At the same McDonald’s on the outskirts of Kyiv – near that very same waste bin from where the cheese-smeared wax paper that once covered a hamburger, which has been described as having been retrieved and nibbled on in at least one earlier Kyiv Commix piece – a now very different character is sitting.
He’s not crouching near the waste bin, and couldn’t even if he wanted to.
Instead, he has his fat ass and accompanying garbage gut parked at one of those flimsy metal tables, with the crack between his flat, flabby buttocks largely exposed from behind.
RatShitCageItch: (stuffing his face with fries while slurping cola running down his chin) Chomp, chomp, slobber, slobber, slurp, slurp…
He notices (yes, again) that very same scowling, stiff-haired figure prowling near the edge of the foliage that separates civilized Kyiv from his animal-like existence in the scrub and trees beyond.
RatShit: That’s a pretty desperate-looking character over there. I wonder if I could make up an expose about him suffering at the hands of the Kyiv police or – I know! – being abused by callous McDonald’s employees who don’t want to let him dig in the garbage for food. Too bad he’s not a Negro, or that would really be cool… make me look good in print and all.
And now that The Ferret’s been fired (or whatever happened to him), I don’t have to worry about someone editing the shit out of the reams of dumb-assed sentences and paragraphs that I turn in each week at the Kyiv Poster to justify the salary I get and keep me from having to apply to another Kyiv-based NGO that pays good money to supposedly well-meaning numbskulls who couldn’t get a job anywhere else if their own mothers were doing the hiring and had an unlimited budget for new hires.
Ferret: (shrunken to the size of a standard restaurant-issue salt shaker) Hey, RatShitCageItch, heh, heh!
RatShit: (whose fat head is almost as impenetrable to sound as it is to basic journalistic principles, continues to stuff his face with fries, burgers, pie, etc.) Chomp, chomp…
Ferret: Hey, fat ass, I’m talking to you.
RatShit: (finally looks down) Huh – you talking to me?
Ferret: It’s me, The Ferret.
RatShit: Wow! What happened to you?
Ferret: It’s a long story.
RatShit: That’s ok. As you obviously know, I work at the Kyiv Poster, so I have lots of time to waste, talking shit in the kitchen, coming up with stupid story ideas, helping out with the general editing that makes our stories look even worse, and, and…
Ferret: (frowning) Yeah, I know. Anyway, if you really wanna know, here’s what happened: I was reading Kyiv Unedited…
RatShit: Uh, what’s that…?
Ferret: (to himself) You’ll find out soon enough, heh, heh.
RatShit: Huh?
Ferret: Just listen: So, I was reading Kyiv Unedited…
RatShit: Is that a new news service I should be reading half the morning instead of getting off my lazy, drooping ass and going to press conferences, interviews and the like?
Ferrett: Heh, heh – just listen, ok?
RatShit: (looking a little irritated) Ok… ok.
Ferret: … and I saw a piece about Boner fighting with a miniature sort of thing that looked just like him. And so, being on the run and all – but you didn’t hear that from me – I thought I would shrink myself too, so that I would be hard to find by Publowsky, who seems to be one step behind me – at least if you read Kyiv Unedited…
RatShit: Why?
Ferret: Just shut up, will ya?
RatShit: (clearly offended) Hey, watch it…
Ferret: Anyway, I wanted to be small… that is, smaller than I already am, yet keep my turtle shell torso, tadpole legs and the rest. So, I went to Josh Davies, but he only sells Viagra. And then, after a… er… a recent fishing trip with an… old friend, I woke up and found myself just the size I need to be anyway – to keep from being captured and put in a cage…
RatShit: (looking stupid and mean as well) This doesn’t make any sense… Do you think I’m stupid, falling for a story like that…?
Ferret: Heh, heh. Yes, I do. That’s why you got hired at the Poster in the first place. Now do what I tell you and print a piece in this week’s issue that goes something like this: “The Ferret, on-again-off-again journalist in the shady world of Kyiv journalism, has completely disappeared from the face of the earth, and therefore, it’s no good to anyone to try and find him…”
RatShit: That’s no story, but PR. I know the difference… What are you trying to pull? (picks The Ferret up between his two fat greasy fingers and dangles him right in front of his stupid Diaspora face)
Ferret: Hey, what are you doing?! You can’t do that to me… all right, just put me down…
Suddenly, with the speed of a deer, accuracy of an eagle, and viciousness of… well, Animal Boy, The Ferret is snatched from the hands of RatShitCageItch and carried off to that still-to-be-described-in-later-episodes-of-Kyiv-Commix woodland retreat just outside the Kyiv city limits, where grunge poetry and other hip-like New York stuff is conceived and composed.
RatShit: (still looking at his two fingers in front of his fat face) Guess I better just rehash that story on the American conman still in jail, or the legal battle for the Irish shopping center…
Tough-looking guy: Hey, do you work for the Kyiv Poster?
RatShit: Yeah.
Tough Guy: (punches him square in the face with a short powerful jab) Next time you decide to accuse a policeman in one of your articles of torturing some drug-dealing African, pick someone else’s beat, ok…? I lost my job over that shit!
Filed by Dirk Dickerson, March 23, 2013