"Chalker, Jack L - G.O.D. Inc 2 - The Shadow Dancers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

that I was the one thing Daddy loved as much as that agency. We got by, but then
Ma died young-she always had a real blood pressure problem and never did much
take them pills-and he had the agency and me and the agency was the money for us
to live. I dunno, I guess maybe I wanted all his attention and got very little,
since he was in and out at all hours and I had to be pretty much on my own. I
got to be somethin' of a wild child, runnin' with a bad pack, never carin' 'bout
school or the future or nothin', just blowin' reefer and drinkin' booze and
gettin' into lots of trouble. Just about the only thing I really paid attention
to was makin' sure Daddy didn't know-we used to steal blank report cards and
fill 'em out real convincing-like, and I could always come up with the right
answers for his questions. I guess now I was rebelling against him in a way, and
maybe against the whole world as I saw it, but I didn't see no future and no
purpose to nothin'. Lost my virginity real young, too; when I finally got
knocked up good, I stole some stuff from a store and hocked it for enough to get
an abortion. It weren't no easy thing to do, but there was no way to keep a baby
from Daddy's knowin', and that settled that.
That kind of neighborhood you was always around users and dealers, pimps and
whores, and they weren't no creatures of evil and sin to me. I knew 'em by their
first names, and they knew me. To a kid like me, they were romantic kinds of
figures, and if nothin' else they was the only black folks who seemed to me to
be makin' it. I'd slept around so much by the time I was sixteen that all my
fantasies were about bein' a hooker. Dress up real sexy-like, and have the dudes
pay you to get laid. Easy money, easy work. Only who my Daddy was kept me from
either joinin' up with a string or bein' taken in by a pimp. Ain't no way no
pimp in that part of town wanted the Colonel as an enemy.
Finally, of course, Daddy found out about it. Had to, sooner or later. We had
one big hell of a scene, and for the first and only time in his life he actually
beat me good, and I was ready to pack up, run away, and go to some other city
like New York and sell myself on the streets, but I got so mad I came out first
to tell him, knowin' it would hurt him, and I couldn't find him at first. Then I
figured he was in the bedroom, and he was, only I didn't go in or show myself
and my bad mad just kinda faded out.
He was cryin'. Colonel Harold Parker, U.S.A. (Ret.), one of the toughest dudes
in the world, was cryin'. John Wayne woulda cried before Daddy. It must have
been the first and only time in his life he did it. This was the man who had dug
a bullet out of his own side with a knife, then driven himself twenty miles to
the hospital.
Pretty soon, I was cryin', too, and I ran into him and we held each other and
cried it out. After that, we made a deal. I didn't want to go back to school,
and he didn't want me in with that crowd no more anyway, so he agreed, though he
didn't like it, to let me come in and take over Ma's old job as the secretary,
receptionist, you name it. In exchange, when things got straightened out in the
office and we got a little ahead on the bills, I'd take some night classes, get
my G.E.D. high school equivalency, and maybe more if we could figure a way to
afford it. 'Cause I was his business manager, he'd know where I was and what I
was doin', and our free time would be our free time.
Well, I never did take to school, and I never got through eighth grade, but I
managed. I always read-Ma and Daddy had seen to that from early times, and I
kept doin' it even when the gang made fun of it-so I had a leg up on some of
them kids who have high school diplomas and straight A averages who couldn't