"R. A. Lafferty - Melchisedek 01 - Tales of Chicago" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

tents flapping in the wind in a rocky country that was green with grass and
golden with sunlight. And there was a background sound that fit in
imperfectly with the semi-desert atmosphere. dt was the hooting of a
particular ship's horn, a strong, golden and pleasant sound that could be
produced by one ship only. Other people could not hear this ship's horn
however loud it sounded.
dn all other ways, Duffey was a pretty normal person. He had sorrel
hair and fire-blue eyes. He would be a solid but not overly large man. He
had a month that might start to grin before his eyes did. And he was
constantly banging his hands together and shouting "Yes, yes, my creature,
we will do this thing right away." He might be shouting this to a clay
chicken he had made with his hands, and to no one else at all.

For a very brief moment here, we dip into the latter-middle life of
Duffey just before that life breaks up and moves in several directions, but
mostly back in time from that latter diy. For this one brief moment that we
watch now, he is in his own 'Duffey's Walk-in Art Bijou' in New Orlcins. He
is eating and drinking with a frend there, and he is contemplating an urn
full of ashes that is on his cluttered table.
The urn is old and ornate and it had once belonged to a King of
Spain. There is nothing odd about keeping an urnful of ashes on one's table,
perhaps, but this case was a little different, The ashes were Duffey's own.
"The people whom you make, Duffey," said Mr. X who was the friend
Duffey was eating and drinking with, "you haven't any real control over
them, have you?"
"Over them? It's over you, X. You're one of the people I made. No, I
haven't much control over the bunch of you. You're a 'how sharper than a
serpent's tooth' crew."
"And someday you'll have to settle on one of your three childhoods
to be the real one, Duffey," X said.
"Yes, but I won't settle on it yet. I'll keep my options open. What
kind of man I can bee today or tomorrow will always depend on what kind of
boy I was yesterday. I really wish that I had more than three childhoods to
choose from. But beyond these three I come on only fragments.

CHAPTER II

Melchisedech Duffey, for one of his most likely childhoods, appeared
in either Harrison or Shelby or Pottawattamie County in lowa. The seven
cities that disputed the honor of being his birthplace were Minden,
Underwood, Beebee Town, Neola, Crescent, Avoca, and Union Township which was
not properly a city at all.
Melchisedech used to say that he arrived on the night of the turn of
the century, a night that also was claimed by the Papadiaboloi and Mr. X and
other potentous persons. Duffey may have lied about this: he may have been
several years younger than the century. And X may have lied about his own
case. Likely he was several years younger than Duffey even.
A fact given by all older relitive or pretended relative is that
Melchisedech's mother had died when he was five years old and that
thereafter he had lived with cousins until finally he came to live alone.