A touching moment with intimations of desire
It’s a chilly early spring morning and the sun is just rubbing its eyes open over the horizon.
Just broken out of their self-imprisoning ice, the freezing waters of the Dnipro River flow languidly through Kyiv, and especially under the footbridge that connects the right bank to a nefarious, trash and plastic bottle-clotted island called Trukhaniv, where the low criminal and drug underbellies of the city make their dens.
Enter, The Ferret. Rises up the concrete stairs onto the bridge. Hunch-shouldered. Sneaky. Shifty-eyed. Furtive. Looking for an advantage, even though he’s the only one on the bridge.
Heh, so here I am, it’s around 5:30 in the morning, the sun has barely popped up over the horizon, and the air is still crisp and cold, like it says in the introduction. I’m on the footbridge in Kyiv over the Dnipro River with a line out over the side trying to catch some fish.
I’m here in secret because I need some peace and quiet from all the confusion and chaos in the big city, which is filled with liars.
Dum-de-dum-dum, I’ve got my pale of water, my baits, my hooks, my weights, and the line is out on my rod. I don’t know how it happened, but I’m an expert fisher. Right now, I’m actually pretty happy. Heh-heh, I think one is biting already.
Suddenly, in fierce apprehension, he looks to the left.
What’s that, heh?! I hear awkwardly shuffling footsteps and a round dumpy shadow with a pedophile head coming up those stairs! Heh, heh, heh-heh…
Weeeeell, nyog, of all the… I’ll be a darned old sock if it isn’t The Ferret. Ho-ho-ho, nya-a-a-a-ggkkh. And what brings YOU here this fine frosty morning on the very periphery of spring. Nyuk, nyuk, ny –
I might ask you the same thing, Losser. Heh, heh, heh…
Oh, nyuk, I was on my usual early morning patrol on the lookout for stray and homeless children, but I decided to change my route and make a turn here.
Yeah? And what do you do with them?
Oh, yook-yunk, I round them up and bring them to my special media school for kids – it’s an old cellar I found among some ruins in Podil that no one seems to know about or use – where I give them professional help, guidance, and counseling. If they learn anything, I can then provide them with further education and services that will help them rise through the ranks of Ukraine’s burgeoning mass media sector, as I’m a region-wide expert in the field – nyugka, hoooo…
How can you round them up if you can’t even speak Russian or Ukrainian to them?
Oh, you’d be surprised – children are a lot more intelligent than we give them credit for. Like cats and dogs. Just give them a few signs with the, um, eyes and fingers, a certain serious contortion of the mouth, like this, see, and a little bit of force, and it’s amazing how much they understand – nya-a-a-eeeuhh…
Yeah, yeah, I guess so – heh-heh…
And may I ask what you are doing? – nyuk-ooo…
It’s obvious. I’m fishing.
Really? Nya-a.
Yeah. I don’t know how, but I’ve always been an expert. There’s nothing a fish finds more appealing when it gets up in the morning than a lazy meandering breakfast bobbing up and down in place in the water just waiting to be eaten that it can take a flawless chomp at while still in its sweet half-slumber, when… BAM!!! And that’s all she wrote for Mr. Fish. Heh.
No kidding – nyak. Wow, you really do know a lot. Tell me more.
Well, heh, this fish I’m pulling up right now, though it’s still kind of dark, I can already tell – it’s a grouper.
A what-per, nyug nyuk nya!!!
Ah, it’s a major sea bass, which is largely an ocean-going fish that sometimes enters fresh waters, just like this one. Heh.
You don’t say? And why is that?
I don’t know. Sometimes these things just happen.
It’s huge – nyoo-oo-oo!!! Wow, that’s some really good fishing there.
Yeah, thanks.
Well, my fine fishing friend, you’re quite welcome.
Yeah, yeah… There’s a place on the island where I hide a secret grill. We can go there, collect some dry wood, and I’ve got some lighter fluid with me, and there’s some coal over there if we need it, and we can fry this fish up for breakfast.
You don’t say – nyug, nya!
Yeah.
Well, I’ll be! – nyo-oo-oo-oo-aaa…
Hey, hey, don’t touch me.
But, snyok, I was just, I mean, I didn’t mean anything by it – I was just, you know, patting your back. Didn’t that feel good? Didn’t you like that?
No. I mean yeah, I mean, I don’t know, I don’t know, it felt funny, yeah, it felt funny. Don’t do that again. It felt more like petting than patting.
Well, nyug-nya-a, maybe because that’s what you wanted to feel, and I had nothing to do with it.
Yeah, yeah, I don’t know, maybe, I can’t tell, it felt funny.
Hey, no harm done, my friend – you’ll get used to it. It’s really quite enjoyable, once you – nyu-ug-a-nyoo-oo-ooohh…
Heh, what do you mean?
Okay, okay, so I’ll just – hey, maybe I can help you carry something.
Yeah, carry the pale with the fish. I caught it; you carry it, heh-heh…
Okay, partner, you got it! – nya-uk… hooooo…
End of Part 1
Filed by Jack Step, March 21, 2013