I wound up writing again, newspapers and magazines. The market was mainly in war or business, the financial world. There wasn’t much of the other, at least not enough to get by on.
I had packed my gear and taken the train. I had been doing some work for a mid-level outlet in The States, Business & Investment Express. They were willing to pay 425 dollars, plus reasonable expenses, in exchange for a 3,500-word profile of Michael Wethie, the Virginia entrepreneur. I’d already written most of it. Wethie was 36 years old, a stock trader and futures man who’d quit on a lark and moved to the ex-Communist states. In only a few years, he had allegedly become a major player in the East, parlaying what had been a modest nest-egg into significant holdings in asphalt and cardboard, fertilizer and pesticides, industrial real estate and Black Sea transport, as well as a firm that specialized in “investment and personnel protection services,” according to the official brochure. The consensus storyline said Wethie had moved in fast and early, courageously wheeler-dealering his way through the frenzy of “privatization” and asset-seizure that had occurred in the “wild” and “dizzy” years immediately following the collapse of the Communist regimes.
But that was just the start. Sensing unparalleled new cash streams over the horizon, Wethie had allegedly charged at full gallop into the fertile fields of “information services and technology” – a sector that had been exposed as shockingly wide-open in the Commie aftermath. His Neovest Holdings had recently bought a stake in a major broadband/cable television consortium (with operations in three countries so far), while a subsidiary held 51 percent of an “information security” specialist start-up (which already had service contracts with two of the worldwide Accounting Majors). Wethie was also understood to be a strategic investor in at least three telecoms and mobile networks, had bought up large tranches of public debt, and was apparently involved with a fund selling “shares” of Caspian oil. Intriguingly, he was also rumored to be mulling a “substantial foray” into Russia. To top it off, Wethie and his local partners, apparently after extensive market research, had launched a chain of original branded Bagel Bonanza restaurants and Internet cafes (Warsaw had three outlets operating so far, Budapest two, Prague and Kiev one each).
No doubt: Wethie’s package looked good, at least on paper. Most of the business-press publicity articles had tended to paint him as a particularly fragrant example of American can- and and derring-do – one of the new modern breed of economic gladiator who was smart, plugged-in, dapper-darn nice and seriously primed to bring home the serious big-time bucks. There were the obligatory hushed-tone mentions of his math masters from MIT, the Georgetown law degree, the Chesterfield County boyhood, and more recently, his marriage to a 23-year-old local beauty queen, whose “dissident” professor father had been jailed by the Communists but had found quick favor with the new authorities and was now deputy justice minister. . . .
Well, who knew what to say anymore? Central and Eastern Europe had apparently “gone democratic,” like the proverbial tripping of a row of “dominoes,” and the waiting in unending freezing lines for ridiculously scarce supplies of bananas and toilet paper – for example – was over. The old levers of “state control” had been obliterated, the borders had been thrown wide open, the sadistic phonies and power-whores of the old terror-regime had had been sucked into the hellholle of history. The spirit, indeed, was almost unbearably of “freedom,” and the overwhelming vibe implored: go ahead, freak out, satiate your long-suppressed desires. . . . while the publicity faithfully maintained that one could literally, even if a foreigner – especially if a foreigner – do “anything”. . . .
Wethie had told the English-language Budapest Business Bugle in May: “The problems are generally more a question of personal motivation and initiative, and infrastructure. Petty theft and graft are not insignificant, but the level of human resources is actually quite high. For the most part, the people are polite and well-educated, which bodes well for future investment. And the transport network, the trains and trams and buses, it’s one thing the Communists got right – there’s no real good excuse for being late to work, and we remind our people of that.” A July issue of the Krakow Comet had quoted him: “In terms of hands-on quality service, it’s still difficult to match the training that has been offered since the first MacBeefy’s opened. Many of our outstanding new hires have actually been smart young people out of the MacBeefy’s system. I don’t want to do their advertising for them, but the service-based education at MacBeefy’s is just . . . phenomenal. They just didn’t have that kind of economy of efficiency under Communism, and we are starting to see the positive results.”
Business & Investment Express, as it happened, wasn’t really in the business of reporting anything other than “success,” or the fairly near prospect of it. Success-failure-success was also an acceptable storyline, but success-failure-defeat, let alone success-rumors of possible indictment, wasn’t in their mission statement. Sometimes the editors could get interested in a dirty-laundry “feature,” if someone was actually convicted or thrown in jail, or if bodies were found in a company warehouse – but these were tales few and far apart, and I didn’t have one. . . .
In any case, DeKluge, the editor in New Caanan, thought Wethie would be an interesting article, provided I could get an interview. Wethie’s secretary requested a list of whom I had worked for and some of my articles. Also, Wethie wanted a list of the questions I would be asking. This last request bugged, but there seemed little sense in arguing. In the press game generally, but particularly in the biz-press biz – either you wanted to ride a particular train, or you didn’t. Getting the Wethie piece published would get me over the hump for the next two months, minimum. I faxed them over. The secretary called back and we scheduled the appointment.
*
I met up with Pascual the night before. Pascual was from Texas and would be taking the pictures. I’d worked with Pascual here and there since coming to Europe. The fiddles played slow and fast for Pascual, but they never stopped playing. He would probably get one-fifty U.S., minimum, for the suite of Wethie shots. Two hours effort.
“Don’t you know any pussy in this town?” Pascual asked.
We were in the penzion, our gear thrown on the beds. I was drinking at the table, Pascual was pacing around, examining the cracks in the wall. It was dark gray out the window, snow drizzling.
“Sorry, I don’t.”
“God damn it.”
Pascual explained, in some detail, his pussy problems. Yet there had been one, he insisted, about six weeks ago. . . .
“That’s insane!” I said.
“I mean it, Paul . . . suck a golf ball through a twizzle stick. I kid you not.”
“A lot of them can suck, Pascual. . . .”
“No, no, this was different. . . .”
We went out for supper at a place around the corner. I had a pork cutlet with dumplings, some type of cream sauce, parsley. Pascual had a spaghetti dish, two halves of hard-boiled eggs on the side. I had three or four beers.
We came out of the restaurant, a mist of wet snow coming down. The city had made an effort to work up some holiday cheer. Colorful plastic garlands had been strung over some of the main intersections. In the main square, an oom-pah band of older men in soldier costumes played at the base of a giant Christmas tree hung with lights and little packages. Next to the tree was a carousel-type ride under a circus-style tent. Kids were going around on a few miniature asses. Packs of people, apparently “tourists,” wandered about – older people dressed badly, mainly, along with a smattering of Japanese posing painfully in leather jackets, shaggy bearded “backpackers” bearing stunned expressions, groups of Dutch college girls with thick thighs and bright-colored ski hoods. . . .
The lights were hazy in the snow mist – glows of yellow and lime, tangerine and peach shone across the cobbles and glass storefronts. A kind of purple grayness obscured the tops of most of the buildings. Puffs of smoke burped out of holes in the sides of some of the buildings. The smell was vaguely chemical, I was never sure from what. This particular city had always seemed to reek of truck exhaust, dead buildings, cheap sex and dogshit, the odor rather more tangy in the summer. I saw a red poster on a pole: “Museum Of Torture.” Open 1000 to 1800.
We looped around slowly, past a 15th Century church, past rows of stalls offering hot honeyed wine, faceless angels made of straw and lace, steaming tins of grey sausages soaking in grease. I took a mental note for an anecdotal aside in the Wethie article: The shops seemed to be doing a bang-boom holiday business. Several styles of St. Nick grinned from doorways, Heinz and Hellmann’s was stocked on the shelves, there was a fire sale on Zanussi stoves and Whirlpool freezers. Piles of German crockery and Italian sweaters, socks from Spain, French beans, chocolate from Bradford. In the music shop windows, a blowout, super cheap: LL Cool J and the Dead Kennedys. . . .
I tossed a few coins into a cracked margarine bucket two boys had set out in front of the Metro. They were twelve, maybe thirteen years old, dark-haired and dark-eyed, spider-fingered, wrapped in bundles of cloth and plastic sheeting. One of them had a kind of purple burn on his face. Romanian, Albanian, perhaps “gypsy.” Maybe Russia somewhere. . . .
Pascual grinned as we walked away, but didn’t say anything. His eyeglasses flickered with streetlight, looking for a moment like candles in a mirror. I put a eucalyptus candy in my mouth as stepped along the stone checkerboard galleria, which was blotted with dirty ice clumps.
Not too many months before, there had been a shootout on the square between alleged “Chechen” and “Albanian” gangs, according to police. Rounds had whizzed past biscotti-munchers on the outdoor pavilion of the Hotel Fellini. Even the cops admitted it was a miracle that no bystander had got popped. The cops never did catch anybody, but a week or two later one dead swarthie was found in a plastic drum, floating on the river, and a second was popped dead in the parking lot of a suburban casino. No witnesses to be found. That was the way the police preferred it – thugs popping each other in private was acceptable, but a sloppy shootout on the main square was a clear violation. For one thing, it made the police look bad. It was also bad publicity for the crooks – serious crime prefers a quiet world. The cops had lain their offer on the table days after the Commies had gone kaput – keep the cops decently fed; settle your business problems in private; don’t force the cops to “crack down,” it only creates trouble. . . .
It could never be clear, exactly, what they were fighting over, but “drugs” and “counterfeiting” and “human smuggling,” “prostitution” and “taxi routes” and “the construction racket” seemed very good bets. The cash apparently flowed to various pots and accounts controlled by a small number of rumored moguls residing in Budapest, Israel and St. Petersburg, some said, citing FBI sources – while the funds of other groups wound up in the bankrolls of “freedom fighters” or “terrorists,” depending on how you saw the world.
“Look,” I said, “I know a place down here. Let’s get some wine.”
The place was down a passage a ways off the main concourse, down a winding staircase. Darkness was the dominating motif, just a few light fixtures. Brick caverns, wood tables and benches, blood red tablecloths, plenty of smoke and dust, the uncovered cement floors making for background echoes and an indistinct clatter. It was less than half full, small groups of males, a few young couples. Tired-looking females who couldn’t do a thing with their hair, sitting across from older bearded men representing the alkie contingent. We ducked into an empty side tunnel and went to down the back, where a window, cracked open, marked the space between buildings.
I ordered a jug of red for about three dollars, along with a 30-cent bag of pretzels. The place billed itself as a wine cellar, there were stainless steel tanks of the stuff behind the counters, but it was not good wine, this country was not known for the wine, too northern, they said, but it was the wine taste I wanted, I had never cared very much about quality. I had a sip, then a longer suck. I scowled and lit a cigarette. Pascual took out a baggie and started to roll. It was a decent risk – the waiter or barman might eventually tell him no, but there was next to no chance they’d call the cops. The cops every so often would announce they had busted a dope “smuggler,” but busts for personal use – that was an American thing. Calling in the cops here tended to be a taboo, unless your car had been stolen, or somebody’s blood was already laying on the floor. . . .
“She decided to clip it,” I said after some minutes. “Yesterday or today, I think.”
Pascual rolled his eyes, blew smoke. “It was yours?”
“It may have been. I think so, yeah.”
“How you doing?”
I pulled on the wine, scowled, blew. “Is that some kind of joke?”
“Hey, Paul. . . .” He leaned forward. “Friends don’t let friends plead guilty. O.K.?”
“O.K. . . . Thanks. Listen, let me buy you some pine tar.”
“Not a chance. . . .”
“No, have one with me, I need. . . .”
“Not a chance.”
Pascual claimed he was permanently off sauce, and I’d never seen him even flirt with it. His tale was he knocked it off for good after he “walked into a bar in Beaufort with a loaded .30-.30.” Dark days, on the edge of pure criminality, according to his version. He had hitched a flight to Sofia soon after, no real reason except it “wasn’t Prague.”
I called the waiter down and ordered a bottle, the big one. The waiter brought it a on silver tray with a napkin underneath, set out shot glasses, cracked the top and poured us both. Classy stuff, a real bargain at seven dollars. The waiter cleared out and we had a toast, Pascual setting his down without even a sniff.
Pascual said, “So what’s the deal with the Wethie guy?”
“Nothing,” I shrugged. “Just the regular wet-hand squeeze.”
Pascual blew smoke, I poured myself another jig. The genius of the tar was the three-step kick – a jolt on the first suck, followed by a slight burn, then finally a subtle and more complex twang, deeper and darker, down the throat.
Pascual liked to claim it was well known that businessmen from the U.S.A. worked for the C.I.A. Nearly all of them, in fact. And that most of the “English-language” newspapers were publicity fronts for the American Chamber of Commerce and U.S. embassy. . . . A major source of such tales had always been Gold Ball Dave, who had lost a testicle in Sarajevo while filming for CNN. He had worn a helmet and vest, but never, it seemed, a jock strap. Dave had polished his tale to a fine shine – his rescue and U.S. military helicopter flight out, debriefing on a warship in the Adriatic. It wasn’t an uncommon belief system in this particular turnip patch, it was easy to get sucked in, and hard to deny the main implication. Pascual explained: Gold Ball had now been diagnosed with brain cancer and was moving back to Lompoc.
“You hear a lot of crazy shit, Pascual.”
“I do, I do. But you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Of course not. . . .”
“You got to ask Wethie, Paul. Don’t be a pussy.”
“He’ll deny it. He’ll throw me out. . . .”
“Don’t pussy out, Paul.”
“Why not? What do I get? He’ll tell the CIA. They’ll start fucking with my shit. It’s my right to pussy out. . . .”
“Oh fuck,” Pascual said suddenly. He grabbed the side of the table, squeezing the red cloth between his fingers. “Oh, shit. Oh, fuck.”
“What?”
“A bunch of skinheads just walked in.”
I glanced down the tunnel. Four or five small-looking skinheads had come in – lace-up boots and army pants, the puffy jackets, a general rodent-sheen to the starchy faces. One of them might have been a girl, fifteen or sixteen years old.
“Yeah, so?”
Pascual's face had gone nearly white. He looked ill.
“Let’s go,” he whispered. “They could corner us down here. . . .”
“Aw, don’t give me that shit. . . .”
He got up frantically, scraping his bench against the concrete. He walked swiftly down, passed by the skins, went out.
“All right, all right,” I said. “Gimme a minute, I’ll catch up with you outside.”
I downed my pine tar, downed Pascual’s, threw 500 on the table. I tucked the pine tar into my parka, wound my scarf back on. On my way out one or two of the skinheads eyed me, but that was all. I’d never seen a skinhead yet who didn’t try to eye me in some way. It was what they truly excelled at. They weren’t so tough – some of the purest crap that had ever been found in brains. Fellows who cared so much for their kind, they claimed to decipher beauty and justice in concentration camps. The truth was, most ranked very high on the ugly-face list, and many lived on pig farms. Smooth-shaven farts turned on by the rough-boy drag, the faggot-gang vibe, the outlaw schtick, talking up a knucklehead’s nut-bag of contradictions to pass the time. It was part of the general crisis. Still, the failure made little sense, it was hard to get your mind around something like skinheads in this part of the world, particularly something like Russian skinheads, which apparently really do exist and were even “growing” in size.. . . . Well, the world had always been full of rather stupid kids. That wasn’t going to change.
All the same, it was true that every few months a pack of them would get together and somebody would end up getting badly stomped, or killed. It might be a skinny radiology student from Nigeria, seen holding hands with a plump white girl in public. Or maybe a local gypsy boy, for being a local gypsy boy. The police would generally accept what the skins might tell them – for example, that the seven-year-old gypsy had thrown a hand grenade and tried to steal their wallet; therefore, they threw him into the river. That the Nigerian had lunged at them with a knife that had turned out to be a cocktail napkin. Little was ever done, no one could seem to muster more than the obligatory outrage. The European Union “human rights” commissioners would every so often issue a statement expressing “concern.”
I met up with Pascual down the passage and around the corner. We walked quickly a few blocks, back into the area of the main plaza. He stopped and curled his hands into fists.
“I hate those fuckin’ Nazis!” he said loudly. “They’re out to get me!”
”Hey, Tony. Come on now. . . .”
“They’re trying to kill me, man!” He threw fevered looks left and right, spun his head around to check behind. “Why did they come right there?”
Pascual turned and started walking, his neck pushing his head forward. I followed him, stepping upon freshly fallen snow that crunched lightly underfoot, like a layer of salt or sand.
“Hold on, hold on,” I said, grabbing hold of his arm. “Cool out, man. They won’t get you out here, not now.”
“All right,” he said, inhaling rapidly through his nose. “O.K.”
After another slow moment Pascual explained it to me, a convoluted tale which involved a skinhead-linked girl, some variety of drug deal, a bit of police corruption, his particular ethnic heritage. It had all gone down during a photo shoot he had done in a couple remote border villages near Kosice a year or two ago. I remembered the photos, I could picture them now: grainy black and whites of skins kids, snarling dogs tight on a leash; drugged and drunk skinheads, slumped together in a row like peas in a pod. Pascual could do some nice work when he wanted. Some of the shots had been picked up by a French newspaper and one of the glossy Spanish magazines. No takers in The States, though The New York Times magazine had apparently feigned interest. . . .
I stopped and threw 100 down to a little armless and legless fellow who was wrapped in a blanket, shivering, in front of the new Donna Karan outlet.
“Where are you from?” he asked in English, little beard bobbling.
“Canada,” I said.
We kept moving. It was starting to get late, not so many people out any more. Down by the big Christmas tree, a group of fat guys wearing Santa caps were playing “Mr. Tambourine Man,” local tongue version of the lyrics. Four or five fans stood in front of the stage. We came out the other side of the square and headed down a main boulevard, roughly in the direction of the penzion. We passed a group of young Italians, some wearing floppy carnival hats, standing in front of a pizza parlor. A tall boy smelling of beer said something to us, but I didn’t catch it. I actually wasn’t very interested in whatever it might have been. We made a right turn, heading now more towards the river.
At the end of the block, a squat Arab-looking guy walked up and handed us each a xeroxed pink sheet. BUGSY CLUB – GENTLEMAN NIGHT EROTIC. The page was marked up with X's and heart shapes and O’s, drawings of twisting girlie figures. Relaxation night club with erotic program, possibility to rent the relaxation snuggeries. Suitable for relaxation and rest of everybody. Strip show, go-go, lesbian, two saunas to disposal, solarium and three ample bars.
Pascual crumpled the sheet in his hand, howled, and began to whirl in a tight little circle, his arms pointing straight down. One of his heels caught on a burr of ice on the cobblestones. He caught and corrected himself before he could tumble.
“What do you say, boss?”
“All right,” I said. “Why not.”
We walked a few blocks, made a left on to a mostly residential street. The red, blue and pink sign glowed over a baroque doorway festooned with pointed-black iron railing. Tasteful and discreet, like any decent whorehouse.
We forked over the entry fee, about six dollars of the local, and went in. It was stifling hot, smelled like melting wax, but with a fruity pull, something like strawberries, causing my nose to itch and my eyes to water. The mafias, say what you will – they did know their work. Wall-to-wall red draperies and glowing purple Victorian wallpaper graced the hall, lava lamps churned from several neo-Grecian pedestals. It would be a 40 dollar cover charge, minimum, to get this kind of quality in Hollywood or Atlantic City. We clawed through packs of pals and pulled into view of the stage. They were winding up the lesbi show, the final flourishes of “Candle in the Wind” booming on the soundtrack. A soft strobe flashed off the disco globe and back mirrors, orange and rose-colored lights roved across bodies. Two dye-blondes lapped away at it on the revolving stage, one spread wide with knees up, the other’s heinie hoisted above her face. Cripples in wheelchairs, groups of young guys wearing baseball caps, hogged the front rows, staring with great interest. Mustache contingents and clots of other psychopaths stood around, most with one hand in their pocket and a drink in the other.
The glory was, it was still early enough in the transition that what you were seeing was most likely 90 percent original tits. Some went further, insisting that the pussy, along with the beer, was simply superior in this part of the world – that these were the two greatest legacies of the Commie age. One did have to concede that some type of miracle did appear to have taken place, and was still occurring, to a degree. By definition, thus, it was sure to be fleeting. The strands of thought then tended to get tangled, an honest resolution just beyond the grasp. I took out the pine tar, had a slug. I found an empty corner near a table, lighted a cigarette, had another pull, blew, ashed and tugged once more. The fuck-film industry had of course been among the most immediately appreciative and grateful for the “electrifying wealth of new talent that is yanking the business from its doldrums,” according to an industry newsletter.. . .
There was a round of weak applause and some hooting, the “free show” had ended and it would now cost extra to view the girls with their panties off. Everything would have to be “privatized.” “I’m Burning For You” crashed on to the soundtrack, fresh girls mounted two mini-pole stages on the sides of the main stage. The lights dimmed, turned more purple, more blue, with a spot of pink. Squads of girls began fanning out, making their sales pitches – 30 to 40 girls, in bikinis or lingerie, each and every in heels. Some flaunted with their nipples falling out, preening tall and willowy. Others were more stocky, hair of various persuasions but many blondes. They would generally be a mix of nationalities this far west, in this level of establishment – local gals along with a number of Ukrainians and some Russians, Serbs and Romanians, Moldovans, a fair number of Asians who had been hustled in from somewhere. . . . They had quotas to meet to maintain their place, or at least it seemed that way, and the bargaining was on. Something had really clicked, the system was working for the consumer.
A tall brunette in light blue bikini came near. “STRIP, MASSAGE, PLO-JOB OR SEX!” she shouted in heavily accented English. “COME ON, WHO WANTS IT?” Bold and brassy, boobs swinging like cocoanuts in too-small sacks. It was an assault, something close to murder. Guys mumbled, dopes shook their heads. “If I Could Turn Back Time” blasted on the soundtrack. I slugged pine tar. There were no takers. She yanked her bikini bottom up her cunt crack, turned and walked off, ass swinging and bouncing. She’d be back before long.
It seemed there might be many factors playing a role in why a young woman would find herself greeting strangers with an offer to wrap her lips around their penis, for a few bucks. It was a “street job” in the U.S.A., or alternately, one for which wealthy slobs paid thousands – here, it was like getting a haircut. But there were many things in the world, and it could depend on how broad were your definitions. I didn’t pretend to claim a special knowledge. I got a beer for 75 from a waitress with glitter on her breasts, a miniscule lace apron, glitter on the buns and back of her legs. . . .
Well, but my presentation was apparently not peaking, I seemed to be drawing mostly the moths. Well-meaning sweet bundles, certainly, and good with the English, most of them, but seemingly chunkier types, rolls of belly flab, skin blemishes – no obvious bruises or scars, but the dimness may have played a role. . . . But I could be too harsh after a certain point, I knew that – maybe too much tar. I took another pop.
“France,” I finally told one, speaking poorly in the local tongue. “I’m from France, yes. . . . No, no English. . . .” No, I insisted, no plo that I would have to pay for. No, no massage. . . . She was on the compact side, hair done in a bob style, lipstick appearing dark blue in the light. Medium-size jugs under a white silk robe. She was agressive, coy, I couldn’t fend for myself – we finally bargained a price: 1,000 for a strip and a plo. I wasn’t sure if the price included room “rental” – that’s where they would try to sting you. Maybe later, I lied, yes come back later. She dragged a lazy hand across my bulge, kissed my ear, walked off. Well, so I had booked a date. “Cradle of Love” rocked the soundtrack. I gulped tar. . . .
Terrifying stories abounded in the press, about girls being tricked and drugged and systematically raped into submission, passports seized, as they were forced into a world of sexual slavery at the mercy of stinking Russian gangsters and cruel, swarthy Albanians. Some said it was a generation of womanhood that was being ruined, a generation that would confuse sensuality with sluthood. I could never be sure, this had been the extent of my research – I had never had a tortured butterfly collapse sobbing into my arms, begging for rescue. . . . Further east, the tales became more gruesome, monsters of unlimited depravity seemed to be running loose. Somewere in Russia, a night with a girl as young as eight could be had for $600, it had been reported. Mothers and fathers had joined the pimp world, offering their daughters down at the truck stop to get “money for food.” Girls 11 years old, 12, orphans on the street, allegedly offering it up for a MacBeefy’s and fries. Russian police arrested a 52-year-old insurance executive from Joliet, Illinois, discovered off a flight to Moscow with cameras, sixty pounds of candy, disks allegedly containing pictures of “children under the age of 12 engaged in sexual acts with adults.” Interpol searched vainly for a 45-year-old American dentist who arrived in Budapest from Montreal, wanted by U.S. authorities for filming sex acts with East Lansing girl over period of six years, from age eight. . . .
I pulled beer, I sucked tar. I blew smoke and ashed on to the orange shag. Guys forked out, gals swung it from tables and countertops. Guys forked, heading for snuggeries in closet spaces down the hall. Gals unhooked the velvet rope and led packs of pals up a spiral staircase for snuggery-based activities on the upper floor. U2’s “One” throbbed on the soundtrack. It was getting to be hell to find adequate snuggeries. The hunt for snuggeries, it was what drove the whole damn place, everyone driven mad by it, until one day, probably, it would just be gone. . . .
Pascual leaned over and, whispering, made a substantial cash request. A gal had been sitting on his lap, frizzy brown hair tied up in red ribbons, cheeks suggestive of chipmunks. Silvery white bra and pantie set. Why not, I had the cash on hand. Pascual was a free man, in a free country, seeking snuggeries. It was the least I could do. Pascual explained he would return the funds tomorrow, after he went to his bank machine. I nodded. Rule number one was to never do anything for anybody, unless they asked – what they did afterwards, you had to give up on that, it could not be your issue. I got up, walked to the hall, pulled tar, spun back around and slipped several thousand in his armpit.
Pascual and the girl stood. She smiled at me, pulling a pantie side out of her ass crack. Pascual stretched his arms, yawned, grinned. “You planning to stick around much longer?”
“Probably not too much longer. . . .”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll see you back at the place. Thanks again, man.”
“You’re beautiful,” I said.
He rolled his shoulders lazily, trailing after the girl.
I lipped tar. “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” soared high on the soundtrack. Gals showed gash for mustache contingent table shows; gals marched males off to private snuggery saunas. Gals who didn’t get dates sat on couches, tearing open bags of potato chips. Gals flipped out, screaming and cackling, scurrying across the room with big cocktail drinks sloshing. A number of gals who didn’t have dates passed out on couches, looking something like slumber party girls passed out after putting on mom’s makeup. I stood dumbfounded. I couldn’t find my date anywhere.
I walked out and headed in a way that seemed toward the penzion. Taxi men were huddled outside Kentucky Fried, their shapes bleeding in and out of the flickering neon. A tin-can cop car whizzed down the square, tires scrunching over the cobbles. I crossed the highway, went into a small park, fell to my knees and vomited. Nothing too major. I sat a moment, then wiped off with clumps of snow. I got up and kept going, across another main boulevard, past several glass office parks, finally into a residential neighborhood of tree-lined avenues and pale orange streetlamps. It was very quiet, just my lightly echoing steps, along with a timid plap-plap, snow melt rolling off the trees and building overhangs. Near the corner, under some trees, I saw somebody foraging along a row of trashcans. He was using a stick of some kind to pull up trash bags and other bits out of the big plastic containers. A lumpy sack was over one of his shoulders, while in a hand he carried a white plastic grocery bag, sagging at the bottom.
BOY, 13, GETS 12 YEARS FOR KILLING 15-YEAR-OLD. For years, it seemed, my job had amounted to coming down to the valley after the battle, taking aim and shooting the wounded. WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN CONTRACTOR’S POOL. Mainly, we sat in a black box, scratching claws against the side. It took no real effort to believe or not to believe. COMMISSION: PARENTS MUST BLOW THE WHISTLE ON ‘GANGSTA’ CULTURE. Shit flowed in all places, differing only in consistency. Everybody was simply scrubbing with the wrong kind of soap. YOUTH, 17, DIES FROM GUNSHOT. I wasn’t too young to worry, or too old to cry. I wasn’t too young to admit it, or too old to lie. HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR KILLED IN CLIFF FALL. Hammer strikes the metal. Metal strikes the concrete. Concrete crumbles. MAN KILLED BY SECURITY GUARD AFTER ARGUMENT. Somebody had to be the hunting hound. History had shown that somebody was always clamoring to be the obergruppenfuehrer. MAN ARRESTED AFTER FATAL APARTMENT SHOOTING. We were all on a journey to the same land, and we could forget about today until tomorrow. Because there had been too many tricks, and eventually everbody’s first impulse was to say no. . . .
I crossed the intersection, then made a left. The penzion still didn’t appear. I kept going until I saw, in the distance, two thin bands of red neon, wrapped around a building like icing on a cake. People moved in and out, various forms, a metallic clanging could be heard. DJ PIERRE FROM IBIZA, it was written on a tequila sign. Down the walk 30 or 40 yards stood two young women and a male. I walked toward them, pulling the pine tar, lighting a smoke.
We stood and smoked, the four of us, ashing on the hood of a parked car. Each of them had sip of tar, then no more. They were 18 years old, maybe 20. The one girl was wide-faced and dark-haired, an undiluted beauty. Some of her hair had been swept up into a little ponytail at the back of her head, up near the top, and this bounced when she moved. She wore a heavy cloak, below it a black vest with pearly buttons and no apparent undergarment, just her skin, against the cold. Her feet were sheathed in little white boots; tights of a kind of shiny black netting covered her legs.
I struggled for a time and tore the scarf from my neck, stuffing it into my coat pocket, searching for words, something funny to say. I said several times how very much I regretted I had no pretty yellow flower to put behind her ear. This seemed to entertain them, to entertain her. Every time I said it, and a few other times too, her face would ripple with a smile of great freshness. But it was only for a flash. Her sparkled eye was always soon diverted, her lips returned to their skeptical pose. She seemed distracted –possibly by some difficult quandary that had veered into the abstract. . . .
I hit the tar, hit it again. The conversation revealed they had not heard of Charles Manson, but were well aware of Jim Morrison. I started to explain Manson, but all of us seemed to become bored in a minute or two. They likewise were clueless about the Bay City Rollers. I could not quite explain it to them, and anyway I had forgotten why I had mentioned it – not really sure what I was trying to say.
It must have chilled up because snow started coming down again. A flake of it fell from the air and on to the girl’s hair, and from there onto her cheek, and she did not wipe it or seem to notice. At last it turned to water, clear and shining. I hit the tar.
They had achieved an effortless beauty, it was part of the crisis – the hang of the hair, the fit of the clothes – elegant deliverers of devastating blows, yet never seeming to care enough to come on too strong. Sight alone could trigger an uncontrollable whimpering in the heart, an urge to make mad promises and wild offers to these statuesque wonders, these radiant dark-eyed beauties, pixie-faced, wide-hipped lovelies, porcelain-skinned raven brunettes, red-headed freckled masterpieces, translucent golden shimmering sirens with broad flat faces and upturned noses. . . . Born of free-range chicken and rich sour cream slopped fresh into the wooden bucket, whiffing Chernobyl fumes from earliest days – a complex set of conditions but ones which had yielded the most astonishing results. . . .
It was said that Soviet troops had in fact shot young local males who had refused to surrender their girlfriends. These young females of the gently rolling and haunted hills, where the sea had not crashed for eons and the volcanoes had long ago burnt out. They could wreck you with hours of uninhibited sensual grace, then be up first thing in the morning to mop floors and scrub pans, your coffee waiting in a cup on a saucer. Then one day the invisible line would be crossed, she would at last feel comfortable, her position secure, a whole hidden universe in her head that had suddenly clicked into being. She would start to strip you of your assets. You would soon find out whether you had ever meant any damn thing, whether you were made of meat, or of mildew, ready to be wiped away. . . .
The other was roughly the same age, but behaved more obviously like a girl. She was a slender dark blond, wearing a long shiny black raincoat with white tube striping. I remember she did most of the talking, but her English did not seem as good as the other’s. When she laughed, her teeth did not quite fit her mouth properly.
I do not remember much about the fellow. I do not remember him saying a word. He seemed like so many of the bespectacled young men of the former Communist states, polite but unsure and in some way suspecting, but without either the nerve or the real care to give voice to it. No doubt he knew what was really meant by pi, and how to repair an electrical switch, several languages. Communism had made them this way, hadn’t it – Communism and the Nazi periodAnd they the both of them had been evil to the core, so you knew where to put the blame when something went wrong. . Invasion, cruelty, domination, bureaucracy. The Commies and the Nazis, yes – and the landed aristocracy and the Church, and the starch content of the diet, the minerals in the water, the alkalinity of the soil, the cold winters and hot summers. The peasant lifestyle in which the men and boys fucked sheep out in the fields while the women plotted against each other with dolls and witchcraft. But mostly it was the cruel stupidity of Communism and the vileness of the Nazis and what they had done. Everyone was fond of saying so, and they often did, giving blame and credit, often both at the same time, as suited their purpose.
I remembered one young man in this town telling me, “Anything is better than Russians! Anything! If you didn’t live under Russians, you can’t say. . . .”
It had always been the tragedy of the world that no one knew what he didn’t know. And things could be killed, but it was usually a long time before they were allowed to die. Because everything relied on some other thing, and without one or the other, you were suddenly dragging along, all your think-thoughts collapsed. It was widely believed that the jolly convertible-driving Reichsprotektor had been doomed the moment he helped himself to the good king’s crown.
The club door whammed open, a guy ran out and stumbled toward us, bounced off a couple cars, slipped, pitched forward and vomited. He let go, several waves splashing against the ice, followed by spitting and groaning.
Three or four others came out, looking around wildly then running down to the one who had vomited. “Hey Ronie, Ronie . . . you O.K., Ronie?”
Bah, I had always felt something was wrong with Australians. They seemed to be coming from and going to nowhere, I could never figure out their point. One of them, thick eyebrows and bushy sideburns running down past his ears, came up.
“Hi mate, how you get a taxi around here?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. . . . I’m sorry.”
“Ow, really . . . ?”
My companions shook their heads, looked at the ground. The Australian waddled off.
We came to the last of their package of smokes, the car hood was covered in a blanket of snow and ashes. I emptied the tar bottle, tossed it over my shoulder and into a bush. They laughed. I kissed the girls, shook hands with the fellow. The three of them walked away into the air heaving with snow. They disappeared in the darkness of the trees, reappeared for a moment under the street lamps, disappeared once more.
My fingers were like raw carrots, jabbing with little effect at my pockets. A taxi at last rolled by. I climbed in. He drove four or five blocks and let me out. The charge was about fourteen dollars of the local. The taxi-men would do this to you – I could muster no word. I found the room, sat on the bed, and cleared my throat with a swallow of the last of the vodka. The clock said 4:34.
I took off my shoes, flipped on the television to TV YES! A gunman jumped off a helicopter and mowed down six soldiers. He ran across the sun-smashed L.A. rooftop, pulled out ropes and scaled down the side of the skyscraper, pumping rounds into offices. Secretaries and executives threw themselves under desks. I lifted the vodka bottle. I dialed the lobby girl and requested a wake-up call for eight-thirty.
2.
“Don’t worry – I’ve got the ticket,” Pascual said. “Leave it to me, boss, I’ll get you straight in a jiffy.”
Pascual took a zippered black pouch of some sort out of his gear, from this removing a rolled plastic baggie. Inside were ten to fifteen capsules of several pigments. He shook free two, white and green, and handed them over. He took three more into his own hand.
“What the hell?”
“Just take it.”
“Both?”
“Both. You're not looking too good, Paul. You don’t want to take chances during the big interview. You’ll need endurance.”
“All right,” I said. “If you say so. . . .”
I saw Pascual’s long tan back in the corner. He was in his jockey underwear, putting on a pair of socks. It was already nine-fifteen. Pascual explained he hadn’t slept and didn’t plan on it until after the Wethie shoot, when he would board a train for his next destination, Vienna. He had set up a deal to take client photos at an international cosmetics fair. It was a good paycheck, and not only that, he was certain to sleep with at least three-to-five different women, he said. Middle-aged German women, in particular, gave it out to almost anyone who walked up. As a bonus, they tended to be in good physical shape, tight stomachs and hard thighs, due to a strict regime of aerobics, weight-training and fiber-rich diets. Pascaul maintained that the “limp” German husbands always expected a little fooling around when their wives went to a convention. It was the way of modern Germany. And the fact that many of the German husbands were “bisexual Nazi fags.”
Pascual finished loading his gear, I double-checked the recorder and notebook in my satchel. I would come back to finish the Wethie piece, stay another night, maybe two. We grabbed complimentary filter coffees in the lobby, then stepped out on to the blindingly bright walk. My eyes started to water, tears tore from the corners of my eyes. Cars whipped over the drenched road, piles of black snow on each side. Water ran in streams off rootops, raining on to the walks. A gigantic chunk of snow fell from the building on the left, smashing into the walk with a loud whuff-whuff!
We walked down, pushed through a soiled canvas curtain and into a little place with chipped brown tile on the floor. Warm sour air wafted over my face, I wiped and wiped at my eyes. It was too crowded, many older people, pensioners packing bags of flour, crushed bread crumbs and lentils, rolls of toilet paper and oily sausages. An old woman with a pea-green scarf around her head caught me with her eyes, unleashing a look that seemed to combine fright with savage loathing. Her small, creased mouth grimaced, two small teeth showing out of the tongueless dimness. Turning away, I knocked into an old man with yellowy eyes and a thick layer of white paste on his lips. I tripped on something, stumbled, sagging finally against a plastic bin of potatoes. Oldsters squeezed by, whacking me with their sacks.
My heart was pounding, circles on the top of my head thumped painfully, but I could feel a surge coming – I had made it, I was O.K. I stood and walked into the dairy section. I felt action where my neck met my shoulders, some nice action on the back of my head, the backs of my eyes – as if a beautiful cloth was being slowly, slowly spread out.
I gathered a package of cheese slices and a few rolls, a banana, a bottle of fizzy water, gum and a pack of smokes at the register. Pascual got two cartons of yogurt, rolls and a cucumber. We went out the street, walked two more blocks down to the embankment. Pascual took out his knife and started peeling the cucumber.
“This neighborhood is really begging for some globalism,” he said.
I lighted a cigarette and looked out across the river. In the morning sun the city seemed newly painted, burning snow mounds and clear ice, silver twinkles in the pools of water. I got a gush of warm shivers, feeling the sun on my head, against my face and neck.
Pascual pointed at the ancient bridge.
“You see the far end over there?”
“Where?”
“Over there, way over –”
“Right there at the very end? – the stairs, under that statue of Joan of Arc?”
“Yeah, there by the water wheel. . . .”
“O.K. . . .”
“British guy tried to suck me off down there one night. Name of Simon.”
“Yeah,” I said, “a lot of them will try to. . . .”
Pascual laughed. “You’re a trip, Paul. Do you know him? He’s a journo like you. Wall Street Journal and so on.”
“Never heard of him.”
I asked Pascual for a few more pills, but he wasn’t that into it anymore, he forked just one. We tossed our trash walked over to the road, looking for a taxi. I slipped a eucalyptus candy into my mouth.
3.
Wethie’s place was on the northern edge of town, on the road to the airport. The taxi sped us past crops of cranes, various construction sites, a container yard, then turned north for two or three kilometers down a narrower road lined with peeling billboards, dingy villages and brown, soot-covered houses. It turned out that Wethie’s operation had taken over an abandoned hospital, a move that apparently ensured he paid nearly zero property taxes under the government’s “redevelopment” scheme.
A massive painted plywood sign towered atop the overhang of the old hospital entrance: NEOVEST STRATEGY INDUSTRIES, INC., Wethie’s blue and green logo on each side. We got out and started up the muddy walk, a strong wind whipping under our collars, sending trash and old papers smacking against the chainlink fences which blocked off the lots on both sides. Beyond the fences stretched snow drifts and tall weeds, along with a several rows of rusting barrels and piles of rotting lumber. The building itself mouldered in a state of general crapitude – several decades worth of chipped and peeling paint, blackened plaster and shredded insulation, boarded windows and dangling wire, smashed hulks of medical machines and steel basins half-covered with tarps. . . .
Wethie met us in the dim gray hall of the second floor. He was dressed in tan slacks, a yellow tie, white striped shirtsleeves. We shook hands and exchanged brief pleasantries. Wethie let off a sigh, studied his fingertips, looked up and nodded his head at me. He was both wider and shorter than the pictures I had seen had suggested – broad shoulders, noticeably slumping, a slight forward lean. Something of an overbite, a doubling chin, thickening lines on the face. His hair seemed to have once been cut close, but had been had allowed to grow and now stuck up a bit like a brush. As Pascual knelt down to snap a shot, Wethie tore off his black-rimmed glasses and handed them to Mrs. Baker. He put a hand across his belt buckle and smiled.
I mentioned something about the hospital being a “unique” office space, and he explained that this was only temporary – he had plans to turn the property into a golf course.
“Thath a threal thchoop thor you,” he said as he led us down to his office. “The futhurth oth tholfth ith nearthly limithleth inth thith threthion.”
“Oh, no kidding. . . ?”
I hadn’t been prepared for the fact that Wethie spoke with a lisp, it had never been mentioned in any article. I glanced at Pascual, but he was giving nothing – he was deep in his “pro mode,” clenched jaw and hard eyes, kneeling as the flash fired then backing off.
We went into a well-lighted room that had bright orange walls and short wall-to-wall blue carpet. The space appeared recently painted and renovated, like the other few offices we had seen where Wethie’s squads worked in front of the latest in computer screens. A large cherrywood desk, its surface entirely empty, sat in the middle, and there were chairs, a computer work station, a silver Eurotech refrigerator, three or four potted trees. Framed black and white photo portraits of Manhattan and Big Sur hung opposite the desk. At the back, glass doors led to a small balcony. The rear windows provided a view of three hospital wings, swathes of sunshine glinting against vast snow drifts. Farther off were a number of decaying residential towers, and yes, just barely – the Gothic spire of the castle, eight or nine kilometers away.
Mrs. Baker brought me coffee in a plastic cup and a small bottle of fizzy water. When I set my tape recorder on the desk, she took out her own recorder and set it next to mine. She sat to my left, a notebook on her lap.
Pascual left quickly after getting his shot quota. “Good luck with everything, Mr. Wethie. See ya next time, Paul.” He slapped me on the shoulder.
I unfolded my list of questions and blinked at Wethie. “A lot of readers are interested in the long-term trends. What’s your prognosis for the region as a whole?”
Wethie leaned back. “Well, the thothenthial thor throwth ith thruly immenth. The worchforth ith highthly ethuthated, yeth lathor ith thtill threlatithely ineththensive. They hath amongth the loweth thorporath thaxth rathes in Euroth. Threthit rathing ith A-invethment thrade. The thock echthanthe wenth up 55 perthent lath year. One rithk ith the larth thurrenth athounth thethithit. Buth the averath worther mathes 11 perthent of whath they mathe in Swethen. We’re theeingth a threal thifth thord thervithes, FDI hath been highthest in thelethommunithathions and inthormathion. . . .”
“Yes, I see. . . .”
I had begun to feel dizzy, it was getting hard to concentrate. My big guts were eating up my small guts, I felt my chest trembling against the inside of my shirt. I watched the recorder roll. It seemed awfully hot, though Wethie and Mrs. Baker did not seem disturbed.
“. . . they dith noth have unrealithtic foreign debths and hadth noth unthrealithtically supprethed inflathon, so the prithe rithes were relathifely modeth. Fathy meath prithes wenth up, tho feofle thurned more tho healthier thaples.” He laughed. “A thignificant porthon of those theeing wathe thains, of thourse, thurned to MathBeethy’s for their thervings of fathy meaths, tho ith wath a rather virthuous thycle. . . .”
Wethie took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He rubbed the lenses with a little rag. I finished my bottle of water and asked Mrs. Baker if it was possible to have another. I gulped and licked my lips, loosened my tie a bit more. Six more questions to go. . . .
“. . . . thitherthithithathion ith our thrength,” Wethie was saying. “Ith ith ithresthing tho noth thath Thruthia moothed, in ethect, throm a lathe methiethal Thythanthine thothiethy tho the mith-18th thenthury withouth etherienthing the Threnaithance and Threthormathion. Thrussia ith an enithma wrathed inthide a mythery, buth we thooth tho thee ith altho wrathed inthithe a tharathigm thath thayth the futhure ith limithleth. . . .”
“Well, that’s about all I have.” I shut off the recorder and put in my satchel. “Thanks for your time, both of you. . . .”
At that point, Wethie rolled a large plastic object across the desk toward me. It was maybe foot tall, with numerous detailed snap-toghether appendages. . . .
“Oh, what’s this?” I said, stopping it before it could fall off the desk.
Wethie beamed. “The Thrathonmather oth Thoom.”
“Dragonmaster of Doom? It’s your child’s?”
“No thilthren yeth.” He smiled. “Mine, I math ith. . . .”
“No kidding,” I said, rolling it back. “That’s fun. . . .”
Wethie hit a button and several plastic knights popped out of the Dragonmaster. Mrs. Baker and I sat there, Mrs. Baker with a slight smile. Finally he picked up all the parts and set them back on the shelf behind him. I gathered up my things and fastened my satchel. Wethie came around the desk and we shook hands for the last time.
I said goodbye to Mrs. Baker and walked out. Wethie hadn’t helped much, I still wasn’t sure of anything. He was either dead to the world and everything in it, or he had gained a truly special insight. It of course depended on where you yourself landed, and that was part of the problem. Words were so terrifically abused – everything and nothing attached to them. You turned elsewhere. What mattered, maybe, was a paycheck; where the hammer met the metal; where the machine gun fire hit flesh.
I waited at a bus stop down the road from Wethie’s, taking in big gulps of the cold air and having a couple smokes. Two boys around 11 or 12 walked by, banging their sticks against the fence and bus stop pole. They came up a foot away from me and demanded smokes. I didn’t appreciate the attitude and told them I had just finished the pack. That was one thing I didn’t do – give smokes to kids. They glared at me and moved on. The bus finally came and I rode down to a traffic circle, then boarded a tram for the ride downtown. I suddenly felt terribly hungry and, seeing a MacBeefy’s, I got off and went in. I came out with one of the Wyoming chicken-bacon burgers and a large coke. I walked along, taking large hacking bites of the sandwich, feeling progressively more dizzy.
An outdoor market place appeared. It was mostly Vietnamese or Cambodians, a few Turkish and Ukrainians, selling lighters, gizmos and trinkets, panchos and sweatsuits, alleged Jim Beam by the case, cheap socks, cassette tapes and hair care products, from rickety stalls. The place was dank and smelly, like piles of wet cardboard or kitchen laundry.
A black-haired boy suddenly walked out, leading a white goat along the stone walk. They moved to the left, the goat's feet clicking against the stones, disappearing behind some stalls.
I bit into the burger and took in a mouthful of mayonnaise, warm and creamy. Someone had gobbed it on too much. I gagged, my stomach twisted. I forced myself to swallow the mouthful, then sucked long and hard from the coke straw. It was down. I took in mouthfuls of air.
A little more walking and my left side felt like it was aflame. Waves of nausea came – the only suspense seeming to be which end of me would explode first.
I threw the sandwich into a bin.
Bits of the wind flew cold and sharp against my face, like a dusting of glass, drying out my eyes and lips.
I was two blocks away, two blocks from the penzion and the bed. I came up the final slope, hips grinding, trying to keep momentum. I glanced up and saw a cat in an open window. It stood above me in the sill, frozen with a paw in the air, peering down. The cat’s face was a swirl – one eye in black fur, the other in white.
4.
By about eight I had finished the article and sent it off to DeKluge. WETHIE: LOOKING TO THE GOLDEN EAST. Michael G. Wethie looks out from his second-floor office compound in a former mental hospital and sees golf courses, acres of lush green golf courses in the middle of what once was a Communist-run wasteland. . . . I had adhered largely to the consensus, inserting some newish statistical data, several scene-setter anecdotes, as well as a few well-chosen ifs, howevers and buts, to conform to style. I had also taken the opportunity to raise a number of concerns about the “nagging problem of corruption,” and how Communist-era habits seemed to die hard. After DeKluge confirmed receipt, I shut down the computer, crapped again and cleaned up. The bed was inviting, but I decided instead to use the coupons Mrs. Baker had given me for meals and free drinks at Wethie’s bagel establishment.
I grabbed a couple of the English-language publications from a rack up front, then sat down in the back at a table for four. The waitress, fair-skinned and slender, wore a beret-style black cap with BAGEL BONANZA stitched in orange, green and purple on the front, along with a matching black T-shirt. I ordered a “Jimmy Hendrix” bagel plate and a beer. Ham, jalapeno and red onion, a side of “cottage fries.” The food came in about ten minutes, and I apparently ate it.
I stayed another hour, trading in the three other coupons for two beers apiece. It was hard to believe they were still putting out the Weekly Post Standard (slogan: The World Is Around Us) and The Business Journal (Money. People. Profit. Here.) The Weekly carried the lead: EX-HAPSBURG WANTS CASTLE BACK. A very sad tale. The inside pages included AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE HOSTS SPEAKER BREAKFAST SERIES. In the classifieds: BEAUTIFUL E. EUROPE WOMEN significantly younger than YOU seek a serious relationship. Our agency is owned by an American and Irishman with offices in Budapest, Paris and New York. And: LUCKY MISS Early retired American chap seeks attractive eastern lady 22-35 who looks great in string bikini for Florida Panhandle friendship/fun. She speaks English and tired of cold weather. I love travel, fishing, cats, good food, campfires, beach. I snuck a peek at the Business Journal: UNIVERSITY OF AKRON-SHLUNTZ BUSINESS SCHOOL HOSTS INTERCULTURAL BUSINESS BRIEFING TUESDAY. From what I had heard, the business models involved giving away these papers free on all flights that landed here.
Jinx was mildly entertaining, notable for carrying colorful huge ads for various drug-based dance parties, and for restaurants and boutiques that catered mainly to foreigners. It also contained small articles and reviews that seemed to have been written with great difficulty and little copy-editing. Most of the subject matter concerned evaluations of American pop culture subjects, such as UFOs and Diff’rent Strokes, interspersed with various college radical-type condemnations of the “American way of life and war,” denunciations of Bill Clinton crimes/eating, diatribes against “suburbia,” appeals for the “global legalization” of dope. From time to time they might also take on a local issue, interviewing a native artist whose work involved photographing the interior of a horse’s rectum, for example, or launching a tirade against some perceived incident of rudeness or “racism.” I scanned Kenny’s Kultur Kollum:. . . I want to go crazy insane right now and scream my nuts off and bang my head against the wall and shit on the rug and smear my dick in it and jack off on the window and rub my shit and come through my hands and tear off my arm at elbow and suck the bloody end and flop around like a frog with his legs cut off and screw a cheshire cat to death and climb into a pencil sharpener and grind myself into hamburger and sell myself to MacBeefy’s and fly to Saipan for the weekend. . . .
Not especially feeling like heading back to the hotel, I walked to the northeast a ways, following the river but not along the banks of it. I came to a little square which contained a crumbling yellow church. This seemed familiar, and I realized I wasn’t so far from Thackeray’s Bookstore Cafe, the largest and best-known of the dimly-lit American-owned English-language bookstores. Maybe I was just feeling like another drink. I debated a moment, then decided to go over there. Somebody had written in English on a chalkboard outside the front door: Beware of Random Acts of Alcohol Kindness.
The books selection at Thack’s tended to be both unreliable and overpriced, but books were secondary, merely the necessary marketing tool/gimmick to draw in both tourists and long-timers for the café, which was where the money was made. Thack’s menu featured dozens of drinks and liqueurs, along with a distinctly motley array of food choices, including egg-salad sandwiches, “southwest-style” chicken strips, nachos with “real” cheddar cheese. It was a place with an old Indian rug on the floor, a collection of flea-market lamps in the corners, chenille curtains, armchairs with the stuffing coming out and scruffed wooden tables. The effect, which was well executed, was to conjure the prospect of having a few drinks and munchies perhaps during a lively discussion of William Blake or the latest developments on the post-Revolution “scene,” while perhaps also contemplating what could possibly be happening to the folks stuck “back home.” The cafe part had numerous leafy plants, and they sometimes lighted candles there, especially on the regularly scheduled nights in which people came to read their “poetry.”
I took an empty table in the cafe section and placed an order with the waiter for a beer. After he had hurried back and set it down in front of me, I apologized and asked if he would also bring me a whiskey, without ice. He came back with that and I sat there, first taking a short drink from the whiskey and then a long one from the beer. A song on the speakers sounded like Eric Clapton, maybe Buddy Guy. . . .
At that point I saw Kaltenborg signalling from another table. He had grown a little Lenin style beard-mustache since the last time, but the glasses and Lennon-style locks were the same. Kaltenborg, who claimed to be from the area “around Boston,” was someone you met if you worked the circuit in this part of the world for long. I was never sure what his involvement was – whether he was a journalist or aid worker, or someone who worked with non-governmental organizations or quasi-governmental institutions. I’d contacted him once at a foundation for Romanian orphans; later, in Sarajevo after the fighting, he told me he was working as a “reporter” for the UPI agency. The last time I’d seen him, in Lithuania, he said he had recently got a nice-paying job with an “aid-investment foundation” linked to the wealthy philanthropist Bennet R. Osnos. He had gone into some detail explaining the good that was occurring. I was also aware he had logged time in Macedonia as well as Moldova. Pascual had always theorized that Kaltenborg worked “for the CIA.”
The table looked full, nine or 10 folks, vague faces, several beards. I waved at Kaltenborg, smiled, gestured vaguely. Finally I got up and walked over. I saw her as I came up to the table, two chairs away from Kaltenborg. She glanced up and our eyes locked, for maybe as long as a second, before hers sprang away, turning down to the table.
“So the Pillsbury Dough Boy gets in this hostage situation. . . .”
“I’m compatible with the dragon and rat. The tiger is opposite.”
“Pale Fire was stale when it came out. . . .”
“No, no! It goes, It’s just a step to the left and then a jump to the right. . . .”
She had dark sunken patches under her eyes. Dark brown hair, strands of it curving down along her cheeks, but the sides and back looking as if swatches had been hacked away with scissors in front of a mirror. She was wearing an grey ash-colored button-down sweater, faded blue jeans. Earring holes but no earrings, slightly moist nostrils. Lines on both sides of her mouth framed a bulge of dark-red lips. The lower lip was heavily chapped and stuck out like a rounded ledge, as if it were expecting something to land on it at any moment.
Kaltenborg grabbed hold of my arm, spieled something, looked around the table and laughed. Kaltenborg appeared to have two local women with him, a blond and a brunette. I kneeled down, locked eyes with the woman again; I nodded, chuckled, replied a few words to Kaltenborg. I pictured her lying naked somebody’s bed, smelling like sweat and needing to brush her teeth. I went back to my table and returned with my drinks.
“So Gumby is robbing this bank. . . . “
“Haw, Americans are too dumb to make a revolution. . . .”
“We just make movies about old revolutions. . . .”
“. . . and Pokey sees it and tells the cops, it was unbelievable!””
“Oh, I love Nicholas Cage. . . .”
“The crust is full of methane. . . .”
I watched her put her arm around a pasty fellow wearing a tattered blue rugby jersey. She whispered in his ear. He had horn-rim glasses, a half-growth all over his face, sandy brown hair was starting to recede at the two top corners of his forehead. He appeared tired of a lot. You could tell from the way he never really quite laughed, but only gave a big wincing smile at nearly everything that was said.
Pretty soon he kissed her and took off. “Cheerio,” he said, grin/wincing, reaching for my hand. “Maybe I'll run into you again sometime. . . .”
“Sure,” I said, “maybe next time I’m out this way.”
“. . . . and with a hand on your lips you bring your knees in tight. . . .”
“Every cook has got to spit in the food. I would. . . .”
“Nobody knew who Miles Davis was when he went to the White House. . . .”
“The swastika is everywhere in Tajikistan. . . .”
“I heard Larry Flynt won’t allow the word goddamn to be printed anywhere in Hustler. . . .”
“So Regis Philbin was singing ‘Put Your Head On My Shoulder’. . . .”
My statements/rhetoric were met with shrugs, nods and the odd agreement/endorsement. She produced her shield, lowered it, produced it again. She was a big fan of the Replacements, all albums. I decided to order another whiskey. She asked for a glass of red wine. She stated she was most lately from Brooklyn, by way of Chapel Hill and Portland. She liked New York, but didn’t care for L.A. We knew some of the same spots in San Francisco, but none of the same people.
“Have you ever done peyote?” she said.
“No. Have you?”
She shrugged. “Once. I wouldn’t count it as an authentic experience, though.”
She was so tired of the Cobain thing, she had never really thought he was a god. She thought the Natural Born Killers soundtrack was better than the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, but best of all was Wild at Heart. She had a long list of part-time employments. She explained she worked as a language instructor, of English, for the main Citibank office. On the side, she photographed the architecture in town and wrote reviews of local art exhibits, sometimes, she said, for the magazines in New York as well as the Weekly Post Standard. She also worked putting together the Listings Section of restaurants and pubs, art shows, movies and other happenings for the Weekly Post. She had got free tickets for Manu Chao because of her connection to the paper. . . .
“No,” I said, “For Whom the Bell Tolls is the one during the Spanish Civil War. . . .”
“Not World War I?”
“A Farewell to Arms. I mean, I could be mistaken. . . .”
They were starting to shut the lights off, it was time to go. I poured the last of my whiskey into the last of my beer, put on my coat and took the glass with me outside. She hooked herself to one of my arms, trembling slightly from the cold beneath her fur-lined hood. We walked down to the main boulevard, got into a cab. She threw out directions, taxi-man headed to the outskirts. I sucked whiskey-beer, nearly vomited, rolled down the window. She pulled the zip and stuck her hand in my coat, massaging my chest and navel through my shirt. I sucked the whiskey-beer, kissed her lips, her neck, lit a smoke. She massaged my thigh, my balls and cock. I drained the whiskey-beer and stuck my tongue down her throat. Taxi-man pulled into a pre-fab tower lot and we got out.
I saw a “non-stop” slot machine/bar place at the end of a row of closed grocery and appliance stores.
“Oh, you think so?” she said. “My place is right here. . . .”
“We’re here already. . . . .”
On the walls inside was a painted “game” motif, tumbling dice, clown faces, fruit and spaceships. We swept past the bar and took a table in the massive back room which contained the gambling machines. The place smelled like old beer, industrial-strength toilet cleaner and a million dead cigarettes. Maybe five solitary men sat in silence before the slot machines, coin buckets between their legs.
The waiter arrived – two of the big beers, we said, along with one package of American-brand cigarettes. And Jim Beam, I added. He brought it swiftly. We drank and smoked, sharing curiosities. She didn’t really care for Kubrick. She had had a very strange dream where she was fighting a spider. She thought U2 hadn’t really been good since about The Joshua Tree.
She walked off to the bathroom. My fingers groped around in my pocket and found the Pascual pep pill. I popped it in, had a drink of beer, lit another cigarette.
Something went right with one of the machines, it bleeped and glurped excitedly, the number of the guy’s “credits” soared on the red digital from 400-odd to 5,280. He then began to bet heavily from this tally, between 300 and 500 per. Things did not go well, almost every spin a loser. He went down to about 700 credits. Then something went right again. His total clicked back up to more than 3,500. He started heavy bets again, 200 or 300 each spin. Each one a loser.
By now she had come back. I ground out my cigarette and leaned across the table.
She lived in a 6th floor space that had the bedroom and kitchen combined. Toilet on the side, tub in the back. I caught plant leaves and kleenex boxes, chipped maroon lino floor, pots, jars of stuff, a black and white poster of Alex Chilton at the Memphis bandshell. I knocked into an aquarium, crab inside, looked at a yellow and green bird in a cage. It smelled like birdshit, oats and daffodils. She flicked off the lamp. Constellations of gold-orange appeared in the window, glowing out of the black like the embers of a nearly dead campfire.
Her bra clacked upon the lino and we fell on to a mattress covered with a woven blanket from Central America, perhaps Poland. At the point of contact there was nothing that could be called friction, only a sloshing followed by an impact. She squirmed beneath me, hips thrusting out of synch, vast pussy hair scratching against my navel. I tried with various maneuvers to match her, but her technique was defined by counterpoint, I soon abandoned all hope.
She began to whine and shake and gripped my midsection between her knees, forcing me to hold position. This took considerable effort and my stomach and back muscles began to ache. I would have liked to have stopped for a drink of water. At last a rush of hot breath flew out of her and against my face, fluttering my eyelids. And another blast of the hot air, like a furnace, against my ear. Then she lay there, like an empty leather glove that had been tossed on to the floor, letting me stroke away.
It went on for two or three mintues. She seemed to lose interest and she whispered, “Let me suck you.”
I rolled on to my back. She leaned over on her knees, at a right angle, dribbling on it, working her hand along the shaft, before taking about half of it inside her mouth. She fondled my testicles with her other hand. I groped at the back of her, fingers going in and out. My arm started to hurt. I dropped my hand down to the cool lino.
I heard her tearing open a package with her teeth. She pulled a condom over, climbed on top. It was late, maybe she had just remembered. She thrashed around, her own rhythm, my hands never able to get a decent grip on her breasts. Her ass cheeks, cool and dry, pounded against the insides of my thighs. I sat up, guided her on to her back and moved myself once more between her knees. I reached down and took hold of her buttocks in both hands, slid her forward, drawing needed power from my hips. Our hips crashed against each other, grinding at cross-purposes.
“God, you’re good,” she lied, whispering.
I had been sweating, but it broke all of a sudden. I felt coldness and moisture on my shoulders, my back, my thighs. My head spun. There was an aching which started at the top of my stomach, spread through my chest and to the top of my shoulders, then up beyond that into my lower jaw. I groaned and released my arms, falling on to the side of her.
She exhaled, wiped at her face. She said something, stylishly and non-controversially. My head spun, mouth dry.
I crawled across the lino to the toilet and vomited booze juice and goop, my chest knocking against the bowl. I rose, oozed phlegm, removed the condom, tossed it in the toilet. My insides ground together. I flashed on wicker baskets and pumpkin candles, tile squares, Bugs Bunny toothbrush, pictures of St. Bernards. I strained and grunted, but nothing emerged, only a kind of water. Both sides ached, hips to ribs. Hot-cold flashes swept my face and chest, arms and thighs. I wiped and flushed. I got up, went to the sink, took in mouthfuls of water. Shaking, I washed my hands with a bar of soap and dried them.
I came out with a towel around my waist. She had turned on the nightlamp by the bedside and was laying on her back, white sheet over her legs. I noticed for the first time a little black shape on her right breast – a tattoo, it seemed, something with wings.
