Читать книгу The East Side of it All - Joseph Dandurand - Страница 10

As the city sleeps there are those who go up and down the alley picking up whatever may be laying on the ground that they toss into carts and all you hear are the squeaking wheels as each cart is pushed and pushed until it stops to pick up a pop can or beer can to toss into their pile of gold.

They are usually half the man they used to be. Some are drunks and others addicts but they collect as if collecting for their choice of church— God welcomes them all though some gave up on God long ago.

There are those who wear very little and there are those who are dressed for a cold winter but here it only rains and the carts cut through all the puddles and the half- a-man stops and picks up an old needle and checks to see if it has a drink of the black demon but it never does so he tosses it for the next half-a-man to pick up and repeat as the squeaking wheels begin to sound like violins of a pathetic symphony and the notes are unplugged in unison as the wheels turn and stop and repeat.

We all wake up to the early ballad that is now played with the sounds of those who cherish a God as the city becomes alive from a long night and the song becomes even louder as the first bus comes around and the hiss of the brakes becomes the drumbeat and the song changes and becomes a song to God who stopped listening long ago.