It’s good here, cozy. A soft glow comes from below, having something to do with the toilet. There are reeds on the red walls. Glassed-in pipelines of communication. Hieroglyphs.
I exit.
The top pocket of the bag that I came with is open. I remember that I retrieved the napkin with the pieces of sugar from there. What about my keys? The keys have been here the entire time in the pocket of a green Adidas Original jacket.
Knucklehead! I grab the jacket, feel the pockets. The keys are in their place. I retrieve them. The metal shines. But of course someone could have made a copy while I was out of the room.
All right, calm down. Right now it’s important to not show what you’ve figured out. Just go back to the room like nothing has happened, sit down, and think everything through all nice like.
All right, go on and think: You were sitting here, they arrived. You didn’t like Red from the start. His eyes were racing. What do they live off of? Music?
“C, what do those fellas live off of? Red, for instance?”
C slowly (way too slowly!) turns, he’s beet-faced. What’s wrong with him? Is he afraid of something?
“Well, he put this website up overnight.”
Spoken unpersuasively. Is he lying? Or does he just not know?
Fine, go on then. Next they got up and made their way to the front door. How much time did they spend in the hallway while they were saying their goodbyes? Enough to pull off the deal with the keys.
I have to ask where they went. The answer will calm me down. If they went to record music, then everything’s okay. However, if C lies, then I’ll know it right away. And then I’ll have uncovered their plan. They’ll know that I know. No, that’s not the way to do it. I have to be more careful.
Fine. They made a copy. Then what? They went to my house! No one is there but my sister, and she’s totally helpless. They’re drug addicts, after all. What did Hunter S. Thompson say? You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug. They hold nothing sacred, they have no qualms.
To try to ease the trembling, I head back to the bathroom. Wash my face. K walks by.
“Well, is that helping any? It usually calms me down.”
Calms me down? That means he knows something.
The water is definitely pleasant, velvety.
I return to the room. Begin walking around in it. I notice that the pistol is no longer lying next to The Portrait of Dorian Gray.
K gave the barrel to those two drug addicts. He took it out of commission, so that they wouldn’t misfire at something. But now they’re at my house with a pistol and my sister …
The height of the ceiling. K asked me about the height of the ceiling. They want to go through the window. Of course, that’s it! They’ve got it all planned. There are cameras everywhere over there. They must have planned it all in advance. And they need to know the height of the ceiling, so as not to get the apartments mixed up.
I have to call my sister right away. It’s six thirty. I’ll wait until seven, then call her, wake her up for work.
What was up with the questions about M, my girlfriend? They want to kidnap her. Or rape her? Rape her. God, how did I not figure this out sooner? They want to ravage her. There were some characters hanging around the place where they picked me up. Stop. She sent me a message as soon as she reached home. But they could have forced her. They want to take it all away from me in one go.
All this is how clowning around with acid, amphetamines, and hashish affects a body—it is making me stupid, shutting off my brain so that I can’t comprehend.
And there sits C, all gloomy. He definitely knows the truth, which is why he won’t look me in the eyes.
“C, everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s good.”
I don’t believe him. Could it be, e tu, Brute? You’re embroiled in this mess. But of course! Why didn’t I think of this sooner? They forced him. He alone knows where I live. He knows everything about me. Trust no one. He needs money just like everybody else. He doesn’t have a job, his mother has probably stopped sending him money. He asked to borrow two or three thousand from me not long ago. E tu, Brute!
K is all well and good. Him I can understand at least, I’m no one to him. But you! I trusted you, you and I lived in Siberia together for a month.
And Rogue. She was looking at me as though she wanted to say: Oh, you! You’ve squandered your good fortune. You’ve been blown full of hot air. They say that dogs possess a certain intuition about these matters. So she wasn’t just casually licking my hand.
It’s all good—I try to focus and make sense of everything. Quit being so jumpy!
Facts, only facts are needed here.
What do I know about K: he made a cross for a local church in the small Siberian city of U and at the age of thirty-three carried it throughout the entire city.
But how does K earn a living? Could it really be from those piss-away-the-day handicrafts? It’s not possible to live off of things like that now. He’s a drug dealer. People like that are dangerous, and you trusted him without even knowing him. All the clues were right before your eyes, he was just toying with you. And the pistol, and the amphetamine sale … Amphetamines! That was payment to those drug addicts for their services. Remember what their eyes were like when K gave them the blue package? Craving, thirsty. They couldn’t wait to use. That kind will be up for anything. That whole charade about “music” … it was really clever how they managed to cloud my brain.
K—that’s brain surgery. He thought this all up. He’s the one who’s maintaining contact with them, that’s why he keeps going out, that’s why none of these questions are lining up.
He went out to the street and passed them something. But what? The barrel? The keys? How long was he gone? Long enough. You can’t trust how time passes while on LSD.
Or maybe this is all because of a robbery. They went to attend to their affairs. I dropped out while on acid. So much time passed, but I didn’t know how to occupy myself. I’ve only watched two films. They’ve mugged someone, and they want me to take the fall for it. It’s obvious that I’m on drugs, I can’t argue against that. My statement will be nullified after they test my urine. God, what a drug combo I have in me right now!
Stop! All of these quaint little jam dishes with cocktails, little bits of fruit on trays—all this was intended to keep me calm. Distract me. While they …
Oh God!
They’ve broken into my house, raped my sister, taken anything of value—they could even still be there. I can only guess what they’ve done with M. And I can’t do anything about it. Because if I go to the police, they’ll just arrest me. I’m a drug addict, after all. They’ve thought of everything.
“Let’s take a walk,” K suggests. “It’ll be good for you right about now.”
He’s read everything on my face and he’s going to hand me over to those drug addicts. I shouldn’t have stomped around the room like that. Idiot!
Seizing the moment I tell C: “It seems that I’ve stepped into a web of betrayal.” And I tell him about Manson, about the keys, about the copy. I’m telling him, while laughing myself.
It gets better. Or does it?
“Do you know what one of the most popular questions asked on Google is?” C replies.
“No.”
“What do I have to do to come down?”
A good attempt at changing the subject. Still, I need details about a few things. “How much did P purchase the goods for?”
“Twelve bills for everything. He’ll take it to E, sell it there for three times the price.”
Sounds good, but he’s not very convincing when he says it, his intonation is off. It’s too precise.
“Did they definitely go off to rehearse? And where’s their space?”
“Yeah, not far from here. Let’s go for a walk, you definitely need it.”
We head out onto the street. The sky is turquoise. People are rushing to work. It’s beginning
to rain.
Rogue runs ahead, K and C follow a short distance behind.
I hang back, call my sister.
“Hello?” Her voice is drowsy.
“Get up, it’s time for you to go to work.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Her voice is strange somehow. It’s hoarse. Could this be a consequence of the night?
It’s starting to get chilly. The only thing that calms me down is this rain. It’s fine, practically dust, a fog. Drops of it land on my face. They soothe an inflamed brain, a body feverish with paranoia.
We walk along the green stripe that divides Marshal Novikov Prospect. Overhead is a power line, stretching its veins through the body of the sleeping neighborhood. Underfoot is wet grass. My Adidas Originals are quickly getting wet, they’re suede. But you don’t pay any attention to this. Look at how green the grass is. Wet, luscious, bright. It’s such a color that you just can’t avert your eyes. And it matches the color of your jacket so well.
In one of the yards we find outdoor exercise equipment. It’s painted wild yellow, blue, red. K and C throw themselves at it and attempt to try each one out.
This would be a little weird if seen in passing—three grown men with a dog at seven in the morning in a playground dressed in tracksuits.
“You’ve got to try this,” says C. “Stand over here.”
We try the treadmill. I slide off it fast. “Somehow I really think I’m stuck in a web of betrayal. C, tell me that everything is all right.”
C gets off the treadmill. “No, everything’s bad.”
I walk off to the side, call my sister.
“Hello?” That hoarse voice again.
“Get up. You have to go to work.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m up already.”
That frog in her throat. If I wasn’t sure it was her …
We walk around the neighborhood. I feel a little better out on the street. K walks ahead with Rogue.
“You look like a baseball player from the ’60s in that Adidas jacket.”
“C, I have such intense paranoia. I can’t shake it off.”
“A sleepy neighborhood. No matter where you look everything is gray. It’s totally depressing. Everyone here’s paranoid.”
“Listen, you said that P and company have a rehearsal space in this neighborhood. Where is it?”
“Over there.” He gestures in an offhand manner to a building with a round tower just beyond the high-rises.
Rain and grass—that’s what soothes. And also this bright green jacket. The acid jacket of a baseballer.
We return to the apartment. I sit in the easy chair. Rogue settles down on the sofa next to my arm and begins to lick it.
As a force of habit—K packs a joint. We smoke ourselves out. Next K makes coffee, spikes it, hands it out.
I need to call M, but it’s too early, she’s still asleep. Maybe if I hear a loving voice, it’ll save me. Or ease the suffering.
The next hours pass unnoticeably, they flow one into the other. We drink coffee, smoke spliff after spliff, play a game of finding the wildest video on YouTube. We end up with an Italian commercial for window blinds and East German agitprop. After that we get bored.
Some of the videos are frightening in their wildness. I cower in the easy chair. I want to be on the street, it was better there. The enclosed space is intensifying my paranoia. I want to leave, but it’s still too early. I might get rounded up. Shaken down.
“Pushkin and I don’t see eye to eye,” says K. “I lost a girl who I was in love with, to him.”
Pushkin continues acquiring color.
“Of course, not to the poet himself. His distant relative.” K approaches the window. “That sign over there,” he points out beyond the window. “It makes me crawl out of my skin every time.”
I approach, look. It’s the big signboard in lights that reads, Secondhand.
“We have to go there right away,” he says.
We get ready, go out.
For ten in the morning there are plenty of people in the store. Items are hung in a strict order, which distinguishes this shop from similar places, where the merchandise is typically piled up in heaps.
C and K browse through the hangers. The average price of merchandise—two hundred rubles. For a bill you can get an entire ensemble. C tries on some checkered pants and grabs a cloth bag with a logo for the 1980 Olympics. K gets lost in the rows of clothing. Above the aisles two heads can be seen moving about, each with a white earpiece. The heads look around and monitor the surroundings. They move to intersect with us.
I rush C, but he’s soundly carried away with shopping. I’m starting to feel ill at ease. I have to leave right away. But what if they’re out on the street waiting? What if they take us away right on the street? Two-two-eight. From four you get eight.
Of course, that’s the arrangement! K got busted on a sale, he cut a deal: K and C pump out drug addicts, they lure them onto the street, they pass them along. Statistically, the neighborhood does not suffer from this.
The two heads tighten the circle, I rush to the exit. The cashiers watch me go. Even they are involved in this? You’ve thought this through on a grand scale, fellas. I hold my breath and exit.
Rain. Nothing’s happening. No one is ambushing me, throwing my hands behind my back, pressing me into the concrete with a massive knee, removing baggies of gray-yellow powder from my pockets, yelling in my face. There’s nothing but the rain. I walk around in it, and then I return again.
The two with the earpieces cruise through the aisles of clothing as before, scanning from side to side. It’s in these moments that you start to understand Philip K. Dick.
I find C in the fitting room, we go to the checkout. C’s total is rung up as half the value of what he’s purchased. What’s that about—plain negligence or payment for services? We’ll find out as we exit. I hold my breath anew.
Nothing.
We walk beneath the cables of the power line. I look up, the black cords blend with the gray sky. The rain intensifies, but I don’t get a pleasant feeling from it. Since the grass has lost its succulent brightness, I want the rain all the more. Perhaps it’s capable of cooling an overheated brain.
We separate. K goes off to buy some things. C and I walk around the neighborhood. People look sideways at us.
“It didn’t turn out so well this time,” I say. “I’m not on the same wavelength as K. Although he’s pretty generous. What’s that about?”
“Yeah, I don’t know. Next time he needs to drop acid too.” C doesn’t look me in the eyes. What could he be hiding?
“I’m going to ask you one last time. But please answer me in all seriousness. Is everything all right? I don’t have anything to worry about, right? And P went off to rehearsal, and not to some other place?”
C looks sideways. “Yeah, everything’s all right. P went to rehearsal after he left us.”
“Then why didn’t they take us with them?”
“I guess they didn’t want anyone interrupting them. They wanted the speed for themselves.”
C’s answers calm me, but not for long.
“You and I have had trips that have turned out awesome. Remember, on New Year’s Eve?”
“Yeah. We must have a soul connection, we’re a good match when it comes to these things. We’re on the same wavelength.”
We walk in the rain, we’re soaked through. We stumble upon K. Go home. I beat my hands in the pockets of my jeans.
At home, K returns to Pushkin, C heads to the kitchen to write a poem.
I go to the bathroom, wash my face. The water carpets my face with velvet. I look in the mirror. Something’s changed in my face: either the cheekbones have grown sharper, or there’s a diamondlike glint in my eye. Something subtle, it scares me.
I call M. She picks up, answers cheerfully. I ask if I can come over tonight.
“Of course, come over. I’ll be waiting.”
Calm. There it is.
I try to write in
my notebook, my hands shake, some food for thought about love and self-sacrifice comes out. Then I unexpectedly make a note: Looking in the mirror, you never know what kind of creature you’ll see.
K rolls a joint, spikes coffee. I’m sick of having to run to the bathroom but take the mug anyway. K asks that I check the Internet to make sure he recites the poem “The Bronze Horseman” correctly. He reads the opening.
I search for poems more to my own taste. I read Mayakovsky (At the very least allow this final tenderness to pave your departing step), Brodsky (Neither country, nor graveyard …), I finish with Okudzhava: He knew how to sully the page by the glow of a candle/So what did he have to die for at Chernaya Rechka?
It’s two in the afternoon. Still too early to descend into the metro. But it’s imperative to rejoin the living. It’s become stuffy and cumbersome here. We say our goodbyes.
C and I go to his place, he doesn’t live far from here. We walk down veinlike streets. The drug doesn’t want to leave my body, it’s giving me the shakes. My hands are in the pockets of my wet jeans.
Before we settle in at C’s we move along the wasteland surrounding Lake Dolgoe. This wasteland borders the new multistory homes, although just two years ago the city ended here. Clay swims about at our feet from the rain. A lone car, the driver of which looks back in bewilderment. Ducks. The ripples on the water turn into the ripples of the sky.
At C’s we drink it off with green tea, have conversations on near-literary topics.
P comes over with a girl, looks in on us. She’s a poet in one of the groups from the Urals who are ushering in a wave of new music. I’m still very much on speed, my pupils take up the entire rainbow of the iris. I study P closely—the last thing he looks like is a human capable of doing anything horrible.
“Want an amphetamine?” P asks in the hallway.
“No. I’m loaded up to my ears.”
We speak of music, of Shulgin’s acid, of enlightened states of being. The girl spiritedly speaks of her own experience with substances.
I go to the bathroom, check my pupils. At least I don’t look like a person who’s had a blood hemorrhage in his eyes. I can go.
On the street along the way to the metro I’ve gathered myself together, I’m oriented and prepared for anything. In this green jacket with my brain dried out after the acid I feel like an ancient Viking, one who’s just gobbled down mushrooms and is making his way through uncharted land.
St. Petersburg Noir Page 24