"Why in hell buy a bottle of vodka for a gang like that!" Alyoshka said dejectedly.
He had been paying all evening, though he didn't give a shit whether he paid or got his drinks paid for by someone else. To his credit, he had a weakly developed notion of private property.
"Let's go have another drink," he said.
"Let's," I said. "But you'll drink up your last kopeck if we go to a bar." The liquor stores were all closed by now on account of the lateness of the hour.
"I don't give a shit," Alyoshka said. "Who ever has money?"
"Listen," I told him, "let's go buy some beer, let's buy a six-pack. We've already had rum and vodka, we're high on grass. The beer will hit us just right, I think, it has to. And at most it will cost two-fifty."
He consented. We went looking for beer. Found the beer. He was tired of walking, though he didn't let on. Proud Alyoshka. Say what you like, a stiff leg is not conducive to the practice of long and rapid walks. I suggested that we sit down somewhere on the street and have a drink.
We located a very dark yard in the wasteland behind a parking lot – business there was slow – and sat down on some railway ties or logs to drink the beer.
It really was pretty good. Not far off was Broadway, and somewhere nearby was Alyoshka's house; I was going to try and get my bearings, but then I ceased to care. We talked about the parking lot and its cars, I think. I don't remember now, and perhaps did not remember even then. The half-inebriated conversation of two poets, what could be more incoherent. I remember only that my mood was tranquil. The shuffle of feet from Broadway, the relative freshness of the night, the cold beer – a blessing of American civilization – all this created an atmosphere of belonging. Even we belonged to this world.
We sat there shooting the bull. I sprawled out and felt quite at home, such being my nature. Alyoshka was happy, or at any rate seemed so.
And now a man appeared, coming toward us from the parking lot. He walked up. A black, in scuzzy clothes, something baggy. Pale green trash-can trousers in a beam of light. He asked for a cigarette.
"We don't have any," Alyoshka said, "we ran out. If you want I'll give you the money, go buy some." And he gave him a dollar. Alyoshka loves to fart around showing off. He didn't begrudge the money, he'd give away his last dollar just to show off.
The black man took the dollar. "I'll be right back with the cigarettes," he said, and went off into the black gap of Broadway.
"Shithead," I said to Alyoshka, "why'd you give him the dollar? That's not even interesting, you should've given it to me instead."
"What the hell," Alyoshka laughed. "A psychological test."
"I've got nothing to eat tomorrow, my welfare check doesn't come for four days, but you're doing tests, you bastard! You're a shitty scholar, Sigmund Freud."
"If you come see me you'll eat," Alyoshka said.
We were still quarreling ten minutes later when the black reappeared.
"I'll be damned," I said, "an honest man in the neighborhood of Forty-sixth Street and Broadway. Something bad will happen soon. An omen."
"I told you so," Alyoshka laughed.
The black sat down, lighted a cigarette. Alyoshka thrust a can of beer at him. He and Alyoshka talked about serious subjects.
But by now I wasn't understanding a fucking thing. The beer had done its work. I glanced sideways at the black. A thick beard, a bum's rags. I don't know why, but what came back to me was the feeling of Chris. And it wasn't even the sexual feeling. What I wanted was to be in a relationship, to go somewhere, even do something shady, anything at all, but to latch on to this guy and crawl into the world behind him. "You left Chris, shithead, now correct your mistake!" I told myself.
Fucking was no problem for me at that time. Though it was dull and lousy, I was fucking Sonya. In anticipation of this dull act my pale prick just barely got up. Sonya was the Jewish girl, the Russian one, I knew her type: I needed to be tortured, but she didn't know how to do that, poor girl. I wanted a new world, I was sick of living an indeterminate life, being neither Russian nor anything else…
"What's your name?" I said, moving over to sit by the black.
"He introduced himself to you when he came up, you don't hear a fucking thing," Alyoshka said. "He said his name was Johnny."
Johnny smiled broadly. "You're a nice boy, Johnny," I said, and stroked his cheek. These were my whorish tricks. Alyoshka was not surprised. I had told him about Chris. He was merely curious, Alyoshka, he was not surprised.
We sat, talked. Alyoshka translated what I had forgotten in my drunken state or didn't know.
"He may be a bum or he may not, how the fuck should I know," Alyoshka said. "A shady character. Well, it's none of our business, we don't have to be buddies with him, let's shoot the bull in English, it's all practice. You should talk more yourself, Limonov, by the way. Why the hell use me as an interpreter? How long can you keep on asking your nanny?"
"It's fine for you," I told Alyoshka, "you studied ten years in the institutes, you didn't get wise but at least you learned the language. I just had high-school French."
"You don't even know French," Alyoshka said.
"I've forgotten it, you motherfucker, but in my time I did read French books, whole pages almost without a dictionary."
"Don't lie, don't lie, Limonov," Alyoshka said.
"I'm very sorry, Johnny," I said in English.
"It's okay, it's okay," Johnny nodded, smiling.
An infinite number of smiles. Alyoshka smiled, and Johnny, everyone was smiling in the dark and I could see it. Then something happened. It seems I laid my head on Johnny's shoulder. Why? God knows.
His clothes even smelled of something rotten. Theoretically I shouldn't have liked him. But there he was, sitting beside me, not planning to go away; that meant I had to do something with him. I had surprised him by touching him, or to put it plainly, feeling him up. But he had been educated, I don't know where or by whom. Maybe he thought this was done among Russians, they might all be like this. Had he seen many Russians in his life as a Broadway bum? Or whatever the fuck he was, maybe the lowliest little beast on Broadway, a flunky who ran to get ginger ale or hot dogs for the prostitutes – oh, I don't know if they eat hot dogs or if anyone runs to buy their hot dogs for them, I'm just guessing.
"Alyoshka, I want to fuck him," I said.
"You dirty homosexual, Limonov, I didn't think you were serious about all that, but you're turning out to be a real dirty pederast," Alyoshka said derisively.
This wasn't insulting, it was humor. I laughed and said, "Uh-huh, I'm a dirty pederast, and I joined the Chinese Communist Party. I did away with myself, hanged myself. I have two black prostitutes supporting me; they're standing here in the vicinity, on Broadway. Nice girls. And also, I'm a KGB agent with the rank of colonel."
These were all pernicious rumors about me that I was enumerating to Alyoshka. Some of the rumors came from Moscow, my friends had written to me; some were being spread here. In Russian books you often find it said of some poet or writer that he has been "run to earth" – a hunting term, you know, it's used to signify a long chase and the slaying of some wild animal. That trick won't work with me. I think very little of the Russian emigration, I consider them the lowest of the low, pathetic, absurd, worse than this Johnny. Therefore I find the rumors funny; what's more, I take a childish delight in them, following the dictum of contemporary Russia's crudest poet, Igor Kholin, a scoundrel and a villain, but magnificent. "Let them talk as they will, so long as they talk."
"I'm a dirty pederast, Alyoshka," I said. "Listen, take us to your place, you mentioned something about both your performing artists going to Philadelphia tonight."
"Not quite," Alyoshka said. "What are you planning to do, fuck him at my house?"
"House! You call that dirty, stinking, steamy hole a house? Yes, I want to fuck this guy on your fiddler's bed, and then switch over to the clown's bed."