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

The street I lived on ended with a cement wall. Beyond that, row after row of
wooden three deckers marched down to the Boston harbor and ten thousand diapers
flew like banners from their back porches.

Seeing my grandmother's house with Stacey was like seeing it for the first time;
I noticed how gray and spooky it looked in the dying light. "Hey," I said, "it's
haunted but what the hell."

She leaned over and ruffled my hair. Sunday morning I could still feel the touch
of her hand. Her interest in me was a mystery I didn't want to unravel.

Next Saturday, I watched her car again. Afterward, Stacey found a deserted
stretch of road and gave me my first driving lesson. Several times our hands
touched and a jolt went through me. When she dropped me off at home, I said,
"Dr. Petrie isn't doing me much good. What about this guy Dr. X?,"

Stacey kissed me on the mouth and said, "We'll see." She must have known that
she owned my soul.

Inside, my grandmother, a flurry of flour and white hair, was busy in the
kitchen. "Jimmy, my love," she said, mistaking me for her son the bar owner,
"run down to Snyder's for some baking powder before he closes."

The following Saturday, very tense, Stacey asked, "Do you have any pills?"
Feeling I'd failed her, I shook my head. It was cold sitting in that little car.
When Stacey came out she had been crying.

She sat for a moment before saying, "I've got a scrip. But I'm broke."
Desperately, I searched my pockets and came up with sixty cents. "This is bad,
Kevin. I need something or I am going to flip out." My heart leaped at this
opportunity. I had her drive me to the Y.

Saturdays, they gave kids swimming lessons. We swam bare ass and got yelled at
by counselors in trunks. But some of us found out that instead we could walk
past the locker room into this long gallery where kids got treated with great
respect.

There, frosted windows set in deep alcoves let in a pearly light and older guys
always stood around the door. When I came in, one of them whispered, "Fred."
Everyone always whispered like it was church. Fred was the name I used. This was
the guy who said he was Joe and once thought that I was twins.

Joe was safe and generous. He made a little gesture indicating both of us and we
stepped into one of the alcoves. Deftly he positioned me on a window ledge and
showed me his bald spot. My eyes went out of focus. Far away, someone whistled
the theme from The High and the Mighty. Joe stuck the money in my pants and
murmured, "You're a good kid, Fred. Where do you live?"

"In a projects," I told him and waved good-bye.