JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 88 из 425When I went over to get it, he said: “You back to stay or to clear out?”
“Why?” I asked. “Did you miss me, Buddy?”
“Nup,” he said, “but at least you’re from in-state. Did you know that “Massachusetts’ is Piscataqua for ’asshole’?”
“You’re as funny as ever,” I said. “Yuh. I’m going on fuckin Letterman. Explain to him why God gave seagulls wings.”
“Why was that, Buddy?”
“So they could beat the fuckin Frenchmen to the dump.” I got a newspaper from the rack and a straw for my frappe. Then I detoured to the pay phone and, tucking my paper under my arm, opened the phone book. You could actually walk around with it if you wanted; it wasn’t tethered to the phone. Who, after all, would want to steal a Castle County telephone directory? There were over twenty Devores, which didn’t surprise me very much—it’s one of those names, like Pelkey or Bowie or Toothaker, that you kept coming across if you lived down here. I imagine it’s the same everywhere—some families breed more and travel less, that’s all. There was a Devore listing for “RD Wsp HI1 Rd,” but it wasn’t for a Mattie, Mathilda, Martha, or M. It was for Lance. I looked at the front of the phone book and saw it was a 1997 model, printed and mailed while Mattie’s husband was still in the land of the living.
Okay… but there was something else about that name. Devote, Devote, let us now praise famous Devores; wherefore art thou Devore? But it wouldn’t come, whatever it was. I ate my burger, drank my liquefied ice cream, and tried not to look at what was caught on the flypaper.
While I was waiting for the sallow, silent Audrey to give me my change (you could still eat all week in the Village Cafe for fifty dollars… if your blood-vessels could stand it, that was), I read the sticker pasted to the cash register. It was another Buddy Jellison special:
CYBERSPACE SCARED ME SO BAD I DOWNLOADED IN MY PANTS. This didn’t exactly convulse me with mirth, but it did provide the key for solving one of the day’s mysteries: why the name Devore had seemed not just familiar but evocative. I was financially well off, rich by the standards of many. There was at least one person with ties to their, however, who was rich by the standards of everybody, and filthy rich by the standards of most year-round residents of the lakes region. If, that was, he was still eating, breathing, and walking around. “Audrey, is Max Devore still alive?” She gave me a little smile. “Oh, ayuh. But we don’t see him in here too often.” That got the laugh out of me that all of Buddy’s joke stickers hadn’t been able to elicit.
“Why?” I asked. “Did you miss me, Buddy?”
“Nup,” he said, “but at least you’re from in-state. Did you know that “Massachusetts’ is Piscataqua for ’asshole’?”
“You’re as funny as ever,” I said. “Yuh. I’m going on fuckin Letterman. Explain to him why God gave seagulls wings.”
“Why was that, Buddy?”
“So they could beat the fuckin Frenchmen to the dump.” I got a newspaper from the rack and a straw for my frappe. Then I detoured to the pay phone and, tucking my paper under my arm, opened the phone book. You could actually walk around with it if you wanted; it wasn’t tethered to the phone. Who, after all, would want to steal a Castle County telephone directory? There were over twenty Devores, which didn’t surprise me very much—it’s one of those names, like Pelkey or Bowie or Toothaker, that you kept coming across if you lived down here. I imagine it’s the same everywhere—some families breed more and travel less, that’s all. There was a Devore listing for “RD Wsp HI1 Rd,” but it wasn’t for a Mattie, Mathilda, Martha, or M. It was for Lance. I looked at the front of the phone book and saw it was a 1997 model, printed and mailed while Mattie’s husband was still in the land of the living.
Okay… but there was something else about that name. Devote, Devote, let us now praise famous Devores; wherefore art thou Devore? But it wouldn’t come, whatever it was. I ate my burger, drank my liquefied ice cream, and tried not to look at what was caught on the flypaper.
While I was waiting for the sallow, silent Audrey to give me my change (you could still eat all week in the Village Cafe for fifty dollars… if your blood-vessels could stand it, that was), I read the sticker pasted to the cash register. It was another Buddy Jellison special:
CYBERSPACE SCARED ME SO BAD I DOWNLOADED IN MY PANTS. This didn’t exactly convulse me with mirth, but it did provide the key for solving one of the day’s mysteries: why the name Devore had seemed not just familiar but evocative. I was financially well off, rich by the standards of many. There was at least one person with ties to their, however, who was rich by the standards of everybody, and filthy rich by the standards of most year-round residents of the lakes region. If, that was, he was still eating, breathing, and walking around. “Audrey, is Max Devore still alive?” She gave me a little smile. “Oh, ayuh. But we don’t see him in here too often.” That got the laugh out of me that all of Buddy’s joke stickers hadn’t been able to elicit.