"Howard Waldrop - Occam's Ducks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

up to the catwalk overhead where Meister usually watched from, “The people who
see the films are happy.”
He put another cigarette in his holder. “I live like I want,” he said. Then,
“Let’s get back to work, people.”
“You tell her in this scene,” said Slavo, “that as long as you’re heeled, she has
nothing to fear from the somnam--from what Lorenzo refers to as the Sleepy Guy.”
He handed Mantan a slim straight razor.
Mantan looked at him. Pauline looked back and forth between them.
“Yes, Mr. Brown?” asked Slavo.
“Well, Mr. Slavo,” he said. “This film’s going out to every Negro theater in
the U.S. of A., isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ll have everybody laughing at it, but not with it.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is the kind of razor cadets use to trim their mustaches before they go
down to the dockyards to wait for the newest batch of Irish women for the sporting
houses.”
“Well, that’s the incongruity, Mr. Brown.”
“Willie? Willie?”
The workman appeared. “Willie, get $2.50 from Mr. Meister, and run down to
the drugstore and get a Double Duck Number 2 for me to use.”
“What the hell?” asked Meister, who’d been watching. “A tree’s a tree. A
rock’s a rock. A razor’s a razor. Use that one.”
“It won’t be right, Mr. Meister. Mainly, it won’t be as funny as it can be.”
“It’s a tiny razor,” said Meister. “It’s funny, if you think it can defend both of
you.”
Slavo watched and waited.
“Have you seen the films of Mr. Mack Sennett?” asked Brown.
“Who hasn’t? But he can’t get work now either,” said Meister.
“I mean his earlier stuff. Kops. Custard. Women in bathing suits.”
“Of course.”
“Well, Mr. Sennett once said, if you bend it, it’s funny. If you break it, it
isn’t.”
 “Now a darkie is telling me about the Aristophanic roots of comedy!” said
Meister, throwing up his hands. “What about this theory of Sennett’s?”
“If I use the little razor,” said Mantan, “it breaks.”
Meister looked at him a moment, then reached in his pocket and pulled three
big greenbacks off a roll and handed them to Willie. Willie left.
“I want to see this,” said Meister. He crossed his arms. “Good thing you’re
not getting paid by the hour.”
Willie was back in five minutes with a rectangular box. Inside was a cold
stainless steel thing, mother-of-pearl handled with a gold thumb-stop, half the size of
a meat cleaver. It could have been used to dry-shave the mane off one of Mack
Sennett’s lions in 15 seconds flat.
“Let’s see you bend that!” said Meister.
They rehearsed the scene, Mantan and Pauline. When Brown flourished the
razor, opening it with a quick look, a shift of his eyes each way, three guys who’d
stopped painting scenery to watch fell down in the corner.
Meister left.
Slavo said, “For the next scene . . .”