JК
The Colorado Kid :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 18 из 81She tried to imagine him doing the greyhound thing—two miles a day on the island side of the reach, three more on the mainland side—and couldn’t manage it.
“Ain’t makin much progress with it, are ya, dear?” Vince asked.
“No,” she admitted.
“Well, that’s because you see Johnny Gravlin the soccer player, miler, Friday night practical joker and Saturday lover asMayor John Gravlin, who happens to be the only political hoptoad in a small island pond. He goes up and down Bay Street shaking hands and grinning with that gold tooth flashing off to one side in his mouth, got a good word for everyone he meets, never forgets a name or which man drives a Ford pickup and which one is still getting along with his Dad’s old International Harvester. He’s a caricature right out of an old nineteenforties movie about smalltown hoopdedoo politics and he’s such a hick he don’t even know it. He’s got one jump left in him—hop, toad, hop—and once he gets to that Augusta lilypad he’ll either be wise enough to stop or he’ll try another hop and end up getting squashed.”
“That isso cynical,” Stephanie said, not without youth’s admiration for the trait.
Vince shrugged his bony shoulders. “Hey, I’m a stereotype myself, dearie, only my movie’s the one where the newspaper feller with the armgarters on his shirt and the eyeshade on his forread gets to yell out ‘Stop the presses!’ in the last reel. My point is that Johnny was a different creature in those days—slim as a quill pen and quick as quicksilver. You would have called him a god, almost, except for those unfortunate buck teeth, which he has since had fixed.
“And she…in those skimpy little red shorts she wore…she was indeed a goddess.” He paused. “As so many girls of seventeen surely are.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Dave told him.
Vince looked surprised. “Ain’t,” he said. “Ain’t a bit. It’s in the clouds.”
“If you say so,” Dave said, “and I will admit she was a looker, all right. And an inch or two taller than Johnny, which may be why they broke up in the spring of their senior year. But back in ’80 they were hot and heavy, and every day they’d run for the ferry on this side and then up Bayview Hill to the high school on the Tinnock side. There were bets on when Nancy would catch pregnant by him, but she never did; either he was awful polite or she was awful careful.” He paused. “Or hell, maybe they were just a little more sophisticated than most island kids back then.”
“I think it might’ve been the running,” Vince said judiciously.
“Ain’t makin much progress with it, are ya, dear?” Vince asked.
“No,” she admitted.
“Well, that’s because you see Johnny Gravlin the soccer player, miler, Friday night practical joker and Saturday lover asMayor John Gravlin, who happens to be the only political hoptoad in a small island pond. He goes up and down Bay Street shaking hands and grinning with that gold tooth flashing off to one side in his mouth, got a good word for everyone he meets, never forgets a name or which man drives a Ford pickup and which one is still getting along with his Dad’s old International Harvester. He’s a caricature right out of an old nineteenforties movie about smalltown hoopdedoo politics and he’s such a hick he don’t even know it. He’s got one jump left in him—hop, toad, hop—and once he gets to that Augusta lilypad he’ll either be wise enough to stop or he’ll try another hop and end up getting squashed.”
“That isso cynical,” Stephanie said, not without youth’s admiration for the trait.
Vince shrugged his bony shoulders. “Hey, I’m a stereotype myself, dearie, only my movie’s the one where the newspaper feller with the armgarters on his shirt and the eyeshade on his forread gets to yell out ‘Stop the presses!’ in the last reel. My point is that Johnny was a different creature in those days—slim as a quill pen and quick as quicksilver. You would have called him a god, almost, except for those unfortunate buck teeth, which he has since had fixed.
“And she…in those skimpy little red shorts she wore…she was indeed a goddess.” He paused. “As so many girls of seventeen surely are.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Dave told him.
Vince looked surprised. “Ain’t,” he said. “Ain’t a bit. It’s in the clouds.”
“If you say so,” Dave said, “and I will admit she was a looker, all right. And an inch or two taller than Johnny, which may be why they broke up in the spring of their senior year. But back in ’80 they were hot and heavy, and every day they’d run for the ferry on this side and then up Bayview Hill to the high school on the Tinnock side. There were bets on when Nancy would catch pregnant by him, but she never did; either he was awful polite or she was awful careful.” He paused. “Or hell, maybe they were just a little more sophisticated than most island kids back then.”
“I think it might’ve been the running,” Vince said judiciously.