"Goodis, David - Nightfall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goodis David)

"Hot night," the man said.
"Terrific."
"I saw some kids diving off the docks," the man said. "They got the right idea."
"If we did it," Vanning said, "people would call us crazy."
"The trouble with people is they don't understand people."
The man had a pleasant voice and a free-and-easy air, and Vanning told himself there was nothing unusual about the matter. The man merely wanted a light and a minute or so of chewing the rag, and if he was going to start worrying about all these little things he might as well put himself in a sanitarium.
The man leaned against a building wall. Vanning lit a cigarette for himself. They stood there like a couple of calm animals in a calm forest. The night was all around them and the streets were quiet and the heat was dominant.
"I wonder how they stand it in the tropics," he said.
"They're born into it."
"I don't think I could stand it," the man said. "Ever been near the Equator?"
"A few times."
"What's it like?"
"Great," Vanning said. "You go nuts but you don't mind it, because everybody goes nuts."
"I've never traveled much."
"Don't go near the Equator," Vanning said. "This is twenty per cent of what it's like."
"When were you there?"
"During the war."
"I didn't get in," the man said. "A wife and kids."
"They put me in the Navy," Vanning said, and listened to himself saying it, and told himself to put a lock on his big mouth. He figured it was about time to start moving.
But the man said, "You see much action?"
"Enough."
"Where?"
"Around Borneo." He told himself it was all right. It would last maybe another minute and then he would tell the man he had to meet someone at Jimmy Kelly's or someplace and he would go away and the incident would fade into one of those vague little incidents that never make the front pages or the history books.
"I envy you," the man said.
"Why?"
"Farthest I've ever been away from New York is Maine. I used to go there summers, before things got tough."
"Hard going?"
"Lately," the man said.
"What's your line?"
"Research."
"Business?"
"More or less."
"I'm in advertising," Vanning said.
"Agency?"
"Free-lance artist."
"How do you fellows make out?"
"It runs in cycles. We don't know what we depend on. Maybe the sun spots."
"I think we're in for another depression," the man said.
"It's hard to say."
The man let his cigarette fall to the sidewalk. He stepped on it. "Well," he said, "I think I'll be going. She always waits up for me."
Vanning was about to let the whole thing pass, but he found himself saying, "Been married long?"
"Eleven years."
"I wish I was married."
"You say that as though you meant it."
"I do."
"It has its points," the man said. "In the beginning we were all set to break up. Times I'd be eating breakfast and there she'd be across the table and I'd wonder if it was possible to get rid of her. Then I'd ask myself why and I couldn't think of a good reason."
"Maybe the freedom angle."
"You're free."
"It gets monotonous. I think if you're normal you've got to have someone. You've got to have something special and it's got to be around all the time."
"Can't that get monotonous?"