"Bowes-ShadowAndGunman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bowes Richard)

her friend stared at me.

At Queena Heaven it was cold and dark. My head spun as I tried to be sure
everyone else off the train left the station ahead of me. Across the avenue,
bodies glided, street light gleamed off the ice at Curtis Park. They had flooded
the playground for the first skating of the year.

Crossing the street, I sat not far from a small fire on the shore. People warmed
their hands. Little kids whose parents had forgotten about them slid by on their
shoes. One old couple skated arm in arm. At the center of the ice, guys played
freeform hockey.

It was important to pull myself together. I promised God a lifetime of monastic
devotion if he would just make my head stay still. After a bit, my breathing
slowed, the ringing in my ears died down, my brain slipped a cog or two.

Before me, goalies crouched in front of improvised nets. Pucks hissed, jumped on
ice bumps. Bodies collided. A kid who had been my best friend in sixth grade
skidded twenty feet on his back.

We barely nodded now. But seeing him evoked hot afternoons crouching shiftless
waiting for grounders at third. More than memory, it was a dream which smeared
time and circumstance. I was eleven years old when I rose from the bench.
Walking up the hill I was going home to my parents.

Not my stepfather, my real father. He and my mother and I lived in my
grandmother's house. Just the three of us. I knew they would be standing outside
in summer sunlight, she in her picture hat, he in his navy uniform. I would tell
them about my Shadow. They would explain that it was a nightmare and I would
rest easy in their arms.

Not even the sight of that house in darkness stopped my dream. Lights were on in
the living room. From the front hall I saw my grandmother sitting on the couch
with all the lamps lit and the family photos spread out before her. She had made
tea. Laid out three cups. "Here he is after all!" she exclaimed, like she and my
parents had been worried.

I stepped into the room. "Kevin," she said. "Dr. Exelman has been waiting for
you."

"Hi, Kevin," said Dr. X, as he moved between me and the door. "Did you forget
about the overnight seminar?" He wore horn-rimmed glasses I had never seen
before. They helped mask the swelling of one of his eyes. His smile was vitamin
enriched.

A battered suitcase from the upstairs closet stood next to the couch. "Dr.
Exelman helped me pack a change of clothes and your tooth brush so you'd be
ready as soon as you came home," My grandmother smiled brightly as I stood
paralyzed.