"C M Kornbluth - The Altar At Midnight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

him out of the dump. The manager grinned without thinking and said, "G'night, boys," to us.



The kid stopped in the street and said to me: "You don't have to follow me around, Pappy." He sounded
like one wrong word and I would get socked in the teeth.



"Take it easy. I know a place where they won't spit in your eye."



He pulled himself together and made a joke of it. "This I have to see," he said. "Near here?"
"A few blocks."



We started walking. It was a nice night.



"I don't know this city at all," he said. "I'm fromCovington,Kentucky. You do your drinking at home
there. We don't have places like this." He meant the whole Skid Row area.



"It's not so bad," I said. "I spend* a lot of time here."



"Is that a fact? I mean, down home a man your age would likely have a wife and children."



"I do. The hell with them."



He laughed like a real youngster and I figured he couldn't even be twenty-five. He didn't have any
trouble with the broken curbstones in spite of his Scotch and waters. I asked him about it.



"Sense of balance," he said. "You have to be tops for balance to be a spacerтАФyou spend so much time
outside in a suit. People don't know how much. Punctures. And you aren't worth a damn if you lose your
point."