She always loved quality things, whether it's clothes, furniture, cars, food or tobacco. She understood that the work of hundreds of craftsmen will always be different from the muddy stream of consumer goods. And now, sitting in a great, beautiful armchair, she gladly drank good liquor and smoked expensive, delicious cigarettes. One by one. One by one. She was always nervous before the arrival of her boy. Each time it seemed to her that the miracle would not happen again, that the piercing fake note would cross out everything that had accumulated in her memory by a handful of secret treasures. Do you need a lot to slap this small and defenseless pichugu - happiness. One false word or look is enough to allow an ugly Life to get a small, carefully fostered lie. But he always acted and spoke correctly. In this boy intuitively lived a clever actor, able to pull out any failed scene. He always knew how to recognize her mood and play along with the unmistakable tone ... There was a time when she was not afraid of these meetings. It all began so simply and predictably that she didn’t have a headache over what should be said and done. The boy was a friend of her son, and for the first time she saw him, funny and awkward, when they were rehearsing a song in the studio, loudly loud speakers. This studio, she did not stint, she built for her pimply, ugly, non-native offspring. The money she spent on him helped her forget what a bad mother she was. They sat, surrounded by beer, loudly discussing some kind of nonsense. In the dynamics, a voiceless idiot screamed, but they were really excited to listen to his screams, and she had nothing against it. The son looked at the boy with respect. He always chose friends, whom he bowed before, and if one of them gave up weakness, he always attacked the idol of yesterday with all the arrogance of a rich spoiled child, who was able to put a beggar in the place of a beggar. The new idol did not look too confident, and she was amused. She would not last long, she thought, looking around at his tasteless outfit and hands, not knowing where to put herself. o Then the boy looked at her, casually, as if on furniture — and she started, as if struck with a whip. A sharp, instantaneous flash flashed behind the calf's wire. She photographically illuminated it from the inside. and an instantly illuminated photo, she saw herself - an aging bitch, a miserable, useless, thrice sold and sold, a beauty from the cover in a beer pub, stained with vobla and wet mugs ... The doorbell. It's him. It is always the case - the call seems to be quieter under his fingers than the rest. It will ring - and scratches like a cat with its long guitar claws. She rushed into the hallway and managed to slow down only at the door. The ice lock cooled her hand, she pressed her forehead to him, and only after that she opened the door ... To get him was for her a familiar woman’s game. At first she found the phone from her son, then she arranged his visit in the absence of her son, then she watered him with tea, talk, hints, looks. He did not move away, but did not help her in her siege activities, watching them with frank boredom. This went on for several days, and every day she became more confused, feeling that the usual game with him did not pass. Perhaps, however, he was just filling his price. In any case, then, when this price sounded, she realized that the income from one of the small firms would have to be launched in a new direction. And, alas, she absolutely, that is, absolutely, could not bargain. This mysterious boy was not a fucking pants professional gigolo. He lived in the world of his fantasies, and She found there a strange place in the form of an ugly dragon draining away from gold. Coppers were here not to pay off ... It is devilishly tasteless, this genius of pretense.And now, without looking at the expensive liquor, he uncorks a disgusting beer and lights this his own Gitan. He sits in a chair without taking off his jacket, with his collar up, looking at her with an irritated look from a stroller who was poured soup in the canteen for the homeless. Funny, native disgusting style. But over the past six months, this boy has become rich, even by adult standards. Why does he spit on everything that is for her a symbol of life in life? ... He did not even buy a car, although every boy should be dreaming about this. He squeezes her like a girl in a disco. Her, in front of which the chiefs tremble in large cabinets, where even flies buzz a semitone lower. She likes it, likes his brute force, his not childishly strong hands. She likes it when he knocks her on the carpet and there, in a pool of overturned beer, she takes his bitter kisses, smelling like a french shag. The world of its beautiful things is crushed, trampled, destroyed. This boy manages to do something that she herself has never been able to do - to rip off the covers, spit on the false, crumple and throw away the packaging of life, taking its contents for what it is - without rejoicing and without wincing. They flounder among sinking debris, the floor wanders under their feet, like a deck, their arms from the love ones become desperate. The lifebuoys of his eyes find themselves close-in front of her wallowing solitude. And then she stops - the moment has come. A sixteen-year-old girl who lives in the power of books and films, she falls motionless in a long second. Faust's smile is heard, strange tango sounds, there is no more dirt and lies in the world. He takes her stopped body and takes possession of it. First, he sets it up as an instrument (oh, these musicians!), Touching all the strings in turn and sensitively correcting the sound of those that are fake. His tongue, which besides skill and dexterity, also possesses the most valuable property - patience - penetrates into the holy of holies and settles there, settling in and bringing order. As a conductor collects musicians, threatening to gape and, smiling to rush to reveal the notes, he leads to the continuous sound of the whole range of her sensations, forcing her to respond after a quiet tuning to a powerful and agreeable chord ... And - the music begins. Her body balloon rises above itself and flies out of the window. Squinting in the sunlight, she flies over houses, winks at monuments and scares gazing pigeons. People at the cafe tables start kissing, the wipers, mouth open, blindly looking up, the lonely pince-nez greets her with a sunny bunny. She flies far away, out of town, to the place where the stones are still lying around the fire, extinguished many years ago, in front of a little girl who decided to spit on her own childhood. She wants to stop this girl: - Do not! Not! Do not dare! ... But the music is growing, the wind turns into a hurricane and, lifting it to a blind height, throws down, past the city, past the fire, past the boulevards - onto a carpet in an expensive and absolutely unnecessary apartment ... It falls off to side, lights a cigarette. In his incomprehensible eyes, dangerous sparks die down. She wants to caress him, but he habitually escapes. Never, not once in all half a year, did he allow her to caress himself. and once I did not find my hunger and did not allow her to satisfy him, no matter how hard she tried. Then he takes the money and leaves. If she lays him more than she can get by agreement, he throws the extra on the table. However, sometimes leaves at, smiling guiltily. And then she understands how small he is - her fabulous Boy. © Mr. Kiss, One Hundred Splinters of One Sense, 1998–1999