Читать «Infinite jest» онлайн - страница 919

She wasn’t dumb — she figured it was likely that they’d let her loose just to see where she’d go.

She went home. She went to the House. She got one of the last trains before they closed the T, probably. It took forever to get from Comm. Ave. down to Enfield Marine in her clogs and skirt in the snow, and melt soaked the veil and made it adhere to the features below. She’d been close to removing the veil to get away from the outside-linebacker of a federal lady anyway. She looked now just like a linen-pale version of what she really looked like. But there was no one about in the snow. She figured if she could speak with Pat M. Pat M. might be prevailed upon to put her in quarantine with Clenette and Yolanda, not let in no law. She could tell Pat about the wheelchairs, try to convince her to dismantle the ramp. The visibility was so bad she didn’t see it til she cleared the Shed, the Middlesex County Sheriff’s car, fiercely snow-tired, lights going bluely, parked idling in the roadlet outside the ramp, wipers on Occasional, a uniform at the wheel absently feeling his face.

He says ‘I’m Mikey, alcoholic and addict and a sick fuck, you know what I’m saying?’

And they laugh and shout out ‘You definitely are’ as he stands there rocking the podium slightly, blurred a bit through the linen, smearing one side of his face with a laborer’s hand as he tries to think what to say. It’s another of these round-robin-speaker deals, each speaker picking the next from the smoky lunchtime crowd, jogging up to the fiberboard podium trying to think what to say, and how, for the five minutes each is allotted. The chairperson at the table up by the podium has a clock and a novelty-shop gong.

‘Well,’ he says, “well so I seen some of the old Mikey come back out yesterday, you know what I’m saying? Fucking scared me to see it. What it was, I was going to take my kid down to the lanes and bowl a couple. With my kid. Who he just got the cast off. So I’m all happy and whatnot, got the day off, see the kid. Quality sober time with the kid. So on and so forth. So I’m all on the happy wagon and like that, about seeing the kid, you know what I’m saying? So, what, so I call up my cunt of a sister. He’s living back with them, with Ma and my sister, so I’m calling up my sister to see can I come get the kid at such-and-such time and whatnot. Because you know how the judge said I got to get one of them’s fucking consent to even see my kid. You know what I’m saying? Because of the restraining order on the old Mikey, from before. I got to get their permission. And I, what, accept that, I say OK, so I’m calling up all accepting and on the happy wagon for my sister to consent, and she out of the goodness of her heart she makes me wait while she says she’s got to check it with Ma. And they consent, finally. And I, what, accept that, you know what I’m saying? And I say I was going to be there at such-and-such time and whatnot, and my sister says ain’t I even going to say thank you? Like with the attitude, you know what I’m saying? And I say ‘t the fuck, what, you want a fucking medal for letting me see my own kid? And the cunt hangs up on me. Oh. Fucking oh. Ever since the judge with the order, it’s with the attitude over there, the cunt and Ma both. So after she just hangs up on me a little of the old Mikey I think starts to come out and I go over there and yes all right I got to be honest I do I park on the grass of their fucking lawn, and I go up and go up and I see her and I’m like Fuck you you cunt, and Ma’s in the hall behind her in the door, I go Fucking hang up on me why don’t you, you should go for some fucking counselling you know what I’m saying? And they don’t neither one of them like that verbal comment too much, right? The cunt almost starts laughing and goes, like, I’m telling her to go for counseling?’