"Effinger, George Alec - Maureen Birnbaum 03 - Maureen Birnbaum at the Looming Awfulness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Effinger George Alec)

which was in my right cup, wouldn't do me any good in 1966. I don't know if they
even had BankAmericards back then.

Good old Pammy, I thought, how long it had been since I'd seen her. Oh my Gawd,
Bitsy, I just thought that she probably still hasn't finished paying off my
shopping duel with that hard-bitten bitch, Maid Marian.

I could only hope that my family was proud of me.

Well, I was now clothed appropriately for New Haven -- or I thought I was, until
I stepped out into the in-like-a-lion March wind. It was pretty damn cold,
Bitsy. Whatever my exploit was going to be, I was just about certain that I
could use a good Republican cloth coat. Not that I'm necessarily a Republican --
I am chiefly nonpartisan in my politics, preferring to remain available to come
to the aid of anyone in need regardless of race, ethnic origin, religion, or
creed. It's just that here I was, back in 1966, and like Nixon wasn't even
President yet, but he reminded me of that cloth coat comment and how he wouldn't
give the goddamn dog back. History was really redundant the second time around.

I decided to book it over to the Yale Co-op, like totally forgetting that I was
stuck temporarily in the dim, dark ages before Yale admitted female
undergraduates, and the selection of women's merchandise was going to be minimal
at best. Nevertheless, I got myself a mildly wildly colored ski jacket that I'd
just have to be satisfied with and a sterling silver circle pin, which I'd
forgotten to buy for my shirtdress at Ann Taylor's.

Then, it happened.

What was it, I hear you go in your shocked and like breathless voice. Yes, it
was eerie and dreadful in the most total extreme, a nightmarish confrontation
that made my blood run as cold as that time when I thought I'd gotten, you know,
PG from French-kissing that crispo dude from Waite Hoyt Junior High. Sure,
Bitsy, now you can look back on that and laugh, but what I witnessed in the Yale
Co-op near the vinyl record section was too demented and ichorous and fiendish
to ever pry a giggle from me.

It was that guy, that Rod Marquand.

Now don't go all ignorant on me. You remember him very well. He was the one who
appeared suddenly while I was being held captive by that talking ape-monster,
Yag-Nash. Rod had that submarine sort of thing that traveled through solid rock.
His problem was that he was more interested in like fighting crime than in
wrestling with me, and I guess I stormed out of his company in a well-rehearsed
huff.

So, the question immediately presents itself for asking, what was Rod Marquand,
boy-inventor extraordinaire, doing at the Yale Co-op twenty full years before
our encounter at the center of the Earth, and looking exactly the same as he had
then!