Page 30 - WTP Vol.X#1

Pie Crust Promises (continued from preceding page)
closely at me. “Try it like this,” he said, and showed me how to hold my skewer to eat without making a mess out of myself.
I don’t usually eat a lot of meat, but there was some- thing in the coal-smoked density of it that revived my energy levels. “What’s next,” I asked.
“For you?” Slava asked, eyeing me from where he was leaning on his back on the grass. “Bedtime.”
“Come on,” I said. “I’m just getting started. I live here, I spent the whole day learning about the city, and now I want to see it all.”
“There’s not much left,” Slava said. “Most of these people, they are going home like you should. It’s over for them.”
“Most of them,” I argued. “I want to know where the rest are going.”
“Give me a minute,” Slava said. “And then we’ll see.” He closed his eyes and left me there to pick grass from the ground around us. Fifteen minutes passed, and then Slava’s eyes snapped open and he sat up. “We could maybe go to the disco. That’s usually a good time after town day.”
“Yes!” I said. I was drunk, and somehow dancing seemed like the best idea in the world. “Can we
take the trolley to the disco?” I hardly ever rode the trolley. It was confusing, because I didn’t know the routes, even though the fixed tracks were literally in the street. The trains crossed each other at oblique angles and suddenly I’d find myself in a part of town I’d never seen before and where no one spoke Eng- lish. But with Slava, I thought we’d have fun.
“I think it’s better we should walk,” Slava said. “Right now, the trolley with all those drinkers’ breaths? I think it might send you around the bend.”
“Party-pooper,” I said, but he stood up and held out his hand to pull me up. We walked in long, uncertain strides toward the disco.
“Hey, I got to tell you something,” I said as we walked past a restaurant and then a long low building that was a dorm for one of the technical colleges.
“No,” Slava said, and held up his hand to shush me. “I’ve got to tell you something,” he said. And then, both at the same time and shouting in our best surfer drawl, we declared, “I love you, man.”
People who were walking alongside us stopped and 23
stared, but we laughed and kept walking. There was a hypermart at an intersection where the trol- ley tracks formed a confused cloverleaf, and then past that, I could hear the bass thump of dance mu- sic. There were other people everywhere, suddenly, young people in fishnet stockings under knee-high leather boots and vests with silver chains threaded everywhere, eyes made up to look like Nefertiti or a butterfly.
“This is the line?” I asked when Slava stopped us at the end of it. “How long will it take to get us inside?”
“You wanted to go where the action is,” Slava said. “This is it, Disco Queen of the Night.”
“No,” I said, “the action is up there.” I pointed toward the entrance to the disco, visible a quarter mile ahead. “Back here is where the chumps are. I’m not chumps.” I broke out of the line, full of boozy confi- dence and walked up the line toward the entrance.
I never swung my Americanness around like it was something people should recognize, though I knew folks who did, who never did their own laundry or waited in line at the market. Just this once, I wanted the privileges that came with membership. “What are you waiting for?” I hollered back at Slava.
On my way to the front of the line, I was sure I saw a couple of my students there; they were the ones who looked away quickly when I came near. At the entrance there were three big guys in track suits. One of them was taking money from people and put- ting it in a cashbox and stamping the backs of their hands. The other two stood off to the side, smoking and checking out the crowd.
I planted my feet where everyone could see me. “Hey,” I said, “I’m an American. What do I have to
do to get in here? Money’s no object.” And then I stopped. I didn’t know what to say next, but Slava went to work with what I gave him, sidling up to the