"Kathleen Ann Goonan - Solitaire (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

Solitaire
by Kathleen Ann Goonan

Stumblebum was not his real name, but Norman had taken early to playing lots
of solitaire and not paying much attention to his surroundings or anything
else except cards. Early means seven years old and understandably this warped
his thinking. When other kids were playing Cowboys and Indians, a popular
pursuit in 1956, SB was making sure his playing surface was clean and dry so
as not to gum up the cards, and took care to avoid windy places which meant
that he was usually inside with the windows shut.

As for his name, SB's father could be cruel at times or at least rather
short-tempered, and it was he who took to yelling "You idiotic card-sharp
stumblebum, I told you to bring me that jar of screws from down in the
basement ten minutes ago now where is it? I'll show you to waste your time
with those stupid cards" loud enough for the neighbors to hear, in the summer,
anyway. The other kids, by rights SB's natural playmates, heard this epithet
wafting out the windows often enough and it struck them as just right. The
Stumble, or SB, as it finally boiled down to, did have a penchant for
clumsiness, and once had committed the atrocity of yelling, panicked, for some
kid's dad to get him down out of a tree. His real name was Norman and he told
them for awhile, then gave up.

SB's mother was not your normal fifties Lassie type mom, and though she did
wear an apron when she cooked it was usually spattered with last week's
dinner. She was sharp-faced with stringy blonde hair she kept in a pony tail
at the nape of her neck, smoked all the time, and complained that SB (even she
took to calling him that) had tied her down--right to his face--so often that
after awhile it ceased to bother him. He wasn't sure why it was supposed to
bother him, actually, but he was pretty certain that it was meant to.

Their house was a big white house. It sat on a corner lot, and had peeling
paint and a dirt-packed yard where the grass grew in raggedy patches which his
dad complained bitterly about having to mow with the metal push mower that
went clip clip clip on Saturday mornings. SB had friends, sort of, for awhile,
two neighbor boys. They were brothers, one his age the other a year younger,
both with limpid brown eyes and freckles. But then a doctor did something
wrong--so SB's mom told him--and the big brother died suddenly and the family
moved away real fast. Jim, the dead one, had been all right. At least he'd
play war, or fish. Boring, but at least you had cards in your hand.

SB kind of liked his new name, eventually, so that in school even the
teachers called him that except Miss Gaymond, his second grade teacher. She
called him Norman which always made everyone snicker until she made them write
sentences on the board and then they stopped. As for the other things the kids
did, SB did not mind baseball too much--not to play, of course, since he was
taunted for his clumsy throws and never picked till last to be on a team. But
he liked it when on Saturday afternoons his dad sat opening one can of Hamm's
after another with an opener he kept next to him on the tv table, and watched
the tiny men shift places like cards in a solitaire game on the small black