"Howard Waldrop - Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

catastrophes just waiting to happen.
But the greatest one of all, the thing time's been holding its breath for,
the capo de tutti capi of impending disasters, was going to happen this
coming weekend.
Like the Titanic steaming for its chunk of polar ice, like the Hindenberg
looking for its Lakehurst, like the guy at Chernobyl wondering what that
switch would do, it was inevitable, inexorable, a psychic juggernaut.
The Class of '69 was having its twentieth high school reunion.
And what they were coming back to was no longer even a high
school—it I had been phased out in a magnet school program in 74. The
building had been taken over by the community college.
The most radical graduating class in the history of American secondary
education, had, like all the ideals it once held, no real place to go.
Things were to start Saturday morning with a tour of the old building,
then a picnic in the afternoon in the city park where everyone used to get
stoned and lie around all weekend, then a dance that night in what used to
be the fanciest downtown hotel a few blocks from the state capitol.
That was the reunion Barb was talking about.



"I found the concept of the high school no longer being there so
existential that I offered to help out," I said. "Olin Sweetwater called me a
couple of months ago—"
"Olin Sweetwater? Olin Sweetwater?" said Penny. "Geez! I haven't
heard that name in the whole damn twenty years." She held onto the table
with both hands. "I think I'm having a drug flashback!"
"Yeah, Olin. Lives in Dallas now. Runs an insurance agency. He got my
name from somebody I built some bookcases for a couple of years ago.
Anyway, asked if I'd be one of the guides on the tour Saturday
morning—you know, point out stuff to husbands and wives and kids,
people who weren't there."
I didn't know if I should go on.
Bob was looking at me, waiting.
"Well, Olin got me in touch with Jamie Lee Johnson—Jamie Lee
Something hyphen Something now, none of them Johnson. She's the
entertainment chairman, in charge of the dance. I made a couple of tapes
for her."
I don't have much, but I do have a huge bunch of Original Oldies,
Greatest Hits albums and other garage sale wonders. Lots of people know
it and call me once or twice a year to make dance tapes for their parties.
"Oh, you'll like this," I said, waving to Carole to bring me another
Ballantine Ale. "She said 'Spring for some Maxell tapes, not the usual four
for eighty-nine cents kind I hear you buy at Revco.' Where you think she
could have heard about that?"
"From me," said Barb. "She called me a month ago, too." She smiled a
little.
"Come on, Barb." I said. "Spill it."
"Well, I wanted to—"
"I'm not going," said Penny.