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

fabled tribes of Kazakhstani goatherds. They all knew they had a very good
thing, and no deductibles either. Pop, whose tremor had increased markedly as
his weight had dropped -- enough to genuinely frighten Marianne -- sat that
Tuesday morning at a card table wedged in among eases of bottled beer and potato
chips, as he always did now, Mondays through Fridays, from eight to five, and
sometimes into the evening. His days were consumed working with Arnie and
whatever volunteers he could dragoon from the membership to sort through the
piles of applications, medical reports, and pitiful pleas that were delivered in
ever-bigger postal bags to the back room of the club. And then there was a long
envelope from County Health and a fat packet with a federal frank from the
Department of Health and Human Services addressed to "Provider." He was afraid
to open either.

Arnie, whose new lease on life with a healthy prostate had led him to some
serious dieting and exercise and who now felt a vigor that was causing
interesting problems at home, worried about his friend. "You know, Pop, this's
just gonna get worse."

"I know. In the classifieds last night, in the Courier? Somebody had one of
those prayers to St. Jude, mentioned me by name."

"Figure you got some direct connection to God I bet."

"Hell, I'm not even Catholic."

"Well, lot of people around here figure you're wired into something up there."
Arnie paused, deeply embarrassed by the direction of the conversation but unable
to change it. "Hey, Pop, he said hesitantly, You believe in some of that stuff?
I mean, is there something goin' on in that department I don't know about?"

Pop dropped the National Institutes of Health Taxonomy of Title 4 Surgical
Procedures someone had sent to bolster his case for a ride in the bass boat. He
shook his head. "No, Arnie. I'm just as bummed by all this as you are. I mean, I
don't know if there's something other'n those three little bald guys up there in
that thing. You know; you been up there. I mean, if there is some God somewhere
who's, like, quarterbackin' this whole deal, I sure don't know anything about
it. I figure if there's a God or if there isn't a God, who'm I to know? Like the
chicken and the egg thing. Which one come first? If the egg come first, who laid
it? If the chicken come first, who made the egg it hatched from? And either way
you got to imagine God, if you can imagine God, if there is a God, can you
imagine God sittin' on some egg to hatch it?"

He picked up another document headed HHS Schedule 5 and rattled it. He was tired
and a little angry. "I got better things to worry about," he said. "If people
think I'm wired to God or St. Jude or for Christ's sake AT&T or Sprint or MCI,
that's okay. I know I'm not."

Arnie's new vigor had sharpened some brain cells, too. He had a sudden insight.
"Ah shit, Pop!" he said, a grin splitting his round old face. "That's it, ol'
buddy. You are wired. That's why the bass boat deal only works when you're