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

The best day of my life. If someone had told me that I had only an hour and twenty-six minutes left to
live, I would have never believed them.

Hole comes on stage beneath a punk galaxy of mirror balls and foil stars. Courtney Love wears a low-
cut black babydoll dress, cigarette dangling from her mouth. She plays guitar with her left foot propped
up on a monitor speaker, giving the horny college jocks in the front row a flash of her inner thighs. Her
lyrics are unintelligible beneath the raw power of her band's music, but it doesn't matter; for an hour
she's the vortex of a tornado that rips through the shed and up the hill. It's good shit. When Hole is
through with its set, Courtney hands her guitar to someone in the front row, flips off some puke who'd
been verbally abusing her, and marches off stage. Everyone's on their feet and howling for more.

All except Erin and I. Sonic Youth is the head-liner; they're good, but we've seen them before, and for
the last hour Erin's body has swayed next to mine in a seductive way. If the emcee were to announce that
Sonic Youth's bus broke down and that they're going to be replaced by Jesus and the Twelve Disciples,
we would have to leave. We've got the urge, that simple.

By now, Shemp has returned to his seat. He's still tripping, but he peaked some time ago and now all he
wants to do is go home and catch a Star Trek rerun. I know that he really intends to crash on the living
room couch, something that I've tried to discourage him from doing after Erin moved in, but this time I
don't argue with him. He can always turn up the sound while Erin and I make it on the waterbed.

There's also the fact that, of the three of us, Shemp is in the best shape to drive. Shemp may be babbling
about another cosmic revelation he's received, but at least he's able to walk a straight line. I'm wasted;
Erin is in better condition, but she doesn't know how to handle manual and my car has a five-speed stick.
Shemp has driven my car many times; if we happen to get pulled over by the cops, at least he doesn't
have beer on his breath.

All this is discussed while we weave our way through the parking lot in search of my car, our faces
made sickly yellow by the sodium lights. If I had any common sense, I would head straight for the high-
rise hotel on the other side of the lot. Screw it, guys, let's get a room. I'd have staggered into the lobby,
whipped out a gold Visa or a gold MasterCard or the American Express trump card, rented a single and
a double for the night, and forgotten about the car until tomorrow morning.

Indeed, the notion occurs to me, just as we find my Saturn at the far end of the lot. My mind is fogged,
though, and Erin is warm and deliciously sweaty. Responsibility has always been something I've tried to
ignore, so I toss Shemp the keys, and we now have ten minutes left to live.

We roll down the windows; the night air is warm and dusty.



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

I'm curled up in the backseat; Erin is riding shotgun. She strains against the shoulder harness as she
reaches behind her for the tape box. Shemp has disconnected the driver's seat harness because it pinches
his stomach.

Erin switches on the map light to look through the box. Shemp peers at the cassettes as if they're the
crown jewels of England. He grabs for Orb Live before Erin swats his hand away, insisting that we listen