I woke up by the smell creeping through the keyhole of the heavy iron door - the wonderful medley of cheap cigarette smoke, stale sweat and bean soup. The bean soup smelled better than the cabbage, and it tasted better. I gagged the first time the guard brought cabbage for lunch. I have a sensitive nose and what the doctor described as a “prominent gag reflex” when he yanked my tonsils out and that's why I always avoided staying close to people when talking, because I gag when facing someone with buffalo breath, but for the last God knew how many days my nose served me well. At the end it was the only way to figure out when it was morning,
The “fire station” wasn’t actually a fire station but a police precinct masked as a fire station. I believe it was unique to my home town of
“Harry!” my dad exclaimed, “will you join us for dinner?”, he pulled a chair for him.
“I can’t chew Marko”, Harry smiled with his toothless mouth, “I can only use a straw these days. Have a pleasant dinner with your family”, he patted my dad’s shoulder and shuffled away.
“Poor man”, dad sighed and took a long pull of his vodka, “he just came out of the fire station, I thought I will never see him alive again.”
I didn’t know what he meant but realized that “the fire station” was not the place I wanted to be.
-2-
The smell got more intense and I heard keys rattling just outside the door. The hinges creaked and a silhouette appeared at the rusted frame. The guard stood there longer than usual just staring at me and instead of the usual bowl had a thick stick in his hands.
“Where is my food?” I tried to play stupid.
“No food today”, he grinned, “Come to me –slooowly”, he smacked his palm with the stick.
“Where are we going?” I dragged hesitantly.
“The boss wants to talk to you”, he twisted my hands behind my back and slapped the handcuffs. “Don’t worry, they are brand new and kind of tight, but you will feel better in a while”, he cracked at his own joke taping the handcuffs with the stick. I stumbled along the hallway with the guard following closely.
“Take the stairs and make a left”, he ordered.
I obeyed his commands to the second floor when I saw an old gipsy hanging on a rail with one wrist cuffed to it. His body was slouched to the side and his pants were wet.
“Hay, take me down, man”, he pleaded.
“All right”, the guard smiled and whacked the gipsy in the flank with the stick. “How does it feel, huh?”, he laughed, “stinkin’ motherfucker”, he smacked him again, this time on the other side. “Next time keep your mouth shut, you stealing bastard”, he yelled at him. “What are you looking at?”, he growled at me.
“Nothing”, I mumbled and kept walking. “So that was the famous “trolley” – they keep you hanging by the wrist on a rail attached to the ceiling like you are in a city bus or a trolley, until you piss and shit on yourself and your arm is numb from the cuffs,” I thought.
“Turn right”, he ordered when we reached a door padded with thick, brown leather. He knocked on the door and waited.
“C’mon in”, somebody said behind the door and we entered the office of colonel Davidoff or “The Stickman” as he was known amongst
-3-
I’ve heard rumors about colonel Davidoff, but what I saw stunned me. I imagined a big heavyweight hitter with a square jaw and piercing eyes, but the colonel had short and scrawny frame, elongated face with protruding ears and almost a friendly smile. However his eyes lived to their reputation – grayish-blue, empty, watery eyes, “like a snake”, I thought, although I had never seen snake’s eyes in my life.
“Hi, Alex, come on in, don’t be shy,” he smiled showing his stained teeth. “Here, let me take these handcuffs away”, he took the keys from the guard and released my hands. “It’s OK”, he winked at the guard – “We’re all friends. You can leave us alone now.”
I stood in the middle of the room rubbing my wrists and looking through the window. It was rainy and muggy outside but I hadn’t seen daylight in a while and squinted my eyes.
“Have a seat Alex”, Davidoff pointed to a chair. “You haven’t eaten decent food in a while, I’m sure”, he picked up the phone.
“Kathy, will you bring us some sandwiches, please”, he ordered his secretary. “I’ll also have a shot of this”, Davidoff pulled a half a bottle of brandy and poured himself in a dirty glass. He lit a cigarette and leaned back on the chair. Kathy knocked on the door carrying a tray with sandwiches and a pot of steaming hot, black Russian tea. I took a bite, poured some tea and put a sugar cube in the cup.
“You can have another one”, Davidoff smiled when I stared at the pile of white sugar cubes. “You can see Alex, I’m not the kind of monster everybody believes I am. All I want from you is to tell me everything about yourself.”, he sipped his brandy and poured us more tea. “I already know a lot about you”, the colonel opened a yellow folder filled with meticulously typed pages of what appeared to be my file. “What I don’t understand is how a petit thief and low life criminal like you became an enemy of the socialist party and his beloved country?”
“I am not an enemy to the country,” I said sheepishly.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out”, Davidoff pretended he hadn’t heard me. “What if all the all the little crooks in town turn against the system? We have to stop this form the stem”, he said to himself.
“Look, colonel, I am all about the system, although I slipped a few times for money”, I didn’t expect that turn.
“Alex, I want you to write everything about your life”, Davidoff put a pen and a bunch of white papers in front of me. “Everything!”, he slammed the desk. “Remember - I already know so much about you! If you lie, I won’t play nice any more”, his voice was razor sharp, metallic. He pushed his chair back and walked around the room. “Let me show you what happens to liars”, he opened the wooden cabinet in the corner. “This is my private collection”, he cracked a vicious smile.
Davidoff wasn’t called “The Stickmen” for nothing. In the cabinet there were about fifteen wooden sticks; all around four feet long, but every stick had a different diameter. The thickest one was the size of my arm, the thinnest – like a wire. There were legends about Davidoff and his sticks – rumor had it, he would offer the detainee to pick up the stick size and people usually jumped for the skinniest one, which turned out to be a big mistake. That stick cut through flesh like knife and left deep, oozing wounds for days, which got infected later. The Stickman was so good with his weapon, that he could etch his name on the victim’s back or tattoo the logo of his favorite soccer team on the chest. The big ones were not a great choice either – I heard a story about a car thief form Bourgas who chose the heftiest stick – he died three days later in the hospital from internal hemorrhages and a broken skull.
“I’ll write everything you want to know”, I said, turning my eyes away from the cabinet.
“Great”, he nodded, “you have twenty four hours.” He walked back to his chair and lit up another cigarette. “Guard”, he yelled, “take him back, and Alex - don’t forget you pen and paper”, he said when the turnkey slapped the handcuffs again on my wrists.
“You’re lucky man”, the guard said outside, “Usually I have to drag most bastards out myself.”
“I could be anything but lucky”, I thought but didn’t say a word.
-4-
Davidoff asked me to write everything about my life on these sheets of paper. How could I do that? Where should I start? At school we used to begin our autobiography with a blurb about our parents: “I was born in a poor, working class family. My father was a truck driver and my mother - a math teacher”, and then you went on to describe what school you had attended to and what grades you graduated with. The government felt that the social class molds one’s character and personality. Blue color parents were respected and the intellectuals were deemed as aristocrats and public enemies. My family was rather ordinary; too ordinary I have to say. My dad wasn’t a truck driver but a welder in a ship factory. He was a stiff, hard working man that ruled the house with an iron fist. He got up before dawn, drank his coffee, took the shuttle bus to the factory and came back from work sharply at six. Then he dumped his clothes on the pile of dirty laundry and sat on the couch waiting for mom to bring salads, appetizers and drinks. He never raised his voice, as a matter of fact he never said a word during dinner, just watched TV until ten when he turned off the lights and went to bed. On Saturdays he spent the day fixing our car in front of the condominium surrounded by his neighborhood buddies who treated him cigarettes and home-made wine when he fixed their cars too. My mother was short, chubby, soft-spoken woman who did the laundry, cooked our meals and looked after my sister and me, while working full time job as an accountant in a convenience store. The whole neighborhood was full of families like ours and we blended well with the rest. I was an ordinary kid as well – neither a great athlete nor a slouch, never made it to the high school team or excelled in any sports, but I enjoyed PE and wasn’t to be mocked like the fat kids either. I liked literature and hated math and physics and anything related to mechanics and electricity which upset my father. I remember one day, mom came from a parent teacher conference proudly waving a paper, I had written, that the teacher read in front of the class. It was a cheesy story about a little boy who grew up with his grandfather. One day the grandfather fell ill and the little boy vowed he would become a doctor and find a medicine for his grandpa. The old man died from cancer, the little boy went to medical school and discovered a medicine to cure cancer in children as well as in older people. Mom rolled a few tears while reading the story to pops who stood there frowning in front of the television and smoking his cigarette quietly. When she stopped reading and wiped her tears, dad just took the papers out of her hands, tore them into tiny pieces and burned the pile in the ashtray with his lighter.
“My son will have a real job and won’t turn into some pussy ass writer!”, he yelled at us. “Looked what happened to your hippie brother,” he added angrily.
I wanted to ask what happened to Uncle
I wasn’t a popular among the girls either. I kissed my first girl in sixth grade. She was short, slightly overweight and friendly. She even let me touch her boobs under her sweater but nothing happened after that. I lost my virginity at sixteen courtesy to one of my sister’s friends. That day I had climbed on the roof of our building with a pack of dad’s cigarettes and a pair of binoculars. There was a blond, freckly girl who liked to change her bra in front of the window. I was so busy smoking and waiting for the girl to take her bra off so I didn’t hear Madelyn sneaking behind me. She touched my shoulder and I almost leaped from the roof.
“What are you looking at?”, she asked.
“Nothing”, I tried to hide the binoculars in my pocket.
“There is a couple on the first floor that likes having sex with their curtains off”, she smiled. “I enjoy watching them too.”
“I’m not watching anybody”, I resisted.
“Have you had sex before?”, Madelyn looked me in the eyes.
I didn’t say anything. Madelyn came close to me and kissed me in the mouth. She pushed her tongue inside my mouth while massaging my crouch. I just stood there motionless.
“You are so innocent,” she smiled. While having sex you have to touch the woman’s tits,” she unbuttoned her shirt. Her boobs were saggy, soft and white. I sat on the ground; she rolled her skirt around the waist and unzipped my pants. I had thought about the first time I would have sex and was terrified I might go in the wrong hole, but Madelyn pulled her panties to the side and it slipped right in. She started moving her butt slowly and thirty seconds later it was over. She laughed and wiped herself.
“We need to practice more often,” she smiled.
We had sex few more times and I got better at it, but suddenly she found some older guy and stopped coming at home.
“I found the love of my life Alex. Please stop calling me,” she told me one day.
After that I had few girlfriends but couldn’t keep anyone longer than three months.
-5-
I had probably mentioned earlier that I had a sister six years older than me. She was dark haired, petit, cute as hell and boys did like her, but she hooked up with a guy named Theo, who was twenty eight at the time. My life changed one day when I walked in our living room without knocking on the door. My sister was lying in Theo’s lap who was gently stroking her hair. When Margaret saw me, she jumped of the couch and screamed.
“For Christ sake Alex, will you knock for once?”
“I’m sorry,” I blushed and turned back but Theo said:
“It’s OK, Alex, you can come in.”
Margaret looked at him like raising her eyebrows.
“Everything’s cool, honey,” Theo smiled, “actually I wanted to know Alex better for a long time. C’mon lil’ man, sit here,” he pointed towards the couch.
I couldn’t believe my ears. Why the heck Theo would have the slightest desire to waste any time with me? Here, I have to mention that Theo tall, athletic, charismatic dude who always carried a lot of cash. I was seventeen, introverted, acne plagued teen with a couple of looser friends. Besides, Theo had already closed the deal with my sister and he didn’t have to play all nice with the younger brother.
“How you doing buddy?”, Theo shook my hand.
I slumped on the chair in front of them. Margaret scoffed and turned on the TV.
“I have a job for you Alex,” Theo smiled, “Can you do it?”
“I don’t know. What is it?”
“It’s pretty easy, you can’t screw up,” he reached for his glass and sipped some orange juice. “Here’s the scoop”, he reached for his jacket and pulled a small box wrapped in a manila colored, thick paper and tossed it in my lap.
“All you have to do is deliver it to a friend of mine,” he leaned back on the couch, “Do you know where Chaika Street 26 is?”
“I know it, “I nodded, “we used to play in the schoolyard across the street.”
“Awesome!”, he exclaimed, “you have to go in entrance A of the building and take the elevator to the fifth floor. Ring the bell five times – three quick dings like that,” he tapped his fingers on the table, “and then two long dings.”
Margaret turned her head from the TV and looked at us, but didn’t say a word.
“That should be easy,” I sighed with relief. I liked Theo and didn’t want to disappoint him.
“There is only one little detail,” he came closer to me, “You can’t let anyone get to this box. You can’t open it either.”
“Sure”, my lips were dry.
“In case you run into trouble, don’t tell anybody who gave you the box”, Theo looked very serious.
“Deal,” I took the package and stood up. It was a small, light cube, slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes.
“Here’s the kicker, Alex,” Theo said, “if you do everything the way I said, I’ll give you my leather jacket.”
This time both Margaret and I looked at him like he had gone bananas. Back in the day leather jackets were incredibly difficult to find. I’m not talking about the ones that looked like a KGB agent outfit, but the really cool American pilot jackets. Theo’s was made of firm, shiny black leather with two zippers on the chest and one on each side. In these days it was considered bad western influence to wear such a thing and the only way to find it was the black market. I begged dad to buy such a baby for my birthday but he refused because he said I would look like “a goddamn rock star.” Theo noticed my confusion.
“It’s yours bro - this bad boy will get you so much ass at school,” he winked at me and picked his glass.
“Beat it,” he pointed towards the door.
I put the box in my coat and ran down the stairs. I took the bus and hoped on the stop hundred yards away from the building. I kept thinking about the jacket and what Theo had in mind. At first, I thought he was trying to get rid of me, so he could have sex with my sister, but he might have offered five bucks for a movie rather than his priceless jacket. I was also curious why he didn’t deliver the box himself to that guy, but was too perplexed to ask. I reached the building and looked around. The school yard was quiet because it was already late and there was no one on the playground in front of the condominium. I walked by the entrance and noticed a tall, lanky guy with a triangular face leaning on the wall staring at his nails. I walked by him, and headed towards the school yard on the west side of the building, then quickly ran around it and sneaked in the condo. The triangular face was nowhere to be seen and I took the elevator to the fifth floor. It was a brown wooden door with a copper ring to the right. I rang the bell five times as instructed and waited. Whoever was inside took his time to answer.
“What do you want?, an unshaved man around thirty five in faded bath robe barely cracked the door.
“I’m looking for Daniel,” I said and stepped away from the doorstep ready to run down the stairs should something go south.
“I’m Daniel,” the man didn’t sound friendly.
“This is for you”, I handed him the box, “from Theo.”
“Thanks,” he said and shut the door close. I could hear him tearing the paper nervously. I stood there for a minute and decided to take the stairs. I didn’t like Theo’s friend - he looked kind of creepy and almost felt he was literally behind my back. I rushed down the second flight of stairs and turned around – there was no one there. I slowed down and suddenly somebody grabbed my collar and pulled me in the janitor’s room between the third and second floor. I tried to scream but the man cupped my mouth and couldn’t make a sound.
“Hush your mouth!”, he shushed me, “one little noise and I’ll slit your throat!”
I recognized the creep with the triangular face who was leaning in front of the building.
“Where did you go?” he asked.
“Nowhere, “I looked for a way out but his body was blocking the exit.
He smacked me in the face with the back of his hand. I felt my lip swell up and the salty taste of blood trickling in my mouth.
“I asked you a question punk!” he looked dangerous.
“Please don’t hit me,” I begged, “I had a friend who lived here.”
“I know all the guys in the building,” he said, “What’s your friend’s name?”
“Nick,” I picked up the first name that came into mind.
“You lying little bastard!” he yelled and jabbed me in the stomach. I bended over and he hit me again behind the ear.
“They moved, all right!” I screamed, “I didn’t know they don’t live here anymore.”
The man pulled a thin folder blade and poked my left cheek.
“Do you want me to make your a smile wider? Who send you here?”, he yelled a inch away from my face.
At that second I heard people talking on the floor above and somebody opened a door. The guy looked behind his shoulder. This was enough to brush him aside and ran through the door. I didn’t wait long, flew over the stairs and ran so long until I was completely out of breath. “I deserved the damned jacket”, I thought while gasping for air. I was too scared to wait for the bus and just kept running and race walking, until I reached our condominium complex. I dinged the bell and my sister opened up.
“Alex, what happen to your face?”, she screamed staring at my lip.
“Nothing,” I pushed her and walked to the bathroom. I rinsed the dried blood off my lip and looked in the mirror. The bastard got me good – my upper lip was swollen and the right ear was burning red. I wiped my face with a towel and went in the kitchen. Theo was sitting at the table, chatting with a man in dark sweater.
“Andy, look who is here,” he said to his buddy.
Andy looked at me and I almost bolted out of the room. It was the lanky guy who smacked me not long ago.
“What is he doing here?” I pointed towards Andy.
“I should get going,” Andy said and took his raincoat. “So long young man,” he smiled at me and left the apartment with quick pace.
“Theo, what’s going on?” my sister asked.
“We were testing Alex,” Theo smiled at her.
“Testing?” I couldn’t be more surprised.
“You passed, Alex. We will be partners now.” Theo poured me a glass of vodka.
“Cheers,” he emptied his glass and hugged me. He threw the jacket in my lap. “How do you like it?”
“It’s awesome,” I said and went in my room.
-6-
Soon after that day I found what Theo was doing for a living. He was a con artist, thriving on people’s naivety and stupidity. His favorite trick was scamming German and Scandinavian tourists while exchanging their currency for Bulgarian leva. During the socialist government Bulgarians were not allowed to owe any other currency but leva. Tourists vacationing on the
“There is this dude – Stephanopoulos, coming to the country with a brand new Mercedes Benz. Has sibling here or something. The car is worth millions bro! We could do one last hit and we are set for the winter.”
“Where we gonna sell the car? The cops will nail us – granted,” I scoffed. In
“Don’t you worry your little head,” Theo smiled. “I already have a customer. Your job is to get the car. My job is to sell it and we’ll split the money.”
-7-
The car was parked at a small, curvy street in a leafy neighborhood inhabited primarily by Armenian and Greek minority. It was beautiful silver Mercedes that looked twice as big as the rusty square shaped Russian cars lined alongside it.
“Here is the deal,” Theo whispered while we were hiding in a yellow, peeling building across the street. He pulled a tennis ball out of his pocket with a small hole on it.
“You press the ball on the keyhole and smack it. The air will open the door.”
I looked at him in disbelief.
“It’s a new system - hydraulic or something like that. There is a spare key in the glove compartment. Then go around the corner and pick me up. I’ll take it from there.”
I headed towards the vehicle. A cat ran through the street and jumped into a garbage can. It had started drizzling and the wind coming from the shore was freezing cold. I looked around – the street was quiet, I could even hear people’s TVs from the neighboring buildings. I put the tennis ball against the lock and hit it hard. It made a hissing sound and the door unlocked. I couldn’t believe my eyes – Theo was a genius. I jumped in the car and looked in the glove compartment. The key was there, under the car manual. My hands were trembling and it took me few seconds to put the key on the ignition. At that moment the doors locked again, something beeped and the alarm started blazing. I thought it could be heard from across town. My heart was pounding; I could hear the blood pumping in my ears. I turned on the key, the starter clicked but the engine didn’t kick. I tried again and again but to no avail. I looked at Theo who was hysterically waving at me from the end of the street. I tried to open up the door but it was locked. Then a short, stocky man came out of the building. I started kicking the windshield with both my feet, but the glass held firm. The man was getting close, yelling at me and cursing angrily. He came next to the car and started pounding with his fists on the roof. Suddenly he grabbed his head, stumbled and felt backwards. Theo was standing behind him with a tire iron in his hand.
“Close your eyes!” he screamed and hit the windshield with the tire iron. The windshield broke into a spider web and Theo hit it few more times. He reached into the car and pulled me out.
“Run!” he yelled and we both dashed on the street bumping into garbage bins and piles of trash. We ran for while, and then slipped into shady bar on “Primorski” boulevard.
“Phew, that was close,” Theo laughed. “You should have seen your face – pale as a ghost,” he laughed again.
We drank vodka, watching soccer and basketball and didn’t talk for the rest of the night. I think the whole experience drained us pretty hard. That night I didn’t know that I would never see him again.
-8-
What do you tell people if you know you would never see them again? I am not talking here about some cheesy love drama movie but in real life. We get up in the morning, wash our faces, brush our teeth, take a dump and go our ways. Prior to that day I had never pondered on the philosophical question what life had charted for me? Margaret had a classmate that died in a car accident. The day before she died, she came home asking my sister to borrow money for a train ticket to
I never found what happened to Theo – he didn’t call back or returned our phone calls. I went to his apartment several times, but nobody answered the bell. Margaret cried for two months straight and refused to go out during that time. I asked couple of Theo’s friends, I had met in the past, but no one seemed to know what happened to him. Some were saying that he had crossed the Greek border and is in a refugee camp, others believed that the cops sent him to a secret location so he couldn’t be found. In any occasion, I kept thinking about our last night – I had so much to tell him and just kept drinking and watching TV, I wished he would come back one day with his great ideas for our “next job.”
After Theo was gone I was in a hole. Scamming tourists seemed mundane and crawling in people’s basements wasn’t that appealing either. I spent all the money I had stashed and it was time to look for a job. One day in the late spring, I took the bus to the Golden Sands resort and found an old acquaintance of mine who was renting paddle boats to kids and hillbillies vacationing at the Sands. Stojan was playing cards with few of his buddies. They were hiding from the burning sun under an umbrella drinking cold German beer. It looked like Stojan was winning the game because he was slamming the cards on a towel and laughing out loudly. I sat by him and open a can.
“Looke, looke who is here,” he turned his head and patted my shoulder. “How’s life treating you Alex?”
“I need a job,” I mumbled.
“A job?! Working is for fools’ young man,” the other dingbats started laughing with him.
“I heard you need someone to take over the paddle boat business,” I looked him in the eyes.
“Yeah, I want out. The sun is not good for the skin. But you are young – you can handle it,” he stood up huffing and grunting. “I’m getting old Alex.”
“You are not old but just a fat pig,” I thought but didn’t say anything.
“What do you know about the paddle business,” he pulled me away from the group.
“You rent paddle boats to people who want to paddle. You don’t give tickets to half of them and collect fifty percent of the profit.”
“That was last summer,” Stojan shook his head and his cheeks jiggled. “The cops are cracking down now.”
I lit up a cigarette and waited for him to continue. I knew he would savor the moment to show me he knows the trade.
“You give them these,” he pulled a bunch of tickets from his Capri pants.
“These are tickets for the Turkish bath down in the city,” I noticed.
“Of course they are,” he winked at me, “but they are typed in Cyrillic and nobody can read it. Besides you can buy hundred for five bucks downtown and sell them for a hundred here. Just make sure you gonna sell some real tickets for a change –we have to support our government, eh.”
“I can start tomorrow,” I reached for the tickets.
“It will cost you fifty,” he put the tickets back in his pocket.
Next morning I borrowed fifty dollars from my sister and started on the paddle boats. The pay was decent and the job turned out easy. I spent the days drinking beer and playing cards with the local gigolos. I cut a deal with them – they will bring girls to my place and rent a paddle boat and I won’t touch their targets when they sunbathed in my area. It worked out for everyone until the beginning of September when it started raining. It rained everyday for a week. The sand was wet, the sea got cold and stormy. I couldn’t rent a single paddle boat for a week and was wasting my time chatting and playing cards with the life guards. One Friday night I decided to go to the hotel bar and warm myself with rum and coke. I sat on the bar and had just ordered the first drink when Asen “The Chimp” walked in all wet and cursing. He threw his dripping raincoat next to my chair and ordered a drink.
“Shitty weather, huh,” he said.
“The season is not over yet,” I took a sip of rum and held it in my mouth.
“Yeah, may be another week or two,” Asen agreed.
“Listen, “he smacked my shoulder, “I need a partner for tonight.”
I shook my head.
“I’m working now, man. I don’t want to blow it off,” I lied.
I was always ready to hear a good offer but Asen was a cheap gigolo banging wrinkled German grannies for a change. He was short and stocky with bowed legs and long arms covered with curly, black hair. There were rumors about his sexual abilities, but nobody in his sane mind would take a job with Asen. I was sure all his blood was going down to his manhood.
“This is the sweetest job you can imagine,” he licked his lips. “I found an awesome Swedish couple that want to spice up their vacation – if you know what I mean,” he smiled at me. “The woman is a gorgeous blonde and horny as hell. She is ready for a threesome.” he laughed.
“What about the husband?”
Asen leaned towards me and whispered in my ear: “He likes to watch.”
“That’s sick, bro,” I lit up a cigarette.
“What’s wrong with shagging a beautiful, young Swedish girl, Alex?”, he gave me a mischievous smile.
“What’s mu cut?” I asked.
“I’ll give you fifty.”
“Hundred twenty five or the deal is off”, I shook my head.
“You are ripping me off dude!”, he screamed.
“Hundred is my last offer”, I finished my drink and got off the chair.
“Wait, wait,” he took a slug of his vodka. “It’s so hard to negotiate with you con artists. I’ll give you hundred.”
We paid the bartender and walked towards the elevator. Asen shoved five bucks in the hand of the hotel security who was watching us closely.
“We’re going to room 305.”, he winked at him. “That bastard is dying to come with me”, he said quietly. “I had a choice and I picked you, remember that”, he said while we were getting off the elevator.
Asen knocked on 305. It was a beige wooden door, similar to all other doors on the floor. It looked like he knew his way around the hotel.
“It’s open,” a man said from inside the room.
I was ready to run away but Asen pushed the door knob. Inside, there was a naked, narrow-shouldered man with a floppy belly sitting by the table drinking vodka on the rocks. His wife, if this was his wife, was lying on a queen size bed. Asen had said she was gorgeous, but the woman exceeded my expectations – a glamorous Northern beauty, half covered with a white cotton bath robe; silky blond hair spilled over her body. From my spot I could see long athletic legs with a bronze tan.
“C’mon in guys”, the man lifted his glass as he was cheering us.
“The bathroom is to the right”, the woman purred with a sexy voice.
We walked to the bathroom.
“I can’t stand these racists”, Asen growled, “They all believe we are stinky, dark Balkan apes.”
He surely looked like one; I thought but didn’t say it. Instead, I washed my body carefully and dried it with a towel. Asen was already sitting in the room with the couple.
“Drinks anyone?”, the Swede picked up the bottle.
“Not for me,” I shook my head. I was feeling nauseated from the fact I was about to do a threesome with Asen in front of the husband.
“I’ll have one”, Asen said and sat butt naked to the Swede. “You guys can start”, he smiled at me.
“I’m Sybille”, the woman open her robe and slightly spread her legs.
I walked towards the bed and lay next to her. She smelled wonderful –a medley of vanilla, jasmine and something exotic. I kissed her neck and inhaled deeply. For a moment it felt we were alone in the room and Asen and the damned husband were miles away. She moaned slightly and kissed me back. I felt the blood rushing down to my privates and a throbbing sensation in my penis. I immediately regretted that I didn’t prepare for the occasion – could have at least masturbated in the bathroom. I put my tongue in her mouth and she responded with hers. Suddenly she stretched back and pulled a condom from underneath the pillow. I slipped the condom on and started kissing her neck, her breast and walked my way down to her groins. She was moaning and moving her pelvis slightly. Her pubic hair was blond and trimmed short. I kept working with my mouth when I saw Asen with my peripheral vision masturbating while sitting naked on the chair. Then Sybille’s husband kneeled down in front of him and engulfed Asen’s enormous cock in his mouth. He started moving his head rhythmically and Asen began groaning like a bear. My erection was gone, I grabbed my clothes and rushed butt naked out of the room. I put my pants and shirt on in the elevator and went back to the bar. The bartender looked at me in surprise and poured me a drink. I gulped it in one shot, took a cab and went home.
Next day as soon as I opened the paddle boat joint The Chimp showed up.
“You screwed me up, bro!”, he said.
“I’m sorry”, I looked at my bare feet.
“No money for you”, he added, “I had to do all the work by myself.”
“You lied to me”, I tried, “there was nothing about a gay blowjob in our deal.”
“It’s called customer service, Alex.”
“All right, I’ll tell everyone in the beach about last night. You can introduce yourself as Asen “The Faggot” from now on.”
“Here is twenty five”, he pulled twenty five bucks from his Speedos. “Make sure you’ll keep it quiet. I know people”, he growled, turned his back and walked away.
I didn’t expect he will bite the bait that easily but the stupid bastard did. I rolled the money and put them in my back pocket. I spent that morning wondering around the beach, enjoying the half naked Dutch chicks, drinking coffee and swimming in the sea. Business was slow and there was nothing else to do but have a few beers at the nearby cafe. I headed there and to my unpleasant surprise I found a jolly company of ten drunken Germans singing
“How’s hustling my man?” he smiled with the corner of his mouth.
It wasn’t hard to find out what he was implying – I was a hustler who wasn’t any good at hustling. He was a tall, handsome dude with dark, long hair and starched white shirt buttoned all the way up to his jaw. At the spur of the moment I felt tempted to land a nice, stiff jab in his pretty face and wipe that stupid smirk of his, but I was a guest at his joint and had to behave.
“I’m working now”, I said and took the beer.
“I can offer you a better job”, he said, still smiling like a damn movie star.
“I’m not interested in waiting tables”, I lit up a cigarette and pretended to be watching the paddle boats.
“You’re funny”, he laughed, “Who cares about waiting tables?” he leaned towards me and whispered in my ear:
“Do you see the drank bastards on the next table?”
It was a stupid question – the place had three tables and two were occupied by these guys.
“These are cheap faggots from eastern
“Why should I care about some stingy Germans?”, I couldn’t find my role in the plot.
“Your job is to drop extra beer caps while taking the empty bottles off the table. For example – you drop five caps – I charge them five more beers and we share the profit. “
I looked at him in disbelief and admiration – after several years in the business there were still tricks to learn.
“Anthony”, he introduced himself with a firm handshake.
“Alex”, I replied.
“Well, Alex, it is time to show our German guests the famous Bulgarian hospitality.” He handed me three beer bottles and two extra caps.
The job turned to be easier than I expected. The Germans kept drinking, singing and whistling after the passing girls. At the end of the day they counted the caps and paid without questioning the bill. Anthony paid me fifteen bucks and offered me to come the next day again.
“It’s easy money bro and you can double dip – if it is slow at your place, come over here,” he shook my hand.
The deal was good and I kept “working” at both places, but like all good things in life it came to an end. October rolled in and the gusty winds and cold sea chased the tourists away. In a matter of few weeks the resort looked desolate and gray, leaving heaping piles of bottles, newspapers, used condoms and rotten fruits on the streets. The only remnants of the busy summer were few cheap, drunk prostitutes smoking in front of the hotel lobbies and the stray dogs. After a week they left too, I supposed moving to the city to brace for the long, chilly winter.
-9-
Soon after the end of the season, Anthony found this deal with the chinks. They were not exactly chinks but Vietnamese laborers that came to
“It’s real dough man”, he said, “Huang brings the moola, we get him the painkillers and split - no worries.”
I was certainly worried until the cash started flowing into our pockets. Anthony was buying hydrocodone from an old croaker – an oncologist who was stealing it from his cancer patients. We were paying twenty bucks for ten ampoules and Huang gave us fifty. After that, it was his problem to distribute it and smuggle the drugs into
“I can’t give ampoules anymore”, he said while trying to pull a long, white hair out of his nostril.
“I have to administer some to my patients and put the leftovers to the side for you guys.”
One day the cops came to my apartment. I was lying on the couch, watching the basketball game when they knocked on the door.
“Let’s look what we have here”, the tall, bony officer smiled at me with his tobacco stained teeth. The other two followed behind him.
“Pete, close the door shut please”, the first one said. He pulled a wrinkled pack of cigarettes out of his coat, stuck one in the corner of his mouth and stared at me.
“Where is the stash?”
“What stash?”, I asked while backing away off his face.
“Looks like we have a smart one here, Pete”, he told the cop who closed the door. “We can do it two ways smart guy – the easy way and the hard way. Which way he would like, Pete?”
Pete smiled back at him and donned a pair of black leather gloves.
“I dunno boss. He looks like a dumbass to me. Do you mind if I soften him up?”, he stepped up front, his face turned beefy red resembling a bulldog on a leash.
“Hey, I’m willing to cooperate”, I said with the most humble voice I was capable of. “You can search the house and take me to the precinct if you find any evidence.”
“Did you hear that guys? He is willing to cooperate,” the captain said. “Let’s turn this shithole upside down.”
The other two didn’t wait too long. Pete threw the sofa cushions on the floor while trying to rip off the fabric. He opened the cabinets and pulled all my clothes out of the hangers and shelves. The other two went in the kitchen. I could hear them rattling dishes and glasses. They even opened the fridge sniffing the jars and the yoghurt. Ten minutes later they were still empty handed and returned back to the living room.
“Where a dumbass hides his stash?”, the captain asked while scratching his head. He opened the medicine cabinet.
“I bet you five bucks that he has something here.”, he started throwing cotton balls, band-aids, aspirin and condoms on the floor. He bended over and took a condom between his fingers and put in his pocket.
“You won’t need this at the place you are going.”
“Captain, look what I got here!” the third cop who kept quiet until now exclaimed. We all turned our heads towards him. He had taken the plastic cover of the back of my TV proudly waving a white box.
“Let’s open the box, shall we?” the captain said while the other cop ripped off the cover. There were ten brown ampoules lined up in two rows like little soldiers.
“Cuff’im!”, the captain ordered with a grin on his face. “Looks like he wasn’t that dumb at the end, but we nailed him.”
Pete twisted my arms behind the back and slammed the cuffs.
“The faggot thinks this is one big, fat joke”, Pete barked angrily before I could wipe the smirk on my face.
“There won’t be much laughing at the precinct tonight”, the captain said.
Three days later they let me go. The analysis from the ampoules came as l-ascorbate, also known as vitamin C.
“You are smart, Alex but I know you are up to something”, captain Dobreff said while he watched me standing handcuffed in his office.
“Tell me who is hiding vitamin C in the back of his TV?”
“There is no law against keeping vitamins in TV sets, captain”, I answered.
“I can’t hold you now, but I will be watching you. Now get the hell out of my office!”
I walked out and heard the captain pouring himself a drink behind the door.
-10-
Anthony couldn’t stop laughing after I told him the whole story.
“What I can say Alex – the cops are bunch of idiots.”
“What happened to the stash?”
“After you got locked up I went to your apartment and took it. I give you credit for the idea to hide it in the garbage bin. Plus these morons stopped looking for it after they found…the ascorbate”, he started laughing again with tears.
We were sitting on the couch at his apartment eating cookies and drinking tea. I hate tea, my mom used to give me tea when I was sick, while dad was rubbing my chest with plum alcohol. Anthony however loved tea. Lords and dukes in
“Why are you doing this Tony?”, I looked him in the eyes.
“Doing what?”, he stopped laughing, wiped his tears and took a cookie.
“You know what I mean. You have the brains and the looks to do something with your life. “, I sipped my tea. “I realized few years ago, that I always will be the number two guy. I hate to admit it but the captain was right – I’m the dumbass who is always looking for the “brain” to hire him for “the next job”. But you can attend the university, get married, have kids and land a decent career.”
“Do you have a ranch, Alex?”, he looked me in the eyes.
“A ranch?”, my jaw dropped thinking Tony had just lost his mind.
“Yes, a ranch,” he nodded.
“Yah, ten kilometers north of the city,” I said. I remembered when my father dragged me there to grow cucumbers, tomatoes and potatoes. I hated every single moment of it, especially when dad like a psychic picked up the most inappropriate time to go – usually when I had a date with a hot chic or was about to go fishing with my boys.
“What happens when you plant a potato in the ground?”
“Is this a biology class?”, I lit up a cigarette to hide my frustration. “It turns into a bunch of small friggin potatoes. This is in case you pour water and shit on it,” I couldn’t hide my sarcasm.
“There is your answer, my friend,” Tony stared at me. “The potato has a goal, a purpose in its life – to turn into other small potatoes. This is what the Greeks called telos.”
I couldn’t figure out what he was trying to say about the goddamned potatoes and just kept quiet.
“You should read Aristotle or Marx if you want to be in sync with the society we live in. I am trying to find my telos in life.”
I put my cigarette in the ashtray and ate the cookie crumbles out of my palm.
“OK, enough gibberish,” Tony said, “I want to introduce you to the man who will make us rich.”
I grabbed my coat and we both walked into the street. Tony stopped a cab and we drove for twenty minutes and I thought we got lost when Tony suddenly yelled:
“Right here!”, he paid the driver and we got of the cab.
“Let’s walk,” Tony pulled my sleeve.
I followed him in the alley between the buildings and we stopped in front of a grocery store. Tony pretended he was looking at the veggies but, he was checking the cab that was still waiting by the curb praying for potential clients. Finally the driver took off and we headed towards a four story beige building with graffiti on the façade. The elevator was old – one with the grid door and cabin scratched with names of soccer teams and love poems on the walls. We got off the fourth floor and Tony rang the bell. Someone peeked through the peek hole and unlocked the door.
“Please, come on in,” a tall man with a slight Arabic accent walked us inside.
The apartment was tiny but well furnished with a dark leather sofa and a glass coffee table in the middle. There wasn’t much light in the room – just the soft ambient light coming from a floor lamp across the room. The tall man came with three cups of black aromatic coffee on a silver tray and put the it on the table.
“Please feel comfortable gentleman,” he lit up a long, brown cigarette and offered us too. “Sorry, I can serve alcohol but I’m Muslim. My father will rather die than spot me with a glass of scotch”.
I took a look at the man – he was lanky but durable like his predecessors from the desert. He was elegantly dressed in a light brown tweed pants and crème colored shirt and his black hair was meticulously combed backwards. He had a roman crooked nose and thin purple lips with the brown cigarette in between them.
“Shafiq – Alex, Alex – this is Shafiq,” Tony introduced us to each other.
“Pleasure to meet you Alex,” the man shook my hand. “Now, let’s talk business, shall we?” Shafiq said.
We both nodded.
“Here’s the deal,” Shafiq took a long drag of his cigarette, blow the smoke through his nostrils and continued. “I will supply you with the stuff – your job is to deliver it and bring me the money. We split the profit and go our own way.”
-11-
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I yelled at Tony when we came out of the building.
“Relax, brother,” Tony smiled, everything will be just fine.”
“Fine?” I couldn’t believe he was dragging me into this. “The cops are already sniffing behind our tails. Just in case you had missed the first lesson in con artist school: “Never mess up with street drugs!” We’re not talking some half assed hydrocodone here! Do you know why you don’t mess up with street drugs?” – that was a rhetorical question. “Every goddamn idiot can tell you that drugs and weapons are to be dealt by the Communist Party and no one else!”
“It is KGB as a matter of fact,” Tony said with a smirk on his face.
“Like it is any better,” I scoffed.
“That’s the best part, partner,” Tony smiled. “The communist officials are dealing the drugs – fact I cannot deny. But Shafiq’s father is the vice-minister of agriculture of
I always suspected that Tony was either a genius or a complete idiot but still couldn’t get the point.
“It is so simple dude and that’s makes it so wonderful. The old man is the key supplier for the whole
Shafiq was dealing hashish or “hash”, the way he called it. The hash had brownish color and paste-like consistency. Back in the day, I knew two ways of taking hash – one was heating the paste with flame until it sizzled - after cooling it turned into small pieces that were further crumbled with a knife into even smaller particles to obtain a larger burning surface area and then smoked with a pipe. The other way was “knife hits” – when the user put a small piece of the hash on a knife blade, heated the blade and inhaled the vapor with a straw. I tried both and got me relaxed from the stress and all but also got the “munchies” and ate two boxes of chocolate candy one day after a pipe and quit.
Shafiq didn’t want to get involved with opium because he feared his father, so we stuck to hash. Once a week he gave us a list with the addresses of his clients. Every client was responsible to leave the money in the mail box and the key taped underneath it. No money – no stuff, the rules were simple. The job was easy and soon the money started flowing. Shafiq knew his trade well – the hash was thirty percent pure, he paid us on time and took care of the cops as well. There was no competition in town and soon we could hardly cope with the deliveries. I moved to a new apartment, bought some fancy clothes, a new VCR player and paid regular visits to the best prostitute in town. I stopped worrying about the cops and believed that I finally hit the jackpot until one day; Shafiq didn’t call us for a delivery. Tony jingled him few times but nobody picked up the phone.
“We have to be careful with this sonofabitch,” he mumbled when we got of the cab in front of Shafiq’s building.
This time the elevator wasn’t working and we took the stairs. We climbed to the fourth floor, both out of breath. The door was cracked opened and the same soft milky light was creeping underneath it. I could hear smooth jazz music coming out of the apartment. Tony rang the bell twice but nobody answered. He pushed the door and we slipped inside the hallway.
“Shafiq,” Tony yelled.
“May be he is doing some bitch,” I said hesitantly, “c’mon Tony, let’s call him later,” I felt my voice shaking.
“Chicken shit,” Tony whispered in my ear and stepped inside the living room.
I followed him and saw Shafiq sitting of the couch. Actually it was the torso of him – the head was placed on the glass table he served us coffee the first night I met him. There was a puddle of dried, sticky blood just where the neck ended. His thin lips were pulled in a sarcastic smile and they looked more purple than usual. Tony dry heaved and stepped backwards. I stumbled into him, staring in his pale face.
“Run!” he yelled and we both bolted out of the apartment jumping one flight of stairs at the time. We run all the way across town until we reached the Observatory. We were gasping for breath, sweating and shaking. I pulled a pack of cigarettes out of my sweat drenched shirt and sat on a bench next to a large oak tree.
“So what’s next?” I blew the smoke away, “may be they will cut our dicks this time.”
“Relax, Alex, I’m trying to think,” Tony lit one of my cigarettes, “here is what we gonna do – we split and fly under the radar for few months. Then we will regroup and think of something. If the cops question you, just play dumb.”
“There is no need to pretend for that,” I thought.
Oddly enough the cops never came after me. Granted, I had the nightmares every night, lost twelve kilos and smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. I was looking for a tail every time I went to the deli for smokes and beer, but calmed down a bit after a month. I didn’t call Tony during that time and didn’t hear from him either. I started looking for a job and found one in a restaurant kitchen. My responsibility was to peel pickles for the salads and the cucumber soup. There were piles of cucumbers and soon my fingers turned light green from them. The job lasted a month when the chef caught me fondling outside the restaurant with a plump coworker of mine, who had a dream of becoming a movie star. We were both kicked out the same day and I don’t know if she ever became a diva, but I ended up in the construction business. My job was to dig dirt and carry wheel barrows filled with concrete. It was a cold November that year and my feet were freezing in the rubber boots. We started work at eight and finished around six. There were six of us – three gypsies, two Turks and me. Life was simple – we worked, drank grape brandy, smoked cheap cigarettes and laughed at dumb jokes. I was allowed one half an hour break for lunch and two bathroom breaks in between. Last week of the month turned rainy – the freezing, soaking November rain was drenching me to the bones. My whole body was aching, from the calluses on my palms to the tips of my stinking toes. One day I sneaked out early for lunch, went into the trailer and moved close to the heater. I had just pulled a greasy sausage and a piece of bread out of my bag when someone knocked on the dirty window. It was Tony - wet, shivering and smiling at the doorstep.
“Look what the cat dragged in here,” I growled, but he pushed me to the side and sat on the bed.
“I’ve just came to check on my old buddy,” he smiled innocently.
“Brandy?”, I poured him some of the cloudy liquid with a repulsive odor we used to drink.
“Nah,” he said, “we have a serious meeting to go to.”
“We?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Yep,” he nodded, “I found a miracle job and I need a partner. Who else if not my old sidekick -Alex?”
“Sorry to disappoint you partner, but I like to keep my head on my shoulders,” I couldn’t believe that after the last fiasco he was still looking for a “job”.
“That’s too bad,” he took a sip of his brandy and spitted it right away on the floor. “Ughhh, I dunno how you can drink this shit,” he stood up and said:
“I am looking for someone who is willing to split twenty grand – that’s without the expenses,” he noticed my hesitation and added: “Just change your clothes first; you’ll mess up the cab.”
-12-
We got off at the intersection of “Lenin” and “Benkowski”, by the large convenience store and walked into a backyard that stank of cat urine and garbage. It looked like Tony was familiar with the neighborhood and soon he rang the bell of a brown, heavy, wooden door. A balding, man around his forties opened the door and walked us into a cramped, dark, poorly furnished apartment. The place had a musty odor to it, like the cat urine smell had penetrated through the closed shut windows.
“This is my wife – Angelina,” he introduced me to an attractive, dark haired woman with deep circles under her eyes. The woman was pretty but I could see pain on her face.
“By the way, I’m Pete,” he shook my hand.
“Alex,” I mumbled and sat on a chair.
The woman quietly put glasses on the table and poured ice-cold “Stolichnaya”. She opened a jar of pickles and brought a bowl of potato salad.
“Please, excuse our modesty Alex, but we are simple people.”
I tasted my drink – it was good, pure vodka and took a pickle.
“Let’s get to the point, shall we?” Tony suggested.
“Sure, I’m not going to waste any more of your time,” Pete nodded.
“We have a son – Stefan, he is eight. He’s not feeling too well and is sleeping in the other room. Stefan has been suffering from a kidney problem for three years now and finally his kidneys had failed. He has uremia – you probably wondered what the smell was when you walked inside. When your kidneys give up, the body tries to get rid of the urine through the skin and the lungs and that’s why everything around smells likes piss.”
I felt nauseated but managed not to puke on the table.
“Stefan goes to dialysis twice a week,” Pete continued, “the doctors hook him up to a machine that filters his blood. Without that, the body builds up toxic products and he will die.”
“Sorry to disappoint you Pete but I’m not a doctor,” I looked angrily at Tony for wasting my time.
“Doctors can’t help him – at least not Bulgarian ones,” Pete pretended he hasn’t noticed my aggravation.
“So what do you suggest?” I took another pickle and stared at him.
“Pete had found that a professor in Austria who does kidney transplants with relative success,” Tony interrupted, “if someone suffers a head trauma in a car crash let’s say, his brain dies but the heart still pumps blood to the other organs. The professor takes a kidney form the dying man and transplants it to the patient that needs it.”
This was getting outrageous – Tony was dragging me into some “Dr.Jekkyl and Mr.Hyde” crap and I couldn’t see where the money would come from.
“There is one little problem though,” I said, “how you gonna get Stefan to
“That’s where you boys come into play,” Pete looked at Tony for support, “I’m selling the apartment for forty thousand dollars – you pocket half of it and we keep the other half. You will just help us get through the Greek border.”
“You said that Stefan needs that machine twice a week – we can’t drag a stupid machine through the border.”
“That means we have three and a half days to cross the border” Tony stretched his back with a smile.
“Tony, this people need a professional coyote, not soft-assed city hustlers like us,” I whispered in his ear on the way out of the apartment.
“I have this one covered dude,” he cuddled in his jacket. “Go downtown and find Nicholas “The Stump” – he knows everyone in the business. Old Nick will hook us up with the right guy. Let me know when you got the connection,” Tony hopped on a bus before I could object.
-13-
“The Stump” was a famous looser in the underground world of
“Alex, don’t you dare running away with my money,” he smiled showing a bunch of yellow, rotten teeth.
"How’s going Nicholas,” I tried to break the ice.
“Money’s good, Cyril is taking good care of me now,” he scooted a little bit on his wheelchair. “I don’t have to run around the buses no more – just sit here, watch the chicks and get paid for that. Look, I can even touch myself under the blanket and no one would even notice,” he tried to unzip his pants in order to demonstrate.
“I believe you Nick, you don’t have to show me,” I said, trying to hide my disguise. “I need a coyote.”
“What are you up to little brother?” he lifted himself scratching his ass on the wheelchair rods.
“Give me a name and address and you will be getting fifty bucks,” I put a five dollar bill in his lap and left.
Next day I when walked by his spot there was a crumbled piece of paper in the carton box next to the wheelchair. I leaned, dropped fifty dollars in the box, took the paper and walked away. It was a dirty, wide ruled page torn of a notebook on which it was hand-written “Kushla, ask for Mladen”
“Good luck,” Nicholas chuckled but I didn’t turn back.
-14-
I don’t know how it is in other countries but the trains in
I stumbled across the street and entered the restaurant. The thick, repulsive odor of cheap wine, strong cigarettes and cabbage punched me in the nose. All three clients of the joint interrupted their conversation and turned heads towards me. They looked very much alike – wrinkled, sun-dried faces, scattered tufts of white hair that looked like duck feathers and skinny, brown necks hiding in gray, woven flannels. I pretended, I didn’t notice their interest, walked close to the bar and sat next to a wooden, rough table. The group on the next table was still staring at me with genuine interest.
“I’m the only attraction in Kushla right now,” I thought with a biter smile while ordering sausage and potato salad. The food was surprisingly good for such a hole and I cleaned up the plate, opened a bottle of ice-cold beer, lit up a cigarette and looked around. The men had already lost their interest at me tending to their drinks. The bartender wiped the plot carefully, threw the dirty towel on his shoulder and sat on my table.
“You’re not local,” he noticed.
“I’m looking for Mladen – do you know where I can find him?”
“Ugghhh,” he leaned back on the chair. The chair creaked under his heavy frame but survived the pressure.
“Mladen is a nut case, I won’t waste time lookin’ for him,” he whispered.
“What’s his story?”
“Hold your thought,” the bartender stood up, went to the bar and continued: “Do you wanna another drink? Cause I’m gonna fix one for myself.”
“I’ll have another beer,” I nodded.
He scuttled back, slid my beer on the table and gulped his drink in one shot. Then he wiped his moustache and laughed:
“You should try this one,” he pointed towards the empty glass, “it’s called a “cloud” cause it clouds your mind. You mix mint liquor and ouzo half and half – the ouzo should be ice cold. The mint is good for your stomach and the ouzo makes you horny as a ram,” he winked at me and started laughing again.
“I’ll stick to beer tonight. Tell me about Mladen,” I steered him in the right direction.
“Mladen was a great kid. His dad owned a blacksmith shop, just down the street and Mladen was helping him. The little turd was slick with the hammer, I’ll tell you that much. He was fixing wheels for the horse carts, sharpening knives – you name it. Give him a piece of iron – he will turn it into something. One spring the gypsies came into town. Back then, they used to come every year and camped by the river. They sold spindles and tin pans to the villagers and it was good business for the blacksmith too – Mladen sharpened their knives and axes, polished the pots and pans, fixed the horse saddles. They paid him with gold coins but rumor had it, the boy wasn’t there for the money. He was in love with a girl – sixteen year old spitfire; Sevda, they called her – it mean beautiful in Roman, I guess. Not long after they met, Mladen stopped coming back to Kushla and moved with the gypsies. In the fall, they left and he followed them. Nobody heard from him for three years, not even his parents. Some said he was stabbed by a pomak, others thought he had drowned in
“Why is that?” I was thinking that Nick “The Stump” had sent me on a wild goose chase for some nutcracker.
“Mladen was odd,” the bartended poured himself another “cloud”, scratched his chest and continued. “He would work for a day or two, then disappear like that,” he snapped his fingers for better effect. “One day, I brought him a knife – it was a gift from my great grandfather. I told him to sharpen and polish the blade. Next day, I went to the shop – Mladen was gone; the doors closed shut. He came back three days later and hadn’t touched the knife.“
“Where did he go?” I asked with a genuine interest.
“Only God knows,” the bartender shook his head. “Sheppard saw him roaming up in the mountains all alone at night. I don’t believe in witchcraft and stuff, but that gypsy woman casted a spell on him,” he spit in his bosom, leaned towards me and whispered:
“I think he is possessed.”
“How I can find him,” I finished my beer and stood up.
“Make a left on the street and it is the second house on the left. But if you need a blacksmith, I know one kid in Zlatograd,” the bartender offered.
“Don’t worry about that,” I patted his shoulder and backed up towards the door.
“You are a city boy. What are you doing in Kushla?” he suddenly grew suspicious.
“I’m a journalist – writing an article about Kushla,” I blabbered the first lie that came to my mind.
“What newspaper?” he relaxed again.
“People’s Voice,” I said.
“Never heard of it,” the bartender shoved a finger in his ear,” Don’t you guys carry a notebook and a pen everywhere you go?”
“Some journalists do,” I agreed, “but I prefer to keep everything here,” I tapped my forehead with the forefinger. “Writing is for bookworms,” I took a blind shot, feeling that the man hated anyone who could write a complete sentence.
“Ha-ha,” he laughed, “you got this right. Anyways – good luck to you and don’t forget to mention my place.”
“I won’t,” I promised and walked out of the joint.
It was getting outside dark and the streets were empty – except for a stray dog lying by a downed fence. I walked away from the dog, trying to read the house numbers and five minutes later I ended in front of a white, old house with a big crack on the front wall. I knocked on the door while moving in a safe distance in case Mladen decided to go haywire on me.
“C’mon in,” a deep voice said from inside.
I pushed the door and walked into a dark room with low ceiling. I stood at the doorstep to get used to the darkness inside, as the only light was coming from the fireplace. A tall man with black, dirty hair and messy beard was standing in the middle of the room holding a half-melted rod with a pair of pliers. He put the iron on a metal plate and started banging on it with a hammer. After a minute of banging and hammering he dipped the piece in a can of water with a hissing sound.
“Who are you,” he looked at me with crazy, feverish eyes.
“I am looking for someone who knows the area,” I said.
“What for?”
“I know a family that wants to cross the border.”
He put a hand in his pocket, pulled a pipe and started packing slowly it with his big, dirty fingers.
“People die trying to cross the border,” he walked to the fireplace and lit his pipe.
“They are willing to pay well,” I lit up a cigarette to ease my nerves.
“Five hundred bucks – two fifty before we leave and two fifty once they are across the border.”
“Deal,” it turned out that the Mladen wasn’t that crazy after all.
“There is an old barn two kilometers south of Kushla, I’ll be waiting for you two weeks from now,” Mladen turned his back meaning our talk was over.
That night I caught the last bus back to Zlatograd and after an hour I was sitting on a wooden bench at Zatograd’s bus station. There were no more buses or trains leaving town, so I made myself comfortable on the bench and slept until the janitor sweeping the floor underneath the bench woke me up. Next day I arrived in Varna with a sore back, all tired and crabby and Tony was waiting for me at the station.
“Dude, how did it go?” he asked impatiently while eating hot chicken soup at the only bistro in the neighborhood.
“Dude, the guy is crazy,” I ordered a beer and looked at him. “Mladen really has a few screws loose in his head, but he knows the boonies.”
“Two weeks is not a lot of time,” he shook his head when I told him the rest of the story. “I better call Peter to get things going.”
-15-
Tony disappeared for the next several days. I spent my time watching TV and bumming around and just when I thought Pete got cold feet and bailed on us the phone rang.
“Alex, I have the money. Wait for me at the bus stop next to the Aladja monastery.
Aladja monastery was and I’m sure still is ten-fifteen kilometers north of Varna. The tiny monastic cells and the small church were dug into sheer rock back in the middle ages. I used to go there on school trips and we played hide and seek in the bushes around the area. I got off the bus and headed to the rocky mound when I spotted Tony sitting on a large stone with a green military bag next to his feet.
“I got the twenty grand – let’s bury it,” he pulled a short handled shovel out of the bag.
The soil was sandy and bone dry and we were both huffing and puffing after half an hour of digging. Finally we made a small hole, wrapped the cash in a plastic bag and put in the hole.
“I hope there won’t be nosy archeologists digging around,” I said at the end.
“Just remember the location, will you?” he smiled at me. “Now let’s go and relax – my treat.”
We walked back to the road and took a cab to “Albena” -– the jewel hotel of the nearby resort with the same name and crashed at the bar lobby, drinking “Johnny Walker”, smoking long, white cigarettes that Anthony bought from the bartender and listening to the new Swedish sensation “Abba”. The hotel interior was designed by some German architect with comfortable leather armchairs and low coffee tables with marble tops. The lonely hotel prostitute was drinking martini at the bar staring at us.
“I’ll meet you at the “Youth Tourist Station” in Gorski Izvor next Thursday at eight o’clock sharp. Then we’ll catch the bus to Kushla and meet Pete, Angelina and the kid. The barn is half an hour walk from the village. Any questions?” Tony blew a cloud of blue smoke in my face.
“What happens if we get caught?”
“We won’t,” he smiled. “Now, if you excuse me I will pay some attention to that little doll at the bar,” he pulled a hundred dollar bill out of his pocket and folded it into a tiny, neat square.
“You have to learn how to relax, Alex,” he winked at me and walked towards the girl.
I took the bus to Varna and got off the main station around six. It was drizzling again – may be for the fifth time this week. For a split second I thought about calling my mom but instead I bought a bottle of vodka and landed on the couch.
Next week dragged by slowly and by Wednesday my nerves were frayed. I woke up around four in the morning, drank coffee, shaved and headed towards the train station. The terminals were empty except for the janitor and half asleep old gypsy, slouched on a dirty bench. When I passed by her, she woke up:
“You are up for a big trouble,” she said with a raspy, smoker’s voice. “Gimme five buck to break the curse.”
“Bug off!” I stepped away from her. I wasn’t superstitious and all, but old gypsies were not to be messed up with.
“You got a smoke?” she wasn’t giving up easily.
I pulled a cigarette and tossed it at her. She rolled it between her fingers and stuck it in the corner of her toothless mouth.
“You are goin’ away,” she lit her cigarette, “but you ain’t comin’ back.”
I staggered to the train and climbed on the last cart. It smelled of piss, cigarettes and steel. The heavy-set conductor was fighting with a rusty window stuck halfway.
“I have a terrible migraine,” I rubbed my forehead. “Don’t let anyone else in my cabin, will ya?” I handed him five bucks.
“The safety and comfort of our passengers is my main priority,” the money disappeared in his pocket.
I slammed the door of the cabin and lied on the green polyester couch. I must have fallen asleep when the conductor woke me up.
“This is our last stop,” he said with a very formal tone. “Everybody must leave the train.”
It was getting dark outside but at least wasn’t raining in Plovdiv. The station was crowded with passengers, cops, stray dogs and drunks. I zigzagged between middle aged man lugging leather suitcases, villagers in brown woven clothes carrying baskets and young couples kissing next to the departing trains. I made it just in time to catch the last bus to Gorski Izvor and ended in front of the “Youth Tourist Center” around nine o’clock.
-16-
The “Youth Tourist Center” was nothing but a two story shack with fading yellow façade with a red sickle crossed with a hammer depicted above the door. I woke up the clerk after three long dings of the brass bell with the size of Siberia. The clerk rubbed his eyes and yawned:
“You are in the men’s bedroom. Sign right here,” he pushed a thick register with purple covers in front of me.
“Is there a bed number?” I asked.
“You can take any bed available,” he wiped his hefty, black moustache with the back of his hand.
“The men’s bathroom is to your right. There’s no more hot water tonight, but if you get up around five in the morning you can shower.”
“Let’s go for a walk,” he nodded and we headed to the main street. The morning was surprisingly mild for December, but I was shivering. A rusty, blue bus was waiting with the engine on in front of the convenience store. We climbed, paid the driver and sat all the way to the back.
“Where are you boys headed to?” the driver asked while messing up with the radio.
“Kushla” Antony said.
“What’s there in Kushla?” the driver was in a chatty mood.
“Quails,” Antony answered patiently.
“There’s plenty of them birds in Kushla,” the driver finally found his favorite radio station and started whistling in sync with the music. The road was bumpy and by the time we got to Kushla I could feel my kidneys up in my throat.
“Don’t forget to bring me a quail,” the driver chuckled when we stepped off the bus.
Pete, Angelina and Stefan were already waiting for us.
“I’m glad you made it,” Pete shook hands with us.
It was still dusky outside and we race walked out of the village without meeting any locals. A dog barked in the distance and a rooster crowed closed by. We walked on the muddy field quietly for about twenty minutes. Soon we reached the barn. It was a ramshackle structure built of fading brown timber with leafless vines growing on the walls. The rusted tin roof had a gaping hole on it and there were four snuggle toothed shutters instead of widows. Pete removed the iron rod across the slouched porch and we entered inside, engulfed by a stale, musty air. If you imagined barns like places where young, chiseled dude was boning a blond, voluptuous German girl named Gertrude on a pile of hay, I have to warn you, this wasn’t the case. There was no pile of hay inside, nor German girls, but three horse stalls without doors on the left and what used to be a tack room to the right with a single row of saddle racks and bridle hooks on the wall.
“Make yourself comfortable”, Tony threw his bag on the dirt.
Angelina pulled a green, woven blanket and spread it on the floor by the corner wall.
“Stefan, it’s time for you medications.”
“I don’t want any more pills ma,” Stefan wined weakly and slumped on the blanket.
It was the first time I took a good look at the kid. He was short and looked skinny even bundled up in his thick winter jacket. His face looked grayish pale; eyes deeply set in the orbits and sparse, fuzzy blond hair peaking under the blue woven hat.
“You have to take your pills Stefan, so you can get stronger,” Angelina handed him a handful of white pills the size and I guessed the taste of chalk.
“I’ll take a piss,” I excused myself and walked out of the building. My stomach was growling and I felt cramps squeezing me like a vice. I made it to the ditch behind the barn, relieved myself and as I was pulling my pants up I noticed a slender, grey-eyed man staring at me.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he smiled showing a row of yellow crooked teeth.
“You’ve seen any quails around?” I asked.
“I’m Jordan. Mladen sent me here.”
“What happened to him?”
“He’s sick – chest cold or something. I’m his cousin – we work together.”
“Do you know the area?” Tony asked him when we walked inside.
“I grew up in Kushla,” Jordan nodded. “We have to leave soon. It’s getting light outside and sheppards will be soon out there on the fields.”
We left the barn and headed south towards the border – Jordan first, Tony and I behind him, Pete, Angelina and Stefan trailing behind. After a while we reached a groove studded with bristlecone pine trees.
“Let’s stop for a break,” Pete suggested, “Stefan is getting really exhausted.”
We sat next to a gnarled pine and put our bags on the ground. Tony picked up a twig and sharpened it with his pocket knife.
“Is Andrey working with you too, Jordan?” he asked without rising his eyes from the twig.
“Who’s Andrey?” I asked in surprise.
“Mladen’s baby brother,” Tony broke the stick and threw the pieces in the bush.
“Nah,” Jordan sighed, “his wife is a bitch, doesn’t let him go anywhere without her,” he scoffed nervously.
All of a sudden Tony charged at him like a wild cat, grabbing him by the throat.
“Mladen doesn’t have fricken brother!” he screamed in Jordan’s face.
“What’s going on?” Angelina asked.
“What do you think is going on Angie?” Tony pressed a knife under Jordan’s eye. “The motherfucker set us up. It’s a booby trap!”
“I can explain, “Jordan stammered, digging his heels in the dirt but Tony kept squeezing his neck.
“I’m gonna scoop your eye out!” Tony twisted the knife and bright red blood trickled down Jordan’s cheek. “Where’s the ambush?”
“Please let me go!” Jordan cried, “I am not a cop, just an independent contractor. Dirty beggar from Varna tipped the cops that a family was trying to cross the border. They arrested Mladen and sent me here to lead you to the border zone.”
“Alex, tie this weasel down,” Tony threw beige, sisal rope.
“Please, “Jordan pleaded, “I have wife and kids.”
I shoved a handkerchief in his mouth while Pete was tying him snuggly to the tree.
-18-
“Did you hear that?” Tony asked.
“What?” I looked at Jordan who was making muffled sound and squirming in despair.
“The barking!”
This time I heard it. It wasn’t just barking, it sounded like the whole K-9 squad of Nazi Germany had gathered in the distance.
“Oh, my God!” Angelina screamed. “What do we do now?”
“You guys run this way,” Tony pointed with his knife. “I’ll try to distract them.”
“What will happen to you?” my voice trembled.
“We don’t have time for that now. Just make sure they will cross the border.” Tony turned his back and darted between the trees.
We run down towards the creek hoping the dogs would lose the trail in the water. I slid on the muddy bank slope landing straight on my butt on a smooth river stone. Pete jumped after me and helped Angelina and Stefan down. The barking got more intense, I could hear footsteps trumping in the woods, dogs panting, men cursing in the distance and gun shots. We waddled into the creek – the water was cold but not freezing. The evergreen conifers and half frozen firs offered good protection to the north and we kept running down the stream. Soon the border line appeared on the horizon, we could even see the Greek control tower covered in the milky fog.
“It’s about five hundred meters from here. “ I guesstimated. “If we run fast enough may be able to make it. I’ll take a look and make sure it’s all clear. “
Pete, Angelina and Stefan crawled under a crooked willow. I climbed on the bank, crouching behind the pine trees, protecting my face from the sharp needles. I peeked through a whorl of branches and saw the barbed wire fence guarding the frontier.
“You stay put,” I whispered at Pete and headed towards the fence.
It was built of three strands of barbed wire wrapped around hefty post poles, spaced every meter and a hog wire underneath the lower strand. I put my gloves on and cut a hole in the hog wire with the cutters Tony had thoughtfully stashed in the backpack. The hole was tiny and we had to crawl really close to the ground to avoid the sharp barbs above it. I ran back to towards the creek and lunged behind a downed pine. Then, I heard footsteps behind my back and turned around. There was a soldier pointing a rifle at my right temple.
-19-
“Freeze!’ he screamed with a falsetto voice, “Put your hand where I can see ‘em!”
He was a kid, may be eighteen-nineteen years old with round, smooth face and shiny, red cheeks. His hands were trembling and the rifle was shaking in front of my face.
“Sergeant,” he yelled, “I got him!”
The sergeant came all worked up, waving a gun in his hand.
“Shoot’im private Stojanoff!” he ordered.
Stojanoff hesitated for a moment.
“Shoot’im, this is an order!”
“I’ve never shot a man before,” the private stammered.
“We’ll both get a week off, you fool!” the sergeant squatted next to me and pressed a gun to my forehead.
I felt warm piss trickling inside my pants. Suddenly Stojanoff turned his rifle around and smacked me on the head. The lights came out and I free felled in a sticky, gooey blackness.
-20-
I am swimming in thick, white fog, spitting up cotton balls and I can’t see the end of it. I realize, I can’t swim, so must be floating on clouds. I try to open my eyes but this turns into mission impossible – my eyelids are heavy as prison doors, but I am persistent. When I finally succeed, I can see the white milky light around me only through slit holes. Gradually I recognize shapes – walls, white of course, white door and a white woman staring at me. She smiles and says something but I can’t hear the words. Then a familiar face pops right in front of my nose like he is trying to kiss me which he actually does and I recognize Theo. I assume I’m dead or at least going through the tunnel that I had read about and gasp in overwhelming terror. Suddenly sharp pain pierces me under the left ribs and I close my eyes shut still squirming from the pain. But Theo or his ghost doesn’t give up easily and grasps my hand.
“Alex, it’s me – Theo!” he whispers.
I may be dumb, but I know that one for sure – when a dead man calls you in your sleep – you should never follow him. I squeeze my eyes shut praying the ghost will go away, but he massages my hand. Then Theo pulls my eyelids apart and I have to face him. He looks well – black hair glided backwards like an Italian mobster, lips spread in a goofy smile, sparkling brown eyes.
“Open your mouth,” he orders.
I open hesitantly and he puts something mellow and sweet in it and I know its flan. I adore the taste of caramelized sugar on the flan, my mom used to put extra sugar when she made it.
“You have to eat,” Theo says, “good food and plenty of rest is what you need right now.”
“Theo, what’s that place?” I mumble and half of the flan mixed with saliva drips down my chin.
“You are in a hospital Alex,” Theo replies calmly.
I try to raise my eyebrows but it feels like a tight bandage is wrapped around my forehead.
“It is a long story, my friend,” Theo looks at the white woman who was sitting quietly in the corner till now. She nods and leaves the room.
“After the screw up with Stefanopulos I got locked up for who knows how long. Then suddenly I lucked out. There were big changes in Kremlin that stirred the waters all the way to Sofia – now the government wants to outsource all the shady operations to independent contractors like you and me, because the westerners are making lots of noise and pointing fingers at “the Party”. They are not saints either, but it’s the cold war. A man who calls himself “The Linker” came across my resume and pulled me out of the system. As of that moment I work for him.”
“Who is The Linker?”
“I don’t know, but even if I knew I couldn’t tell you because I have to kill you afterwards.” Theo laughed. “I suppose he is the connection between the KGB and Politburo – the Bulgarian utmost governing body.”
“Why I am still alive?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
“When I found what happened to you I called The Linker and asked for a personal favor. I vouched for you!” Theo looked me in the eyes. “I also paid Davidoff five grand and that’s how you got away only with a ruptured spleen, couple ribs and cracked head – he wasn’t happy when you handed him a pile of blank pages.”
What happened to Tony?” I tried to swallow the dry frog stuck at my throat.
“He’s dead, a soldier shot him in the woods – old school like in 1917, no judge or jury,” Theo looked to the side. “I believe the family made it though,” he read my mind. “The patrol found a blue woven hat hanging on the fence. It probably got stuck there while the kid crawled through the hole.”
“What now?” my voice sounded raspy, like Grandpa Nikko’s when he got throat cancer.
“You just get better,” Theo stood up, “there is a lot of work for both of us.”
“I’m out Theo,” I looked him in the eyes.
“There are no exit signs on this road Alex,” for the first time Theo appeared distant and aloof, “and you know it. Now eat your flan. I will pick you up exactly in a week.”
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