"Richard Brautigan - in_watermelon_sugar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brautigan Richard)

Some say that he is too old to light the bridges and that he
should just stay down at ideath and take it easy. But Old Chuck
likes to light the lanterns and come back in the morning and
put them out.
Old Chuck says that everybody should have something to do
and lighting those bridges is his thing to do. Charley agrees with
him. "Let Old Chuck light the bridges if he feels like it. It keeps
him out of mischief."

13

This is a kind of joke because Old Chuck must be ninety years
old if he's a day and mischief has passed far beyond him, moving
at the speed of decades.
Old Chuck has bad eyes and did not see me until he was
almost on top of me. I waited for him. "Hello, Chuck," I said.
"Good evening," he said. "I've come to light the bridges.
How are you this evening? I've come to light the bridges. Beautiful
evening, isn't it?"
"Yes," I said. "Lovely."
Old Chuck went over to the abandoned bridge and took a
six-inch match out of his overalls and lit the lantern on the
ideath side of the bridge. The abandoned bridge has been that
way since the time of the tigers.
In those days two tigers were trapped on the bridge and killed
and then the bridge was set on fire. The fire only destroyed part
of the bridge.
The bodies of the tigers fell into the river and you can still
see their bones lying on the bottom in the sandy places and
lodged in the rocks and scattered here and there: small bones
and rib bones and part of a skull.
There is a statue in the river alongside the bones. It is the
statue of somebody who was killed by the tigers a long time ago.
Nobody knows who they were.
They never repaired the bridge and now it is the abandoned
bridge. There is a lantern at each end of the bridge. Old Chuck
lights them every evening, though some people say he is too old.
The real bridge is made entirely of pine. It is a covered bridge
and always dark inside like an ear. The lanterns are in the shape
of faces.
One face is that of a beautiful child and the other face is that
of a trout. Old Chuck lit the lanterns with the long matches
from his overalls.
The lanterns on the abandoned bridge are tigers.
"I'll walk with you down to ideatr," I said.
"Oh no," Old Chuck said. "I'm too slow. You'll be late for

14

dinner."