And then it began. Something happened to me. Like I lapsed. All day long I was racin around in the whirl and the hum, draggin Černá behind me. She was patient with me, after all I’m pretty witty. And then, that morning, as we were sitting there drinking our coffee … Pepek half-jokingly offered her a job, Vlasta nodded her head … into the tent walked two cops, I broke out in sweat, they settled in next to Vandas and poured themselves a cup of coffee, gabbing away, Slovaks … Pepek tugged at my sleeve, winking and sticking out his tongue, want an intro, those two’re the filthiest officers under the sun, you bet your ass … eagerly he regaled me with incredible anecdotes from Vandas’s dizzying career … making no attempt to hide his admiration … an you bet you got me to thank that you’re sittin here with him now … yep, an your sister too, heh, skinny, but nice tits on her … shut up, I said, more astonished than anything else … c’mon, that’s just guy-talk, Pepek said with a smirk … bullshit … now that’s more like it … like I was sayin, those officers’re real dogs an they bark when Vandas tells em to, get it? I got it all right, so did Sister.
Vandas, Vandas. He made and sold the goulash himself. Guess he enjoyed it. Slicing meat. He had a few flunkies around, why he put up with Pepek I don’t get. Vandas was there to handle taxes and also served as arbiter. Determined who set up shop and where. Who got the nod and who got the boot, who started and who was finished.
Me and my little sister understood his arrangement with the local cops all too well. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t in a hurry and let me screw around the market. Seriously, it was like a lapse. By afternoon I was drunk again. In my euphoria I traded my pants and belt for a pair of fatigues. Even got some cash, the transaction took more than half an hour, and I think both me and the small Asian man got more satisfaction from the exchange of words than from the deal itself. While I changed, behind some shack, I got so wrapped up in looking forward to scarin Černá that my pistol nearly fell out. Couldn’t be easier to buy a holster, I mumbled, a dozen shapes an sizes … but I bought another bottle instead. The pants were big on me.
I made friends at the stands, swaggered … in the dust. Listened. One thing I found out was that in Albanian “death” is vdakya and “prison” is burg. The first one sounds almost too Slavic to be true, and on hearing the second my brain floods with delicacies from McDonald’s, does it mean anything? My verdict was yes. Most of the storytelling took place at the cologne stand. If those flasks weren’t stolen, then I’m Pako Rabon. But they didn’t swipe em in Cologne. One pharmacy there sprayed their flowers with the stuff. Why all the biggest storytellers and fibbers congregated by the perfumes, I don’t know. Maybe it was the Albanian girl. I pointed her out to Černá. That’s kina how you useta look ten years ago! Y’know she keeps starin at me? Sittin there starin … An that Gypsy lady tells fortunes. Know what she told me, Sister?! Where’d you dig up those pants, holy shit! So what … I rolled up the cuffs, they’re big. You know why they always lie? So one day they can tell the truth. You just keep on lyin an lyin an then nobody knows when you finally come clean. But you get it outta your system. That’s the thing about storytellers, little sister! Pity old Homer’s dead, but nah, he’d probly be splicin movies, these days …
I know I was still with Černá when they rounded up the horses. For Vandas. Whole herd disappeared. Most of the riders were Gypsies. Then the days started flashing by. One night I got in a fight with some guy by the fire. Rolled around on the ground was all. The fun wore off fast. I got scared he’d lifted it. Luckily I went back to the spot later on and found the gun.
Somethin’s wrong with you, said Černá as we snuggled inside the bus. Pepek and Vlasta were snoring away on the mat.
I donno what it is, Černá, I wanna but I can’t. Sposedly it’s normal. He doesn’t wanna!
You’re too drunk. Not like you usually are. Not like with me. You’re not happy.
Today, Černá, I saw, they got this bigget an they do fights … out by that cabin they got this mud hut built into the ground, an they stick him in there an let rats loose. I won three hundred. It was sick the way he snarfed those things. It was insane. I thought he’d just bite em, I didn’t realize. Maybe they’re actually mice.
My sweet … snap out of it, we gotta get outta here, c’mon, right now. You’re … sorry, you don’t exactly smell like flowers.
Yeah, it’s the dust. Černá, we’re never gonna see this again, it’s all gonna disappear.
But c’mon, it’s revolting.
But you’re gorgeous. A woman’s not a woman next to you.
They’re wasted, if I lived like them, you’d see! C’mon, let’s go.
Wait’ll morning, I really feel weird.
But in the morning … in the morning Černá sold her jacket … then I saw her with Vlasta scraping a stack of potatoes for goulash. And Vlasta! A couple times I’d seen the line at the bus, guys making small talk, smoking while they waited … it was the market’s top draw, that Massage Parlor. One time I was standing there and it struck me that if Černá … he said in a week we’d have enough for a trip around the world, but that sick shit … and besides, without a shower, just a washtub … better me go in there than her … it was too much.
Černá! Is he still buggin you? She rolled over next to me.
Who?
Pepek. For you to do like Vlasta.
Don’t be stupid. Sober up, or don’t even bother, let’s go.
What’s Vlasta like?
Pretty okay. Run-down though. One minute she’s buggin me to do it, sayin it’s no big deal, the next she’s tellin me to beat it while I can. Says rubber makes her teeth numb. An know what else she told me? That some a those guys’ve never seen a lady naked before! Ones from the sticks, the mountainmen, just in the dark, she says. Yeah, they go nuts over her. An then some of em, get this … some a the old-timers that just saw porn for the first time? They think that’s the only right way to do it … has to be if they printed it!
How’d she hook up with Pepek?
Donno, I’d say they’re related. She’s nice though, just stupid.
Are they married?
Donno.
Gut my hair.