"Barry Longyear - Dark Corners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Longyear Barry)

Johnny, her gaze met his for an instant, and he turned away. There were only a handful of visitors before
the wall, each one within his or her own wall.

The wind driven flakes stung Johnny’s skin as he looked down and saw his legs reflected in the polished
surface of the granite. Then he saw the names cut into the stone across his legs.

Turning away from the wall he swallowed and took a deep breath. “I’m not sure about this.”

Mark placed his arm around Johnny’s shoulders. “I’m here with you, man. Come on. You know you
have to do this.”

“Listen. Mark, listen.” Johnny sniffed back his tears. “You know, with them all dead and me alive, I used
to wonder if there was some reason. You know, God? Maybe I’d been saved for something big,
important? But what did I do with it? My life? I can’t stand being near anyone, I can’t hold down a job,
and all I can do is bum around and try to keep a step ahead of the nightmare.”

“Come on, Johnny. Your time on the wall’s further down.”

“I don’t know if I can face those names,” said Johnny as he stumbled toward the ever thickening wall.
“How can I face them?”

“Like you said, Johnny. It’s only a list.”

They stood before a panel ten feet tall, deep within Nineteen Sixty Nine. Mark kept his hand on Johnny’s
shoulder as Johnny’s eyes searched from the top of the slab toward the bottom. Down and down his
gaze fell until it was wrenched to a halt a foot above eye level: Joseph E Levy.

“Oh, Joe,” said Johnny, the name escaping quietly from his lips as he reached up with his hand and
touched the letters. His vision filled with tears. “Joe.” Johnny Nolan’s mouth broke into an involuntary
smile. “Joe. He was a joker. Funny. Real funny guy. He could imitate anyone. In basic when my parents
came down to Fort Jackson for graduation, Joe met them. My dad liked Joe a lot. Joe and Mike Hallet
came home with me on leave after basic.” He shook his head and began to turn away but his fingers
touched another name: Glenn A Dunham.

“Sarge. God, sarge.” He looked at Glenn Dunham’s name so intensely and for so long it was as though
he had been cast in tortured steel. At last Johnny closed his eyes and shook his head. “Dunham. He
seemed so ancient back then. Such a rock, so full of wisdom. What was he? Twenty seven? Twenty
eight? When he died he couldn’t have been more than twenty eight.” Johnny looked at Mark. “In another
month I’ll be forty four.”

He looked back at the wall, and as he began taking his fingers away from Glenn A Dunham’s name, they
touched another. He found Gerald P Ross, Edward I Lawson, Richard K Garrison, Anthony R Geneso,
L Randall Brown.

“Hey, Leroy,” said Johnny as he coughed and laughed. The laugh was forced, for Johnny Nolan’s eyes
were wide and haunted. Wiping the tears from his eyes with his sleeve, Johnny kept looking at where his
fingers touched the name of L Randall Brown. “Leroy. He really hated the name Leroy. Man he was the
blackest, angriest, bitterest sonofabitch I ever met in my life. Nineteen, twenty years old. He hated the
name Leroy, so naturally we all made a point of calling him Leroy.” Johnny frowned as his eyes focused
on the past.