"Thompson, Jim - Now and on Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thompson Jim)

No, she didn't scold or spank us--to the best of my recollection we never received a real spanking--she just sat there among the pillows, and something terrible happened to her face. And then she placed one starved hand over her eyes and her shoulders trembled and she cried.
I think an artist must have been peeking in the window that night, for years later I saw a painting of Mom. A painting of a woman in a torn gown, tangled black hair and thin hand concealing her face but not hiding--oh, Jesus, no! not hiding but pointing at--wretchedness and pain and hopelessness that were unspeakable. It was called _Despair_.
But the artist should have stayed for the sequel.
We got some newspapers and spread them out on the bed, and dumped the malt out on it. And then Marge and I and Mom began to pick the glass out of it. We picked and sorted and strained our eyes for an hour or more, and just when we had a few spoonfuls without any glass in it, Frankie woke up with one of those wild kicking fits which characterized her awakenings. She almost bounced us off the bed. Somehow we held on, keeping the glass from being re-mixed with the milk. But it didn't do any good. Frankie had only been limbering up for the main event. Her nightdress had gone up with the first kicks, and now her diaper slipped down. . . .
Well, we threw the papers away and mopped up a little--it was so funny we all had to laugh--and Mom asked us what we thought we'd better do now. Marge, who was twelve, said she'd brought some chalk home from school; maybe we could grind that up and put it in hot water, and it would take the place of milk. Mom was afraid it wouldn't. I didn't have any ideas. Frankie was squawling her head off, and it was impossible not to sympathize with her. Mom said, "Well if I write a note to Mr. Johnson will you take it down and--"
Marge and I began to whimper and whine. The boys would chase us if we went out again and we'd just break the next bottle of milk like we had the first; besides, Mr. Johnson was a mean ol' man and wouldn't trust anyone for anything. He had big signs up all over the store saying he wouldn't. "You just go down and see for yourself, Mom."
Mom said she guessed she'd have to.
We got out her old black serge dress and a shawl and some houseslippers, and Marge did the best she could with pinning up her hair. Then we wrapped Frankie up in a blanket and started out. We took Frankie because Mom wouldn't leave her alone, and she needed me and Marge to lean on.
It was bitterly cold, and I thought that was what was making Mom shiver. But it wasn't--not entirely. It was just the pain of her legs going to pieces beneath her. It was only a block to the drugstore and a block back, but, as I say, her legs weren't good to start with, and she'd just had Frankie, and she hadn't been eating right for years.
We got the milk. Johnson wouldn't have given it to us, but there was a whore and her pimp in the place-- swell customers--drinking coke and paregoric, and he didn't want to show himself up for what he was. He even threw in a small bottle of soothing syrup which, no doubt, he would have had to throw out in the alley before long anyway. It had a little label under the regular one--rather, part of a label; most of it was torn off. The remaining letters read OPI--
We got back to the house, and went into the kitchen. The gas hadn't been cut off yet, although I can't figure out why. Mom put Frankie down on the table, and sat down herself; and Marge and I fixed the milk and filled the bottle. I'll swear to this day that Frankie rose up out of her blankets and snatched it from our hands.
She took a big swig, and said "Gush," and gave us a tight self-satisfied Hoover smile. Then she closed her eyes and got down to business.
Mom said, "That milk looks so good I believe I'll have some. You kids ought to drink some, too."
We kids didn't like milk. We never liked anything that was good for us, probably because we so seldom had the opporfunity to acquire the liking.
"You like ice-cream sodas, don't you?" said Mom. "I could fix it so it'd be sweet and nice. You'd sleep better if you had something warm on your stomachs."
Well . . . an ice-cream soda--that put the matter in a different light.
We heated another pan of milk, and filled three glasses. And Mom put a third of the bottle of soothing syrup into each one. It was such a little bottle, and Mom didn't know any better. Pop said afterwards that she should have, and that Johnson ought to have been horsewhipped. But Pop wasn't there that night.
I remember, dimly, in the haze-filled passages I fled slowly through, a white face that kept rising up before me--a white face and long black hair and warning terrorstricken eyes that kept forcing themselves open with the invisible fingers of sheer will. And when I saw that face, I retreated and was somehow glad.
Once I had wandered deep along a subterranean corridor, following an odor, a sound, a vision--I do not know what it was but it was irresistible. And I had come to a carved archway, and there was a laughing little girl on the other side, holding out her hands to me. Jo. Jo holding out her hands and trying to grasp mine.
No. I mean it. It was Jo. That was more than fifteen years before Jo was born, but I knew at once that it was Jo, and she knew that I was her father.
I said, "Where's your mother?" And Jo laughed and tossed her hair, and said, "Oh, she isn't here. Come on in and play with me."
I said, "All right," and stepped toward her, and she bent her little face to kiss my hand.
And then Mom appeared between us.
She struck Jo--struck her and kept striking her. And Jo screamed at me for help, and I stood motionless and horrified, sad yet relieved. I stood there until Mom had beaten Jo to death with her bare fists. And then Mom motioned for me to precede her back up the passageway, and I obeyed. I went back up the passage, leaving Jo dead there in the little room.
Jo has never liked Mom. . . .
There was a large white pavilion with a small circular pool. And strong hands kept pushing me toward the pool, and I did not want to go into it because it was black and bitter. I wondered why Mom didn't save me, and I cried out to her, and a dozen voices shouted back, "He's coming out of it! He's going to be all right, Mrs. Dillon. . . ."
I opened my eyes. The black coffee rose lazily from the oil cloth and I drank. I had been asleep thirty hours, seven more than Marge. Mom had shaken off her stupor as soon as Frankie began to holler for more milk.
A few nights later Pop came home. He came in a taxicab, and it was filled with packages. He had a new coat for Mom--she hated it always and wore it about as long--a suit for me, dresses for Marge, shoes for all of us (none of them fit), toys, watches, candy, rye bread, horseradish, pigs feet, bologna--God knows what all.
Marge and I danced around Mom's bed, laughing and eating and unwrapping things, while Mom lay there trying to smile and Pop looked on in happy pride. Then I noticed the little black grip he was carrying.
"What's in that, Pop? What else you got in that, Pop?" I yelled, Marge joining me.
Pop held the bag up over our heads and giggled. And we stopped yelling and jumping for a moment because the giggle startled us. Pop was such a big man, and so dignified even in his amusement. I think he was the only man I ever saw who could look dignified with his pants torn and chili on his vest. Pop always wore good clothes, but he was a little careless about their upkeep.
He unfastened the catch on the bag and turned it upside down, and a shower of currency, money orders, and certified checks floated down to the bed and floor.
His oil well had come in. He had already sold a fraction of his holdings for 65,000 dollars. And here it was.
The artist should have stayed for that picture, too. Mom with her legs as big and black as stovepipes, and 65,000 dollars on the bed. . . .
Well, her legs are still like that. And Pop is still drilling oil wells--very real oil wells, to him at least. As for me--
As for me. . . .

3
"How do you like your new job?" Mom asked. "Did you have to work very hard?"
"Oh, no," I said.
"What did you do mostly? Bookkeeping and typing?"
"Yeah," I said, "bookkeeping and typing." Then I lost my temper and told her what I really had done.
When I finished she said, "That's nice," and I knew she hadn't really heard a word.
"Eating out tonight, are we?" I asked.
"What?" said Mom. "Oh. Well, I don't know, Jimmie. I don't know what to do. Roberta went off to town and didn't leave any money or say what she wanted or anything. Jo hasn't had a bite to eat all day but a peanut butter sandwich. I haven't had anything either, but of course--"
"Let me have a dollar," I said. "I'll go get something. I'll pay you back as soon as Roberta gets here."
"I could have got something myself," Mom said. "But I didn't know what--"
"Just give me a dollar," I said. "I'll go get some potatoes and bread and meat. That's what we usually have."
Mom went and got a dollar. "I will have to have it back, Jimmie. Frankie has to get a permanent, and some new stockings, and we don't have a cent to spare."
"I'll pay it back," I said.