"Eliot Fintushel - Uxo, Bomb Dog" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fintushel Eliot)

Uxo now, why I had lost him. Maybe, ripped by the same lion that had ripped me, he lay in the bush till
some kind folks found him and healed him. Could they have seen him for what he was and sold him back
to the de mining authorities in Zimbabwe? Maybe the Americans got hold of him then. Cream rises to the
top, donтАЩt it? And he winds up stateside with the de miners of the NYSLORC, the New York State Law
and Order Restoration Command. And he breaks loose of it - looking for me?

Or else the whole damn thing was a miracle. Take your pick.

I didnтАЩt hear Spot shout anymore. He must have given up on me and gone fishing, the way he liked to, by
tossing a Burmese made M 76 into the East River. A dozen kids sat around me and Uxo, some of them
practically in my lap. They nuzzled Ux nose to nose. тАЬHey, watch that shnoz, you bugs,тАЭ says I. тАЬItтАЩs a
thousand times finer than yours or mine . . . UxyтАЩs part Canaan dog, from the Pariah stock out of the
Palestine. Time was, IтАЩd give old Uxo my bunk and sleep on the floor beside him.тАЭ

тАЬWhy you call him тАШUxo?тАЩтАЭ Queenie wanted to know.

тАЬItтАЩs what heтАЩs trained to sniff,тАЭ I told her, тАЬshort for Unexploded Ordnance.тАЭ

Sonny said, тАЬSo whenтАЩs he gonna explode?тАЭ

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It was on a Green Day that Spot broached the SheepтАЩs Meadow business, a bloody Green Day when
everyoneтАЩs a damn Naderite, even the Rights and Republicans. Ever since the wars and the floods, you
canтАЩt find a soul whose family wasnтАЩt Naderite, тАЬhonest to Nader,тАЭ going back to Ur and Chaldea. The
Ludds claim him as their own; so do the humble bomb-heaving Xians, and everyone in between. No
bomb shows on Nader Day. Everybody scarfs kelp and bean curd pie courtesy of NYSLORC. They
chant passages from Unsafe at any Speed, and they listen to consumerist harangues and ecological
diatribes from some of the biggest price gougers and polluters on the surface of the earth, such as it is
nowadays. They all wear their big Nader noses. They bare their shoulders and crowd into the safe zones
for sunscreen sharing.

I believe in my Nader as deeply as the next fellow, but I wonтАЩt take part in such stuff. Spot felt the same
way, he told me. We nabbed our pie, with some extra for my Uxo, and we sneaked off to eat it in
private, which is to say, in the shade of the half finished Trade Towers, all two stories of them, the ones
they put up after the Anti-atheists blew the second World Trade Towers to hell, and that NYSLORC
abandoned as too much red ink for the city stockholders. We had a cranny we liked to sit in and gab
-bare concrete and steel with tarps sagging between the girders, but it was solitary and out of the sun.
Uxo sat off in a corner happily pulling and gnawing at a hard rubber Nader nose someone had dropped
in the gutter.

тАЬI need a little favor, Blackie boy,тАЭ says Spot. тАЬIтАЩve made me some shady acquaintances, I confess. It
was abysmal bad judgment on my part, I know it, but I was new on this island, and, well, anyway,
whatтАЩs done is done, am I right? A person has to pick himself up and . . . тАЭ

тАЬWhat kind of acquaintances do you mean, Spot?тАЭ