"Bukowski, Charles - Ham On Rye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bukowski Charles)

My father always ran the neighborhood kids away from our house. I was told not to play with them but I walked down the street and watched them anyhow.
"Hey, Heinie!" they yelled, "Why don't you go back to Germany?"
Somehow they had found out about my birthplace. The worst thing was that they were all about my age and they not only hung together because they lived in the same neighborhood but because they went to the same Catholic school. They were tough kids, they played tackle football for hours and almost every day a couple of them got into a fist fight. The four main guys were Chuck, Eddie, Gene and Frank.
"Hey, Heinie, go back to Krautland!"
There was no getting in with them . . .


Then a red-headed kid moved in next door to Chuck. He went to some kind of special school. I was sitting on the curb one day when he came out of his house. He sat on the curb next to me. "Hi, my name's Red."
"1m Henry."
We sat there and watched the guys play football. I looked at Red.
"How come you got a glove on your left hand?" I asked.
"I've only got one arm," he said.
"That hand looks real."
"It's fake. It's a fake arm. Touch it."
"What?"
"Touch it. It's fake."
I felt it. It was hard, rock hard.
"How'd that happen?"
"I was born that way. The arm's fake all the way up to the elbow. I've got to strap it on. I've got little fingers at the end of my elbow, fingernails and all, but the fingers aren't any good."
"You got any friends?" I asked.
"No."
"Me neither."
"Those guys won't play with you?"
"No."
"I got a football."
"Can you catch it?"
"Straight shit," said Red.
"Go get it."
"O.K.. .."
Red went back to his father's garage and came out with a football. He tossed it to me. Then he backed across his front lawn.
"Go on, throw it . . ."
I let it go. His good arm came around and his bad arm came around and he caught it. The arm made a slight squeaking sound as he caught the football.
"Nice catch," I said. "Now wing me one!"
He cocked his arm and let it fly; it came like a bullet and I managed to hold onto it as it dug into my stomach.
"You're standing too close," I told him. "Step back some more."
At last, I thought, some practice catching and throwing. It felt real good.
Then I was the quarterback. I rolled back, straight-armed an invisible tackier, and let go a spiral fly. It fell short. Red ran forward, leaped, caught the ball, rolled over three or four times and still held onto it.
"You're good, Red. How'd you get so good?"
"My father taught me. We practice a lot."
Then Red walked back and let one sail. It looked to be over my head as I ran back for it. There was a hedge between Red's house and Chuck's house and I fell into the hedge going for the ball. The ball hit the top of the hedge and bounced over. I went around to Chuck's yard to get the ball. Chuck passed the ball to me. "So you got yourself a freak friend, hey, Heinie?"


It was a couple of days later and Red and I were on his front lawn passing and kicking the football. Chuck and his friends weren't around. Red and I were getting better and better. Practice, that's all it took. All a guy needed was a chance. Somebody was always controlling who got a chance and who didn't.
I caught one over the shoulder, whirled and winged it back to Red who leaped high and came down with it. Maybe some day we'd play for U.S.C. Then I saw five boys walking down the sidewalk toward us. They weren't guys from my grammar school. They were our age and looked like trouble. Red and I kept throwing the ball and they stood watching us. Then one of the guys stepped onto the lawn. The biggest.
"Throw me the ball," he said to Red.
"Why?"
"I wanna see if I can catch it."
"I don't care if you can catch it or not."
"Throw me the ball!"
"He's got one arm," I said. "Leave him alone."