"Joe Hutsko - Nico's Dream" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hutsko Joe)

It could be something very serious,
several of the articles caution. A
condition that, one abstract
described, caused a twenty-one-year-
old college basketball star to fall dead
in the middle of a game, a victim of
sudden heart failure. The
accompanying yearbook photo
showed a seemingly healthy kid in
tank and shorts smiling under the
hoop of his dreams, a future so bright
both the NBA and Nike had their
collective eye on him. Taylor pictures
it slow-motion: Nabs the ball... face
excited... dribbles... ducks... then drops
dead. The autopsy revealed
stimulants, triggering the condition.
which, he'd learned, was a form of
arrhythmia known as
supraventricular tachicardia. There
are different types, different
degrees, but he never feels
interested enough to dig any deeper.
What he experiences, a little flutter
that can suddenly turn to 2OO or more
beats a minute, he stops by simply
bearing down, tensing and holding his
breath like he is really angry. He's had
it off and on since he was a kid and
since he knows how to end it he never
really gives it much thought, except
during another episode. When he was
little Coca-Cola was the trigger, not
coffee. Caffeine, just the same. Still,
he is a one-cup-a-day kind of guy, so
there can't be that much harm in it,
he tells himself. And that's all he thinks
on the matter.

Setting the empty cup aside he turns
his attention back to the form and, in
his precise, infinitesimally trembling
hand, neatly fills in the name of
today's subject: Nikko.

***
Nikko and his peer group spend most
of their time downstairs from Taylor
and his peers. Upstairs from Taylor
there are others still, however