"Ellison, Harlan - Pulling Hard Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

"We'll see, Warden." *

Charlie Lunchbucket loved his mother. More than anyone. She had sat beside him
night and day through the whooping cough. She made him cinnamon toast for
breakfast. She defended him when the third grade teacher said he was
incorrigible. He loved his mother.

They had been driving to Ashtabula. The track had been hauling lumber, and as it
passed them, there on the narrow back country road along the river, the back end
of the flatbed had swung out, and his mother had swerved to avoid getting
sideswiped.

The car had run off the road, over the berm, down the steep embankment, through
the brittle woods, and plunged into the river. But only the front end had gone
in. Not enough to bring water into the ear. Charlie had come to, and it was
dark. The roof of the car had collapsed when the trunk of the shattered tree had
fallen on them. He tried to move, and could not. He called out for his mother.
"Mommy," he called. But there was no answer. He could not move. Something heavy
lay across him, and he was trapped in the comer of the door and the seat.

All that night he lay there, crying, calling for his mother, but she was gone.
And when daylight came, he woke, thirsty and hungry and cold and frightened, and
as he opened his eyes he was staring into the dead face of his mother, the
steering wheel having crushed her chest. She was lying across him, pinning him.
He could not move, and he could not look away. He stared into the open eyes and
blackened mouth of his mother.

They found the car four days later. It had been August. It had been stifling.
The windows had been rolled up. But the flies had gotten in. They had laid their
eggs. And other things had come. When they found the car, Charlie Lunchbucket
was out of his head. Eight years old. Worst time of his life. *

Floating in a clean white-tiled room, dark and cool. The memory plays and
replays and plays yet again, without end, without release. They get what they
deserve. We are a nation of laws. We are a compassionate people. We have
abolished capital punishment. No one hears, but occasionally the fat bald dying
thing in the null-g suite whispers mommy and, once, in a year some while ago,
there was a tear that dried almost immediately. We are a nation in balance.