"Eddings, David - High Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (High Hunt)

"English, for Chrissake! Nouns and verbs and all that shit?"

"Literature, Stud," I corrected him. "Shakespeare and Hemingway, and all that shit. I figured this would be the issue that would blow the whole reunion bit. As soon as he gave me the "What the hell good is that shit?" routine, he and I would part company, fast. I'd about had a gutful of that reaction in the Army.

He surprised me. "Oh," he said, "that's different. You always did read a lot Ч even when you were a kid."

"It gives me a substitute for my own slightly screwed-up life."

"You gonna teach?"

"Not right away. I'm going back to school first."

"I thought the Old Lady told me you graduated."

"Yeah," I said, "but I'm going on to graduate school."

"No shit?" He looked impressed. "I hear that's pretty rough."

"I think I can hack it."

"You always were the smart one in the connection."

"How's your beer holding out?" I asked him, shaking my empty can. I was starting to relax. We'd gotten past all the touchy issues. I lit another cigarette.

"No sweat," he said, getting up to get two more. "If I ran out, the gal next door has a case stashed away. We'll have to replace it before her old man gets home, but Marg ought to be here before long, and then I'll have wheels."

"Hey," I called after him. "I meant to ask you about that. I thought your wife's name was Bonnie."

"Bonnie? Hell, I dumped her three years ago."

"Didn't you have a little girl there, too?"

"Yeah. Joanne." He came back with the beer. I noticed that the trailer swayed a little when anyone walked round. "But Bonnie married some goof over at the Navy Yard, and he adopted Joanne. They moved down to L.A."

"And before that it was ЧФ

"Bernice. She was just a kid, and she got homesick for Mommie."

"You use up wives at a helluva rate, old buddy."

"Just want to spread all that happiness around as much as I can." He laughed.

I decided that I liked my brother. That's a helluva thing to discover all of a sudden.


3

A car pulled up outside, and Jack turned his head to listen. "I think that's the Mama Cat," he said. "Sounds like my old bucket." He got up and looked out the window. "Yeah, it's her." He scooped up the empty beer cans from the coffee table and dumped them in the garbage sack under the sink. Then he hustled outside.

They came in a minute or so later, Jack rattier ostentatiously carrying two bags of groceries. I got the impression that if I hadn't been there, he wouldn't have bothered. My current sister-in-law was a girl of average height with pale brown hair and a slightly sullen look on her face. I imagine all Jack's women got that look sooner or later. At any rate Margaret didn't seem just exactly wild about having a strange GI brother-in-law turn up.