Timothy Collins made his way to the concert hall through the crowd, thick as a jungle. Damn these impresarios: why not schedule concerts for the weekend? On weekdays, Chicago is like an anthill, if you shove a shovel at it. Six in the evening, and he slipped all his shoes ...

- The devil! - He cursed when another heel collapsed on his foot. - What are you, boy ... - and stopped short when he saw that the culprit had suffered himself.

An old woman with glasses was screwed into the crowd, pushing left and right, and storm waves were coming from the crowd around her elbows.

- Hey, lady! In your years ...
“Shut up, asshole,” the lady replied coolly, cutting one elbow into someone's belly.

She was dressed in old-fashioned faded rags. Timothy met such old women, lively and adventurous, despite the insanity - but this one was very aggressive.

- Stop, witch! - Suddenly came from behind, and the old woman earned her elbows with tripled force.

Timothy craned his neck: at thirty feet some bully pushed like she did — only he threw people around like an excavator and moved unlike faster. He was red-skinned and closet-like, like Frankeinstein from a cartoon.

When the old woman caught up with Tim, it sounded very close: - Stop, old rat! - She quickly looked around, pulled out something from behind a sinus - and suddenly thrust Tim.

Confused, Tim automatically grabbed what they poked, not having time to see what it was - and the old woman had already drowned in the crowd. Then Tim pursued her pursuer, hitting him with his elbow in the gut ...

When Tim caught his breath and cursed, they were already far away.
- ... The devil! - for the thirteenth time he repeated and brought to the eyes that the old woman had lent him.

It was a small bottle of dull green glass, ancient in appearance, without labels, with a wrinkled cork stopper. Some liquid splashed inside.

"What the fuck is this?" Tim thought, turning the bottle in his hands and looking at it as much as the crush would allow. "Medicine? Drugs? Poison?"

An irresistible curiosity overcame him. Getting to a place that was more or less free of crush, Tim tried to pull the cork out. “I just smell it,” he thought, “I must know what he was chasing after the old woman ...”

Cork did not give in. Tim pulled harder - and at that moment he was still pushed.

The cork with a smack flew away, and behind it - and the bottle, cracked to smithereens on the pavement. A few drops hit Tim on the cheek, something spilled on the asphalt, and something splashed into the girl who got out of the car next to Tim - right into her shallow, neat neckline.

The girl touched the top of her chest with her hand, where the drops fell, and looked at Tim in surprise.

Tim felt himself falling into a hot oven: the girl was beautiful to the obscene. Here is the devil! ..

- Sorry, miss ... Oh, sorry! This is all a crowd. Excuse me! ... Do not be afraid, this is not ... Excuse me! ..
“Nothing,” she smiled, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

The crowd, instantly arising out of nowhere, carried Tim away, and he twisted his neck, trying to remember the black Indian eyes and a surprised smile. Inside, he had the charm of her beauty, sprinkled with shame.

Touching his cheek, Tim raised his fingers to his nose. They smelled of some kind of herbal tincture, like Corvalol. “Ugh! Old woman Burda. The bugs of the times of Wilson ... "* Tim got angry so that he earned his elbows like the old woman we had, and three minutes later he was at the entrance to the concert hall.
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* President of the United States in 1912-1924 g. - approx. auth.

***

The crowd in the lobby did not seem to have thinned, but increased. All of Chicago, all of America went crazy with Jenny Wyeth, the stars of the new generation, and it was difficult to get into the hall, like in a subway car.

Tim was far from newfangled music, from all these folksingles, rock'n'roll and rhythm-and-blues: he loved the good old Glen Miller, and in general, at thirty-two, he considered himself a man who lived in the world.He never had to hear Jenny on a radio or television, but everyone around her trumpeted about her, about her songs, her angelic voice, about her performances in defense of someone's rights, about how she sat for it in prison and was released under the pressure of a hippie, of chilling attempts to disrupt her concerts, disgrace and mutilate her ... Interest in her spurred by the fact that she was only twenty, and for some three years she, with her quiet songs with a guitar, managed to break through there, where the richest superstar crawled for decades. Therefore, when Tim saw the poster - he decided that Jenny was probably worthy of his attention, and for the first time in many years he bought a ticket to a concert. Tickets cost from twenty to five hundred bucks, and Tim decided to shush: bought for two hundred a place in the stalls, in the third row.

"Though I will consider it," he thought, making his way to his place. The crowd detained him so that he did not have time to turn around in front of the mirror, straighten his tie and turn off other cases; "I will probably run to the intersection before the Tubzik ..."

Tim arrived at the last moment: he did not have time to sit down when the lights went out, the lights were lit, and the golden emptiness of the scene opened right in front of him.

In its depth, a fragile figure with a guitar stepped forward with a smooth gait. The hall burst into a cheer. Jenny walked to the edge of the stage, smiling indescribably smiling, surprised and shy, as if she were on the stage for the first time, and it is pleasant and embarrassing that they love her so much ... but Tim did not clap.

First, he recognized her: this smile and black Indian eyes could not be confused with anything. Secondly, the whole of it suddenly slammed into his gut like a knife, and Tim was ready to whine from a coma that squeezed his throat with a noose of delight and anguish.

Jenny sang song by song, smiling in the room with her shy smile ... and something incredible was happening with Tim. Each song seemed to him the revelation of King David, every smile beat into a nervous lump, itchy in the throat, every look pierced the heart. Tim did not understand what was happening to him.

He did not have the strength to even mock himself; “I fell in love with a star like a boy,” he thought, “I cannot live without her smile, without her black hair and her songs. What is it with me? Yes, she is beautiful, I admit it; you will meet such girls, though not everywhere, but still ... No, no, no! there are no more of them, she is alone, one and only, she is amazing, she is a miracle! She is..."

It seemed to him that She sings only for him. She really sang with such force that she seemed to be a beam thrust into someone's soul, and Tim, if he could see someone other than her, would notice tears on many faces; but he did not see anyone and thought about how amazing she was and what a fool he was.

“I will remain for her ignorant of the crowd, who poured it with lamb rubbish,” Tim thought. In the background the remnants of the mind fluttered: “Who am I - and who is She? It's pointless, ridiculous ... And how to live now? Ride her, wait for her performances, as the meaning of life? Damn, damn, damn, damn ... "

The two-hour concert flashed like an instant. Fans with bouquets were already crowding the sides of the stage ... “Why didn’t I buy flowers? After all, I could come to her. Could maybe even touch Her ... Idiot! ”

Suddenly, he was thrown up, and he, without ceasing desperately scolding himself, was dragged after his legs, which, besides his will, dragged him to the stage - without flowers and without anyone, even though a little reason. “Idiot! ... I will tell her that she ... No, I won’t say anything - I’ll just go and take a closer look ... Maybe her chest can be seen from there ... Her tender little breast ... Hide behind the backs of the damned florists , she will not see ... Well, well! how old are you, boy? ”he mocked himself as he climbed onto the stage.

His body itself sloped behind other people's backs and bouquets, avoiding open space. "God! ... she can understand that I am in her ..."

This thought suddenly so terrified Tim, that he, without even having time to properly look at the object of his passion, missed someone's ...