"07 - Conrad's Time Machine (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

My BMW sort of automatically took me to the Mass Pike and just as naturally
pointed west, which was fine. There isn't much east of Massachusetts that you
can get to on a bike.
Well. My motorcycle was paid for. My savings and accumulated leave added up to
just under $2,000.00. It was springtime and figured I could live for six months
without the need to reconnect myself to society. Then, maybe I'd go back and
finish my degree. Or maybe not.
The Mass Pike dumped me onto the New York Thruway and a green-and-white sign
read "RochesterЧ231 Miles."
That got me thinking about Jim Hasenpfeffer, since he was working on his Ph.D.
at the University of Rochester and this naturally got me thinking about Ian
McTavish as well.
CHAPTER TWO
An Old Friend
Actually, we never did have much in common.
Take religion.
Now, I was a defrocked altar boy whose convictions varied between my normal
atheism to militant Agnosticism when I'm argued into a corner. Militant
agnostics say that they don't know anything about God,and you don't either,
dammit !
Ian was sort of conventional about religion. He always went to church on Sunday,
but he never much talked about it. I think he was about the only Christian I'd
ever met who was capable of being polite about religion. Or at least he was
always annoyingly polite with me.
And nobody ever had the slightest idea of whatЧif anythingЧHasenpfeffer believed
in. He had this talent for sidestepping whatever he felt wouldn't be personally
rewarding.
Or take women.
I always tried like hell, but never got anywhere with them. Or even when I did
score, they usually didn't want to see me again the next day.
I'm pretty sure that Ian knew that women were necessary for the continuation of
the species, but he acted as though they were something that a rational man
shouldn't waste his time on.
Like, once I brought these two girls home because I didn't know what else to do
with them. They'd been hitchhiking in Detroit, a profoundly unsafe procedure.
They were very young, very pretty, and very stoned on God knew what. Ian was
sitting in an easy chair, reading myScientific American , when one of them
latched onto his leg. She was kneeling at his feet, babbling something about
running barefoot through the forest together, and sliding down rainbows.
Ian looked down from his article, said "Rainbows lack structural integrity," and
went back to reading. He wasn't queer. Just sort of indifferent.
Hasenpfeffer always seemed to have a woman within arm's reach. Even baching it
with us, I don't think he ever slept alone. They seemed to follow him like flies
going after shit.
Or, take politics.
Back then, I was an awfully liberal Libertarian and Ian was a conservative
Republican. I'm not sure, but I think Hasenpfeffer was pretty left wing.
Or take partying. I like to drink and sing a lot. Ian was an absolute teetotaler
about all drugs beyond coffee. And Hasenpfeffer did moderate amounts
ofeverything .