Page 68 - WTP Vol.X#1

Pie Crust Promises (continued from preceding page) “Did you hear that the bouncer from the club is on
the teaching faculty now?”
“They’re calling him Professor Vesch,” Slava told me, and we both laughed. I knew by “they,” he meant the faculty of the department of coca-cola, what we called the students.
“But still,” I said. “They deserve an education, and I don’t think he knows anything.”
“He speaks two languages like everyone here,” Slava said. “Maybe three. How many do you speak?”
“This isn’t about me,” I said. “The students are paying for an education. They deserve better.”
“He’s not hurting anyone. He sits in a classroom a couple hours a week, he gets a paycheck, what’s the harm.” He flipped the lid off his drink so he could fin-
“That’s what I’m saying,” I said. “I don’t have them anymore. Some guys came by earlier, they said you told them to come and get them. That you wanted me to give them to them.”
“I never said that,” Slava said. “I never told anyone where you live. Do you know how long it takes to get here, when I have to make sure no one is following me?” He was frustrated, but trying to hold it in. He gripped the edge of my table. I set my cup down.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“You have to be kidding me,” Slava said. “What did they look like?” He squinted at me, like he could catch me in a lie.
“I don’t know. Like guys. Big beefy guys. Black leather jackets. Short hair. You know the type.” Slava and I had argued about this before, how to me, the whole default look of guys around here was just so menac- ing, the way they looked and stood, hunched over like they were casting their own shadow. He accused me of racial profiling. But it worked for me, now.
“Holy fuck balls.” Slava stood up from the table and swept up his coffee cup in his hand. He crushed it on his way to the trashcan under my sink. “I don’t believe this. I don’t believe you.” He turned to stare at me.
“You don’t believe me?” I said. “What’s next? You’re going to search under my pechka?”
Slava took a deep breath, like he was preparing to scream, to call me out for being ignorant, for not knowing what this meant for him, for his life, for the chance he’d ever have to amount to more than what he was right now. How he’d be stuck here like he was now, forever. Instead, he let out his breath slowly. “This is a shock,” he said. He turned in a small circle in front of my sink. “I think I need to take a shit,” he said after a minute, and walked past me to my bathroom.
I left him alone in there for a minute, not sure he wouldn’t be jumping out of my window in the next minute. But I didn’t hear anything. I walked up to the closed bathroom door. “Hey,” I said. “When you’re done in there, do you want to work on your research assistant application?”
Dube’s stories have appeared in Construction, Parliament Literary Review, Front Porch, and elsewhere. He teaches creative writing and American lit at a small mid-Missouri university, but this story is set in a fantastic version of Ukraine, where he did a Fullbright fellowship so many years ago that it hurts to do the math.
“S
lava took a deep breath,
like he was preparing to scream, to call me out for being ignorant, for not knowing what this meant for him, for his life, for the chance he’d ever have to amount to more than what he was right now.”
ish it. “I don’t see how it’s so different than you. You’re permitted to teach these students because your State Department pays the chair of the department. Who are you to say what she does with that money as long as you teach your favorite classes?” He gestured mildly at my papers and books, like it wasn’t even worth objecting
to what I taught. He swallowed the last of his coffee. “I didn’t come here to fight. Get me the eggs. The narrow fellow is going to give me so much money.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “I don’t have the eggs anymore.”
“Don’t play with me, man,” Slava said. “Maybe this is a game to you, but this is life or death for me, you understand? Everything about my future. Get me the eggs, now, and we can hang out later.”
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