In big cities, life in the large residential districts varies depending on the specific area, the layout, the age of the apartment blocks, and the number of rats—creatures that live like lords around the eternal dive bars and their legendary restrooms. Who doesn’t know them? Filthy, with walls eaten away by dampness and a tangle of pipes—some functional, some utterly useless—these restrooms always reek of piss; a raw, unadulterated stench. It is an eternal presence, much like the cockroaches—those immortal, ubiquitous household pests. Then there’s something else—a certain kind of man, or so the neighbors say—a ghost, a specter, who manages to drink enough every single day to satisfy two entire apartment stairwells combined. They call him the Drunken Poet, or "Ioanid from Apartment 10," though he spends most of his time lying flat on his back; if you just lie there like a rag doll, you can drink as much as you please—though you might end up with a case of the mange, too... I had a few drinks—well, perhaps a bit more than a few—with Ioanid, the Drunken Poet, and managed to swipe his secret little notebook: it contained half a poem and a hundred milliliters of rubbing alcohol, cut with tap water.
At the corner of the apartment building
I blew the white dust over the exhausted sun... then, in my own little corner, I sat— I sat at the corner of an apartment block—not a hospital surgical wing, mind you, but a ten-story building—yeah, that’s where I sat—ten, eleven stories, however many it had; the building was like a moth-eaten rag— you could see bales of second-hand clothes— second-hand people, second-hand booze, second-hand people— I just sat there; the asphalt was rising, swelling—like grandma’s sweet bread dough, the asphalt kept puffing up— like a corpse left out in the open, just to catch one last glimpse of the world— this shitty world— it kept swelling, just kept puffing up—that’s how it was at the corner of the building— in the dive bar "The Chipped Tooth," I sat—sat in a chair— a wheelchair—just sitting there, whiling away the time, while the guy in charge of the powders and the bottles recited: "At the Uvedenrode ravine, Uncle Barbul, Uncle Barbul—so many gastropods!" Supra-sexual, supra-musical—the thought just struck me as I sipped the manager’s "spritzer": Albanian "Skanderbeg" cognac, "Cristal" vodka, mint liqueur, amaretto, beer in a plastic bottle, wine in a plastic bottle, Ouzo, rum made from industrial alcohol— + Ecstasy pills Same old situation. I could hear it, as if in a dream— A winter night’s dream: February, the foulest beast of all. I could hear—was it "Wild Side"? Or maybe "Smoking in the Boys' Room"? The color of mud—the spritzer was the color of mud—and me... just trash in a dumpster. I pulled myself up a bit, then a bit more, and more still— but nothing beats the beauty of crashing over tables and chairs. Nothing is more beautiful: you feel utterly wrecked, your upper lip is split, and you’re bleeding out—like a headless chicken. They kick you out, boot to the ass. You land on the curb—your battered backside aching so much your hemorrhoids start to revolt— and you keep on drinking that swill, tasting of rust. Another day has passed in the life of the neighborhood poet.
moldy dive bar
if you lie there like a scarecrow—or a corpse—sprawled out, perhaps fallen, fallen on the alley behind the moldy dive, life—the ribbon of your typewriter— life—*clack, clack, clack*—keep tapping, poet, keep tapping, it flows, it flows right through that rat-shit, through the stench of it, through your own stench, your clothes, your livid, rotting clothes—mere rags, "Whoooo is it?" shouts the neighbor from the 5th or 6th floor—maybe the 9th, the one with the hunchback and the eyes of a beetle. "The poet—rotting through and through—yes, yes, it’s him!" screams Elefteria, the neighbor from the 1st floor. What a tall apartment block, with a dive bar and scarecrows on the ground floor— a rat is masturbating. With my swollen eye, I can’t see— I can only make out half of this erotic scene. The moms in the kindergarten group chat write, full of reproach, about the state— about the state of the poet, rotting through and through. I try to get up— but the air offers no support, and neither do the crates full of bottles. That’s how I remember it—rotten-drunk on a poem left behind in the latrine, the latrine behind the dive bar. But, oh well—it is what it is. Sirens wail; someone says I’ve died, or who knows what other misfortune has befallen me— something even worse—something truly, truly terrible. For instance—imagine living in an office where people nod their heads, happy, eating sandwiches with cheese and ugly cucumbers, chattering busily about their children. mediocre, I think to myself that’s what happens when you lie down people think you’re dead but we know—from our Romanian textbooks— we know: neighborhood poets never die if I’m dead, well then, why don’t I hear the trumpets, the bugles? *ta-ra-ta-ta*—the bugles have sounded *ta-ra-ta-ta*—and with one voice we sang: "Heartfelt thanks to the Party"—seriously? Gabriel, Gabriel, blow your trumpets, Gabriel Blow your trumpets, Gabriel As I beheld the bewilderment of Eden Break the bread, and crumb by crumb into the Leviathan's den Nations fall prey, hail my return (Hail, hail, hail) You haven’t exactly achieved anything great by lying down If you lie there like a scarecrow, the angels won’t come for you And if you stink, even Death—*she*, Death—won’t come; she’s a Lady, after all, and she doesn’t care for the unwashed "Charon! Hey, Charon!" calls my neighbor from apartment 6, "bring the boat by our place again!" 9 10 I won’t make it to 10—I shout out loud: "I want to fly!" Laci Baci’s rats, down on the ground floor, grin They grin ironically and concur with an official statement to the nation: scarecrows never fly
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