"Robert R. McCammon - Mine" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCammon Robert R)

the bathroom, the harsh incandescent bar of light switched on, and she slowly
let the face emerge. "Yes ma'am," she said to the person in the mirror. "Would
you like fries with that, ma'am?" She cleared her throat. The voice needed to
be a little higher, a little dumber. "Yes sir, thank you sir! Have a nice
day!" She switched her smile off and on, off and on. Cattle needed to see
smiles; she wondered if the people who worked in slaughterhouses smiled before
they smashed the skulls of cattle with big wooden mallets.
The smiley face stayed on. She looked younger than her forty-one years,
but there were deep lines at the corners of her eyes. Her long hair was no
longer as blond as the summer sun. It was a mousy brown, streaked with gray.
It would go up in a tight bun when she got to work. Her face was square and
strong-jawed, but she could make it look weak and afraid, like a cow who
senses the breaking of skulls in the long line ahead. There wasn't much she
couldn't do with her face if she wanted. She could look old or young, timid or
defiant. She could be an aging California girl or a backwoods hick with equal
ease. She could slump her shoulders and look like a frightened schmuck, or she
could stand at her full Amazonian height and dare any sonofamotherfuckingbitch
to cross her path. It was all in the attitude, and she hadn't gone to drama
school in New York City for nothing.
Her real name was not the name on her Georgia driver's license, her
library card, her cable TV bills, or any of the mail that came to her
apartment. Her real name was Mary Terrell. She remembered what they used to
call her as they passed the joints and the cheap red wine and sang songs of
freedom: Mary Terror.
She had been wanted for murder by the FBI since the spring of 1969.
Sergeant Pepper was dead. G.I. Joe lived on. George Bush was president,
movie stars were dying from AIDS, kids were smoking crack in the ghettos and
the suburbs, Muslims were blowing airliners from the skies, rap music ruled,
and nobody cared much about the Movement anymore. It was a dry and dusty
thing, like the air in the graves of Hendrix, Joplin, and God. She was letting
her thoughts take her into treacherous territory, and the thoughts threatened
her smiley face. She stopped thinking about the dead heroes, the burning breed
who made the bombs full of roofing nails and planted them in corporate
boardrooms and National Guard armories. She stopped thinking before the awful
sadness crushed her.
The sixties were dead. The survivors limped on, growing suits and
neckties and potbellies, going bald and telling their children not to listen
to that satanic heavy metal. The dock of the Age of Aquarius had turned,
hippies and yippies had become preppies and yuppies. The Chicago Seven were
old men. The Black Panthers had turned gray. The Grateful Dead were on MTV,
and the Airplane had become a top-forty Starship.
Mary Terror closed her eyes, and thought she heard the noise of wind
whistling through the ruins.
_I need_, she thought. _I need_. A single tear coursed slowly down her
left cheek.
_I need something to call mine._
She opened her eyes and stared at the woman in the mirror. Smile! Smile!
Her smile ticked back on. "Thank you, sir. Would you like an ice-cold Pepsi
with that burger?"
Her eyes were still hard, a chink in the disguise. She'd have to work on