"Thomas M. Disch - The Businessman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Disch Thomas M)

"No. But then I don't believe in God."

Joy-Ann pursed her lips and shook her head, as though to say, _Naughty, naughty_.
She was of the widely held opinion that at bottom everyone believed what she believed, if
only they'd be honest with themselves.

"I still go to bingo on Tuesday nights," she continued thoughtfully. "Alice Hoffman
drives me over. Would you believe I am actually _lucky_ at bingo? That's weird, isn't it? I'm
consistently lucky at bingo, though sometimes it's a little ironic. I mean, last week I won a
turkey. What am I going to do with a turkey?"

"What did you do with it?"

"Well, I could see Alice definitely had her eye on it, but I didn't see any point giving it
to _her_. I mean, she isn't exactly starving to death, is she. So I gave it to the sisters. And I
got the nicest letter from Sister Rita thanking me. I wish they'd wear habits though, like they
used to. And do the mass in Latin again. It just isn't the same."

Joy-Ann started quietly to cry. Latin made her think of requiem masses, and that
reminded her that she was dying at the age of only forty-eight. Through her tears she
watched the steam rising from the waffle iron.

Glandier watched the waffle iron too, so as not to have to look at his mother-in-law.
He resented displays of emotion. He knew, from watching such moments on TV, that he was
expected to say something comforting, or else to hug her. But all he could think to say was,
"That's all right," which didn't seem much of a comfort, while the idea of physical contact with
Joy-Ann was slightly repellant. Not because she didn't still have her looks. Now that she'd
slimmed down, she looked all right, especially for a gal of forty-eight. But she was dying, and
Glandier had never given any thought before to the inevitability of death, to cancer and what
it must do to stomachs, livers, lungs, and all the other spaghetti a person has got wrapped up
inside his skin. He wished, fervently, that Joy-Ann would hurry up with her dying.

"They're done," she said, drying her eyes with a napkin, then opening both halves of
the waffle iron. The waffles dropped from the upper grills like ripe fruit. She speared her own
with a syrup-sticky fork and began to butter it. Lyrically, the butter melted from a solid yellow
to a liquid, amber gleam, as though the brown grid of the waffle had been encased in Fabulon.

CHAPTER

6

After he'd got married, in '69 - he was thirty then - Glandier's body had started going
to pot. At regular intervals all through the '70s he would panic and start dieting and lifting
weights in the workshop at the back of the garage. But the diet made him foul-tempered, and
he got bored with the weights, so eventually he would return to his original attitude, which
was, Fuck it. If that was the way it was going to be, there was no point fighting it.

He let his paunch sprawl over his belt. His jaw softened from Dick Tracy to Porky Pig.
Even his arms and shoulders, which used to be beefy if not rock-solid, turned to flab. He didn't