"Spider Robinson - Copyright Violation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

COPYRIGHT VIOLATION

I was singing along with John Lennon when she crowned me from behind: that's
how the rape began.
I don't often sing along with jukeboxes; a fellow like me can get hurt that way. It's
not just that I can't carry a tune. I seem to have one of those faces that stevedores
and bikers and truck-ers—and even the odd minister in his cups—love to punch,
just on general principles, I guess, so I tend to avoid drawing attention to myself
when I'm in a bar.
No, I'll be more honest than that. I can be honest, you see—because it's my
choice. I'll metaphorically strip myself for you, and then you'll see that it wasn't
because she raped my body that I wanted to kill her, or even my mind, but because
she raped my soul.
So, being honest: it isn't just for fear of getting punched that I make myself
inconspicu-ous in bars. Contrary to what you may have heard, there aren't that many
real bullies in the world; most men looking for a fight will leave me alone, the way a
hunter with an elephant gun will walk past a gerbil. What I'm really avoiding when I
make myself inconspicuous is pity.
I mean, look at me. Most of the people who ever have, failed to see me at all—the
eye tends to subtract me—but those who do notice usu-ally feel sorry for me. My
chin and my Adam's apple are like twin brothers in bunk beds. I got this nose. My
dad used to say that my ears made me look like a taxicab coming down the street
with the doors open. My glasses weigh more than my shoes, and my shoes weigh
more than the rest of me.
I mean, I'll bet you think a prostitute will take anybody, that any man with enough
money can get laid. It may be true. I've never had enough money. Oh, once I got a
woman to agree, for three times the going rate ... but the way she went about it, I just
couldn't do it—to her total lack of surprise. I've never really given up hope since, in
my adolescence, I first heard the term "mercy hump"—but so far, I haven't found
that much mercy in the world.
So when the jukebox clicked, and John Lennon began to tell me that he was a
loser, I just naturally chimed in on the second, "I'm a l-o-o-oser". And felt something
circular and weighty being pressed down over my head—and heard the most
beautiful voice in the world, right behind my ear, sing the next line of the song—and
spun quickly around and saw her.
Oh my, it hurt to look at her. You're a nor-mal man, friend, no doubt you've won
some and lost some but didn't you ever see one that you just knew on sight you'd
trade your home and wife and children and hope of immortality and twenty years of
your mortal life for ten minutes in bed with—and knew just as clearly that you'd
never ever get her, even at that price? God, it's a sweet pain, that is, and I know a lot
more about it than you do. Every man has in his mind an ideal of the Perfectly
Beautiful Woman—she was better looking than that, and better dressed.
"Forgive me, sir," she said.
I guess I should remember that those were the fast words she said to me—if you
don't count the song lyric. At the time I remember think-ing that I was prepared to
forgive her anything whatsoever. It shows you how wrong you can be.
 To my gratified surprise, my voice worked. "Forgive you?"
"I just couldn't help myself."
With an effort I tore my attention from a close examination of her parts and
perimeters, and tried to imagine why she could possibly feel a need to apologize to