Читать книгу Sombrero Fallout - Richard Brautigan - Страница 26

FUTURE

‘I’ll get the sombrero for you, mayor,’ the unemployed man said and bent over to pick up the sombrero. It was his last chance to get a job on this planet and he did not believe in God. It was nothing personal but he just knew that there was no employment waiting for him in heaven because there was no heaven.

This sombrero lying in the street was his final hope.

‘No, I’ll get it,’ the mayor’s cousin said, suddenly realizing that if he didn’t pick up the sombrero he would never be mayor. He would have no political career. The Presidency of the United States would be beyond his reach. He would never rub elbows with bigwigs in Washington nor give the Fourth of July speech here in town.

The sombrero was the key to his entire future.

The mayor was amused by the sudden intensity of the two men wanting to please him, though he didn’t know what their reasons were. The mayor was a great small-town politician.

‘No!’ the unemployed man yelled. ‘I’ll get the sombrero!’

‘Don’t touch that sombrero!’ the cousin yelled back.

Both men who were reaching for the sombrero suddenly stopped, surprised by their own vehemence, and took a good look at each other.

The mayor was about to say, ‘Stop it, you two. What’s wrong with you? Are you both idiots? It is only a sombrero.’

That would have ended it right then and there. Life is that simple and the National Guard would not have to have been called out nor paratroopers and tanks brought in, along with Air Force support. There would not have been that speech the President gave on television condemning the activity that was to happen nor would the United States have been denounced in the United Nations by a special committee of Third World countries.