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

heights comes by and asks if he can help me. I say, 'Yeah, get me some fresh
fruit.' He brings me applications for readmittance! God, I'd kill for a fresh
peach! I'd be better off back in the house!"

I shrugged. "Maybe you would, Molly. After all, you're getting on in years."

"Fat lot you know, Bruce! You crazy or something? Trade this view for six
walls? Breathe that stale stuff they got in there? Give up my birds? Give up
my freedom? Shit, Bruce, who the hell's side are you on anyway?"

I laughed. "Yours, Molly."

She started wrapping the pigeons and swearing under her breath.

I looked at Molly's clippings, bits of faded newsprint stuck to the wall of
the tower itself. By the light coming through some of the plastic sheeting in
the roof, I saw a picture of Molly on Mt. McKinley dated twenty years before.
An article about her second attempt on Everest. Stories about her climbing
buildings in New York, Chicago, and L.A. I looked closer at one that talked
about her climbing the south face of El Capitan on her fourteenth birthday. It
had the date.

I looked twice and tried to remember what day of the month it was. I had to
count backwards in my head to be sure.

Tomorrow was Mad Molly's birthday.

The Bruce in question was Murry Zapata, outdoor rec guard of the south balcony
on the 480th floor. This meant I had to take the birds down 131 stories, or a
little over half a kilometer. And then climb back.

Even on the face of Le Bab Tower, with a roughing cube or vent or external
rail every meter or so, this is a serious climb. Molly's pigeons alone were
not worth the trip, so I dropped five floors and went to see Lenny.

It's a real pain to climb around Lenny's because nearly every horizontal
surface has a plant box or pot on it. So I rappeled down even with him and
shouted over to where he was fiddling with a clump of fennel.

"Hey, Lenny. I'm making a run. You got anything for Murry?"

He straightened up. "Yeah, wait a sec." He was wearing shorts and his climbing
harness and nothing else. He was brown all over. If I did that sort of thing
I'd be a melanoma farm.

Lenny climbed down to his tent and disappeared inside. I worked my way over
there, avoiding the plants. I smelled dirt, a rare smell up here. It was an
odor rich

and textured. It kicked in memories of freshly plowed fields or newly dug