"Christopher Rowe - The Voluntary State" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rowe Christopher)

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 The Voluntary State
by Christopher Rowe


Something was caught on the wispy thorns of a nodding
thistle growing at the edge of the lot.
"Crow's feather," the policemen chanted. "Crow's feather
Crow's feather Crow's feather."
And even Soma, licensed for art instead of justice, knew
what the fluttering bit of black signified. His car had been
assaulted by Kentuckians.
****


Soma had never, so far as he recalled, painted a self-
portrait. But his disposition was melancholy, so he might have
taken a few visual notes of his trudge back to Nashville if he'd
thought he could have shielded the paper from the rain.
Soma Between the Sea and the City, he could call a
painting like that. Or, if he'd decided to choose that one clear
moment when the sun had shown through the towering slate
clouds, Soma Between Storms.
Either image would have shown a tall young man in a
broad-brimmed hat, black pants cut off at the calf, yellow
jersey unsealed to show a thin chest. A young man, sure, but
not a young man used to long walks. No helping that; his car
would stay in the trailhead lot for at least three days.
The mechanic had arrived as the policemen were leaving,
galloping up the gravel road on a white mare marked with red
crosses. She'd swung from the saddle and made sympathetic
clucking noises at the car even before she greeted Soma,
endearing herself to auto and owner simultaneously.
Scratching the car at the base of its aerial, sussing out the
very spot the car best liked attention, she'd introduced
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 The Voluntary State
by Christopher Rowe


herself. "I am Jenny-With-Grease-Beneath-Her-Fingernails,"
she'd said, but didn't seem to be worried about it because she
ran her free hand through unfashionably short cropped blond
hair as she spoke.
She'd whistled for her horse and began unpacking the
saddlebags. "I have to build a larger garage than normal for
your car, Soma Painter, for it must house me and my horse
during the convalescence. But don't worry, my licenses are in