Читать онлайн «Tenth Commandment»

I was an only child — and so I became an only man.

My name is Joshua Bigg: a joke life played on me, as I am quite small. Five feet, three and three-eighths inches, to be precise. In a world of giants, those eighths are precious to the midget.

That was the first of fortune's tricks. There were others.

For instance, I was orphaned at the age of three months when my parents were killed in the sudden collapse of a bridge over the Skunk River near Oskaloosa, Iowa. As their pickup truck toppled, I was thrown clear and was found later lying in a clump of laurel, gurgling happily and sucking my toe.

People said it was a miracle. But of course they weren't the orphan. Years later, when Roscoe Dollworth was teaching me to be an investigator, he had something to say on the subject. He had just learned that he had a small gastric ulcer, after months of worrying about stomach cancer. Just an ulcer. Everyone told him how lucky he was.

'Luck,' Roscoe said, 'is something that happens to other people. '

I was raised by my mother's brother and his wife: Philo and Velma Washabaugh. He had an Adam's apple and she smelled of muffins. But they were dear, sweet people and gave me compassion and love. I wish I could say the same for their three sons and two daughters, all older (and taller) than I. I suppose it was natural that I should be treated as an interloper; I was never allowed to forget my diminutive size and parentless status.

My uncle owned a hardware store in Ottuma, Iowa. Not a prosperous store, but there was always sufficient food, 9

and if I was required to wear the outgrown clothing of my older and larger cousins, it seemed ungrateful to complain.

On the basis of my high school grades and financial need, I was able to obtain a scholarship to Grenfall. It was a very small scholarship to a very small liberal arts college.

During term I held a variety of jobs: waiter, movie usher, gas station attendant, tutor of football players, etc. In the summers I worked in the hardware store.

It was my ambition to become a lawyer but by the time I was graduated, Bachelor of Arts, with honours, I had realized that a law degree was beyond my means.

A short man in tall America has a choice: he may become dark, embittered, malevolent, or clever, sunny, and manic. I chose the latter, determined that neither lack of bulk nor lack of funds would prevent me from making my way in a world in which I was forced to buy my clothes in Boys' Departments.

So, packing my one good blue suit, I stood on tiptoe to kiss uncle, aunt, and cousins farewell, and took the bus to New York City to seek my fortune. I was resolutely cheerful.

My first few years in the metropolis I lived in the YMCA on 23rd Street and worked at a succession of depressing jobs: dishwasher, drugstore clerk, demonstrator of potato peelers, etc. I lived a solitary, almost desolate life. I had no friends. I spent my free hours at museums (they didn't charge admittance then) or in the public library. I have always been an omnivorous reader. Balzac, Hugo, Dumas, and Theodore Dreiser are my favourite authors. I also enjoy reading history, biography, and novels in which the law plays an important part, as in Dickens.