Bubble, bubble toil and trouble
Look where you go in Podil
Don’t wait for a Ferret near his water hole
Don’t follow a Guinea against his will
“Are YOU Welsh Losser?”
“Me? You got to be kidding.”
A wiry man in a sweat-stained sleeveless T-shirt and striped necktie is being savagely beaten while bound to a small wooden chair.
The fists come out of nowhere, landing in his gut, followed by resounding slaps across the face. The guy’s head swings from left to right without even being struck. He gulps from every punch, slobbers between each series of blows. There’s dark blood dripping from his nose.
Step removes the remote control from the coffee table that his feet are resting on and begins switching the channels with swift single-fingered action over the buttons.
The old Motorola TV set hums, then crackles with static until its large showroom screen settles on a black-and-white film, in which a bald chubby man in tight rubber undershorts is running breathless around a couch with his hands over his head.
A large ominous Negro commands the doorframe leading into the darkened parlor.
“I said sit your ass down, Mister,” growls the Negro, removing his great cowhide belt with undisguised malice.
The baby-bodied man, his eyeglasses steamed to the frames, assumes the paddle position on the sofa, knees firmly planted between the pea-green cushions, his chin stood upright on the couch’s back.
The Negro approaches the couch head-on but not without caution, as if not precluding the possibility of the séance being interrupted by an unintentional but untimely interloper showing up. His brows are knit, his lips protruded. The Negro folds the belt in two, looping his dark purple index finger through the large brass buckle. His nostrils are flared and the whites of his eyes gone hard. From up close he vaguely resembles a buffalo sniffing through the spring fields for the dung of an ovulating cow. The baby-bodied man whimpers. He’s broken a sweat…
“That’s enough of that,” snaps Dickerson and snatches the remote from Step’s hand.
“I used to be impotent but not anymore,” blares a commercial advert from the screen of the clumsy wooden TV box.
“Thanks to Josh Davies’s Extra Strength Rooster Tablets for older and upper middle-aged men… at an apteka in Kyiv near you…”
Dickerson bangs the remote flat against the coffee table, and the old Motorola clunks, sputters and finally shuts off.
“Take it easy Dirk. It’s our day off.”
Both men settle back into their seats: Step on the couch and Dickerson on a stool next to him.
“I just don’t like the dirty stuff?”
“Sure, I understand,” replies Step, “no need to get sore.”
But after Dickerson bounces off his stool and heads for the kitchen, Step slips his hand under the couch cushion to remove a wrinkled-up copy of Delhi Delights, the Subcontinent porn rag that he regularly shoplifts from Harry Christian’s After-Hours Store even though the proprietor never fails to notice him in the store’s overhead mirrors.
“The wife says she’ll leave me,” shouts Dickerson from beyond the kitchen’s swinging doors.
Step smooths out the mag’s cheap glossy pages.
“I think she’s seeing a Cuban.”
“I told you to marry a Muslim,” remarks Step and then hangs the girlie mag arms-length from his face to reveal a centerfold of street Hindus surrounding a frightened young woman, tugging at her bright yellow robes with vicious smiles, dirty white teeth. One of the woman’s breasts is partly exposed but she’s more concerned to hide her face in the folds of her headscarf.
“I’m worried about the kids – can’t stand the thought of their being raised by another man.”
“One man’s as good as another for the performance of most domestic obligations,” continues Step from the couch. “Bring home the bacon, take out the trash and hump the springs off that old bed in the dark of night until neither of you even bothers to think of an excuse not to.”
“But it’s that mother-in-law of mine that really takes the cake. The fat lady sings but just won’t get off the stage. I was thinking of shooting her dead… with a tribal blowgun… from the balcony, or ‘beletazh’, as they call it hear… right as she’s crooning at the top of her lungs…”
Step shuts close the mag, rolls it up tight and shoves it back between the cushion and the arm of the couch.
Dickerson crashes back out through the swinging kitchen doors with a small tray of warm milk and sedatives that he took home from the hospital at Frunze 44.
“There’s a ham and cheese sandwich in there if you’re hungry, Jack.”
Step nods his head and then pretends to nod off on the far end of the couch. He’s on call tomorrow first thing in the morning. But no telling where Mr. Pilgrim’s Progress is sticking his nose these days…
“Hey, Step,” cries Dickerson from back in the kitchen, “Someone’s stuck their big ugly fingers into the ham and cheese sandwich but there’s not a bite taken out of it.”
“I don’t want it.”
“And there’s blood in the sink.”
“Quick, call a detective,” quips Step.”
Both men laugh.
John Smith’s not laughing but jotting down notes from the evening’s surveillance.
21:05: Ferret exits Kontraktova Metro Station, passes Commix Café pretending not to notice broken storefront window.
21:15: Ferret enters Hasidic Strip Bar on Kostyantynivska Street. Smokes sissy cigarette on street before entering. Haggles at door over entrance fee before being joined by loser friend.
23:15: Ferret booted from strip bar by large bouncer after grabbing leg of Kosher dance girl (dressed in sheet with holes). Friend joins him moments later on street.
Smith’s phone receives a text message. It’s his boss.
“Pick up The Half Guinea’s trail on Podil immediately,” reads the message.
“I’m following The Ferret,” answers Smith, still sitting in the Hasidic Strip Bar.
“Forget The Ferret and follow @%$# orders.”
Smith dons his hat, sticks a toothpick in his mouth and exits through the back.
Filed by Dirk Dickerson, CTFSA, April 14, 2016