"Thompson, Jim - Criminal, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thompson Jim)

"Nothing," he mumbled. "I'm not hungry."
"You see?" I laughed. "You can't tell me, can you? if you don't have a reason for a statement, you shouldn't make it."
"'Scuse me," he said. "I don't want anything more to eat."
He pushed back his chair, and started to get up.
I told him to stay right where he was.
"Al," said Martha, nervously. "If he doesn't want to eat--"
"I'm handling this," I said. "I'm still head of this family. He acts like I'd--he made a certain statement. Now, he can explain himself or he'll sit there and eat."
Bob hesitated, his head bowed over his plate. He picked up his fork and began to eat.
"I don't think I'm unreasonable," I said. "Why, my God, if I'd been willing to do the things that some people do, I wouldn't have to--to--worry about a job. I'd be sitting on easy street. I'll tell you something, young man: if you had just a few of my problems, things I never even mention, maybe you'd . . ."
I went on talking to him, trying to show him where he was wrong. And he was wrong. Like I say, I'm not unreasonable. I'm not like Henley. I wasn't just being ornery, trying to make him say something he didn't want to just because I was worried and sore at myself.
I'm not like that. I hadn't done anything to be ashamed of.
"You see, Bob?" I said. "Answer me!"
He didn't answer. He poked a bite of sweet potato into his mouth.
And then, suddenly, he choked and his face went white, and he started vomiting.
. . . That's when he really changed.
He was never quite the same boy after that.

2 Allen Talbert
Well, here we go again, and this time I'll try not to ramble all over the reservation.
I started out to tell you about that day, _the_ day it happened. I'll pick up where I left off, with Bob walking me part way to the station.
We were about six blocks from the house, almost to the corner where Bob had to turn off toward school, when a car pulled in at the curb. Jack Eddleman leaned out the window, grinning at us.
"What do you say there, Talberts?" he called. "What do you think of the new buggy?"
"It looks all right," I said, bearing down a little on the _looks_. "Real estate business must be good these days."
"All business is good. It just depends on the men that are it."
"Is that a fact?" I said.
"Got you that time, huh?" He let out a laugh, that jackass bray of his. "Hop in and I'll drive you to the station."
"No, thanks," I said. "I'm walking with my son."
"Keepin' an eye on him, huh?" He laughed again. "How you getting along with the girls these days, Bob? Been under any washing machines lately?"
Bob tried to smile. He ducked his head, and started to turn away. I told him to wait. I said I had something to say to Mt Eddleman, and I wanted him to hear it.
Then, I stepped out to the curb, and I'm telling you: maybe that big redfaced loud-mouth had never been told off before, but he was then.
I . . . I wonder if you're like I am? I mean, sometimes I can speak up and lay down the law to people, and at others I'm just as mild as milk. I'll let them walk all over me. It seems like I just can't find the words or the nerve to say anything.
I remember when Martha and I were on our honeymoon. We'd taken a room American plan at this Niagara Falls hotel, and I'd had to pay in advance so, of course, we couldn't move. And, well, this head waiter in the dining room, he'd treated us like dirt right from the beginning. I don't know why. We'd tipped well, and we hadn't demanded any extra service or anything like that. I guess he just picked on us because he thought he could get away with it.
Well, he _did_ get away with it for a while, three--no, four days. It was dinner of the fourth night when I jumped him. He'd set us down at a little table back near the kitchen, and the table cloth may have been white at one time, but you'd never have known it. There was enough catsup and gravy on it to paint a barn door.
"I'd like another table," I said, "or at least a clean cloth."
"No kidding," he said, real sarcastically. "You're pretty hard to please, aren't you?"
I kicked back my chair, and jumped up. I shoved my face right up against his. "You're doggone right, I'm hard to please," I said, "and I'm pretty hard to get along with when I'm not pleased, so maybe you'd better not give me any more trouble. Just a little more nonsense like you've been pulling"--I said--"and I'm liable to mop up the floor with you. Now, you give us a good table and make it fast, and from now on you watch your p's and q's when you're around us."
Well, he folded up like an accordion, didn't give me a word of back talk. He took us to the best table in the dining room, and for the next three days you'd have thought we were royalty, the service we got.
Martha couldn't get over the way I'd acted. She was as proud as punch of me, but it startled the daylights out of her.
"My goodness," she kept saying. "I never knew you could be like that, Al."
"Well, sometimes I can and sometimes I can't," I said. "I guess I take just so much, and then I blow up."
Well, as I was saying. Any other time, I might have let Jack Eddleman get away with it; I'd let him get away with a lot of stuff before this. But this time he was picking on the wrong party.
"Now, I'll tell you something, Jack," I said. "I don't think we'd better have any more talk about that washing machine business. Neither to me or Bob or anyone else. Your daughter came over to our house uninvited. She walked right in while Mrs. Talbert and I were away, and wandered out into the kitchen where Bob was working. if she'd minded her own business like he was minding his, there--"
"Oh, yeah?" He tried to look tough, but his eyes shifted. "It's a darned good thing I looked in your back door. If I hadn't've come over to borrow a hoe, that overgrown youngun of yours would have--well, I won't say it."
"I think you'd better," I said. "I want to hear you say it."
"Aw, hell . . ." He forced a laugh. "What are we arguing about? You know how I am. I just like to kid."
"Yes, I know how you are," I said. "I've had you sized up for a long time. You keep riding people, making 'em uncomfortable, and the longer they take it the rougher you get. Then, when they call you on it you say you're kidding."
"Huh!" he said. "Look who's talking."
"I don't care whether you look or not," I said, "but you'd better remember what I told you."
He slammed his car into gear, and drove off.
I turned around to Bob. His shoulders weren't sagging now, and he was really smiling instead of just trying to. He was looking at me like he'd used to, like he had that Monday morning in New York when Martha had been afraid I'd be late for work and I'd said Henley could go jump if he didn't like it.