Scene: The newsroom of the Kyiv Poster: Chief Editor Brett Boner struggles to restrain an erection…
…while selecting yet another piece on a Fem Girls protest in Kyiv…
Boner: (reading to himself the story accompanying an AP photo featuring a bare-breasted Fem Girl activist being manhandled by a Kyiv militiaman) “After imitating an act of fellatio on the Lenin Statue that stands in the center of Kyiv…”
Whoah, urgh, urgh…
“…19-year-old Tanya Tittyenko was dragged from the scene by the police…”
…Dirty fascists…
“…‘Fuck the Commies! Fuck male chauvinists! Fuck me!’ Tittyenko shouted as she was dragged away from the scene by her pigtails…”
Vlad Lemurov, looking like a spring onion just plucked from the soil with some of the soil still sprinkled on his otherwise bald head, draped in a thin t-shirt and jeans, enters the newsroom with visibly contained excitement. He makes a beeline toward Boner’s desk.
Lemurov: (in a whiny, almost coquettish voice) Brehhhhtt, oh, Brehhhht…
Boner: (lifts his thumb-top head to reveal a grimace of annoyance, as if he’d just been working on a piece to uncover corruption in Kyiv once and for all) What is it, Lemurov?
Lemurov: Brehhhtt, there is someone peeking around the paper’s new paywall, without paying…!!!
Boner: (still lost in fantasy) What? I’ll teach that fascist bastard not to touch Fem Girls’ tits…
Lemurov: (looking delightfully surprised) What?!
Boner: (regaining his composure) Uh, I mean, how dare someone cheapen the work of this professional editorial team? Our site is strictly pay-per-view, as quality journalism can’t be just pasted on the Internet for free. Boss Lard even said so, uh… not that I listen to him, because I’m a tough, independent-minded editor of the old school… uh…
… (getting wound up by the sound of his own voice)…
Damn it, we slave all week long reprinting Interfax stories, doggedly hunt down comments from the business community through their PR services by email, not even sparing the time to get the quote right, much less the facts, and what do we get for our troubles? – some slimy creep window shopping without a subscription through our in-depth, in-your-face headlines, which I spend several hours of my day writing.
I’m not going to take this lying down! (gets up and snaps his suspenders, making his thumb-shaped body quiver from its base to the painted thumbnail that comprises his face)
Lemurov: What will you do, what will you do, Brehhht?
Boner: (to secretary) Hound Dog Face, hand me my gear.
Hound Dog Face: It’s in the toilet, Mr. Boner.
Boner dashes off to the nearest toilet, flinging open the door to the shrill scream of a teeny bopper journalist inside.
Teeny Bopper Journalist: EEEH!!! I told you to stop doing that, or I’m going to get my boyfriend to kick your ass… Thumbhead!
Boner: (round-eyed, like he’d just been punched) Damn it, girlie, there’s journalism to be done here!
A handful of clothing flies out of the toilet, and the door slams shut again.
Boner: Hound Dog Face, provide me with cover.
Hound Dog Face, as if going through a well-rehearsed drill, rushes over to the thumb-sized chief editor, pushing him into a corner of the newsroom with her ass and shields him from the view of all onlookers by unfolding a nearby edition of the Kyiv Poster around her boss.
Within less than a minute, our hero, dressed in a black cape and red spandex pants with suspenders over a white t-shirt that reads “Freedom of speech or death” emerges to the full view of the newsroom.
Lemurov: Brehhht, oh, Breht!!! Take me with you…
But it’s too late. Media Man, or so he calls himself when dressed in this outfit, has already dashed out the door and down the stairs in search of the alleged paper peeper. But where is he going, one might ask at this moment?
Well, as it turns out, the always-anxious-to-help Lemurov, shouting in not the most masculine manner from the Kyiv Poster’s second-floor balcony and waving a hanky, is able to pass on to Boner the location where the dastardly violation of the Kyiv Poster’s paywall has been penetrated, plus a brief description of the perpetrator.
Arriving on the scene in a taxi – the driver of which abuses his passenger with a rich assortment of curse words meant to call into question Boner’s sexual orientation due to his insistence on hanging out the window to show off his cape and suspenders – Boner now stands firmly on the curb in front of a McDonald’s, on the outskirts of Kyiv, hands akimbo in defiance of the task ahead.
In his direct line of sight is a gaunt scowling figure in dirty disheveled clothing crouched down behind a trash container along the side of the American fast-food restaurant.
Media Man, sharp-eyed superhero that he is, can see from the curb that in one hand the villain is holding a smart phone with the comments section of the Kyiv Poster called up on its screen and several nasty comments – of the type usually submitted by disgruntled members of the Ukrainian Diaspora in North America – already in place.
Boner: That son of a bitch must have hacked onto the site without paying or he wouldn’t have been able to add comments without me editing them…
But before the dashing defender of free speech, the warrior against East European corruption, the chief editor of a moribund collection of headlines and paid-for ads by the European Association, can launch himself into action, the swipe of a stiff mop is delivered across the back of the head of the crouching offender, causing his hate-filled face to scowl even more intensely, if that were possible.
McDonald’s cleaning woman: Now get out of here, once and for all! If I catch you chewing the cheese off any more discarded hamburger wrappers, I’m going to skin your hide.
The crowd: Eeek! It’s Animal Boy!
A scene of chaos ensues near the McDonald’s dumpster. People flee, women clutch their children, an old alcoholic starts stuffing people’s uneaten French fries into his jacket.
The figure immediately springs to his feet, pauses in a defensive crouch, scans the landscape briefly, seeming to sniff the air around him for some kind of sign, and then bounds off into the thick underbrush of a nearby wooded area, leaving our dumfounded hero at a loss for action.
Still standing on the curb not far away, arms akimbo, and cape flapping in the breeze, Boner begins to notice that he is attracting smirks and finger-pointing from passersby. One passing driver even flings an empty Big Tasty box at his feet.
But Media Man’s thoughts are elsewhere. Where had he seen the face of that angry young man before, the hurtful scowl, the absolute contempt for any other human being – Ukrainian or expatriate – the shifty, shameful glance of a former English-language editor based in Kyiv?
Boner: Andrew Plum! Duh…
To be continued…
Filed by Dirk Dickerson, March 12, 2013