"Вуди Гасри. Bound for glory (engl)" - читать интересную книгу автора

"Beats walkin'!" I was setting down beside him. "Bother you fer my
guitar handle ta stick up here in yer face?"
"Naw. Just long as yuh keep up th' music. Kinda songs ya sing? Juke-box
stuff?"
"Much oblige, just smoked." I shook my head. "No. I'm 'fraid that there
soap-box music ain't th' kind ta win a war on!"
"Little too sissy?" He licked up the side of his cigaret. "Wisecracky,
huh?"
"Hell yes." I pulled my guitar up on my lap and told him, "Gonna take
somethin' more'n a dam bunch of silly wisecracks ta ever win this war! Gonna
take work!"
"You don't look like you ever broke your neck at no work, bud!" He
snorted some fumes out of his nose and mashed the match down into the dust
with his foot. "What th' hell do you know 'bout work?"
"By God, mister, I work just as hard as you er th' next guy!" I held
the ends of my fingers up in his face. "An` I got th' blisters ta prove it!"
"How come you ain't drafted?"
"I never did get by those medical gents. Doctors and me don't see eye
to eye."
A blond-headed man about forty nudged me in the ribs with his elbow on
my left side and said, "You boys talkin' about a war. I got a feelin' you're
goin" to see a little spell of war right here in just a few minutes."
"Makes ya think so?" I looked around all over the car.
"Boy!" He stretched out his feet to prop his self back up against the
wall and I noticed he was wearing an iron brace on his leg. "They call me
Cripple Whitey, th' Fight Spotter!"
"Fight spotter?"
"Yeah. I can spot a fist fight on the streets three blocks before I
come to it. I can spot a gang fight an hour before it breaks out. I tip off
the boys. Then they know how to lay their bets."
"Ya got a fight spotted now?"
"I smell a big one. One hell of a big one. Be some blood spilt. Be
about ten minutes yet."
"Hey! Heavy!" I elbowed the big boy on my right. "Whitey here says he
smells a big fight cookin'!"
"Awwww. Don't pay no 'tention to that crippled rat. He's just full of
paregoric. In Chicago we call 'im P. G. Whitey'! I don't know what they call
him here in Minnesota!"
"You're a goddam lyin' rat!" The cripple got up and swayed around on
the floor in front of us. "Get up! I'll cave your lousy dam head in! I'll
throw you out inta one of these lakes!"
"Easy, boy, easy." Heavy put the sole of his shoe in Whitey's belly and
held him back. "I don't wanta hit no cripple!"
"You guys watch out! Don't you stumble an' fall on my guitar!" I eased
over a little. "Yeah! You're some fight spotter! If you spot a fight an'
then it don't happen just when you said, why, you just pitch in and start
one yer self!"
"I'll crack that box over your dam curly head!" The cripple made a step
toward me, laughing and smearing cement dust down across his face. Then he
sneered and told me, "Goddam right! Hell yes! I'm a bum! I gotta right ta