I was so disgusted and angry that day that I got drunk and even started fighting with somebody in the street, something I hadn't done for a long, long time. The next day I had a headache and had the Saturday New York Times stolen from my front door, since I didn't get up until around twelve. My well-regulated way of life had been upset. Instead of The New York Times, there was a bundle of letters lying on the floor, which the mailman, instead of waiting for me to answer the door, had shoved through the mail slot. Among the dozens of letters for Gatsby was one for me. An official letter, with the name PEN embossed on the envelope. I picked up the letter and unsealed it, my hands trembling from my hangover: "We have no doubt, Mr. Limonov, of the literary merits of your books, but unfortunately we cannot accept you as a member of the PEN Club given the fact that both your books have been published only in Russian…" followed by warm wishes and kind regards.
What? I thought. I went to them beforehand and called them several times and told them several times that my books had been published only in Russian. They had told me themselves that PEN is an international organization and that I should go ahead and send my books, but include annotations so they could understand what the books were about, and if I had articles about myself and my books in English, that I should send those too. I sent them a huge package. And I had been recommended to them by Joseph Khomsky, one of their own. And now they tell me I don't have any books in English. But they've given PEN membership to a whole crowd of half-wit Russian dissidents who call themselves writers. They can join, but I'm not allowed to.
You beat your head against the wall for four years trying to become a man of letters. You receive rejections on all sides — 'We can't! We don't need you! You don't suit us!" — even though you know that you are needed and that you do suit them, that you're more talented than many others, and so if you aren't a fish with cold blood in your veins, you get mad. "The goddamn faggots! The fucking bastards!" I started yelling and kicked several chairs. Round and made of iron, they flipped over and rolled across the kitchen floor. "Bastards!" I shouted with angry tears in my eyes. The one time in his life a person tries to become a member of an Organization. And even the feeblest of them won't take him. "Sanctimonious liberal assholes! Murderers!" I shouted. "What the fucking hell was I thinking of in applying to that society of worn-out old women and insipid liberals! What the hell do I need them for? Why, they're even worse than the goddamn Soviet Union of Writers, the old farts… Mothball minds!"
Weeping with rage, I poured myself some whiskey, Steven's favorite, twelve-year-old Glenlivet, and drank off the whole glass, which sent me hurtling into the wide-open spaces of my own mind. I took the bottle, got on the elevator, and went up to my room, where I quickly got dressed, not forgetting to drink, since that yellow liquid made everything easier. Much easier.
"Freaks!" I said out loud. It's you who are the freaks, not me. I'm a normal, healthy person who has the courage to see the world as it is, face to face. You hump-backed whores! You craven victims! Anybody with a passionate heart and an independent mind is doomed among you. You all conspire to put him down on every level, from bedroom to PEN Club. I'm not interested in playing your primitive little games, you bastards! I'm not going to change anything in my book for you, Angeletti, you jerk! And you senile old twats from the PEN Club will come to me someday, but I won't join your decrepit organization. Never!
After I got dressed, I suddenly couldn't understand where it was I intended to go. Thinking over my plans and continuing to drink, I sat down by the window and looked out.
Down below a garden party was in progress. Only because of my hangover, I couldn't understand whose it was. Very formally dressed men and women were trampling the young grass around our huge tree in the center. A few small groups were standing by the river. I watched them for a long time, trying to make sense out of it, and then I remembered that in a paper bag in my desk drawer I had a couple of pale violet tablets of mescaline left to me by Michael Jackson on his last visit — he had needed ten dollars. I was in such a screwed-up state that I got out the tablets and swallowed both of them, both the little crystalline triangles, knowing from experience that I would soon start vibrating like an overheated pressure cooker. But I was in such despair that I was willing to pay any price for a way out. Move into another dimension maybe, but escape. I had never taken two tabs of mescaline at once; I had been afraid to. I had been unable to calm down for a good twelve hours from just one, and had fucked like a beast without ever reaching orgasm. It seemed my prick would burst and my nerves would snap, that my whole body was crackling under the strain and would suddenly split open, coming apart like an old brick building. But I swallowed the two tablets anyway, having decided beforehand, it's true, that whatever I did, I shouldn't go out. That I must not go outside in that condition, or I'd perish for sure. Moreover, I was still drinking. And drinking on top of a hangover.
Downstairs in the garden pleasant conversations were taking place, and you could hear polite laughter and the murmuring of the crowd. I envied them: Unlike me, they weren't alone. I raised the window and tried to get a better look at them. But with shitty success; from the fourth floor, their faces were barely visible. I was most interested in the women, of course. I usually got the binoculars from Steven's room on such occasions, but they weren't there anymore; he'd taken them back to Connecticut a long time ago. He and Mr. Richardson were planning to go deer hunting. Mr. Richardson was a hunter; Gatsby wanted to be a hunter too.
But I found a solution. I stood up, opened the door to my closet, and took out my rifle. It had a telescopic sight. So as not to scare them in case they happened to notice me, I put a couple of green pillows from my bed on the windowsill, arranging the rifle on them, and then I lay down on the bed and started watching.
How could I not have guessed at once! I thought. There's no question it's a party given by the Secretary General of the UN. Who else would have such formally dressed guests and so many men in tuxedos? Before such affairs people with the characteristic faces of special agents always sweep our bushes with bomb-detectors. But they never check the houses, thank God.
The cross hairs of the sight moved from head to head as I sought the host. Aha. There's his old face. At that instant he was being asked to pose; a young girl-photographer was taking his picture. Even though he frowned irritably, he didn't turn away; the girl was pretty, and he let her take a picture. Though maybe she isn't a photographer, I thought. They would be unlikely to let reporters in; they have press conferences for that. The mescaline apparently hasn't started to affect me yet, I thought, except that maybe I'm being a little too persistent and taking too much time looking them over. Really, what the hell do I need them for anyway? At that instant the servile face of a flunky appeared in the rifle sight, a man carrying a tray of drinks. Champagne. They were champagne glasses. I hated to bring drinks to Steven in the garden, although there were times when I had to… The poor flunky. How much effort that face must have cost him.