Ромовый дневник

"It's almost noon", I said. "You don't figure on going to work?"
"I'll go when I'm drunk enough", he replied.

I drove past the Colmado de Jesos Lopo and saw the old man leaning on his counter and staring out at me s if he knew the whole story and was not at all surprised.

I was awakened the next morning by a tapping on my door, a soft, yet urgent tapping. Don't answer it, I thought, don't let it happen.

And beneath his pessimism, his bleak conviction that all the machinery was rigged against him, at the bottom of his soul was a faith that he was going to outwit it, that by carefully watching the signs he was going to know when to dodge and be spared. It was fatalism with a loophole, and all you had to do to make it work was newer miss a sign. Survival by coordination, as it were.

I liked him. He did a good job on the desk, never bothered anybody, and spent his free time drinking in the most expensive bars he could find... He worked hard, and when he finished working he drank.

She laughed. "Fritz is jealous of my background. I have so much more to rebel against"
"Balls," said Yeamon. "You don't have anything to rebel with".

No matter how much I wanted all those things that I needed money to buy, there was some devilish current pushing me off in another direction - toward anarchy and poverty and craziness. That maddening delusion that a man can lead a decent life without hiring himself out as a Judas Goat

It was almost May. I knew that New York was getting warm now, that London was wet, that Rome was hot - and I was on Vieques, where it was always hot and where New York and London and Rome were just names on a map

It was the kind of town that made you feel like Humphrey Bogart: you came in on a bumpy little plane, and, for some mysterious reason, got a private room with a balcony overlooking the town and the harbor; then you sat there and drank until something happened.

A grinning Puerto Rican sold me a buttle of rum for a dollar, and a bag of ice for two dollars.

I had never seen such a place. I wanted to take off all my closes and never wear them again.

"Who is a working pro, Robert?" Yeamon asked. "Somebody who has a job?"
"Somebody who can get a job," Sala replied. "Because he knows what he's doing."
Yeamon thought for a minute. "You mean because he knows what somebody else wants done?"

Hell, it's almost noon and I haven't made any money - wasted half the day.

I new writers in the Marines... Hell, I used to be one myself. They had me writing training for six month - dullest damn work I ever did.

A real writer, eh? I guess that means trouble...

They were professionally deviant, but they had a few things in common. They depended, mostly from habit, on newspapers or magazines for the bulk of their income; their lives were geared to long chances and movement; and they claimed no allegiance to any flag and valued no currency but luck and good contracts.

Сыновья расплачиваються за корыстное невежество отцов.

Кто только не шёл работать в «Дейли ньюс»: разношерстная публика от диких младотурков, хотевших разорвать мир напаполам и начать всё заново, до усталых «негров» от журналистики с пивными животиками, которые ничего так не хотели, как дожить оставшиеся деньки в покое,пока шайка оголтелых психов не разорвала мир напополам.

 Чего нам не хватает, так это здравомыслия.

 Тропическая гниль - вот что такое вечная выпивка без секса.