"Robert F. Young - Santa Claus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

door. Suddenly he had a feeling that there was someone standing behind him, and he turned angrily. Sure
enough, there was someoneтАФa tall, lanky individual wearing a white cowboy suit, armed with a set of
silver six-guns, and carrying a golden guitar. A halo, like a circular fluorescent tube, scintillated over his
sombrero, a chrome star, with the letters "G.A." stamped on it, glittered on his breast, and a pair of pink
wings sprouted from his shoulders.
Ross sighed. "All right," he said wearily. "Who are you?"
The winged cowboy struck a throbbing golden chord. "I'm your G. A.," he drawled.
"My what?"
"Your Guardian Angel."
"Whoever heard of a Guardian Angel wearing a cowboy suit and carrying a guitar!"
"Got to keep up with the times, podner. I'd look a mite silly, wouldn't I, wearin' a white robe and
carryin' a harp?"
Ross almost said that he looked a mite silly, anyway. But he didn't. For some reason he didn't feel
much like talking. He looked around the room a little desperately, noticed that there were still a few
fingers remaining in the I. W. bottle. After chug-a-lugging them, he returned foggily to the sofa and lay
down. The G. A. got blankets from somewhere and tucked him in for the night.
After a while the Sandman came in, carrying a little red pail, and threw sand in his eyes.

After a week of dead-end kisses and arguments that got him nowhere, of nightly visits by Jack Frost
and the Sandman, Ross was ready to tie on a good one. The season was appropriate, and New Year's
Eve found him, Candy, and the G. A. ensconced in a dim corner of one of the gin mills Santa had brought
him.
Candy, as might have been expected, drank like a bird. Ross was disgusted. Next time he put a
Mansfield on his Christmas list, he told himself bitterly, he'd be sure to specify what kind of a Mansfield.
If the old boy in the red flannel suit didn't understand the facts of life, it was high time he learned.
It was a wretched evening тАФfrom Ross's point of view. Candy, though, seemed to enjoy herselfтАФin
a milktoast kind of wayтАФand the G. A. had a ball. He strummed his guitar incessantly and sang song
after song in a treacly voice, and every so often he got up and danced around in a little circle, employing
a peculiar sideways step. The fact that no one saw or heard him, save Ross and Candy, didn't seem to
bother him a bit.
Around 11 o'clock, Ross noticed an old man with a scythe wandering among the tables. No one paid
any attention to him, or, for that matter, seemed to see him. For a while Ross was puzzled; then, at 12 on
the dot, the old man walked out and a rotund little boy, wearing nothing but a sash, walked in.
"Nuts!" Ross said. "Let's go."
Jack Frost was merrily at work on the window when they entered the apartment, and Ross glimpsed
the Sandman lurking in a shadowy corner. The G. A. went over and started making up the sofa. Candy
slipped out of her pastel mink and stood provocatively in the middle of the room.
"I'm ready for my good-night kiss," she said.
In mid-January, after a long, drawn-out battle with his G. A., Ross visited a divorce lawyer. "I want
my marriage annulled," he said.
"Calm down a little," the lawyer said. "We'll get it annulled for youтАФif you can show sufficient cause."
"Cause! Why, I can show enough cause to annul twenty marriages! My wife will only let me kiss
her!"
"That's no justification for an annulmentтАФor a divorce, either. What do you expect her to do?" Ross
felt his face burn. "What do you think I expect her to do?"
"I can't imagine."
"Look, I'm in no mood for a hard time. I'll break it down for you just once, and I'll be damned if I'll
draw you a picture. When you kiss your wife, does she run away from you and lock you out of the
bedroom?"
"Naturally not! But that has nothing to do with you. You're different."