"Pike, Christopher - Weekend" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pike Christopher)

"Used to be," Sol muttered, lighting a cigarette. Sol chain-smoked.

Park was tempted to split. The inside of their lame van was incredibly stuffy, and out here on the broken asphalt it was like standing on a frying pan. They had a much brighter sun down here than they did in the States. His nose would peel this weekend. It would probably rot and fall off. He sure could use a cold beer. Unfortunately, the strap on his sandals Ч his only available footwear Ч had snapped and it was a good ten-minute walk to the canteen. He should have taken Big Bert up on his offer to carry him. He knew Sol was intentionally mocking him, standing barefoot on the blistering pavement. Sol had feet like a caveman.

"Why don't we check on your spare?" Park asked for the third time.

Sol chuckled, the sound oddly frightening coming from him. Shani imagined Sol a modern Fonzie, tough outside but with a heart of gold. Park could attest to the fact that he had a heart, but it was made of a far less precious metal. Sol was tough to the core. Brought up in L.A's barrios, he'd once admitted to stabbing his first person Ч a member of a rival gang Ч at the age of twelve. He had never said it outright, but Park had the clear impression that not everyone who had got in his way was still alive. He'd been arrested twice in his fifteenth year: once for stealing a car, the other time for carrying a gun - a sawn-off shotgun. He hadn't told him these stories to impress him. Sol didn't give a damn what anyone thought. Park knew the horrors he'd related had only been the tip of the iceberg.

Once, old friends Ч the meanest, most wired Cholos he'd ever seen Ч had visited Sol while they were playing a rough game of one-on-one at the school yard on a Saturday afternoon. Both wore wads of jewelery and picked at their oily nails with shiny switchblades, talking in guttural Spanish with Sol about Satan only knew what. In the midst of the conversation, they said something that bothered Sol and he snapped at them. They paled noticeably and apologized frantically, like their lives depended on it, which may well have been the case. Afterwards, Sol explained that they had made an obscene reference to Park. The loyalty hadn't comforted Park.

Park wasn't sure how Sol's father had managed to get his two children - Sol had a ten-year-old sister of whom he was maniacally protective, the cutest little thing - out of the barrios; probably hard work. Mr. Celaya currently had a flourishing gardening business in Ventura. But apparently, he hadn't felt that Ventura was far enough north of his son's friends. He rented a house on the outskirts of Santa Barbara, and Sol ended up in laid-back Hoover High like a wolf among sheep.

Park still remembered the first day they ran into each other - literally. Sol had knocked him out of his way in the hall. Initially, no one could understand his Spanglish, and it was probably just as well, for in the first few days he seemed one angry young man. But first impressions are not always complete. The passage of a couple of weeks presented a different profile. Sol had his mean streak, and it cut pretty deep, but he could also be kind, and no one could doubt his intelligence. A month after arriving at Hoover High, after a couple of expulsion threats from the principal, he apparently made a firm personal decision to develop his positive qualities, and to only behave like an animal when he could get away with it. The most immediate demonstration of this decision was the change in the way he spoke. He would never be mistaken for an upper-middle-class white boy, but he developed a knack for using English concisely. And damn if he didn't take to spending hours in the library. He wasn't easy to fit in a category. Of course, he seldom returned a book.

At the end of his junior year, he went out for track and smashed the shot-put record. His bulging muscles and blinding reflexes made him a natural at the event. Park was also on the team - he ran a mediocre mile - but what really brought them together was Sol's sudden discovery of surfing. Before moving to Santa Barbara, he once confessed, he hadn't even seen the ocean and he'd despised, because of his upbringing, anything associated with the word surfing. Yet the sea proved an asylum to him that seemed to wash away the weight of past cares. Park had already won two minor surfing championships. Hearing of Sol's interest in the waves, he boldly loaned him a board and taught him a few tricks of the trade. Soon they were surfing together regularly. Park still wasn't sure what Sol liked about him outside of his skill on the waves. He had asked once, and Sol had said that hanging around with the school brain was good for his "tough-but-heart-of-gold-guy image". On the other hand, Park didn't fully understand what he liked about Sol. Certainly, there wasn't anyone else quite like him.

Shani didn't know anything about Sol's background. She didn't know that five days ago he'd been kicked out of his father's house and was now sleeping in the park in his van. She didn't know that he was low on money and was looking to his old ways to get some. Without explanation, while driving through Tijuana, Sol had dropped Park, Flynn, and Bert off for an hour. Afterwards, he had only allowed ever-agreeable Bert to sit in the back, with strict orders that he not touch or smell anything. Why didn't Sol want him to check on the spare? Probably because he'd dumped the tyre and jammed the space with illicit substances. Sol was reading his mind.

"What's the matter, Preppy Park?" he asked. "Don't you trust me?"

Sol had taken to putting "Preppy" before Park's name, since Harvard had written saying that one Park Christopher Jacomini looked like Ivy League material to them. Park did not resent the title. It reminded him of how Ali McGraw had annoyed Ryan O'Neal at the beginning of the movie, Love Story. He strongly identified with the character Ryan O'Neal played. He also had an annoying rich dad, and also was going to go to Harvard, and also wanted to be a lawyer and marry a girl with a body like Ali McGraw's. He even fancied that he resembled Ryan O'Neal, somewhat. Angie said that he did. Of course, she was always quick to flatter. Robin hadn't done thatЕ hadn't needed to.

Before she'd been hurt, Robin had had a body like Ali's. And he'd always figured that he would have married her. She had been - still was - the one with the heart of gold. He glanced south down the road, in the direction where she waited to see him again. He didn't want to think about it. People his age got busted for smoking dope, they got depressed and made fools of themselves over meaningless crushes, they got lousy grades and hated their parents. But they didn't die, not in his world. They couldn't die slowly and take a piece of him with them. God, how he hated himself for having left her for Angie! But what could he do? He simply couldn't handle it. Was this the real reason he identified with Ryan O'Neal's character in Love Story? What can you say about an eighteen-year-old girl who diedЕ

Park kicked the flat tyre. "What the hell. I don't care if we ever get there."

Sol went right on reading his mind. Blowing smoke in his face, he said, "You're such a wimp."

"Just because I won't go back across the border with you and your stash?"

"Who said I picked up anything? But don't change the subject. A real man would stand by his babe when she's in a tight spot. Robin's a great chick. She gets in trouble and you dump her." Sol spat.

"You should talk," Park snapped, throwing all caution aside. "What about Kerry and tight spots?"

"That was not the same. Kerry got humiliated, and we all felt bad for her, but it was only a joke. Dying isЕ it's no joke." He added quietly, "I know."

Park wondered at the change in his tone. Probably a memory of a friend stuck with a bloody knife had surfaced. Park pulled off his shirt, and wiped the sweat from his face. "I'll have a talk with her," he said.

"If that's the best you can do, then do it."

Park wanted to change the subject. Peering in the direction of the canteen, he remarked: "What are those guys doing? They've been gone awhile."

"Probably getting drunk."

"I don't think Flynn drinks."

"Bert will down enough beer to make up for him."

"Hey, Sol, what do you think of that Flynn?"