JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 87 из 425“You still make the Villageburger Deluxe?”
“Does a crow still shit in the pine tops?” Pale eyes regarding me. No condolences, which was fine by me. “Most likely. I’ll have one with everything—a Villageburger, not a crow—plus a chocolate frappe. Good to see you again.” I offered my hand. He looked surprised but touched it with his own. Unlike the whites, the apron, and the hat, the hand was clean. Even the nails were clean. “Yuh,” he said, then turned to the sallow woman chopping onions beside the grill. “Villageburger, Audrey,” he said.
“Drag it through the garden.” I’m ordinarily a sit-at-the-counter kind of guy, but that day I took a booth near the cooler and waited for Buddy to yell that it was ready—Audrey short-orders, but she doesn’t waitress. I wanted to think, and Buddy’s was a good place to do it.
There were a couple of locals eating sandwiches and drinking sodas straight from the can, but that was about it; people with summer cottages would have to be starving to eat at the Village Cafe, and even then you’d likely have to haul them through the door kicking and screaming. The floor was faded green linoleum with a rolling topography of hills and valleys. Like Buddy’s uniform, it was none too clean (the summer people who came in probably failed to notice his hands). The woodwork was greasy and dark. Above it, where the plaster started, there were a number of bumper-stickers—Buddy’s idea of decoration.
HORN BROKEN—WATCH FOR FINGER.
WIFE AND DOG MISSING. REWARD FOR DOG.
THERE’s NO TOWN DRUNK HERE, WE ALL TAKE TURNS. Humor is almost always anger with its makeup on, I think, but in little towns the makeup tends to be thin. Three overhead fans paddled apathetically at the hot air, and to the left of the soft-drink cooler were two dangling strips of flypaper, both liberally stippled with wildlife, some of it still struggling feebly. If you could look at those and still eat, your digestion was probably doing okay. I thought about a similarity of names which was surely, had to be, a coincidence. I thought about a young, pretty girl who had become a mother at sixteen or seventeen and a widow at nineteen or twenty. I thought about inadvertently touching her breast, and how the world judged men in their forties who suddenly discovered the fascinating world of young women and their accessories.
Most of all I thought of the queer thing that had happened to me when Mattie had told me the kid’s name—that sense that my mouth and throat were suddenly flooded with cold, mineral-tangy water. That rush. When my burger was ready, Buddy had to call twice.
“Does a crow still shit in the pine tops?” Pale eyes regarding me. No condolences, which was fine by me. “Most likely. I’ll have one with everything—a Villageburger, not a crow—plus a chocolate frappe. Good to see you again.” I offered my hand. He looked surprised but touched it with his own. Unlike the whites, the apron, and the hat, the hand was clean. Even the nails were clean. “Yuh,” he said, then turned to the sallow woman chopping onions beside the grill. “Villageburger, Audrey,” he said.
“Drag it through the garden.” I’m ordinarily a sit-at-the-counter kind of guy, but that day I took a booth near the cooler and waited for Buddy to yell that it was ready—Audrey short-orders, but she doesn’t waitress. I wanted to think, and Buddy’s was a good place to do it.
There were a couple of locals eating sandwiches and drinking sodas straight from the can, but that was about it; people with summer cottages would have to be starving to eat at the Village Cafe, and even then you’d likely have to haul them through the door kicking and screaming. The floor was faded green linoleum with a rolling topography of hills and valleys. Like Buddy’s uniform, it was none too clean (the summer people who came in probably failed to notice his hands). The woodwork was greasy and dark. Above it, where the plaster started, there were a number of bumper-stickers—Buddy’s idea of decoration.
HORN BROKEN—WATCH FOR FINGER.
WIFE AND DOG MISSING. REWARD FOR DOG.
THERE’s NO TOWN DRUNK HERE, WE ALL TAKE TURNS. Humor is almost always anger with its makeup on, I think, but in little towns the makeup tends to be thin. Three overhead fans paddled apathetically at the hot air, and to the left of the soft-drink cooler were two dangling strips of flypaper, both liberally stippled with wildlife, some of it still struggling feebly. If you could look at those and still eat, your digestion was probably doing okay. I thought about a similarity of names which was surely, had to be, a coincidence. I thought about a young, pretty girl who had become a mother at sixteen or seventeen and a widow at nineteen or twenty. I thought about inadvertently touching her breast, and how the world judged men in their forties who suddenly discovered the fascinating world of young women and their accessories.
Most of all I thought of the queer thing that had happened to me when Mattie had told me the kid’s name—that sense that my mouth and throat were suddenly flooded with cold, mineral-tangy water. That rush. When my burger was ready, Buddy had to call twice.