"Jack Dann - Voices" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dann Jack)

I admitted that maybe I saw something that was a little weird, but it was
probably just in my head. That bent Crocker all out of shape; he seemed happier
than a kid with a box of Ju Ju Bees, and I got worried that he'd shoot off his
mouth to everyone he saw.

I warned him about that.

"Give me a break," he said. "It's enough that the guys in the club think of me
as some sort of asshole as it is. You're the only one I feel I can talk to and
I don't even really know you."

"Okay," I said, worried that maybe there was something wrong with me. Why else
would Crocker feel that way? It also worried me that first I saw the dead guy
glowing like my aunt's Sylvania Halolight TV, and then I saw his soul (or
whatever it was) pass right out of him, leaving nothing but a body that was more
like a statue or something made of plaster of Paris. But I put those thoughts
away and asked, "What did the guy say?"

"His name is Matt ... remember? He said he was scared out of his gourd until he
found his grandmother."

"What?"

"His grandmother's dead. She'll show him around."

"Around where?"

"How the hell should I know?" Crocker said. "Heaven, probably."

"You gotta be kidding." I couldn't help but laugh. "You're making that stuff
up." But somehow I really wanted to believe it.

"I thought you said you saw something," Crocker said, hanging his head. "And I
believed you.... I wanted to know what you saw-"

"I said I thought I saw something." I punched him hard on the arm to make him
feel better. "And it wasn't nothing but a glowing like a TV tube when you turn
it off."

"I never saw that."
"Now tell me, what else did Matt say?" I asked.

"He hates Bill Haley, but we got Jackie Wilson right."

"Uh-huh," I said.

"Well, that's what I thought I heard," Crocker said.

"Why'd you say, 'Cool'?" I asked.