"Robert Reed - To Church With Mr. Multhiford" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

and on about its beauty and importance and how it was holy. Field of Loopy
Dreams nonsense. Myself, I tried avoiding the man. If I saw him in town, I
turned and slipped away. Even when my dad, the local Methodist minister, told me
I was being rude. I didn't care. Madmen scare the piss out of me. Which is why
our plan sounded fun, I suppose.

And the beer didn't hurt my mood, either.

"We aren't going to do it," Pat kept saying.

"Why not?" Charlie growled. "I like the plan!"

"Yeah," said Lester, "we'll put a circle in his own damned field. Nobody ever
has."

"Who lived to tell it," Pat muttered. But it was three against one, no more need
for debate. We loaded up Pat's old pickup with shovels and ropes and lengths of
lumber. Lester rode with the tools. I sat between Pat and Charlie. Driving out
into the country, the three of us talked about how to do it and do it fast --
how do you make a flattened circle in the middle of a corn field, in the dark,
on a madman's property? --and it was Charlie who pointed out, "It doesn't have
to be a circle. Is that some law? Why don't we mash down something simple, like
a message? We can leave words in his corn."

"Take Me To Your Leader," Pat joked, laughing.

It seemed funny to them, and decided. To me words sounded a lot less pretty than
a circle, but I knew they'd vote me down. That's why I didn't complain, riding
quietly there between them.

Eventually we came to a low rise, barely worth noticing, and after that the
ground started dropping, sliding into what used to be marshes. Past the next
corner was Multhiford's land, and Pat killed the headlights, driving by
moonlight, and all of us started looking for someplace to turn off and set to
work.

The mood in the cab was getting a lot more serious. On both sides of us were
enormous fields of corn, green oceans of the sun-fattened stalks. Another half
mile ahead was Multhiford's farmhouse, set off the road in the only patch of
trees on his section and a half. Where in all this nothing could we hide the
pickup? Behind a little machine shed, we decided, and Pat parked and killed the
engine, everyone taking a deep breath before climbing to earth.

I don't know much about corn -- I'm as urban as you get in Pelican County -- but
Multhiford's corn looked particularly tall and happy, standing in all that rich
black marsh soil, moving the way corn does at night. Big leaves were uncurling
in the cooling air. Hundreds of acres were uncurling, and I stood off by myself,
listening. I didn't hear the guys talking. I never noticed Charlie sneaking up
on me. Grabbing my arms, he said, "Boo."