Sister Crazy. Emma Richler
watch The Gunfighter, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, My Darling Clementine, and Shane. Shane is my favourite of all time.
‘He’d never have been able to shoot you if you’d seen him!’
‘Bye, little Joe.’
‘He’d never even have cleared the holster, would he, Shane? … Shane? Shane! Come back! … Bye, Shane!’
Finally, Mum puts my dad on the phone.
‘Hey, Dad.’
‘You are going to be fine,’ he says.
What?
‘YOU-are-going-to-be JUST-FINE.’
‘You mean you are going to be just fine, right? You. How are you, Dad?’
‘Everything is going to be all right, you are going to be fine, we are going to be—’
He does mean me.
‘Dad?’
‘Jem, you are—’
‘Dad? Are you okay?’
‘I am okay! I am o-KKKAAY—’
I clasp the receiver even tighter and jump up from a sitting position. I join in. ‘O-KKAAAY … co-RRAAAL, o—’ but my mother has taken the phone from him and I don’t know now. I do not know if he was really singing the tune from Gunfight at the O.K. Corral or not.
Mum stays on the line for only a second or two, enough time to say she’ll call back later or tomorrow and I hang up and sit in the dark room and feel cut off and panicky and manacled by this question. I want to know if my dad was doing the tune from the western with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas playing Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. I need to know. And I wonder if the whisky-soaked angels are still hanging out with my dad, if they are hovering over the hospital, getting all confused, some of them keeling over suddenly and looking surprised and silly. What is going on here? That must be morphine! Some of them want to go, but the big-cheese angel says, Hang in there, this man is a gunfighter and he will get up to pour single malt another day. That’s right, guys, I think. Hang in there.
That is rule number ten. HANG IN THERE.
I practise it, the gunslinger squint.
Hang in there.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.