"Paul Di Filippo - Up Around the Bend" - читать интересную книгу автора (Di Filippo Paul)

Mom and Pop never knew what dope smelled like.”

Mitch used a disposable plastic lighter to heat the bowl of the pipe. When the junk was ready, he took a
deep drag, before passing the pipe to Verna.
Verna took the joint and sucked twin lungfuls.

When they exhaled, their heterogenous smokes mingled in the air before their faces.

They consumed the drugs quickly, leaving them in contrasting states.




Mitch jumped to his feet, wired and antsy. Verna reclined at length, cradling her head in her hands. Her
white peasant blouse, pricked with embroidered flowers, slid up to reveal her midriff, skin lightly dusted
with near-invisible hairs. Her big loose breasts wallowed.

Pacing back and forth in front of the billboard, Mitch began to rant. His blue eyes seemed lit from behind
by guttering gas flames.

“I can still smell the ashes, you know? It’s like I can’t escape them, no matter how far we go. The air
was full of ashes from downtown all the way to midtown. The plume drifted across the rivers too. Lasted
for days. Weeks, maybe. Time’s all fucked up. Who knows what the hell was in that stuff? Chemicals,
maybe even radioactive shit. Roast flesh. It gets inside you. You’re gonna carry it around forever.”

Mitch pushed up the front of his T-shirt bearing the Quiksilver logo and began furiously to scratch his
hairy stomach, as if in pursuit of bugs beneath his skin. He raised welts, and, eventually, trickles of blood.

Verna continued to lie at ease, seemingly oblivious to her brother’s distress. Her eyes closed, she
appeared asleep, until she softly spoke.

“This whole trip reminds me of Woodstock a little. I know it’s different this time, but it’s kinda the same.
Everyone leaving the city behind spontaneous-like, heading for a sweet spot they heard about
somewhere, somehow. Even if they don’t quite know where it is or how to get there, they’re still moving
on faith. Get as far as your motherfucking plastic-fantastic car can take you before it dies, then go on
foot. Just like you and me, Mitch. It’ll be heaven when we get there, don’t you doubt it.”

Verna’s words had no effect on Mitch’s anxiety. He ceased scratching and suddenly spun around to
confront the billboard.

“There’s the whole fucking problem! Right there, staring us in the face!”

The billboard featured a military recruiting poster: uniformed young men and women of several races,
clad in the latest ceramic armor and carrying viperish weaponry; sleek helicopters flying low over desert
sands; a battleship looking like a special-effects designer’s wet dream.

Verna sat up lazily, her breasts remolding themselves against her ribs. Thin plumes of dust, stirred by her
movement, eddied up off the soil, as if from an ant’s Ground Zero. She looked at the billboard as if
seeing it for the first time: a lone soldier in simple fatigues, carrying a bulky M-16 and wearing a helmet
that resembled a cook-pot, posed against a jungle backdrop.