"Raymond F. Nelson - Then Beggar's Could Ride" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nelson Raymond F)

"You can have your lousy soul! But your excrementтАФ" She pronounced
this word with an appalling French accent, in a tone of infinite disgust.
"Your excrement belongs to your family!"

I stared dumbfounded at her retreating image in the reflection as she
made her theatrical exit into the dining room. She did not want me to
change. Therefore she did not want me to go to the doctor. Not ever again.
She loved me for my own sweet self-destructive self.

Would I go to the doctor again?

A panic voice somewhere in the back of my mind cried out, You must!

I went over to the bar.

Both shot glasses of gin still sat there on the counter top, untouched.
She had left them there for me.

I perched on one of the two high bar stools, gazing at the shot glasses
for several minutes, before at last selecting the one on the right and
raising it in a mocking toast to my cadaverous reflection in the mirror.

"To us," I whispered, then tossed off the gin in a single swallow.

It tasted awful. I coughed, shook my head, wiped my watering eyes with
my sleeve, then, after a deep sigh, reached a bony hand for the other shot
glass.

***

Supper was late.

It was, of course, my fault. If I hadn't gone to that silly doctor, we would
have eaten before nightfall as usual. We would not have had to burn all the
electric lights in the dining room and kitchen. We would not have had to
waste precious electricity stored in the apartment batteries by
ever-so-many rotations of the windmill on the apartment house roof. I
thought of suggesting that we dine by candlelight, but I dared not speak.
The family would have noticed the tell-tale slur in my speech. Did they
already smell the gin on my breath? There was no telling. They were all too
polite to mention it; besides, there was nothing worthy of comment about
my being, as Marge put it, "a wee bit squiffy." It was normal, even
expected.

But I had been to the doctor.

I had said, "A man can change."

That was worse, even, then the fact I'd tried to kill myself. Suicide was
some sort of obscure venereal disease, unmentionable perhaps, but