"Smith-JukeboxGifts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Adam)

DEAN WESLEY SMITH - Jukebox Gifts

The stereo behind the bar was playing soft Christmas songs as I clicked the lock
to the front entrance of the Garden Lounge and flicked off the outside light. I
could feel the cold of the night through the wood door and the heat of the room
surrounding me. I took a deep breath. Christmas Eve was finally here.

I could see the entire lounge and the backs of my four best friends sitting at
the bar. I had never been much into decorating with Christmas stuff and this
year was no different. My only nod to the season was small Christmas candles for
each table and booth. Some customer had tied a red ribbon on one of the plants
over the middle booth and the Coors driver had put up a Christmas poster
declaring Coors to be the official beer of Christmas. The candles still
flickered on the empty tables, but the rest of the bar looked normal. Dark brown
wood walls, dark brown carpet, an old oak bar and friends. The most important
part was the friends. My four best friends' lives were as empty as mine.
Tonight, on the first Christmas Eve since I bought the bar, I was going to give
them a chance to change that. That was my present to them. It was going to be an
interesting night.

"All right, Stout," Carl said, twisting his huge frame around on his bar stool
so that he could face me as I wound my way back across the room between the
empty tables and chairs. "Just what's such a big secret that you kick out that
young couple and lock the door at seven o'clock on Christmas Eve?"

I laughed. Carl always got right to the point. With big Carl you always knew
exactly where you stood.

"Yeah," Jess said from his usual place at the oak bar beside the waitress
station, "what's so damned important you don't want the four of us to even get
off our stools?" Jess was the short one of the crowd. When he stood next to Carl
the top of Jess's head barely reached Carl's neck. Jess loved to play practical
jokes on Carl. Carl hated it.

"This," I said as I pulled the custom-made felt cover off the old Wurlitzer
jukebox and, with a flourish, dropped the cloth over the planter and into the
empty front booth. My stomach did a tap dance from nerves as all four of my best
customers whistled and applauded, the sound echoing in the furniture and
plant-filled room.

David, my closest friend in the entire world, downed the last of his
scotch-rocks and swirled the ice around in the glass with a tinkling sound.
Then, with his paralyzed right hand, he pushed the glass, napkin and all, to the
inside edge of the bar. "So, after hiding that jukebox in the storage room for
the last ten months, you're finally going to let us hear it play?"

"You guessed it." I ran my shaking fingers over the cold smoothness of the
chrome and polished glass. I had carefully typed onto labels the names of over
sixty Christmas songs, then taped them next to the red buttons. Somewhere in