"Charles de Lint - Coyote Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

CHARLES De LINT

COYOTE STORIES
Four directions blow the sacred winds
We are standing at the center
Every morning wakes another chance
To make our lives a little better

-- Kiya Heartwood,
from "Wishing Well"

This day Coyote is feeling pretty thirsty, so he goes into Joey's Bar, you know,
on the comer of Palm and Grasso, across from the Men's Mission, and he lays a
nugget of gold down on the counter, but Joey he won't serve him.

"So you don't serve skins no more?" Coyote he asks him.

"Last time you gave me gold, it turned to shit on me," is what Joey says. He
points to the Rolex on Coyote's wrist. "But I'll take that. Give you change and
everything."

Coyote scratches his muzzle and pretends he has to think about it. "Cost me
twenty-five dollars," he says. "It looks better than the real thing."

"I'll give you fifteen, cash, and a beer."

"How about a bottle of whiskey?"

So Coyote comes out of Joey's Bar and he's missing his Rolex now, but he's got a
bottle of Jack in his hand and that's when he sees Albert, just around the
corner, sitting on the ground with his back against the brick wall and his legs
stuck out across the sidewalk so you have to step over them, you want to get by.

"Hey, Albert," Coyote says. "What's your problem?"

"Joey won't serve me no more."

"That because you're indigenous?"

"Naw. I got no money."

So Coyote offers him some of his whiskey. "Have yourself a swallow," he says,
feeling generous, because he only paid two dollars for the Rolex and it never
worked anyway.

"Thanks, but I don't think so," is what Albert tells him. "Seems to me I've been
given a sign. Got no money means I should stop drinking."

Coyote shakes his head and takes a sip of his Jack. "You are one crazy skin," he
says.