"Gardner Dozois - Flash Point" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

Jacobs started his truck and pulled out into the afternoon traffic. He kept his hands locked tightly
around the steering wheel. He was amazed and dismayed by the surge of murderous anger he had felt
toward Jackman; the reaction to it made him queasy, and left the muscles knotted all across his back and
shoulders. Dave was right, Abner couldn't rightly be held responsible for the dumbass things he
saidтАФBut if Jackman had said one more thing, if he'd done anything than to back down as quickly as he
had, then Jacobs would have split his head open. He had been instantly ready to do it, his hands had
curled into fists, his legs had bent slightly at the knees. He would have done it. And he would have
enjoyed it. That was a frightening realization.

Y' touchy today, he thought, inanely. His fingers were turning white on the wheel.

He drove home. Jacobs lived in a very old wood frame house above the north bank of the
Kennebec, on the outskirts of town, with nothing but a clump of new apartment buildings for senior
citizens to remind him of civilization. The house was emptyтАФCarol was teaching fourth grade, and Chris
had been farmed out to Mrs. Turner, the baby-sitter. Jacobs spent the next half hour wrestling a broken
washing machine and a television set out of the pickup and into his basement workshop, and another
fifteen minutes maneuvering a newly repaired stereo-radio console up out of the basement and into the
truck. Jacobs was one of the last of the old-style Yankee tinkerers, although he called himself an
appliance repairman, and also did some carpentry and general handywork when things got slow. He had
little formal training, but he "kept up." He wasn't sure he could fix one of the new hologram sets, but then
they wouldn't be getting out here for another twenty years anyway. There were people within fifty miles
who didn't have indoor plumbing. People within a hundred miles who didn't have electricity.

On the way to Norridgewock, two open jeeps packed dangerously full of gypsies came roaring up
behind him. They started to pass, one on each side of his truck, their horns blaring insanely. The two
jeeps ran abreast of Jacobs' old pickup for a while, making no attempt to go byтАФthe three vehicles
together filled the road. The jeeps drifted in until they were almost touching the truck, and the gypsies
began pounding the truck roof with their fists, shouting and laughing. Jacobs kept both hands on the
wheel and grimly continued to drive at his original speed. Jeeps tipped easily when sideswiped by a
heavier vehicle, if it came to that. And he had a tire-iron under the seat. But the gypsies tired of the
gameтАФthey accelerated and passed Jacobs, most of them giving him the finger as they went by, and one
throwing a poorly aimed bottle that bounced onto the shoulder. They were big, tough-looking kids with
skin haircuts, dressedтАФincongruouslyтАФin flowered pastel luau shirts and expensive white bellbottoms.

The jeeps roared on up the road, still taking up both lanes. Jacobs watched them unblinkingly until
they disappeared from sight. He was awash with rage, the same bitter, vicious hatred he had felt for
Jackman. Riddick was right after allтАФthe goddamned kids were a menace to everything that lived, they
ought to be locked up. He wished suddenly that he had sideswiped them. He could imagine it all vividly:
the sickening crunch of impact, the jeep overturning, bodies cartwheeling through the air, the jeep
skidding upside down across the road and crashing into the embankment, maybe the gas tank exploding,
a gout of flame, smoke, stink, screamsтАФHe ran through it over and over again, relishing it, until he
realized abruptly what he was doing, what he was wishing, and he was almost physically ill.

All the excitement and fury drained out of him, leaving him shaken and sick. He'd always been a
patient, peaceful man, perhaps too much so. He'd never been afraid to fight, but he'd always said that a
man who couldn't talk his way out of most trouble was a fool. This sudden daydream lust for blood
bothered him to the bottom of his soul. He'd seen plenty of death in 'Nam, and it hadn't affected him this
way. It was the kids, he told himself. They drag everybody down to their own level. He kept seeing them
inside his head all the way into NorridgewockтАФthe thick, brutal faces, the hard reptile eyes, the
contemptuously grinning mouths that seemed too full of teeth. The gypsy kids had changed over the