2. 外语
  3. Ultimo Vargas had been in Hatch, New Mexico, only six months, since March, and already he owned his own business to compete with

Ultimo Vargas had been in Hatch, New Mexico, only six months, since March, and already he owned his own business to compete with

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问题     Ultimo Vargas had been in Hatch, New Mexico, only six months, since March, and already he owned his own business to compete with Netflix, delivering DVDs and video games to ranchers and people who lived within 20 miles of town. He had worked out a deal with Senora Gaspar, who owned the video store, to pay him 90 percent of the delivery fee, and if he took out more than 50 videos in a week, a premium on the extras.
    Ultimo had a lightweight motorized bicycle, which made it feasible. Gas prices were high, and delivery and pickup saved customers money. Also, it was convenient — they didn’t have to wait till they had an errand in town. Most of the customers were Mexican families who worked the land for Anglos, or Anglos who owned cattle or pecan groves. Ultimo organized his schedule to avoid random trips. It was a lot of riding, but he liked the terrain — the low hills, the bare mountains, pale blue in the day and shadowed in the evenings, the vast sky. He liked seeing the fields of onions and chiles, the pecan trees, the alfalfa growing, the cattle grazing. He saw hawks, antelope, badgers, and deer, and learned their habits.
    In a few weeks he knew most of his customers — the Gallegos family out on Castaneda Road, who grew green chiles, the Brubakers farther on, the widow woman, Senora Obregon, who still ran the Bar SW ranch. The Michaels family was a mile east, the Garcias were on the other side of Interstate 25 — they owned the bakery — and Tom Martinez lived in the trailer a mile past. Many of the families grew chiles — that’s what Hatch was famous for — and marketed them to the co-op in Albuquerque or along the town highway, pickled or fresh, in jellies or as ristras. Everyone knew Ultimo, too, the chico loco on his moped.
    The more people knew him, of course, the more people knew about his business. He was strong, had a good smile, and was a natural salesman. He talked to the Mexican families in Spanish, asked where their relatives came from, who was left in Hermosillo or Juarez or Oaxaca. He talked to the Anglos to improve his English and to show he was a serious businessman. He expected great things of himself one day.
    Ultimo’s English was passable, because he’d worked almost a year in Deming before he came to Hatch. He’d washed dishes at Si Senorita from six to two, and at four he mopped floors at the elementary school. In between he spent his off hours at the Broken Spoke, where he met people, even some women, like Brenda, who was a hairdresser, then unemployed. At eleven one night Ultimo was walking home to his trailer, and Brenda stopped in her Trans Am with the muffler dragging. She gave him a ride, and one thing led to another. After a month, Brenda wanted to get married — she was pregnant, she said — and Ultimo said why not. Two weeks after the wedding, he found out there was no baby, and Brenda ran off to California with a wine salesman.
    To pay off Brenda’s debts, Ultimo used his meager savings and took a third job unloading freight at the train yard, though he still wasn’t making enough money, or sleeping enough, either. One evening, after Ultimo was threatened with eviction from Brenda’s apartment, his boss at the school found him dozing at a teacher’s desk, and he was finished in Deming. He walked north with his thumb out, but no one picked him up. In two days, 46 miles later, with nothing but, the clothes he wore and a blanket he’d brought from home, he staggered past Las Uvas Dairy and a few broken-down houses and into Hatch, where he saw a HELP WANTED sign in the window of the Frontera Mercado. He went in and got a job stocking groceries.
What happened to Ultimo after Brenda’s disappearance?
选项 A、He wanted to divorce his wife.
B、He was heavily involved in debts.
C、He was recovering from drinking.
D、He had been working in a grocery.
答案B
解析 细节判断题。定位到第6段。根据第6段首句可知，Brenda欠了很多债，为了帮妻子还债，Ultimo用尽了所有积蓄并且开始了卸货这一第三职业，尽管这样，还债却远远不够，选项B深陷债务之中正描述了这点。而选项A“他想与妻子离婚”、C“他摆脱了酗酒”在文中根本没有提到：文中只提到他离开Derming后，找到过一份储存货物的工作，而并非在杂货店工作，故D项错误。
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