"Thomas A. Easton - Down on the Truck Farm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

the office door. “Alex?” He turned back to Jimmy. “Another trainee. He'll get you your clothes. They
should be dry by now. And you can keep the coverall.”

****

“Those puppies,” said Jimmy. “Do you remember Ruffles?” The farm's contract and other papers were
on the kitchen table. The coverall was draped over a chair so the shoulder patch logo showed clearly.

“But they're so huge!” cried his mother. The whole family was sitting around the table. Jimmy's head was
bent, his hands clasped before him, his voice soft. The others’ eyes shifted constantly from the coverall to
Jimmy to the contract, and back again.

“Yeah!” said Caleb. “Though I'd rather have a Roadrunner.”

“If I drive Tige for just ten years, he'll be all mine.” He was thinking the farm's deal over, he was, though
he didn't expect the process to make much difference. Puppies and their all-forgiving, all-compensating
love were not just for little kids, and if he had to become a trucker to get Tige, he would.

“And what then? How will you feed him?”

“I'll have to stay a trucker, won't I?”
“A Mack that big is no pet.”

And Jimmy thought: Was puppy love no more than a trap, a lure for a vocation that would forevermore
have him hustling to feed the pup, as well as himself, and eventually a family? Nickers had said as much,
hadn't he?

“You won't be able to vege out on honeysuckle wine,” said Caleb. There was a touch of “nyahh-nyahh”
whine in his voice, but Jimmy ignored it. Nickers had said that, too, and though his head still ached and
somewhere deep inside him lurked a craving for the honey, he thought he could handle it. He was not,
after all, addicted to the stuff. He liked it, he wanted it, but it did not rule him the way it did the
honey-bums he had seen under the highway overpasses.

Jimmy reached for the contract, drew it closer, and paused. He looked within himself for the honey
craving. He measured it against his craving for Tige, for maturity, for life.

He straightened his back and looked at his Dad, sitting across the table. His mother noticed and began to
cry.

“Got a pen, Dad?”

His father quietly drew a pen from his shirt pocket and, his own eyes glistening, held it out.

About the Author
Thomas A. Easton (1944- ) is a biologist, textbook author, and science fiction novelist and critic with a
strong interest in the interactions of science, technology, and society. His most recent book isTaking
Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Science, Technology, and Society (Guilford, CT:
Dushkin Publishing Group, 4th ed., 2000).