by Dave Barry
I will say this: The chocolates were excellent, and I was glad Malyshev only pretended to take them away.
Our final event of the day is at the residence of the U.S. Consul General, where our host is Courtney Nemroff, the consulate’s Deputy Principal Officer. This is the monthly Movie Night, in which the public is invited to watch an American movie, usually a classic like White Christmas. Tonight, however, they’re going to show Big Trouble, a 2002 movie directed by Barry Sonnenfeld that was based on my 1999 novel of the same name. The consulate has asked me to introduce the movie to the audience, which is mostly Russians, and answer questions afterward.
The screening is in a downstairs room, where about fifty chairs have been arranged facing the screen. As everyone is getting cookies and tea (of course there are cookies and tea) I’m thinking about what I will say about the movie, which I haven’t seen in a few years. I’m mentally reviewing the plot, which involves a series of weird and wacky events in Miami.
Suddenly I remember something: There are Russian characters in the movie. Two of them.
And they are gangsters.
In my defense, I based these characters on a story in the Miami Herald about a bar that the FBI shut down after determining that Russian gangsters were using it as a front to sell black market Soviet-era weapons. At the time this seemed like an interesting plot element, so I put it in my novel.
But now I’m in Russia, brought here by the State Department as part of a program intended to foster international understanding. And I have to get up in front of a group of Russians—who already resent the fact that Americans stereotype them as vodka-guzzling gangsters—and introduce a movie based on a book I wrote in which the only Russian characters are gangsters.
So it is with some nervousness that I stand before the audience and begin my introduction. I explain that I took many of the plot elements from actual events. When I get to the part about the Russians being gangsters, I see disapproval on the faces of some audience members, and hear some sardonic laughter. I quickly point out that at least the Russians are intelligent criminals, whereas many of the American characters are criminals and morons. I’m not sure this mollifies them.
We watch the movie, which has a madcap plot involving two criminal morons who mistakenly get hold of a suitcase nuke. Also another character—also a criminal moron—goes temporarily insane when a large toad squirts him in the face with a hallucinogenic substance. There are also goats, and Sofia Vergara. The dialogue contains many references and expressions that I am not sure all the Russians totally understand. But they watch attentively and applaud at the end.
Their questions are mostly about Miami. Among other things, they want to know if we really have large hallucinogenic toads. I assure them that we do, that in fact when I first moved to Miami a toad the size of a catcher’s mitt took up permanent residence in my dog’s dish, much to the chagrin of my dog. A woman in the audience tells me that her impressions of Miami have come from watching Miami Vice and CSI: Miami, and now this movie. She asks if Miami really is an insanely violent place. I assure her that it absolutely is not, most of the time. She looks doubtful. Clearly I have done a lot of good here for the image of my adopted hometown.
Saturday
This is our last full day in Russia, and we have part of it free, so we wander around a bit, then take one of the many boat tours of St. Petersburg. It’s another bright, sunny day, and the city looks spectacular from the water, especially the views of the Hermitage and other grand buildings from the Neva River. The tour takes an hour, and Ridley and I enjoy it, although in our hearts we know that a faster boat could have done it in thirty minutes.
After that we do our last event, a short talk and signing at a bookstore. The crowd is small, yet at the same time few in number. But they’re nice and it’s fine and we’re happy to be done.
We get back to our hotel and go to a nearby Irish pub, our plan being to have a drink there and then go to an actual restaurant for our last meal in Russia. But the beer is good, and the TV is showing a soccer match between St. Petersburg’s major pro club, Zenit, and the big Moscow club, Dinamo. Ridley and I have been big fans of Zenit dating back nearly seven hours, when we wandered into the club’s official merchandise store near our hotel and bought Zenit T-shirts for our daughters. So we decide to stick around and watch the game and order dinner and, in my case, have several more beers. Soon we are caught up in the game, as are most of the other pub patrons. When Zenit scores, we all cheer; when the referee calls a foul against a Zenit player who TOTALLY DID NOTHING WRONG, YOU IDIOT, we all yell at the screen.
The fact that Ridley and I are yelling in English and the Russians are yelling in Russian makes no difference. For the moment, we’re not Russians or Americans. We’re humans—mostly guy humans—and we are united by a universal, fundamental human emotion, namely, caring passionately about something that, when you really think about it, is pretty stupid.
Speaking of something pretty stupid, it’s time for my:
CONCLUSION
In which I make some sweeping generalizations for a person who doesn’t speak Russian and was in Russia for only a week, a large chunk of which, toward the end, was spent in bathrooms
I liked the Russians. I bet you’d like them, too. I’m not saying you’d necessarily love them, but you wouldn’t say, “These people are the enemy! I want to renew the Cold War with them!”
Granted, we have our differences. The Russians think we’re arrogant, shallow and self-centered, and of course we can be all of those things. I think the Russians are a little paranoid, and too willing, out of old Soviet habit, to submit to brute authority, which is why they wound up electing a president who is (with all due respect) a corrupt, macho asshole.
But I don’t think ordinary Russians want to pick a fight with us. I think they just don’t like the idea of being pushed around on their own continent by a bunch of arrogant, sanction-imposing American cowboys. This is the hot button Putin keeps pressing.
So we have our differences. But the Russians aren’t that unlike us. They’re smart, and they have a good sense of humor. They want nice cars, clothes, TVs, phones. They like chocolate. They love their kids. They hate the referee.
I think that if left to ourselves, ordinary Americans and ordinary Russians would get along fine. In fact we were getting along fine until our governments started bumping chests again. I hope that ends soon, although I don’t think it will. I think it’s more likely that there will be more chest bumping, more sanctions, more retaliations. If that happens, it could become more difficult for us to visit Russia, and for Russians to visit the States.
That would be a shame, because Russia is a really interesting place. I’d like to go back someday and explore some of its many mysteries, including one I saw early on Sunday morning as I was leaving. I took a taxi from my hotel at 4 a.m. (Ridley was on a different flight), and as I rode through the dark streets I was struck by how many people were still out—clots of partiers slowly drifting home, couples necking (a lot of those), crowds of hardier nightlife lovers still in and around the bars.
Not far from the hotel we passed a bar called “Meat Head,” which is across a canal from a spectacularly beautiful church called (really) “The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.” There were several dozen young people on the sidewalk outside Meat Head, but two of them caught my eye, because they were sitting, casually, on horses. As far as I could tell, these were not police horses; these appeared to be just a couple of civilian horses, hanging out at a bar* in central St. Petersburg at 4 a.m. with a couple of nightlife enthusiasts sitting on them. I would have asked the taxi driver what was going on, but he spoke no English, and my limited Russian vocabulary would have made it difficult to frame the question. (“Yes?” “No?” “Thank you, Tinker Bell!”)
So there’s a lot I still don’t know about Russia, and I really would like to go back. Of course by writing this essay, I’ve blown my c
over, so I can’t go back as Dagger. I’ll need a new Secret Code Name, and I believe I have come up with a good one. It’s a name that incorporates part of the history of Russia, but also my own personal experience there and how I was moved by it. Deeply moved. Deep inside. Way down inside. In fact as I write these words, I am still being moved by it, almost hourly.
Call me Trotsky.
A LETTER TO MY GRANDSON
* * *
* * *
Dear Dylan Maxwell Barry,
Hi. I’m your grandfather. I’m the guy who, when you were eight days old, held your legs while you were circumcised in your parents’ living room.
I want to stress that this was not my idea. My feeling about infants’ foreskins is that they are a natural, normal, organic bodily part and, as such, should be surgically removed by trained medical professionals in a room that I am not personally located in. But because your mom is Jewish—not that I am blaming your mom!—you had a bris, which is an ancient traditional Jewish ceremony in which a male baby, on his eighth day of life, is circumcised with friends and relatives looking on, after which everybody who has not passed out eats food from deli platters.
How did this tradition get started? To answer that, we turn to a source of wisdom and knowledge that has guided mankind for thousands of years: The Internet. I quote here from kingjamesbibleonline.org, “The Official King James Bible Online,” specifically the book of Genesis, chapter 17, which begins:
And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God . . .
Let me just interject here that, with all due respect to God, when He appears to people in the Old Testament, it generally is not a lighthearted occasion. God rarely appears for a fun reason, such as to spell people’s names in the sky with northern lights, or turn an entire mountain into fudge. No, the Old Testament God is all business: He appears to people because He wants them to build an ark, or smite an entire nation, or sacrifice something or somebody, or go on some kind of divine-offering scavenger hunt where they have to collect things like goat hair and badger skins.*
Anyway, when God appears to Abram, at first He appears to be in a fairly mellow mood, for Him. He tells Abram that from now on, Abram’s name will be Abraham (God can do this), and they’re going to have a covenant under which Abraham is going to be fruitful and become the father of kings, on top of which God will give him the entire land of Canaan.* Sounds like a pretty sweet deal for Abraham, right? He’s going to be a fruitful king producer at age ninety-nine, PLUS he gets Canaan, and he doesn’t even have to smite anybody!
But then God reveals the other side of the covenant, which is, and here I will quote God directly:
And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.
That’s right: God is telling a ninety-nine-year-old guy that to seal the deal, he has to circumcise himself. Not only that, but God informs Abraham that all of his male children, and all of his future male descendants, also have to be circumcised. And so, that very day, according to the sacred text of kingjamesbibleonline.org, Abraham circumcised himself and every other male in his household. And then, to quote Genesis, “there were deli platters.”
No, I made that last part up. But all the stuff about circumcision really is in Genesis. Which raises a couple of questions:
Why does God have such a bee in His bonnet about foreskins?
Couldn’t they have had some other token of the covenant?
Like, couldn’t they just shake hands?
Speaking of shaking hands: How do you think the other household males felt when this ninety-nine-year-old guy came wobbling toward them holding a knife and saying, “Guess what God told me to do!”?
And how come God—with all due respect—doesn’t have to part with His foreskin?
Wouldn’t The Foreskin of God be an excellent name for a science-fiction novel?
But these are questions best left to theologians. The point, Dylan, is that circumcision is an important Jewish tradition, which is why, as the son of a Jewish mom, you had a bris. And as your grandfather, I was chosen by your parents for the honor of being the sandek, who is the person who holds the baby while the actual snipping is done by the mohel, which is Hebrew for “snipper.” Your specific mohel, a nice man named Philip Sherman, told me that he had done 21,000 circumcisions, which—to put that mind-boggling number in perspective—is the equivalent of circumcising every member of the boy band One Direction 4,200 times.
So you were in experienced hands, although I personally did not watch the procedure. I focused on your face, and I have to say, except for a couple of totally understandable yelps, you took it like a man. Whereas I cried like a baby.
Anyway, you’re my first grandchild, so I feel it’s my duty to offer you some grandfatherly wisdom in the form of this letter, which I’ll ask your parents to keep for you in a safe place until you’re older and less likely to get poop on it. My goal, in writing this letter, is to pass along to you the important knowledge I have accumulated in my sixty-seven years on this Earth. Here’s the main thing I have learned:
You do not need to refrigerate ketchup or mustard.
Dylan, this is something that I believe deeply, both as a person and as a human being. It is not, however, a popular opinion. Many people believe that if left unrefrigerated, ketchup and mustard will go bad. But one thing you must learn is that just because “many people” believe something, that does not make them right. Many people believe in astrology. Many people believe that their cats actually like them. Many people believe that the New York Yankees are not the agents of Satan. Many people believe that “light beer” is a form of beer. Many people voluntarily purchase recordings by Barry Manilow.
Am I saying that all of these people are stupid? Of course not. Some of them are insane. But my point, Dylan, is: Don’t just follow the crowd. Think for yourself. Someday, when you are older and no longer spurting fluids out of all your orifices at random, you will start going to restaurants. When you do, I want you to notice two things: (1) the ketchup and mustard are kept sitting out all day in a room that is, by definition, room temperature; and (2) the customers are not keeling over and dying from condiment-transmitted diseases. Instead, they are enjoying room temperature ketchup and mustard on their food. Because, as has been shown in countless laboratory studies,* THIS IS PERFECTLY SAFE. Nevertheless, in households all over America, millions of people routinely ruin perfectly good hamburgers and hot dogs by putting cold ketchup and mustard on them.
Don’t be one of those people, Dylan. Say no to cold ketchup.
Also: Be nice to people; don’t be rude. This is almost as important as not refrigerating ketchup and mustard. It seems like an obvious concept, right? Be nice; don’t be rude. But some people have trouble grasping it. Some people are nice only to people they want to impress, or to people they think can help them. But when they’re dealing with somebody they consider to be not useful, or unimportant, especially if that person pretty much has to take the abuse—an underling, a salesclerk, a waiter, a flight attendant—these people feel free to be rude. These people are what we call “jerks.”*
Don’t be a jerk, Dylan. Be nice to everybody. If somebody turns out to be a jerk, you can stop being nice to that person. But always start with nice. Say “please” and “thank you.” Share. Take turns. Don’t bully, and don’t hit people, unless they are bullying you, in which case go ahead and belt them.
Never butt in line. Yes, sometimes this will get you ahead. But the people you butted in front of will know you’re a jerk, and they will stare hatefully at the back of your neck, and the hate rays emitted by their eyeballs will build up inside you and eventually, down the road, cause your goiter to explode.
Or so I choose to believe.
Likewise, do not be one of those people who are constantly standing up and blocking the
view of the people behind them at concerts and sporting events. It’s OK to stand up when everybody else is standing up; crowds are pretty good at figuring out, as a group, when to do this. But there always seem to be some people—and they always seem to be seated in front of you—who believe they are entitled to stand up any old time they feel like it, which is a lot, because they are REAL FANS, by which I mean drunk. If you ask them to sit down, they will either ignore you, or tell you that if you were a REAL FAN, like them, you would be standing, too.
As a result, the people behind them have no choice but to crush their skulls with a ball-peen hammer.
No, Dylan, that would be wrong, by which I mean technically illegal. The people behind them have no choice but to stand up—thereby blocking the view of the people behind them—or spend the concert or sporting event staring at the idiots’ butts, which will eventually, down the road, because of all the eyeball hate rays beamed at them, develop hemorrhoids the size of mature cantaloupes, or so I choose to believe.
But the point is, don’t be one of those people.
Be loyal to your friends. Popularity is way overrated; friendship is not.
Be considerate. Clean up after yourself. Don’t leave your trash for other people to deal with. Don’t force other people to listen to your phone conversations or your music. Signal your turns. If you’re in the left lane, and people keep passing you on the right, get out of the left lane. If you use the toilet, flush the toilet. How hard is that, right? Flush the damn toilet. You’d be amazed how many people don’t. I’d call these people “pigs,” but I believe that if pigs had toilets, they would have enough class to flush them.
Don’t be a know-it-all. There will come a time—probably when you’re in college—when you’ll start to believe you really do know it all, and you will become passionate about your beliefs, and you will be insufferable. But trust me: When you leave college and have to get an actual job, you will discover that there’s a whole lot of stuff you don’t know, and you will be on your way to becoming an adult.