"Daniel da Cruz - Texas Trilogy 01 - The Ayes of Texas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Da Cruz Daniel)

do, nigger?"
Otis Creech's smile faded. "Now, listen here, white boy, if you and I is going to talk, you better
think of something better to call me than 'nigger.' I may be a nigger to you, but the only name I
answer to is Creech." He looked hard into Forte's angry eyes. Forte just stared back at him. "As
for what you can do-well, you may not be able to run a hundred-yard dash, or do card tricks, but
you can do about anything else you put your mind to."
"What the hell do you know, nigger?"
"That's Creech."
"That's nigger."
"Well, have it your own way." Creech got up and started to walk away, limping heavily on his
wooden leg.
"What do you know about me?" Forte's voice fol-lowed him.
Creech paused. He didn't hear the magic word. He turned back to the bed. "Don't know anything
about you, boy, except that-"
"Don't call me 'boy,' nigger."
Creech smiled, showing a lot of tobacco-stained teeth. "Make me a deal."
Gwillam Forte glared stubbornly at the bed sheets. "Okay," he said finally. "What do you think you
know about me?"
The black man remained silent.
". . . Creech?"
Creech smiled. "Why, not a damned thing, Forte, except that you got two legs and a hand off, and
think the world's come to an end."
"That makes me lucky?"
"You're lucky, all right," Creech said with convic-tion.
"Then listen to this . . ."
Gwillam Forte told Creech the story of his life, what he could remember of it. He told it fluently and
well, with a good choice of word and incident. It was some-thing he had recited many times,
although this was the first time anybody had heard it beside himself. It was a litany he had
composed, and edited, and committed to memory, and told to himself, over and over. If no-body
else was going to feel sorry for him, at least he could feel sorry for himself. It wasn't a very long
story, considering that it covered his entire seventeen years, but it made up for its brevity by the
depressing uniformity, of its hardships, disappointments, frustra-tions, and pain.
"Call that lucky, Creech?" he said bitterly when he finished the morbid tale.
"About the saddest story I ever did hear," Creech admitted. "You sure has had it tough."
"Lucky, huh?"
Creech shook his head.
"Where's all that luck you was talking about, Creech?" he goaded the black man.
"Oh, it ain't gone no place. I never said you didn't have a sad life. All I said was, you're lucky. Now."
"How do you figure that?"
"Well, now, let's look at a young man just starting out in life. He's got a few goals if he's any kind of
man. One of them is to serve his country if his country needs him, and to serve it honorably. Well,
Forte, you've done that, and you've lived to tell about it, which is more than a couple of million
other men did these past few years. Okay. Then he's got to make friends, because you can
maybe go through life without friends, but who wants to? You've got a whole ward full of friends
right here, if you want them. Then there's the business of making yourself a living, finding security.
I know a lot of postal clerks and farmers and truck drivers who work their butts off for forty years,
and at the end, what have they got? Debts, is what. They retire on seventy bucks a month from
some damned insurance company they've been supporting all their lives, and they die like they
been living-like dogs. You-you got any debts? No, sirree. You don't owe nobody nothing. You got
security. You don't ever have to move from this hospital bed if you don't want to. Three squares a