“Eddy, don’t pull in your stomach!” Zozo Buslaeva shouted from the room. Even through two doors, she knew all her brother’s tricks.

“What’s with the stomach here? It’s just that I have such bulging solar plexus. But generally you can’t see it under a coat,” Eddy was insulted; however, his mood was destroyed. Oh, indeed these sisters of one’s own! It is necessary to put up with such things from them that one would drown any outsider as Gerasim did to Mumu.

Having thoroughly cleaned his twenty-eight teeth – according to statistics, thirty-two teeth exist only in a third of humanity and in the imagination of writers, who adore indiscriminately endowing their heroes with superfluous wisdom – Edward Khavron made his way to the only room of their apartment. The apartment was misplaced so far in the outskirts of Moscow that now and then it seemed as if Moscow did not exist at all. But the Moscow Ring Highway with its endless cars was visible from the window like on one’s palm. Not without reason they were living on the topmost, sixteenth floor.

The room was partitioned off into two unequal parts by a dresser standing sideways like a screen. In one part – the larger – dwelled Zozo Buslaeva (Khavron before her married life) with her son Methodius. In the other – the rather fine Eddy with his family of suits, twelve pairs of shoes polished to a lustre, and a bar, on which two twenty-kilogram weights tingled despondently at night.

When Eddy Khavron entered the room, Zozo was dejectedly thumbing through a magazine of dating ads, occasionally encircling the most interesting ones with a felt-tip pen. In her passport, Zozo Buslaeva was Zoe. However, Zozo did not like her passport. The pages of the passport contained too much excessive information. In the opinion of the owner, it would be completely sufficient if it would simply appear there: Zozo. Nice, brief, with taste, and allowing room for imagination. Her son Methodius was sitting at the table and already for about forty minutes glumly simulating the writing of a composition on literature. So far, he had given birth to only one phrase: In my opinion, the books are average and not very. With this, his creative juice ran low and now Methodius dully slaved on. Having pensively stomped around in the middle of the room, Eddy Khavron set off to his side behind the dresser and began to get dressed, hypercritically scrutinizing shirts and even for some reason sniffing some of them under the arms.

Methodius considered his own uncle to be like a monkey. Eddy even had hair on his neck. From there it ran down like a snake and in the region of the chest transformed into an untidy reddish lawn. Furthermore, from the point of view of the same Methodius, Edward Khavron was terribly old. He was twenty-nine years old. Unfortunately, in spite of decrepitude, the old age home still would not take Eddy for the time being. Therefore, the wretch had to work as a waiter in the fashionable restaurant Ladyfingers. In his free time, the might-have-been pensioner courted visitors of his institution, preferring rich ladies expressing maternal instinct. “If I would be like Eddy in my old age, I’d jump out the window!” Methodius decided. He slammed shut the notebook with the composition and without any inspiration moved to his chemistry textbook. The day had somehow gone awry.

Zozo Buslaeva crossly nibbled the felt-tip pen and, drawing a horn over one of the photographs, decorated it with dozens of pimples. “Oh, look, what a cad! I’d kill such a man on the spot! What he writes! ‘Lady with apartment and car, I will serenade you on your balcony! Your pussy. Age – 52. Weight – 112 kg. Phone the Bumble Bee Restaurant on Tsvetnoi Boulevard between 9 and 10 p.m. Ask for Victor.’” she exclaimed with indignation.

“I know this Bumble Bee. Such a cheap dive. The last time they washed the glasses was on opening day. Since then the glasses are sterilized only if vodka is in them…” Eddy said capriciously.

“Are you finished?” Zozo asked. She was up on how Eddy adored criticising strange restaurants.

“No, I’m not! And the prices at Bumble Bee are not rounded up. How’s this for price? Sixty-two fifty or a hundred and seven eighty? What fool will add all this up? The higher class the institution – the more the prices round up. It’s easier for a client to be in the mood for generosity, but here he mechanically reaches for the calculator, mechanically starts to count and becomes mean as a result!” the voice said from behind the dresser.

Zozo yawned.

Methodius occasionally fiddled with the chemistry textbook in his hands, moved it aside, and, listening to his internal state, touched the history textbook with a finger. He touched it very carefully and again listened to his sensations. No, again not that… Not one string trembled in his soul. Neither desire nor even a half-desire to be occupied with anything. Why is he like this today? “Interesting, could a lunatic weighing a hundred and twelve kilos break a balcony?” he asked.

“We don’t have a balcony!” Zozo said.

“And no car either! Otherwise, it wouldn’t be necessary for me to catch a taxi eternally. I only have a cell phone, a pile of clothing, and an honest noble heart!” Eddy added.

“What’s that about you having a heart? Did you say something?” Zozo again asked inattentively.

“I said that I’ve had enough of everything. Especially your good-for-nothing with his tricks!” Eddy was offended. At last, he finally decided on a shirt and appeared from behind the dresser. Now in order to become a waiter thoroughly, he only lacked a bowtie. But he usually put it on after being already at work.

“My good-for-nothing? What complaints do you have against Methodius?” Zozo exerted herself.

“He knows what! My complaints are as big as a whale and as serious as a gangster’s family!” Edward unexpectedly leaned over and firmly took Methodius by the ear. “Listen here, victim of an intoxicated midwife! You take any small change from my wallet again, I’ll break you like a hot water bottle, and it’ll be nothing to me! I have the white slip!” he affectionately turned to Methodius, baring teeth as small as a polecat’s. Edward Khavron was simply a pathological skinflint. Now and then, it drove quite a wedge into Eddy and he would even begin to draw lines with a felt-tip pen on toilet paper, placing his signature on the lines. Fortunately, this did not happen more often than twice a year, when he had lost all his money at cards or at the arcades.

“I did not,” Methodius said.

“Don’t you think that I’m a fool. I’m only a fool in profile! How many buttons were done up on my wallet this morning? Two! But I always button only one! And I never zipper to the end in the partition for small change!”

“Look after your buttons yourself! Mom, your relative is killing me! I’ll be one-eared and… ah… deformed!” Methodius reported, after puckering from the pain. The uncle was digging his nails very painfully into his ear. Possibly, they gave the white slip to him lawfully, though also took 300 bucks for it. “Here I’m an ass! The second button! Had to be nabbed for such nonsense,” Methodius thought.

The nails clamped down like pincers on his ear. “Have you understood everything, shorty? What about the take?” Eddy hissed.

“Ah! Leave me alone, twerp! Buy yourself an inflatable doll!” Methodius snapped.

“What did you squeal? Well, repeat it! Repeat, say it!” Khavron raged.

“Boys, boys!” Zozo interceded conciliatorily. “Perhaps we’ll stop fighting for no reason? So, shake hands and make up?”

Khavron unwillingly let go of his nephew’s ear. “Shake! Only let him remember: I catch him again – I’ll break him!” he repeated.

“Like hell you’ll catch me again!” Methodius said in an undertone. Lucky for him, Eddy was no longer listening. After jumping into a pair of his beloved boots, with a brush he whisked away from them a speck invisible to the world, and rushed into the big city on the hunt for tips and success.