"Matt Ruff - Bad Monkeys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ruff Matt)

uncle was even older.

Was it awkward for you, staying with your fatherтАЩs sister?

Not really. My father was completely out of the picture at this point; heтАЩd cut ties with the rest of his
family the same time he walked out on us. And my aunt wasnтАЩt anything like him. SheтАЩd been married to
my uncle and living in the same house since the end of World War II.

How did they feel about you coming to live with them?

If thereтАЩd been some other option, I donтАЩt think theyтАЩd have volunteered to let me stay with them as long
as I did, but they never complained about it.

So you got along with them?

I didnтАЩt really have a choice. They were the most nonconfrontational people IтАЩd ever met: you couldnтАЩt
pick a fight with them if you tried. And itтАЩs not that they didnтАЩt have rules, but their way of getting you to
behave was to make it impossible for you not to.

Like my uncle, right, he was the kind of guy who liked to have a glass of whiskey before he went to bed.
I thought that was a pretty good idea, so the second night I was there, I snuck into his study after he went
to sleep and helped myself. And I didnтАЩt take much, but the thing about guys who drink every day, they
know exactly whatтАЩs left in the bottle theyтАЩre working on, and if the level is off by even a quarter inch,
they notice.

Now, if my mom had caught me drinking, especially her stuff? SheтАЩd have been in my face about it in two
seconds flat. My uncle never said a wordтАФbut the next day, I passed by the study and heard drilling
inside, and that evening when I went to fix myself another nightcap I found a brand-new lock on the
liquor cabinet. A big lock, fist-sized, the kind you canтАЩt pick.

They were like that with every bad thing I did. They never lectured me; they assumed I knew right from
wrong, but if I insisted on doing wrong, they found some way to lock out that choice.

One morning my aunt asked me if IтАЩd like to come help out at the store. Normally thereтАЩd have been no
chance, but I was already so bored that I said OK. At the end of the day she gave me fifty cents, which
seemed pretty cheap for eight hours, even if I did spend most of that time flipping through magazines.
Next day, same deal. The day after that, I bailed out around noon, and instead of waiting to get paid I
swiped a couple dollars from the till. Then that night before bed, I went to put the two bucks into the
drawer where I kept my other wages and my Officer Friendly money, and instead of the twenty-six
dollars that should have been there, I only found twenty-four. It was obvious what had happened, but I
pulled the drawer out anyway and shook it upside-down, just in case the rest of the money had gotten
stuck somehow. A single quarter fell out.

Your pay for the half-day youтАЩd just worked?

Right.

Did you say anything to your aunt?

What would I have said? No fair stealing back what I stole from you? Anyway I had to hand it to her,