"Paul Park - A Man on Crutches" - читать интересную книгу автора (Park Paul)

back behind a white column. Handsome in his suit. Sometimes I could even see his
crutch. Memory is like history it absorbs the needs of the present. Now heтАЩs
vanished.
After the ceremony I went to a reception at my stepmotherтАЩs house, and I
talked to some of my fatherтАЩs friends. Once I was back in the kitchen, looking for
more ice, and Barbara was there, fussing with some strawberry tarts. тАЬJack,тАЭ she
said, тАЬcan you do something for me?тАЭ
She looked toward the window and then back. тАЬI was at your fatherтАЩs office
yesterday, clearing some stuff out. Eddy - thatтАЩs his partner - says heтАЩs got copies
of everything and the rest can go. But I feel bad about asking Elaine or someone to
throw it all away, without a family member at least looking through it. ItтАЩs all old
files.тАЭ She looked at me and blinked, but I said nothing.
тАЬI donтАЩt have to explain, do I?тАЭ she went on. тАЬIt tires me out. Your father was
a wonderful man. I know itтАЩs been hard for you sometimes, but you should
understand - he really loved you.тАЭ
тАЬI know that,тАЭ I said.
Then she was crying, and I went and put my arms around her. She was staring
hard at one of the buttons of my shirt, inches from her eye. She balled up her fist
and placed it carefully in the center of my chest. тАЬItтАЩs business stuff,тАЭ she said, after
a pause. тАЬThe furnitureтАЩs all rented. Just make sure I didnтАЩt miss anything personal. I
put everything in a box as you go in.тАЭ
 My father had died suddenly, of a heart attack. My stepmother had been
taking a bath, and had heard him crying out. I pictured her naked, wet, shivering, her
arms around his glossy head.
In her house there were no photographs of him. I had walked around during
the reception, trying to find one. Barbara had had her picture taken with the Berrigan
brothers, people like that. But nothing with my father; in his office that evening, I
picked a framed photograph out of the box by the door.
He shared space with some lawyer friends in a one-story professional
building, not far from his house. I sat down at his desk with the photograph in my
hands. It showed Barbara and him together. She was wearing a low-waisted dress.
Her braid hung down her back. She turned toward him, smiling.
He, by contrast, looked raffish and unkempt. He stared towards the camera
with a puzzled expression on his face. His black hair was uncombed. He wore an
Irish sweater and his big chest bulged importantly.
I propped the photograph on his blotter and sat looking at it for a little while.
Why was his hair still so black? Perhaps it was one of the things that had united him
to Barbara - the fact that both of them had retained their natural hair color long after
most people, my mother for example, had turned gray. I remembered searching his
medicine cabinet for hair dye when I was about sixteen. I had found nothing.
It was cold in his office. I got up and pulled out a few drawers of his file
cabinets, not knowing what to do. Everything was neatly labeled - copies of
storyboards, records of old jobs.
Elaine, my fatherтАЩs assistant, had showed me the dumpster in the parking lot
when she had dropped me off. I started loading the files into some trash bags, which
were already half full. At first I was conscientious, glancing through each folder. It
started to get dark outside, and I turned on the light.
I threw out everything from one cabinet, but the bottom drawer was locked.
My father had hired Elaine only two weeks before he died; she had given me his
keys, but she didnтАЩt know what locks they fit. I picked through the ring and then sat