"John Kessel - Stories for Men" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kessel John)

one


Erno couldn't get to the club until an hour after it opened,
so of course the place was crowded and he got stuck in the
back behind three queens whose loud, aimless conversation
made him edgy. He was never less than edgy anyway, Erno—
a seventeen-year-old biotech apprentice known for the
clumsy, earnest intensity with which he propositioned almost
every girl he met.
It was more people than Erno had ever seen in the Oxygen
Warehouse. Even though Tyler Durden had not yet taken the
stage, every table was filled, and people stood three deep at
the bar. Rosamund, the owner, bustled back and forth
providing drinks, her face glistening with sweat. The crush of
people only irritated Erno. He had been one of the first to
catch on to Durden, and the room full of others, some of
whom had probably come on his own recommendation, struck
him as usurpers.
Erno forced his way to the bar and bought a tincture. Tyrus
and Sid, friends of his, nodded at him from across the room.
Erno sipped the cool, licorice flavored drink and
eavesdropped, and gradually his thoughts took on an
architectural, intricate intellectuality.
A friend of his mother sat with a couple of sons who
anticipated for her what she was going to see. “He's not just a
comedian, he's a philosopher,” said the skinny one. His foot,
crossed over his knee, bounced in rhythm to the jazz playing


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 Stories For Men
by John Kessel


in the background. Erno recognized him from a party he'd
attended a few months back.
“We have philosophers,” the matron said. “We even have
comedians.”
“Not like Tyler Durden,” said the other boy.
“Tyler Durden—who gave him that name?”
“I think it's historical,” the first boy said.
“Not any history I ever heard,” the woman said. “Who's his
mother?”
Erno noticed that there were more women in the room
than there had been at any performance he had seen. Already
the matrons were honing in. You could not escape their
sisterly curiosity, their motherly tyranny. He realized that his