"Charles L. Grant - Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street
by Charles L. Grant

The half-moon porch was partially masked by untrimmed arms of fully green forsythia a
juniper dying at the tips. What breeze there was in pressing heat only caused to quaver the
languid drone of hunting bees. A spider, working steadily in the shaded corner of a peeling
post and sloping roof, ambushed a fly while a mantis lurking on the lattice flanking the step
watched, praying. There were ants, marching, but the man on the bottom step ignored their
parade, waiting instead for the sounds of anger to drain from the house. He rubbed his face,
tugged at his chin, blaming the summer-long heat for the pots he heard slamming onto the sto
the crack of cabinet doors, the thud and hollow roll of an empty can on the linoleum floor. H
hunched at the sharp noises and glanced up the block, wondering why none of the houses to
top of the gentle hill had emptied at the aftermath of the fight.
Sounds carried on a street like this, he thought, like the night the week before when Cas
Waters had ordered his wife to pack and leave just before the late evening news. By the tim
she had limped with a suitcase to her car and had driven around the corner, not a porch wa
deserted, not a lawn with flickering flashlights carried by men ostensibly searching for lost
tools. So now where are they, he wondered at the blank facades of Hawthorne Street. They
no better than I am. Why the hell don't they come out?
The milkman, he answered himself. They've figured the bogeyman milkman has done it
again, and some of them believe it, and they're as afraid as I am.
A robin landed silently beneath one of the front yard's two ancient willows and cocked
brown eye toward the lawn.
"Gerry?"
It pecked twice and fluttered, hopping rapidly across the slate walk to the other side, w
it pecked twice again and flew off.
"Gerry?"
He leaned backward, feeling the ragged edge of the step pressing against his spine, and
tilted his head until his neck stretched close to choking. Ruth, her night-soft hair twisted bac
a ponytail and wisping around her temples, looked down at him, trying to manipulate muscl
that once made her smile. One softly tanned hand lay flat against her stomach, and he sudde
wished the baby would hurry up and show itself; his first daughter had kept Ruth slim, and
died before birth. He closed his eyes briefly, then stretched up a palm, holding it open until
covered it and came down beside him.
"They must be tired of men beating their wives," he said quietly, waving his free hand
toward the street. "Not even old lady Greene's left her precious garden."
Nearly four years ago he would have been a father for the second time.
"Gerry, I'm sorry."
"Don't be silly, lover," he said. "You've nothing to be sorry for. I'm the one who started
guess I'm not used to such heat in September."
Smiling then, she rested her cheek against his damp shoulder, and they watched for an h
the shadows of the willows glide away from the house. A lawn mower sputtered; a gaggle
small girls shrieked by in pursuit of a dream; there were birds and clustering gnats, and a
Siamese cat that disdained Gerry's enticements for the stalking of a jay. Then, explosive, a
of boys sped past on bicycles, shouting and gesturing to one another before separating at the
block's center, one to swerve widely and thump over the curb, mischievous bravado in the
that came to a halt inches from the juncture of step and walk.
"Hi," he said, with Ruth's thin lips and Gerry's heavy jaw.
"I'm too young for a heart attack," Gerry said, noticing absently the clotted mud on the b
jeans. "Put the bike away and wash up. We're going to eat; your mother's tired."