The elephants trumpet, the tiger burns bright, the snake sidles up with a smile then a bite.
The pavement is damp and numb under his back. It’s been raining in the dark. And the storefront lights are still lit. Leather-soled shoes slap past. It’s the police.
‘That siren is like an alarm clock,’ he thinks. ‘All red and white and no-color bright, I can’t tell what time it is.’
“Please get up, Dirk.”
Jaw twisted and eyes open hard, Dickerson makes it to his feet. Moments later, he’s seated in the warm plastic eatery that is The Fried Sun.
“Would you like a Coffee Americano for UAH 12? The brownies are dry to my mind, but a bargain at UAH 14.”
Dickerson has his back to a wet and dark window, which means the sales counter is directly ahead, at the head of a narrow aisle with a few tables lined along the left.
The large tinsel-haired fellow is purchasing some pancakes, and the crack of his ass is clearly visible from where Dickerson and Harry Christian are sitting.
“The washroom is among the cleanest in Podil, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
‘In fact, there’s not a smudge in sight,’ thinks Dickerson. ‘Everything’s orange and yellow and white. I feel like a child with that big rabbit looking at me sideways from the wall. It’s not a cartoon rabbit but a real-looking one, sketched by a naturalist, but why on the wall?’
“A slim glass of mors, limitless refills for UAH 19, should quench any thirst, Dirk.”
Pablowsky has now taken a seat and begun to probe his pancake with a large clumsy finger, forcing chocolate, then pineapples and finally ham out the back end.
Out on the street, the trio descends into the underpass leading to Kontraktova Metro Station.
There’s not a soul on the platform, but trains race by on both sides. The passengers’ faces appear pasted to the windows by the speed of light.
That’s Boss Lard peeking up over the seat, with a big hand holding his face against the glass. It’s all headless coats and hats surrounding him in the wagon, which is well enough illuminated. His eyes are round and bewildered, like a bad boy being hauled away from the scene of a supermarket by an impatient parent who’s just tossed him into the backseat of a station wagon with the vague intention of tanning his hide once home.
Another train screams out of the tunnel on the other side of the platform, even faster than the first. It’s completely empty but stops without notice or a sound. When the wagon doors roll open, a middle-aged Oriental man can be seen pacing in a tight circle with his chin tucked into his raincoat and an umbrella dragging behind. ‘So just what was it then, so important that I was supposed to pick it up on my way home… the way home… I’ve lost my way home?’ he’s thinking to himself.
The train starts off, whistling wildly now, only moving in reverse, and Dickerson sees John Smith, back erect in the driver’s seat. He thumbs up the visor of his navy-blue hat, snapping out a wink at the same time.
“Let’s take the tunnel,” says Christian.
It’s black as shoe polish and he can’t see his feet. ‘There seems to be a track underfoot but I’m not tripping over any rails. I’m going down is all I know, and I can’t even be sure of that. It’s neither warm nor cold. Tired? No, I wouldn’t say so. I wonder if they would carry me if I was. The big fellow looks capable of real human kindness… I wouldn’t vouch the same for his swarthy sidekick, but for admittedly no good reason. Who’s behind me? Who’s leading the way? I can’t hear a thing from front or back anymore.’
A light appears up ahead, and Dickerson comes out the other end alone but not surprised. He’s back in The Fried Sun, and the same crack of an ass is at the counter placing an order – only there’re two large white wings on his back. A silly sweet Soviet children’s song is blasting over a loudspeaker that crackles once in a while, “What a wonderful life, a wonderful life, I play all day and have my own way. What a wonderful life I live!!”
When he approaches the counter, he’s greeted by the warm friendly eyes of Harry Christian, now dressed in the orange and red smock of the establishment’s employees. “The brownies are dry to my mind, Dirk. The mors you might find too wet. Why don’t you go pet the rabbit on the wall, instead?”
…
“Strange people, the Hindus; I wonder why they come here to live,” says the older still well-built man. Smith keeps his distance but can still make out the nude glossy forms in the magazine the man is reading from where he’s standing in the store.
“I thought we were the ones with the fucked-up families, alcoholism, angry men, unemployed detectives…”
Smith raises his eyebrows in amused acknowledgement, then drops them again on second thought.
“The uncle tears off the young women’s clothes, while his wife looks on in secret in the background. Beyond a partially bared breast, nothing else happens.”
Smith is watching the man, not the magazine.
“Dickerson was a family man, wasn’t he?”
Smith keeps his eyes on the man, who’s still thumbing through the girlie mag.
“Not Step, though. He likes the booze. You might say he’s married to it. Yeah, the man’s a professional, but only to an extent… a degree, and then it’s back to 90 proof. “
The little dark guy is still watching them and Smith knows it without looking up at the aisle mirror.
“So what we have here is a crime of passion,” says the man, now holding the pages up and open for Smith to clearly see.
“Passion reincarnate,” quips Smith, who takes the magazine from the man’s hand and leaves the store without paying for it.
Filed January 21, 2015