"Samuel R. Delany - Corona" - читать интересную книгу автора (Delaney Samuel R)

-suds wound on the dirty water. The water was all around him. Buddy
leaned forward and scrubbed the wire brush across the wet stone. His
canvas shoes were already soaked.

"Put your blessed knee on the floor, and I'll get you! Come on, move
your ..." Somebody, not Buddy, got kicked. "And don't let your knee
touch that floor! Don't, I say." And got kicked again.

They waddled across the prison lobby, scrubbing. There was a sign
over the elevator: Louisiana State Penal Correction Institute, but it was
hard to make out because Buddy didn't read very well.

"Keep up with 'em, kid. Don't you let 'em get ahead'n you!" Bigfoot
yelled. "Just 'cause you little, don't think you got no special privileges."
Bigfoot slopped across the stone.
"When they gonna get an automatic scrubber in here?" somebody
complained. "They got one in the county jail."

"This Institute"-Bigfoot lumbered up the line-"was built in nineteen
hundred and forty-seven! We ain't had no escape in ninety-four years.
We run it the same today as when it was builded back in nineteen
hundred and forty-seven. The first time it don't do its job right of
keepin' you all inside-then we'll think about running it different. Get on
back to work. Watch that knee!"

Buddy's thighs were sore, his insteps cramped. The balls of his feet
burned and his pants cuffs were sopping.

Bigfoot had taken off his slippers. As he patrolled the scrubbers, he
slapped the soles together, first in front of his belly, then behind his
heavy buttocks. Slap and slap. With each slap, one foot hit the soapy
stone. "Don't bother looking up at me. You look at them stones! But
don't let your knee touch the floor."

Once, in the yard latrine, someone had whispered, "Bigfoot? You
watch him, kid! Was a preacher, with a revival meeting back in the
swamp. Went down to the Emigration Office in town back when they
was taking everyone they could get and demanded they make him Pope
or something over the colony on Europa they was just setting up. They
laughed him out of the office. Sunday, when everyone came to
meeting, they found he'd sneaked into town, busted the man at the
Emigration Office over the head, dragged him out to the swamp, and
nailed him up to a cross under the meeting tent. He tried to make
everybody pray him down. After they prayed for about an hour, and
nothing happened, they brought Bigfoot here. He's a trustee now."

Buddy rubbed harder with his wire brush.

"Let's see you rub a little of the devil out'n them stones. And don't let
me see your knee touch the-"