A. MOLOTKOV'S
LITERARY PROJECTS

Another Symphony for Drummachine
excerpt

The Statue of Liberty fell in love with one of my friends.  I don't really know how she managed to spot him amongst the crowds of ants covering the streets of the city she was guarding.  Apparently he was not careful enough, and something about him made him stand out against the background of others.  Maybe it was his unusual handwriting - the most beautiful I have ever seen…To make things simple, let's assume that, indeed, it was his calligraphic ability that attracted the Statue's attention.  The whole affair began with letters.  Naturally, they were considerable in size, and very soon the mailman started to look at my friend rather strangely.  After a while the latter decided to stay away from the lobby during the hours of possible mailman activity.  He would not show the letters to anyone, which leads us to believe that they were of a confidential quality - a very sensible assumption considering the fact that he did not deny the Statue's affection toward him.  A man of classical upbringing, he tried to reply to every letter, never failing to fully utilize his gift of calligraphy.  Naive as it was, he did not realize that his beautifully crafted letters aroused the Statue all the more, so after the initial period of courtship a rendezvous was requested.  This seemed to be a problem worthy of a brain as big as that of the Statue: due to the lack of privacy, they could not meet at her place, and a date at his apartment could also create a number of complications.  So, they had to do it elsewhere.  Meanwhile, my friend was trying to decide whether or not he should have sex with the Statue.  Many aspects of the situation was he pondering, and some of them he even shared with me.  First of all, considering the incompatibility in size between his genitalia and those of the Statue (providing her physiology was proportional), he could not be sure if he could make her experience an orgasm.  (He did not even think about himself, poor man, but leaving his overgrown partner unsatisfied would have crushed him.  He was such a gentleman.  Besides, there was no telling how long it would take the Statue to arrive at the level of excitement which a normal woman usually reaches within the first couple of hours of an intercourse.)  Secondly, my friend was not sure what kind of protection to use, since it was quite conceivable that a regular condom would be too thin to resist the friction against the bronze of the Statue's vagina.  Thirdly, he was uncertain what position to choose: should the lady desire to be on top, he would be crushed, and this time in the very literal sense of the word.  On top of everything (speaking figuratively now) he suspected he could make a fool of himself by suffering a sudden seizure of impotence in front of the Statue's abundant treasures.  I'm not even mentioning the suspicion he had that in the heat of passion the Statue would employ her torch as a sexual toy - a rather disturbing possibility, one must agree! 

Thus preoccupied with his private life, my friend lost his sleep, and soon it was obvious that the time had come to take measures.  Meanwhile, the Statue grew very impatient.  Her letters became more and more insistent, while their explicit sexual content undoubtedly would have made it impossible to accredit them even with an "R" rating.  Finally, the Statue let my friend know that she was coming over.  Obviously she had lost all patience, and any reasoning would have been pointless.  It might have had a lot to do with her daily exposure to thousands of people, in a sort of exhibitionism stripped of a chance to relieve sexual tension.  This didn't make my friend's situation in any way less dangerous - indeed, the very opposite was true.  And when one day he saw her moving off her usual place and walking in the direction of his house, he panicked.  By this time he deeply regretted getting involved with the Statue, but there was nothing he could do to change the past, and even if there was something, he didn't know about it.  So, he called the police.

We never found out exactly how the situation got handled, and whether the Statue resisted arrest.  We hope that she did not, for her own sake.  The only thing we do know is that the Statue has been institutionalized.  That's why she's not where she always used to be.  Maybe someday they'll cure her and she'll be back again - who can tell…My friend became a homosexual since then - I can't blame him for this.

And so, there I was, at this little place off one of the Avenues that I liked for being so small and cozy, and not as overcrowded as some other spots.  Apparently, my idea of non-overcrowdedness would not quite match that of an Eskimo, or even a Montana inhabitant for that matter.  But this is irrelevant right now, there being no now, only then; and then takes place, or should I say takes time, at a very indefinite point, which can't be referred to in terms of the past, the present, the future, or even the future in the past, this latter however being a little closer to the unattainable definition.  Anyway, there I am, sitting at my favorite table - and since the place was located in one of New York Cities, in one of Manhattans, off one of the Avenues, on one of the Streets - I just had to have at least three or four tables in the “my favorite” category: otherwise, half of the time deprived of the one of my choice, I would feel like a tableless orphan and my only alternative would be to shoot hateful glances at the lucky occupant of the Table, my position all the more miserable considering the very accidental nature of his, or her, being there.  There I am, there I was, there at one of my favorite tables, waiting for her to show up, waiting for her to reveal who she was, slightly scared by the possibility that the actress chosen to play the part would fail to live up to his expectations.  But you know, when she came in, it did not even occur to him that the woman he saw was the one who had called him.  Because the call, and the expectations, and the fear, and everything else retreated to the background now, still within reach, still capable of being retrieved, but not overshadowing the picture anymore, and it felt like meeting an old friend, just like running into one in the street, with no premeditation whatsoever involved.  Yes, it felt so natural to see her there that I even thought: oh, great, I don't really have to wait for that other one, she's late anyway, isn't it a chance in a million to meet Ada here, at this little off-Avenue place, far from her city of thinking about whatever it was she thought about.  For Ada it was, just the way she had remained in the tiny box I had allotted for her in my memory, untouched by time or space, a timid and yet open smile lightening up the semi-darkness of the corner my favorite table was located in.  And as she sat down, precisely the way she had sat before abstracting from the difference in geometrical position (which might have been illusory too, since the Earth moves in complicated ways, so we could very well be exactly in the same spot as that other time), as she sat down, I asked:

"So, why didn't I go upstairs that night?"

"So, why didn't you go upstairs that night?" She replied.

A human being cleared of the load of the past, a pure genetic essence of a person - what would it be like?  If at birth we were separated from our mothers, to be brought up in a completely different environment - would we be different?  Or would we, after a series of transformations, end up still the same?

The idea of purified brain released from dependence on its own memories fascinated him.  Would a person evolve as a super being, if only (s)he could shake off the chains of ideals, habits and inferiority complexes accumulated over the first twenty years of existence?  If only facts could be learned, only pure information, with no emotional lining …Would we end up mere zombies deprived of any and all human values, or would we reinvent these values based on the implications of the rational mind?  To a certain extent, the question could be referred to the poor ones who have lost their memory - just like in those silly old movies described by Salinger.  But could they provide a suitable answer?  And is their amnesia irreversible?  Will they forever stay with those wonderful old-fashioned girls who have fallen in love with them?  (If not, they will return to the same reality in which they had existed before the unhappy occurrence, and the sad bliss of the same old past will be bestowed on them again…)

"You know, I tried to call you a couple of times," he said.  "Your phone was disconnected.  Well, obviously you know it.".

"Yes, I had to move out pretty urgently.  Something came up."

"I'm glad you're here."

 "I am too," she replied. 

"So, how is your art?  Still doing it all at the same time?  Or have you decided to stick to something in particular?"

"Well, right now I’ve become really interested in photography.  In fact, that's what I've been doing most over the last several months.  But it's strange with me: you never know when I'm going to drop everything and turn to something completely different.  It might be tomorrow, or might be never.  I try not to make rules."

"How do you make your living then, if it's not a secret?"

"No, it's not.  I get a job now and then, sometimes I sell a painting or two, or something else.  I get by…" She shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, I know some people in this city, and if you want me to, I could arrange for them to take a look at your work.  Of course, I would have to see it first.  Will you show it to me?"

"Sure.  Next time you visit me.  As for you proposition, thank you, I'll think about it.  I'd have to put things together and finish them up before I could show them to anyone.  Thanks, though."

"Sure," he said.  "I don't mean to patronize you, or anything like that, you know…"

"I understand," Ada replied.  "You promised to show me your studio, remember?"

"Yes, I do.  I'm surprised you still remember it."

"I never forget promises," she said.  "Especially other people's."

As she was sitting in bed, so naked it was hard to imagine her with her clothes on, next to my equally nude, although not quite as perfectly shaped body, I let the words slide by like gusts of a light breeze while my eyes were sliding down her skin, around the curve of her breast, into the riverbed between the breasts, then climbing a hill, resting on her nipple, its configuration so divine, its coloring so exquisite.  Next - down and down, carefully walking around her belly button (beware of the possibility of falling!), then - into the black forest below, trying to make out more anatomical details, unable to do it in the dim light of the hotel room, internal lights off at the moment, a prolonged agony of the day outside preventing his eyes from traveling further, when suddenly he felt his fingers continue what the eyes failed to accomplish: splitting the heavy growth of the jungle, his fingers so brave and proud until he felt the obstacles left behind, and everything around was moist and slippery like a lake shore somewhere in Africa with alligators waiting for you to come in, but this time there were no alligators, all the alligators had fallen asleep, and this was when she made a sudden movement, and now I could feel the lake joining with the jacuzzi of my mouth, and that's when I realized the difference between her and most of the others I had known: she had created this, instead of passively expecting me to be the creator, and I could only wonder if that had anything to do with those photos she had mentioned and the desire to express herself in all sorts of arts simultaneously.  And while this thought swept through my brain, I sensed another wet warmth devouring me, from the other side of my body, and as she started sliding her lips up and down, her hand playing with whatever it was - I didn't even know, or didn't want to think - and gallons and gallons of irresistible excitement rushed into my body, I made the gallop of my tongue and lips even crazier, and when I came I felt her body convulse too, and I grabbed her hips and didn't let go until I could hear her scream even through her thighs that were pressed so tightly to my ears, and when I finally did let go and she fell onto the bed, still moaning, her eyes closed, her hand slightly petting my chest - I realized that this was something special, and that in the strange configurations of time I was serving my verdict in, she would be chained to me with more than just two conversations and a few hours in bed together. 

There on the railroad crossing where two pairs of parallel lines ran away in two opposite directions like a silent metaphor of farewell, we used to meet and spend time, fishing little pieces of it out of the bulky boxes attached to our backs.  You used to wear short-sleeve shirts and denim skirts, and sometimes you had scratches on your knees, and your feet enveloped in red and blue wrapping of sneakers were so small.  I would sit on a rail, and you'd sit next to me, and I'd hold your foot in my hands, and trains would stop and wait for us.  Now we meet in my studio, or in your apartment, or in one expensive restaurant or another.  Your knees are covered with protective clothing, so that the possibility of scratching them is reduced to minimum.  And your feet have grown so big that I couldn't hold them up even if I tried to.  You know, sometimes I can't fathom how you can walk, with these enormous loads attached to them.  But, after all, it's none of my business.  Now there are my business and your business, my privacy and your privacy, and it is rude and extremely silly to intrude.  When we sit down at a table and the waiter hands us menus, we read them exactly the way we used to read poems, only we don't read out loud anymore, and the poetry of culinary art remains unsung in our hearts.  Then we make a decision just like any other people would at such an important moment of their lives, and the menus go away leaving us tete-a-tete again.  But now we have the meal to look forward to, and if we are lucky we don't have to look forward for too long.  This is one of the reasons we like to go to good restaurants. 

Then the food arrives, and it gives us something to talk about, and if even this doesn't work, we can concentrate on our meals and be absolutely comfortable.  Your knees with no scratches on them are well hidden underneath the table, so that their scratchlessness is not as plainly obvious as it could be otherwise.  Your heavy feet are welded firmly to the floor, and I don't have to worry about picking them up. 

When the dinner is over, we stay for a while and have a cigarette or two: you preparing to get your feet off the ground, I getting ready to face your handicap again.  We don't talk about it: it would be insensitive on my part, besides, there's nothing to say…

Then we get up, and while we are walking toward the exit, I try to keep slightly ahead of you and not to look back.  This way I can pretend that you are still the same, the same as before, and that as soon as we leave the crowdedness of the public eating place, I will be able to kiss the scratch on your knee and hold your foot in my hands, just like I used to such a long time ago.  In dreams I see that railroad crossing, but each time the picture becomes hazier and hazier, as though memory is tired of painting the same watercolor again and again all these years.  Obviously, before too long I won't be able to bring you back to that place, even in my dreams.  By that time your feet will get so heavy you'll be unable to move on your own.  You'll stay, like a statue, always in the same spot, and my railroad crossing will become empty, empty and boring, and I'll realize that you have just walked away along one of the tracks, and I'll get up from the rail and start in the opposite direction, occasionally looking back until the empty crossing without you and your short-sleeve shirts, and your denim skirts, and even your tiny blue-and-red feet, sinks behind the horizon and disappears - this time forever.  And I'll march on and on until I finally forget where I'm coming from and who it was I used to spend time with there, I don't remember where.