"Castro, Adam Troy - Ego To Go" - читать интересную книгу автора (Castro Adam Troy)

"Porter," the pudgy man ventured, in the quaver of a man never at rest even in
his own skin. Almost at once he licked his lips, turned a sickly
fishbelly-white, and looked away, studying the various low-rent furnishings of
Feeble's miniscule waiting room -- the three folding chairs, the standing
ashtray gray with recent ash, and the coffee table covered with issues of
Personality Today. "I mean, Wallace? Wallace Porter? I was -- I mean, I was told
to come here by somebody I work with? Annie, I mean, Annette Crosby? You know
her?"

"Certainly," Feeble said. Annette was one of his regular customers: the
parthenogenic only child of virtual sex magnates Janet and Enid Crosby, who
liked to stop by over lunch to pick up an adorable giggle or temporary/Parisian
accent for a dinner engagement. Feeble liked Annette, even when she was being
fashionably unlikeable. He fingered the fatty tape measure he wore around his
shoulders as an old-fashioned badge of office, adjusted his traditional
bifocals, and prompted, "She sent you here.?"

"Yes, I, uh, was, sort of, apologizing to her, for uh, something I'd said to her
the week before, that I wasn't entirely sure she hadn't taken the wrong way,
because, uh, I don't really want to give offense, because I'm not that kind of
person, and, uh, she sort of gave out this big loud sigh and said that I should
come here. She, uh," Porter's blush was now as bright red as a Caribbean sunset,
"said I should buy an Ego."

"She's right. You need one."

Porter looked like he would have been happier cowering under the musty carpeting
with the rest of the insects. "I'm sorry."

Feeble slammed his fist against the countertop, raising a mushroom cloud of
carefully placed dust. "Don't apologize! That's the major problem with people
like you -- you're always apologizing! You believe that every single move you
make causes the world mortal offense, and therefore you either shy away from
doing anything even remotely self-assertive, or fall all over yourself making
excessive amends for words and deeds that never really required amends in the
first place. In the process, you reduce yourself to a forgettable cipher at best
and a major-league annoyance at worst. For God's sake, Mr. Porter, we're not
living in medieval times, when people actually had to live with a handicap like
that! Why didn't you get this fixed long ago?

Porter addressed an invisible person somewhere in the vicinity of his plain
brown shoes. "I'm s-- I mean, I guess I never realized it was a problem."

"You treat yourself like a criminal and you never realized it was a problem.?"

"I guess I thought I deserved it," said Porter.

Feeble appraised him critically, then disappeared behind the deliberately tacky
curtain (faded flowers in a shade of old tobacco stains), into the dimly lit