"Bradley Denton - Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede" - читать интересную книгу автора (Denton Bradley)

it was going to be broadcast via satellite from a co-op station in Albuquerque. I had spent a good part of
the chilly evening redirecting my creaky SkyVue satellite dish to the proper point in the heavens, and had
even popped a seven-dollar blank tape into the Mitsubishi. Now, though, the Sony had erupted into
snow, and I was going to miss the opening credits.

Leaving the VCR running, I grabbed my ten-inch crescent wrench from its place on the coffee table, ran
through the dining area, kitchen, and utility room, and slammed out through the back door.

The temperature outside had dropped about fifteen degrees since I'd finished tinkering with the SkyVue,
and the shock of the cold stopped me for an instant. In that instant, I saw that the night was clear and
beautiful. Except for the dull orange glow of Topeka eight miles to the north, the sky was purplish-black
and full of stars. The hills of northeastern Kansas were silhouettes that hid all but a few of my various
neighbors' mercury-vapor yard lights, and the black outlines of the bare trees were still. It was a different
sort of night than it had been when the Winter Dance Party had played in the stupidly named Surf
Ballroom at Clear Lake.

I shivered, and that broke the spell. If I didn't hurry, I'd miss the Indian attack and the slaughter of most
of John Wayne's relatives, so I sprinted across the dead lawn toward the eight-and-a-half-foot aluminum
dish. It glowed a dull white in the wash of the yard light, but that didn't help me see the stepladder that I'd
left lying on the ground beside it. I tripped over the ladder and fell forward, banging my head on the dish's
lower rim. The SkyVue rang dully, like an old church bell.

Despite the cold, or because of it, I didn't feel much pain, so I wasted no time recovering from the blow.
Instead, I set up the stepladder on the concave side of the dish, climbed in, and proceeded to use the
crescent wrench to whang on the cylindrical cover of the block converter at the antenna's focus. A
satellite-video specialist would cringe at this remedy, but as Mother used to say in her more lucid
moments, "Whatever works." The much-cratered skin of the converter was testimony to the fact that the
crescent-wrench-whanging method not only worked, but had been employed often.

The noise brought back memories. Mother had bought the dish from an obscure outfit in El Dorado in
the spring of 1983, and we had developed this method of adjustment shortly thereafter (mainly because
the wrench had been packed in the parts box and was handy). It had been easier when Mother had been
alive, because she could yell from the house when the Sony's picture had been whanged back to normal.
Since her death, I'd had to adjust the antenna by trial and error.

Currently, about twenty-five whangs seemed to do the trick. I gave it a couple more just to be sure and
then jumped down from the ladder and ran back to the house. I was wearing sweatpants and a
ROCK-CHALK, CHICKEN-HAWK, F*** KU! T-shirt (my movie-watching uniform), and my arms
had popped out in goose pimples from wrists to pits.
 I dashed into the living room and saw John Wayne on the Sony, as big as life and twice as studly. You
never would have thought to look at him that he would eventually have a pig valve in his heart. I dropped
the crescent wrench on the coffee table, giving the veneer another nick, and flopped into the recliner,
pulling its orange afghan down to bundle myself.

It happened this quickly: A corner of the afghan, fuzzy and fluorescent, passed before my eyes, and
when it was gone, so was John Wayne. In his place, standing alone on a marbled gray plain, was Buddy
Holly, wearing a powder-blue suit with a white shirt and black bow tie. A woodgrain-and-white Fender
Stratocaster was slung on a strap over his left shoulder, and behind his black-framed glasses, his brown
eyes looked bewildered. A pinkish proto-zit was just visible on his chin. Behind him, an enormous
banded oval of red, orange, and white hung suspended in black.