"Rudy Rucker - The Men in the Back Room at the Country Club" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

the men in the back room
at the country club by Rudy Rucker



"Yo, Jack," said Tonel as they lugged two golf bags apiece towards the men's locker room. It was
sunset, the end of a long Saturday's caddying, Jack's last day of work this summer.

"I didn't get a chance to tell you," continued Tonel, shouldering open the door. "About who I saw
sweatin' in Ragland's back yard this morning." It was fresh and cool in the locker room. A nice break
from the heavy, thick August air.

"In Ragland's yard?" said Jack Vaughan, setting down the bags and wiping his brow. "I don't know. His
ninety-year-old mother?" Jack suspected a joke. Ragland was the master of the locker room, ensconced
behind his counter. Tidily cleaned shoes and piles of fresh white towels sat on the white-painted shelves
around him. Although the bare-skulled Ragland's eyes were half-closed, it was likely that he was
listening.

"It was the five mibracc," said Tonel. "Doin' Ragland's yard work. Isn't that right, Ragland? What's the
dealio? How you get to slave-driving them Republicans? I need to know." Tonel lived right next door to
Ragland. The two weren't particularly fond of each other.

"Don't be mouthin' on my business, yellow dog," said Ragland. Though he cleaned the shoes of
popinjays, he insisted on his dignity.

A burst of talk echoed from the little back room beyond Ragland's station. Just like every other morning
or afternoon, the mibracc тАФ the caddies' nickname for "men in the back room at the country club" тАФ
were in there, safe from women, out of the daylight, playing cards and drinking the bourbon they stored
in their lockers.

"Those bagworts do chores?" said Jack. "No way, Tonel."

"I seen it," insisted Tonel. "Mr. Atlee was draggin' a plow with Mr. Early steerin' it. Mr. Gupta was down
on his knees pullin' up weeds, and Mr. Inkle and Mr. Cuthbert was carryin' trash out to the alley. Ole
Ragland sittin' on the back porch with his shotgun across his knees. Did your Meemaw put conjure on
them, Ragland?"

"You want me to snapify your ass?" said Ragland. Though gray and worn, Ragland was, in his own way,
an imposing man.

Tonel made a series of mystic passes, hoodoo signs, and rap gestures in Ragland's direction.

"I'll ask the men myself," said Jack, caught up by Tonel's rebellious spirit.

The two boys stepped into the back room, a plain space with a tile floor and shiny green paint on the
windowless concrete walls. The five old men sat in battered wooden captain's chairs around a table from
the club's lounge. Oily Mr. Atlee was dealing out cards to spindly white-haired Mr. Early, to
bald-as-a-doorknob Mr. Inkle, to Mr. Cuthbert with his alarming false teeth, and to Mr. Gupta, the only
non-white member of the Killeville Country Club.