"Nayler, Ray - Coming Out Of Nothing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nayler Ray)

= COMING OUT OF NOTHING
By Ray Nayler


This country's barren
The fields lie fallow,
The highway cuts
From throat to knees.

And I have strayed dear
Far from the meadow,
Into the deep
Beneath the trees.

The Green above me,
The Dark below me,
Oh Love where is
Your lantern, please.

When will you wander?
Far from the meadow,
And scrape for me
Beneath the leaves?

(Traditional old-time ballad)


Steven lay in the dark of the room. Often after the mad rush of making love, he would fall instantly asleep. Yet at this moment, he felt absolutely alert and alive. His mind wandered to the furthest points of the town, imagining Shane Demsey, eyes also open to the dark, wondering where Polly was. Shane knew where she was, of course, but he would push that knowing away with possibilities. Steven imagined the violence building in Shane at that moment, the blind rage as he knotted his knuckles in the dark. And somewhere else, across a black-spiked cornfield, Polly's father David would be fighting a twin knowing, and nursing a twin rage.

Laying in the dark, mind clear as it had never been, he knew that those two men would kill him if they could. They would kill and bury him in the black earth.

Polly shifted beside him, her curves opening soft against him as she leaned to the nightstand. Clatter of cigarettes, sulfur hiss of a cheap liquor store match, purr of melting tobacco.

Steven loved her. He had been unprepared, yesterday, for the cold shock of it as they came together in the gloom of her secret place, the rotting springs of the couch exhaling a dust that clung to them. He could still taste the dust on her skin when they were finished, cut with sweat. Then, he had thought the shock was momentary, physical, like the taste she left on his fingers.

Now he knew it was fact.

Her hand skated carefully down his arm, traced and returned. He dreaded the break in stillness, the loss of clarity, that would come with the singsong of her voice, questioning him about the blurred tattoo her fingers had just outlined. He thought of something to tell her.

The question never came. She twisted her cigarette out in the ashtray, shifted her warm cleft curves against him, and was still.

* * *

Driving into Iowa was like coming out of nothing. Suddenly, the world was alive with color-blue sky, red barn, yellow-thatch field. The landscape had an immaculate sameness to it, a repetition of natural and manmade features. Glinting silver water towers announced towns in the distance. Mica sparkled in the hot black road.

He drove until the sun settled red over the fields, finally stopping in Hadley. It was a town like many others he had passed through that day-brick box downtown with theater, hardware store, tavern, a gas station, two banks and a cafe . At the far edge of the town, where the fields chipped away at it, was the Swallow Motel, with a neon bird and red capital VACANCY riding its sign. He took a room for $14.95 a night, impulsively paying for three nights in advance. This got him an odd look from the bird-faced girl behind the counter.

"Business in Hadley?"

He smiled. "Photography. This is beautiful countryside."