"Howard Waldrop - Flying Saucer Rock & Roll" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

"We'll be all right," said Cornelius, who was big as a house and almost
eighteen. He was shaped like a big ebony golf tee, narrow legs and waist
blooming out to an A-bomb mushroom of arms and chest. He was a yard
wide at the shoulders. He looked like he was always wearing football pads.

"That's right," said Leroy, taking out the wax lips and wedging the
cigar back into the hole in them. "I mean, the kid who found this place
didn't say anything about it being somebody's spot, man."

"What's that?" asked Ray.

They looked up. A small spot of light moved slowly across the sky. It was
barely visible, along with a few stars, in the lights from the city.

"Maybe it's one of them UFOs you're always talking about, Leroy," said
Zoot.

"Flying saucer, my left ball," said Cornelius. "That's Telstar. You ought
to read the papers."

"Like your mama makes you?" asked Slim.

"AwwтАж" said Cornelius.

They walked on through the alleys and the dark streets. They all walked
like a man.
 "This place is Oz," said Leroy.

"Hey!" yelled Ray, and his voice filled the area, echoed back and forth in
the darkness, rose in volume, died away.

"Wow."

They were on what had been the loading dock of an old freight and
storage company. It must have been closed sometime during the Korean
War or maybe in the unimaginable eons before World War II. The
building took up most of the block, but the loading area on the back was
sunken and surrounded by the stone wall they had climbed. If you stood
with your back against the one good loading door, the place was a natural
amphitheater.

Leroy chugged some Coke, then poured bourbon into the half-empty
bottle. They all took a drink, except Cornelius, whose mother was a
Foursquare Baptist and could smell liquor on his breath three blocks
away.

Cornelius drank only when he was away from home two or three days.

"Okay, "Kool-Tones," said Leroy. "Let's hit some notes."