The Spot

If it happened half an hour ago, still memory couldn't come brighter, more persuasive or stronger in its physical presence. And it happened 16 years ago. With no overture, foreplay, or any kind of warning. I was a regular guy back then, a 26 year old fella who though he knew it all. I could wrestle anybody's arm down in less than a few seconds or beat any given viewpoint from any given aspect. True, my muscles were ready, as well as me dialectics. During the late 70s you could still live decently in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia: girls well-known for their beauty and easy access, cops crooked to the point of letting you rule the city streets and clubs if your backup was right, meaning left, booze, history, a joint here and a join there...
It was mid-July of 1980, summertime in full blast, my parents lost somewhere in Greece chasing the good time of their age, leaving it all to me: a five-bedroom apartment on the top floor overseeing the Fortress of Kalemegdan with its immense green. The four-story building in 20 Pariska Street was the only one in its immediate neighborhood to stand tall after the German air-raid in April 6th 1941. Built in 1928 by a rich Serbian merchant, it overlooked the Fortress the same way Fortress watched the delta of Danube and Sava River. For the sake of the events to come, I'll call it Building
I loved those summers spent alone in the Building. With only two apartments per floor, and the next door neighbors on the Adriatic Sea Coast, I arranged things my way. Once you exited the elevator and turned to the right, there stood a table with drinks, candles, and glasses, showing you through the open door, suggesting softly what to do. And they did come, the young rascals and the baby-faced nymphs, and they did behave at least up to the stretched level of my drunk tolerance. Spurring my memory, I can remember only a few instances when I drew someone out.
That Wednesday, July 16, I was up and operational as usual, some time past noon. An ordinary hangover, a body without self-respect, soulless and clueless. But no strange feelings, no bad omen. I made a phone call to Steffy, the girl who made me so indulging the night before. She sounded sleepy yet content, promising to stop by later on. I ate mushrooms and eggs, did some fifty pushups prior to it, took a cong, meditating shower touching Steffy's body through the steam mist of woke desire, and pulled a fast short of stolichnaya shot as plain as the steppe around Novsibirsk. Then I noticed a cigarette butt pushed through the upholstery of my father's recliner: the old man will eventually get a stroke.
Another vodka shot made that gorgeous sunny day unforgettable. In the years to follow I've seen, touched, or tasted handfuls of different sights and meridians: I had Mojave Desert sands for breakfast, whistling around my teeth, I drank from the North Fork Shoshone River outside of Cody right at the dawn still I declare, laughing nostalgia away, that days like those had the unprecedented power. It was liquid Zen at its prime.
Ignoring the elevator, I stormed down the stairs, crossed Pariska Street and vanished in the park that held the ruins of the Fortress together. Subsequent reconstruction of the event taught me not to count with coincidences, and applying such an insight backwards today I know that the morning had its special mark - an aura.
In stead of watching the numerous chess games going around, instead of taking a challenge and playing some of the masters, or simply enjoying the sight of young women walking, I started to explore the idea of parallel worlds. Being trendy at the time, it didn't catch me by surprise. I dreamed the ancient Athens in front of me, Phidias covered in marble dust and Plato lost in his thoughts while patting the rump of his favorite pupil. At the same time I visualized the endless sandy beaches of Southern California, beaches I've never seen. Now, with my house overlooking Pacific, I can't repeat that intensity, that clarity of impression. Those weren't Californian beaches and rolling hills backing them up, they stood scarcely populated in the eve of conquistadora, waiting.
I jumped over the low ancient stone wall which divided the spectators from their fear of heights - the Fortress was spread on to of the precipitous hills above delta - and took a steep, narrow path paved by using condoms and Tampax line of products, aiming toward the river bend. At that point I knew some pebbles in my head were horribly misplaced. Like I cared: if my damn body waited to break its own neck, let it be, I'll watch askance. Still, there wasn't a solid reason I should've taken this incident seriously: where is that famous freedom, cried out through the tunnel of centuries, if a young, healthy lad like me can't do something barely unusual without considering his mental balance? So I kept on going. Few Minutes later I turned my head back: there they were, spectators, tourists, idlers, like crows or vultures, like a mourning family from the deadman's viewpoint.
* I mentioned this episode to my old pal Rudy over the lunch that we had downtown, and he laughed, what else. It was about 4 p.m. when I dropped him at his girlfriend's, driving my father's Peugeot 505 back home. The car was full of trash and needed a cleanup badly, but I was definitely a wrong bet. Sitting in the restaurant's terrace, which covered the side of the Building, I hit two more vodkas in half an hour.
And there she was, just when I needed her, cutting her way through the tables like a chainsaw: my lover-of-the-week Steffy. She had what I called "an appearance", her horny walk of upper-crust whore, her buttocks waiving the air that I breathed. A hormonic walk it was, mindless and perfect.
"Are you all in one piece, Steve? You look like a shit without makeup."
I was about to say, " And you like a shit with make-up," but realized how desperately I craved for her only minutes ago, and kept silent, staring in between her crossed legs: There was nothing there that would increase La Perla's sales.
"I know I'm early, baby, but I couldn't wait to see you."
Well, you see me now, I thought, and if events keep on rolling in the same direction, you better remember what you see.

By 8 p.m. Steffy and I were sipping our drinks in the family room, overseeing the hall and the elevator, as guests began to gather. I say 'Guests' the way I spit. The sight of them coming in was assumably the one that Dr. Livingstone had during his voyages throughout the Africa at the end of the 19th century, when for the first time he spotted hyenas. Their movements and their laughs along with their sincere hypocrisy were as natural to me then as the parallel world that I lived in now. Nevertheless, they were supposed to be, and they were, associated with me one way or another, representing at the small scales of my different selves, my social panorama. Some of them were my poker buddies, some my ex-girlfriends, their scents evoking times not meant to be anymore, some were simply my chess pals, or drinking companions, or people I met at college, in high school, including those I never met in my life.
It didn't happen to me, but sure did it happened to my friend Stand. He came back home around 4 a.m. and found the door locked, the key in the lock. He rang for solid fifteen minutes, listening to hi own stereo in full blast, then he started kicking the door for another five minutes before someone finally approached from the other side, and instead of letting him in opened an interrogation. Like, 'Who are you to disturb us this late, or this early, how do we know you're the one you claim to be, can't this wait till morning, this is embarrassing', etc., until Stan pulled the gun and nailed the bullet slightly above the talking head. There were some ten couples screwing all over the place, and he couldn't recognize a single one. That's how far old fashioned hospitality used to run.
Steffy and I, deep in leather loveseat, were like godly hosts, the masters of destiny. A scrabby looking couple just entered.
"Who the hell are you?!" I almost shouted, leaned back like a sultan, positioning myself at the peak of my scornful abilities...
END OF "THE SPOT" PREVIEW