Life And Death Of Addict

Natalya Parygina

LIFE AND DEATH OF THE DRUG

Teenagers about addiction

THE BROTHER OF THE NARCOMAN

Byl

The apartment was empty and neglected, as if in it a long time ago no one lived. But in reality two people lived in it: Sasha and his mother.

At the deaf wall stood an old, flattened sofa with a dingy upholstery of a vague color and a broken or burnt cigarette. The sofa was bought when Sasha was small, and the kid liked to jump on it: the springs squeaked and sagged, and his father held his hands, and they both laughed with pleasure, and Sasha's mother laughed with them.

Now the couch was dead, and it would be time for him to landfill. But he continued to serve Sashka with his pressed springs. But the sleeping place for the mother was arranged from a spring mattress thrown by someone. Sasha brought it from the trash and installed it on stands: from each corner there were two bricks, and the mother's bed with a wire net was sold to the pensioner from the ground floor, who liked to "sleep softer."

There was no other furniture in the room. In the kitchen there was a round table on thick legs, one chair and two stools. And in the corridor stood a cardboard box from under the TV, in which they folded ... more precisely - they dropped some clothes. A few more clothes, more like old rags, dangled on a hanger slanted to the wall.

The apartment was ruined not by thieves, but by the young master himself. He became addicted to drugs while still in school, then dropped out of school, but continued to inject. Mother did not notice anything, she worked in two places to support herself and her son: in the daytime - a cashier in a store, in the evening - a cleaner. Sasha also got a job as a loader in the store, where he managed to steal a little and steal food.

Sashka made the first trade operation with his property shortly after he was expelled from work: he sold the TV to a disabled person from a neighboring house cheaply. Mother, returning from work, thought that the apartment was visited by thieves, but Sashka said the truth:

"I needed money, and I sold the box."

"You fool!" The mother cried through her tears. "How can we not have a TV?" No movie to see, no news, no weather ...

- News and weather you learn on the radio, and without a movie you will manage.

"Do not talk to your mother like that!" - flushed red from indignation, his mother pulled him back. - And return the TV now!

"Did you see this?"

No, he did not show it to her. Okay - figs ... He struck the sleeve of his shirt and showed her his hand - with a purple "path" from pricks, with sores and mutilated veins.

- You…

Mother sat down ... No - she flopped down on a chair, as if her legs were broken. Her face became so pale that Sashka got scared, thinking that she would not die.

- You ... So, you ...

She did not dare say the fatal word. And Sashka did it himself.

- Yes. I'm a drug addict.

No ... It can not be ... It can not be! - Hardly uttering words, mother repeated.

"I'm sick," realizing that she would not die, Sashka explained. "Addiction is a disease." Do you understand? I can not do without drugs. I need money! And you do not give. So I had to sell the TV.

- Bastard! - the mother was indignant. "How dare you reproach me again!"

Sashka jumped to her, grabbed her hands and clasped her hands in her fists with such force that she cried out in pain.

"There you are," he said. "And do not you call me names." I'm a sick man ...

"You're to blame," her mother said quietly, fearfully.

"Maybe himself," he agreed slynuv.

Mother after this skirmish still some time tried to resist the advancing trouble: went to the doctor to ask advice, persuaded Sashka to be treated. He completely refused.

There was another big scandal when Sashka sold ... or rather, exchanged from the gypsies for three doses of "ger" her cloak. His mother called him a thief, a pod, shouted that he had ruined his life and turned her life into hell.

And he was not himself, he gave two doses to a friend for his debts, and the action of the one he injected himself has already ended. He needed a "dose" again! And in a rage from his filthy state and from the words of his mother, he moved towards her, lifting his fists, and, like a beast of prey, bared his teeth.

"Ha-ah! ..." she screamed.

Sashka came to his senses, lowered his fists and, suddenly bursting into tears, retreated. Mother, shuffling her feet, went into the kitchen. The apartment was deaf, oppressive silence.

They did not have any more scandals. Mother broke down ... She turned into an old woman - at her forty-three. Her face became permanently pale - without blood, her voice - quiet, movements - languid, as if she were not a woman, but a disembodied shadow.

At work, she often became mistaken, and she was fired. Somehow she settled herself as a dishwasher in a private dining room. Going to work, she took a saucepan with her and collected everything that was left on the plates of the visitors of the dining room, and the packet - pieces of bread. On the plates, prudent visitors left a little, but for a day they gathered an assortment for dinner to their son, and the owner gave her to eat a bowl of soup or pasta without gravy.

So they lived for two years. From the apartment during this time, all things have disappeared, except those that even a beggar would not have grasped. Sasha was stealing in the summer, which was possible from other people's dachas and sold cheap. I dragged tomatoes, apples, dishes, and once I managed to steal a tape recorder! It was possible to get a big income at the same time, but Sashka was afraid of prison. Not bondage, not hard bunks, not meager food ... He was afraid to stay without a "dose"!

Staying without a dose is no longer a prison. This is hell! And today, not even in prison, and in this empty dirty room with cobwebs in the corners and dull windows of windows, he was tormented again by these hellish torments.

Dose! He needed a dose ... But Mishka-Grob will not give any more in debt. He already said: "Do not come without money!"

Sashka then went to the sofa, then jumped up and rushed about the room from corner to corner, as if trying to escape from pain. But to escape from the pain was not possible, she lived in it: in the head, in the muscles, in the joints. As if an unseen beast was tearing at his body, and Sashka grabbed at the calves, trying to knead them, then rubbed his shoulders with his hands, then squeezed his knees or stomach with his hands. This pain was called: "breaking", and in fact it was like that a ruthless invisible sorcerer was breaking his body, trying it - alive! Divided into pieces.

- Mother! Muttered Sashka, as if hoping that she would hear him. "Mother ... Where the hell are you!"

Salvation could only come with the mother, who on this day was to receive a pay. The time of her work has not yet expired, but there were no hours in the house, and pain turned every minute of waiting in the long term of suffering.

Escaping the pain, almost in a half-madness, Sashka suddenly began furiously swearing, spilling out into the void of a squalid room all the vile words that came to mind. He shouted at full speed, either appealing to the world, or cursing the world, but the obscene curses broke against the walls of the room with wallpaper, torn and tattered with torn wallpaper, and only reminded Sashka of his loneliness and hopelessness.

Suddenly, as if squandering all his strength into insane cries, he collapsed onto his couch and groaned with agonizing pain, and together with him groaned old springs. Sashka no longer tried to drive away or calm down this pain neither by massage, nor by crying. He feared only that convulsions would not start again, as last time during the drug "hunger", when the mother called an ambulance, and he was barely able to save. And the pain, like the executioner, who was given full freedom, attacked him with renewed force, tormenting both muscles and bones, and each and every cell of his body, and every nerve.

"If only I could die!" Sashka shouted loudly, as if threatening someone.

And gloatingly thought that with him, "his" pain would also "die," and she would no longer be able to get it.

He did not hear, when his mother quietly opened the door with her key, her mother came in, but heard her soft, even, not at all frightened voice.

- Sasha, are you feeling bad?

"I almost died!" Where have you been for so long?

"You know where." At work.

Her mother's voice sounded just as smoothly, indifferently as a man who had lost his senses and lost all hope of a change in fate. She seemed half dead: her body still lived, and her soul died.

"Did you bring the money?"

Sashka, weak with pain, heaved himself like an old man from the sofa.

"Yes," said the mother.

- Come on!

The mother took out of her pocket an old razor-burned raincoat in the sun, for a penny acquired in the bazaar, a few banknotes and handed it to her son.

- It's all? - he asked.

- All…

She lied. She spent some money there, in the dining room, went to the toilet, hid in a stocking to buy millet and peas for soup. Sashka guessed about her stash, but did not seek the truth. Having pulled off his jacket with a half-torn pocket and pushed his hands into his sleeves as he went, he jumped out of the house.

A fine autumn rain was falling. Clouds covered the whole sky. The leaves on the trees that separated the pavement from the road had already begun to turn yellow. Under the feet fell fallen from the branches of chestnuts.

However, Sasha did not notice these signs coming autumn. He did not care what the weather, what city, what people live in this city. Now for him the whole point of life was the "dose" that he would soon be able to buy and that would return him to a normal life without pain and anguish. Finding an unexpected quickness, he felt almost a rich man, who only had to enjoy his wealth.

The rain intensified, and Sashka was very wet before he reached the goal: abandoned by the owners and intended for demolition, but not yet bulldozed house. He jerked the heavy door and recoiled, almost colliding with Pebbles-an elderly woman with a drunk face. In fact, Galke was twenty-two years old. She in this house abandoned by tenants bought drugs, which was sold by Mishka Grobovsky, nicknamed Mishka-Grob.

Having passed the Pebble, Sashka entered the house.

- Sasha! Sasha has come, "several of his voices greeted him.

In the ownerless house a stove was heated, and it was warm. There were about five people, or, it seems, more, Sasha did not notice and hardly saw, he now had one goal, the whole purpose of life was to this goal: shirnut! Rather shirnutsya ...

Mishka-Coffin - a well-fed broad-faced fellow in the lower belly of old jeans and a dirty T-shirt stood in front of the open plate door and looked at the fire. He himself did not take drugs, said that he could not because of the sick kidneys, but for friends he always kept marijuana, heroin and other "delicacies" so that fans of "dope" did not run around in search of her throughout the city .

Sasha, taking out of his pocket, handed the benefactor to his mother a pay. Mishka-Grob took and counted the money.

"You need a syringe or ..."

"A syringe, a syringe," interrupted Sashka hastily.

- Caring Bear-Coffin kept, besides powders and "grass", and a solution of drugs directly in syringes.

On his hand there was no longer a "living place," Sashka bare his leg. The needle with acute pain entered the vein, mutilated by the previous injections, but that there was this pain in comparison with the one that he experienced during the break-up. And this scarlet pain almost immediately extinguished that former, as in a forest fire a fire extinguished.

The pain is gone, and the forces mysteriously returned. Sasha felt that he was young, healthy, handsome and merry. Life was not so bad ... It's not bad at all! On the stove, potatoes were stolen, stolen in the neighboring vegetable gardens, and the familiar bratva gathered for her usual vigil.

Sasha, recovering as if after a nightmare, looked at his friends. Leo-Bald sat on the floor, leaning his back against the wall and bent limply, as if he had a rubber hose in place of his spine, and muttered something. From his mouth, saliva flowed and, sliding down his chin, stretched to an undersized shirt that was tied up in his chest, which, however, once, it seemed, was white. The only girl in the company Sonya walked around the former kitchen of the former house, probably imagining herself as a beauty in the secular round. Her face was roughly smeared with cheap cosmetics, tangled long hair scattered on her back, a wide knitted sweater with a large neckline hung on a thin figure. But Sonya, flirting with an imaginary conversationalist, flirted, smiling, rolling her eyes, grimacing.

At the small window without a frame, half covered with cardboard, stood two boys and smoked goat's legs, probably with marijuana. They looked at each other and smiled foolishly, pretending that smoking grass for them - the most common thing.

Sasha at first glanced at the faces of these boys, who were concentrating on the smoke, and turned away, but then again stared at the boys. One, small and skinny, with long streaks and a drugged face, he knew. His name was Val'ka, but no one addressed him by name, preferring the nickname: Gnome. But the second ... The second teenager, it seems, the age of the Gnome, but apparently fat and well-off, was unfamiliar to him.

- Hey you! Shouted Sashka. - Malachki ... Come here.

The dwarf pulled his friend by the sleeve, and both slowly, keeping an independent look, approached Sashka.

- Where is this?

"They met in the camp," said the Dwarf. - We smoked together the grass ... I gave him the address.

"What address?"

"It's mine, it's home." And today he called here.

- What's your name?

The company's newcomer answered himself.

- By Vitka.

"Vitka ... Vitka ..." repeated Sashka, remembering something old, connected with that name. - For a long time you smoke?

- Second month.

- Like?

"At first I did not like it, but now I want to," Vitka confessed.

"Look, look!" - Suddenly yelled hoarse voice Sonka. "Look how similar they are!" As brothers!

- What's ruined? Cried Mishka the Coffin to her. "We are all brothers here."

But Sashka at the word "brothers" for some reason recalled the last quarrel between father and mother before his father left the family forever.

Six-year-old Sasha slept in a tiny "nursery", which was arranged for him by his father, separating the wardrobe of the tupichkovuyu part of the room. He was laid before adults, he fell asleep and did not hear how parents talked or quarreled at night. But one day he was awakened by the sobbing of his mother and her desperate, through tears of crying. Mother called her father a scoundrel and some other rude words, and he only occasionally tried to interrupt this stream of abuse and sobbing with soft persuasion: "Lena, stop! Lena, calm down! Lena, I beg you ... "" You have a son! "- Hysterically cried his mother. "I know," his father said. "But ... There I have, too, a son." Vitka ... He's already three months old. " "This is not a son, it's a bastard!" Her mother screamed. "Count it as you like," his father said stubbornly and loudly. "I'm going to the woman I love ... And to my little son." Tomorrow we will leave this city. Alimony I will translate. "

"Brothers!" Brothers! Brothers! Sonya jumped and clapped her hands.

Mishka the Coffin walked away from the stove and looked with curiosity from Sasha's face to Vitka's face.

"The truth is the same," he decided. - Only Sasha's eyes are not so ... And so - are similar.

- What is your last name? Sashka asked the boy.

- Kiryukhin ...

- Well! Well! - Sonya was delighted.

Sasha's name was also Kiryukhin.

"Your father ..." Sashka suddenly felt something resembling fear. He made an involuntary pause. "Your father's name is ... Andrei Nikolaevich?"

"Y-yes," Vitka said, bewildered.

- And you ... How old are you?

-D-twelve.

"Brother!" "Sashka shouted, sensing the tide of either narcotic, or ordinary human delight. - Brother! Vitka is my brother !!!

He grabbed Vitka with his hands, tore him off the floor and began to spin. But suddenly he rocked and collapsed to the floor with the boy.

Vitka, feeling freedom, jumped up, not understanding the stupefied head, what was happening. And Sashka, lying on the floor, laughed like a madman, repeating through fits of laughter:

"Brother ... My brother!"

But suddenly he broke off the laughter and, leaping to his feet, headed for Vitka with a frighteningly gloomy face. His eyes fixed on his brother's small, motionless pupils, like two sharp awls.

Father said that he would leave town ... And he lived here?

"No," whispered Vitka. "We arrived only in the winter." Dad died, and we came to my grandmother.

Vitka fidgeted fearfully from the man who recognized him as his brother until he rested his back against the wall.

"That's how ... Died ... Father died ..." Sashka repeated detachedly.

- Yes. He was ill with cancer. Lung cancer ... And died ...

They stood close to each other, and Sashka suddenly thought that - it was not his brother who pressed his back against the wall ... He thought that he himself, surprisingly bifurcated, stands at the wall - the way he was when he was in seventh grade, won And his chubby is the same, and the same large, wide-open eyes ... Sashka perfectly studied and dreamed of becoming a chauffeur in order to travel a lot, and to listen to a big strong car. This old childhood dream surfaced in his memory with such vividness, as if he was still a schoolboy, and his heart ached with sharp pain.

"You ..." He grabbed Vitka by the shoulder and shook him violently. - Who do you want to become?

"An artist," said Vitka. - I like to draw.

"And here ... Why are you here?"

Sasha's voice sounded menacing, almost angry, and the boy tried to slip out, but Sashka did not release his shoulder.

"I'm a Gnome ... I brought Valya home."

And again the painful memory cut Sashkin's soul: for the first time he was treated by his "good" high school student with a cigarette with a "plan", then - again and again ... And then with some strange crooked smile - Sashka seemed to once again see this smile and black teeth - Said: "There is no plan today, but there is something better." That guy was called Grishka. Younger boys teased him for his habit of quavering: Grishka the monkey.

"Grishka is a fool!" Sashka shouted fiercely.

"His name is Valka," Vitka corrected in perplexity. - Val'ka-Gnome.

"And the Gnome is a fool!" And you - my brother - also a fool !!! Look ...

Still without releasing from his tenacious fingers Vitka's shoulder, Sashka led his brother to Levko-Bald, who was still drooling and not reacting to what was happening, sitting with a dull face, like a mask, and muttering something inarticulate.

- Look! Do you want this? So you want to become?

"But I ... Only weed ..." Vitka said guiltily.

- The grass! Only - weed?

Sashka suddenly felt a surge of furious rage and, swinging, struck Vitka with all his strength in the face.

- A-ah ... - yelled Vitka.

- You what? - Sonya tried to stop the execution. "He's your brother!"

"Brother?" Now I'll show this brother! ..

Sashka began to beat Vitka on the head, on the shoulders, on what had got him. He rushed to the door, but Sashka grabbed him by the jacket and, holding his left hand, the right continued to deal blows.

- Do not dare! Do not dare! He shouted. "No grass!" No geru! Do not you dare, fool! ..

Sonya jumped, laughed and yelled in a singsong voice:

"My brother's brother was shoveling!" Brother beat his brother with a shovel!

"Just come here again!" Only come ... I'll kill you! - Sashka screamed and slapped his brother straight in the face. Vitka had blood running from his nose, flowing down his chin, dripping onto the floor.

- Leave him alone! Interposed Mishka-Grob and pulled his hand out of the tenacious fingers of Sashka's fingers.

Vitka, realizing that he was free, instantly jumped out the door.

"Only come!" Sashka shouted after him. - I'll kill you!

He rushed to the door to catch up with his brother, but the Gnome either blocked his way, or accidentally turned up by the arm.

- And you get out! Sashka shouted furiously and hung a thick clit in the Gnome.

But then he himself got it.

- Idiot! - Mishka the Coffin spoke separately and maliciously. "These boys could bring others ..."

He said something else, but Sashka did not understand the meaning of his words. He suddenly felt so weak, as if all the bones had softened in him, and, leaning against the wall, slid to the floor beside the bald, slobbery Leo.

Sonya, picking up on a broken wand, replacing her fork, took out half-baked potatoes from the pan and, baking it, bit off it, not cleaning the "uniform". Sasha, looking at her, felt a sharp hunger, but did not make an attempt to get over Sonya's example with potatoes.

"I do not want to," he muttered, sitting on the floor, but so indistinct and quiet that, except for him, no one could hear them.

And what Sasha did not want, he himself could not say. Maybe he did not want this ridiculous life, in which he tightened his narcotic pool.

"He's my brother ... My ... Brother!"

And he muttered something else, but no one listened or heard him. In this company he was as lonely as he was recently alone in his empty, ruined apartment.

"A wormhole is a sys- tem of the earth - a wicked one in the river."

(Cicero)