大学英语综合教程 第三册 7textA

[00:00.00]Making a living as a door-to-door salesman demands a thick skin, both to protect against the weather
[00:07.94]and against constantly having the door shut in your face. Bill Porter puts up with all this and much, much more.
[00:18.26]LIFE OF A SALESMAN              By Tom Hallman Jr.
[00:22.67]The alarm rings. It’s 5:45. He could linger under the covers, listening to the radio and a weatherman who predicts rain.
[00:31.66]People would understand. He knows that.
[00:35.00]2 A surgeon’s scar cuts across his lower back. The fingers on his right hand are so twisted that he can’t tie his shoes.
[00:38.35]Some days, he feels like surrendering. But his dead mother’s challenge echoes in his soul. So, too,
[00:46.81]do the voices of those who believed him stupid, incapable of living independently.
[00:53.29]All his life he’s struggled to prove them wrong. He will not quit.
[00:59.17]3 And so Bill Porter rises.
[01:03.03]4 He takes the first unsteady steps on a journey to Portland’s streets, the battlefield where he fights alone
[01:11.29]for his independence and dignity. He’s a door-to-door salesman. Sixty-three years old. And his enemies
[01:20.43]—a crippled body that betrays him and a changing world that no longer needs him—are gaining on him.
[01:27.67]5 With trembling hands he assembles his weapons: dark slacks, blue shirt and matching jacket, brown tie, tan raincoat and hat. 
[01:38.59]Image, he believes, is everything.
[01:42.24]6 He stops in the entryway, picks up his briefcase and steps outside. A fall wind has kicked up.
[01:49.90]The weatherman was right. He pulls his raincoat tighter.
[01:54.65]7 He tilts his hat just so.
[01:57.39]8 On the 7:45 bus that stops across the street,
[02:01.65]he leaves his briefcase next to the driver and finds a seat in the middle of a pack of bored teenagers.
[02:08.78]9He leans forward,stares toward the driver,sits back,then repeats the process.His nervousness makes him laugh uncontrollably.
[02:19.10]The teenagers stare at him. They don’t realize Porter’s afraid someone will seal his briefcase,
[02:25.82]with the glasses, brochures, order forms and clip-on tie that he needs to survive.
[02:32.56]10 Porter senses the stares. He looks at the floor.
[02:36.89]11 His face reveals nothing. In his heart, though, he knows he should have been like these kids, like everyone on this bus.
[02:45.85]He’s not angry. But he knows. His mother explained how the delivery had been difficult,
[02:52.70]how the doctor had used an instrument that crushed a section of his brain and caused cerebral palsy,
[02:58.94]a disorder of the nervous system that affects his speech, hands and walk.
[03:05.18]12 Porter came to Portland when he was 13 after his father, a salesman, was transferred here.
[03:12.16]He attended a school for the disabled and then Lincoln High School, where he was placed in a class for slow kids.
[03:20.07]13 But he wasn’t slow.
[03:22.74]14 His mind was trapped in a body that didn’t work. Speaking was difficult and took time. People were impatient and didn’t listen.
[03:32.17]He felt different—was different—from the kids who rushed about in the halls and planned dances he would never attend.
[03:41.07]15 What could his future be? Porter wanted to do something and his mother was certain that he could rise above his limitations.
[03:49.62]With her encouragement, he applied for a job with the Fuller Brush CO. only to be turned down.
[03:56.51]He couldn’t carry a product briefcase or walk a route, they said.
[04:01.82]16 Porter knew he wanted to be a salesman. He began reading help wanted ads in the newspaper. 
[04:08.89]When he saw one for Watkins, a company that sold household products door-to-door,
[04:14.80]his mother set up a meeting with a representative.The man said no,but Porter wouldn’t listen.
[04:21.51]He just wanted a chance.The man gave in and offered Porter a section of the city that no salesman wanted.