"David Eddings - Losers, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

"What's got you so wound up?" Raphael asked, amused in spite of himself. When Flood was in good spirits, he was virtually overpowering, and Raphael needed that at the moment.

"I've been out examining this pigsty," Flood told him. "Were you aware that the engineering marvel of the entire city-the thing they're proudest of-is the sewage-treatment plant?"

Raphael laughed. "No, I didn't know that."

"Absolutely. They all invite you to go out and have a look at it. They all talk about it. It's terribly important to them. I suppose it's only natural, though."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"Old people, Raphael, old, old, old, old people. Spokane has more hospitals and doctors per square inch than cities five times its size because it's full of old people, and old people get sick a lot. Spokane is positively overwhelmed by its sewage-treatment plant because old people are obsessed with the functioning of their bowels. They gloat over their latest defecation the way young people gloat over their most recent sexual conquest. This place is the prune juice and toilet-paper capital of America. It's got more old people than any place this side of Miami Beach. And the whole town has a sort of geriatric artsy-craftsy air about it. They do macramй and ceramics and little plaster figurines they pop out of readymade rubber molds so they can call themselves sculptors. They crank out menopausal religious verse by the ream and print it up in self-congratulatory little mimeographed booklets and then sit around smugly convinced that they're poets."

"Come on." Raphael laughed.

"And the biggest thing on their educational TV station is the annual fund-raising drive. There's an enormous perverted logic there. They hustle money to keep the station on the air so that it can broadcast pictures of them hustling money to keep the station on the air. It's sort of self-perpetuating."

"There are some colleges here," Raphael objected. "The place isn't a total void."

Flood snorted with laughter. "Sure, baby. I've looked into them-a couple of junior colleges where the big majors are sheet metal, auto mechanics, and bedpan repair, and a big Catholic university where they pee their pants over basketball and theology. I love Catholic towns, don't you? Wall-to-wall mongoloids. That's what comes of having a celibate priesthood making sure that their parishioners are punished for enjoying sex. A good Catholic woman can have six mongoloids in a row before it begins to dawn on her that something might be wrong with her reproductive system."

"You're positively dazzling today, Damon. You must be in a good humor."

"I am, babes, I am. I'm always delighted to discover elementals-things that seem to be a distillation of an ideal. I think I'm a Platonist-I like to contemplate concepts in their pure state, and Spokane is the perfect place to contemplate such concepts as mongolism, senility, perversion, and bad breath in all their naked, blinding glory."

"Bad breath?"

"It must be something in the water. Everybody in town has breath that could peel paint at forty yards. I could stand that, though, if they weren't all about three quarters 'round the bend."

"It's not quite that bad."

"Really? The biggest growth industry in the area is the loony bin out at Medical Lake. The whole town is crawling with maniacs. I saw a man on the sidewalk giving a speech to a fifty-seven Chevy this morning."

"Tall?" Raphael asked, "Skinny? Bald and with a big, booming voice?"

"You've seen him?"

"He was in front of the bus station when I first got into town. Is he still talking about the nonexistence of chance?"

"No. The old bastard was lecturing on Hegel as close as I could tell-thesis, antithesis, synthesis, all that shit."

"Did it make any sense?"

"Not to me it didn't, but that doesn't mean anything. Even the original didn't make sense to me."

"It's nice to know that he's still around." Raphael smiled. "It gives the place a sort of continuity."

Flood looked at him, one eyebrow raised. "That's the sort of continuity you like? You sure you don't want me to reserve you one of those rubber rooms out at Medical Lake?"

"Not just yet. What else have you been up to? I haven't seen much of you in the last few days."