"Howard Waldrop - The Sawing Boys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

there. I bet we'd sound right purty together."
So side by side by bucksaw and ladder, they set out down the big path south.


What we are doing is, we are walking down this unpaved road. How we have
come to be walking down this unpaved road is a very long and tiresome story that I
should not bore you with.
We are being Chris the Shoemaker, who is the brains of this operation, and a very
known guy aback where we come from, which is south of Long Island, and Large
Jake and Little Willie, who are being the brawn, and Miss Millie Dee Chantpie, who
is Chris the Shoemaker's doll, and who is always dressed to the nines, and myself,
Charlie Perro, whose job it is to remind everyone what their job is being.
"I am astounded as all get-out," says Little Willie, "that there are so many places
with no persons in them nowise," looking around at the trees and bushes and such.
"We have seen two toolsheds which looked as if they once housed families of
fourteen, but of real-for-true homes, I am not seeing any."
"Use your glims for something besides keeping your nose from sliding into your
eyebrows," says Chris the Shoemaker. "You will have seen the sign that said one of
the toolcribs is the town of Podunk, and the other shed is the burg of Shtetl. I am
believing the next one we will encounter is called Pratt Falls. I am assuming it
contains some sort of trickle of fluid, a stunning and precipitous descent in elevation,
established by someone with the aforementioned surname."
He is called Chris the Shoemaker because that is now his moniker, and he once
hung around shoe-stores. At that time the cobbler shops was the place where the
policy action was hot, and before you can be saying Hey Presto! there is Chris the
Shoemaker in a new loud suit looking like a comet, and he is the middle guy between
the shoemakers and the elves that rig the policy.
 "Who would have thought it?" asked Little Willie, "both balonies on the rear
blowing at the same time, and bending up the frammus, and all the push and pull
running out? I mean, what are the chances?"
Little Willie is called that because he is the smaller of the two brothers. Large Jake
is called that because, oh my goodness, is he large. He is so large that people have
confused him for nightfall—they are standing on the corner shooting the breeze with
some guys, and suddenly all the light goes away, and so do the other guys. There are
all these cigarettes dropping to the pavement where guys used to be, and the person
looks around and whoa! it is not night at all, it is only Large Jake.
For two brothers they do not look a thing alike. Little Willie looks, you should
excuse the expression, like something from the family Rodentia, whereas Large Jake
is a very pleasant-looking individual, only the pleasant is spread across about three
feet of mook.
Miss Millie Dee Chantpie is hubba-hubba stuff (only Chris the Shoemaker best
not see you give her more than one Long Island peek) and the talk is she used to be
a roving debutante. Chris has the goo-goo eyes for her, and she is just about a whiz
at the new crossword puzzles, which always give Little Willie a headache when he
tries to do one.
Where we are is somewhere in the state of Kentucky, which I had not been able to
imagine had I not seen it yesterday from the train. Why we were here was for a meet
with this known guy who runs a used furniture business on South Wabash Street in
Chi City. The meet was to involve lots of known guys, and to be at some hunting
lodge in these hills outside Frankfort, where we should not be bothered by prying