"Robert Rankin - Brentford 04 - The Sprouts Of Wrath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

weekly newspaper. Knowing Norman's paperboy of old, he did not trouble with the doormat. Last week, the
errant rag had gone to earth in one of the hanging geranium baskets, the week before that in the waste-bin.
Neville felt no animosity towards young Zorro, rather a deep sympathy, one which had its foundations in the
part-time barman's current passion: psychoanalysis.
Every successful barman is something of a natural psychologist, and of late Neville had felt his particular talents
leading him into the tortuous labyrinths of the human psyche. And jolly good stuff it all was too.
Young Zorro was a case in point. The rolled newspaper and the open letterbox were quite obviously sexual
symbols. Zorro probably had a father fixation or a subconscious desire to return to the womb. Neville also
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considered that the root cause might lie in Zorro's mother. Perhaps she had been a victim of Brentford's notorious
fifties-flasher, whose peccadillo was to ring upon a lady's doorbell and poke his willy through the letterbox.
Conversely, his mother might have been frightened by a postman during the moment of his conception.
Anything was possible. In the cosy bedroom of Nine Noahs Ark Lane, Zorro slept on.
He was blissfully unaware of his supposed pathological disorder, simply considering that it was far easier to
chuck Neville's paper towards the door whilst cycling by, than struggle to ram it through the inadequately sized,
although beautifully polished, letterbox.
Neville slipped the bolts upon the saloon bar door and swung it open to the day. As he stood framed
magnificently by the famous portal, drawing great draughts of early morning air through his quivering nostrils
and exercising what he described as extra-nasal perception to gauge the quality of the hour, he pondered upon
where this week's Mercury might be cooling its metaphorically winged heels.
Like the legendary sleuth of old he knew that when one has eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains,
no matter how improbable, must surely be the solution. Such is all well and good of course, but putting theory
into practice is quite another thing. The prospect of rooting in dustbins and shinning up drainpipes to examine
dubious gutters held little charm. Neville sighed deeply and took a silent vow that he would deal the errant
paperboy the thickest of thick ears the next time their paths crossed, fixation or no fixation.
And there perhaps we might have left Neville, scowling and fuming and preparing to make a lone assault upon
the east face of the Flying Swan, had not a small - yet in its own way significant - event now occurred. As he
took a deep preparatory breath, the part-time barman suddenly became the unwilling recipient of a great gust of
unwholesome stench borne to him upon the formerly rose-tinted Brentford breeze.

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'By the Gods!' squawked Neville somewhat nasally as the evil wang engulfed him. He clutched despairingly at
his nose and gagged into his hand. His tabloid now forgotten, he fanned at the fetid air and stumbled back into
the Swan, slamming the door behind him.
With a brief hiss the tinted rear window of a long black automobile parked outside the Swan sealed itself upon
the outer world. The vehicle eased away from the kerb and gathered speed along the Ealing Road. Norman,
issuing from his corner shop, bulging paperbag upon his shoulder, watched it pass. There wasn't much the wee lad
didn't know about cars, his own revolutionary alternative to the internal combustion engine, the Hartnel Harrier,
lacking but a few essential parts in the lock-up, but this one fair had him foxed. Not only was it utterly silent,
but it also lacked all evidence of exhaust pipes. Norman scratched at his head, raising small clouds of dust. Now
how was that done, he wondered? Antimatter drive? Plasma photon ionizers utilizing a cross-polarization of beta
particles to bombard an inter-rositor through the medium of a sub-atomic converter? It seemed a most logical
probability. Making a hasty note upon the back of a Woodbine packet, Norman hefted his bag and set out upon
his paper-round.




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