"Suzette Haden Elgin - What The EPA Don't Know Won't Hurt Them" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elgin Suzette Haden)

was
no closer than he'd been when he started.
He felt the burdens of the world on his shoulders then, and he felt
plain
desperate not to be man enough to do this one small thing to ease those
burdens, and he needed somebody to take all that out on. He went back
to
Granny Motley, that being the safest course and the most likely to lead
to
a solution, and he spoke to her in honest, baffled anger.
 "You women!" he shouted at her, never mind that she was nearly ninety
years old and owed great respect. "You know a whole lot more than
you'll
tell! You could help, but you don't, for pure meanness and spite! You
enjoy it - don't think I don't know that! All of you, you get a kick
out
of watching us men flounder around trying to get things done with only
half the facts we need! Damn the lot of you!"
He'd thought she might hit him, or kick him, or bite him. He was surely
asking for it, and in her place that's what he no doubt would of done.
He
didn't care. He was that mad. It would of made him feel better if she
had
hit him. But she just sat and watched him with a patient look on her
face,
listening to him rant and rave, until he wore himself out.
And then she reminded him of the time when he was maybe eight or nine
years old, and he'd accused her - and "you women," talking just like he
was talking now - of being able to make it rain. "Remember, Johnny Beau
Motley, what I told you that time?"
"Yeah, I remember," he said sullenly. "You said you don't make it rain;
you let it rain."
"I did," she agreed. "And that was true. And we have told you men about
it
once for every star that shines, Johnny Beau. To no avail whatsoever."
"Damn you all," he said again wearily. "Every one of you."
Granny Motley clucked her tongue at him and said, "See there? You can't
force things, Johnny Beau! That's never going to get you anywhere. And
that holds for women as much as it holds for weather."
His jaw hurt him, and his pride hurt him worse, and he glared at her
while
she looked right back, steady on, and finally he dropped his eyes and
sighed heavily.
"All right, Granny," he said. "I guess you make your point. And after I
get over my damn temper, I'll be coming back to apologize. But not
right
now."
"No. Right now wouldn't be a good choice for it. Right now you'd still
be
into cussing me out."