Lao?
Mm-hm.
So … someone’ll hafta go out there, I said, jotting notes in my notebook … it’s too late, she told me, and she was right.
Meanwhile … we’d been torn apart … David, now Bohler … Sharky’s off fighting a war, and Micka’s around here somewhere, I felt a pang of nostalgia and said so … and Lao got up and brought me a byznys card, said she’d found it a while back but didn’t know how to read and forgot … I leapt up: Mr. Micka Co. Crystal s.r.o., of course it was a riddle, there hadda be some catch, but at least it gave an address: Golden Cross, Skyscraper 33 … Lao tossed me my clothes and I dressed on the fly, it was late, but knowin him he’d be grindin away … you wan’ snack, she asked with concern … all those memories and she was worried about this old schemer …
Many remarkable buildings had sprung up at Golden Cross, actually not that many, but their shiny glass walls gave the pedestrian, squeezed suddenly beneath a lower horizon, an impression of abundance that greatly amplified any feelings of inferiority … just to be safe, all over the place were submachine gunners and doormen decked out as rear admirals … and I ran aground. It was unbelievable, I mean I was practiced in hallways, walls, holes, trapdoors, me and Micka had learned together, jump, scramble, crawl, fly, smash, go! But here it was a no-go. Not a single garage or barred window or service entrance, and the skyscraper’s walls were smooth … then again it was only logical. This eminent figure had the same schooling as me, he knew how to build a barricade … I didn’t even get to the secretaries.
I made a sport out of it, going over every day in a different getup, mustaches, beards. Lao and Vojtěch kept their fingers crossed, sometimes I took them along … me and the rear admirals and submachine gunners were soon on a first-name basis, swapping remarks about our mothers, amatory abilities, appearance, attire, etc., it was quite entertaining.
I spent plenty of time with Kasim though … he was brooding and distraught, the Art Shacks were all he talked about … old Burda started roaming around again, wearing an odd smile … the literati didn’t come anymore, now they knew about Kasim, and they’d socked it to him in the press pretty good, he’d turned rather bitter, mumbling: Get outta here, dude, here everyone knows ya right away, place is a fishpond, I filled out the application, enclosed translations, bibliography, photo, c’mon, let’s go to a pub, but someplace we won’t run into any writing fucks … that’ll be pretty tough, I replied … he got furious.
I’d disappear straight from the stand to the studios and run around there and … I had a plan now, I’d found a few people I knew that still remembered me from the old times, when I used to recite other people’s monologues, till I got the bug and started in with this thing … remembered me as an actor … earnestly I sought a role, I wanted to leave a trail for Černá, not in a field or the sand anymore, and not on a lake either, uh-uh, not some bent blade of grass, or a notch, or stones, no … now I knew where I had to leave a trail so she’d know that I still was. In this world.
About sixty of us stood there, naked, in a damp cellar, nothin to eat or drink for hours, till the director had time … then he walked in with his entourage, we all fell silent, he pointed his switch … Beda, you know what I need an what for, move it, Jesus, look at those figures … move it, Beda, take him into synch, profiles an straights, let’s get this outta the way an we can all go get laid … Beda pointed to me, I was thrilled. All around me I could sense the daggered looks.
Yes, only I could play Fly Man, it was an ad for Bohemia Halucia Milk of Milks … disguised in fly garb and a fly mask, I flapped my wings around in a huge cup of bad old milk while next to it a gorgeous young lady sipped the one and only proper milk, the totally new Bohemia Halucia Milk of Milks … it gave off these vapors that killed flies in flight, and they plummeted to all sides of the glass at a safe distance from human lips … a prominent Czech composer wrote the music, it was a zinger … I flapped around in there, and in an unguarded moment I made a typical move, a rap of the knuckles, you know it well, my dear … raised a shoulder, you’ve leaned on it, little sister, surely that you’ll recognize too … I hit the jackpot. After that they wanted me everywhere. I also played a fuzzball in the Dust Sucker ad, but you couldn’t really see me.
And then I went back to Crystal and tried to get inside again.
But carpenters didn’t work on this place, there wasn’t a single opening … it was an enormous structure, reaching toward the clouds … maybe touching them … astronauts musta built this tower, Gaudí’d be floored … I thought up some new tricks. Wait’ll the rear admirals see me on TV, that’ll make em button their lips. Cut em down to size.
And then one day old Burda walked up to the stand: Say, boys, you eat that stuff you sell? We laughed wholeheartedly. Good, cause as of next week City Hall’s declarin that shit illegal … Finally! said Kasel … I’m glad, boys, that you’re takin it like that, see I’m gonna build … Křepek an me been savin up to buy us a little Mack Donald’s, already signed an everything … an I got some great outfits for ya, fit cha like a glove … laughing our heads off, me and Kasim began dousing each other with beer, we stank like hell anyway and at least the beer attracted wasps so you had to be alert, didn’t get too sluggish … Burda stared … this is no joke, they’ll give ya an allowance for clothes an shaves, plus a uniform, red on top, green below, copacetic slippers to boot, an you can work your way up … so ya really don’t want it, huh? spoiled brats … in the end Burda got drunk with us, we closed up shop, leaving the dead meat to its natural course … let’s torch the place, Kasim suggested, but Burda wouldn’t allow it … his good mood didn’t last long, old fogies, sometimes when they get a drink in em: Go ahead an leave, boys, see if I care, pissed me off anyways … but me an this park, we remember the Kaiser, an there’s always been squirrels here, an what’ll happen to them now … this is all gonna be an amusement park … ah, they’ll survive somehow, an if they don’t, no big deal, I wrote a poem about em, Kasim consoled him, we turned gloomy anyway though …
Then we told Burda goodbye, he’d seemed somewhat suspect to me anyway since that incident with the spider, we stole what cash there was and staggered off … we hit every place we could think of, and then, at Galactic … I was entertaining Kasim with stories from my shoots … and suddenly on TV … a perfect ad, kick-ass … Soapy Happysoap, hey, that’s me too … in the washing machine, donno if Sister’11 be able to tell … listen, said Kasim seriously, this is unadulterated commercialism, what’ll the city underground say … it doesn’t matter, Kasim … you gotta spread yourself around if you ever want her to find you … and the Grainy glows even in the circular corrals of the O jib ways, in icy igloos, even if Sister’s plodding through the desert it’ll catch up to her at the first oasis, she’ll know it’s me, even if she’s hiding her beautiful face beneath a black veil among Muslims, the Grainy’ll chase her down even in an old log cabin in Sázava, get it, even among the bronzed, happy youth on Mykonos, Ios, Sumatra, I’ll come on screen, and my sister, out there in the islands, will see that I’m waiting faithfully for her … an not washin much, to discourage the others … just then a girl with braids the color of fire pulled up a seat at our table … we’d been eyeing each other a while now, that was one of the reasons I’d been braggin about my film work … Titiana swept her hair back from her forehead and laid her hand on my shoulder in an unmistakable way … why’re you shoutin, what’s all the shoutin for, c’mon, the News is on, an you there watch, watch closely, she told me … Kasim was asleep … and Titiana added: So, my place, or yours, or nothin?