"Bruce Holland Rogers - These Shoes Strangers Have Died Of" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rogers Bruce Holland)

have died of. Shoes that fit me. I only keep the ones that do.
Some of the boots are like the shoes-- dry-rotted, split-seamed. The others go with the uniforms,
patent leather boots hand-polished until they gleam like black glass.
A full-length mirror hangs on the inside of the closet door.
Several of the uniforms are simple: fatigues of the Ugandan security forces, the Khmer Rouge,
Brazilian or Chilean troops assigned to domestic duty. Khaki is interchangeable with tan, with gray, with
blue.
It's the black uniform that I prize above the others. It's the black that I dress in to stand before the
mirror. On the World War II wall, young men in dress uniforms like this one smile easy smiles.
I smile their smiles for the mirror, feeling what is natural to feel in such a uniform. Invincibility. Pride.
The twin lightning bolts on the collar have everything and nothing to do with history. The death's head in
the band of the cap is timeless.
To my smiling reflection, I say, "What are we to do with you? What is to be done?" The question is no
abstraction. It's a practical matter. It's the question I must ask each day before I begin to carve.
Today, though, it's more practical than ever.
Downstairs on my couch is a young man, bound and gagged.
What am I to do with him?
The silver skull insignia gleams.
I hang the uniform and dress for work.
***


Snow covers the studio skylight. The shadows are soft, deep, and blue. Before turning on the lights, I
run my hands over the rough-hewn block.
When I begin a new piece, even when I can feel into the wood and know exactly what I'm cutting
down to, the first hours of work are always a struggle. The wood resists. Chisels skip off, and saw
blades twist out of shape as if I were trying to cut my way through granite. I have to prove myself each
time, coax the echoes from the grain.
Then, once I have the shape roughed out, the heartwood softens, yields, invites me in. My blades melt
through crosscuts as if I were carving butter. The wood guides the tools, and the face, the shoulder, the
hand emerges.
For the piece I am working on today, the early stage lasts a long time. The wood is green. Ordinarily, I
cure the wood before I work, but in this case, I don't have the time. Resin sticks to my tools.
After two hours of work in the studio, I brush the sawdust from my coveralls and come downstairs to
have a look at him. His eyes are wide, but it's hard to say if what I see in them is fear. He's young.
Young, but old enough to shave.
Hanging near the stove where I put them out to dry are his black jeans, black t-shirt, and motorcycle
boots. He wears the jeans and work shirt I dressed him in, a size too large.
His hands, tied together, rest in his lap. The knuckles of his left hand are tattooed with F-U-C-K, and
the right with K-I-L-L. Though his feet are tied together, he has kicked the books from one of my
shelves, the only damage he's been at liberty to do. Shirer, Arendt, Camus. History and philosophy in a
little pile at his feet.
I say, "If only you had a match, right?"
He glares. I watch him breathe.
It seems to me as if the wooden faces in the room are watching him too-- the teak faces locked in
screams, the anguished expressions in pine or spruce or ebony. All the hollow wooden eyes take him in.
Untying the gag is like breaking a dam. Obscenities flow from him like water.
"I wouldn't have to gag you," I tell him, "if you could keep a civil tongue."
"Fuck you."
I remind him that I saved his life.