"Dick, Phillip - 1987 - Mary And The Giant" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

"So they call this a town," Max said. Gunning the engine, he swung the car into a right turn. "Town here? Over here? Make up your mind."
"Drive through the business section."
The business section was divided into two parts. One part, oriented around the highway and its passing traffic, seemed to be mostly drive-ins and filling stations and roadside taverns. The second part was the hub of the town; and it was into that area the Dodge now moved. Joseph Schilling, his arm resting on the sill of the open window, gazed out, watchful and absorbed, gratified by the presence of people and stores, gratified that the open country was temporarily past.
"Not bad," Max admitted, as a bakery, a pottery and notion shop, a modern creamery, and then a flower shop went by. Next came a book shop-Spanish adobe in style-and after that a procession of California ranch-style homes. Presently the homes fell behind; a gas station appeared and they were back on the state highway.
"Stop here," Schilling instructed.
It was a simple white building with a painted sign that flapped in the afternoon wind. A Negro had already risen from a canvas deck chair, put down his magazine, and was coming over. He wore a starched uniform with the word Bill stitched across it.
"Bill's Car Wash," Max said as he put on the parking brake. "Let's get out; I have to take a leak."
Stiffly, with fatigue, Joseph Schilling opened the car door and stepped onto the asphalt. In getting out he was obliged to crowd past the packages and boxes that filled the back of the car; a pasteboard carton bounced onto the running board and he bent laboriously to catch it. Meanwhile, the Negro had approached Max and was greeting him.
"Right away. Put it right through, sir. Already call' my assistant; he over getting a Coke."
Joseph Schilling, exercising his legs and rubbing his hands, began walking around. The air smelled good; hot as it was it lacked the stuffy closeness of the car. He got out a cigar, clipped off the end, and lit up. He was breathing dark blue smoke here and there when the Negro approached.
"He working on it right now," the Negro said. The Dodge, pushed bodily into the wash, had half-disappeared into the billows of soap and hot water.
"Don't you do it?" Schilling asked. "Oh, I see; you're the engineer."
"I'm in charge. I own the car wash."
The door of the men's room was open; inside, Max was gratefully urinating and muttering.
"How far is San Francisco from here?" Schilling asked the Negro.
"Oh, fifty miles, sir."
"Too far to commute."
"Oh, they commute, some of them. But this no suburb; this a complete town." He indicated the hills. "A lot of retired people, they come here because of the climate. They settle; they stay." He tapped his chest. "Nice dry air."
Clouds of high school students roamed along the sidewalks, across the lawn of the fire station, gathering at the windows of the drive-in on the far side of the street. One pretty little girl in a red sweater held Schilling's attention as she stood sipping from a pasteboard cup, her eyes large and vacant, her black hair fluttering. He watched until she noticed him and ducked defensively away.
"Are those all high school children?" he asked Bill. "Some of them look older."
"They high school students," the Negro assured him with civic authority. "It just three o'clock."
"The sun," Schilling said, making a small joke. "You have sun most of the year ... it ripens everything faster."
"Yes, crops here all year round. Apricots, walnuts, pears, rice. It nice here."
"Is it? You like it?"
"Very much." The Negro nodded. "During the war I live down in Los Angeles. I work in a airplane factory. I ride to work on the bus." He grimaced. "Shee-oot."
"And now you're in business for yourself."
"I got tired. I live a lot of different places and then I come here. All during the war I save for the car wash. It make me feel good. Living here make me feel good. can sort of rest."
"You're accepted here?"
"There a colored section. But that good enough; that about all you can expect. At least nobody ever say I can't come and live. You know."
"I know," Schilling said, deep in thought.
"So it better here."
"Yes," Schilling agreed. "It is. Much better."
Across the street the girl had finished her soft drink; crumpling the cup, she dropped it into the gutter and then strolled off with friends. Joseph Schilling was looking after her when Max emerged from the men's room, blinking in the sunlight and buttoning his trousers.
"Hey, hey," Max said warningly, seeing the expression on his face. "I know that look."
With a guilty start, Schilling said, "That's an exceptionally lovely girl."
"But none of your business."
Returning to the Negro, Schilling said, "What's a good place to walk? Up toward the hills?"
"There a couple of parks. One of them just down there; you could walk over. It small, but it shady." He pointed the direction, glad to be helpful, glad to be of service to the large, well-dressed white gentleman.
The large, well-dressed white gentleman looked about him, his cigar between his fingers. His eyes moved in such a way that the Negro knew he was seeing past the car wash and the Foster's Freeze drive-in; he was seeing out over the town. He was seeing the residential section of estates and mansions. He was seeing the slum section, the tumbledown hotel and cigar store. He was seeing the fire station and high school and modern shops. In his eyes it was all there, as if he had caught hold of it just by looking at it.
And it seemed to the Negro that the white gentleman had traveled a long way to reach this one town. He had not come from nearby; he had not even come from the East. Perhaps he had come all across the world; perhaps he had always been coming, moving along, from place to place. It was his cigar: it smelled foreign. It wasn't made in America; it came from outside. The white gentleman stood there, giving off a foreign smell, from his cigar, his tired tweed suit, his English shoes, his French cuffs made of gold and linen. Probably his silver cigar cutter came from Sweden. Probably he drank Spanish sherry. He was a man of and from the world.
When he came, when he drove his big black Dodge up onto the lot, it was not merely himself that he brought. He was much bigger than that. He was so immense that he towered over everything, even as he stood bending and listening, even as he stood smoking his cigar. The Negro had never seen a face so far up; it was so far that it had no look, no expression. It had neither kindness nor meanness; it was simply a face, an endless face high above him, with its smoking, billowing cigar, spreading out the whole world around him and his assistant. Bringing the whole outside universe into the little California town of Pacific Park.


Leisurely, Joseph Schilling walked along the gravel path, his hands in his pockets, enjoying the activity around him. At a pond children were feeding bread to a plump duck. In the center of the park was a bandstand, deserted. Old men sat here and there, and young, full-breasted mothers. The trees were pepper and eucalyptus, and they were extremely shady.
"Bums," Max said, trailing behind him and wiping his perspiring face with a pocket handkerchief. "Where are we going?"
"Nowhere," Schilling said.
"You're going to talk to somebody. You're going to sit down and talk to one of these bums. You'll talk to anybody-you talked to that coon."
"I've fairly well made up my mind," Schilling said. "You have? About what?"
"We'll locate here."
"Why?" Max demanded. "Because of this park? There's one like it in every town up and down-"