"Neal Stephenson & Frederick George - Interface" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

second picture, two years later: William Cozzano in a village in the Central Highlands, unshaven, eyes
staring out alarmingly white and clean from a smoky face, a slack-jawed, inadvertent grin, a Browning
automatic rifle dangling from one hand, a cherubic Vietnamese girl sitting in the crook of the other arm with
her left leg wrapped in fresh white gauze, staring up at him with her tiny mouth open in astonishment;
Cozzano was smiling through a crazy weariness that threatened to bring him to his knees at the next
moment but the girl sensed that she was safe there.
Another glass mount, but instead of cloth letters this one had forged medallions hanging on colorful satin
ribbons: a purple heart and a bronze star from Cozzano's first tour and another purple heart and a silver star
from his second, surrounded by a flock of lesser decorations.
Baby pictures of Mary Catherine and James. An illuminated parchment from Pope John XXIII
superfluously blessing their marriage.
A picture of his father on a fishing trip in Alaska, shortly before his fatal heart attack.
A photo of Cozzano in his Chicago Bears uniform, sitting on his helmet to keep up and out of a sideline
morass, black grease on his cheekbones, blood hardening on his knuckles, grass stains on his shoulder
pads.
Pro Bowl rings from a couple of different years in the Nixon and Ford administrations.
The last formal portrait of Christina, shot just before she had been transfigured by radiation and
chemotherapy; this one also said "olan mills" and had been shot in a slightly nicer motel room in
Champaign-Urbana by the same photographer who had done Cozzano's parents in 1948.
A photo of William giving a victory speech on the front lawn of the family house in Tuscola, flanked by
Mary Catherine and James. Autographed photo of William with George Bush at The Peking Gourmet
Restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, a harshly flash-lit amateur snapshot, Cozzano and Bush eating Peking
duck in shirtsleeves and yukking it up.
Cozzano jogging around Camp David with Bill and Hilary Clinton.
An invitation to a White House dinner from the current President.
 The dome of the Illinois State capitol was built on foundations of solid stone seventeen feet thick.
Cozzano needed to keep all of this stuff in his line of sight while he worked, because these pictures and
souvenirs were his foundations.
Cozzano was reading a letter that he was supposed to sign. He knew that he should simply do it, but his
father had told him that he should always read things before he signed them. Since a large part of Cozzano's
job involved signing things, this meant that he often worked late. He was holding his big pen in his left fist,
nervously popping its cap on and off with the ball of his thumb.
The intercom made a gentle popping noise as Marsha, his secretary, turned on her microphone in the
next room. Cozzano startled a little. Marsha had a talent for finding things to do, and when Cozzano stayed
late she often hung around for a few hours and did them. Her voice came out of the speaker: "The State of
the Union speech is about to begin, Governor."
"Thank you," Cozzano said, and shut off the intercom. "I guess," he added, to himself.
Cozzano reached for the remote control and turned it on to C-SPAN - he could not abide the network
anchors - just in time to see the cameras pan over the ritualistic standing ovation given every president, no
matter how incompetent. Continuing to thumb buttons on the remote, he caused a little window to open
up in the corner of the screen, running the Comedy Channels' live coverage.
The egregious hypocrisy of the scene disgusted him. How could those assholes cheer the person who was
leading - wrong, failing to lead - the country into disaster?
Eventually the applause died down, and the Speaker of the House reintroduced the president. There
was a second obligatory standing ovation. Cozzano scoffed, shook his head, rubbed his temples with the
palms of both hands. He couldn't take it. The cameras swept the section where the president's wife and family
sat, smiling bravely. The president pathetically waved his arms to quiet the ovation, and then began his
speech.

A year from tonight, I hope to stand on the West Front of this great building and begin my second term as