DOOM 94 Page 5

  Sīnis went to the edge of the roof and looked down.

  — If I weren’t afraid, I’d jump from here in a heartbeat!

  Then he looked over at us. Then back down.

  — Life has no meaning.

  Eva answered, her voice low:

  — It’s fun when it doesn’t.

  She looked at Sīnis.

  — Don’t stand so close to the edge.

  — It’s fine, I’m scared anyway.

  — Sīnis, c’mon, get away from the edge.

  — In which direction?

  — Stop it, please.

  I jumped up and ran to join him. I stood with the toes of my shoes over the edge and gently leaned forward. It was a game I’d invented. You had to lean forward just far enough so you could see the ground floor. Standing on the edge of the rug at home, the motion of leaning forward is barely noticeable, but up here you definitely noticed. I stood there leaning forward and no one called me back, and I still had to lean further and further. Good thing Gatis finally drawled:

  — Want a drink?

  Almost like the poet Eduards Veidenbaums, I traded death for beer. I straightened up, feeling the strength in my legs, and went back to Gatis. I made it two steps before my feet got tangled in something and fell over, hurting my arm. Everyone burst out laughing, except Eva, because she didn’t have a sense of humour. I looked down — it was the string from the stupid yo-yo.

  I sat up and began to untangle my shoes.

  — What’s this dumbass thing even doing up here?

  Yo-yos were very popular then, and so, obviously, dumb.

  — Which one of you jerks put it there?

  I persisted. Sīnis was the only one to react:

  — Why’re you asking me? I’ve never touched one of those my entire life!

  I looked to Eva and Gatis. She turned her face away, offended, he smirked and took a swig of beer, which I still hadn’t gotten my hands on.

  I looked down at Jelgava. A grey, sombre scene. Fifty years ago the city had been reduced to rubble. Everything crumbled and burned down. Then the city was rebuilt — five-storey buildings, prisons, warehouses. When driving through Jelgava once, musician Dambis of Inokentījs Mārpls commented that nothing was going to come of buildings like these. People here didn’t have ideas.

  — What should we do?

  No one had an answer. There was no more beer left, but no one wanted to leave. There wasn’t really anywhere to go.

  — Well, what should we do?

  Sīnis was getting restless. Gatis answered slowly:

  — Stop fidgeting. Play with the yo-yo.

  The toy was still lying on the roof floor between us. Sīnis took the opportunity to reassert his earlier claim:

  — I’ve never touched that piece of shit before in my life!

  — So do it now, maybe you’ll like it.

  Sīnis picked up the poor toy and chucked it over the edge of the roof, right where he himself had been tempted to fall over earlier. We all froze, waiting for it to land.

  And then — the sound of glass shattering, followed by loud cursing in Russian. It had gone right through the windshield of a car. At least we assumed so — no one went to the edge to look. We could hear the voices clearly down below. They quickly figured out the yo-yo had come from the roof, and they swore they’d kill us.

  Kačaks asked Sīnis why he’d done it.

  — What? This is awesome, we knocked out some gopnik’s windshield!

  — We knocked out?

  — Fine. C’mon, friends, throw me over!

  The voices down below kept shouting. Now they were requesting the homosexuals on the roof to kindly show themselves and come on down for a chat. No-one moved.

  The voices down below then said they were going to come up to the perverts on the roof instead. We whispered amongst ourselves:

  — Do you think they noticed exactly where that thing fell from?

  —Who knows. How could they have?

  The voices down below announced that they’d spotted us and were on their way up. Suddenly the roof wasn’t that welcoming anymore. I didn’t want to be up there. Or down there, either. So where, then? Far away, at home with my mom.

  The voices downstairs were quiet. A very pronounced quiet.

  — They’re taking the lift up.

  — Let’s get out of here!

  Sīnis once again headed for the edge of the roof.

  — No, with the lift.

  — But they’re in the lift.

  — There’re two. We have to leave now.

  We scrambled down through the roof hatch. To get to the elevators we still needed to make our way down a rusty ladder.

  — C’mon, hurry!

  They pushed me through the hatch and I grabbed onto the rungs. Two steps down it occurred to me how impolite it had been to climb down before Eva. How did it go — my mom had once taught me there were two options when climbing up or down a ladder: for one of them you should let the girl go first, for the other the girl went second... Which one was for climbing down?

  I looked up and Eva was already climbing down, her panties were green, then she stepped right on my face and I kept climbing down, my adrenaline now doubled.

  One of the lifts was clearly in use. We could hear it humming as it drew closer.

  — To the other one!

  The other lift was in use, too. Either our murderers didn’t fit in a

  single lift, or some old lady was coming home with a bag of dumplings.

  — The stairwell!

  We clattered down the stairs, and around the seventh storey clearly heard a thug-laden elevator pass on its way up.

  We stopped at the door, but only for a second, which was enough to smell the gamut of fresh-to-stale of urine in the hallway. Eva pushed open the door and we went out into the street.

  And there really was the car, its front windshield shattered. A man in a red jacket stood next to it, along with three others wearing tracksuits. They watched us with uncomfortable intensity. We said nothing and turned to leave, but because we hadn’t made a plan, we all started off in different directions. Eva and I even collided, her nose crushed against my cheek.

  The man in the red jacket called to us:

  — Oy!

  It was the same bloodcurdling voice we’d heard from up on the roof. The men, of course, had never gone up to find us.

  — Come here!

  My knees buckled. No-one else moved. It didn’t make the man in the red jacket any less suspicious.

  — Who’re you?

  From one of his hands swung the damn yo-yo.

  — Is this yours?

  None of us hurried to deny the toy was ours. Suddenly one of the guys in a tracksuit spoke up. Probably the brains of the bunch.

  — It’s not them. These dumbasses only play with pills and razors.

  He came up to us and kicked Gatis:

  — Get a haircut!

  Gatis was the only one with long hair. The rest of us only had rippedup jeans and sad eyes. But it was enough to recognize our kind.

  — Get lost!

  And we left. It was the first time that I felt I belonged to something, to something other. And this otherness had saved us.

  I looked up to where we had just been, and saw and felt everything take off.

  10

  You may ask: I’ve talked about rock and roll, about drugs — but where’s the sex? Wasn’t it, after all, a time when the world was free and girls would write “Rape me” in permanent marker across the backs of their jeans?

  Yes, it was also around that time that they we started health classes in school. Our teacher was flustered and smiled like her face was paralysed. She explained that it was time for us to learn about sexuality, about the reproductive system and kissing. When the first lesson came to an end she announced:

  — You have an assignment for the next class. Draw me your best wood!

  The room went silent. I for one was silent because I’d Fr
eudianly misheard her. Some of my classmates had, too; I asked them about it afterward. It had surprised me that a teacher who had up to then been so respectable had used such direct slang, but I supposed that’s what happened when you started to learn about sexuality. Be that as it may, how were we supposed to do our homework? I wasn’t yet that familiar with the subject in question that I could accurately draw it. And did she mean for us to draw it to-scale, or… Several shocked voices spoke up:

  — What? What are we supposed to draw?

  — Wood! W-o-o-d!

  — What? What, what?

  — A wood, a forest, trees — a wood!! W, as in welcome, wallet, water.

  The assignment would up being a kind of psychoanalysis. The woods we’d draw would be analysed, and each of us would basically find out of he was born for sex or a lost cause, or just gay.

  We weren’t learning for school, but for life. One night Gatis and Edgars went to the bus station bar. They sat down and quickly drank their money away. Then they sat there, not knowing what to do next. The bartender took pity on them and gave them each a cola and brandy, on the house. The guys drank them happily, and the bartender made them each another. Back in the nineties, some people were nice like that, or else rich. Soon enough Gatis and Edgars were the only customers left. The bartender started to close down the place, but invited them back to his place for another drink. And of course, they agreed. They didn’t know the bartender, but they could get to know him, and he’d shown himself to be an upstanding person. So the three of them headed to the bartender’s place. The bartender kept his word and served Gatis and Edgars drinks, and what’s more, a selfless person would, drank little himself. Our boys didn’t pay much attention to their host, but enjoyed themselves until they’d both passed out.

  Edgars woke to someone unzipping his fly. He opened his eyes to see the host with his hands on his waistband. And instead of making up some claim about helping his guest out of his clothes so he could sleep better, he staggered away theatrically, pretending to be completely drunk and out of it.

  Society wasn’t as puritanical back then as it is now. Lesbians strolled with their wedding parties past the Freedom Monument and elicited only kind or curious smiles from passers-by. Edgar, however, decided it was time to go home to his parents. He couldn’t wake Gatis up, and so yelled in his ear:

  — Wake up, Gatis, or you’ll get it up the ass!

  That got Gatis moving, and they left the bartender’s house without saying goodbye.

  They walked home half-awake and still drunk, in an existentially strange place. By the time they reached Rainis Park, Edgars’ anger finally caught up with him. They passed another group of late-night wanderers, who cracked some joke about their long hair. Edgars, his anger taking over, replied harshly. Immediately, a handful from the other group rushed to hold down Gatis, while two more gave Edgars a black eye.

  Those were the sexual escapades of my wonderful friends. But me, I had nothing.

  I could sit at home and read books. I could go visit that same Edgars to watch a movie. He was always watching movies, usually horror films. But maybe it would occur to him to put in one of those secret movies about relationships. I’d never ask him to, but maybe he’ll think of it himself, and there’d be gorgeous women, so sorrowful and mysterious, so affectionate and loving.

  But Edgars wasn’t home. On the way back, for whatever reason, I stopped at Eva’s. She lived in the cheapest neighbourhood, almost a shantytown, which people called ‘kurjatņiki’, or chicken coops . For the most part the apartment buildings were abandoned or condemned. But some of the buildings were still occupied. I met Eva in the courtyard. She said:

  — C’mon, c’mon! Inga will be here soon too. She picked up some kind of liquor.

  So I went. I don’t know how it happened, exactly, but after she unlocked the door Eva left the keys in the lock. As we stepped inside, I closed the door behind me, the deadbolt clicked into place, and we were locked in — classic. We turned to bang on the door, but soon understood there was nothing we could do. It seemed this was the only inhabited flat on this floor.

  — What now?

  Eva’s voice was distraught. She fell onto her bed, symbolizing mankind’s helplessness in the face of fate or accident. There really was nothing to do, so I looked at her. The hem of her shirt was hiked up and I could see her stomach; it was flat and fit. The other side of the exposed strip of skin was bordered by her jeans. We all wore the skinniest jeans we could find, to set ourselves apart from the rappers, who were also gradually establishing themselves as a clan and wore the widest-legged pants possible, so-called ‘tubes’.

  Eva’s jeans were particularly skinny, they material pulled tight over and between her thighs and, suddenly imagining what lay beneath the denim, I felt a heaviness, a pressure. And not around my heart.

  I sat down next to her on the bed and, to comfort her in this unfortunate situation, I kissed her. We’d kissed a couple times before, but this time we were in a bed. I hadn’t forgotten Milēdija, and I also hadn’t forgotten that Nākotne didn’t exist, the Future didn’t exist, or how annoyed I’d been by her touch that time at that concert. But this here and now was a moment separated from the world, and it belonged only to us. I was too shy to put my hand on the exposed skin of her stomach, so I put it on her breasts instead.

  She looked at me, not dismayed or captivated, but surprised. This young woman, who was eighteen years old — of course she was surprised. What does anyone know at eighteen? At fourteen, maybe something yet, but at eighteen — absolutely nothing. She looked away, but didn’t move; the breasts beneath my hand rose and fell. The ground beneath my feet moved with them. I was anxious.

  But why was I anxious? What could possibly happen right then? Only what was meant to. As promised, Inga showed up with her liquor and unlocked the door. Eva rushed out to meet her, thanked her for saving us and explained what had happened with the key, my hand and I left alone in the bed.

  Inga had not only brought liquor, but also Baiba, some young artist with long blond hair, who was called Bon Jovi behind his back, and some other guy I didn’t know. Then the long-awaited liquor was poured and everyone had a great time. I hunkered down by the stereo. I played Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Roses. Eva kept asking for Penguin Orchestra or something like that. Some kind of intelligent, artistic music, some sort of real, beautiful music of life.

  But enough about that.

  11

  I was walking and eating sweetbriar fruits and ended up far behind the market grounds, back to the ends of the earth. I looked at the unfamiliar trees, the indeterminable path of undergrowth. In short, I got lost. But I just walked on ahead, calmly, waiting for the spirit to move me back in the direction of home.

  Then I heard a familiar song playing. It took me a few seconds to make it out, to get past the desperation of only knowing that it was something I knew very, very well. And it was, it was ‘Sappy’! The only Nirvana song I knew how to play on the guitar. I’d play it over and over, distancing myself from my worldly concerns.

  Even though the song sounded a little off, I followed it. Obviously it would lead me to good people, even if a little strange. Who knows, maybe it would lead me to where real life was happening.

  I walked out of the woods along a row of garages. The song stopped, and a familiar-looking gypsy came out of one of them. I turned to leave, but he called after me:

  — Hold up, dude, don’t run off.

  I wasn’t at all afraid, so I stopped.

  — We’ve got some business to discuss, dude.

  He grabbed my sleeve and led me to the open garage door.

  — You look like the type.

  I stepped into the half-dark alcove, ready to be drugged to the gills and for my organs to be sold on the black market to banana merchants exhausted by the melancholy caused by the dreary neighbourhoods. The garage was filled with sweet-smelling smoke, but I could still make out a cluttered bookshelf, a kid’s sled, a motorcycle in
an infinite state of repair, a drum set and in the middle of it all two guys sitting in camping chairs, each holding a bottle, not of alcohol, but of iced tea.

  The gypsy introduced me:

  — This is great, I’ve been looking for a while and look, I finally found one. This dude.

  One of the guys sitting looked me over and asked:

  — Can you play the guitar?

  His resemblance to Krist Novoselic was uncanny. Jesus Christ! It was Krist Novoselic.

  The gypsy answered, his voice sounding offended:

  — Of course, of course, he knows German too.

  And the gypsy was the one and the same Pat Smear, whom I’d seen play hundreds, no, thousands of times in the Unplugged concerts. Dave Grohl spoke up from behind the drums.

  — Patty, we’re out!

  And he raised his left hand; a nearly invisible object was smouldering between his fingertips. Pat growled: — Well, shit — and gestured in understanding, then nodded his head and hurried out of the garage.

  — We’d offer you some, but we can’t because we’re out, Krist explained.

  Somewhere in my addled brain I noted how, once again, weed had evaded me.

  Woeful and distracted, Krist picked up a bass guitar and played a few bars from ‘Sappy’.

  — Biu, bim, bim, bim, bim, bim, biu. Wanna play with us?

  Dave jumped out from behind the drums and walked over to me: — What’re you scared of, sit down! And he pushed a cardboard box over to me. I sat right through it, somersaulted backwards and almost cried out, waiting for them to laugh at me. But they didn’t; they just stared at me. I sat up.

  — Guys, aren’t you forgetting something? You’re all in Seattle.

  Then they cracked up. Krist explained (Dave started to drum a quiet rhythm):

  — What d’you mean Seattle, stop, are you kidding? We’re just a bunch of Jelgava boys, we’ve played together for years, played everything, so to speak. Once we signed up for this contest, but they told us — we don’t accept groups from Jelgava. That’s how it all started, we made up the part about Seattle and it stuck with us. No-one thought it would get this far, oh, shit, shit, shit.