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

that either!" I could feel a knot in my throat and tears were dangerously close to the surface.

He just shrugged again.

I carried my suitcase up six flights of stairs to the room and sat on the narrow bed. The room
was ratty, with peeling wallpaper and the stench of old cigarette smoke, but the door and the door
frame were steel and the lock seemed new.

The window looked out on an alley, a sooty brick wall five feet across the gap. I opened it and
the smell of something rotting drifted in. I stuck my head out and saw bagged garbage below, half of it
torn open and strewn about the alley. When I turned my head to the right I could see a thin slice of the
street in front of the hotel.

I thought about what the clerk had said and I got mad again, feeling small, diminished. Why'd he
have to make me feel like that? I was happy, excited about being in New York, and he jerked me
around like that. Why did people have do that sort of shit?

Wouldn't anything ever work out right?



"I don't care how talented, smart, bright, hardworking, or perfect you are. You don't have a high
school diploma or a GED and we can't hire you. Next!"



"Sure we hire high school kids. You seem pretty bright to me. Just let me have your social
security number for the W2 and we'll be all set. You don't have a social security number? Where you
from, Mars? You come back with a social security number and I'll give you a try. Next!"
 "This is the application for a social security number. Fill it out and let me see your birth
certificate. You don't have your birth certificate? Get it and come back. No exceptions. Next!"



"I'm sorry, but in this state, if you're under eighteen, you must have parental permission to take
the GED. If you're under seventeen it takes a court order. You come back with your mother or
father, and a birth certificate or New York driver's license, and you can take it. Next!"



There is a point where you have to give up, at least for a while, and all you want to do is shut
down. I rode the subway back to Brooklyn Heights, and walked numbly in the direction of my hotel.

It was late afternoon, heavily overcast, and the dingy, gray street seemed entirely appropriate to
my mood.

God damn them! Why did they have to make me feel so little? With every interview, every
rejection, I'd felt guiltier and guiltier. Ashamed of something but I didn't know what. I kicked out at a
piece of trash in the gutter and stubbed my toe on the curb. I blinked rapidly, my eyes blurring, the
breath harsh in my throat. I wanted to just crawl into bed and hide.