"Donald Olson - The Busboy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Olson Donald)

The Busboy
by Donald Olson
Solitary people and solitary places—like the busboy of this story’s title and
his “Hideaway from the World”—often figure in Donald Olson’s work. The
upstate New York author has become one of the genre’s most prolific short
story writers. He is also a frequent contributor of articles on the craft of
writing to publications such as Writer’s Digest Books.
****
Until he found the wallet his life had been a string of short-lived jobs, menial
and unrewarding: gas-station attendant, dishwasher, whatever came along to pay for
a place to live and the basic necessities, including an ancient Harley which on
Sundays he liked to ride into the countryside around Unionville.
His name, Tyler Berlinghoff, might have suggested a young man with a dash
of the debonair, with respectable well-connected family ties. Such was not the case.
Tyler Berlinghoff had no family ties, certainly not to the string of foster families who
had nurtured him with neither love nor understanding; they considered him “slow.”
He was a forgettably featured young man whose darker than brown eyes never
looked deeply into anything but what would satisfy his immediate needs or beyond
the dull daily routine that never varied. He cherished no secret dreams or immoderate
ambitions.
During the first week of that hot dry August, Tyler had been working first as a
dishwasher and then as a busboy at the Golden Griddle Cafe in downtown
Unionville. Late one morning while clearing a booth on the windowless side of the
cafe, Tyler chanced to glance down at the seat and discovered a wallet, a slim blue
leather wallet more like what a woman would carry than a man. Absently, he slipped
the wallet into his pocket underneath his apron. That he didn’t turn it in at the
counter was not with any intention of stealing it. He would never have done that.
Tyler Berlinghoff was an honest young man.
Not until he was back at his room at the Delahoy Street rooming house where
he lodged and changing from his dark work pants into the jeans he habitually wore
did he realize what he had done, or forgotten to do. He would turn the wallet in next
day. Still, he was not without curiosity. In the blue leather wallet he found
forty-seven dollars in bills and a card identifying the owner as a Ramona Lerch with
a phone number and address, 24 Stoneham Avenue Villas, and a dog-eared snapshot
of a thin-faced man with fair hair.
Would it not be proper, he reasoned, to phone the owner and let her know her
wallet had been found? Which is what he did from the pay phone downstairs in the
hall.
The phone rang at least ten times before a woman, sounding out of breath,
answered. Tyler asked for Ramona Lerch.
 “This is Ramona. Who is this?”
“My name is Tyler Berlinghoff, ma’am.” He was always politely spoken. “Did
you lose a wallet? A blue leather wallet?”
“Not that I’m aware—hold on a sec.” Another lengthy delay. “Mercy, yes. I
didn’t even know it. Where did you find it?”
“In the Golden Griddle Cafe where I work. I was going to turn it in but
thought maybe I’d better give you a call.”
“How awfully sweet. Listen, dear. I’m a virtual cripple. Would it be terribly
inconvenient for you to bring it to me? Of course I’d give you something for your
trouble.”