After work- in Charlemagne's kitchen
“How did you end up in Moscow, Charlemagne?”
“You know, I was in Poland for several years. The men were very beautiful but they really hate Russians. I hate Russophobia.”
“You fear Russophobes so you came to Russia? This is where a Russophobe’s dreams come true.”
“I hear all these people here complaining about Russians and how bad Russians are and I think they should just go home to their own country if it’s so much better.”
“True enough. But this is not an easy place to live. The key is to carve out your own comfortable space and not leave it. Where are you from?”
“Georgia.”
“What about your parents? Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“No, I only had my mother and she died awhile ago. I hate Americans who come here and complain about how corrupt it is here. If they could see how my mother died! The hospital kept her alive as long as we kept paying, then there was Medicaid, then it ran out and they knew it wasn’t worth their time so they killed her. I will never go back to the US.”
“Don’t you have friends there?”
“I have friends everywhere. I’m here to find the man of my dreams and play house with him for the rest of our lives.”
“But this is Russia. The men are a wreck.”
“I have always loved Slavic men, and especially Russians. I love their hair and their eyes, so much variety, I love their pouty lips!”
“The men are a wreck. Look at them. And the people are generally dishonest, you have to admit that. We could explain the causes all day, but the results are clear. You can’t trust.”
“You are SO right! They’re like white Gypsies!”
“They are also very homophobic. That you can’t deny. I can’t see how that works for you.”
“They are until I just take them. They are always ready, just like me. Sometimes in the train these Soviet babushkas see me coming onto men, they see our penises get so hard when we look at each others’ crotches and faces and bodies and they growl at us” –he growls libidinously- “and they get so jealous of the fags in the wagon because they know I’ll never fuck a babushka. I want to find a middle class man and live together with him for the rest of our lives. I also like to have some fun. Tomorrow night I’m going to have a kissing party, I just invite over a bunch of my fag friends and we start drinking cocktails and lay on the couch and just kiss each other, anyone can take anyone from anyone.”
“How old are these men?”
“Like me, or a little younger. I am the one who wears the pants. I do NOT take it in the ass, that’s the bottom’s job and I am NOT into that,” he says as he washes my coffee cup for me.
The idea that this man could get laid had not occurred to me. I don’t know if that’s a plus or minus for the remaining time I’ll spend here- his getting porked by other men could be a release of energy he might have in store for me, or it could be the occasion for an invitation I don’t want. In any case it means unwelcome noise- if these lovers are not just all in his head. I have seen him in the office before, completely flushed in the way a man can be only when he has a lover, so it can’t be complete fiction. I can’t go back to either Elena’s or Andrei and Julia’s, and am too cheap to stay in a hotel, so I will just have to be careful tomorrow.
I get it- Charlemagne sniffs out repressed, self-hating middle-aged homosexuals and impetuously embraces them. Since they’ve never been touched by another man, they become terribly aroused and fall for him. They’re elated. For the next three weeks things are good- then they understand through associating with him that there is a hidden gay world in Moscow and that they can be with a man who talks and weighs less.
Incident
I wake up the next day at 4 to snapping reports from the toilet being muffled by the man sitting on it. I try to go back to sleep, but again I can hear him murmuring in the shower. I want to know what he’s saying, so I get up and creep out as slowly and quietly as possible towards the bathtub. Remaining absolutely motionless by the door, I hear him saying, “Nigger, you wanna wash my feet? Come on nigger, you gonna wash my feet? That’s right, nigger, you ain’t got the right to wash my feet. You ain’t got the right to kiss my feet.” It’s a strain to stay so motionless.
The floor creaks. Charlemagne gasps. “Who’s there?”
I feign a groggy voice. “Just me, man, going to the can, man.”
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