"Paul Di Filippo - Jack Neck and the Worry Bird" - читать интересную книгу автора (Di Filippo Paul)

"Gladly, you old plank-ass!" Diverting as the perpetual Motorball Tourneys on television were, Jack
relished simple human intercourse. So while Motherway chased six-legged squirrels (all four of the
mature bonedog's feet an inch or two off the ground; only bonedog pups could get much higher), Jack
and Dirty Bill would confab the droogly minutes away.

After his supper each night--commonly a pot of slush-slumgullion or a frozen precooked bluefish fillet
heated in the hellbox, whichever being washed down with a tankard of Smith's Durian Essence--Jack
would leave Motherway behind to lick doggy balls and umbilical while the bonedog's master made his
visit to Boris Crocodile's. There on his reserved barstool, while empty-eyed Nori Nougat danced the
latest fandango or barcarole with beetle-browed Zack Zither, Jack Neck would nod his own
disproportionate head in time to the querulous squeegeeing of Stinky Frankie Konk and affirm to all who
would pay any heed to the elderly GGGB-er, "Yessir, assuming you can get through the rough spots, life
can turn out mighty sweet!"

But all that, of course, was before the advent of the Worrybird.

That fateful morning dawned nasty, low-hanging hieratic skies and burnt-toast clouds, an ugly odor like
all the rain-drenched lost stuffed-toys of childhood seeping in from the streets. Upon opening first his
good left eye, then his bad right ('twasn't the eye itself that was dodgy, but only the nacreous
cheek-carbuncle below it that was smooshing the orb closed), Jack Neck experienced a ripe intestinal
feeling telling him he should stay in bed. Just huddle up 'neath his checkerboard marshmallow quilt,
leaving his beleathered feet safe in the grooves they had worn in the milkweed-stuffed mattress. Yes, that
seemed just the safest course on a day like today, so pawky and slyboots.

But the allure of the common comforts awaiting him proved stronger than his intuition. Why, today was a
Motorball matchup made in heaven! The Chlorine Castigators versus Dame Middlecamp's Prancers!
And then there was Motherway to be walked, Dirty Bill's dishy yatterings, that Dinky-Pachinko-poured
tot of dumble-rum to welcome midnight in. Surely nothing mingy nor mulcting would befall him, if he kept
to his established paths and habits....

So out of his splavined cot old bunion-rumped Jack Neck poured himself, heavy hump leading Lady
Gravity in an awkward pavane. Once standing, with minor exertions Jack managed to hitch his hump
around, behind and upward to a less unaccomodatingly exigent position. Then he essayed the palpable
trail midst the debris of his domicile that led to the bathroom.

As soon as Jack entered the WC, he knew his vague forebodings had been spot on. But it was now too
late to return to the safety of his blankets. For Jack saw with dismay that out of his chipped granite
commode, like a baleful excremental spirit, there arose a Smoking Toilet Puppet.

The rugose figure was composed of an elongated mud-colored torso, sprouting two boneless and
sinuous claw-fingered arms, and topped by a rutted warpy face. The Puppet's head was crowned by a
small fumey crater, giving its kind their name.

"Ja-a-ack," wailed the Puppet. "Jack Neck! Step closer! I have a message for you."

Jack knew that although the creature might indeed have a valid and valuable delphic message for him, to
heed the Puppet's summons was to risk being abducted down to the gluck-mucky Septic Kingdom ruled
by Baron Sugarslinger. So with an uncommon burst of energy, Jack grabbed up a wood-hafted
sump-plunger and whanged the Puppet a good one on its audacious incense-dispensing bean.