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

just hung up from talking with the daughter in Visalia they had been scheduled
to visit. "I just couldn't get away," said Pop. "Don't know what I'd of said to
Herb Green if he hadn't of got whatever was eatin' on him cut out."

"But you're supposed to be retired," said Marianne. "You've been out on that
damn lake every Saturday since I don't know when."

"Yeah, Mare, I know. But what am I gonna do? Who'm I gonna say no to? And what
the hell, it's only one afternoon a week for me but it's like the whole rest of
their lives for some of these people."

"Well, can't you get Arnie or Pete or one the other men to take 'em out in the
boat?"

"Tried it. Twice. Tried it different times, too. If I'm not there and it's any
time but around 5:30 on a Saturday afternoon, nothin' happens."

"Story of our life," sighed Marianne. "Ever since just after Marcy was born,
when you got that pusher's job up at Caribou. You're not there, nothing happens.
You're there, everything supposed to happen, happens."

"So what'll I do, babe? How do I get free from this monkey around my neck?"
Pop's voice held more puzzlement than self-pity.

Marianne reached across the white enameled-steel kitchen table and took one of
Pop's strong hands in hers. She felt as much as saw its tiny tremor. "Eddie
honey, I don't know. It's maybe only one afternoon a week now, but pretty soon
when word gets around, then it's going to be all day every day sorting people
out, deciding who goes and who doesn't go and figuring out what to say to the
ones who don't."

She sighed and swept her eyes around the snug little room, the contents moved
from house to house, always the heart of their forty-eight years together. She
said, "I say you're retired and the company and the social security, they've
said you've done your share, and you oughta give the whole thing up. Just walk
away from it."

Pop nodded. "Yeah, you're right. But you know, nothing lasts forever. Those guys
up there in that thing, they're gonna have something better to do, get all the
-- uh -- harvest they need. Someday I'm going to go out there and nobody's gonna
be home, and then I can quit."

"Someday, sure. But Eddie, you just might not last all the way to someday."

He nodded, feeling his age. "Uh-huh. In the meantime, what am I gonna do first
Saturday I don't go and somebody's floppin' around over at Community Memorial
Hospital I could of, you know, saved. How the hell do you retire from that?"

By the morning after Labor Day, the membership of the Retired Men's Social Club
& Ladies' Auxiliary was the healthiest collection of senior citizens outside the