"Alexander Jablokov - Market Report" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jablokov Alexander)

Then my jacket was off, my tie was gone, and I was sitting at the picnic table
with an iced glass of cranberry juice in my hand. Mothers do card tricks with
comfort. All Dad had offered me was an argumentтАФbut then that was his way of
letting me know I was home.
тАЬDid the power go out, Mom?тАЭ I said.
She laughed. тАЬOh, no. How do you think I made the ice cubes? ItтАЩs just the
way we live now. Out here in the country.тАЭ
Now that I had a chance to relax, I could see that the other backyards vis-ible
had encampments in them too: tents, tables, meat smokers, greenhouses, even a
PortOLet or two. I could hear people talking quietly, even at this hour, and smell the
smoke of banked cookfires. Something was wrong, seri-ously wrong, with this
exclusive residential community. I should have known it as soon as my mom gave
me the cranberry juice. Her comfort meant that something was not right.
There were times in my childhood when everything had been stable. For a
couple of years, for example, my dad had worked in a regular pet store, sell-ing neon
tetras and spaniels to wideeyed children who would lose interest in them as soon as
they got them home. WeтАЩd lived in a suburban house with a yard, all that, and IтАЩd
been able to tell the other kids what my dad did for a living. The TV shows I
watched seemed to be intended to be watched by peo-ple living the life I then lived.
But during that time my mother had barely paid attention to me. TV din-ners
had been the order of the day, and I remembered a lot of drivethru eat-ing. She
thought I was safe, then, and could take care of myself.
It was times like when my dad tried to build a submerged house at the bot-tom
of an abandoned waterfilled quarry and stock the water with ornamen-tal piranha that
my mother would bake me apple cobbler and paint farm scenes with smiling cows
on the riveted bulkhead in my room. She had al-ways intervened to keep the panic in
my memories on a perfectly even keel.
тАЬI should have known,тАЭ I said.
Ice cubes clinked in my empty glass and she refilled it. тАЬKnown what,
Bertram?тАЭ
тАЬThat you and Dad could turn the most wholesome of carefully planned and
secure communities into something disturbing. And here I thought, while driving
around, that you two had finally settled down, so that I could visit you without fear.
Nice neighborhood, Old Oak Orchard.тАЭ
She looked off at the glowing tents of the neighbors. тАЬIt is a nice
neighborhood. Do you smell roasting joints from oxen and goats hissing fat on
ancient sacrificial stones? Hear the minorkey chants of the priests as they rip open
the jugulars of bellowing kine with their bronze blades? Does that make you afraid?тАЭ
тАЬLulubelle.тАЭ My father broke a branch on a forsythia as he wrestled a heavy
bundle out of the garage. My mother winced. тАЬYouтАЩre frightening the boy with all
this pseudobiblical тАШkineтАЩ stuff. ThatтАЩs cows, Bert, if you donтАЩt know. Herefords,
Black Anguses. Besides, Lulu, you know our whole con-ceptтАЩs not really
about...that sort of thing. ThatтАЩs not the point.тАЭ
тАЬI thought we had agreed to disagree on the point, FranklinтАЭ I noticed that my
mother had scratches up and down her arms, and that one of her little fingers was in
a splint. Both Dad and I heard the danger in her tone.
He held up the tent. тАЬItтАЩs canvas, Bert. White duck. Heavy as hell. You know,
I saw some hunters out in the Gila with one of these once. They packed in on
horses, and fried up a mess of potatoes in a castiron pan two feet across. My friend
and I ate some kind of reconstituted gunk out of a plastic bowl. They were hunting