“Never, so never! I’ll go to school on the exhaust pipe of a shuttle!” Methodius promised.
Zozo sighed and was about to go into the kitchen, but suddenly some late thought overtook her and lightly nudged her in the back. Zozo stopped. “Kiddo, this evening I’ll have a… eh-eh… guest… Wouldn’t you like to go somewhere? For example, to Ira’s,” she proposed with the look of a cat digging with its paw in a tray of sand.
“And not be under foot?” Methodius specified with understanding.
Zozo thought for a bit. When you are fighting for your destiny and trying to arrange your life, a twelve-year-old son is already compromising material clearer than a passport. “Something like that. Don’t stick your head into the kitchen, don’t gurgle in the bathroom, don’t go for all kinds of nonsense every minute, and don’t be under foot. Exactly!” Zozo decisively repeated.
Methodius gave it some thought, estimating whether it was possible to bargain in this matter. “And how about my enormous desire to do homework? Soon the quarter will end. I officially warn you that I’ll grab a railroad carload of threes for the year,” he stated. In general, he had already grabbed it, but now appeared an excellent occasion to find some other guilty person. To miss it would be a sin.
“This is insolent blackmail! Maybe you’ll do homework now? Still lots of time till the evening,” Zozo said helplessly.
It seemed to Methodius that he saw a weak lilac glow, which Zozo threw out into space. Turning pale, the glow began to extend to the boundary of the room like a drop of paint on wet paper. Methodius, as usual not having any idea how he did it, absorbed the glow like a sponge and understood: mother had yielded. “No. I don’t have the inspiration now. My hour of triumph begins precisely in the evening. In the daytime I don’t get into the theme,” Methodius said. The most ridiculous thing was that this was the truth. The nearer to night time, the clearer his brain began to work. His sight became sharper, and the desire to sleep, so strong in the first morning classes and in the daytime, disappeared completely. Now and then, he felt sorry that school did not start with sunset and last until dawn. Instead, in the morning he was usually sluggish, thought badly, and generally moved on autopilot.
At ten to eight, Zozo decisively escorted Methodius from the apartment. “Go to Irka and sit at her place! I’ll call you when the uncle leaves!” she said, kissing him on the cheek.
“Aha. Well, see you later!” Methodius said. He had already left mentally.
“I love you!” Zozo shouted and, after slamming the door shut, rushed to freshen herself up. She concentrated, like a general before the main battle in life. In the next ten minutes, she had to make herself ten years younger.
For a while, Methodius aimlessly lounged around on the landing, then summoned the elevator and went down. Walking out from the entrance, he watched as, from an automobile parked by the house, an unpleasant copy of the masculine sex stepped out with a large bouquet of roses and a bottle of champagne, which he held with the kind of care that a militia would give to ammunition. Although theoretically the individual could be a guest for any apartment, Methodius instantly grasped that this was Zozo’s new worshipper. It was not even an assumption. He simply knew this and that was that. He knew by a whole hundred percent, as if on the man’s forehead was the sign: “I’m going to Zozo! I’m her type!” Thickset, with grey stubbles, a double chin, and almost without a neck, the new uncle resembled a pylon, through misunderstanding or because of genetic failure, born as a man. Methodius stiffened, looking him over. He did not even consider moving away from the entrance door.
“Why are you in the way? Don’t hang around here, young man! Quick!” the example of masculine sex said, after making a vain attempt to go around Methodius.
“Are you talking to me?” Methodius asked with hatred.
“Yes, you. Now get away from here! Take off!” the example bellowed and, having unceremonious pushed Methodius aside, forced his way into the entrance, while the door did not yet have time to close.
Methodius calmly looked around. Then he found a rusty nail, approached the automobile, glanced back, and thoroughly shoved its tip into the rear tire cover with the calculation that when the car made a move, the nail would enter deeper and pierce the tire. For a while, Methodius contemplated his work, experiencing a feeling of creative dissatisfaction. One nail seemed to him too little. He found the bottom of a broken bottle and settled it under the front right tire, and put a balloon onto the exhaust pipe, tying it with a wire. Pity he will not be here when the balloon begins to inflate, and then it will break. Well, no matter – let someone else take pleasure from this spectacle. “It’s you who shouldn’t be under foot! Understand?” Methodius said, turning to the car. He experienced not the least pangs of conscience. No one asked this hog swimming with fat to come to his mother with a broom of roses.
***
Severnyi Boulevard slowly immersed in the embraces of evening. Shadows shrouded its stone sides. A corner house had become mysteriously crumpled and it moved away deep into the shadows. Proportions were playing tricks. A sudden wind gust lashed Methodius in the face with a rumpled newspaper. An empty beer bottle was rolling behind the newspaper, recklessly jumping and attempting to catch up. For some reason this simple event seemed terribly important to Methodius.
“If the bottle rolls first onto the road, mother will drive away this character!” he quickly proposed, dashing right after them. But, alas… a torn portion of the newspaper was first on the roadway and instantly fell under a truck. The bottle rolled out immediately after it and shared its tragic fate. “Rotten trick! She won’t! Unless he takes off by himself!” Methodius growled. He stared at the newspaper with such irritation that… no, for sure, it only appeared so to him. The newspaper could not flare up without any reason. Moreover, the wind immediately took it away, so that it was not possible to say anything for sure. Methodius discarded all this nonsense from his head. He crossed the road, jumped over the cast iron barrier of the boulevard, and made his way to Irka.
Irka was his good friend, precisely a friend. The word “girlfriend” gives birth to unhealthy associations in the unhealthy mind of people, whereas the words “female acquaintance” or “lady friend” smack of something rotten. They talk this way about someone they are not sure of. Irka was exactly a friend, moreover with a capital F. Irka lived in the neighbouring building, and it was possible to appear at her place at any time of the day without phoning first, which, you must agree, is especially useful. Even at midnight, since Irka lived on the second floor and the tenants on the first were so kind to fence off the world with very convenient figured latticework. Irka’s grandmother posed no obstacle. She adored Irka so, that every desire of the granddaughter was for her not even a law but an order to the subdivision. The parents… But, about this a little later.
It was still not so late. A light was burning in the window beyond the porch of the first floor. It was visible through the open curtains that a moustached woman of grenadier build was standing by a cabinet and rearranging something on the shelves. For this reason Methodius decided to use the dullest of all the existing methods of guest appearance – namely to do this through the door. It is extremely unpleasant when they knock you down with a mop through the figured lattice.
After getting up to the second floor, he rang and almost immediately heard tires rustling in the hallway. This was even not rustling, but a light yet distinct sound of the inflated rubber outer-tires momentarily sticking half-heartedly to the linoleum. “Ir, it’s me, Met!” Methodius shouted so that Irka would not have to look through the peephole.
