"Steven Gould - Peaches for Mad Molly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Stephen Jay)

She blinked twice. Her eyes were black chips of stone in a face so seamed and
browned by the sun that it was hard to tell her age. "Okay, Bruce," she said,
then stood abruptly and flung herself off the cube. She dropped maybe five
meters before her rope tightened her fall into an arc that swung her down and
around the corner.

I let out my breath. She's not called Mad Molly for nothing.

I dressed, drank the water out of my catch basin, urinated on the clouds
(seems only fair) and rolled up my bag.

Between the direct sunlight and the stuff bouncing off the clouds below the
south face was blinding. I put my shades on at the corner.

Molly's nest, like a mud dauber's, hung from an industrial exhaust vent off
the 611th floor. It was woven, sewed, tucked, patched, welded, snapped,
zipped, and

tied into creation. It looked like a wasp's nest on a piece of chrome. It did
not blend in.

Her pigeon coop, about two floors lower down, blended in even less. It was
made of paper, sheet plastic, wire, and it was speckled with pigeon droppings.
It was where it was because only a fool lives directly under under defecating
birds, and Molly, while mad, was not stupid.

Molly was crouched in the doorway of her nest balanced on her feet like one of
her pigeons. She was staring out at nothing and muttering angrily to herself.

"What's wrong, Molly? Didn't you sleep okay?"

She glared at me. "That damn Bruce got another three of my birds yesterday."

I hooked my bag onto a beaner and hung it under her house. "What Bruce, Molly?
That red tailed hawk?"

"Yeah, that Bruce. Then the other Bruce pops off last night and wakes me up so
I can't get back to sleep because I'm listening for that damn hawk. " She
backed into her nest to let me in.

"Hawks don't hunt at night, Molly."

She flapped her arms. "So? Like maybe the vicious, son-of-a-bitchin' Bruce
gets into the coop? He could kill half my birds in one night!" She started
coiling one of her ropes, pulling the line with short, angry jerks. "I don't
know if it's worth it anymore, Bruce. It's hot in the summer. It's freezing in
the winter. The Babs are always hassling me instead of the Howlers, the
Howlers keep hassling me for free birds or they'll cut me loose one night. I
can't cook on cloudy days unless I want to pay an arm and a leg for fuel. I
can't get fresh fruit or vegetables. That crazy social worker who's afraid of