"Howard Waldrop - Flying Saucer Rock & Roll" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

In the darkness, Sparks worked by the lights of his old truck. What he
had in front of him resembled something from an alchemy or magnetism
treatise written early in the eighteenth century. Twenty or so car batteries
were hooked up in series with jumper cables. He'd tied those in with
amps, mikes, transformers, a light board, and lights on the dock area.

"Stand clear!" he yelled. He bent down with the last set of cables and
stuck an alligator clamp on a battery spot.

There was a screeching blue jag of light and a frying noise. The lights
flickered and came on, and the amps whined louder and louder.

The crowd, numbering around five hundred, gave out with prolonged
huzzahs and applause.

"Test test test," said Lucius. Everybody held their hands over their ears.

"Turn that fucker down," said Vinnie. Sparks did. Then he waved to the
crowd, got into his old truck, turned the lights off, and drove into the
night.
 "Ladies and gentlemen, the Purple Monsters…" said Lucius, to wild
applause, and Vinnie leaned into the mike, "and the Hellbenders," more
applause, then back to Lucius, "would like to welcome you to the first
annual piss-off—I mean, sing-off—between our own Bobby and the
Bombers," cheers, "and the challengers," said Vinnie, "the Kool-Tones!"
More applause.

"They'll do two sets, folks," said Lucius, "taking turns. And at the end,
the unlucky group, gauged by your lack of applause, will win a prize!" The
crowd went wild.

The lights dimmed out. "And now," came Vinnie's voice from the still
blackness of the loading dock, "for your listening pleasure, Bobby and the
Bombers!"

"Yayyyyyyyyyy!"

The lights, virtually the only lights in the city except for those that were
being run by emergency generators, came up, and there they were.

Imagine frosted, polished elegance being thrust on the unwilling
shoulders of a sixteen-year-old.

They had on bluejackets, matching pants, ruffled shirts, black ties, cuff
links, tie tacks, shoes like obsidian mortar trowels. They were all black
boys, and from the first note, you knew they were born to sing:

"Bah bah," sang Letus the bassman, "doo-doo duh-duh doo-ahh,
duh-doo-dee-doot," sang the two tenors, Lennie and Gonk, and then