But that day, Gega decided to ask to borrow that Wrangler jacket for a day, or more precisely, for half a day—he would meet with Tina, apologize and return the denim jacket to Dato in the evening.
He called loudly from the street and Vazha, Dato’s younger brother, looked out of the window. Vazha’s nickname was ‘Simpleton,’ but he was a kind person, just like his brother. Gega raised his arm to greet him.
“How are you?”
“Alright.”
“Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“It burned down.”
“When?”
“This morning, it’s still burning.”
“Wow! Where’s your brother?”
“Dunno. He wasn’t home when I woke up.”
“I guess you were probably woken up by the fire engines…”
They both laughed loudly.
Gega waived goodbye to Simpleton and turned around to leave, but Vazha kept talking.
“Did you want anything?”
“No, nothing, I’ll come by later.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“Nothing special. I just wanted to borrow Dato’s Wrangler jacket for a day.”
“Hold on.”
Simpleton disappeared from the window and seconds later was standing in front of Gega on the street with the jacket in his hand.
“Take it. You’re really lucky. Dato wears it all the time but left it behind today.”
“No, I’ll get it from him later.”
“Take it, it’s really mine, Dad bought it for me but it was too big for me. Dato only has it for the time being. It’s going to be mine anyway. It’s a real Wrangler. It’s not going to wear out or anything…”
Gega smiled and stretched out his hand to Simpleton. “I will bring it back today.”
“Whenever you want. It’s still too large for me anyways. If you want, you can have it until I grow up.”
Gega laughed loudly.
“And what about Dato?”
“Dato’s going to be a monk, he won’t need jeans anymore.”
Vazha laughed loudly along with Gega, who suddenly remembered that Dato really had a friend at a monastery and often went to see him. Once or twice he had promised to take Gega but so far these were only promises. This was not the time to think about it. He thanked Vazha and gave him a Tbilisi-style hug.
Tbilisi had been the capital for fifteen hundred years, and like in any capital, for all the good things that happened there, there was also a darker side. As Gega left for his date and started to climb up the street that went to the Fine Arts Academy, three men with knives met him and demanded that he take off the jacket.
In those days, old-timers still used to stroll in that part of the city, and so it was a bit strange for a thief to say to Gega: “Hey, man, come over for a sec, I’ve got some business with you,” as he motioned Gega into the entrance of the residential building. Even stranger for Gega, just as he discovered two more ‘happy’ guys in the entrance, was that he was not scared at all. Quite the opposite, he found himself smiling, and calmly told them:
“Don’t waste your time guys, you can’t take it off me anyway!”
Gega was an actor, and in that entrance he spoke very calmly like a person with deep confidence in himself. Such composure surprised Gega. He’d never tried to be a hero and knew perfectly well that in Tbilisi, at that time, it was common for jeans to be taken off people. Like others, he had thought about how he would react in such a situation. Yet he had always thought that he would never let himself be killed if it ever happened, because he wasn’t a supporter of senseless heroism, especially when there wasn’t a need for it. In another place, in another time, he probably would have silently given over whatever was demanded with a smile, but on that day he acted differently. He reacted differently not only because the denim jacket wasn’t his, but because he was on his way to a first date with a girl with a beautiful voice who he hadn’t even met yet.
Two of the three thugs had knives, and before abandoning their robbery and running, they managed to stab Gega. In Tbilisi in those days, most knives were aimed at the legs or buttocks, even during fights, but Gega was stabbed in the stomach, as well as his legs. In fact, though he hadn’t realized it, they had also cut the jacket in their failed attempt to snatch it away.
When Gega came out into the street, he managed to take a few more steps, but having lost a lot of blood, he soon lost consciousness. He fainted right there, on the pavement.
When he opened his eyes, he was lying in a hospital ward. His mother was crying at the head of the bed, silently and carefully stroking Gega’s hand.
“Where is Tina?” Gega asked, looking at his mother. “Who is Tina?” his mother asked, drying her eyes in surprise.
“I don’t know, I haven’t met her yet,” said Gega, smiling at his mother.
Gega was right; he really hadn’t met Tina yet. She waited a long time in front of the Fine Arts Academy looking for a man in a wheelchair. But at that same moment Gega was being operated on at the hospital. He would wait days before he called her.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it, and didn’t call you. I’m still in the hospital.”
“How nice.”
“What’s nice?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it. I wanted to say something else. It’s nice you had a valid excuse for not showing up that day.”
“I’ll meet you as soon as they let me out of here.”
“You know, if you don’t mind, I’ll come see you at the hospital and bring you some fruit, or tell me what you like and what will make you happy.”
“No, please don’t come here, they’ll discharge me soon and I’ll see you then. Goodbye.”
“I hope you get well soon.”
Gega spent several more days in the hospital, and was visited by his friends and acquaintances that treated him like a hero. By then the whole city knew that the thieves had failed to take the jacket off Gega, he stubbornly joked:
“I was trying to give it to them, but they wouldn’t let me.”
With this repeated remark, he wanted to make clear that he wasn’t a hero. A year later, sitting on death row in Tbilisi’s Ortachala prison, Gega often remembered his hospital days when they wanted to make a hero out of him and he wanted to just be an ordinary person.
They didn’t keep him in the hospital for long, though he still found it difficult to walk. According to the doctors, his full recovery was only a matter of time. After the operation, Gega’s friends, the Iverieli brothers, who studied at the medical college, managed to get a wheelchair for him. In the evenings, when he was finally left alone, tired of all the praise, he would roll in his wheelchair to a black telephone hung on a pink wall at the end of the corridor and call Tina.
He met up with her the day after he was discharged. He went to the Academy in his wheelchair; this time he really couldn’t move around without it. However, Tina was irked by his initial fib about the wheelchair and didn’t talk to him for a week, though he called her every day. Gega attempted to come up with some kind of explanation, but Tina wouldn’t speak to him, though she didn’t hang up either. Staying silent, she just listened to Gega talk.
Gega struggled to explain a joke he could hardly explain to himself. Indeed, it was a twist of fate or karma that turned Gega’s poorly executed joke into reality when he was forced to go on his first date with Tina in a wheel-chair.
Eventually, Gega returned the wheelchair to the Iverieli brothers, who returned it to the hospital.
Dato flatly refused to take back the Wrangler jacket (the blood was carefully scrubbed out and the tear carefully mended by Gega’s mother) and promised to give Gega a new pair jeans.