"Joe Haldeman - A Mind Of His Own" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

“Shouldn’t smoke those things in here.”

“Just leaving.” He draped a gray robe around his shoulders. “Help me with this thing, OK?”

Bennet helped him put on the robe and set him in a wheelchair. “Can’t smoke in Therapy, either.”

Leonard put the clothes on his lap and turned the chair a hundred and eighty degrees on one wheel,
hypertrophied biceps bulging. “So let’s not go straight to Therapy. I need some fresh air.”

“You’ll stiffen up.”

He rolled to the door and opened it. “No, it’s warm. Plenty warm.”

They were the only people on the porch. Bennet took a cigarette and pointed it at one of the palm trees.

“You know how old that one is?”

“She said it was because of the piano.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t of sold the piano.”

“Couldn’t work the pedals right.”

“Someday you—”

“I wasn’t going to sell it anyhow; I was going to trade even for classical guitar or lute if I could find
somebody.”

“Yeah?”

“I went to all the skill-transfer agencies. Every one, here and St. Pete. Even one in Sarasota, specializes
in music. Couldn’t find a guitar player who was any good. Not in Bach. If I can’t play Bach I’d rather
just listen.”

“You coulda gotten one that was otherwise good. Learn Bach on your own.”

“Bennet, hell, that’d be years. I never learned that much new on the piano, either. Don’t have the facility.”
“You bought the piano in the first place?”

He nodded. “One of the first skill transfers in Florida. Old Gainesville conservatory man. He thought he
was going to die and wanted one last fling. Paid him fifty grand, that was real money back in ‘90.”

“Still is.”

“They cured his cancer and a year later he committed suicide.” He threw his cigarette over the edge and
watched it fall three stories.

“It’s exactly as old as I am. Fifty-one years, the gardener told me,” Bennet said. “I guess that’s pretty old
for a tree.”