"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Incident at Lonely Rocks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

INCIDENT AT LONELY ROCKS
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
****
Winter on the Oregon beaches was unlike winter anywhere else. Winter on the
beach meant fifty-degree temperatures and the occasional rain. The surf was high,
but the beaches were empty—tourists spent their vacation dollars on Maui or the
Virgin Islands, or even Las Vegas in December.
But Oscar loved the beach. And he loved the fact that his route took him there
every single week.
Mondays were his beach days. He drove from the warehouse, which was on a
side road exactly between Seavy Village and Anchor Bay, and headed north. His
first stop was always at the Lonely Rocks Wayside, and he’d always think it was
incredibly well named.
Not once had he ever seen a car parked there, not once had he watched a
tourist walk along the beach. When he arrived, there was only him, the crumbling
parking lot, and thePOTSportable toilet, which was as close to the highway as he
could get it.
He would pull up alongside the toilet, get out his scrubber and bucket, then
put on his gloves. He’d keep the ignition on—he had to; the hose wouldn’t work
without it—and then he’d get out. He’d open the toilet’s door, stick the hose
through the hole, and let the machine suck the waste into the large container at the
back of his truck.
He also had another portable toilet strapped into the back in case he had to
switch one out or he got called to a new job. Usually that toilet remained there for
most of the week.
Then, when he finished vacuuming out the waste, he scrubbed the interior and
added new chemicals in the portable toilet’s storage container. He had become a fast
cleaner, and a precise one. His motto was simple: He wanted moms and grandmoms
to comfortably use his toilets.
He particularly liked the Lonely Rocks Wayside. It had been built in the 1950s
as a large turnout where tourists could watch the waves. Over the years, it had had
slight upgrades: The parking lot was now asphalt instead of flattened dirt, a guardrail
had been placed along the cliffside, and state-produced signs told idiots not to climb
over the side.POTSgot the wayside’s first and only portable toilet contract in 1991,
and Oscar had been servicing Lonely Rocks ever since.
Oscar figured it was the highway warning signs that kept the casual tourist
away. In addition to the BEWARE SUNKEN GRADE signs that dotted every mile
of the old road (it wasn’t Highway 101 anymore; the state had gotten terrified of the
erosion this high up and had moved the highway two miles inland, away from the
ocean), there were DO NOT WALK signs posted along the shoulder and
CAUTION: UNSTABLE GROUND signs even closer to the wayside itself.
Most out-of-state tourists didn’t know Oregon terminology, so the “sunken
grade” signs wouldn’t bother them. Sunken grade meant the same thing that the
unstable ground sign meant with a slight twist: Sunken grade would most easily be
translated as “sinking road.”
He was a native Oregonian, which was why he always stopped his heavy truck
on a turnout on the east side of the highway, just before the sunken grade signs
started. Then he’d walk the length—again on the east side, away from the
ocean—and inspect the road, just to make sure it was sturdy enough for the
one-ton-plus he would drive across it.