What follows is a writing excercise gone horribly wrong.
Using one hand to take a long pull from his hip-flask of Giggle Water, leaving his other hand whapping nonchalantly in the wind and the bouncing of the road, and using his knees to steer the stolen limousine up a small rocky hill, Garret Rabinak cut a rather imposing (though currently rapidly vibrating) figure on any first glance. His eyes were sharp, yet curiously bloodshot, and though the day was young his breath stank heavy of ether and alcohol. His mustache sparkled in the rising summer sun; it is the start of a beautiful July morning in 1990, with the Jizera mountain range catching and framing the ephemeral light. However Garry is not really enjoying this particular morning, as this post-Velvet-Revolution Czechoslovakia is not known for the quality of its roads, and out in Česká Lipa it was particularly bad. The limo would not be able to take much more of this abuse; this series of ravines and crags that was so generously deemed “road” back sometime in the communist era was doing its very best to destroy his tires. Another jolt sent Garry’s drink all over his Levi’s. Fuckdamnit, he thought, a term he had taken from his work with Dick Clark. He would have to punish this Eamon severely for ruining his pants, punishing even more than just outright killing him, which was Garret’s original plan here. Garry brainstormed. Trying to think up of some creative uses for his soldering iron, the limo half-heartedly climbed the hill and Garret caught sight of the backside of his quarry, frantically puttering away on his scooter. Seeing that curly hair decided something inside him: Garry gunned his protesting engine and formed a fist with his left hand. “Vehicular uppercut!” Garret Rabinak screamed triumphantly, in English, at no particular entity. It was indeed a vehicular uppercut. Eamon’s lanky body crumpled to the ground, split in two from the force of the blow, dead like the pathetic sausage smuggler that Garry knew he was. Garret had, with one punch, felled what was left of the possible competition to his new raison d’etre. Garret grinned and his golden facial hair gleamed radiant in the lemon white sunlight. He knew that this was a good start to his new life.
Vassily ‘The Condor’ strolled into The Firehouse of Liberec, a seedy dive bar near the central metro stop, at around noon, crunching discarded peanut shells into the sawdust beneath his feet. At the corner of the bar, Vassily could just make out the shadowy beard of Garry. The Firehouse was not known for its light. “Garret, my cousin, how are you this day.” The figure did not move or respond in any way. Garret was a man of few words, this Vassily knew. Pulling himself up into the high bar-chairs (Vassily was of rather short stock, you see), Vassily thought about this current situation with his cousin. The smell of his kin’s drink combined with the tangible airborne alcohol-sheen (like that of asphalt on a hot day) that he gave off indicated to Vassily that Garret had mixed up, or had somehow convinced the bartender to mix up for him, some of that foul ‘Giggle Water’ he was so very fond of. It was purple, for the sake of Christ’s. Vassily refused to touch the stuff, despite Garret’s machinations to the otherwise (Garry makes dinner: it is spaghetti with ‘special sauce.’ Garry is offering to get you something from the store: look, it is already-open can of diet soda. Garry is replacing nightstand waterglass with a tall mug of the stuff, knowing full well that Rabinaks are creatures not of the morning and mistakes could be made.) Life as a celebrity in America had been cruel to him, Vassily knew this. So he could cut his cousin some slack in the addictions department. If Garret felt like drinking a drink that required an industrial solvent as an ingredient, so be it. Vassily had certainly done him a favor, inviting him out here to this shattered country for the lucrative life of smuggling blue jeans into a country that had no remaining import-export infrastructure. Aside from the greeting a moment earlier, no one had yet spoken a word.
“Do jeden pouhy osm…” (‘For a mere eight korunas…’) Garret started in stumbling Czech.
The biggest problem for his new career aspirations being that Garret Rabinak spoke no cogent Czech. He knew his way around English and a small amount of both French and Spanish but his entire knowledge of this country’s language was taught to him in a single, surprisingly educational night with a hooker, “Tickat” (which means ‘tick,’ a fact that Vassily was quick to point out afterwards), in Praha some couple-three months ago.
“JÁ vůle mléko tvůj prostate do téže míry jeden mlékárna kráva.” (‘I will milk your prostate like a dairy cow…’) he continued. The bartender had heard this whole spiel before; he proceeded to the makeshift fumehood to mix his customer up another glass of the hard stuff.
Vassily spoke. “My cousin, this day we make our mark. With the elimination of that rouge Eamon we can seize control of the road from Dresden to Usti nad Labdem and we will have easy access to the fat wallets of Praha. Many people are relying on us for our service.”
“This is so.”
“So let us celebrate, yes? Make party?”
“Hora mne do téže míry jeden osel.” (‘Mount me like donkey’)
“Let us stick to English, yes?” And so the night progressed.
What Vassily did not know, and would never know, is that Garret is a man whose whole history could be measured in revenge, the back in forth, beads thumbed slowly to balance, waving along the dead.
Several hours later, after Vassily had guzzled more than 7 Old Rasputins and Garry had somehow convinced some 16-ish local girl to let him do body shots of GW off of her (they had to stop when she developed blisters on her torso), the cousins were thoroughly, wonderfully trashed, making merry of their good fortune. Tomorrow, they would be rich men. They would drive the 2 rocky hours to Dresden and purchase several tonnes of blue jeans and hurry them back, duty-free, to the willing wallets of the Bourgeoisie, selling them for several thousand percents of profit. The brothers deserved a break.
Vassily is an animated speaker when he gets started and here he is in the midst of telling a story, making good use of his hands and various bar items as props, when appropriate.
“…And so, she is moaning at me, you know? Like she is wounded. So I am thinking: she is faking, yes? And then, I shit not, she is looking over at me and growls deeply, like really throaty growl here, and says ‘Stick it in my…”
The cousins looked up and behind them, as a tall, stout figure had approached at some point, wielding a pistol in his right hand, what appeared at first glances to be a Luger. The cousins sat there; they had drunk (drink is too a strong verb!) themselves into a form of slow-motion, and swift, dexterous action was out of the question. Garret eyed the weapon beadily.
After a moment he said, “Is that a Luger?”
“Yes, it is,” the figure replied. He turned. “And I tell you, Vassily, I am the Condor.”
Vassily started. “Hey, I’m the Condor. You are confused.”
The figure continued. “You have trespassed on my namesake. I am the Condor. The real Condor. The Condor of Death. A truly bad motherfucker. And let me tell you, Vassily Rabinak, that a Condor, it never misses.”
With that, Vassily’s chest exploded like a blood sausage. Garret blinked. He had seen violence in his television days, and lord knows that he had committed most of it himself. Hell, this morning he had punched a man in twain. But this here, this was kinfolk. This was a completely new experience for him, one that was unforgivable.
“You have killed my brother.” Garry’s tongue felt slow in his mouth. “You stupid son of a bitch.” For the first time in his entire life, he regretted drinking. The figure turned to him, eyed him appraisingly. Garry could see that he sported a trimmed black beard and rectangular glasses, framing cold blue eyes.
“He was your cousin,” the bartender interjected.
“Whatever. Shut up. What matters is that now I am going to kill you, you murdering son of a bitch.” And with that Garry laboriously stood and immediately blacked out from an alcohol-laden blood rush.
To be continued.
With Love,
-J