"Charles Coleman Finlay - An Eye for an Eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finley Charles Coleman)

An Eye for an Eye
by Charles Coleman Finlay

Charlie Finlay notes that although this new story is in part about an engagement
gone wrong, his own life has taken a happier turn: his recent engagement to Rae
Carson recently ended happily in marriage.
“An Eye for an Eye” began with the first sentence, which was written as an
example during a workshop discussion of first lines. After Catherine Morrison
dared him to write the rest of the story, Mr. Finlay obliged with a story that might
be classified as science fiction noir.
****
So we’re sitting at a table in a Starbucks, and the beefy guy in the Hawaiian
shirt says to me, “Yeah, after the colostomy, I had them put an eyeball in my
anus—seemed like a good idea at the time.”
I think about saying, “Why, ‘cause you wanted hindsight?”
But because I don’t know him or his sense of humor, but mostly because I
really need the job, whatever the job is, what I end up doing is taking a long sip of
coffee, then saying, “So how’d that work out?”
“Not so well, you know!” He’s surprisingly intense about it, so I slouch
forward and rub the stubble on my chin as though I care. Here I am, wearing serious
bling, a hand-crafted jewel-covered globe on a chain around my neck, best thing I
own, worth a small fortune. The last client I dealt with, some lawyer, made a big deal
about it, had all kinds of questions. Now it’s this guy, who’s wearing an ugly shirt
and telling me about the eyeball in his ass. And I have to take him seriously.
“See,” he’s saying, “I figured I could stick my ass in my windshield and drive
down the highway mooning people.”
I decide I don’t care so much whether this guy ends up being my client or
not, because, hey, he’s whack. So I say, “See anything worth seeing?”
He laughs. “It didn’t work out. The optical nerve they ran up my anus to my
spine was more like telegraph wire than DSL. I couldn’t see shit—I know! Don’t say
it. But no depth perception, not much color, just a lot of blurry movement. I tried to
drive like this, holding the steering wheel between my legs.” He leans over out of his
seat, and reaches down between his legs, miming the action. “Ran off the road on
the first curve. Sprained my neck, was lucky I didn’t roll the car. You ever have the
mocha frappuccino?”
He’s drinking some deluxe frothy thing full of sugar and topped with whipped
cream. It must take a college degree to prepare it because the girl behind the counter
was telling us about her years as an English major for the three hours it took her to
fix the drink. Me, I have my coffee plain. I used to joke that I liked my coffee like I
liked my women—strong, hot, and black. But the truth is, I just like it cheap and
easy. Which is how I like my women these days too. But it’s better if I don’t think
much about that.
What I answer is, “No.”
He takes the lid off to slurp it, and says, “It’s like slushie heaven.”
“What happened to the eyeball?” I ask, ‘cause I gotta know.
“I had it removed when they grew the new intestine and took off the
colostomy. Like I said, not my best idea ever. So are you interested or not? In the
job?”
“What job?” I say. “We haven’t talked about anything except your surgeries.”
He says, “Oh, I’m sorry. Guess I’m not sure how this is supposed to work.