"Avram Davidson - My Boy Friend's Name Is Jello" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

medicine man allows me for victuals, said, My Sister Is Coming Along Later And She's Going To Fix
You Up Some Nice Flowers. Miss Thurl, I do believe, spends most of her time fixing flowers.
Weekends she joins a confraternity of over-grown campfire girls and boys who go on hiking trips, comes
back sunburned and sweating and carrying specimen samples of plant and lesser animal life. However, I
must say for Miss Thurl that she is quiet. Her brother-in-law, the bull-Moos, would be in here all the time
if I suffered it. He puts stupid quotations in other people's mouths. He will talk about the weather and I
will not utter a word, then he will say, Well, It's Like You Say, It's Not The Heat But The Humidity.

Thinking of which, I notice a drop in the heat, and I see it is raining. That should cool things off. How
pleasant. A pity that it is washing away the marks of the little girls' last game. They played this one on the
sidewalk, with chalked-out patterns and bits of stone and broken glass. They chanted and hopped back
and forth across the chalkmarks and shoved the bits of stone and glass--or were they
potshards--"potsie" from potshard, perhaps? I shall write a monograph, should I ever desire a Ph.D. I
will compare the chalkmarks with Toltec emblems and masons' marks and the signs which Hindoo holy
men smear on themselves with wood ashes and perfumed cow dung. All this passes for erudition.

I feel terrible, despite the cool rain. Perhaps without it, I should feel worse.

Miss Thurl was just here. A huge bowl of blossoms, arranged on the table across the room. Intricately
arranged, I should say; but she put some extra touches to it, bumming to herself. Something ever so
faintly reminiscent about that tune, and vaguely disturbing. Then she made one of her rare remarks. She
said that I needed a wife to take care of me. My blood ran cold. An icy sweat (to quote Catullus, that
wretched Priapist), bedewed my limbs. I moaned. Miss Thurl at once departed, murmuring something
about a cup of tea. If I weren't so weak I'd knot my bedsheets together and escape. But I am terribly
feeble.

It's unmanly to weep....

Back she came, literally poured the tea down my throat. A curious taste it had. Sassafrass? Bergamor?
Mandrake root? It is impossible to say how old Miss Thurl is. She wears her hair parted in the center
and looped back. Ageless... ageless...

I thank whatever gods may be that Mr. Ahyellow came in just then. The other boarder (upstairs), a
greengrocer, decent fellow, a bit short-tempered. He wished me soon well. He complained he had his
own troubles, foot troubles... I scarcely listened, just chattered, hoping the Thurl would get her hence....
Toes... something about his toes. Swollen, three of them, quite painful. A bell tinkled in my brain. I asked
him how he spelt his name. A-j-e-l-l-o. Curious, I never thought of that. Now, I wonder what he could
have done to offend the little girls? Chased them from in front of his store, perhaps. There is a distinct
reddish spot on his nose. By tomorrow he will have an American Beauty of a pimple.

Fortunately he and Miss Thurl went out together. I must think this through. I must remain cool. Aroint
thee, thou mist of fever. This much is obvious: There are sorcerers about. Sorceresses, I mean. The little
ones made rain. And they laid a minor curse on poor Ajello. The elder one has struck me in the very
vitals, however. If I had a cow it would doubtless be dry by this time. Should I struggle? Should I
submit? Who knows what lies behind those moss-colored eyes, what thoughts inside the skull covered
by those heavy tresses? Life with Mr. and Mrs. Moos is--even by itself--too frightful to contemplate.
Why doesn't she lay bet traps for Ajello? Why should I be selected as the milk-white victim for the
Hymeneal sacrifice? Useless to question. Few men have escaped once the female cast the runes upon
them. And the allopath has nothing in his little black bag, either, which can cure.