"Big U, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stephenson Neal)

Below them on one of the Parkway off-ramps a rented truck
from Maryland had tried to pass under a low bridge, its student
driver forgetting that he was in a truck and not his Trans-Am. Upon
impact, the steel molding that fastened the truck's top to its sides had
wrapped itself around the frame of a green highway sign bolted to
the bridge. Now the sign, which read:

AMERICAN MEGAVERSITY

VISITOR PARKING

SPORTS EVENTS

EXIT 500 FT.

was suspended in the air at the end of a long strip of truck that
had been peeled up and aside.
A small crowd students, apparently finished with all their line-
waiting, stood on the bridge and beside the ramp, throwing Frisbees
and debris into the torn-open back of the truck, where its renters
lounged in sofas and recliners and drank beer, and threw the
projectiles back. Sarah thought it was idiotic, and Casimir couldn't
understand it at all.
Out in the hallway, people behind them in the line were being
verbally abused by an old derelict who had penetrated the Plex
security system. "The only degree you kids deserve is the third
degree!" he shouted, waving his arms and staggering in place. He
wore a ratty tweed jacket whose elbow patches flapped like vestigial
wings, and he drank in turns from a bottle of Happy's vodka and a
Schlitz tall-boy which he kept holstered in his pockets. He had the
full attention of the students, who were understandably bored, and
most of them laughed and tried to think of provocative remarks.
As the drunk was wading toward them, one asked another how
her summer had been. "What about it?" asked the derelict. "Fiscal
conservatism? Fine in theory! Tough, though! You have to be tough
and humane together, you see, the two opposites must unite in one
great leader! Can't be a damn dictator like S. S. Krupp!"
This brought cheers and laughter from the upperclassmen, who
had just decided the drunk was a cool guy. Septimius Severus
Krupp, the President of American Megaversity, was not popular.
"Jesus Christ!" he continued through the laughter, "What the hell are
they teaching you savages these days? You need a spanking! No
more circuses. Maybe a dictator is just what you need! Alcibiades!
Pompilius Numa! They'd straighten things out good and fast."
Sarah knew the man. He liked to break into classes at the Big U
and lecture the professors, who usually were at a loss as to how to
deal with him. His name was Bert Nix. He had taken quite a shine to
Sarah: for her part, she did not know whether or not to be scared of
him. During the preceding spring's student government compaign,
Bert Nix had posed with Sarah for a campaign photo which had then