Dreams of Pavlov.

A year ago, returning home from a business trip, I found myself at a small station in Polushkin.
The station as a station - on both sides of the forest and a small platform with a tiny lark, at which stood a bearded man in a coloured encephalitis. I sat on the single bench and waited for the train to arrive. Fortunately, he arrived on time, and I got up to myself in a coupe, where I had two neighbors in my neighborhood - an elderly pensioner of the countryside and a young guy in a carpool, who were apparently driving together.

Also in our coupe got a man from the station, who, however, not dressing up immediately went to himself on the upper shelf and fell asleep, turning to the wall.
My seat was on the bottom, and I also lay down, shaking for a couple of hours, and woke up because the train was slowing down on the climb.

The neighbors did not sleep. The boy drank beer, and the retired man periodically read to him some colourful newspaper from those sold in the trains.
Seeing that I woke up, he even rejoiced at the new listener.
He said to both of us, “Listen.
“Yesterday, in New York’s Nello restaurant, the Russian billionaire Abramovich left a bill of five thousand dollars. The cost of the lunch was ten times higher and half of that amount went to the payment of alcohol - a few bottles of Chato Petrus and Crystal Rose," he carefully spoke to unknown names.

Here is Eurydice! - admirably commented the young man - beautiful... how much is a cognac in rubles?
The pensioner thought, how much? It’s clear that Doha... shit...

Under this usual roadway, I had already prepared to fall asleep again, as suddenly came from above:

Petrus is wine, and Crystal is champagne. A very good restaurant... The Italian... It was on Madison - the man from above pulled and sneered.

“Well, what we don’t know, what we don’t know – the pensioner insulted his lips, turned the newspaper and kept silent.
There was silence in the shop. The guy in the telecast also kept silent, apparently thinking of what he heard.
Soon they dressed up and went out at their station, and we stayed alone.

With the clock still falling, I decided to dine a pre-bought fast cooking bowl and began to lay down on the table. From above looked the remaining bearded neighbor, disapprovingly looked at my snow, and went down.
He turned out to be younger than I thought, probably forty years old, with a small, pleasant face, dark hair. Opening his bag, he got a piece of fat, half a carapace of bread, a bowl of cream, a piece of boiled meat and a couple of apples. All this village abundance he laid on the table, pushing me.

Eat...
I have food, thank you.
"It's not food," he pointed to my "Rollton", then dug himself back in his bag and got a bottle of "Russian" from there.

I shrugged my shoulders. I usually do not use with strangers, but here like neighbors. And it became interesting to see what a man like that is driving with me, looking stinking, and understanding in elite alcohol. Interested me, to be honest.

You can...

Going down to the conductor for the glasses, my companion twisted off the lid and poured out two fingers for us. We knocked, drank, and he stretched out my hand:

and lazy... Give it to you...
Let me...

An hour after dinner, when the vodka was finished, and we were just sitting, sleepily whirling and looking out the window, I couldn’t stand:
– Listen – I say – Leonid... Do you know everything about New York and about wine?
He wept and I rushed to add – if not a secret, of course...
- Yes, it's not a secret - he shrugged his hand - it just sometimes seems to me that it wasn't with me, I started to forget... And, however, if you want - listen, we have nothing to do anyway.

Here is his story I tell you further from his words, and I personally thought it was busy. He told me a long time, but I will tell you what I remembered.

In the ninety-third Lönja dropped from his native Peter to Germany. My father’s German roots. I did not think about it, but what was happening in Russia at that time? Chords, crime, bribes and unemployment. In the "Leningrad Northern" where he previously worked as a specialist on settlement, three months was delayed salary and he had to resign. At that time, against the backdrop of all this, almost every border was considered a paradise. For a year, while the documents were prepared, he worked as a courtier and went to English courses, learning to communicate fairly decently on it. German, which he taught in school, he studied independently and, in principle, before leaving, could already speak two languages.

After a camp for displaced persons he got to the city of Leipzig, where he was lucky in a couple of weeks to set up a new BMW factory recently opened there. He was accepted, taking into account his past profession, in the control and acceptance department of the car's running part, which was located almost at the end of the conveyor strip. The work, in general, turned out to be easy, although somewhat monotonous. Saved the habit he gained during his work at Leningrad.
He worked on his own, communicating only with his master. In the assembly workshops, mainly Turks and other migrants worked, and the Germans themselves were represented only by the white-brush cabinet chiefs of various levels, and several equipment adjustment engineers.

He began to get used to the work, but somewhere after a couple of months of work, an event happened that changed his life. A delegation from the New York branch of sales came to the factory. BMW often applies counter-practice practices by employees at various levels of all its factories and offices. To them in the workshop for three weeks identified a cute and smiling American June, who did not know a word in German. Not bothered by the language barrier, she conscientiously penetrated in all the peripeties of assembly and repair of cars, communicating, mainly, only with Lene, who had a quite understandable conversational English.
The master, realizing that in this way he did not need to nurse himself with the Yankees, did not hinder their communication, only once, for the sake of order, rushing to him, swallowing up - the baton...

Lenya himself did not allow anything unnecessary in communication with June, although he admitted that he liked her. Several times they went with her to dinner in a cafe, on weekends went to museums and to the city zoo, but he behaved with her quite friendly and correct.

After completing her practice, June flew home, and three weeks later, Lena was summoned to the factory headquarters. There, the deputy director of the factory personally informed him that as part of the BMW staff rotation program he was recommended by the director of the U.S. department of VIP sales Miss Jun Wood to work in one of his New York-based units. This division was called the image advertising department.
Moreover, Leny did not understand the advertisement until the end, but realized that the Americans were ready to grant him a work visa for a year with the right to extend. Annual earnings and bonus amounts were detailed. Lenya tried to translate all these figures into marks and found that the amount of annual income indicated in the contract was almost twice his current salary. But he was immediately ready to agree. After all, America among emigrants has always had a special attractive and attractive status.

So, less than a year later, after leaving Russia, Lonja was in New York, headed straight from the airport to June's office. I met him kindly, smiling just as joyfully, with the only difference that the smile in some unfathomable way became official. Immediately moving on to the case, she began to explain to him the essence of his future work.
Automotive image makers, she explained, are those people who form the demand for BMW VIP products. The target group of buyers are elite, rich, snobs. For them, the same visual image of aggressive status is created that is inherent in their brand. It is common for people to project onto themselves what they see around them and their task is only to push them to do so. Just as when buying cigarettes, the smoker subconsciously associates himself with the cowboy Malborough, so any thick man who puts out a round sum for a luxurious car, buys with him and the orel of a successful man, who is all around and considered their owners. At least he himself thinks so.

In a word, Lenin's future work is to make this same oaseol with the help of various techniques and to create.
Seekers are selected primarily by external data, but the appearance does not play a major role here. A person should be creative, communicative, educated and have at least initial acting abilities, to identify which he passes a series of tests.
There are special courses based on the department in New Jersey, where a candidate for this position for two months is intensely trained in the skills of his rare profession. Housing is provided by a company, apartments are usually selected here in Manhattan.

Of course, Lenya agreed to everything, although not very much at the time and imagined what he would have to do.

The study was actually very tense. Every day, Lyoya attended classes on art and fashion. He mastered acting skills, which were taught by professional teachers. The choreographer put him a posture, a walk, gestures, poses. A specialist showed how to use male cosmetics. The stylist taught him how to dress, telling him to forget about the shops of ready-made dresses and ordering him a few costumes from the shredder. The driver showed the city. To maintain good shape, there was a swimming pool and a gym.

Two months later, a new car of the representative class came to his disposal, and Lonja went to work.
Now his duty included visiting those places where the public usually spends time - brand stores, exhibitions, presentations, fashion shows, which in New York City is always a great crowd.
In the morning, they were shops on Fifth or Madison Avenue, some flagship boutiques in Soho. To them he had to come in his "seven", skillfully park there, solidly get out of the car and go to the store.
On a special card he had money, which he could spend on purchases, a set of which is prescribed by a special regulation.
The exit from the store was no less spectacular than the entrance to it. Lenny approached the car, put the bags in the trunk or negligently threw them on the seat next to him. Then he sits beautifully, wears glasses, and smoothly touches from the place, radiating with all his appearance the calm characteristic of the people.

He ate in one of the recommended restaurants, precisely also equipping his entrance and departure. The rules allowed one satellite to be invited to lunch, which was also paid by the department. Usually he invited the girls-models he liked, well, in those places that Lonia now visited, there were plenty of them. Including those who obviously hunted for potential bridesmaids. Such Lenny learned to identify quickly enough by their some evaluative look at the interlocutor. Something, by the way, was easier for him with this category of professionals, compared to the ordinary women he invited to dinner. Before them, he still felt some discomfort, because at first he knew that he was actually using them.

After dinner, they usually went to one of the famous nightclubs, where they drank cocktails or danced for a couple of hours.
Leaving the nightclub meant a different setup. Getting out of it in the sight of the queues of those who stood at the entrance, Lenya elegantly opened the door to the companion, confidently sat himself and immediately started the car. After that, he added gas, touched it with a whisper and disappeared, leaving only a black smoky trace on the asphalt. According to the design of the company's marketers, a no less profound trace remained in the souls of potential buyers - mostly major boys, who brought their anorexic girlfriends to the next fashion place.

I remember it was the beginning of the nineties.
When Lenya called his friends to Peter, telling them about his current life, many simply did not believe what he was telling. How could this be believed? Their acquaintance, who worked as a carpenter a year ago, now lives in Manhattan, walks in a costume with a tie, earns a bunch of money, runs on the latest model BMW and drives models to dinner in the most renowned restaurants in New York.
In any case, everyone was terribly jealous of him and agreed that Lenya pulled out his happy ticket, receiving everything that we then valued: a baby, a house, a car, a girl, everything. A lot of people at that time, without thinking, would give everything to live like this.

So Lone was enough for six months of such work.

At first he had an euphoria. At first he didn’t even believe in his fate. He is in New York! In a city of unlimited possibilities, where the heart of the world beats! Where any of the arrivals can easily catch their luck! He was already lucky!
They met with Jean quite often. Somehow their relationship became intimate and now June stayed with him a couple of times a week. During the weekend, they went for a walk in Central Park or some of the numerous city museums. Everything was good.

But starting somewhere from the third month, Liona began to feel some hidden anxiety. Where it came from was completely unclear - because everything seemed to be exactly. His health was okay. The nostalgia did not bother him. The work was still easy and festive. On premieres and fashion shows he has already seen a bunch of world celebrities, and with some even had time to meet. The costumes made on an individual order were excellent. The money was dropped on his card every week. With June everything went well, and she even planned to introduce him to her parents.

But somehow everything went wrong, somewhere the mental balance was lost. Lenny suddenly began to wake up at night and be awake for several hours, pushing away the frightening awareness of a complete reluctance to get up and go to work. I had to pour “Daniels” a couple or three times to fall asleep for a moment.
So he endured another couple of months, for all his strength, persuading himself not to be foolish, but to continue to work. Everything was useless. More and more often he tried to leave home early and get to whiskey, sometimes picking up some companion with him.

After six months of his work in the position of automotive image maker Lyon did not stand and for two weeks forgot in black.

His career at BMW ended. June, having bought him a new girlfriend from the morning, asked him to return the keys to the car and left, knocking the door. The next day he was expected to terminate his contract and asked to leave the apartment.

In New York, Lonia lived for another six months, moving to a Brooklyn hostel and being interrupted by casual earnings. What actually happened to him, he himself did not understand at the time.
Once in a night bar, he talked to a half-sleeping Canadian doctor, a former psychiatrist from Halifax, to whom he told his story. He listened to him with interest, and then readily and thoroughly commented.
According to him, Lenia was unable to survive the state of homeostasis, which is so well supported by animals in the presence of water, food and heat. All this was competently described by Russian professor Pavlov, who believed that only the inability to live in homeostasis and distinguishes a person from an animal. In other words, a person, unlike an animal, can not live long without problems, unfortunately.
And, as it does not paradoxically sound, but precisely because everything was right in his life, Lenya was unable to endure it, eventually losing his physical and mental balance.

Then his visa ended, and Lyonia, tired of suffering from drunkenness and idleness, decided that abroad was enough for him, and moved back to Peter. Before leaving, he took courage and called June to finally apologize and say goodbye. She reacted quite coldly, saying that he was leaving absolutely right, and that in her opinion, the Russians should generally live at home, among the heroes of Dostoevsky. Then I said goodbye to her and told her not to call again.

Then everything was simple. Lenny returned to Peter. A year later he married, and a couple of years later they and his wife went to the aunt in Polushkin, where he is now working as chairman. as well as a veterinarian. And for the shepherd, if necessary. In short, for everyone. The work is apparently invisible, so that no homeostasis shines for me - after finishing the story, my companion laughed quite, and we began to fall asleep.

In the morning he came out, holding my hand to say goodbye, and I was left alone. So I went alone, looking out the window and thinking that it was still curious how everything in the world was arranged.
Right now, this is just our current national idea – to earn something or argue, to lease it and do nothing. I know a lot of people who dream of this.
And a few friends already live, who in Spain, who in Thailand. They believe that fate has been deceived. Or at least pretend to believe.

Maybe it depends on the person? Half a half has chosen. And seemed satisfied.