"Steven Gould - Jumper 02 - Reflex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Stephen Jay)

"Me neither," said the man with the dog as he laid down a card. "Gin. You oughta try Retarded
Kaneesha. She sees everything." He tilted his head to the alleyway across the street.

Millie could just make out a woman in a maroon knee-length coat leaning against the alley wall
just off the sidewalk. Her head and shoulders were in shadow.

Millie gave the men some money and walked slowly across the street. She could tell the woman
was watching her, so perhaps she really did see everything, but Millie wasn't particularly heartened by
the appellation "retarded." As she got closer, she noticed the woman's face was never still. Her lips
were pursing in and out and occasionally her tongue would protrude. Her eyebrows kept rising as if
she were being continually surprised. She'd blink, but it wasn't a normal blink. Both eyes would
squeeze shut, then open again, on a regular basis, longer than a blink.

Blepharospasm. Millie let out a deep breath of understanding. Retarded Kaneesha! Ha.

"I like your coat," Millie said, and she meant it. It was heavy wool with a large hood that seemed
to be lined in black satin. The rain was beaded on it, not soaking in.

The woman nodded. "Me, too."

Millie held out her hand. "My name is Millie."

The woman's face stopped twitching as she smiled slightly, but she wouldn't meet Millie's eyes.
She did shake Millie's hand briefly. "My name is Sojee."

"Please excuse me for asking this, but you've got tardive dyskinesia, don't you?" Retarded
Kaneesha.

"Got it bad. You a doctor or something? Most people see it and run." While Sojee was talking
and while she smiled, the twitching went away, but while she listened for Millie's answer, it started
again, sudden jerks of her jaw to one side or the other, accompanied by lip smacking. Her eyes
roamed the street past Millie's shoulder, watching purposefully in a way that contrasted sharply with
the random movements of her jaw.

Millie shook her head. "I'm a psychotherapist. I've studied it in school. What were you on, that
caused the TD?"

"I was on Haldol for paranoid schizophrenia." She said it like "I have brown eyes" or "I'm five
foot eight."

"This is none of my business, so feel free to tell me to shove off. Did you change medications?"

Sojee shook her head. "Stopped taking it. Couldn't sleep on it. Plus thisтАФ" She gestured at her
face. "They say it might never go away."

"They?"

"The people over at St. Elizabeth's Hospital." Sojee's tongue lunged out of her mouth and
retreated. Her eyebrows arched. "You know, where they keep Hinkley, the guy what shot Reagan."