"Wilson-Retired" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Robin)

kind a thing lately." If Pop's tale was even partly true, Arnie was hurt that
Pop hadn't confided his affliction.

Pop accepted Arnie's sour skepticism. It was certainly justifiable. He shrugged,
tucked in his shirt, and began to fill the sink behind the bar with hot water.

After half a century of conversation, Arnie was pretty sure he knew truth from
trash when it came from Pop. But disbelief is a faith slow to die. He said
almost nothing for the next two hours as the two went about their chores in the
club's help-yourself bar, now illuminated only by one bare ceiling bulb, the
Wurlitzer working its way through its stack on automatic, and a gleam of morning
sun coming in above the cracked black paint on the street-side display windows.

The club was the social focus for a few dozen elderly people of modest means who
wanted a place away from the TV set to talk about the sins of their kids, the
virtues of their grandchildren, the follies of those sonsabitches in Washington,
and their discomfort with change, any kind of change. They could play a little
penny-ante or gin and drink a couple of unlicensed beers at lower than barroom
prices. They knew they had a uniquely good thing going but all was contingent on
the benign neglect of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and a system of
grumbling volunteers. There were no paid employees.

And so in teams of two, the members took turns tending bar, cleaning up the
place, buying and storing stock, and seeing to rent and maintenance. This week
it was Pop and Arnie's turn to share the morning clean-up after a busy Friday
night. They washed the glassware, swept up the litter left by the forty-five
club members and their friends and relatives, including auxiliaries, cased the
empties, wiped down the two dozen battered tables, and restocked the cooler.

Finished half an hour before the next duo would arrive to open the club for the
day, they sat on adjoining bar stools -- an elderly Mutt and Jeff-- to have a
first beer. Arnie took a long pull on his bottle of Anchor Steam to wash down
Pop's story, and broke his long silence: "Jeez, Pop. You aren't kiddin' are
you."

"Nope." Pop expected skepticism, could himself hardly believe what had happened
was not just an old man's dream. But there was the scar and the featureless
X-ray on Monday at the clinic, and the guys in the white coats with stethoscopes
around their necks shaking their heads and muttering stuff about must be some
mistake, wrong file.

"So," said Arnie. "Din it hurt?

"Nah. They kept their thumbs outta the way."

"Shit. Don't joke me, man. I mean you!"

Pop shook his head. "Nothin'. No blood, no pain. Like you can see, not hardly
any scar. And no friggin' bill!"