"Maureen McHugh - China Mountain Zhang" - читать интересную книгу автора (McHugh Maureen F)

A man reading a cheatsheet flimsie, picking the horses. On office clerk in his boxy suit. Or this
evening I am a power tech, a young woman with sturdy calves outlined by the tight legs of her coveralls.
All day she sells and channels power and I imagine the city's energy pouring through her hands, the hair
on her head rising with the build-up of static charge. Of course that's not true, she sits at a terminal and
feeds information, watches the lines, drains the power reservoirs when they're needed and fills them when
demand falls. The train stops a Lawrence and the doors open. My power tech gets off and I'm just
Zhang: 1.80 meters (almost) 64 kilos, leaning against the door with my feet spread to brace myself, right
under the sign that says in English, Spanish and Chinese 'Do not lean against doors.' I could go cruising,
stay on the train and head for Coney Island and see what I could pick up. But that's just to avoid thinking
about Foreman Qian and anyway, I'm too tired from work.
Still, I don't get off at my stop, I ride the train all the way to the end. Coney Island used to be a nice
neighborhood, condos on the water and all, until the smell in the water drove everybody away. The smell
is better now, what with the project to filter all the water that comes into the bay, but Coney Island is still
the end of the line. The young couples are starting to move in and brave the crime to get permits to cheap
condos and establish communes where everybody knows everybody else in the building. Pretty soon
everybody will be begging permits to move out here and the little free-market green grocers will open up,
but right now Coney Island is gray in the transition and the hawks like me ride the train there to spread
our wings.
Gray is a good word; when I come up on the street it's twilight, the buildings are gray, the wind off the
water smells gray and ashy. It's quiet. A quiet neighborhood is a bad sign out here. My jacket isn't very
warm but I walk down to the water. I wonder if part of the harbor has been burning again, but the ash at
the water's edge could be old.
I walk the cracked concrete walk beside the water, my shoes crunching in the sand blown across it.
A young man leans against a bench and my heart quickens. He looks twenty, younger than me. He is
wearing coveralls, utility blue, and they hug his legs and pelvis. He is dark though, and I have blond Peter
on my mind. Our eyes meet and he is arrogant, dangerous looking, but his gaze lingers with the possibility
of invitation. I think about slowing down, asking him what he's doing, I just keep walking. I didn't really
come out here for a coney. When I glance back he is prowling stiff-legged in the other direction.
So I find a public call box. The chain on the bracelet is short, to reduce the chances that someone will
yank it out, so once I get the bracelet on I have to fumble one-handed for my number book. I read
Peter's number, the call clicks through. Waiting for him to answer, the only part of me that's warm is my
wrist where the contact's made, and that's just an illusion anyway, just excited nerves at the periphery of
contact.
"It's Zhang," I say.
"Hey," Peter says, looking preoccupied, by which I mean he is looking at something on his lap rather
than me.
"Hey. I'm out on the beach."
That perks him up, blue-gray eyes on me and he sounds interested, "Yeah? Come up."
Peter lives in a wretched commune, Lenin knows how they ever got a permit. Just goes to prove that
five years ago anyone could get permission to live in Coney Island. The slogan over the door says, "The
force at the core of the people is the Revolution" from the Xiao Hongshu, the Little Red Book. I press
my wrist against the contact and Peter has told the building to expect me because the street door opens.
I climb the stairs because I have a theory that Peter's building dislikes me and I won't get in the
elevator. Peter only lives two flights up. I knock on the door and he opens it and kisses me there in the
hall. He swears nobody cares but I still hate when he does it, if anyone suspected I'm bent it could cost
me my job. Not that Lisa and Aruba, who live next door, are in any position to complain about our
morals.
"China Mountain," he says, "where the hell have you been?" China Mountain is a possible translation
of my name, Peter likes it.
"I work," I say, "got any pijiu?"