Edward Limonov - Memoir of a Russian Punk

Edward Limonov

Translated from the Russian by Judson Rosengrant (1983)

contents

Eddie-baby's fifteen. He's standing with a disdainful expression on his face, leaning back against the wall of a building containing a drugstore leaning and waiting. Today is the Seventh of November, and filing past Eddie in the cool noonday is the dressed-up citizenry, or goat herd, as he calls them. Most of the goat herd are on their way back from the parade. The review of the Kharkov garrison on Dzerzhinsky Square has ended, and the citizens' parade has already begun. The unified masses of the proletarian vanguard have long since marched through in columns, bisecting the German-prisoner-laid pavement of the largest square in Europe and the second largest in the world. "Only Tiananmen Square in Beijing is bigger than our own Dzerzhinsky Square" Eddie-baby knows that first commandment of Kharkov patriotism well.

The citizens walking past Eddie-baby now are the lazy, poorly organized, insufficiently committed representatives of small enterprises, of shops, stalls, and repair stands something on the order of a bourgeoisie. Only now have they dragged themselves out of their houses in their holiday finery, after putting away a couple of preliminary shots of vodka and a bite of holiday food, which, as Eddie-baby knows, is usually potato salad, some sausage, and the statutory herring. The head of the family has squeezed himself into a heavy coat, a black or navy blue suit, a tie, and brand-new shoes that inflict unspeakable pain at every step. The children, dressed like their parents in large, clumsy suits, are gobbling down the inevitable ice cream and dragging several balloons in tow. From time to time, the balloons burst with a startling bang that sounds like a pistol shot. The spouse's dress and coat no doubt reek of still potent naphthalene these people take care of their things. Eddie-baby frowns.

Eddie-baby is different from them. Which is why he's standing here in torn, wrinkled Polish velveteen pants and a yellow jacket with a hood standing around like some Hamlet of the Saltov district and spitting with an independent air. Eddie-baby is thinking they can all go fuck themselves. And he's also mulling over the depressing question of how he can get some money.

He needs 250 rubles. And he has to have it by tomorrow night. If he doesn't get it Eddie-baby would rather not think about that. Eddie-baby promised to take Svetka to Sashka Plotnikov's. That's the very best crowd in the district. It's a big honor to get in there. Eddie-baby has been granted that honor for a second time. But this time his parents really got mad at him; Captain Zilberman's last visit made a deep impression on them, and they wouldn't give Eddie any money.

Eddie-baby grins contemptuously as he recalls his arrest. Zilberman came by with two militia officers at six o'clock in the morning, woke him up (he was asleep on the balcony in a sleeping bag, a gift from the Shepelsky family), and after sticking a yellow piece of paper in his face said, "Citizen Savenko, you're under arrest!"

Zilberman is crazy, and he likes to make an impression. Evidently he thinks he's Inspector Maigret: it's no accident he's always smoking a pipe and wearing an idiotic leather coat that reaches down to his heels. Eddie-baby snorts as he remembers the comically diminutive figure of Captain Zilberman. He's not Inspector Maigret; he's Charlie Chaplin.

Captain Zilberman, the head of the juvenile affairs section of the Fifteenth Militia Precinct, is a mistake. First of all, he's a Jew. A Jewish militia officer sounds like a joke. The only thing more ridiculous would be a Jewish yard worker.

That time Zilberman had to let Eddie-baby go the same evening. The captain didn't have any evidence that it was in fact Eddie who had burgled the dry goods store on Stalin Avenue.

Zilberman won't leave Eddie-baby alone: he's teaching him a lesson. He often drops by Eddie's house in the evening to check up on him. There's no goddamn way he'll find Eddie-baby at home now. After a couple of those visits, Eddie started avoiding Zilberman on purpose going out to dances, for example. Once Zilberman tracked Eddie-baby down at a dance at the Bombay, but Seva the projectionist let Eddie out through the service entrance. The official name of that large room next door to Grocery Store No.11 is The Stalin District Club of the Food Industry Workers of the City of Kharkov, but all the kids call it the Bombay. They're all Eddie's friends there, and if he wants, he can go to the Bombay without a kopeck in his pocket and twenty minutes later come out completely smashed. The kids respect him and buy him drinks. True, Eddie doesn't like to humiliate himself, and so he doesn't freeload very often, only when he's in a really rotten mood.

"Fucking life!" Eddie-baby thinks. "Where am I going to get some money? If I had known my parents weren't going to give me any, I could have made other plans. Two hundred fifty rubles isn't much, but if you haven't got it, then you haven't." He had 100 rubles yesterday, but he squandered it without a thought, relying on his parents. He paid Waclaw 30 rubles for a haircut, and who knows what happened to the rest. He treated Tolik Karpov and Kadik, that's what. He'll have to get drunk with Waclaw too, since Waclaw never lets Eddie-baby tip him, even though he's the best barber in a city with a population of over a million people. Waclaw works in the barbershop at Vehicle Maintenance Lot No.3; if he wanted to, he could get a job at the Kremlin, but he's not interested. Eddie-baby touches the part in his clipped hair. "You should get your hair cut once a week," the Pole had told him. "It should be no longer than a match." Haircuts aren't Eddie's problem, however. It's the goddamn money that's the problem.

Eddie-baby isn't just hanging around the drugstore, wasting away the holiday morning; he's waiting for his friend Kadik. Kadik lives nearby, and from the drugstore Eddie-baby can see the gray corner of his building, No.7 Saltov Road. Kadik's building is one of the oldest in the Saltov district. It used to be a dormitory, but families live there now.

Kadik, also known as Kolka and Nikolai Kovalev, is a postal worker's son. He doesn't have a father. Or at least Eddie-baby's mother, Raisa Fyodorovna, has never heard anything about Kadik's father, and nobody else has either, although everybody knows the postal worker, Auntie Klava, who delivers the mail on "our," the odd-numbered, side of Saltov Road a small woman evidently frightened of something. Evil tongues claim that Kadik beats his mother. "The big lug's fifteen years old," the evil tongues say, "and what an overfed bull he is! He's glad he doesn't have a father so he can abuse his mother." Eddie knows that Kadik doesn't beat his mother, but it is true they swear at each other a lot.

Eddie-baby likes Kadik, although he makes fun of him a little. "Kadik" is a weird synthetic name Kolka invented for himself from the American word "Cadillac." "Kadillak" sounds a bit pretentious, of course, but Kadik's been hanging around with "bandmen" jazz musicians ever since he was a little kid, so in his case it's forgivable.

It was also Kadik's idea to call him Edka, that is "Eddie-baby" in the American style. Kadik even speaks a little American, or a little English, since according to him there isn't that much difference between the two languages. "Eddie-baby" stuck to Edka, and now a lot of people call him that. Although until he met Kadik, he got along quite well without a nickname.

In the case of Edka Savenko, of course, "Eddie-baby" is closer to the truth than "Kadillak" is to "Kolka," since Eddie-baby's real name is Eduard. There are two Eduards in Saltovka, one of whom works as an apprentice lathe operator at the Piston Factory and makes one-shot zip guns, which he sells to the kids. Eddie-baby bought one of the guns from him a year ago, but it doesn't work now something's wrong with the bolt and Edka promised to fix it. That Edka has a Russian last name Dodonov.