"Spider Robinson - Very Bad Deaths" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

pulled his deferment."
"Oh, the poor bastardтАФ"
He nodded again.
"You don't understand," I said. "I hate to see anybody get shot at. But this is like they drafted Oscar
Levant."
He looked pained, but said nothing.
Does it seem strange to you that I heard the news that way, that Sean didn't phone me? This was a long
time ago. You wouldn't believe what long distance cost, back then. Sean had doubtless written me the
news; for all I knew the letter was even now being delivered to my parents' house back in New Jersey.
I wanted to cry. Sean in the jungle was as unimaginable as Mr. Rogers buying smack. After a while I
said, "So what happens now? Is there, like, a list of guys in the same boat, that I get to select a new
roommate from?"
Now he looked constipated.
"Actually," he said reluctantly, "he's already been selected."
"The hell he has."
This time he looked nauseous. "Look, Russ, I'm going to ask you to help me out, here."
Now I started feeling nauseous. Any time the administration asks your help, it's time to change your
name and move to someplace with no extradition. "Yeah? How?"
"I've looked over your record. You're an unusually tolerant man, do you know that?"
"As a matter of fact I do. Right now, I'm tolerating being dicked around when I should be unpacking in
my new room . . . somewhere."
"The school needs an unusually tolerant man, just now," he said, ignoring my sarcasm. "I'm hoping
you're that man."
I thought I saw light in the undergrowth. "Oh my God. They actually admitted a sixth Negro?"
He paled. "Uh, no."
I snorted. "SorryтАФI got carried away there for a minute." Out of a student population approaching a
thousand, exactly five students were black. All male. That's another clue how long ago this was.
"No, this is in regard to a student who's already enrolled here."
"Then what's this aboutтАФ"
I broke off, blinded. The undergrowth had suddenly burst into flame.
"Jesus Christ. You want me to room with that crazy Serbo-Croatian. With Smelly, That's it, isn't it?"
He had gone from pale to brick red. "With Zandor Zudenigo, yes."
"Son of a bitch," I said. I couldn't even ask why me. He had already told me.
Zandor Zudenigo was a campus legend, and deserved to be. Not for his mathematical talent, which was
rumored to be better than first rate, nor for his striking ugliness, which was of clock-stopping magnitude,

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 - Chapter 2

nor even for his habit of wandering around the campus in pajamas, mumbling to himself and writing on
an invisible blackboard. These things, by themselves, would have made him a colorful campus
character, a figure of fun, a kind of mascot. But what promoted him from risible eccentric to worldclass
whackadoo and hopeless outcast was his smell.
No. "Smell" doesn't begin to touch it. Even "stench" is inadequate. Another word is needed. Perhaps
"reek," or "miasma," or possibly "fetor." You could have planted beans in his body odor. Some said it
would show up on radar. Paint discolored as he walked past. Flies dropped from the sky behind him.
This elicited plenty of reaction, of course. But Smelly did not seem to realize it. If someone asked him
why he didn't bathe, he simply stared, blank-faced, waiting for them to say something. If someone
became offended enough to scream at him, he literally failed to notice, didn't even flinch. If someone got
mad and punched him, he didn't seem to notice that, either: simply waited for the blows to stop, and then