Tired in the Brief Land of Endless Sun (Another Russian Intermission):

Novgorod:

Coburn:

Rules (left) w/ The Dallas Beauty Queen (right):


We arrived late into Novgorod, but there was still sunlight since that part of Russia stays light close to 20 hours a day in summer. We danced a traditional Russian dance, then sat-thru a performance of Kalinka before dinner; after which Coburn and I shared a drink at the hotel bar.

There was another tour group at the hotel in addition to ours. Italians. Coburn and I inspected their women as we talked.

“...Listen man,” I said to him. “Maybe we can try and locate a doctor thru the hotel.”

Coburn looked out toward the lounge of people as though squinting into the sun. As though he sought something far out in the distance.

“...Naw Lodo. Maybe back in Moscow, but not now. ...Now I don’t care.”

“You don’t?,” I asked. “...It looks a lot better. Like maybe the swelling’s gone down.”

Coburn nodded silently in agreement as he traced the swollen band of black and blue that encircled his eyes like a raccoon's mask. He didn’t need to look in a mirror; he could feel the contours of its boundary within his own skin.

I waited for Coburn to say something as I stared at his profile, but he remained quiet and aloof. I began to wonder if his silence was indicative of anger or disappointment with me; and I began to feel ashamed at not having done more back in Moscow.

I ordered a drink nervously. Turned to ask Coburn what he wanted, but before I could speak he cut me off with an absent detachment.

“Is your mom still alive?” he asked me, completely out of context. Like his mind had been away on some kind of intermission and returned to the performance at the wrong spot.

“What?” I asked. “My mom?”

“...Yeah,” Coburn asked again as he turned in his barstool to face me. “Is your mom still alive?”

“Last time I checked, yeah.”

“That’s good, man.”

No more was said on the subject. Coburn and I proceeded to get shit-faced drunk, and when I eventually hit my bed I should have passed out in no time.

But for some reason I was restless. We’d been on the bus all day with no exercise; and despite the late hour the sun had only gone down an hour or so before. I was still wired, and Coburn snored terribly!! I mean, really loud. With gasps of air that rocked his body with spasms. I figured the violence of the tremors would eventually wake him; but he just slept right thru.

In fact, Coburn slept like like a baby. I was the one left to deal with the uncomfortable bolt of anxiety that shot thru my spine with each snort or unanticipated gurgle of nasal passages and compressed air cavities. A feeling similar to the sensation created by nails on a chalkboard, until I eventually I had to leave the room.

Staying with Rules and The Dallas Beauty Queen was out of the question (that was made quite clear!). In fact, Rules and I weren’t even talking at this time.

So I took my pillow and blanket down to the lobby area adjacent to where Coburn and I had been drinking. By this time the lounge was cleared out, and the only one still present was the bartender. He still wore his hotel uniform as he sat on the customer’s side of the bar--on a stool, where he ate his late dinner with fork and knife.

It took me a long time to get to sleep as my life went on that intermission known as insomnia. Now and again my attention would turn toward the bartender who stared at one of several TV’s installed overhead. They displayed stylized pornography set to industrial dance music. The volume was down, but the bartender watched the robotic, hardcore images pass overhead as though there were a plot to be followed. A real story to watch as he forked the last of his potatoes and dipped it in his gravy. A country imbecile who slowly chewed his food. Or maybe he just wanted to stretch that peaceful respite between work and the commute home as long as he could. Before having to deal with the wife. Or the kids.

Or maybe there was no wife at all. Only loneliness and vodka. And sunlight.

When I finally fell asleep I was awoken almost immediately by a kick to my ottoman. It was the Dallas Beauty Queen.

“Lodo, wake up.”

“Oh hey,” I mumbled as I rubbed my eyes.

“Hey,” she answered with a soft smile. “You should eat. We’ve gotta be on road.”

Novgorod proved to be little more than a gift from our tour group sponsors to the city itself. Tourist dollars and a short intermission for our driver between Moscow and St. Petersburg. The city’s alleged significance is its history, but the ancient church we briefly visited was dark and dank, and did nothing to raise my level of spirituality whatsoever. In fact, to steal a line from Homer Simpson, it appeared to be more of a cage for God than a home.

The doors to the old church are allegedly the oldest and heaviest in all of Russia. The investigator in me has some skepticism about such an odd claim (heaviest?), but I didn’t challenge our guide. In fact, those doors were pretty cool. Covered in mysterious hieroglyphs etched in what appeared to be brass. They captured my dazed, hung-over attention for a long time.

“Hey,” I said to the Dallas Beauty Queen, “stand in front of these doors. I want a picture.”

“Oh no Lodo. I look terrible!”

“It doesn’t matter. Its just about the moment.”

The Beauty Queen posed, but then collapsed into me with a laugh.

“Oh my God Lodo--what is with that sun?!”

“What d’ya mean?” I asked.

“I mean it never goes down!,” she laughed almost feverishly as she held my forearm and stumbled along the brick-laid street. “My God, between the sun, the vodka. The jet-lag. That first night with Coburn. I’m just so...tired.”

“I know. We can all use a break.”