"Thomas M. Disch - After Pottsville" - читать интересную книгу автора (Disch Thomas M)

"And how did you vote on the bond issues?"

"Oh, we were against more money for your football teams and uniforms and the
computers and hockey rink. You wrang all that out of us. Then, once the
Mexicans were here in force–Vloosh! the school budget soared into outer space
like a rocketship. There was no stopping the progress of Education then."

"And who brought the Mexicans to Postville? Whose slaughterhouse gave them
jobs? Who built their trailer camps?"

The rebbe shrugged. "Who else? But who else, my little Eagle Scout, would do
the work? The jobs were there, but no one who grew up in Postville was hungry
enough to stoop so low. Eight dollars an hour wouldn’t do for a white man. But
Mexicans are very hungry, and there are millions of them. Do you think your
goyish meat-packers pay better wages?"

"You enjoyed it. You enjoyed turning Postville into a third-world barrio."

"Is that a question? Then the answer is yes. Poetic justice is always
enjoyable–for those not on the receiving end. Have the good citizens of
Postville merited a kinder fate by their love and charity, by the splendor of
their civilization, by the beauty and dignity of their public buildings? When
your ancestors took these lands from the Winnebagos or whatever tribe of
savages first lived here, was there a solemn pact to guarantee that their
children would hold these acreages forever and ever?"

"Like Israel’s pact with Jehovah?"

"Precisely! You begin to understand. There is a time for everything, my
junior-league Hermes. A time to live and a time to die; a time to invest, and
a time to die; a time to welcome your neighbors from the South, and a time to
die. For Postville it is the time to die. But from its ashes Nuevo Pueblo will
arise, with its new people, its new customs and cooking, its madder music and
more powerful recreational drugs."

"And my people–will they have any place in this brave new mundo?"

"Oh yes!" said Rabbi Rosen, giving a lupine inflection to his Disabilities
Awareness grin. "There!" He pointed to the little cemetery abutting St.
Jacobi’s Lutheran Church. "In your graves. Like us."

He spoke with no sense of resignation but rather a kind of glee, a cheer that
transcended mere Schadenfreude to become something sweet and philosophic. That
glee was the reason, for all his dyspepsia and open ill will, that Terry liked
the old fellow. Despite the difference in their ages and backgrounds, they
really had a lot in common.

"Let me ask you a question," said Rabbi Rosen. "Why are you here, a Boy Scout,
with all this grown-up responsibility?"