Tuesdays with Morrie-25

slap:猛打，拍击

solidify:使凝固

alabaster:石膏

sophomore:二年级生

earshot:听力所及的范围

calisthenics:健美操

anchor:锚

clump:凝结成块

pound:重击

aphorism:格言；警句

curl:卷曲

paleness:苍白；黯然

stray:零散的

thump:锤击、重击

jackhammer:手提钻机
inherent:内在的；天生的

The EleventhTuesday

We TalkAbout Our Culture

"Hithim harder."

Islapped Morrie's back.

"Harder."

Islapped him again.

"Nearhis shoulders . . . now down lower."

Morrie,dressed in pajama bottoms, lay in bed on his side, his head flush against thepillow, his mouth open. The physical therapist was showing me how to bang loosethe poison in his lungs-which he needed done regularly now, to keep it fromsolidifying, to keep him breathing.

"I. . . always knew . . . you wanted . . . to hit me . . ." Morrie gasped.

Yeah,I joked as I rapped my fist against the alabaster skin of his back. This is forthat B you gave me sophomore year! Whack!

Weall laughed, a nervous laughter that comes when the devil is within earshot. Itwould have been cute, this little scene, were it not what we all knew it was,the final calisthenics beforedeath. Morrie's disease was now dangerously closeto his surrender spot, his lungs. He hadbeen predicting he would die fromchoking, and I could not imagine a more terrible way to go.

Sometimeshe would close his eyes and try to draw the air up into his mouth and nostrils,andit seemed as if he were trying to lift an anchor.

Outside,it was jacket weather, early October, the leaves clumped in piles on the lawnsaroundWest Newton. Morrie's physical therapist had come earlier in the day, and Iusuallyexcused myself when nurses or specialists had business with him. But asthe weeks passedand our time ran down, I was increasingly less self-consciousabout the physicalembarrassment. I wanted to be there. I wanted to observe everything.This was not like me,but then, neither were a lot of things that had happenedthese last few months in Morrie'shouse.

SoI watched the therapist work on Morrie in the bed, pounding the back of hisribs, asking ifhe could feel the congestion loosening within him. And when shetooka break, she asked if I wanted to try it. I said yes. Morrie, his face onthe pillow, gave a littlesmile.

"Nottoo hard," he said. "I'm an old man."

Idrummed on his back and sides, moving around, as she instructed. I hated theidea of

Morrie'slying in bed under any circumstances (his last aphorism, "When you're inbed, you'redead," rang in my ears), and curled on his side, he was so small,so withered, it was more aboy's body than a man's. I saw the paleness of hisskin, the stray white hairs, the way his armshung limp and helpless. I thoughtabout how much time we spend trying to shape our bodies,lifting weights,crunching sit-ups, and in the end, nature takes it away from us anyhow.

Beneathmy fingers, I felt the loose flesh around Morrie's bones, and I thumped himhard, asinstructed. The truth is, I was pounding on his back when I wanted tobe hitting the walls.

"Mitch?"Morrie gasped, his voice jumpy as a jackhammer as I pounded on him.

Uh-huh?

"Whendid . . . I . . . give you . . . a B?"

Morriebelieved in the inherent good of people. But he also saw what they couldbecome.

"Peopleare only mean when they're threatened," he said later that day, "andthat's what ourculture does. That's what our economy does. Even people who havejobs in our economy arethreatened, because they worry about losing them. Andwhen you get threatened, you startlooking out only for yourself. You startmaking money a god. It is all part of this culture."

Heexhaled. "Which is why I don't buy into it."