"FWLS52" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

The scruffy guy pointed to his watch, spinning his finger in
a clockwise motion. He grinned.

"On break then, huh? Same club tonight, yeah?"

"Hey, yo, who this?" the knife guy asked. "Why's he talking
funny like that?"

"What? He ain't talkin' funny, he's talkin' :). Man, ain't
you heard of :)?"

"'Smiley'?" the knife guy asked, confused.

"Naw, man, :), from the top of the throat. :). It's a
dialect or something he made... :)ese. Suprised you ain't heard
of it."

"Smiley. Smiiiillieee... ::))))?"

"Close, yeah. Anyway, you never heard his standup act?
This guy is the fuckin' KING of comedy, man. Regular laugh riot.
Hey, let's do this chick over with and go see his show later
tonight, whaddya say?"

:) shook his head, putting an arm around my shoulders and
pulling me over to him in a friendly way. (First instinct was to
rip the arm off, but hey, violence isn't any good.) He pointed
to the two of us, grinning.

"Oh, she's with you?" the leader said. "Whoa. Okay, we'll
leave her. Sorry about that, man, no offense, right? If I had
known she and the :) were paired up, I wouldn't have jumped her
like that."

:) shrugged, smiling away. He clearly didn't hold any hard
feelings towards the punks. "C U l8r, AK?"

"Yeah, man, later. Come on, guys, I hear there's some
pricks over southside edging on our territory. Let's go."

With that, the gang members left.

"You're... a comedian?" I asked, carefully wiggling away
from his embrace.

:) nodded, taking a quick puff on the cigarette. He grabbed
an imaginary microphone and made silly arm gestures.

"But... how can anybody get the jokes?"