Sun. These are the last days of October. The millionaire's garden.
The big tree at the center of the garden has hardly shed any leaves. The birds and wasps keep circling around me, relishing the wild grapes. Now and then the tugboats cross the East River. It's a weekend. The river shimmers serenely, and the leaves hardly quiver – the air is serene; serene too is the flowing of the rock music out of speakers covered with household cloth; the music alternates with fulsome commercials and news.
It's as though everything's all right. It's even surprising and great. Nobody's bothering me and I don't even need any alcohol, of which there's plenty – the best stuff – in the cellar of the millionaire's house. But I don't want to dim this autumnal radiance.
The world, life – everything – has stopped. The sun on my face, reconciliation in my heart.
It's all a lie, though. Tomorrow or the day after, the world will explode again… The clean hair will get dirty again, the wind will soil it, the rain will soak it, a woman will betray, and I will kiss the red leaf which fell on this page. Hello, nature!
People, kill me beautifully, please!
I've fucked a girl. 21. A good American Jewish girl with fair skin and luxuriant hair. The breasts are big and soft. The orifice overflows with mucous.
It happened in Soho, at a loft under construction – metal, cement, wood, plaster, bricks and plywood were scattered everywhere. A ruffled floor and a shattered ceiling. Her room – more or less clear of all the debris – yellow with all five (!) doors opening onto the construction chaos, and a huge window shining terribly with the lights of the World Trade Center – two sinister boxes bled their light into the window.
Even in the darkness, just by touch, I knew that I was dealing with a Jewish body. There was something special that can't be defined by words. We fucked, having smoked pot. The time passed. And her socks had been knitted and were of different colors – in the rush, we didn't even take them off (neither did we my clothes). We fucked sweet, so sweet.
Her Jewish grandfather and grandmother came over here some time in the past from Russia. The great migration took place so that the granddaughter would meet a Russian guy here and so that they would fuck.
In the morning, I'm in a supermarket, standing in an «8 Items or Less» line where there are usually old men and women. They get up before others – they can't sleep – their wasted lives keep them awake, tormenting them. Some buy three potatoes, others drop their plastic and paper bags, then try with their gnarled hands to pick them up, while I notice that a hunched monster has the hands of a young damsel – the same fresh, bright fingernails, fingers and palms almost untouched by time.
This discovery, for some reason, fills me with disgust and makes me sick.
And though on the way out of the supermarket I hold the door and help to bring out the old lady's shopping cart, I'm not looking at her. I feel like annihilating her without having to touch her: I would douse her with some solution, zip her with a machine-gun and let the ambulance immediately rush her off the street. Her presence defiles the air; the old woman is monstrously indecent and pathological. Lord, how can you bear this?
Eddie is boisterous; Eddie is quiet. Like a boy, sad, he sits at one corner of his bed. He's tired. Two hours later he frolics like a child. He's naughty. He drinks wine and recites poetry. He shows off his wit over the telephone.
But suddenly the weather changes, it rains, and it's boring and gray… And now Eddie starts sobbing. Falling face dawn on his bed, he even remembers his mom and dad. He laments too about his wife: «Lenka, my beloved!» he whispers. «My silly one, weak, tender, my traitress, my girl. The last time we met I wanted to kiss your hands and feet! Lenka, my weakling, the world is so empty and small!»
Then Eddie calms down and takes a book, he reads Che Guevara's letters. He reached Che's last letter to his parents, the line about «the small soldier of the 20th century's fortune» – suddenly he felt a burst of tears simultaneously with the pricking at the roots of the hair all over his body.
«My proud, magnificent, and modest – Spanish – Che…»
This other time a guest at the millionaire's house – rich, either a Hindu or an Iranian – pops in with a stunningly beautiful, tall and pretentious girl. The housekeeper's girlfriend made a pretentious drink as ordered by the Iranian, while in the millionaire's leather study, the beauty enunciated some words over the phone in agitated tones.
As they were leaving, our eyes met, and we found something in one another, discovered it suddenly because we lowered our gazes and smiled. She's funny and so am I. I knew this kind of smile, just as I knew what it led to. But I also knew that this could never be. I'm a servant's friend, and so there's a class wall between us. She left with this visiting businessman. Forever.
The gleam of her violet eyes, the surge of her skirt, the curve of her youthful, slender figure – naturally, nobody introduced us – whoever introduces servant's friends? «This is Edward, he's from Russia, just a month ago he was on welfare as an impoverished and incapable member of society, and now he's waiting for opening as a cook.» This fucking life!
She stepped into the night, the young beauty sped away in a car. And you get nothing, Edward, nothing! Edward, the fucking treasure. Only nobody wants this Edward-treasure.
And I bet they set off to the Hotel Regina, yes, to Regina…
I slept poorly because at 1 a.m. a bitch next door started to howl and cry. The dog stopped-whipped by her drunken owner – only at 3:00 a.m.
The wretched dwellers of skid row for some reason bring in animals who are just as wretched. There's an unbearable stench and puddles of dog piss in the elevator. Perhaps this is because our residents want to resemble the rich, or maybe they're not as lonely with dogs…
Generally, the interior of the Embassy Hotel resembles the ruins of war. Two rooms and part of a hallway burned down back in April. So they stay boarded up, and nobody bothers to fix either the sooty hall or the ill-fated rooms. A whole fifth floor burned down a week ago.
In the elevator and in the hall you're offered all kinds of drugs, and if you're riding with a pimp, he'll offer you women: «Corne on over, buddy, whenever you have an extra $20 to spend.»
The dog's piss – diluted by rain at the hotel's entrance – has a sad smell. In the lobby, a young, well-dressed crazy black woman reasons monstrously aloud about the difference between the words «God» and «dog.»
The rain beats the shit out of this November day. Now I have a new social face – no more a welfare recipient but a cafe cook. I got up late and am sitting at the same residence – the hotel – looking through the window at the rain and waiting until I have to leave for work.
Pelmeni, borsht, Russian turnovers, pies and other delicacies are awaiting me at work. Boredom and nonsense are awaiting me at work: young A., a totally vacuous man who unfortunately speaks Russian. Waiting there are two middle-aged Latino dishwashers, who unfortunately speak no Russian, not even English, who nonetheless are a lot more likable than the inane and dim-sighted A., and another colleague of mine, G., an overeducated snob and a homosexual in high boots.
Arab guys and two black fellows from the West Indies await me. The refrigerator, the passageways, the corners and cupboards, the short vicious quarrels on political topics await me. The dullness of life awaits me, while I love a different outlook on life.
A very different outlook on life.