"Allen Steele - A King of Infinite Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Allen)

Closer to the shed, food vendors have set up their tents; our noses are assaulted by the odors of a dozen
different kinds of ethnic cuisine. Shemp's hungry, so he heads straight for a Thai concession, where he


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 Steele, Allen - [Near-Space 05] - A King of Infinite Space

buys a paper plate of raman noodles and stir-fried yeti. Two places sell overpriced fruit juicesтАФthey
can't call them smart drinks anymore, because the FDA determined that you'll still be just as stupid as
you were before you had oneтАФbut Erin joins the line in front of the Budweiser stand, unhip as it may
be. I wander around the plaza while I wait for them, catching a little of this and that. Under a large tent,
a San Francisco theater troupe stages a performance in which a gray-wigged, business-suited Republican
auctions off the Bill of Rights. Thirty feet away, teenagers impatiently wait their turn to try out the free
videogames set up under the Sega pavilion. A fifteen-year-old kid climbs into a Spaceball; after a minute
of spinning upsiderdown and inside-out, he's spewing chunky green stuff all over the transparent plastic
sphere. I spot Shemp watching the gastronomic fireworks from the other side of the crowd: he takes his
plate of raman-and-yeti to the nearest garbage can.

We find our seats under the shed just in time for Sinead O'Connor. She's let her hair grow out a little
since the time she tore up the pope's picture on Saturday Night Live, and she's got a four-piece band that
backs her up as she does a rap version of the Beatles' "All The Lonely People" (or whatever the hell it's
called) and a song about the Irish potato famine. It's really very pretty and Erin is transfixed because she
loves Sinead, but Shemp is talking to two dudes sitting behind us. I can't hear what they are saying, but
the three of them get up and leave before her performance is half over.

Erin and I wander over to the Art Tent. It's a little cooler in here, but no less humid. There're strange
sculpturesтАФa spiked armchair raised on a nine-foot throne, an altar of jeweled skulls illuminated by
automobile taillightsтАФbut the only thing I wish I had is a signed lithograph of Big Daddy Roth's Rat
Fink. We find Shemp staring fixedly at a Robert Williams silk-screened tapestry of a bare-breasted angel
wearing a space helmet floating above a junkyard filled with thirties-style spaceships. He babbles at us
for several minutes about the obvious correlation between Stephen Hawking, Gene Roddenberry, Jack
Kirby, and God-knows-what; his pupils have expanded into tiny planets. Shemp's found some acid; we
make sure that he still has his ticket stub and knows that he can't return to his seat without it, then we go
get some more beer.

For dinner music, we get power-grunge by Pavement. The mosh pit on the hill, placid during Sinead,
briefly comes alive with flailing arms and legs; everyone else is bowed by the oppressive burden of the
sun. Erin and I smoke a jointтАФthe ushers don't give a shit, they're on the lookout for people throwing
junk at the stageтАФthen go out for more beer. We find the mist tent and stand fully clothed under the
sprayers. Several Deadheads are talking about what happened at a campground in St. Charles after a
Grateful Dead show at Riverport last week. A hundred kids were taken to the hospital when a deck at the
campground lodge collapsed during a thunderstorm. Everyone agrees that it was a bummer, but at least
Jerry put on a good show. Doesn't mean much to me; I'm not into the Dead. The cool spray plasters
Erin's shirt against her breasts; I'm beginning to look forward to going home after the show.

I hit the men's room on the way back to the shed. Guys in shorts and sticky T-shirts are lined up in front
of the urinals, letting go of all the beer and fruit juice they've been sucking down. The tile floor is
slippery with water jetting out from a sink faucet that's been jammed open; an old black janitor in
uniform tries to monkey-wrench the spigot shut. I can't get to a urinal and I've got to take a major leak,
so I piss in the next sink over. The janitor yells at me to cut it out, but I ignore him. This is what you're