"Fallout - Lester, Jim" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lester Jim)

CHAPTER 1
A BOY NEEDS A FATHER. At least that's what everyone says. I have four fathers. But it hasn't helped. I'm still a world-champion goofball.
Actually, one of my fathers, my real father, was killed in Vietnam. In a firefight, a surprise attack by the VC. Three days before I was born. So he doesn't really count. I mean, I never even met him or anything. My other three fathers were marine buddies of my real dad's. They all served in the same unit together. My real dad saved the whole platoon before he was killed. He threw himself on a bomb or something.
Then when his three best friends came back home, they sorta adopted me. They came to see my school plays and kid baseball games and that kind of stuff. Gave me super presents like ten-speed bikes and Pac-man on my birthdays and at Christmas. Took me fishing and hunting and to
Cowboys games in Texas Stadium. Stuff like that. Father stuff. So ever since I can remember, I've had four fathers. But, like I said, it hasn't helped. I'm still a screwup.
Being a screwup is what landed me in Bedford. It's a boys' prep school: Bedford Academy, in Bedford, Texas. Forty miles north of Dallas, way out in East Jesus. One hundred years of preparing Texas's finest young men for college and life.
I'm a terminal goofball. Honest. I mean, I don't do dope or drink alcohol (well, maybe an occasional beer). I'm not into shoplifting or stealing cars or anything. (Well, okay, once I did "borrow" our next-door neighbor's BMW. But just once. And I did walk with some junk from the Circle K. Just a couple of times.) But it's mainly little stuff. Like coming home lateЧor maybe not coming home at all a couple of nights. Or getting a tattoo on my upper arm. The tattoo is really coolЧa skull with a lightning bolt through it. I also got an earring without telling my mom. Boy, the tattoo and the earring really fried my mom and my three dads. The earring's gone now. Bedford men don't wear earrings. The tattoo is forever.
Well, okay, so there were a few other things. We did have this big party at Janice Whitehead's house in Dallas while her parents were in New York. Only Janice's stupid parents came back early, while the party was still going on. That was a bad scene. The house was kind of a mess. But we were going to clean it up later, honest. And a couple of the kids were real wasted. I thought Mr. White-head was headed for heart attack city.
And okay, I did get caught in bed with Dawn Scott at
her house after school one day. Her stupid mother forgot her coat. And my sophomore grades at Thomas Jefferson High School weren't so hot. Straight F city.
To be honest, I didn't like TJ all that much. I got suspended twice for righting. It wasn't my fault, though. I mean, you can't let anybody push you around. You can't be scared. I played on the soccer team for a while, but I quit. Same with the tennis team. Actually, I have trouble sticking with stuff. I start something and then the next thing I know I don't care about it anymore. I just lose interest. You know what I mean?
Anyway, my mother and all my fathers added my behavior up and it spelled Bedford Academy. Where they make men out of boys.
The Bedford campus was nice enough. Ancient redbrick buildings. Green grass that looked like somebody trimmed the lawn with tweezers. Neatly kept flower beds, geraniums and stuff like that. Cottonwood and sycamore trees. Little benches around the commons. An okay place.
But my first hour at Bedford sucked. I mean, it only took me an hour to screw up. But it wasn't my fault. Honest.
The hour started after I told my mom goodbye in the dorm lobby. All the parents were ushered out, and all the guys shuffled upstairs to their new rooms. Mine was in the middle of the second floor. It looked like all dorm rooms do, like a prison cell. Concrete-block walls. Scuffed and faded tile floor. Thin mattresses on rickety beds. Chipped little desks and chests of drawers that looked like Salvation Army rejects.
It was a couple of days after Labor Day, which in Texas meant it was still summer and still hotter'n hell. Since it was late in the afternoon, the crickets and katydids had started their evening symphony, which I could hear through the open window. I dropped an R.E.M. tape into my jambox and lay down on the stained mattress, crossing my feet over my duffel bag. I had on a pair of jeans and a Dead Milkmen T-shirt, which I had already pitted out because it was so hot. And my black. Chicago Bulls cap. Turned around backward.
My new roommate was neatly stacking his socks and underwear and junk in the dresser drawers. He was a dweeb named Mickey Holland. A skinny little guy with stringy dark hair and an Adam's apple that looked like a baseball. He wore this goofy-looking black raincoat. Like he thought it might rain in the dorm or something. Mickey didn't talk much, which suited me fine. We just listened to the music. "Driver eight . . ."
Then all the weirdness started.
Wham! Wham! Wham!
"Oh, God. This is it!" Mickey turned around and looked at me. His face was suddenly pasty white. "The Bedford hazing," he said, "for all the new guys like you and me. My brother went here three years ago. He told me all about it. This is it! Oh, man! Why did my stupid parents make me come here?"
Wham! Wham! Wham!
I could hear guys yelling down the hall. Shoes scraping on the tile floor. Sneakers squeaking. People running.
Mickey sprinted to the window. "There's a giant bon-
fire on the commons," he said. His voice was shrill, like a girl's. "Upperclassmen are swarming all over the grounds. They're carrying big sticks. I think they're barrel staves. They're gonna paddle us raw!" He turned back around and looked at me. He was trembling. "Aren't you scared?"
"No."
And I wasn't. I really wasn't worried about a bunch of stupid prep-school guys and their moronic little games. I'm not scared of anything or anybody. Honest. You can take that to the bank.
Wham! Wham! Wham!
"They're beating the barrel staves against the walls." Poor Mickey shifted his weight around like he was about to pee his pants. "Oh, Jesus!"
' 'Monkey and a freshman, sittin' on a rail. Couldn 't tell the difference, 'cept the monkey had a tail!" The chant roared up from the commons and echoed through the hallway.
I sat up on the bed and dug in my duffel bag for a cigarette.
"Let's go, you worthless nerds!" A deep voice came from the hallway just outside our room. "Get out here! There's a fire on campus! Let's go! All of you out in the hall! Now!"
' 'Monkey and a freshman, sittin' on a rail. Couldn't tell the difference, 'cept the monkey had a tail!
"Get out here, you little dweebs! On the double!"
Wham! Wham! Wham!
Our door crashed open. "Brace!" The guy was tall and
thin. He had on a blue-and-white-striped polo shirt and a pair of wrinkled khakis. He had a barrel stave in his hand.
Mickey froze and hunched his shoulders tight, cupping his fists in front of his chest. I guess his brother had taught him what the prescribed brace was for new Bedford students.
"What's your name, ferret-face?"
"M-M-Mickey H-H-Holland. Sir."
"M-M-Mickey Mouse, if you ask me. God, you're a nerdy-looking little fart."
"Thank you, sir."
"What are you? Junior transfer?"
Mickey nodded.
"Okay, listen, Mouse. Listen carefully. I'm Larry Harris. I'm a senior from Texarkana. I play wide receiver on the best high-school football team in the state of Texas. The Bedford Bulldogs. If you forget any of that, you're in deep dooty. You understand me?"
"Yessir."
"Where are you from, Mouse?"
"San Antonio, sir."
"San Antonio? San Antonio's a town for nerds. Are you a nerd, M-M-Mickey Mouse?"
"YesЧnoЧsir. I don't know, sir."
"You are a nerd, M-M-Mickey. And don't you forget it!" Harris's spittle flew all over Mickey's face. "Give me twenty push-ups, you little dork. Then you need to help save our campus from the fire. Let's go! Move it, Mouse!"