The rest of the trip out of Manhattan was uneventful and Nicolai found some relief by hiking himself up on his left buttock and pressing his face against the window. However, when they came down off of the Willis Avenue Bridge into the Bronx, a large blue police barricade blocked their path to the highway, and not that, but a large crater in the street beyond forced them to turn onto a side street. In a matter of minutes they were lost. Oh, for some time, the officers assured Nicolai that they were not, but after an hour of going around in circles they were forced to admit their predicament.
It was not a good place to be lost and being in the presence of the police, contrary to making him feel safe, made Nicolai all the more scared, for they were not very popular with the locals who were not fooled by the unmarked car and threw insults (and some bottles and rocks) at them as they passed. Bullet proof glass, right? Sorry. “Perhaps Gentlemen,” Nicolai suggested, “we might think of asking for directions?”
“What are you crazy? They’ll eat us alive.”
“Don’t you chaps carry guns?”
“So do they.”
“But you are the law!” Nicolai urged.
The detective took a moment and said, “And they are the enemy.”
“Can’t you radio in for directions or something of the sort?”
“Tell them we’re lost? We’d be a laughing stock. You just sit back we’ll get out of here. I don’t know what you’re worried about anyway, you ain’t going no place better.” They laughed at him and he took their advice and sat back and watched. It was a dark and drear place. Although mid-day, the sky was clouded over with a gray mass and what little sunlight escaped that was lost in the large canopy of steel tracks that covered most of the streets. Nicolai was anxious. He wanted to get it over with, whatever it would be. He knew however that legal details and such might take months, years. Ah, well. He looked again out the window. It was really quite bad. Garbage littered the streets. Most of the buildings were extremely run down and some were either boarded up or collapsed. He had never seen such a thing in his life. Oddly, it reminded him most of Rooka’s country.
They turned onto a street which was empty, except for two men huddling close in the cold on the sidewalk and a lone man walking toward them. Suddenly the car screeched to a halt and Nicolai was thrown against the safety (for who?) glass that separated him from the men in front, who immediately jumped out of the car, grabbed the man on the street, handcuffed him, and threw him in the back with Nicolai. The man fought and kicked a lot (most of these blows landing on an already bruised Nicolai) at first, but eventually settled down. “What did I do?”
“Pipe down.” They made him show them the way out and then, once near the highway, released him. “Hey you know what? I think we got the wrong guy.” It was another half an hour drive until they arrived at the prison. They bid him good-bye there, urged him to keep his mouth shut, and drove off. Nicolai was led through the gates and they closed with a slam behind him.
He was brought to a small room and asked to stand behind a white line on the floor. Ten or fifteen feet in front of the line sat a thin, mostly bald officer at a desk, he had a mustache and a high nasal voice. Nicolai was asked to empty his pockets into a small net which the officer extended to him on a long pole. He turned over their only contents: a wad of money and a packet of cigarettes; he was out of matches. Next he was told to take off his clothes, which he did (“No, all of them, yes, those too.” I see). The officer told him to fold those neatly on the floor, he then looked slyly from left to right and stood. He slipped a latex glove onto his left hand. “Bend over.”
“Pleased to meet you, I’m Vicoff.” The officer did not get his reference, and in truth it had not been a very popular movie even in Europe where they like that sort of thing. As he proceeded to search Nicolai for concealed weapons, another officer came into the room.
“Never mind the strip search with this one, he’s temporary. He can keep his own clothes. But,” he said after a pause, “hold on to the cash. We’ll have to make sure it’s not counterfeit.” The second officer left and the first one apologized. Always those damn lefties. Nicolai was allowed to dress again and was given back his cigarettes and also a fresh book of matches, “for the trouble”. After this he was escorted to a cell. He had some trouble walking at first, but this soon passed and he was glad each time he passed a group of prisoners being yelled at or chained or washed down that he was excused from these tortures. He was then locked in a cell which was all too familiar, not exactly, there were differences, but in style, in design, in occupancy: to the tee. Yes, there were two opposing double-decker beds, one fat fool on the bottom of one, and two thilly others resting on opposite tops, their linked arms forming an arch under which Nicolai had to pass. As he did (pass under the arch) he tripped and fell, or rather was felled, was tripped by a quickly jutted out leg which he did not see. Catching his fall on the toilet with his right eye, he looked up with the other and saw the fat man standing above him, flanked behind by the other two. “Let me have him. It’s my turn,” said one of the thin men.
“It’s always your turn,” said the other.
“I’m a Scorpio, yeah, I get real horny.”
The fat man just growled and licked his chops.
Nicolai attempted to ease their humors, “You lads been here long?” And then something very fortunate happened to Nicolai in the way of a sudden flatulence (brought on no doubt by a combination of hospital food and a slight looseness caused by some remaining lubricative gelatin.
“OK,” said the first thin man, “you’re right it’s your turn.”
“No, no, you called it, go ahead, I defer.”
Nicolai saw his advantage and in an attempt to expand it tried to repeat his last action, but succeeded in emitting only a little putt. Either the failure or the fact of this second attack greatly angered the fat man and sending what could only have been a telepathic signal to the other two, he initiated (and they fully supported) a vicious physical attack on Nicolai: they beat him up real bad. After, as he lay bruised and crying near the door, a guard walked by and seeing him stopped. “What are you doing in here?” Nicolai did not answer. The guard yelled off, “Hey Lou, this new guy, the holder, he’s supposed to be in 15-C right?” Nicolai did not hear the answer. “That’s what I thought.” Then to Nicolai, “Hey buddy, come on. You’re in the wrong place. You get your own cell.”
Nicolai was not fully aware of what had been said to him, but he followed the guard willingly, glad for at least a moment of relief from the danger. The guard locked him up again in a different cell, a private cell, and Nicolai did not care that a mistake had been made or about anything, but lay down on his (private) bunk and slept.
And he dreamed and naturallyunder the present circumstanceshe dreamed of Rooka. It wasn’t like the general’s induced, nay even forced (right down your throat they were), memories and dreams: sudden and unpleasant. It was a fond memory of the gentle old man and Nicolai had very few of those so he let himself bath fully in it, he would not simply wade in this proffered pleasure, no, not now when the tide could pull out at any moment. He let the little images dribble over him as fast or slow as they would, particles of colored sand sliding down a smooth glass bottle and piling in a pattern at the bottom. First, a few splotches of black came down, a yellow (really several yellow), a red, a light cyan (Volkswagen bug), then a lot of blue, and toward the top of the blue pile, a few swatches of matted white, then through all the blue, the white, in front of a heavy and higher yellow, a little dot of silver fell, well it floated, slower than the others, and grew larger as it did, and it came right down to a long strip of black and squealed to a halt.
Nicolai thought it might be cute if he picked Rooka up in a horse and carriage, so he hired one for the occasion. They got quite a few looks parked in front of Heathrow Airport, horses neighing, their droppings completely missing the little bags (quite large bags really) set up to catch them and going splotch on the ground. Rooka however did
not understand that it was a jest and merely said, “Ah, my Nicolai, ve are learning, yes.”
When they arrived at Nicolai’s apartment, Rooka immediately went to sleep (he likes to sleep during the day what can I do?) so Nicolai too decided to nap (on the sofa, Rooka having commandeered the bed) expecting a long night; and sure enough, as the sun drooped, Rooka woke him. “Let us hit the town, my boy, I feel a thousand vomen’s hearts beating vith the blood of passion.” Nicolai tried to think of a place he might take him, he was no socialite himself and familiar with only the most sedate sort of pubs, but Rooka wanted clubs: “Some place vith high class vomen, but not too classy, who like to dance. I can cut qvite a rug you know.”
He knew one club in Soho which he thought might appeal to Rooka’s tastes in women. In its prime, it was a place for models to show themselves off to the swarms of managers and agents who, well, swarmed there, but had recently been abandoned for a newer haunt. Its minute reputation lived on however and some of the more desperate (and certainly simpler, as in less smart, dumb, pure bimbos) beautiful young ladies of London frequented itall this Nicolai picked up from the tabloids and by no means from personal experience; just the old man’s type. “You want classy, how do models sound?”
“Vell I cannot duplicate it exactly, but it is something like a soft purr combined vith a sound vhich can be created by rubbing two large denomination notes together. I am funny, no?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
Le Bat Café was not French, nor was it a café, but it hit the right chord in Rooka. Nicolai did not understand why, but the old man seemed to think Nicolai had put a lot of thought into the choice. He didn’t say anything, just smiled at Nicolai in his way and sort of hissed, then let a broad smile crack his face, and rushed in ahead of him. A popular song was playing as they sidled (how they suavily sidled, easily sipping their beers and bouncing their heads slightly to the music as their eyes scanned the room) up to the bar:
Get close to me honey, come on now I know you
can.
You’ve been away, yeah, you’ve been away and
I’ve had to stray,
But if you’ll take me back, oh baby, won’t you
be my man?
Get close to me and I’ll tell you what I’ll do:
I’m gonna boogie till the lights go out.
I’m gonna boogie till there ain’t no
doubt.
I’m gonna rock the pet rock that you got.
You gotta get close, gotta, gotta, get close to
me...&c, &c...
It was probably a female vocalist, but Nicolai guessed so much not from pitch or treble as contentwhich in itself was never as reliable as it ought to be. Rooka was speaking to him, yelling actually, over the loud music, “My boy, my [unintelligible] guessed no doubt that [unintelligible].” Nicolai didn’t understand. “I said [unintelligible].” Say again? “My boy, I am a [unintelligible].” Wampeter? So, the old man was catching up on his literature.
“Yes, yes, Uncle. Thought the follow-up was a bit weak though, ought to have elucidated the structure of the religion more instead of just essays.” Odd bar conversation, but Rooka is odd too at that. Nicolai hoped he wasn’t going to try that sort of talk with the ladies, that heady sort of talk, bore them stiffer than his pet rock it would. Rooka shook his head and then, after a momentary confusion passed over him, he pointed at a young lady (feline, foxy) dancing alone on the floor. He drank the rest of his beer in a single gulp and gurgle, grabbed a cigarette from the hand of a man to his right at the bar (choked on the single drag he’d taken off of it and immediately handed it back) and moved out to her.
It was comical for Nicolai, watching Rooka do his sly little dance step toward her. She was dancing now with another woman. Perhaps something good might come of this after all if he can win them both over to the East. Nicolai expected nothing though, except perhaps a lonely cab ride home and an early morning call from Rooka asking directions back to the apartment. Rooka was behind her now shaking his bootie (ah, the lovely sound to modern ears of time-specific terminologyat least it made the dreaming Nicolai smile) against hers; and by God she was liking it! Rooka winked at Nicolai and Nicolai played along, rather excited at the prospect. Then, of a sudden, Rooka turned to her, and cape spread wide, pounced. Nicolai saw the headlines flash before him: Rooka The Rapist From Romania (though that was not specifically true) And His Nephew Nicolai From North End (neither was that). To his surprise (read: relief) however, there was no uproar, the girl simply detached the old man from her neck and danced away. He tried this several more times and each time it was the same, until toward the end of the night no one in the club would stand within ten feet of them. Finally, discouraged and having cracked a tooth in an attempt to bite the cap off of a bottle, Rooka said, “Bah, these English vomen are so cold,” and they left.
Nicolai repeatedly asked Rooka what had possessed him to be so forward (not that he minded, he assured him, he was just curious), but Rooka would do nothing but pout. They arrived home as the sun was rising and Rooka went immediately to sleep. He woke happy, even unusually so, but would say nothing about the night before except for the cryptic, “It is too early for you. I push you along too fast.” And as he persisted in this statement even as the night wore on, Nicolai became convinced finally that “early” did not refer to the time of day, but Rooka would not elaborate. Then as slowly as it had all poured in, the images and colors of that pleasant time drained away over the lower lids of Nicolai’s eyes and down his cheeks, except for a single drop of silver which hung for a moment, floated upwards and then dimmed to blackness. Nicolai opened his eyes and he was alone in his cell. He rose, used the small toilet at the rear of the room (hurry, hurryguards pacing in the corridor made him uncomfortable) a horrible torture in its exposure to all who cared to see, and then lay down again and folded him arms behind his head.
He felt a soft lump there, they really had given him quite a beating. It won’t be the last I fear. The lump was large and soft, but did not hurt. He moved his hand more fully over it, the hair upon it was bristly. It covered most of the right side of his head in the back. Even though it did not hurt (and he was very surprised at this, his other bruises were quite painful) he thought he might have to seek some medical attention, because really it was damn big, too damn big, could be a head in and of itself if it had eyes and the right orificial structures. His finger then, still examining the plump mass, found some. No, couldn’t be, but yes there were two eyes, a tiny little nose (a bit wet), a mouth with sharp Rooka-like teeth, and at its other end what he hoped most not to find, a long hairless tail. Bugger, a fucking rat (harsh language for a harsh reality)! He felt it now holding on to his actual lumps with tight, sharp claws. “Get him off! Get him off! Help, help! Ayudame! Ayudame! [the strangest things come back to you in moments of terror] Help!”
He jumped up and tried to shake it off, but it would not go. Briefly, as he danced by a warped image of himself in a small steel mirror above the sink (far corner, to the left of the toilet, crapper’s point of view) he saw the black thing. Probably related to that damn bat and seeking blood money. Two guards (the first from before and another, Lou perhaps) came rushing to his call. They laughed at him at first, but then one of them, regaining bladder control, handed a bottle to the other and drew his gun. “Hold still, I’ll get him.”
“What, are you insane? He’s on my bloody head. You can’t shoot him.”
“Don’t worry, I’m rated Marksman in my paint gun club. Isn’t that right, Lou [so it was Lou]?” Lou verified the other’s claim. “Hold still damn it! I’ve been tryin’ to kill that Ricky Rat for three years now.” He fired and (thank God) missed. The rat (Ricky), however, sensed that the attempt was sincere, and in an instant dislodged himself and scurried into a hole in the cinderblock beneath the sink (lower right corner, flusher’s point of view). The guard who had fired was upset at his failure, but even more so when he’d found that Lou had fin
ished off the bottle he had been handed. “God damn you, Lou.”
Lou just shrugged, “I got bored.” Exeunt the dopes.
Nicolai peered into the hole and saw two little glimmers of light, red and bright, staring back at him. He then sat again on the bed. How quickly everything is happening, he thought. There was a time, he remembered vaguely, when the segments, parts, pieces, chapters, or what you will, of his life encompassed years, decades even (though these latter were identified by vaguer terms such as childhood or youth, and were farther back or away than he could generally reach), then somewhere they had shriveled, encasing only months, then hours, ending sometimes in the middle of one day and the next picking up shortly thereafter (and what of the time in between? Lost). His life had begun as an epic, coherent, massive, full of possibilityand trials to be sure, but with the promise of a fulfilling conclusionand slowly degraded in form (consecutively approximately) into long novel, then short, then pulp, then, losing all comprehension, into (could he call it modern and thereby justify its lack of cohesion?) segments of unrelated verse and prose (Sound and Sense: high school text), like, he picturedhad found it so intriguing when he’d first come across one, though he never had found any personal applicability for the thinga logarithmic scale which after initial strides of grandiosity, eased into tiny, rhythmic steps, but then somewhere along its pre-defined path, tired of the tiny constant driving it, dropped that e like an American and lost its smooth poetic flow.
I Thought My Uncle Was A Vampire, But He Was Just A Creep Page 24