"Thomas A. Easton - When life hands you a Lemming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

I hadn't known, and I said so.
"Ayuh." He had used to smile almost all the time. Now he looked like he didn't know how. He reminded
me strongly of his father. I wished we genetic engineers had been able to come up with a real cure for
cancer.

Uncomfortable, I said, "I'd like some bait."

"Mackerel ain't runnin'," he told me. "Bluefish neither. Ain't seen either of 'em for a year."

"How about flounder?"

He looked over his counter at Amy. She, only eight, smiled up at him. One hand held her fishing rod at
attention beside her.

"Might be a few," he said. "Try that float." He pointed to the farthest one in the chain. A two-masted
sailboat was tied up to it. "That windjammer dumped a load of garbage this morning." He shook his head,
and then he sold us a plastic cup full of mussel meat. I also bought a bag of Potster Chips for Amy to
munch on.

I gave the bait to Amy and sent her down the line of floats to try her luck. I stayed on the dock to survey
the familiar scene. The waterfront was quiet in its senescence, old paint-peeling buildings as decrepit now
as they had been for years, though once they had been a chicken processor, a cannery, a shoe plant, a
.... The town had been dying for decades, though it managed to show surprising signs of life from time to
time. The old boat shop to the left was actually busy, with the girderwork of what seemed to be an
addition to the shop under construction. On the other hand, the two men sitting on a bench not far from
me seemed far more typical. I knew them, and eventually I found a seat nearby, where I could both see
my daughter and watch them work.

They were repairing ancient lobster traps for the tourist trade. I watched as they braced the traps
between their legs to remove punky, broken slats and install new ones, carefully weathered but still
sound. They were also installing new twine funnels and bait bags. I wondered in what field these traps
had been mouldering. Wire traps had replaced wooden ones before I was born.

I knew them both. Clem, the one in faded overalls, had been a farmer the last I heard; I supposed he still
was, though the grey bristles on his cheeks made me wonder whether he had sold the farm and retired.
Alf, just as bristly, wore a yellow slicker and high rubber boots. He had hung around the dock in that
costume every summer, all summer, rain or shine, for as many years as I could remember. I had once
heard him say that it was just in case some tourist wanted to take a picture of a gen-yoo-ine
Down-Easter.

Clem looked at me when I sat down. "Hiyah, Cal," he said. "Ain't seen you for awhile."

"Been workin' up to Boston." I dropped into the speech rhythms of my childhood without thinking.

Alf laughed. "Turned into an out-a-stater yet?"

I smiled back at him. "Feel like one sometimes."

"Your girl won't catch much." Clem pointed at Amy with his hammer.