"Goonan, Kathleen Ann - The String" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goonan Kathleen Ann)

"Don't mind if I do." The old man opened the refrigerator, chose a beer, and
pulled up a chair made of aluminum tubing. The seat and back were covered with
marbleized dark green oilcloth.
"So what's up?"
Frank's bottle of Rolling Rock hissed as he opened it. "Ahh, nothing much. I
wish the kids lived closer, I guess. You know, I got good days and bad days,
just like always."
It had been three years since his wife had died suddenly of a stroke, and Frank
came in regularly to complain about the loneliness of his life, which Dan knew
was quite real.
He remembered Mrs. Jones as he bent over the string, listening to Frank's
laments. She had been a bustling, happy woman of the starched laundry school.
She raised two boys while Frank put in his thirty years at the mattress factory,
all the while tending to her massive garden and baking like a master chef.
He also remembered, quite vividly, the Joneses on their evening walk, hand in
hand, strolling down the oak-lined street daily for as long as he could
remember. He remembered Frank teaching him how to pitch a softball across the
street at the park, because his father, though an affable sort, maintained an
unfashionable dislike for the sport of the day. Frank's kind face had been
younger then, and Dan unaccountably recalled that his eyes had beamed with
happiness when, one day, he had looked right into Dan's and said, "You know,
this is a lot of fun." Dan had realized, even though he was only ten, that
"this" didn't just mean teaching him how to fake out the batter, but was a deep
and basic satisfaction and appreciation of life itself.
Dan glanced up at Frank now. He was staring out the window, and his face looked
blank and old. Dan didn't know why it had to be that way, why life had to wash
through him like a wave and recede. The old man seemed like a discarded pot or
piece of furniture, and it pained him.
He got up and went to the door. "Jessica!" he shouted. "It's been half an hour.
Get in here right now!"
Jessica came pounding up the steps. Her cheeks were flushed in the porch light,
and she dashed in under his arm and rushed upstairs before he could say a word.
"Kids," said Frank, but his face looked just as old and dead.
Later than night, after Anita had gone to bed--she seemed resigned now to his
odd obsession--Frank slipped into Dan's mind again. He saw the old man happy and
useful again, face bright, as he'd been right up to the day of Stella's death.
Dan was suspended in the feeling of one man's deep contentment with the way
things were, and felt enriched by that sharing. He knew now how rare such a
feeling was.
It was only two evenings later that Frank came back. His step on the porch was
so light Dan didn't recognize it, and his face was so altered that for a moment,
looking up from his string, Dan was taken back ten years.
"Come in," said Dan. "You look great."
Frank got his beer and sprawled in the chair, long legs extended, and smiled.
"You know," he said, "after the other night I got to thinking about how often I
come by and whine, and decided to get up off my butt and do something for
myself. Went over to the day care on 5th Street and they took me on as a
volunteer. I'm telling you, Dan, am I ever glad to get out of that house every
day. Didn't realize how gloomy it was with the curtains always pulled. Those
kids are so cute."