Читать книгу Miss Lamp - Christopher Ewart - Страница 16

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Rin-Tin-Tin.

Paper Boy picked a clump of peach lipstick from his hair, scraping it away on the corner of a brick wall. The bricks smelled like rain. His boots tapped down the street toward the river, the street slowly tenderized by raindrops as big as nickels. His boots creased his toes because he forgot to pick up his socks after breaking his good straight tooth. By the time he spotted the river, the snappy byline on his forehead read LO.

Under the grey arch of the bridge, Paper Boy picked up an empty tin beside a flat rock, big and round as a table. The water stung his wrists as he scooped up fresh ripples into his tin. He drank the water down to a familiar stomach ache, then searched for his Demerol to relax the cramped muscles around his brittle sternum. Pewter-tipped-walking-stick brittle.

Not in his jacket.

Not in his pants.

Upset by the smell of peach, he writhed and wrenched the zipper of his jacket to a snag. A magpie scoured the opposite bank, picking at the shiny stones. The zipper didn’t give. The bottle opener that had freed the floss from his hands and feet dug well into his thigh but opened his jacket better than a zipper.

Paper Boy managed to rip the jacket down to his waist. His cold skin weaved in the breeze.

Chicken skin.

Lying down on the rocks, he wiggled and flopped the jacket to his knees, past his boots and off. The rain stopped. The laces of his boots came undone in a slip.

One. Two.

Tired pants rested on the table while he traipsed into the river.

It was as warm as June.

Paper Boy seethed in the river. A squeak and a sigh and the arch of the bridge above undulated in sheets of gold leaf. The crown of the sun shed its pink. He soaked his skin without rolling over onto his dirty stomach.

The water pulled him clean.

With raisins for fingertips, Paper Boy dried himself in the early sun. His elbows protruded dangerously, struggling up to coat-hanger shoulders. A dentist could fix my broken tooth, he thought, opening his eyes to sunbeams and his drinking tin. The bottle opener he left beside his pants had disappeared. So had his shredded jacket.

A familiar stomach ache.

On the opposite bank, the magpie still picked at shiny pebbles. Paper Boy saw letters on the big rock table. His raisins felt the freshly etched stone, smoothing chalky dust in syncopation with his heartbeat.

A wing flap.

Puffs of dust went away with his breath, revealing an arrow’s point. The letters read THIS WAY. On the opposite bank grew a patch of spindle trees.

In blue underwear, Paper Boy cut across the bubbling cold river. Beyond the glimmer of wet pebbles and stones, a single dirt path wound up the slope. Tall grass and bulrushes lined the way.

Paper Boy’s cheeks brushed against the trees. Robin red. On the tallest spindle tree of all, on a bold and sturdy branch, hung a jacket – well-tailored, in navy blue.