"It's You!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

She said the only bitter thing she had ever said to him. She pointed at his crotch and said, "You use that as a kind of sleeping pill for me, don't you?" Then she went back inside.
He stayed to pack away the magazines and then followed. She seemed to be asleep so he got in quietly and did not touch her. They did not talk about it in the morning.

That night they went to another party, and no less than three cats told him at different times how great his threads were. Well, she had good taste, she knew what looked good. The party was beautiful people and two guitars and a side table full of things made of rice and a lot of different kinds of cheese and wine-a desert. When they got home she went to bed and he went into the bathroom to get rid of the desert inside and out, and a terrible thing happened to him. He looked into the mirror and did not know who that was in there.

I mean it was a great haircut and the guru-style collar on the cotton-satin shirt-jacket was so well-cut it did not look freaky, and then there were the deep-buffed reversed-calf boots, like suede so nappy it was almost fur. But none of it was him, nothing he remembered, nothing he ever thought about when he thought Me. A terrible thing.

He took off all the clothes and hung them up and put them and the shoes away. Then he took off the medallion and put it on the TV and went to bed and right to sleep.

She was up ahead of him as usual and breakfast was ready. He went out into the garage naked and found his black cords and the Western shirt with the rawhide on the pockets, and his old lineman's boots, and put them all on. He came in and ate. While he was eating she told him she had done everything in the world to make him happy. He agreed that she had and said it had all been great.

It was Saturday and he hopped in the Monster and went down to the Rents. He felt very strange, holding something inside of himself locked down tight, knowing it was no good to let it all out because he couldn't explain it to anybody if he did. They remembered him all right and got the 6-by-l0 hitched on and the mirror mounted in half the time. He drove back to the house and up the driveway to the garage and loaded all his stuff into the trailer. It didn't take too long.

She came out and watched him finish. "Come inside."
He just shook his head and vaulted into the bucket. She came over and stood beside the Monster, holding her hands together real tight. "Knightly, Knightly, what is it? Tell me what's the matter."

He could only stare blindly at the tachometer. The only thing that came to him seemed so crazy he could not bring himself to say it: I want my real name back. He said, "I'm no good at explaining things, Hon."

But she was. She knelt by the Monster so he could look down into those double-arched eyes in that frame of coppery-yellow, and she said how she had been thinking and thinking, and she realized how wrong she had been. She began a whole list of promises. She said, "Ill try to learn about cars and go with you to the drag strips and the shops. Ill pick it up quickly, and then i'll pay more attention to the way you want to look and not the way I want you to look. And I never realized it but I shouldn1ve made you quit the Emergency and live the way I live." And more, like about she never had found out what he used to eat before he met her, she just cooked what she thought he ought to like without asking. She would change, she would change. Any way he wanted her to, she would change.

He almost had a thought worth saying, something about what happened to people when they had to change, but he couldn't get it into shape. Maybe later she could figure it out for herself. He started the motor and shifted into low and checked the mirrors on both sides, and then throttled way back so she could hear him. He said, as he began slipping the clutch, "It ain't any of those things, Hon.

"It's You."