时间的管制。她与我们住在一起的时间大概有8个月，我记得那是一个冬天，家里经济拮据，食物不够吃。金纳喜欢无人管束的生活，并且已经习惯了那种生活，而母亲不允许一个十几岁的女孩子过那种生活。于是，金纳给一个熟识的人打了一个电话后，就收拾行李离开了我们。
The summer I turned fourteen we were, my mother and I, living in Corpus Christi, Texas. We rented this little apartment on North Beach in June 1981. Just a few days after we moved in, I met this girl named Gina who lived with some people in a house behind us. I say “people”, because they were into some stuff I had very little knowledge of, in my innocence. They occasionally had a Jamaican guest who would come in, stay a few days, then leave. I realized some years later the significance of the Jamaican visitor. I didn’t know much about these people Gina lived with, and didn’t get to know them too well. There were always a lot of adults that hung around, but they usually were in the front part of the house where the music was, and left us to our own entertainment.
Gina lived with these people because, I guess you could say, she was homeless. In a sense, she was about a year and a half younger than me. Very pretty, beautiful smile, pretty blond hair and big green eyes. But at thirteen, she knew far more about the streets than she should have. She didn’t know who her father was, and her mother was a drunk. She had an older sister who was married to a man in the navy, and lived in Connecticut. Nobody wanted Gina, except me. I loved her like a sister.
In the beginning, we bristled at each other on the school bus. Gina was a tough kid, and I guess as a defense mechanism, she always put on that tough-kid armor when necessary. After a week or so of school, we started talking. And since she was the only kid in the area of my age, we really kind of fell in together. My folks were divorced and barely spoke unless they had to. I’d just moved 600 miles from the only home I’d ever known in Mississippi and I was homesick, and she had no real home. Once we realized we both had wounds to lick, it clicked, and we became inseparable. She was a grade beneath me, so we had no classes together. But as soon as we’d board the school bus in the afternoon until it was time for bed, we were together.
We lived on the beach. It was a five-minute walk from where we lived, just a matter of crossing the road. If it was warm, I’d get off the bus and hurriedly do my chores that had to be finished before my mom got home from work. Then quickly get into my bathing suit. We’d meet up with our towels and smokes and head for the sand. I’d just started smoking when I met Gina. She smoked, not surprisingly, and when I was with her, I didn’t think about what my mom would do if she found out. In a way, I guess I wanted to emulate her free spirit. It wasn’t years later that I realized the intense sadness she must have felt.
About midway into the school year, Gina’s sister asked her to come and live with them in Connecticut. I never understood why it took her so long to ask. She knew Gina’s circumstances and where she was living. Gina’s mom stayed drunk all the time, and I think they had a big failing out, and Gina left home. That’s when she came to live behind me. Her mom didn’t want her, at least that’s what Gina said.
So Gina left me. I was heartbroken. But at the same time, I was so happy that she was going to be with her sister. I thought that if she was with family, she’d be OK. We wrote each other letters at least twice a week, but four months later she came back. I got several stories from Gina as to why it didn’t work out. I have my own theories.
Time went on, the school year was coming to a close, and my 15th birthday was just around the corner. My mom and I moved to Taft. Gina stayed behind with yet another person somewhere in corpus, but we wrote letters, and kept in touch. Taft was only 18 miles away. After we were there about 6 months, Gina was again without a place to live, and the nuns were looking for somebody to take her so she wouldn’t be placed in a foster home. The story I got is Gina started having a thing with the lady’s, that she lived with, 19-year-old son. Gina was just fourteen at the time, and she asked Gina to move. Actually, she saw this guy off and on for a while. Gina was loose. She was desperately looking for somebody to love her in the only way she knew how. And it cost her.
So we became her foster family, of sorts. I was worried. My mom and I were living so skimpily as it was. We barely had money to pay the bills, and a couple of times we had our electricity turned off for nonpayment. I was worried about having another person to feed. But I loved her, and my mom felt sorry for her. She could see a little of herself in Gina too. We had so much fun! We both soon had steady dates, and we went out together every weekend. We even played hooky together, even got caught once, was put in detention for a whole day, and we missed having our school pictures taken that day. In the school yearbook, for that year, where my picture should be, there’s a little character man with a barrel around his middle and a sign on it that says: “Photo not available.” Actually, I believe it was one of the factors that started the beginning of the end to Gina’s stay with us. I think my mom was afraid she’d “rub off on me”. I’m a mom now and I can better understand.
Gina was wild, and you can’t cage a wild animal for long. She was with us about eight months. I remember it was winter again. Money was tight, and food was scarce. Gina liked the wild life. My mom didn’t allow the type of life, for a teenage girl, that she was used to. So Gina called someone else she knew, and made arrangements to leave us.
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