"Dean Wesley Smith - Jukebox Gifts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Dean Wesley)

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 this jukebox I hoped there would be a special song for each
man. A song that would trigger a memory and a ride into the past. My
Christmas present to each of them.

I took a deep breath and headed behind the bar. "I hope," I said,
keeping my voice upbeat, "that it will be a little more than just a song. You
see, that jukebox is all that I have left from the first time I owned a bar.
Since I've owned the Garden Lounge, it has never been played."

Jess, his dress shirt open to the third button and his tie hanging loose
around his neck, spun his bar napkin on top of his glass. "So why
tonight?"

"Because a year ago on Christmas Eve I made the decision to buy
another bar -- the Garden. Lounge -- and try again."

"And I'm glad you did," David said, lifting his drink in his good left
hand in a toast.

"Here, here," Fred said, raising his drink high above his head and
spilling part of it into his red hair. "Where else could we enjoy a few hours
of Christmas Eve before going home to be bored?"

All four men raised their glasses in agreement as I laughed and joined
them with a sip of the sweet eggnog I always drank on Christmas Eve. No
booze, just eggnog.