“Hello!” I yell. No answer. “Hello?!” What is she doing in there, shooting up or something? I don’t even know her name. What’s her name—Stacy? Tracy? Daisy? The bathroom door opens and a perfect, wet female body enters the room. Look at that. This journey is beginning just wonderfully. Nine days without my wife and I score a drunk Pamela Anderson. She moves closer, looking me straight in the eye. She passes me and jumps onto the bed. She gets on all fours and shakes the mattress, as if trying to check its firmness. She presses her breasts down while lifting her ass up. She looks like a cat stretching and sharpening her nails. Her index finger gestures come here and points toward her waxed, perked-up pussy. I understand that I have to lick. I kneel on the floor, so my mouth is at the right height. I stick my tongue in her and start licking, sucking, biting, snorting, suckling, massaging with my lips, blowing, spitting, and growling. My hands glide across her tight belly (how many hours spent weekly at the gym?), caress her round breasts, return to her ass, grab her waist, spank the firm globes, slide under, and rub her clitoris. At some point, she starts moving more energetically. She thrusts herself harder in my mouth, pushes my tongue back, and gets into a rhythm. I lick, I lick, I lick, I lick, and lick. She becomes more aggressive with her thrusts. I go deeper with my tongue. I dig in tighter. The muscle under my tongue hurts. I stop licking and start sucking. I suck. I suck. I suck her, as if sucking the poison from a snake bite. I want to suck Stella out of there and spit her back—whole, beautiful and real, fragrant as linden blossom, salty as the sea, and silent as the night. I want her, I want her, I want her.
“Come here, big boy.” Tracy/Stacy/Daisy looks over her shoulder at me, flips over, and pulls me between her thighs. “Come here.” Her experienced hand grabs my cock. What I don’t understand is what happened to my erection. There is a numb reptile hanging between my legs. She patiently starts stroking it with one hand, while rubbing her breasts with the other. Her eyes are half-closed. Blood vessels show through the flushed skin of her neck. Her nipples are big and brown. I reach across her body and switch off the reading lamp. Then I help her get back in her previous pose, so I can continue with my tongue and buy some time until the anaconda wakes up. In the semi-darkness, her body is sliced by the yellow street light cutting through the blinds. I try more energetically with my tongue but nothing really happens. Not only my penis, but my neck gets limp, too. I can hardly hold my head up. And then, who knows why, I decide to stick my index finger in her anus. She jerks away, pushes me off of her, and jumps off the bed. She collects her scattered clothes without saying a word.
Where are you going Tracy/Stacy/Daisy? Where did you come from, and whom are you trying to forget? A moment later, I see her silhouette wobbling through the bright rectangle of the door, which slams behind her. Her footsteps fade down the hallway. And then it’s quiet. I get up and drag myself to the bathroom. I have no better idea of what to do before going to sleep. Plus, I always feel better in the morning if I drop a rope after a night of drinking. I ease my ass down on the wet toilet seat and look around for something to read, out of habit. I notice her thong in the bathtub. I reach over and grab it. I touch it to my cheek and close my eyes. I recreate her perky ass, her goose-bumped vagina, and the large nipples of her silicon breasts. I quickly wrap up my business, get out of the bathroom, and throw myself across the bed. With her wet thong in my hand, I masturbate, squirt it toward the ceiling, and fall asleep, unable to make it back to the bathroom.
*
For several years, my band cycled through members, my country—governments, and Stella and I—cheaper and cheaper apartments. Then suddenly everything fell apart. Our bass player took a job as a customs officer and left, the drummer married a pop singer and both of them took off on a cruise ship to earn a living, and, on top of everything else, the lead singer caught a disease of the larynx and became practically mute. I tried playing with a couple of other bands, but it wasn’t working. I couldn’t make myself play other people’s songs at restaurants. I spent less and less time with the guitar. Stella and I both graduated and had to find a more dignified way to surrender to reality. She could become a school teacher, I—a journalist at some local newspaper, taking pictures and writing. With our earnings, we could choose to be either permanently hungry and live closer to downtown, or be only semi-hungry and live in one of the ugly, government-built projects outside the city. We chose the latter. It was winter. We moved our stuff in a friend’s Opel.
The building was in a gray, concrete neighborhood, a safe haven for gusty winds. The one-bedroom apartment was on the top floor, the balcony faced northeast, the walls were moist, and snow blew in through the loose, uninsulated windows. There was no central heating and Stella hated being cold. It was so cold there.
The good thing about this concrete box was that it had a view of the airport. Low-flying airplanes would interrupt our conversations, reminding us that something better awaited us someplace else. From time to time, when Stella wasn’t home, I’d warm my fingers on the brown electric radiator and pull out the guitar to play a little. My old songs, however, sounded somewhat two-dimensional, and no new tunes would come to me. I started getting used to the notion that maybe making music was not my calling. I doubted my talent. Did I even have any talent at all? In that cold apartment, however, it was impossible to think about those things.
I had to do something. I had to leave. We had to leave together no matter what!
I spent months looking for the best way to leave the country. The easiest way was to continue our education. We both knew perfectly well where we wanted to go: America. We were both tired of waiting for our lives to start.
*
After a night like the last one I can’t sleep in, which makes the next day not only painful but also long. In the window, I see the bluish light of a morning I don’t want to live out, yet can’t postpone, either. I eat a few triangles of Toblerone and leave the rest for later. I stay in the shower for a long time trying to somehow arrange the events of the last two days in my head. The only proof of the reality of what has happened is the bag in my trunk. If I manage to trade it wisely, I’ll make a decent amount of money, I’ll buy myself some time, I’ll buy the equipment I need, and I’ll do only what I want to do. What do I want to do, though? What do I want to do? And would it bring Stella back? I step out of the shower. There are three chocolate letters left on the table—O N E.
*
—i’ve never seen you cry
—i never cry
—you don’t want to?
—no, i just can’t
—what if i die?
—if you die, i’ll cry
—a lot?
—maybe not a lot
—a little?
—a little—yes
—but you’ll cry
—of course i will
—cry now, then
—i can’t, i told you
*
The car is cold and smells of coconuts. I’ve hung six air fresheners on the rearview mirror. The clock blinks 5:40 A.M. Until I have my first espresso, nothing good can happen, so I try to remember the location of the coffee shop from last night. I find it at the corner of Henderson and Grand. I park in front of it and wait in the car until the doors open at six.
I go in. I order two doubles. I sit near the window, take out one of the notebooks I bought yesterday, and quickly scribble the few sentences that are roaming around my sleepy head. I open the road atlas I bought from Walmart for $4.97. I unfold it. There are at least two major routes I can take to the East Coast. If I take I-15 to Utah and then Highway 70 across Colorado, Kansas, and Indiana, I’ll reach Ohio. Then 79 to 80 and then directly to New York, which is my final destination. I have traveled this route already. I’m familiar with it, so I don’t even need the atlas. It’s picturesque and I like it a lot. That’s why I take the other one—whatever’s left of the legendary Route 66—Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania . . . to the East
Coast.
*
I sold the Stratocaster. We got married. City hall, church, restaurant, guests, relatives, dancing, photos, videos—we went through all of it. We did it because we needed the money for America.
We were both admitted as graduate students at Ohio State University to complete our master’s degrees in literature. We borrowed more money from friends and relatives, paid the first semester’s tuition, and took off.
It was my first time on a plane. We first flew to the Czech Republic and then to America. Somewhere in the white clouds above Prague, I felt some kind of lightness, unfamiliar lightness. It was liberating.
We landed in Columbus late at night. The air was cool, innocently clean, and filled with unknown scents. In the sky above the airport, a two-tailed comet shared the night with myriad tiny stars and a few airplanes. This comet would be visible for two more weeks. Then it would go on its way and appear again in twenty-some centuries, explained the chubby cab driver while he helped us fit our luggage into the trunk of the yellow car.
The next morning we walked down foreign streets and inhaled the springtime air of Ohio. The earth was beginning to soften, the soil breathed out warmth, squirrels ran up the trees, wild geese swam in the ponds, passersby smiled at us, and we smiled back.
To my academic program, I added two photography classes. Stella would go to school early in the morning. She started working in the library in the afternoons and painting in the evenings in the loft of an old factory building that had been taken over by some fellow artists. I spent my days in the university and in the photo lab. Then, by pure luck, I found a bartending job. I started making decent money, which paid for my education. Besides, I was freelancing as a photographer here and there, which brought us some income as well. My only free hours—from midnight until eight in the morning—I spent in the uniform of a security guard at a Budweiser plant, dozing off—dizzy from the smell of hops and the immense scale of my own plans. I can’t remember ever being busier. Stella and I hardly saw each other.
Then I met Ken. The money I made with him was enough to buy my first professional photo equipment and quit one of my jobs. I felt strong, bursting with energy. I knew that something glorious awaited me somewhere.
*
I find a payphone and call Danny again.
“Listen, bro. I need to ask you two things, right off the bat,” he says.
“Go ahead.”
“First, does Stella know anything about this?”
“Stella is not here.”
“Does she know about this?”
“No.”
“Do you understand what you’re risking?”
“Oh, please.”
“You should be shot.”
“I know. Someone tried already.”
“Is there a way to talk you out of this nonsense?”
“No.” I answer. On the other end—silence. Then:
“OK. Let me tell you that I’ll do this for you just this one time, OK?”
“OK.”
“No! I really want you to promise me that this is a ‘one-time-only’ deal and that it will never happen again.”
“I promise!”
“What do you promise?”
“It won’t happen again.”
“OK, then.” Danny sounds as if he’s trying to suppress his excitement. “I spoke with Boss.”
“Oh, the Boss?”
“Yes, the Boss. His name is Boss. Victor Boss.”
“Well? What did Boss say?”
“Well . . . it’s serious.”
“What is?”
“The whole thing.”
“The whole thing?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“It’s serious.”
“You just told me that.”
“Listen, man, you normally don’t buy things like that from strangers. Who knows who you are? Plus . . . the guy has his own supplies . . . Plus, in this business everybody knows everybody. I’m at the bottom of the ladder. In principle, it’s not impossible to take care of the whole thing at once, but . . .”
“What? How much money can we make?” I ask the most important question.
“That depends, demand and supply, the quality of the weed and so on. If everything’s fine and the marijuana is as good as you describe it, we’re talking about approximately fifty grand.”
“Fifty?” I exclaim, slightly disappointed.
“Fifty, if everything’s cool, if it’s excellent! That’s the high number.”
“How about the low one?”
“I can’t say until you come here. It might be twenty. It’s between twenty and fifty. But there’s also something else.”
“What?”
“Victor is not in New York now. Something’s happened and he flew to the West Coast yesterday. He’s not coming back until the end of the week.”
“Oh,” I calculate in my mind. “Well, I thought I could be in New York the day after tomorrow.”
“From California? In just three days?”
“Why not? I’m fast.”
“You shouldn’t be going so fast with what’s in your trunk. You can come over whenever you want, but the guy won’t be here before Saturday night.” I can hear Danny turning the pages of a calendar in his apartment. “Saturday . . . is actually Halloween! What will you be for Halloween?”
“The Boogie Man.”
“Zack . . . drive safely.”
“Danny?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“Take care.”
Danny and I go way back. I heard my first AC/DC song—“Dirty Deeds”—on his older brother’s turntable. We smoked our first Dunhills together, and I was hiding in the walk-in closet of his room when he tried to have sex with his first girl. He used to draw these beautiful horses. He was a good artist and everybody knew it. He emigrated when he was eighteen and escaped mandatory military service.
*
Armed with good equipment, I started collecting a portfolio of images with which I intended to enter mainstream advertisement photography. I made up different products and took not only the photo ads for them, but also came up with whole advertising strategies—including logos, narratives, faces, imagery, and music. I spent every possible minute with the best photography books, learning from the biggest names in the business. I studied the techniques and images of photographers and artists from centuries ago to the present. I compared the light from seventeenth-century Rome in the paintings of Caravaggio to the light of mid-twentieth-century New York in the photos of DeCarava. I searched for what all the great masters had in common. I was most interested in the human face. To me, even the most boring face in Robert Frank’s photos was more interesting than the most beautiful Ansel Adams landscape. What was it that could turn a face into a magnificent image? I diligently searched for the principles of iconicity. I knew they existed. I put my portfolio together carefully, going through hundreds of photo sessions, models, objects. Of course, Stella was in the silver emulsion of thousands of my negatives. What I wanted was to move to the West Coast as soon as we graduated from Ohio State. I started applying for positions in several places in L.A. and San Francisco. I exchanged e-mails, letters, and phone calls with art directors of fashion magazines who seemed interested in my images. Stella, on the other hand, had scheduled a few job interviews with various universities. We knew our time was coming and we had to make the leap.
Then we decided to visit New York for a couple of days before moving out West.
*
At seven I’m in the car because I have to leave L.A. before the traffic really thickens. I take I-10 East. The sun is already up and glinting on the backs of the cars in front of me. I try to find a radio station that doesn’t irritate me. I know that every ten or fifteen minutes I’ll have to deal with the next attack of ads—something I have never learned to ignore after all these years in America. Most likely I never will. The locals handle this as if they have an implanted chip tha
t switches their attention on and off during commercial breaks. Maybe this mechanism is formed in the first early years of television watching. I’m missing the “first seven” in this respect. I grew up somewhere else, with a different kind of television. There—I remember—we had similar reactions to the communist propaganda, which, just like the commercials here, kept the system going.
*
One of the reasons we went to New York was to see Danny. He and I had talked on the phone a lot, but we hadn’t seen each other in years. I had told Stella so much about him and now I wanted to introduce them. The idea was to fly to New York City, spend a few days there, and take a train back to the Midwest. We arrived and the city was just as we always imagined it—the greatest. We took a cab from LaGuardia Airport to Brooklyn where Danny lived. And, there he was—the same scrawny wrists, same smile, same crooked tooth, same walk, only his eyes seemed somewhat muted. He and Stella clicked. Danny was the epitome of a starving artist. He painted, took photos, created installations, and made a bunch of other things. He had this small camcorder and took it everywhere, capturing thousands of hours of reality. For a short time, he had worked as one of Christo’s assistants, photographing his installations. After that he started assisting Hito—one of the greatest commercial photographers in New York. Danny also worked part-time at Christie’s warehouse, bubble-wrapping works of art that had been sold during their auctions. He was a small-time drug dealer as well. Danny talked quickly, intensely, and a lot. His thoughts jumped from topic to topic, themes changed with the speed of his thoughts. Following him was exhausting. We listened to Sun Ra, Miles Davis, John Coltrane. At the end of the first night, he pulled out a big bong and we smoked something. That was a first for me. I remember how his head became more three dimensional than it actually was. Stella refused to smoke with us. Later, I vomited endlessly and went to bed cursing myself.
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