"Kim Stanley Robinson - Sixty Days and Counting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

made for Joe to join the daycare there, after which Charlie would leave and walk over
to the senate offices in the old Joiner’s Union building. Up and out of the Metro, into
warm air, under low windy clouds. People scudded underneath them, hurrying from
one shelter to the next before rain hit.
Charlie had gotten out at Smithsonian, and the Mall was almost empty, only a few
runners in sight. He pushed Joe along faster and faster, feeling more and more
desolate—unreasonably so, almost to the point of despair—especially as Joe
continued to babble on happily, energized by the Mall and the brewing storm, no
doubt expecting something like their usual picnic and play session. Hours that no
matter how tedious they had seemed at the time were now revealed as precious
islands in eternity, as paradises lost. And it was impossible to convey to Joe that
today was going to be different. “Joe, I’m going to drop you off at the daycare
center here at the White House. You’re going to get to play with the other kids and
the teachers and you have to do what the teachers say for a long time.”
“Cool Dad. Play!”
“Yeah that’s right. Maybe you’ll love it.”
It was at least possible. Vivid in Charlie’s mind was Anna’s story about taking Nick
to daycare for the first time, and seeing Nick’s expression of stoic resignation, which
had pierced her so; Charlie had seen the look himself, taking Nick in those first few
times. But Joe was no stoic, and would never resign himself to anything. Charlie was
anticipating something more like chaos and disorder, perhaps even mayhem, Joe
moving from protest to tirade to rampage. But who knew? The way Joe was acting
these days, anything was possible. He might love it. He could be gregarious, and he
liked crowds and parties. It was really more a matter of liking them too much, taking
them too far.
In any case, in they went. Security check, and then inside and down the hall to the
daycare center, a well-appointed and very clean place. Lots of little kids running
around among toys and play structures, train sets and bookshelves and Legos and
all. Joe’s eyes grew round. “Hey Dad! Big Gymboree!”
“That’s right, like Gymboree. Except I’m going to go, Joe. I’m going to go and
leave you here.”
“Bye Dad!” And off he ran without a backward glance.



II
Cut To The Chase

“And if you think this is utopian, please think also why it is such.”
—Brecht


P hil Chase was a man with a past. He was one of Congress’s Vietnam vets, and
that was by and large a pretty rambunctious crowd. They had license to be a little
crazy, and not all of them took it, but it was there if they wanted it.
Phil had wanted it. He had always played that card to the hilt. Unconventional,
unpredictable, devil-may-care, friend of McCain. And for well over a decade, his
particular shtick had been to be the World’s Senator, phoning in his work or
jetting into D.C. at the last hour to make votes he had to make in person. All this
had been laid before the people of California as an explicit policy, with the