"G. Howell - The Human Memoirs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howell G)

Jefferson'd have a field day." He slapped the wheel in disgust, then reached
over to fiddle with the radio as it faded out again. "What the fuck's wrong
with this thing?"
"You put fresh batteries in it? Try another station. If the coil
hadn't died on us back there there. . . "
"Oh, yeah. Whose fault was that? You're the mechanical whizkid. You
were supposed to overhaul it in the pool. 'Sure,' you said, 'get right on it'
you said." He clamped down on the cigar again; the tip glowed furiously as he
puffed away on the reeking thing. "And get your feet down."
"I did the coil," I snorted, dropped my feet and made a show of dusting
off the scratched metal. "It'd take me years to fix everything on this heap."
"Heap?" He actually sounded outraged. "Don't criticise a classic piece
of machinery. "He patted the worn steering wheel affectionately. "She don't
like that kind of abuse, do ya girl?"
"Talking to a truck. . . "I shook my head despairingly. "Have you ever
thought about professional help? Or at least a long, long vacation?"
He laughed and took his right hand off the wheel to flick me the finger.
"You're going to eat them words," he grinned. "It's a good truck. I like the
way it handles."
I stuck my feet up on the dash again, unintimidated. "You're only saying
that cause you keep drawing the short straw. It handles like a four ton lump
of shit. I mean, hell, even SLEP didn't want anything to do with it."
"Really?" he asked lightly and the truck lurched over to the right.
I glanced over at him, "You trying to prove. . . OHSHIT!!" I yelled
and grabbed for the dash as a car's lights glared from around a corner, the
driver hit his horn and Tenny held it to the last second. Tires screamed as
the truck lurched back to the left side of the road and a seconds later the
vehicle itself flashed past us.
"Jesus Christ!"
"Might have been," Tenny said with a glance in the mirror. "I didn't
see."
I shook my head.Join the Army; See interesting places; Meet interesting
people. It's a man's life. . . And then there's the Quartermasters Corps. It's
a living. It pays more than regular army, and I was scraping for every cent I
could. These days college really costs.
One of the rules engraved in the rank and files' unofficial handbook is
'never volunteer'. Okay. That's no problem. You don't have to volunteer:
they do it for you. You can wake up one morning and find you've pulled a duty
riding shotgun on a fifty year old truck on a run from Fort Delvoir out of DC
down to Fort Jackson with a couple of tons of outdated military hardware on
the bed.
And then to cap it all was the driver. . .
Tenny Dalton: PFC, old friend. Oh, he could drive all right. In fact
the way he handled a truck was downright uncanny, as were some of the other
things he did. Everything he did he accomplished well and with a slight air
of indifference, as though he really wasn't trying. This applied whether he
was overhauling an engine or coming on to one of the noble Ladies in a dive in
Jacksonville. Still, they weren't as annoying as his insistence on smoking:
cigars of all things.
I coughed and tried to fan a streamer of smoke aside. Useless to ask