“It wouldn’t help my self-esteem either,” I say.
“Vasily, you don’t need self-esteem.”
“Why don’t I need self-esteem?”
“You’re Russian.”
“Huh.”
“I have no idea what that means. It’s an excuse. I can’t have sex right now. I don’t know what is wrong with my pussy. It is wide right now.”
“Wide?”
“Yes, it takes more to fill it. You will be lost in there. You are average, but average won’t cut it with this hole.”
“You’re saying you’re embarassed because your pussy is big now.”
“Yes, and I can’t do it. My arms won’t do it anymore. I’m afraid. I know what the cost will be.”
“What will the cost be?”
“Listen, I know you. I know myself. I’m ruined. Do you want to have sex with a ruined woman?”
“I never mentioned having sex with you. You did.”
“Then why are you grilling me with questions?”
“I’m just talking.”
“This is hurting me. This whole thing.”
Jessica gets up, opens a bag on the floor and takes out a pill bottle.
She opens the pill bottle and takes a couple of pills and stumbles back into bed.
“That was dramatic,” I say.
“You don’t know drama.”
“I don’t know drama?”
“I am like da Vinci when it comes to drama. You are like a monkey drawing with crayons.”
“That was so weird.”
“Remember that time I cried for forty minutes so you wouldn’t go to the bar?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“That was great, wasn’t it? I just kept crying. It was wonderful. I could have stopped at any time, but I kept it up. Crying away until you gave in.”
“I knew you were acting.”
“I know you did, but you knew I wouldn’t stop acting until you gave in. And I knew you giving in was just acting and that you really wanted to go, but I wanted to exert power.”
“Remember that time you came in the living room and accused me of being a brat because I asked you politely to get me a glass of water.”
“Yeah, you sucked that day.”
“Why did I suck?”
“Because you didn’t give in. You sat there. I started crying and everything. I even brought up things you did in the past that were mean. And you sat there like a fucking rock staring me down. It was horrible.”
“So can I fuck you?”
“I don’t know. All right, but don’t touch me.”
“How am I supposed to not touch you if we’re fucking,” I say.
“I’m going to roll over on my side. There’s lube over there. Lube yourself up and put it in and you can pump for like ten minutes, okay?”
“That sounds cool.”
I take my boxers off and get the bottle of lube.
Jessica pushes her pajama bottoms off but leaves her shirt on.
She rolls over on her side.
I get behind her and insert my penis.
I pump.
Jessica makes no noise.
She stares at the wall.
I ejaculate.
I pull out and go to sleep.
9
Leaning against a giant redwood.
Alone.
Almost to the Oregon border.
I look up at these giant old trees.
They stand what seems like miles above me.
There are almost no people walking around.
Jessica can have her pills, I want these trees.
People pain me.
Instead of saving up and taking trips to the redwoods.
They purchase expensive cars, clothes, televisions, and houses with rooms they don’t need.
They sniff coke and take pills and gamble in hot-ass Las Vegas.
I made it here across America with little more than a thousand dollars and a car I bought for three-hundred dollars.
Hardly anyone is here.
No one cares about these trees.
I’ve never had any interest in seeing the Parthenon or the Coliseums of Rome, or the Vatican.
To me they are no different than the abandoned steel mills of Youngstown.
Old discarded objects built by man during times when a small group of people had money, and the majority made it for them.
And most of all, what ruins symbolize to me is that you will die one day.
These giant trees, taking hundreds or thousands of years to grow to their enormous height, had to kill no one, had to oppress no one, had to ruin nothing, to attain their height.
These giant redwoods don’t signify death.
They tell me about the earth.
That I’m part of it.
10
In the Oregon Cascades, I’m driving down back roads looking for Misail Poloznev’s house.
I worked with Misail at a factory in Youngstown.
Misail had left it all.
He had grown up with money, had gotten a good education at a private college, and had good jobs working on computers.
He left it all.
He never spoke to his father and his mother was dead.
He cut his family ties.
He sent me a letter several months ago.
Dear Vasily,
I moved to the Cascades. Life is good here. I grow my own crops and fish in the stream. If you ever feel like visiting me you can. There are not many I want to visit me, so don’t be handing out my address. I’m free now.
I do not have a phone, running water, or electricity. I do not even have gas. So be prepared, and bring some toilet paper.
My life is good now.
Use the address I wrote on the envelope to find me.
Your Friend,
Misail Poloznev
11
On a back road about forty-five miles east of Eugene, I get to the point where Mapquest says Misail’s house is.
There’s a mailbox.
I read the numbers.
It is at the end of a driveway that seems to go off into the forest.
I drive down the driveway.
The driveway is overgrown, like no one has driven on it for a long time.
It is beautiful.
There are small redwoods and pine trees everywhere.
It smells good and the breeze is nice.
I pass an inexplicable cellphone tower in the forest.
Eventually, after five minutes, I arrive at what looks like a field with crops and a small octagon-shaped hut.
I pull up and park on the grass because there is no real place to park.
I get out and look around.
There doesn’t seem to be anyone here.
I walk up to the hut and knock and no one comes to the door.
I yell, “Misail! Misail! Misail!”
Someone screams, “Who’s here? I’ll kill you!”
“It’s me, Vasily!”
A man comes over the hill.
It’s Misail.
He’s naked.
Misail looks strong.
Veins stick out of his forearms.
Every time he moves a finger, a muscle is flexed in his arms.
As he gets closer I see his face.
It looks weathered.
His eyes don’t seem to be looking at anything.
They seem dead.
Hard and cold.
He looks like he could reach out and rip the life out of me and not be concerned with it.
He looks like a devil.
What causes such a look on a man’s face?
Is that what a man looks like when he throws his complete past away and decides to build his own future without regard for one law or tradition made in the last 3,000 years?