"Harvey Jacobs - The Egg of the Glak" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jacobs Harvey)

purple lips. Heavy in the breathing. Short arms and legs. A funny
machine, an engine liberated, huffing, puffing. Like the power cabs that
pull trailers and sometimes go running without their loads. The
amputated heart. They move on diesel oil, Hikhoff on food. Fueling always.
Always belching gas. I loved him. I miss him.
"Cousin North," he once said in a mellow, huff-puff voice when he
finished panting and scratching after a chase around his coffee table. "I
accept your repressive shyness. Lord, god king of fishes, you are too young
to know what trouble a man's genitals can give." Then, pointing at the top
of his paunch, "AND I HAVE NOT SET EYES ON MINE IN FORTY
YEARS."
 Ah. I knew what trouble, since I was then twenty, not ten. But Hikhoff
was making jolly. We had become friends when I carried him home that
spring night. Now, later in the turning year, he invited me to dinner. A
feast. A groaning board. While we digested, he tried to make me.
He wooed me. First, by throwing peels to the garbage disposal which he
called Mr. Universe. They were swallowed, chopped to puree. Next, he
wined me with Liebfraumilch. Then he chased me, the engine with legs,
roaring pre-vowel shift verses about clash and calm, stimulated by, and
frustrated by, my agility.
"I am sorry, sir," I said in a moment of pause. "I do not go that way."
"Alps fall on your callow head," Hikhoff screamed so storm windows
rattled. But we came to an agreement. Back to normal when his pressure
dropped, we talked frankly.
"Sir, Dr. Hikhoff, even if I were interested in deviations, if that's how to
put it, I could just not with you, sir. You are a cathedral to me, full of
stained light, symbolic content. The funny thing is that I love you, but not
that way."
"Distinctions," Hikhoff said a little sadly. "If you have a change of heart
some day, let me be the first to know. Wire me collect. For the meantime,
we will continue to be friends. You have a good head. A good head is a rare
and precious stone."
We continued to be friends. I, who had taken a temporary job as
campus cop to audit free courses, stayed on to become captain of the
force. I kept taking courses, and would still be.
Once each week I went to see Hikhoff and we dined. He did not fail to
steam a little after the mandarin oranges with Cointreau, but he never
attacked me again. He was well controlled.
We talked of life and poetry. I was writing then. He read my works,
sometimes translating them into Old English. He criticized. He had faith
in me, encouraged me.
I wrote of life, courage, identity, time and death. These subjects
delighted Hikhoff. He was a grand romantic, full of Eden, pro-Adam,
pro-Eve, pro-Snake, pro-God, pro-Gabriel, anti-the whole scene. His
self-image wore a cape and carried a sharp sword. He believed in battle
bloody and reunion soft. To sum it up, Hikhoff had a kind of kill and kiss
vision.
The important thing was to keep the winds stirred, the debris flying.
"Chum the emotions, but do not turn them to butter," he said. "Not
with drugs or booze or mushrooms that give a pastel mirage. Use life,