Diary of a Loser

by Edward Limonov

  Naturally, I can also appreciate simple joys. For example, I’m looking forward to spring. I’m not saying that spring is a blessing: I’m looking forward to spring as a time for rotting, and yes rot pleases me. At last, all that was swelling during winter now bursts and becomes exposed – the pus oozes out, the faces speak for themselves, and our city turns into one huge throng of crawling flesh – the flesh that’s characterized by the aimless Brownian motion, as I was taught in school, in those semidark science labs, by the smart Jewish teachers waving their flasks and retorts.

  I was never cruel. I never burned cats or dogs, never chopped their tails or paws off, never hunted for rats or birds. Aimlessly I roamed through the fields and woods. There was no pleasure for me in torturing plants or animals. I had no knowledge yet of the happiness in torturing humans.

  I happened on the Great Discovery just a few days before I turned thirty-three. This was the most fantastic time in my life. I was in a rare shape – the woman I loved left me, laughing diobolically – I soared, I suffered every day and every night – I writhed in hysterics and masturbation – this was very complicated. I swallowed my own sperm alternating it with swigs of wine-nectar and ambrosia of gods. It was then that boredom disappeared from my life, and I began a life of celebration.

  I made the Great Discovery when I was strangling my wife. That is when, without finishing her off, I let her go. I looked at her, at this bitch, pushy and proud of her victories – proud for the quantity and quality of pricks that entered her. I looked…she was… Oh, this moment I’ll never forget. It’s only for this that life is worth living. SHE GRUNTED. Her robe was unbuttoned, her empty, cotton-like breasts puffed up, on her pretty belly there was an unpretty crease. And she wanted to live. I could say to her: kiss my feet, eat my excrement, lick me – she would obey instantly. Strangely smiling, I felt her bare breasts – my head wasn’t exactly clear, but what was there to be clear about? I felt pleasure overflowing me. «I’ll fuck you and will let you go,» I told her. But then I didn’t need to fuck her. At that moment the orgasm overtook me – it shot out in my pants, and instinctively I rubbed against the back of the dumb wooden bench we were sitting on (and which served as a couch to our poor family). And then I understood that I LOVE VIOLENCE. And I felt peace and calm. And all the worries of the world, in soft, cotton clouds, flew away into the transcendental black sky. That’s how I made the Great Discovery. Humans are just morbidly pathetic flesh – give it a firm squeeze and where’s he that philosophized, or did business, and where’s she that was so-and-so, and allegedly loved and this and that – they just grunt and cry. AND BEG…

  I live with my discovery. It feels good to live with it. I’m not cruel at all; many consider me a nice guy. But somehow I’m indifferent to traveling and don’t really want money. My passion is different. I can’t deny myself the pleasure of seeing a person in such a grunting state, and it’s especially delightful with those who might be sexually intimate with me. I really feel like it. You see, that orgasm has stuck in my mind, and I want to repeat it.

  Naturally, I fear the law. I won’t risk rashly. I’m not afraid of the punishment per se, but I may lose the opportunity for my possible future pleasures.

  When April and May come and the snakes of the first leaves sneak out and the buds burst, and women begin to stink from under their skirts or through the cloth of their pants – our city secretaries turn grubby, their faces covered with pimples. When the next absolutely necessary revolution will take place in nature, I’ll try a few tricks. I know the state I’ll be in then and shiver in anticipation… Some collect butterflies, others – genial and docile jocks – play ball. And me, I’m just strange.

  *

  I see: almost everybody is unhappy. What can you do with them?

  Some – often actors – tired by the age of forty, take up with somebody and go on living together. Because it’s scary, you see, to go on alone. By this time they’re not too choosy and just put up with one another. Whatever it takes – only not to be alone – because it’s scary, you know. And their naked eyes burn with terror when suddenly they appear on the cover of People, clutching each other – scared to be torn apart.

  *

  In New York, the dead are almost invisible. Somehow it’s managed that they’re removed from life unnoticed. The corpses are never kept at home, I believe; they are not exhibited to friends for the final farewell. In this way, some aspects of life are missing, however.

  I remember living in a room in Moscow. Once, late at night, returning home, I see that the lights are on. That’s unusual. My housemates, ordinary folk, workers, are always asleep at this hour. I come in and everything becomes clear. «Tolik is done suffering!» says the old woman neighbor. Tolik – a maintenance man, 44, wheezing behind the wall from stomach cancer – has departed this world. «Go, take a look!» the old woman pushes me along. «We’ve already washed and dressed him.»

  I went along, being a Russian like them, feeling respect for death.

  He was stretched on the table, dressed in a black suit, without shoes, but with socks on. «Touch him – his feet are cold already,» said the old woman, squeezing his foot. I too touched it; it was cold. The belongings of the maintenance man Tolik were given away, as is customary. I, too, got two white shirts and leather gloves, almost new. But they were all too big. He was a big guy. I gave them away to someone. To Voroshilov the artist, I think.

  *

  I wonder if Diane von Furstenberg or Jackie Onassis are happy? You won’t learn this from the magazines, won’t see it on TV, they themselves won’t tell you about it. On TV there was a show about apes. The inquisitive Japanese were studying them in Africa.

  The apes looked happy, but then this one bald guy-ape went into such fierce hysterics that I had to change my opinion. Probably he was sick of the woods – tree trunks, endless tree trunks. The way they were lying there was good though. The kids, the girls, the adult females – some stroke each other, some do other things out of mutual affection. That’s what we should adopt from them.

  The Daughter of Madam Ango

  Ah, that daughter of that Madam. The Madam, judging from the name, was a woman of very easy virtue, and so the daughter, obviously, is also quite dubious, because, as they say, like mother like daughter. Her whole personality is contained by her name. Just imagine for a moment if you will: since Madam Ango has breached all the norms of decency and even her name sounds dubious, then what sort of a little thing would the daughter of Madam Ango be? It’s just pure debauchery. She wears her fur coat – all naked underneath – and then she’s off to a restaurant, a rose or some other flower in her hair; and at the restaurant she causes a brawl, and the men fight for the she-devil. The blood is spilled, the mirrors are crushed, the tuxedoes and tails are torn. And she just exudes the scent of her cool skin from under her fur coat; she bares a breast with her nipple indecently cracked – she’s happy.

  She’s lives alone. Rents an apartment. Now a man moves in with her, now a whole dozen keep visiting her. There’s no system to it. She dresses so that everything is obvious to all: her hat, to one side, so you can’t see half of her face. She’ll wear any kind of white pants, or a dress that’s like a flag trailing behind her for half a block. She’s long past sixteen, yet there is no sign of maturity. She smokes, drinks, and sniffs like a horse. Secretly from all, she suffers from poor health. Loves to fuck, even puffs and pants. She’ll come to a bad end.

  She twiddles a long cigarette holder with her fingers. She’ll come to a bad end. Will die in the gutter. Still, she’s fun.

  Her value system is founded on champagne and caviar. In the novels, the daughter of Madam Ango marries a general or a senator or dies from some fateful, vicious disease (tuberculosis, cancer) – not so in real life, not always.

  Loves her c. Affectionately refers to it by diminutive names using various suffixes and endings.

  *

  I’ve never met a person before whom I could kneel down, kiss his feet, an
d prostrate myself. I would do that, I would follow and serve him. But there’s no such person. Everyone is serving. No one is leading. There’s no one leading on a new path.

  There’s no one on the path.

  *

  I see a clean yard. I see young people, men and women. They sit in the Oriental manner – they sing touching each other and swaying in synch. «Are you afraid of water?» I ask myself, awake now. «It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it,» I reply to myself.

  Enter into that clean yard, to those people, regardless of what they wear, regardless of how much or little they eat – just be with them – just feel their hands and be, without any malice, together.

  *

  Buy me white clothes! Give me fire in my hands! Cut my collar off. Send me to the guillotine. I want to die young. Put a violent end to my life, bleed me, kill me, torture and hack me to pieces! There cannot be an old Limonov! Do this within the next few years. Best time – April or May!

  *

  During the misty spring days, our New York is remarkably beautiful for a lonely person.

  In that mist, it feels good to look for tulips on the tops of skyscrapers, flying gently, solo, from one roof to the other on homespun silk wings.

  *

  to E.R.

  Black fabrics absorb the sun well. It feels good to sweat in them in the spring. Once, maybe, I had a coat like this. I can’t remember now. It feels good to: Let the coat drop into the puddles, step over it, enter through the door – it’ll bang behind my back – buy some fried food, drink some alcohol, wipe my face with the napkin, get off a chair, say: ha-ha-ha! Exit through the door, turn left at the corner, get the knife out, hide it in my right sleeve, dive into the entrance of Your house, stab the doorman, jump into the elevator, and find myself on the nineteenth floor, kiss You on Your silly lips, take your fucking clothes off, fuck you – panting – into the tight, child’s-like orifice, into your weak and silly hole, and start toward the door while receiving a hot piece of metal lodged in my stomach, then die on the parquet floor. It was only You that I ever loved, I think. And at the very last moment, a glimpse of the policeman’s shoes.

  *

  «Gabriel, my friend, do you happen to enjoy torture? Actually, it’s pleasant, isn’t it, to observe some twisted features.»

  «I like torture mixed with sex. The pure pain is not pleasant for the observer, Edward.»

  «That’s right, Gabriel. But I’m an Asian, and in these matters the oriental sophistication is well known. We Asians like to have our experiments.»

  *

  A sad career of a major from some Southern country proceeded under the cypresses and palm trees.

  I love: the tree of death, bloody around the trunk, and somebody’s fate, shortnened in order to use it as an example.

  A knife that pierced a map.

  An officer in a beret – that’s my aide.

  Blood in the bandages of a soldier who fell into the grass.

  The scent of eau-du-cologne and cognac.

  I love my future.

  And the black Southern shadows.

  And a twenty-three-year-old woman, who sneaked in to shoot me.

  *

  Yesterday, a black man walks along Broadway and repeats melancholically: «I love King-Kong… I love King-Kong… I love King-Kong…»

  I smiled at him. And he smiled. We exchanged glances like conspirators.

  We’re in the know. And the big ape has nothing to do with it either.

  Yesterday, again, I saw one of ours. Bending, making an artistic gesture, he offered a car the right of way. It was he who smiled at me in that way. My own father never smiled at me like that. It’s clear, this guy too is one of ours.

  Two in one day – not bad.

  *

  Jule, the hairdresser, Serge, the collector of stamps, and I somehow gut to be good friends and formed a group. A passion for flying together at sunset united us. On a clear day you can often see us gliding over the hills and lakes near the town of St. Paul. Three of us are suspended – reclining – over the big pine grove to the south-east of Peoria: we breathe in the aromas.

  At times we get tired. The hairdresser suffers the most. He’s fat. And to keep pace with the others, he energetically flaps his arms and legs, rowing – his strokes wide and awkward. Poor guy sweats – after all, he’s married.

  *

  At my age – always observing – I know everything about people. They’re very funny. Some dance, others sing. Many get drunk or blow smoke. A man, staid and quiet throughout the evening, suddenly leaps up and performs a savage, unconscious dance.

  I know it all. It’s boring. This guy is old, this one’s getting old. That one’s getting ready to get old.

  It’s as though the purpose of life is for A to land a good job, for В to publish a book, for C to find a good husband, for D to buy a brownstone in New York.

  I’m a Mongol. My mother is from Kazan. We Mongols are cunning and wise. I walk among the crowd with my long bangs; I smile politely and I hide my primitive Mongol boredom – it was born in the blackened steppes, in the towns’ ruins when all the men were hacked to pieces, all the meet eaten, and all the captive women fucked – what else is there on the earth? Fullness of life. O brother, what a bore!

  And there’s no one my heart is reaching out to – observing…

  *

  Coming out of a store (and it’s warm out), crossing the street with a bag of groceries, waiting for the light to turn green (and on the other side facing me are school kids, the youngest, with their teacher-this is Second Avenue), I see HER.

  She’s about six, her princess-like hair is down, her sheepskin coat (trimmed with fur and embroidered) is open. Shamelessly, she pulls up with her little hand her checked skirt and scratches her slit. Bare legs (just socks) loom all the way up to where they join in the slit.

  And it’s horribly exciting, these bare, plump legs, this enchanting, serious little face with full lips. God, I ached all over, and she just calmly scratched her slit. The light turned and they proceeded along. I turned: galloping, her backpack on her shoulders, she leaned on the arms of two boys…

  *

  A TV Ad:

  Before boarding a plane, people walk through customs – the automatic doors keep hissing – everyone has a Specialist calculator in their pocket or a purse. Young women, men, the old, blacks, whites – everyone has it.

  «Fuck your calculator – ain’t nothin’ I’m gonna count! Fuck your calculator – aint nothin’ I’m gonna count!» I suddenly sang loud and pretty and jumped in response to this ad. Though I wasn’t the audience they counted on.

  *

  «Hey, boatman, take me across to the other bank of Broadway. I’m going to buy a little salt for my family. There are twenty-eight of us, three don’t eat sait,» and he steps onto the ferry’s wet, rough boards. The families from the left and the right banks somehow managed to get the ferry going. «Matches, Sait» – you can already see it; it’s hidden in the rocks and ruins. The sun shines on it.

  *

  «On your way here bring me a bouquet, Rosalie.

  I’ll pay you back right away. Buy me the blue Irisis because my right lung hurts me something terrible today».

  *

  «In the wind, freezing, icy,

  A Chinese beauty’s yellow, shaved slit is cold.

  «Corne, crawl onto my blue cock, you maggoty meat…»

  How lovely you were by the three pine trees,

  When the wind starts.

  I’m sad. You already died.

  And took away with you your cannon ball breasts.

  Calmly across the yellow land. Our wind rolls on.

  You’re not on my cock. My cock is empty. And only an outburst of a landscape. And a piece of an eye.»

  I wrote this looking at a Chinese painting.

  *

  It’s great in May, in the wonderful wet May, to be a head of All Russian Emergency Committee, to be in Odessa, and, wearing a leather
jacket, to stand on a balcony facing the sea, to adjust the pince-nez and breathe in the intoxicating aromas.

  And then to return to the interior of the room and, coughing, lighting up a cigarette, begin the interrogation of a princess N who is deeply implicated m the counterrevolutionary plot and who is famous for her remarkable beauty – the twenty-two-year-old princess.

  *

  I used to get on the bike and cry. Gloomy sky, an April noon. It’s sad too when in March-April there’s no money and it’s snowing.

  Like now. In the window are Broadway’s chipped buildings, and you’ve moved – this is the fourth day in a dirty hotel, alone, and already a second year without love. And a quarter for a phone call. It’s even sadder when the subtle scent of hot iron starts wafting in from the radiator. How I start sobbing then…

  The iron is clicking, it’s snowing for a long time. What poison these spring days are! And you can’t even press your cheek against your submachine gun. Yes, it’d help.

  *

  I’ll take a big fish, I’ll put it on a rock, and having wiped the rock with my sleeve, I’ll eat the fish, sinking my hands in it. It’s good – the smoked fish. And a jug of white wine is next to me. And the sun is busy beating down on my head. And the birds are singing. And my heart is rejoicing at something, though why should it rejoice? Yes, even this pittance is enough – the wine, the fish, the birds singing. It’s a good thing I’m not a viscount or a marquis, otherwise it would be too much to bear.

  *

  Let’s go for a swim. The water is warm. We’ll dip our bodies into a lake. In a lake, there’s no anxiety as there is in a sea and in an ocean. We’ll stretch out in this thin water, though it’ll be harder to swim. We’ll lie on our backs, we’ll see a copper sunset and heavy clouds. We’ll remember the past and we’ll start crying in the water. And along the shore, a man carrying a bag will walk by, or maybe he’ll be carrying a sack.