Guess he means the News, I thought, maybe it’s the same thing. Where do you live?
I sleep here, or … around.
Do you live at the Dump?
There too, and the station.
You can’t keep that up long.
Sometimes I pray that it won’t last long. Which is of course a sin as well. You have a refuge, that’s a good thing, value it. Those tribes of yours, that’s been here before, and surely all shall begin anew. Therein lies hope.
There was something doglike about him. But I trusted him anyway … that he really meant it all.
I’m the only priest who takes confessions … from drunkards. He said it as if he were bragging.
An junkies?
Them too … sometimes.
That’s not allowed, is it?
No, but … he put that dog look on again … that rule I modified, otherwise these people would never … and perhaps, once I break one rule, the entire structure collapses? he added, eyes shining.
He’s drunk, I realized. I’m off, I said. I got up and went to the bar. Making sure I kept people around me all the way. The bartender eagerly rushed over when he saw me, I told him to bring the Padre a bottle.
Hadraba said you free, not the rest.
He’s not the rest, I’ll take a drink.
Then I thought of something and went back over to Booze.
Father, there’s these two churches I go by from time to time, an today they were closed an there was no one around I could ask. It’s some new thing.
So you don’t know, you poor devil.
What?
The Pope declared an interdiction. The bells haven’t rung for a week now.
Yeah, I don’t read the papers. But why would the Papa …?
It wasn’t in the papers. I do not dare to presume why … the Zones, the sects, us, what do I know. Of course in my position, he chuckled, in my position I am not reluctant to say it is cruel.
Yeah, it’s harsh.
Even the last sheep now have nowhere to go.
So let em change inta wolves, heh heh, the bartender unexpectedly inserted with a grin. One fine bottle a brandy for my dear pansies. Enjoy your meal, fellas, Spidey said.
Padre Booze quickly poured himself a glass, as if worried someone was going to take the bottle away.
Interdiction. Now everyone is like me. Almost, he said.
Guy’s a crazy old coot an soon he’ll be six feet under, the bartender whispered to me.
Shut your mouth! I said pretty loud. Shut it!
What the hell? Hey …
That wasn’t to you.
Seating myself at a free table, I told myself I might turn around if I heard the Shadows again. That might was a thin plank I left myself to leap across. As I slowly tightened my calves, right heel dug in, left swinging into the air, Spidey tapped me on the shoulder.
Boss is waitin. He gestured upstairs with his thumb.
I laughed.
You mean Bog?
Donno bout that, I mean the Boss.
It took him a while.
You won’t be disappointed though.
I’ll see about that. Thanks.
I went down a hallway and up a winding set of stairs. Even before I got to the top I saw the lights were on in the office and heard voices. Two, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. I shook out my neck and shoulders to kill off the last little bit of fear, and skipped up the last few steps to ease my breathing. Opened the door. Hadraba and Jícha sat at a table. So soon? I flashed a grin at Jícha the spook. Hadraba had his feet up on some sack, looked like it was coated with tar. He motioned to a vacant chair. I sat opposite them.
All actors’re fags, Hadraba began.
But I’m a woman. I was curious how he’d take it.
Where’s your tits then?
Tits aren’t everything. Besides, all musicians’re washed-up dope fiends fulla junk, I unfurled the banner.
Not me, I’m fulla God’s light.
More like rat light.
Maybe that rat’s Jesus.
Your gramma’s Jesus.
Yeah yeah, said Jícha.
We smiled amiably at each other, I knew now it hadn’t been Hadraba’s plan.
Next time watch who you go siccin the kids on, huh?
There won’t be a next time, said Hadraba. Promise, cross my heart an everything. You guys want compensation for fear incurred?
We don’t fear people, I said. We want 5 m.
I don’t have it an’re you guys out to ruin me?
The well’s not his fault, I realized.
I got somethin else to offer you, said Hadraba. He leaned down and peeled a piece of tar off the sack. I saw the Martian’s face. What was left of it.
Is he alive? I asked.
For now, yeah, that’s up to you guys, said Hadraba. Wanna give him to the Laotians? It was him killed those two. Knifed em when they answered the door. An smashed your altar too, scumbag, said Hadraba, and spat on the face. The Martian’s eyelids fluttered once and opened wide. He was looking right at me.
Greetings from the old brook, I told him. He stared at me and my stomach was in knots. Not that I felt sorry for him. No, he still frightened me. That’s your sick messenger, the Martian, I said.
I don’t care where he’s from, he stopped livin when he handled it his way. He was my messenger, but I’ve done my penance, said Hadraba. We could just leave im be, it’s not like he could hurt anyone now. Or we could, Hadraba made the sign for the end.
I didn’t have to think long. Okay, I said, giving the right sign.
So we’re cool now, yeah?
Yeah. I gotta tell you though, for a second we thought you forgot what you were doin an didn’t have a contract.
I’m not the suicidal type, said Hadraba, covering up the Martian’s face.
It’s not your death, it’s what comes after, Jícha wisecracked.
Free press runnin all right? I asked him.
On paper.
Jícha was another one from the Sewer. Complicated personality, young poet. I’d heard some talk about him recently. Now here we were, opposite each other again. I traveled down the darkening path of my memory to the pre-days, every face, gesture, and scrap from then I keep saved away in my foggy filing system.
For close to a decade now, Jícha had featured as the country’s top young poet, but since he’d drowned his debut works in samizdat, hardly anyone knew what he wrote. His fame came from his underground past. His one collection, I Love You Under the Horologe of Insanity,* had been bought up by silly high-school girls and their depraved female teachers. Having exhausted the romanticism of the erstwhile underground, Jícha dropped poetry in favor of something really bloody. I vaguely recalled some articles by him about attacks on gastarbeiter dormitories. They were the stepping stones to his career as a postrevolutionary journalist. He infiltrated the Vietnamese, of which in those memorable bygone years 1, 2, and 3 … after the explosion of time in Bohemia, there were tens of thousands …
I settled in comfortably, reminiscing about the Sewer: people, and I can only speak for Prague, were so pissed off sometimes that the only way they could deal with it was by doing the sickest things imaginable. The need for human sacrifice always hangs in the air. And who worries about fulfilling the deep-rooted human need to hate? It’s one of the basic human rights. The sacrifices in my time weren’t performed on some block of concrete, oh no, they were done down in cellars, down where the sickness fermented, where there was so much criminal energy. So much unused energy. Frustration and powerlessness. Pinning the hatred on a couple men dangling at the end of a rope, as in years past, didn’t work anymore. The picture of the enemy, whether the old USA or the new Charter 77 signatories, was faded and unusable right from the beginning, even for the ones that painted in the colors.