“C, everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s good.”
I don’t believe him. Could it be, e tu, Brute? You’re embroiled in this mess. But of course! Why didn’t I think of this sooner? They forced him. He alone knows where I live. He knows everything about me. Trust no one. He needs money just like everybody else. He doesn’t have a job, his mother has probably stopped sending him money. He asked to borrow two or three thousand from me not long ago. E tu, Brute!
K is all well and good. Him I can understand at least, I’m no one to him. But you! I trusted you, you and I lived in Siberia together for a month.
And Rogue. She was looking at me as though she wanted to say: Oh, you! You’ve squandered your good fortune. You’ve been blown full of hot air. They say that dogs possess a certain intuition about these matters. So she wasn’t just casually licking my hand.
It’s all good—I try to focus and make sense of everything. Quit being so jumpy!
Facts, only facts are needed here.
What do I know about K: he made a cross for a local church in the small Siberian city of U and at the age of thirty-three carried it throughout the entire city.
But how does K earn a living? Could it really be from those piss-away-the-day handicrafts? It’s not possible to live off of things like that now. He’s a drug dealer. People like that are dangerous, and you trusted him without even knowing him. All the clues were right before your eyes, he was just toying with you. And the pistol, and the amphetamine sale… Amphetamines! That was payment to those drug addicts for their services. Remember what their eyes were like when K gave them the blue package? Craving, thirsty. They couldn’t wait to use. That kind will be up for anything. That whole charade about “music”… it was really clever how they managed to cloud my brain.
K—that’s brain surgery. He thought this all up. He’s the one who’s maintaining contact with them, that’s why he keeps going out, that’s why none of these questions are lining up.
He went out to the street and passed them something. But what? The barrel? The keys? How long was he gone? Long enough. You can’t trust how time passes while on LSD.
Or maybe this is all because of a robbery. They went to attend to their affairs. I dropped out while on acid. So much time passed, but I didn’t know how to occupy myself. I’ve only watched two films. They’ve mugged someone, and they want me to take the fall for it. It’s obvious that I’m on drugs, I can’t argue against that. My statement will be nullified after they test my urine. God, what a drug combo I have in me right now!
Stop! All of these quaint little jam dishes with cocktails, little bits of fruit on trays—all this was intended to keep me calm. Distract me. While they…
Oh God!
They’ve broken into my house, raped my sister, taken anything of value—they could even still be there. I can only guess what they’ve done with M. And I can’t do anything about it. Because if I go to the police, they’ll just arrest me. I’m a drug addict, after all. They’ve thought of everything.
“Let’s take a walk,” K suggests. “It’ll be good for you right about now.”
He’s read everything on my face and he’s going to hand me over to those drug addicts. I shouldn’t have stomped around the room like that. Idiot!
Seizing the moment I tell C: “It seems that I’ve stepped into a web of betrayal.” And I tell him about Manson, about the keys, about the copy. I’m telling him, while laughing myself.
It gets better. Or does it?
“Do you know what one of the most popular questions asked on Google is?” C replies.
“No.”
“What do I have to do to come down?”
A good attempt at changing the subject. Still, I need details about a few things. “How much did P purchase the goods for?”
“Twelve bills for everything. He’ll take it to E, sell it there for three times the price.”
Sounds good, but he’s not very convincing when he says it, his intonation is off. It’s too precise.
“Did they definitely go off to rehearse? And where’s their space?”
“Yeah, not far from here. Let’s go for a walk, you definitely need it.”
We head out onto the street. The sky is turquoise. People are rushing to work. It’s beginning to rain.
Rogue runs ahead, K and C follow a short distance behind.
I hang back, call my sister.
“Hello?” Her voice is drowsy.
“Get up, it’s time for you to go to work.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Her voice is strange somehow. It’s hoarse. Could this be a consequence of the night?
It’s starting to get chilly. The only thing that calms me down is this rain. It’s fine, practically dust, a fog. Drops of it land on my face. They soothe an inflamed brain, a body feverish with paranoia.
We walk along the green stripe that divides Marshal Novikov Prospect. Overhead is a power line, stretching its veins through the body of the sleeping neighborhood. Underfoot is wet grass. My Adidas Originals are quickly getting wet, they’re suede. But you don’t pay any attention to this. Look at how green the grass is. Wet, luscious, bright. It’s such a color that you just can’t avert your eyes. And it matches the color of your jacket so well.
In one of the yards we find outdoor exercise equipment. It’s painted wild yellow, blue, red. K and C throw themselves at it and attempt to try each one out.
This would be a little weird if seen in passing—three grown men with a dog at seven in the morning in a playground dressed in tracksuits.
“You’ve got to try this,” says C. “Stand over here.”
We try the treadmill. I slide off it fast. “Somehow I really think I’m stuck in a web of betrayal. C, tell me that everything is all right.”
C gets off the treadmill. “No, everything’s bad.”
I walk off to the side, call my sister.
“Hello?” That hoarse voice again.
“Get up. You have to go to work.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m up already.”
That frog in her throat. If I wasn’t sure it was her…
We walk around the neighborhood. I feel a little better out on the street. K walks ahead with Rogue.
“You look like a baseball player from the ‘60s in that Adidas jacket.”
“C, I have such intense paranoia. I can’t shake it off.”
“A sleepy neighborhood. No matter where you look everything is gray. It’s totally depressing. Everyone here’s paranoid.”
“Listen, you said that P and company have a rehearsal space in this neighborhood. Where is it?”
“Over there.” He gestures in an offhand manner to a building with a round tower just beyond the high-rises.
Rain and grass—that’s what soothes. And also this bright green jacket. The acid jacket of a baseballer.
We return to the apartment. I sit in the easy chair. Rogue settles down on the sofa next to my arm and begins to lick it.
As a force of habit—K packs a joint. We smoke ourselves out. Next K makes coffee, spikes it, hands it out.
I need to call M, but it’s too early, she’s still asleep. Maybe if I hear a loving voice, it’ll save me. Or ease the suffering.
The next hours pass unnoticeably, they flow one into the other. We drink coffee, smoke spliff after spliff, play a game of finding the wildest video on YouTube. We end up with an Italian commercial for window blinds and East German agitprop. After that we get bored.
Some of the videos are frightening in their wildness. I cower in the easy chair. I want to be on the street, it was better there. The enclosed space is intensifying my paranoia. I want to leave, but it’s still too early. I might get rounded up. Shaken down.