"Harrington, Patricia - Between A Rock And A Hard Place" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrington Patricia)

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
By Patricia Harrington


"Haven't you fixed that car, yet?"
George Hansen didn't answer his wife, instead he slid deeper under the old
Buick so that only his legs stuck out.
Eunice stood in the doorway between the garage and the laundry room, her arms
crossed over her bony chest. She added, "It's a wonder the police haven't
ticketed me for noise pollution driving that old heap."
George blinked back stinging tears as he stared at the car's undercarriage. If
Eunice could see them, she'd scoff.
"A grown man crying!" The tears weren't because of what she'd said; they were
about what she'd done.
After dinner he'd put on the overalls that Evelyn had insisted he wear when
working on the car, and then insisted that he take to the Laundromat when they
became greasy. "I have no intention of dirtying my washing machine with them,"
she had said. He was tuning the car to get it ready for their annual trip to
his mother-in-law's house in Seattle. Eunice's mother had a list of repair
jobs waiting for him that included repairing her bathroom. He didn't mind
doing the work as long as he could take in the Seattle Rock Hound Show while
he was there. After five days with Eunice and her mother, he would need the
break.
Every chance that he could, George retreated to his refuge, the garage, where
he kept two treasures: his 1980 Buick and his rock collection. In the garage,
he could escape Eunice's hurtful words that she hurled with frequency. When
she did follow him out there, she didn't harangue him for long. She hated
standing in the cold-which was why George left the garage unheated.
That evening he had gone out to check his rock collection and to look with
pride at his new carving chisels and riffler rasps that he used for shaping
and sculpting rocks. "My agates-my soapstone rock," he cried. "They're gone."
He frantically searched the shelves above the workbench and spun around hoping
to see the agates and soapstone piled in a corner.
Then George rushed inside to the kitchen and said to Eunice, "Some of my rocks
are missing. Did you move them?"
She didn't bother looking up as she loaded the dishwasher. "You had so many on
that messy bench that I threw some out. You still have plenty to play with."
When Eunice said that, the red tide that had come and gone over the last few
months threatened to wash over George again. He stood perfectly still, not
fighting the waves of despair. He'd learned they would ebb if he didn't
struggle. But each time when the waves receded, they seemed to take a part of
him with them.
George hurried back to the garage to paw through the garbage can and found the
agates scattered among the bags of garbage. But he couldn't find the
soapstone--his most precious rock.
This time, the red tide rose like a tsunami, and he knew he had to contain it
before it completely engulfed him and swept away his spirit. Then what would
his poor body do? George supposed it might die, but he rather thought his body
would continue walking about. It would be a robot in spongy flesh with eyes
that blinked and a mouth that opened and shut mechanically. However, the man