“ARE you WELSH LOSSER?”
“No.”
A leathery backhand smacks flat against an alcoholic cheek, but the recipient of the blow remains silent… not because he’s tough or even trying to appear so, but because every sensory perception in his sallow flesh has been dulled by decades of drinking.
“Give him another one, Vasily,” says the still well-built older man.
John Smith, dressed in his gray suit and not having taken off his fedora, looks on anxiously. It’s not clear whether he’s concerned for the already badly beaten Step or wants to join in himself.
The beating continues.
“Ok, kid, read him his ‘rights.’”
Smith pulls out a folded-up piece of notebook paper from his breast pocket, unfolds it and then scans his notes for the place to start.
“Ok, so you’re born on the 7th of the month, you’re left-handed, attended law school and have the same ‘real’ initials as Mr. Losser. Plus… you supposedly want to be a writer and have already begun to ply this trade, even going so far as to use confidential materials gathered by this unit in the pursuit of ‘literary recognition.’”
Vasily clears his throat and spits on the floor in disgust.
The still well-built older man looks down on the spittle – really just a couple of drops splashed against the floorboards – and then back up at Step as if to say: ‘It’s because of you that Vasily spit on our floor.’
Meanwhile, in an entirely different flat on the other side of the ancient capital sits The Ferret, dressed in a lime-green zoot suit, with a broad-brimmed hat pulled over one eye in an all too familiar attempt to look mysterious or possibly to prevent anyone from snapping a quick photo with which to lampoon him on the Internet.
He’s typing away, hunched over his laptop, while Zippy Zamazda sits across from him looking on stupidly.
“Uh, so am I now a detective?”
“No, you’re a journalist, remember?” responds The Ferret, only casually glancing up at his overweight interlocutor, because to extend the glance would surely reveal the utter contempt in which the wily rodent holds his new accomplice.
“Oh, so why aren’t we at the Kyiv Poster, like you promised me on the Yellow Brick Road?”
“Because I’ve created a new publication called Kyiv Edited and I’ve made you the chief editor,” The Ferret responds, this time not even bothering to shift his shifty eyes from the computer screen.
“Oh, that’s great… uh, so can you show me my name on the masthead of this new publication?”
“Later. Right now, we’ve got work to do. I’m working on a piece which casts Jack Step, another Kyiv-based expatriate journalist, in the light of a loser alcoholic trying to be a writer. Right now, he’s getting his ass kicked by his colleagues because of the dirt I’ve dug up on him.”
“So that he’ll be fired and I can take his job?”
“No, you already have a job as chief editor of my new publication, Kyiv Edited. I just told you.”
Knock knock.
“Come in.”
“Hey, I’m here about the journalist job you advertised in the Kyiv Poster.”
The Ferret slouches lower into his seat, pulling his lime-green, broad-brimmed hat fully over his pale green rat snout.
“Uh, I’m the chief editor here… but I don’t know anything about an ad in the Kyiv Poster.”
“I placed the ad – ask him about his experience,” The Ferret, now hiding under the desk, whispers to Zamazda.
“Oh, uh, do you have any experience?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ve been morphing from a Village grunge writer, who covered the Orange Revolution in Kyiv, to something else that involves a circle but which you wouldn’t understand.”
“Well, I used to be chief editor of the Kyiv Poster,” says Zamazda indignantly.
“No kidding,” now smirking sarcastically, “so do I get the job or not? It looks like you could use a real editor, someone from New York…”
Now purple-pussed, Zamazda clenches his fist and rises from his chair, fat ass first: “I’M the chief editor of this publication already… huff, huff.”
“Oof, doof, doof. Of course you are, Stanley,” the job applicant replies, now standing himself while distorting his already distorted facial features into those of a mentally challenged person.
Slamming the door behind him and mumbling vicious obscenities to himself, Animal Boy exits the entirely different flat on the other side of the ancient capital, not even noticing a thumb-headed figure in suspenders milling about near the entrance to the building.
“Hey, are you coming from that job interview advertised in the Kyiv Poster…?” asks the thumb.
But Animal Boy just shoots him a stabbing snake glance with enough venom to kill an entire family of rabbits. Seconds later, the stiff-haired figure strips to his makeshift loincloth and bounds off toward the tree line of nearby hills.
“Hey, wanna have beers or a coffee,” the thumb kind of shouts in a feeble gravel voice so uncertain of itself that the man behind this voice soon doubts whether he’s said anything at all.
Meanwhile, back in the first flat, Dickerson has replaced Step in the proverbial hot seat, having had his hands tightly bound behind his back for trying to resist the burly Ukrainian.
“Now Dirk, I don’t want to get embroiled in a shouting match with you. I know you’re a fiery character…” says the well-built older man.
“A rage-oholic is what I am, if you believe that fuck-faced Doctor Woo. I don’t know why I ever went to that son of a bitch…”
“Ok, Dirk, let’s get back on track now…”
“Fuck you, old man!!!”
With Smith having departed the scene for some reason, and Vasily taking a breather after several hours of working over Step, the still well-built older man decides to have a little fun himself – like in the old days, and lays into Dickerson with a stiff right cross.”
To be continued…
Filed by Dirk Dickerson, June 23, 2013