Letters from a Thirty Year Old

1.

I was standing at the exit from the Chistye Prudy metro station. Some stupid Spanish melody could be heard from the left, and snow was falling from above, which instantly melted when it touched the ground, and settled funny on the hair of passers-by, so that it seemed as if everyone around - young and old - had suddenly turned gray, but it was only light gray hair – this happens to people who enter adulthood early. And the air in front of me was also lined with flickering, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, rays of snow stretching from the very sky. Nobody wanted anything from me, so I felt very calm, although a little lonely.

For some reason I thought that everything in life was not so bad.

It was a little unfortunate that this feeling, obviously, would not last very long, and soon I would completely forget both the snow and this feeling, and I would not be able to tell anyone about it, and even if I did, no one would be able to fully understand me.

2.

That evening I found myself in an Irish pub with three friends. When the musicians started playing rock and roll, I took out my kazoo and blew it as hard as I could. The girl serving tequila was so beautiful that I almost went blind, but Volodya was not at all taken aback, he said that she looked like a doll, there was nothing to admire, and immediately invited her to dance. Two other friends also danced; I alone, despite my thirty years, could not overcome my fear. I found myself at the bar completely alone, got dressed, left, and all the way I remembered how a girl came up to me in a boarding house near Moscow and said: “Can I dance with a handsome poet?” - and I started dancing like crazy, which led to events that irrevocably changed my life. As a result of these events, I was left homeless and without a future, with a huge reserve of self-pity, which I have not been able to spend until now, despite advice to become a soldier and live every day as a battle with the whole world.

Arriving at the place where I have been spending the night since then, I looked in the mirror - and did not see any soldier, but only the haggard face of a provincial bespectacled man without a registration, lay down on my inflatable mattress and fell asleep sweetly, and I dreamed that I was cuddling up to someone - a warm side, and someone’s hand ruffled my hair, and my soul was once again at peace, peace, peace.

3.

In the morning I woke up around one o'clock in the afternoon, got dressed and went to a party where the artist Lilya invited me. I walked halfway to the metro and realized that I had to go back because I didn’t want to see anyone. When I returned, I decided that Lilya would be offended and wandered off to the metro again. Of course, I went to the wrong Smolenskaya station (there are two of them), was half an hour late, and everyone was forced to wait for me. When Lilya finally saw me, she shouted “Hurray” - and the whole crowd floated along Old Arbat, focusing on a bouquet of roses, which Lilya put on a long roll of paper and raised up above her head. Walking next to me were two young guys, probably artists, and quietly, in an intelligent way, they recalled how one of them did not shit for three days in a row for artistic purposes.

We were taken to some ancient, apparently Stalinist apartment. It had high ceilings. I remembered how the literary critic Ankudinov wrote about me that I was a typical Muscovite and wrote about high ceilings, although at that time I did not see any high ceilings and lived in Moscow illegally, without registration, being a citizen of Moldova with a residence permit in Dortmund. In fact, this high ceiling was the first high ceiling I saw. I was glad that I had already written about these ceilings in advance; in any case, this is what our criticism claims. As for me, I didn’t find a single line about ceilings, but from the outside I know better.

Naturally, behind these thoughts I completely disconnected from the world around me and did not notice how the whole room was filled with some kind of artistic works, the wine was poured and the table was set. Of the works, my favorite was a urinal placed on a stool with a mustache attached to it - it was called “Fountain with a mustache.” I told someone that Marcel Duchamp had already done this, but some sophisticated-looking girl explained to me that this work was in the Duchamp tradition , and that she herself had worked in such a tradition before. It turns out that it is difficult to find a cheap urinal in Moscow, so this work was incredibly expensive. She searched all of Moscow in search of urinals. I reported that I once saw a urinal in the middle of the forest. No, they didn’t try to find a urinal in the middle of the forest. Well, not every forest has a urinal, right? It would be sad if the forests were filled with urinals. I criticized the excessive academicism of The Fountain with a Mustache and suggested that in order to develop Duchamp's ideas, the artist interacts with his work in front of the audience. But, excuse me (she thought)… it seems Ter-Ohanyan has already done this. This means that this would be work in the tradition of Ter-Ohanyan, so I answered.

Lilya jumped forward and announced that a musical group was about to perform. A girl and a guy separated from the crowd of guests. The guy struck the strings. He beat and beat on them, as if he had forgotten that he still needed to press some chords with his other hand, then he raised his head and shouted:

- Everything is fine!

After that, he began to hit the strings again. The girl sat nearby on a stool and dangled her legs. She was really okay and on the whole brightened up the unfavorable impression.

One spectator, apparently a fan of this group, jumped forward with a piece of wood, nails and a hammer, which had previously served as part of some kind of installation, lay down on the floor and began hammering nails into the piece of wood in rhythm.

At that moment there was a knock on the door and a cop entered the room. He was very unhappy and said that there had been a complaint against us and everyone should leave. I was surprised at the efficiency of our police (or police?), but then I realized that the cop most likely just lives on the floor below.

4.

From the artist Lily I moved to Medvedkovo. There I rent a room next door to two gay men, Pasha and Roman. They live in one room, I live in another. I lock the door to my closet at night. Just in case.

This precaution, however, is not necessary. Gays are not dangerous at all and are very kind to me. Pasha is my uncle, and Roman writes poetry.

I have a bag with things on the floor. There are socks, panties, shirts and sweaters. Next to the bag is a guitar and two bags with family photos and children's notebooks. I don’t have any more property and it won’t be inherited.

I think I belong to the proletarians. The proletarian has nothing but his working hands. I have nothing but my head. There is nothing to talk about my hands. They grow out of my ass.

There are shelves on both sides of the room. One shelf is completely filled with science fiction. The husband of the owner of the apartment bought this fiction from his friend nicknamed Beard in order to give him money.

Beard loves to smash pieces of wood with his fist and besides this, it seems he is good for little, but he has retained his childish spontaneity and lives in an imaginary world of samurai and space pioneers. He makes me like him.

One day he hit his father on the forehead with his heel. It seems he was at war. Beard has no beard.

I don't know anything else about him.

I have his books along the entire right wall. Muscular guys with blasters look out from colorful covers. They're terribly cool. And here comes the scammer Jimmy di Griz, the cosmic analogue of Ostap Bender. He has perfected the technique of taking money from aliens, but unlike Ostap, he does not respect the Criminal Code. It’s impossible to break this guy’s psyche; it’s not for nothing that they call him the Stainless Steel Rat. Jimmy is as much a symbol of the nineties as the joint-stock company "Giant Plant Society", the prototype of MMM from a prophetic book for children who became adults in the nineties.

As the girl I brought here for the night once said, it feels like sleeping in a bookstore.

The second shelf is filled with vinyl records of classical music. This is part of the collection of the owner's husband. Most of the records he made by selling Moldovan vodka in the same 90s.

The husband of the owner of the apartment is my father.

We pay only 15,000 for an apartment for three of us with gays. It’s cheap and convenient for everyone.

When I get back from Lily's I go into the kitchen, take out my pipe and smoke until I throw up.

5.

I always wanted women to love me, to look at me admiringly, and their eyes involuntarily moved to my lips. Then I would kiss these women as if I were drinking.

I would like my poems to be re-read and stopped in the middle of the street in thought, realizing something very important, inaccessible before, something that you cannot formulate, something you guess about, but cannot hear. Something on the verge of perception. Hidden connections between things.

I have always wanted to live in a spacious house, filled with heavy tomes. There are big windows, a lot of light. I'm sitting in a deep chair by my humidor. I take out a cigar and light it. Children are playing in the courtyard of the house. The wife strokes the cat. Friends will come soon. We will listen to Bach and read poetry. In the evening I will play chess with my father.

But everything is too static, too static. Need to do something. It's time to run away from here...

And I'm leaving.

I get on the train, it takes me somewhere. I don't know where. I'm completely alone on the train, except for the conductor. I go out in a big and noisy city. I visit forgotten places and old acquaintances. Nothing changed. People seemed to have been mothballed. They still work in the same place, they do the same thing every day.

And I understand that I am the reason for all this.

Then I wake up.

To be continued