Exactly 27 years ago to this day, in a ninth-grade English composition class at the Brooklyn School of Scientists, the following essay was submitted in completion of a routine writing assignment: “The Superman – Beyond the Ukrainian Diaspora and Back”.
In it, freshman Zippy Zamazda posits “self-righteousness” to the point of reckless arrogance and ultimately the suicide of the ego as we understand it. Or as he puts it: Man reduced to “a hat… no body to act, or even a head to think, but all personal existence, feelings, ideas and sensations dissolved into a shadow of one’s individual history delineated by a simple piece of headwear, a vestige of one’s gender, class, socio-economic standing and outlook on a life otherwise devoid of meaning.”
“‘For if Man, for example a Ukrainian man, as best exemplified by some but not all members of the North American Diaspora, were to throw off the shackles of teamwork, honesty before one’s employer, fairness to one’s fellow employees, basic human decency and even the slightest modicum of humility, could he not rise above the masses, run roughshod over the rest of the herd, seize the reins of power over a nation, a corporation’ or even an English-language weekly newspaper in a backwater such as Kyiv?’”
“And what came of it?”
“Almost 27 years later to the day, and nearly halfway around the world away, he makes a public confession of murder and then goes missing himself. It’s the ultimate act of arrogant excess, disdain for one’s fellow man – although it was a woman that he claimed to have killed, a slap in the face to anyone with a shoddier resume than his own, or a more inferior high school education, carried out with the cruelest of beady eyes, the most calloused of quivering upper lips…”
“No, I mean, what kind of grade did he get for the essay?”
“It doesn’t say. This is just an op-ed. I don’t have the original essay. And that’s not important anyway.”
The glossy colored pages of cheap headlines and PR quality photos are folded back into place and returned onto the barstool behind one of the men. The night’s still early, but the club is fully dark, save for the small overhead lamps along the trough of beer taps, ice trays and small trays of salted peanuts.
Sweaty’s Place will soon be in full swing – suits, stockings and cigarette girls; black-faced jazzmen to bring the house down; Rico Soiree with his trademark silhouette stamped cigars; Sonny Boner and more!
“I knew her, all right. What the hell else do you want from me… to draw you a picture?”
The coat check boy snatches a fresh copy of the Poster off the counter that also serves as the entrance to the cloakroom. The headline, “Kate Mustard Feared Dead – Phony Fat Ass Sought”, is emboldened across the front page.
Two men in wrinkled suits stop to take off their coats, smoke still billowing from their mouths.
“Yeah, well do you know what I think?”
“No, but I’m listening.”
“I think her fucking husband did it.”
“Why, why? Why would he do such a thing?”
“Cuz she was a whore. That’s why?”
A school of chorus girls swims by with bows in their hair and bunny tails on their butts. Their high heels sound like wagon wheels clicking against the bare wood floors. The cleaning woman pushes her wheeled bucket out of the Men’s Room and the smell of bleach escapes into the narrow corridor that leads to the manager’s office. The door is cracked open, emitting a dull green light, a conversation between two men, and the smell of cigar leaves being burnt.
“I feel joost fookin awful haffing to ask you and all. Ich kant even ‘magine what yoor fooking feelin like in all unter da circumstatseez. Ich mean, da oonly one I efer lost waz me fookin cat. Eet joost jumpt out of da fookin wuindow while I wuz tookin a piss one moorning and smished up oon da cement below before I cud zeep up me bloody trousers.”
Soiree takes a handkerchief from his suit coat pocket and begins dabbing at his eye, a piece of cigar ash having apparently drifted into his lashes, causing him to scowl and jerk his head as if irritated by some question.
“I fooking theenk to meeself: Da woomen was joost in heer da oother night haffing a bluudy gut time of eet all! How da fook cood soomone have muurdered heer betwixt theen and now? Eet joost dunt make any fookin senzz eez what I toold everyone.”
Soiree, his face almost in pain from staring, bends forward and clutches Sweaty Tank Top by both knees. The Scotsman’s eyes grow big, his mouth small, wet and round.
“You must know that I didn’t do it, Sweaty. I’m wholly un-responsible for the placement of that op-ed in the Kyiv Poster.”
Filed by The Half Guinea from somewhere in Kyiv, March 5, 2018