"Ralph Ellison - King of the Bingo Game" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Ralph)

Now he felt the cold whiskey breaking a warm path straight through the middle of him, growing hotter
and sharper as it moved. He had not eaten all day, and it made him light-headed. The smell of the
peanuts stabbed him like a knife, and he got up and found a seat in the middle aisle. But no sooner did he
sit than he saw a row of intense-faced young girls, and got up again, thinking, "You chicks musta been
Lindy-hopping somewhere." He found a seat several rows ahead as the lights came on, and he saw the
screen disappear behind a heavy red and gold curtain; then the curtain rising, and the man with the
microphone and a uniformed attendant coming on the stage.
He felt for his bingo cards, smiling. The guy at the door wouldn't like it if he knew about his having five
cards. Well, not everyone played the bingo game; and even with five cards he didn't have much of a
chance. For Laura, though, he had to have faith. He studied the cards, each with its different numerals,
punching the free center hole in each and spreading them neatly across his lap; and when the lights faded
he sat slouched in his seat so that he could look from his cards to the bingo wheel with but a quick
shifting of his eyes.
Ahead, at the end of the darkness, the man with the microphone was pressing a button attached to a
long cord and spinning the bingo wheel and calling out the number each time the wheel came to rest. And
each time the voice rang out his finger raced over the cards for the number. With five cards he had to
move fast. He became nervous; there were too many cards, and the man went too fast with his grating
voice. Perhaps he should just select one and throw the others away. But he was afraid. He became
warm. Wonder how much Laura's doctor would cost? Damn that, watch the cards! And with despair he
heard the man call three in a row which he missed on all five cards. This way he'd never win.
When he saw the row of holes punched across the third card, he sat paralyzed and heard the man call
three more numbers before he stumbled forward, screaming,
"Bingo! Bingo!"
"Let that fool up there," someone called.
"Get up there, man!"
He stumbled down the aisle and up the steps to the stage into a light so sharp and bright that for a
moment it blinded him, and he felt that he had moved into the spell of some strange, mysterious power.
Yet it was as familiar as the sun, and he knew it was the perfectly familiar bingo.
The man with the microphone was saying something to the audience as he held out his card. A cold
light flashed from the man's finger as the card left his hand. His knees trembled. The man stepped closer
checking the card against the numbers chalked on the board. Suppose he had made a mistake? The
pomade on the man's hair made him feel faint, and he backed away. But the man was checking the card
over the microphone now, and he had to stay. He stood tense, listening.
"Under the 0, forty-four," the man chanted. 'Under the I, seven. Under the G. three. Under the B,
ninety-six. Under the N, thirteen!"
His breath came easier as the man smiled at the audience.
"Yessir, ladies and gentlemen, he's one of the chosen people!"
The audience rippled with laughter and applause.
"Step right up to the front of the stage."
He moved slowly forward, wishing that the light was not so bright.
"To win tonight's jackpot of $36.90 the wheel must stop between the double zero, understand?"
He nodded, knowing the ritual from the many days and nights he had watched the winners march across
the stage to press the button that controlled the spinning wheel and receive the prizes. And now he
followed the instructions as though he'd crossed the slippery stage a million prize-winning times.
The man was making some kind of a joke, and he nodded vacantly. So tense had he become that he
felt a sudden desire to cry and shook it away. He felt vaguely that his whole life was determined by the
bingo wheel; not only that which would happen now that he was at last before it, but all that had gone
before, since his birth, and his mother's birth and the birth of his father. It had always been there, even
though he had not been aware of it, handing out the unlucky cards and numbers of his days. The feeling
persisted, and he started quickly away. I better get down from here before I make a fool of myself, he