"Leslie What - Designated Hater" - читать интересную книгу автора (What Leslie)

DESIGNATED HATER
By Leslie What

Leslie What made her first appearance in F&SF last month with her short
story. “Clinging to a Thread.” Her second story is quite different.

Leslie wrote “Designated Hater” after a man driving a pickup followed her
home one night. “I didn’t want him to know where I lived,” she writes, “so I pulled
into a stranger’s driveway and told my kids to crouch down and hide, hoping he’d
pass without seeing us. At the time, I wished these was something I could do to him.
Maybe that’s the beauty of fiction.”

****

GO AHEAD, ADMIT IT. NOW and then you think about getting even. Like a
month ago, walking back to work after a picnic in the park, your shoes shined, your
fingertips smelling of sliced oranges. You planned to ask the new production
manager to dinner. Only one block to go when you stepped in warm dog droppings.
You spent the rest of the day with your nose wrinkled up, trying to avoid an odor so
rank it made you want to puke, unable to stop tracking the scent.

Stupid dog owners, who let their dogs shit on the sidewalk — where it melts
under the sun like bubble gum — instead of on their own constipated lawns. There it
could have sat like wet toadstools for them to step on, making it their problem
instead of yours. You don’t have a dog, and it pisses you off that dog owners never
seem to step in crap.

Remember:

The weekend when you were late to pick up the kids from your ex’s. You
stopped at the grocery for a carton of milk, a loaf of bread, and a couple of cans of
tuna. The express lane was closed, so you waited, telling yourself it only felt like the
line was moving slower than committing suicide by slit wrists. Then a checker
tapped you on the shoulder and said, “I’m open over here.” You left your place in
line to follow him to another register.

That checker couldn’t figure out how to open his machine; when he did,
someone sidled up to the other end of the counter, the freedom side, demanding that
he count their bottles before they did their shopping. The checker pegged you as
reasonable and said, “This will just take a second.”

It took five minutes because of a slight discrepancy in the bottle count.
Meanwhile the checkers ballpoint pen stopped working; he asked to borrow yours to
scribble some numbers on his pad. An agreement was finally reached and the
checker opened his register. He took his sweet time rooting around the drawer for
change. Another checker leaned over to ask for a price check on baby lima beans.
By the time your checker got back to you, you were steamed. Your ex was going to
give you grief for being late again and you said, “I don’t need this shit!” You tipped
over the milk carton, grabbed the ballpoint you knew wasn’t yours, and stormed
from the store, swearing you’d never shop there again. You were pissed and getting