Hughes at the Globe

It was late when I returned to the Globe from a dinner meeting.  I stopped at the bookstore and spoke with the Natalie, the bookstore clerk, while reviewing the evening’s sales.  I imagine most bookstore owners are alike and take a certain pleasure in seeing what titles their efforts have helped push into the hands and minds of the reading masses.  Of course, some titles are more pleasurable than others and as I read through the sales ledger, I was pleased by the day’s results. 

“Nice, you sold the Sartre I put on display.”  I said while inspecting the tally.  We had gotten some new books in that afternoon and rearranged the displays to showcase them.  This one sold within a few hours.     

“Oh yes, I can always sell Nausea if we have it.  Most customers who ask for recommendations do not have trouble buying it on advice.  I think it’s because it’s so short and not very expensive.”  She replied.

“And a Razor’s Edge, it’s always nice when a Maugham sells- so few people are reading him these days.  Good job.  I’ll see you in a bit.”  I handed her the ledger and went into the café area to check on things and have a drink. 

The café wasn’t empty, but it was far from crowded.  As I poured myself a beer, I noticed Hughes at his usual table in the corner reading a magazine and drinking a glass of white wine.  When he looked up and saw me, he smiled and waved hello. 

“Back again I see?”  I said as I approached his table and shook his hand.

“Oh yes, just having my usual wine after a long day.”

“It seems that they’re all long these days aren’t they?  I’m just finishing up myself.  You up for a game a chess?” 

“Sure, I’d like that.” 

“I’ll go get the board.”

Richard Hughes was a big oafish looking Brit with a bald head and bad teeth.  He was also one of the only regulars we had.  We became friends despite a contentious first meeting.  Back then the Globe had a row of computers along the wall by the entrance so customers could access their emails and the Internet.  This was well before Wi-Fi and Internet capable phones, so these computers were fairly busy most of the time.  Hughes was usually planted at one of them and since their monitors were against the wall, anyone walking by could see what the user was doing online. 

It was my first week on the job when I met Hughes.  He was at one of these computers.  He was watching gay porn.  When I walked by and saw it, I stopped in my tracks and told him he couldn’t watch that kind of stuff.  He was angry and protested saying that he was a paying customer and the previous owner didn’t mind what he did online.  I told him it didn’t matter what the previous owner allowed, there were kids coming and going with their parents and seeing porn- gay or straight- wasn’t good for business and it definitely wasn’t allowed any longer.  He was upset, but said he understood and closed the window.  

A few hours later I walked by again and he was back at it.  That was enough for me and I told him that he had to leave and that he shouldn’t come back to the Globe again.  He was taken aback by my banning him and apologized profusely.  He assured me it wouldn’t happen again if I gave him one more chance.  I didn’t like him at all, but he was a customer, so I agreed to let it slide this once.  I never caught him watching porn again.  

During these early days of taking over the business, I was at the Globe from 8am to at least midnight everyday.  Most evenings, Hughes was getting drunk in the café.  One night, just after the porn incident, I was alone having a late dinner when he approached and asked if he could join me.  I said he could and we got to talking.  That’s when I realized that his physical appearance (and porn watching habits) betrayed a deep philosophical intellect and stinging humor.  From that night, if he was around when I would finish with my daily duties, which was quite often, we would hang out, play chess and have lively discussions.

Hughes was in his 40s, from northern England and worked in IT.  He managed websites and built networks.  He moved to Prague because he hated the grind that England offered and since he had saved up some money, he could live well in the Czech Republic even if he didn’t have regular work.  When I asked if he was working now, he told me his only client was a place called Big Sister and he was working there full time as a consultant.  They were just launching their website and service and there were tons of problems keeping their network stable. 

I had no idea what Big Sister was and asked him.  He then went on to tell me that Big Sister was a large and sprawling brothel that was open 24 hours a day and usually had 10s of women working at any time, but it had an interesting catch.  It was free.  Customers could enter and use any of the women’s services for no charge for as long as they wanted, if they were willing to sign a release.  The brothel was also an online voyeuristic pay site; so all customer whoring was subsidized by online paying customers.  They had cameras everywhere and would archive and catalogue videos that subscribers could access on demand, as well as live stream all the rooms and social areas. 

I had to admit- it sounded really wild.  The place took the idea from the Big Brother TV show, where people are locked in a house that is blanketed with cameras and filmed 24/7.  They just added the free sex and constant bevy of hookers and broadcast it out to paying customers around the world.  It was fascinating to hear all this.

Inside Big Sister

“You should come with me sometime.  It’s well worth a visit.”  Hughes offered after explaining the concept to me.

“Ahh, no thanks man.  While I’m not against the idea or business- which actually sounds really interesting- the last thing I’d want is to be recorded and broadcast on the Internet having sex, especially with pros.”

“Suit yourself, but these girls are young, beautiful and really into it,” was all Hughes replied.  

“At least now I understand why you were surfing porn all the time- it’s your business!”

Back in these early days of owning the Globe, I was in the habit of offering good customers a free shot of Czech absinthe, which nine out of ten people turned down.  Not Hughes.  He was a good and steady drunk and was always open for a free shot of anything.  Maybe that’s why he would hang out with me every night, but I didn’t care, as I enjoyed his company and he played a good game of chess.  He was also well read, loved talking about literature and film and if the conversation ever hit a slow patch, he had a plethora of interesting Big Sister sex and whore stories that he would throw out that would wholly engross anyone’s attention.

He also had a thing for older women.  When my mother came to visit Prague, I told her to meet me at the Globe around 6pm for dinner after she was done sightseeing.  I arrived an hour late only to find my mother and Hughes drinking white wine together having an animated discussion.

“Hey guys, sorry I’m late Mom.”

“This lovely lady is your mother?!?”  Hughes was visibly floored.

“Yeah, of course.  I told you she would be visiting for a week.”

“Surely, she is far too young to be your mother.  I refuse to believe it.”  And he was being sincere.  He kept asking throughout the evening if I was pulling his leg. 

Of course Mom was loving the attention.  We drank a couple bottles of wine discussing life, history, Prague and the Globe and then we continued the conversation over dinner.  We didn’t talk about Big Sister.  At the end of the evening, I picked up the check and Hughes was genuinely thankful.  He said it was the best night he had had in a long time. 

My mother also had a marvelous time and said she really enjoyed talking to my “good friend” Hughes.  From that night and through the rest of her time in Prague, we met Hughes almost daily at the Globe and he was full of positive vibes and good conversation, while behaving like a true English gentleman throughout.  He seemed more like a British aristocrat hiding amongst us commoners than an IT specialist behind a free sex voyeuristic online brothel. 

Months later, when I returned to Prague after an extended trip to Moscow to learn that he jumped to his death from a fifth story balcony, I was greatly saddened and much surprised by the news.  It just didn’t seem like something he would ever do.  My inquiries to his acquaintances found that he had run out of savings, wasn't getting paid by his IT clients and decided to end it instead of returning to England or finding a proper job.  Nowadays, whenever I think of Hughes, I think about him during those early days of my tenure at the Globe and especially that week during my mother’s visit and a somberness envelopes me.  They say that we are all actors in life and we only show the world the facade we want others to see.  If that is indeed the case, Hughes was a truly talented player on the world’s stage, as I never once imagined the anguish and suffering he must of been concealing behind the bravado, verve and vigor-

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A Girl Lost to the Rain

Šárka (pronounced Sharka) was a petite Czech blonde girl with an oval face and big green-grey eyes that I met at Radost one Sunday night.  Radost was a café-lounge-club that I was cooking at and on this night, I was sitting at the bar after a shift with Igor, our dishwasher from Macedonia.  We were having some drinks to unwind before going our separate ways. Šárka was sitting at the couch closest to the bar with a couple other girls.  She was really cute and held herself with a reserved demeanor and an air of elegance, which immediately caught my attention.  After a little while our eyes met, we both smiled and she then looked away.

I then noticed her stealing glances my way and after locking eyes a couple more times, I decided to go over and introduce myself.  I told Igor what had been unfolding and invited him to come over with me.  He immediately turned around in a very blatant way and stared right at the girls.  He then turned back to me and said that he wasn’t interested and that it would only bring him trouble.  He was dating one of the servers and if he came over, even in the innocent role of a supporting wingman, it would lead to unnecessary trouble with his girlfriend.  He wished me luck; I grabbed my drink and wandered over to the couch. 

“Hi.”  I said as I stood in front of her.  This was my usual pick-up line. 

“Hello.” She answered in an embarrassed kind of way.   

“My name is Michael.  Mind if I join you for a drink?”

“Ok,” She started sliding over to make some room for me on the couch before adding and holding out her hand, “My name is Šárka.”

We shook hands. “Šárka - really?  That’s my favorite Czech name.  I really love it.”  This wasn’t a joke or false flattery- ever since I first heard that Šárka was an actual name in the Czech Republic, I was enamored by it.  For some reason, it really appealed to me then and still does today.

 

“Šárka is your favorite name?” She was smiling skeptically now, as I settled down next to her.  

“Seriously, I think you- I mean it’s beautiful- really beautiful!” 

“Well, in that case, Michael is my favorite boy’s name.” 

We laughed.

It was a golden beginning.  We started talking, or I should probably say, I started blabbering away.  You see, I have this tendency, especially when talking to a girl for the first time, to throw, almost non-stop, lots of random information out there.  It’s what I call the chum line approach.  In an effort to stumble upon something that interests the person, I go into overdrive disseminating candid facts and stories.  With Šárka, it didn’t take much, as she was interested from the get-go.  I explained that I was an American who had recently moved to Prague and started cooking at Radost to pay my rent, but despite the job my life plan was to write fiction.  I also told her how excited I was to be in her country.  She was a student studying music. 

Shortly after the conversation got rolling, her friends interrupted and said they were going downstairs to the club, which held poetry jams on Sundays.  Šárka said she would meet them down there and we continued getting to know each other.  I liked the fact that she was there for the poetry.  I also liked that she studied music.  It was clear we had a lot in common.  

I bought us another round, and another round after that, and before I knew it, it was going on midnight and Šárka said she had to leave to catch the last metro.  We had spoken effortlessly with much laughter for hours and I was certain we had a special connection.  I asked if I could walk her to the metro. 

“Yes.”  She said almost blushing. 

As we approached the entrance to the metro, she mentioned some concert she had gone to recently and asked if I had seen any music since I arrived in Prague.

“Not yet, but I want to.  I love classical music.  We should go to the philharmonic sometime---would you like to do that?”

“You want to take me to the philharmonic?”  There was her skepticism again, but her smile remained fixed while she looked straight into my eyes.

“Yes, I haven’t been and want to go.  Would you like to go with me?”

“You want to take me to the philharmonic.”  She repeated, but it was a statement, not a question this time, and there was a hint of something akin to positive disbelief in her voice. 

“Yes, let’s do it, but first, let’s meet again for dinner or something.  This has been an amazing night.  I’m so happy we met.”

We agreed to meet again in a few days.  Since this was before the age of cell phones and email, we decided on a time and place and when we said goodbye I hugged her and then, as we separated, kissed her.  We stood there in front of the entrance to the metro and kissed for a few minutes and then she went down to catch the train.  It was indeed an amazing night.   

We met as planned and the night followed a similar script.  It was a romance of kindred spirits- free flowing, enthusiastic and carefree.  After a few fun dates with her, I invited Šárka out with my friends.  They were dying to meet this girl who I couldn’t stop talking about. We all met for drinks at a bar I hung out in called Chapeau Rogue and afterwards we decided to walk up to Radost to hit the club. 

Things seemed to be going fine, but Šárka wasn’t as talkative or outgoing as usual.  I chalked it up to being around a small group of Americans that she didn’t know.  Also, the conversation was heavy in philosophical and intellectual topics, as all of us were riding the exuberance of seizing the day by spontaneously throwing our lives to the wind to chase creative dreams as expats in mid-90s Prague. 

As we were walking by the Stavovske Divadlo (Estates Theatre), where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni for the first time, my buddy from the States was saying something about the nature of true reality when Šárka pulled away from me and started jumping up and down while screaming at the top of her lungs in a piercing wail –“I WISH IT WOULD RAIN!!!! I WANT IT TO RAAAAIIIIN!!! AHHHRRRRAAAHHH!!!!” 

This obviously cut into the conversation and everyone stopped and stared at her in shock.  After the screaming tirade ended, she looked battered with wet eyes and started stumbling away toward the back of the theatre.  Everyone then turned and stared at me.  I was just as confused by this display as they were. Up until this time, I had never heard her raise her voice above a conversational tone.  I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I told you she has a lot of spunk.”  The joke didn’t lighten the mood and Šárka kept wobbling away with her back to the group.  “Go ahead without us, we’ll meet you at Radost,” I told them.

The guys started off and I went to Šárka.  She was now sitting on the street with her back to the theatre and her head down between her legs.  She was shaking and crying.  While she let me sit and hold her, she wouldn’t answer any of my questions about what was going on or what had just happened.  So, I just held her, as minutes passed.  I was confused and felt helpless. 

After a while, she pulled herself together, but still wouldn’t tell me what was going on or what the screaming was about.  We started walking again.  She didn’t want to meet up with my friends, or go anywhere else for that matter.  I suggested we call it an early night and go back to my place.  She agreed.  This would be the first time she would come back and spend the night with me. 

We hopped on a tram and then picked up a bottle of wine at the mini-market by my apartment.  Even at my apartment she was still shook up, so we pretty much drank the wine in silence, while smoking cigarettes and a couple joints.  When the bottle was finished, I tried kissing her, but she wasn’t into it.  We went to sleep. 

In the morning, her mood was better and we fooled around a little bit as we lay in bed, but she kept pulling back before it became anything serious.  Since we started going out all we did was mostly kiss, which we did a lot, but I couldn’t figure out why she kept putting the brakes on after so many great dates together. 

After a little while, she said she had to go.  I was frustrated, but didn’t say anything.  I walked her to the door, we said goodbye and that we would talk soon and I went back to bed.  I was let down that she wouldn’t tell me what was happening with her and felt that she was purposely keeping distance between us.  I didn’t understand it and figured that she probably wasn’t as into me as I was into her.

After this, we soon lost touch.  She knew where to find me and where I worked, but never came by again.  We had exchanged flat numbers, but she never called mine and when I called hers, no one ever answered.  After a couple weeks of trying, I gave up and moved on. 

About a year later I was having some drinks with a friend at Sports Bar Prague (an early Prague institution now defunct).  After a while, he said, “Hey, you see that girl at the end of the bar with Aussie Bill?  She stayed over at his place the other night when they were on an ecstasy binge and said she would give his apartment a “haircut” and then went around cutting up the lampshades, posters on the walls and other things…she’s nuts.” Aussie Bill was the resident drug dealer at Sport Bar and you could find him just about every night at the end of the bar by the pool tables.

I looked down the bar to Aussie Bill’s usual perch and was floored to see Šárka sitting next to him having a conversation.  She looked different- older, pale, burnt out.  I was about to react and tell the story of our dating when my friend added.  “I guess you can’t blame her.  She’s HIV-positive.” 

And with that, everything I thought I knew, and my entire world along with it, came crashing down like a torrential rain. 

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Want to read another tale of lost romance in Eastern Europe?  If so, click the link below to read about Gouzelle, a beautiful Chechen I met in Moscow that was also not meant to be:

https://libertinereflections.blogspot.com/2018/02/gouzelle-from-museum.html




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Unexpected Enlightenment- A Cockroach Story

Unexpected Enlightenment- A Cockroach Story

 My first apartment in Kiev was in a complex called the Tsar’s Village.  It came with Soviet furniture and had oriental style rugs hanging on the walls in the living room and bedrooms.  I don’t know why rugs on the walls were so popular back then, but I soon learned that many apartments had them.  The building also had an immense colony of roaches inhabiting it.  Infestation is the only word that comes to mind regarding the enormity of the situation and infestation really doesn’t do it justice.  It was something out of a horror film or nightmare, or both.  The only good news is that the roaches in Kiev are not the kind you may be thinking of.  They are fairly small, maybe an inch or so long, and are a light brown-reddish color.  They don’t have wings and don’t get to be the size of their large cousins in the American south or in tropical climes. 

Even so, I’ve never been a big fan of bugs and I couldn’t take the first few days of living with them.  I was constantly filled with anxiety and fear.  I was so paranoid that they were on me, that I kept feeling little roach feet running on my legs, arms, back, neck.  Even if they weren’t there, I felt them.  I felt them all the time.  I could often find a roach if I looked for one, but even if I didn’t, I knew they were there, behind the curtain, under the hanging rugs, in the cabinets- everywhere.  

When I’d come home at night and turn on the lights, I’d usually see at least eight-to-ten roaches running for cover in all directions.  This was what I termed the “mad dash” and it happened every time I came home to a dark apartment.  It got worse.  When I’d lie in bed reading, it was common to see a roach running along the headboard toward me.  I got so used to this that I put a box of tissues on my nightstand and would just take one, kill the roach that was heading my way with a tissue and throw it on the floor.  Within an hour or two, there would be at least seven-to-ten tissues lying on the floor.  Once, while I was reading, I grabbed a mug of water I’d put on my nightstand and as I brought it to my lips I just managed to catch sight of a roach running around the rim of the mug at full speed as my mouth was only a few inches away.  He almost got me that time!   

In the middle of the night, I would get up to take a piss and when I grabbed the doorknob to the bathroom in the darkened hallway, I’d often feel a roach run over my hand and jump to the ground below.  It was truly horrible.  In the mornings, I would get up and open the drapes in my bedroom only to see four or five roaches falling from them, hitting the floor and then scattering for cover under the radiator, bed or into a crack in the wall. 

I got into the habit of putting little balls of Kleenex into my ears before going to sleep as I was quite freaked out by the idea of a roach going into my ear and not coming out- similar to something I had once seen in a Star Trek movie as a child.  This was a constant thing while living in the Tsar’s Village.

Later, when I started looking for a new apartment, I kept a keen eye open for roaches.  I was trying my best to get out of the insect mess I was mired in.  After looking at some 15 apartments, I picked one didn’t have any evidence of roaches of any kind.  However, once I moved in and came home the first night and turned on the light while entering the kitchen- Bam! – three roaches where on the counter scattering away at full speed.  It was an off Broadway reenactment of the mad dash I had grown so used to seeing at the Tsar’s Village.  I was crushed. 

I soon encountered the little buggers in the toilet and bathroom (which were separate rooms).  The good news was that my new apartment’s infestation was much more manageable than my previous living arrangements.  The roaches at my new place liked the “water” rooms, so the toilet and kitchen were their zones of comfort, but unlike the Tsar’s Village, they were quite content staying confined to these rooms and I rarely saw one venture into the living room or my bedroom.  This was definitely a trade up and I was actually on cloud nine once I realized that there were boundaries that they largely adhered to.  It’s the little things in life and having my living and sleeping space “roach free” after being in bug hell was akin to hitting the Powerball jackpot.  After a few weeks in my new digs, I even stopped putting balls of tissue in my ears before bed and a few weeks after that, the phantom roaches, i.e. the imagined feeling of roaches crawling on various parts of my body whenever I was home, disappeared.  Life was good. 

I had a maid back then.  One day when I came home to find she had bought a can of roach killer.  I sprayed it around hoping to inspire the little guys into migrating to my neighbor’s flat for a day or two.  It didn’t work and they were always in the kitchen and bathroom at night.  

After a little while, I moved a can of roach killer into the toilet, which was in the hallway next to the kitchen and sometimes when I would come home drunk from the bars, I’d grab the can before entering the kitchen, turn on the light and try to spray the roaches before they disappeared behind the fridge or counter or wherever else they could squeeze through and out of sight.  It was a weird game of sorts.  Usually, when the light turned on, they would scatter away from the entrance of the room.  I don’t know if they were wise to the fact that I entered from there or if they were just going back the way they came, but my “sneak attacks” were not successful and most of the time they just involved me wildly spraying after their fleeing footsteps, covering my kitchen counter with roach poison and inhaling a lot of the fumes myself.  

One night however, all this, and, my world along with it, changed.  I’d just finished a long vodka session and stumbled home at around 3:30 in the morning.  I was hungry and wanted something to eat.  At this hour, I knew the roaches would be comfortably lounging about.  To be fair, it was their time to inhabit the room.  Despite this, I grabbed the roach killer from the toilet and prepared for an attack.  I hit the light and sprang into the kitchen to find four roaches on the countertop by the sink.  They were already high-tailing it out of there with all of them fleeing toward the wall on the far side of the kitchen, except one.  That poor bastard ran the wrong way and was coming right at me.  I took aim and fired a noxious blast.  The aerosol spray hit him right between the antennae and the widening cloud of fumes engulfed him.  Direct hit!  He immediately turned around and started heading the other way.  I remember feeling happy and I may have even yelled, “Got you!” or “Take that!” or something to that effect.  I’d finally gotten one with the spray head-on, but what happened next was as unexpected as living with cockroaches in the first place.

I got close and kept my eyes on the roach to see if I needed to give him another blast.  His comrades were all back in the woodwork by now, so this would be my only spoil of the battle.  However, he was cooked.  After running only a few inches, his speed slowed dramatically.  I watched as his little legs could barely muster another step and within seconds he stopped cold, his antennae searching frantically in vain for some answers.  Horror rose up within me like when a child realizes what death is for the first time.  The roach then flipped onto his back and extended his legs up and down twice in a synchronized motion as the poison overwhelmed his little heart.  He died at that very moment and this little leg extension was the last of his life leaving his little brownish-red body.  I just stared at him, roach killer can in hand, devastated. 

The weight of global injustice came crashing down on me.  This was a very moving death.  Worse, it was at my hands.  I was disgusted with myself.  Who was I to take this little creature’s life away?  What kind of monster would kill living things so indiscriminately for pleasure?  These roaches were just, through no fault of their own, doing what nature told them to do.  My eyes wet with tears with my mind filled with despair. 

I’d never witnessed such an intimate death before and since it was in slow motion, literally, as the toxins overwhelmed the poor guy’s system, it packed a clobbering punch.  The tissue killings were over immediately and had become a rote action that didn’t touch me.  This was different.  I knew I was responsible for his suffering before he left this earth.  On a broader scale, I now saw how we’re all roaches, it’s just that some of us have a can of Raid while others are scrounging in the dark.  At my office, I was the roach, my bosses had the can and they kept using it on me to slowly chip away at my inner soul.

I made up my mind right then that I would never willingly kill anything again (excluding food, which I don’t kill, but I eat).  I’ve stuck to that promise for many years now.  I also accepted that the roaches and I shared the flat and I’d be amicable to them.  I threw out the can of roach killer and told the maid not to buy another.  Soon after, this enlightenment broadened and encompassed all my actions.  If a fly made his way into my apartment, I would catch him in a glass and let him go free from the window so he could fly outside.  If it was winter, I’d free any bug I caught in the stairwell so that they wouldn’t die of cold.  Something switched and I felt closer to all living things.  We all shared the same cosmic energy that bound the universe together. 

I owe that roach a deep debt of gratitude, and even though I killed him, he saved me in some vague karmic riddle.  He opened me to a feeling of interconnectedness among living things and I found a greater humanity from his tragic demise.  I hope he’s been rewarded for his sacrifice and is having a blast up in that great roach motel in the sky.    

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