His friend glanced at his watch and realized it was time. He waited a few more minutes until it was surely too late. He glanced at his watch again and realized it was time. Nothing was going to pass him by this evening. Cold air billowed through the entrance door in clouds of thick, milky steam. The silhouettes of the evening's guests appeared in the damp clouds, still reeking of winter evening exhaust fumes, their cheeks flushed pink. Droplets of steam trickled down his friend's nose and onto the floor; he had already broken his third cigarette, and his pant legs were wet. He found it difficult to breathe through the dense swirl; his lungs felt extremely dry and heavy. In the thickening fog, the silhouettes of the guests began to blur. First, the table at the far end of the room, against the wall, disappeared, then the girl waiting for the restroom. And so, step by step, hand over hand, foot over foot, everything disappeared, and his friend was left alone. He felt the presence of others, somewhere beyond the gray, damp screen he heard muffled voices and laughter, but his friend was already walking alone and he tried desperately not to look back. And suddenly, right in front of him, on the edge of visibility, he saw a hand, or perhaps even the shadow of a hand in a long leather glove. He immediately recognized the fingers and nails, knew the fingertips and fingerprints by heart. In that shape were silk, pearls, a rainbow, and the edge of a razor blade. Only Chinese promotions had such hands. And it seemed to him that from behind the clouds of steam two eyes were looking at him, and a hand was unbearably beckoning, twisting toward him but unable to reach him. There was a roaring and hissing in his ears, blood pounding in his membrane. So where was that whisper of "kidnap me" coming from, at the edge of audible frequency, where were those sighs coming from, perhaps only the dripping of water. He took a step forward, but the fog began to choke him. It bit into his mouth with a passionate kiss, not content with his tongue but seeped into his lungs and smothered his heart. A huge bronze bell-shaped heart swayed in his head, beating against his throbbing temples; his breath became increasingly shallow. The shadow of a silhouette approached him. He felt the sweet scent of perfume and balm on his lips, closed his eyes, and spun. Someone kicked the door from outside, and an icy blast pierced his friend, struck the room, and froze the row of vodka bottles above the bar. In a fierce draft, the fog suddenly condensed in a silver rain and fell to the floor, scarves and colorful hats flew. Fikołek, pale in a billowing white dress, screamed, "Close the fucking door." His friend staggered and collapsed into a chair. He felt a great cold and great chill creeping in through that door, opened magically by the intoxicated customer, and something within his friend froze and would never thaw again. The gray shadow vanished without a trace, though its dark and warm memory remained in the air. He glanced at his watch and it seemed to him that it was time.
With a frozen heart and icy pupils, he walked slowly along the sidewalk. With each step, he drew closer to the end of his assigned role. The square shape tucked into the lining of his jacket banged painfully against his ribs. He seemed slightly irritated by this fact. He thought ruefully of his snotty, pissed-over childhood, when every Christmas, his Friend would joyfully run, heart pounding, to unwrap presents. He thought of his foolish and high-minded youth, when, with madness on his lips, he had kissed a girl, then possessed her in the lilac bushes on a clear moonlit night, with the narcotic scent of flowers and a stick poking his butt. He thought of the heartbreaking breakage of seeing the same girl kiss another friend. He remembered carrying the host behind the priest, stealing a pornographic magazine from his father, the first time he'd struck a fat, sticky note from a string, the first vodka that had hit his head in a rainbow, opalescent fountain. The entire sidewalk he'd left behind his friend was covered with his sorrows and joys. Now, however, he walked, compact and ready, with a madman's plan thrashing between his ears, and he felt nothing.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
No tingling in his fingers, no tickling in his back, no timid erection. The stock market quotes from last Tuesday were the equivalent of his friend's mood.
"It's going to go up," he muttered to himself and trudged on.
And they sat tight, compact, in a hard, dark mass. Soft-calved intellectuals passed them by in a timid, swift stream. Because all those glasses, long, slender fingers, and protruding collarbones were nothing compared to the hard fists, short, shiny stubble, and greasy eyes. It was immediately clear who was on top and who was falling away: on the one hand, a dying culture, decadent as dying Rome, and on the other, barbarians at the gates, three stripes instead of torches. They came here from the fatal mistake of continents, spinning around unabashedly in the most foolish directions. And like the Bering Strait, one can jog across fragile ice in particularly harsh winters, they entered and sat down, and the crowd parted for them. They sat in a corner. The stench of mahorka spoiled the aroma of expensive, noble cigarettes. A few thick jokes dripping with whore and cunt were shared, and the crowd parted even further. The Convict, the Lover, and Fikołek leaned over their glasses at the farthest table, their backs to the unnamed one.
"Something's broken," the pale Fikołek remarked. "They shouldn't have come here.
" "True, something's broken with the company. These guys must have made a serious mistake.
" "That big guy sitting next to the Chinese promotion is supposedly really... Big. His friend seems to have wanted something from him," Wirtual tried to recall.
"The guests have definitely made a mistake, but I'll be the last to tell them." The Convicted Man leaned over the table. "I'm already choking from this mess."
A slender intellectual walked past them, clutching his bleeding nose and holding broken glasses.
"Look, they beat Janek," the lover exclaimed. "How could they beat Janek? You can't beat Janek, Janek is ours.
" "Well, to be honest...
" "What?
" "I never particularly liked him." The Convicted Man weighed his words for a long time—perhaps it was better that someone finally explained it to him.
"Explained what?
" "That I never particularly liked him .
" Fikołek drew a righteous arc of cloudy orange and took a deep breath, because what she was about to say was utterly important.
"That's not the point at all, Convicted by the Face to Fame, let the name be light for you. The point is that we have a role to fulfill here, certain, as it were, duties weighing on us like an unwanted burden. Responsibility." Responsibility weighs on us, too. We have weak, anemic limbs, but quick, sharp associations and punch lines, wit, and bon mot. And because of this contrast, because of this juxtaposition, us, us...
"What about us?" the lover inquired.
"You can't hit us," the somersault finished emphatically. "Because we don't know how to fight."
The last batch of orange juice met everything the somersault drank that evening, and the somersault took off.
"Look at her, what a nice girl." The lover glanced into a dark, dismal corner.
In the corner to the left of the throbbing vein in his arm, next to the armpit that smelled of "brutal" water, reflected off his bald skull, sat a Chinese promotion. Turned to her better profile, she played with a chestnut (today) lock of her hair. Her profile (better) was surprisingly regular, her eyes halfway between a warm spring sunset and Miles Davis at his best. Emerald nails added a slightly predatory, feline touch, counterpointed by a touching neckline. Her legs injected a sentimental, melancholic note. Feet in green slippers casually tapped—tap, tap—against the floor. But even so, everything was reduced to primal lust: lips, lips like cherries, lips like flames. Their lines twisted any observer into a painful grimace; the color, texture, folds—to kiss such lips would be a sin, a desecration, and a slander. Kissing such lips would be a sin, a desecration, and a slander. A Taliban could have kissed such lips while chipping off the wise and ancient head of Buddha. And right now, those lips formed a smile as delicate as a sigh, ironic, slightly mocking, teasing, a smile that shouted to the entire room, only to the lover.
"I'm not one of them," the lover whispered.
"Please?" asked the Condemned One.
Lord Eckersley stepped onto the terrace of his luxurious villa and gazed with satisfaction at the lithe, tanned body of his lover, Julia, lying on a fluffy towel by the poolside. She was fiddling with her feminine prose, with particularly simple sentences, 3 złoty in the underpass beneath the station.
"Get me out of here," the lover whispered.
"Oh, damn, this is bad," the Convicted Man fretted.
He placed a glass of his finest wine from the family's private vineyards on the white, ebony table and moved decisively toward the sunbathing girl.
"I'm so lonely. Chase away my sadness," the lover moaned.
"Lover, listen to me. Stop looking at her, she's hypnotizing you." One of them will notice soon…
" He drizzled a small amount of musk oil on his manicured hands and began rubbing it into her sweat-beaded back, casually removing her bikini straps from her brown shoulders.
"I'm only for you," the lover whispered, and didn't finish, "because…"
He didn't finish, because a large shadow obscured the lover, the Convicted One, and the Flipper at the very end; it was a truly large shadow.
"Hey, buddy," a large, sinewy hand lifted the lover by the lapels of his jacket, and the lover was now swinging his legs playfully. "I noticed you were looking at my girl."
"I'm the one who's going to piss off," the Convicted One said noncommittally, and he really did.
Suddenly, Jose, the lover of Lord Eckersley's mistress, jumped onto the terrace. "You aristocratic pig," he said in his face. "You've made my plebeian chosen one your concubine, but I'll put an end to this abomination now." Julia burst into tears. "Oh, Jose, it's not like that."
"Do you have a name, buddy? Or should I just write 'Tomb of the Unknown Soldier' on your forehead with a lighter?"
Sir Walter suddenly drew the pistol he always carried on a special strap. Two shots rang out, and Jose Antonio, bleeding and wheezing, collapsed onto the villa's terrace. Julia screamed, "Jose! My dearest!"
"My name is Legion," said the lover, and looked back, hoping for the condemned man's support. The condemned man glowed with absence. "Because... damn, there aren't many of us."
He was hit twice in the face, once with a swing to the soft side, he doubled over, and then he was hit again with an elbow. He crashed face first into the floor, felt something fragile and painful like a son of a bitch burst in his nose, and he curled up in his own private universe of suffering. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Chinese promotion approaching him with subtle, dancing steps.
"Hero, you stood up for me," the lover groaned with effort, "so now... so now...
" "Come on, let's get out of here," she took Big's arm. "It's a bit numb in here.
" "I'm coming, honey," Big gasped, "I'll just kick myself one more time.
" "So kick yourself one more time and let's go."
"That's why I'll step on your hand now," the lover declared, tears of pain in his eyes, looking at Promotion's heel, which was embedded in his wrist.
"And they lived happily ever after," the little lady said dispassionately, turning even paler and losing consciousness.
Promotion waited by the exit, nervously adjusting her makeup, delicate as a dream from a long night. Behind the door, the lover squealed playfully each time the big man's heel dug into his stomach. The party, though dull, betrayed some comical elements, but despite everything, Promotion was already somewhat tired of it. She felt a dark presence behind her, so she nodded impatiently:
"Let's finally go..." when she noticed Friend.
Friend stood still, his right hand in the pockets of his leather jacket, smoking a cigarette. He seemed completely motionless, as if he'd been standing there for hours. But he looked really good standing there, smoking, a mix of bum and truly fashionable, gangster boy, a bum in Dior clothes. Promotion felt uneasy.
"What are you looking at?"
The friend took a drag on his cigarette and said nothing. The melancholic corners of Promotion's mouth curved up slightly, and a glint of faint amusement appeared in his poison-green eyes.
"So you too? You just stand there, thinking you can achieve what thousands of other men haven't?"
The friend, without emotional involvement, finished his stupid cigarette and searched for the ashtray for a moment. Finally, he placed it carefully on the ground. Promotion ignored him. She rubbed moisturizer on her shiny lips.
"You know, since you're here, I'll tell you something. We live in increasingly dwarfed times. Men used to kidnap me with screeching tires, the wail of police sirens, carry me out the window, jump from a burning skyscraper." They reeked of sweat and gunpowder, some casually uttered brilliant lines. Others, on the contrary, didn't speak at all. But everyone, without exception, fucked me afterward, some romantically, with candlelight and music. Others, on the contrary, quickly picked me up in the hay and ran off to relive their adventures. But some died from bullets afterward, having only managed to whisper my name. Others, on the contrary, died with a knife in their chests, or collapsed under the table, with poison in their veins. Some died quickly and painlessly. Others, on the contrary, suffered for weeks. But the end, my friend, was long ago written. So I wouldn't want to spoil your evening.
My friend betrayed a certain weariness with this monologue. He glanced at his watch.
"Will you allow me? I'm going to kidnap you.
" "Of course you are. And I will. At least for a while, until things get boring." Impatiently, she brushed her hair back from her forehead. "Well, get started."
- Promotion... - he began and stopped.
"On such occasions, something special is said," he repeated in his mind obediently after Tolstoy. But he couldn't quite remember what he was actually saying. He looked at her. She moved closer, and her face flushed. He wanted to lean over her hand to kiss it, but Promotion, with a quick and sudden movement of her head, captured his lips and pressed them to hers. "Now it's too late, everything's over!" How I don't love her! the friend thought.
"Je vous aime," he said, suddenly remembering what to say in such situations, but the words sounded so feeble that he was ashamed. The lover's whimpering from within subsided, so the friend took the promotion's hand in his own with a decisive movement and pulled it with him into the darkness. The promotion's hand burned with living fire; the friend felt as if he were holding a flaming salamander, and the living flesh was peeling from his fingers. Yet he felt a piercing cold in his lungs. And inside, under his jacket, under his large package, under his sweater, under his fashionable T-shirt, under his thin chest, under his ribs, under his heart, he felt a frozen lump, a nub, pressing against him and giving him no peace. He licked the poisonous, violet-scented saliva of the promotion from his lips.
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