"James Patrick Kelly - Candy Art" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

For a few blessed ticks just after Mom releases control of the facial arma-ture, the puppet is an inert
thing, about as threatening as a lamp. I savor my four, three, two, one of sanity as the throne reloads
Dad's kernel into the puppet's memory. Dad always comes up in a bad mood. He hates it that Mom
leaves her wig and makeup on. She doesn't mind taking off clothes be-fore the swap; their puppet has
neither primary nor secondary sexual char-acteristics. But she can't stand to strip her face before she
goes down.
"God damn it!" Dad grabs a handful of twinkling, gunmetal hair and yanks. The wig comes away
with a loud scri-itch. "How did the Celtics do last night?"
"Lost," says Mel, who is spooning bananarama crunch and milk from a bowl. "173-142."
Dad tosses the wig over his shoulder. It flops onto the floor near the re-frigerator and then scuttles
up the wall to its place on the shelf beside the memory throne, shaking off the dust like a dog. "How
about Microsoft?"
Mel taps at the kitchen table; its phosphors paint his fingertips in pale, blue light. "Up two and an
eighth."
Dad grunts approval. "Now there's a Christmas present for you." He push-es off the throne but then
totters.
"Easy, Dad," I say. "Just sit a couple of minutes, get your bearings."
"Ten hours, Jennifer. It's not like I have time to waste." He turns to catch himself on the kitchen sink,
runs hot water over his outstretched hands and then scrubs Mom's blush from his face.
"Dad!" I say. "How many times do I have to ask you?" He's splashing all over the floor. "Would you
please take it to the bathroom?"
"What the hell is she going for here?" Dad peers at the skin tint dripping through his fingers. "I've
seen better looking Kool Aid."
Mel perks up. "You've seen real Kool Aid?"
Dad gives Mel a look that says something like I may be dead, but I still can beat manners into
the likes of you, fat boy. But it bounces off, because Mel isn't being sarcastic. He'd actually love to talk
Kool Aid with Dad. "What's that you're eating?"
"They're dry-roasted cocoa beans," says Mel, "hand-dipped in a nutriceutical banana slurry spiced
with nutmeg and clove."
"Mel is submitting product to Bright O'Morn and Kelloggs." I stoop to wipe up Dad's spills before
he slips on them. "Fortified sugar-free confec-tions are just as nutritious as frosted flakes."
Dad sniffs. "Candy for breakfast?" If Mel developed the gumdrop that cured throat cancer, Dad
would find a way to disapprove of it.
"Right. But I told you all this yesterday." Sometimes I wonder whether they installed my parents'
kernels backward. "Remember?"
"Which reminds me..." Mel pushes back from the table. "I'm off." He gives me a kiss on the cheek
that's as dry as a roasted cocoa bean. "I'll call as soon as the samples arrive." This is as intimate as we've
been since my parents arrived. It's hard enough to get Mel interested in real sex at the best of times,
impossible when my mother comes staggering home at all hours, then retreats to the guest room to watch
A Christmas Carol for the ten thousandth time or listen to Bing Crosby gargle "Silent Night." "I'm
hop-ing I can set up the taste test for around two, but I'll call." He nods goodbye at my father and
waddles through the door to freedom as fast as his stumpy legs will take him.
"He's stopping by the greenhouse this afternoon," I say. "He never shows a new food design until I
taste it first."
Dad settles into Mel's chair and squints at the box of bananarama. "You call this stuff food?"
Actually, I've never been a fan of reconstituted fruit, but I'm not going to offer Dad a chance to
criticize my boyfriend. "It's nutritionally complete," I say. "If you were stranded on a desert island with a
boatload of bananara-ma, you'd never starve."
"Desert island." He makes a lemon face and tries to refill the bowl Mel left behind. Most of the