"Avram Davidson - The Dive People" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

A. Oh, you know mine is no good.

That was quite true. Nothing she cooked was any good, because she
never took any pains. But bad as her chili was, it was still better than the
horrid cheap stuff she got in cans; and he had told her so. Again and again
and again. So why do it now? Once or twice he had asked, wearily, why
she didn't just boil a pot of potatoes. "You can boil them in their jackets,"
he said, "you don't even have to peel them." And she said, Yes, but she'd
have to wash them.

"Is there any vermouth, Pauli?"

"No. But that's all right, there's no gin, either."

"I've got a half pint here."

"Where can you get half pints of gin in New York State?"

"It's lemon-flavoredтАФthat makes it legal, for some ungodly reason.
Mixer?"

"There's nothing. Except that Chianti."
 "Gimme."

"Oh, Ed, it'll taste awful."

"Who the hell cares about the taste? Where's the Chianti?"

But, of course, she didn't know where it was, norтАФonce he'd found it (in
the closet, concealed by a pile of her things so carelessly hung up that
they'd fallen down)тАФdid she know where there was a clean glass. It turned
out that there wasn't any clean glass. He washed one and she appropriated
it while he was opening the gin, so he washed another for himself.

The Chianti did taste awful.

He had been on his feet all that afternoon, saving taxifare, delivery
service, postage, literary agent's fees. At least he said he was saving the
agent's ten per cent, but he knew he'd simply run through all the
worthwhile literary agents in town and there was no one left who would
advance him a cent until he paid back all the advances of the past year
and a half. And one, Tom Thompson, wanted to know when Ed was "going
to show some signs of straightening himself out." As if the mere fact that
Ed was on his feet, seeing people, writing againтАФas if that wasn't the best
sign of all that he had straightened himself out.

As compared to the too-long stretch when he was rarely sober, dunning
for advances or loans and, when not getting them, living on Pauli's meager
alimony. That is, not exactly alimony: a sum of money sent regularly by a
Petty Officer Second Class who believed he was the father of Pauli's little