"Matt Ruff - Set This House in Order" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ruff Matt)

I stayed alert. Jake, as I've mentioned, is a child; but Andy Gage's body is adult and five-foot-seven, and
hangs on Jake's soul like a suit of clothes many sizes too big. He moves clumsily in it, and often misjudges
the distance between his extremities and the rest of the world; and as we've only got the one skull
between us, if he bends over to get a dropped toothpaste cap and bashes his head on the corner of the
sink, it is a group tragedy. So I kept a close eye on him.
 This morning there were no accidents. He did his usual thorough job of brushing: side to side, up
and down, getting every tooth, even the tricky ones in back. I wish he could handle the flossing as well,
but that's a little too dexterous for him.
I took the body back and had a quick squat on the toilet. This is my job most mornings, though
my father occasionally asks to do it -- the pleasure of a good shit, he says, being one of the few things he
misses from outside. Adam also volunteers sometimes, usually just after the latest Playboy has arrived;
but I generally don't indulge him more than once or twice a month, as it upsets the others.
After the toilet came exercise. I stretched out on the bath mat beside the tub and let Seferis run
through his routine: two hundred sit-ups followed by two hundred push-ups, the last hundred evenly
divided between the right and left arms. I came back from the pulpit to muscle burn and a lather of sweat,
but I didn't complain. The body's stomach is as flat as a washboard, and I can lift heavy things.
Next I gave Adam and Aunt Sam two minutes each under the shower, starting with Aunt Sam.
They used to alternate who went first, but Aunt Sam likes the water a lot warmer than Adam does, and
Adam was always "forgetting" to adjust the temperature control before handing off the body, so now
every day it's Aunt Sam, then Adam, then me -- and Adam knows if he gives me ice water or an eyeful
of soap suds, he'll lose his shower privileges for a week.
When my turn came I washed up quickly (the others rarely bother to do any real scrubbing),
rinsed and toweled off, and went back into the bedroom to get dressed. My father came out on the pulpit
to help me pick clothes. Away from home I have control of the body full-time, so daytime wardrobe
really ought to be my responsibility alone, but Aunt Sam says I was born with no fashion sense, and I
think my father feels guilty about that.
"Not that shirt," he suggested, after I'd laid my initial selection on the bed.
"Does it clash with the pants?" I asked him, trying to remember the rule. "I thought blue jeans
went with everything."
"They do go with everything," my father said. "But some clothes clash with everything, even blue
jeans."
"You think it's ugly?" I held up the shirt and examined it more critically. It was a bright yellow
plaid, with red and green checks. I'd gotten it along with a bunch of other bargains at a spring clearance
sale, and I thought it looked cheerful.
"I know it's ugly," my father said. "If you really like it, you can wear it around here, but I wouldn't
recommend it for public viewing."
I hesitated. I did like the shirt, and I hate having to give things up just because of what other
people might think. But I also really want other people to think well of me.
"It's your choice," my father said patiently.
"All right," I said, still reluctant. "I'll wear something else."
We finished dressing. I put my watch on last, and checked it against the clock on the nightstand
beside my bed. 7:07 A.M., the clock said, MON APR 21. My watch agreed about the day and date,
but not about the time.
"Two minutes off," my father observed.
I gave a little shrug. "The watch runs slow," I reminded him.
"You should get it repaired, then."
"I don't need to get it repaired. It's fine the way it is."
"You should fix the VCR clock, too."
This was a longstanding bone of contention between us. My father used to own dozens of
clocks, as protection against missing time; but I was less concerned with that, never having lost so much