Dead Europe (21 page)

I lay on the bed, I unzipped, my cock was rock hard. When I closed my eyes I saw myself ripping into his taut, sweet buttocks, jamming into him. I could hear his pained squeals and groans. I worked mechanically at my cock, thinking it had been so long since I had experienced sensual pleasure that I would come instantly. But I could not climax. I thought of the boy and I pushed my nose into the pillowcase. I smelt his youthful pungent sweat, the bitterness of semen. I closed my eyes and now I was fucking him harder, he was bleeding. And as I imagined blood I felt waves of excitement and my thrashings became delirious as I imagined his face, bloodied and bruised. I could lick the blood, taste the blood, eat the blood, and as I imagined this, I roared out my orgasm. I shuddered and a thought sprang
to mind, just a thought but it had the surety and inevitability of truth. Milos was soon to die.

 

I walked as fast and as far as I could to escape the tourists, to escape Milos. The smell of him, the flesh of him, the future of him. I thought of Colin, and I was ashamed. I thought of Colin and I pictured him smiling his rueful shaggy grin, smiling at my attempt to put distance between myself and the American college students with their perfect teeth, their inviolate enthusiasm, their insistent loud voices and gawky movements which seemed to say to all of us, myself included, all of us who were not American, that they could take up space, they could walk these streets freely, for they were freedom, were they not? The Stars and Stripes were all over Prague. They flew from backpacks and from the fast-food cafeterias that fed the tourist hordes. The ubiquity of the Stars and Stripes was a dare, a defiant fuck-you to the rest of the world. I trekked and trekked, fast and confident, like an American. I walked past the casinos and porn shops, past the fast food stalls and the old men selling sausages. I trekked past the gothic bulk of the museum. I walked until the beautiful medieval buildings gave way to draughty, corroded apartment buildings. Czech graffiti was sprayed against the crumbling walls. A three-word English phrase in bold, black letters:
Yankee Go Home
. A cool wind blew garbage through the bleak streets where street peddlers were selling lottery tickets. I came to a bend in the river, I took a deep breath, wiped sweat from my forehead and stopped.

The river water was turd-brown. Across on the other bank grey laundry fluttered on the narrow balconies. Swastikas, the Anarchist symbol, the peace symbol and the moon and crescent were scrawled across the buildings in bold black or red strokes. Hip-hop tags exploded across the walls in glorious colour. A young woman in a hijab wheeled a pram down a gravel track and disappeared around the bend. A
young dark-skinned man passed something into the palm of a thin blond boy and I thought I saw money exchanged. They glanced towards me but I did not exist. I was only a tourist. I walked further towards the bank. Plastic bags and broken toys swirled in the water. Further downriver I saw the woman kneeling at the pram's side. She was carefully arranging the long black sleeve of her dress to fall away from her exposed arm. She shook, stirred, then carefully lifted herself to her feet and continued wheeling her child. She threw an object into the dark waters. I walked alongside the river and saw a syringe float past.

I retraced my steps. I saw young girls with heroin eyes, young men taunting each other, their jaws locked in amphetamine grimaces. There were old men soused on alcohol. I walked past the barbiturated bag lady hawking old radio parts and found myself back in Wenceslas Square. Prague had drugs. Prague was fucking off its face.

 

I rang Colin.

—Baby, I miss you.

—You've got a fucking nerve.

—Am I ringing too early?

Colin exploded.

—You fucking selfish cunt! You call me, drunk, God knows on what drugs, and then you scream abuse at me for not sounding happy to hear from you. Happy? I'm lonely, Isaac. It's winter here and I want you back home. His voice cracked. When are you coming home, baby?

I was quiet.

—When are you coming home?

—In two weeks. It'll go soon, I promise, baby, I'll be back very soon. We made up and said goodbye. I had no memory of ringing him the night before, of shouting at him. I was ashamed. I wondered what else I had forgotten.

The apartment building in which Sal Mineo worked was tucked between two gothic blocks. The foyer smelt bad. I took the slow, chugging lift to the third floor. It too smelt of piss. The lift door opened out to a dark, narrow corridor and I searched to my left till I located a switch. I pushed on the button and the fluorescent lights began their flicker. I rang the bell to the apartment. A small window in the door opened and two stoned impatient blue eyes stared out at me.

—Is Stephen D'Arrici here?

An effete soprano voice answered me in a swift alien tongue.

—Stephen D'Arrici, I repeated.

A bolt screamed, the door opened.

I was in a porn shop. The tiny room had shelves along its four walls. Naked youths stared down at me, their cocks pointing towards the centre of the room. Against the far wall the young man with the blue eyes was positioning himself back behind a desk. I smiled but he did not respond. I turned and perused the DVD slicks. One of the racks of shelves shook, tilted, then thrust forward and out came Sal Mineo. His t-shirt was soaked through under his armpits and across his back. He waved me through.

The studio was low and not very wide but it was a much longer room than the shopfront. The walls were covered with dark green plastic, and the room was sweltering. Two redhead lights glared down at us, the source of the heat. A blue mattress half-covered in a dirty pink sheet lay against one wall. On the mattress two youths were munching on McDonald's burgers, nude except for matching blue Adidas shorts. A bearded man, fast swallowing fries, was standing beside a compact digital camera mounted onto a tripod, one hand grabbing at the chips, the other fiddling with the camera. A younger man, with a shaven head, leaned against a wall, a small microphone boom in his hand. He looked asleep. One of the boys on the mattress burped and the
other giggled. The bearded man turned to Sal Mineo.

—We'll be finished within the hour. Do you want me to keep the lights up? His accent, muffled by the chips he was still chewing, sounded Scottish.

Sal Mineo ignored him and instead guided me through the bodies and machinery to the far wall, and pulled back a strip of plastic. He waved his hand and I walked through.

Milos was propped against a stepladder. He was naked and casually scratching at his shoulder. He smiled on seeing me and raised his right hand in a mock salute. Under the harsh glare of the lights he looked older, harder. Sal Mineo walked up to the tripod and gestured to me to sit in a corner. I sat cross-legged on the floor, wiped my sweaty face, and watched my friend work.

Milos squeezed lubricant out of a tube and wiped the slippery gel across his genitals. His cock became fully erect. He nodded at Sal Mineo and my friend started taking photographs. Milos stood with his foot on the first rung of the ladder. Sal Mineo took a shot. Milos raised his arms and smiled into the camera. Sal Mineo's camera went click click click: staccato gunfire. The flash fired continuously, Sal Mineo ejected the bulb and planted another on the camera. Milos bent over, a slash of thick dark hair ran along his bum crack. Flash flash flash. Sal Mineo adjusted the lens and shot. Milos started masturbating. The camera whirred into activity. At one point the boy stopped, grabbed a bottle off the floor, and sprayed water on his face and upper torso. His cock flipped up and down as he resumed his position. He looked ridiculous, plastic. There was nothing erotic in this room. I wanted to bash his mouth in. I was hungry for him but it didn't feel like lust. It was more like the instinct of hunger. I wanted him annihilated. I was sweating, I was hard. I focused on the scene ahead of me. When the boy was close to coming he muttered a word in Czech. Sal Mineo unscrewed the camera from the tripod and moved closer to
Milos. The boy's ejaculate was thin, small quick sprays across his thigh, and Sal Mineo was done. Milos wiped himself with a ragged green towel, picked up his shorts and shirt from the floor and began to get dressed.

I stubbed my cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and helped Sal Mineo pack away the lights. My throat was dry, tight. A rivulet of sweat ran down my back. When we had finished, the lights packed away in a corner, the camera slotted into its case, the stepladder filed against a wall, Sal Mineo sat cross-legged in the middle of the room. I sat beside him. He took a vial from his jeans pocket, and picked a porn magazine off the floor. Sal Mineo poured powder over the magazine cover. Milos fell to his knees beside us. We each snorted two lines of the cocaine and in a moment my lips went numb.

—I shower, said Milos, rubbing his nose. When he was gone I looked over to Sal Mineo, who, still cross-legged, was staring at the floor. I touched his shoulder and he jerked away.

—I'm fucked. He jumped to his feet.

I sniffed hard and felt chemicals itch the back of my throat.

—It's good coke.

—No shortage of that, Issey. Sal Mineo spoke rapidly. I lay back, looked up at the cracking ceiling, and listened.

—This is just what I do for money, mate, alright? This is how I make a living. Every guy I shoot, every single one of them, I take other photographs. Not porn. Real photographs. I make them real and I make them beautiful. I still do my job, I'm still an artist, does that make sense?

The room was unbearably hot, the sweat was dripping off me.

—Let's go somewhere.

—There's someone I want you to meet. My boss, Sal Mineo added ruefully. Come and meet King Kike. He laughed ferociously, a drug laugh. He pulled me to my feet.

We stopped in the next room to watch the video being shot. The room now stank of junk food and chemicals. One of the boys had his face deep in the other's crotch. The boy getting sucked lay back on the mattress, his eyes rolling back in his head. His dick remained limp. Sal Mineo laughed and the bearded man with the video camera turned around and scowled. He was chugging from a large bottle of Pepsi and the younger boy stopped performing oral sex to ask for a drink. The bearded man cursed in English, but paused the camera and handed the youth the bottle. The boy handed its back with a surly short retort in Czech. No one looked at us, no one asked who I was. As we left, the boys resumed pawing away at each other.

We took the slow lift to the top floor. The lift doors opened directly onto a plush office with black leather couches on one side and a poster for
All About Eve
on the wall. A young Czech man in a shirt and tie sat behind a polished wood desk, staring listlessly into the computer. A Magritte reproduction of shrouded lovers kissing hung on the wall behind him. He raised his eyes for a fraction, then returned to contemplating the computer screen. Sal Mineo knocked on double French doors panelled in blue velvet.

Behind a mahogany desk sat the fattest man I have ever seen. Behind him the city of Prague stretched to meet the smoggy opaque horizon. The airconditioning sang right into my brain. The man was suited, his hair shorn tight to the scalp. Flab folded over his shirt collar, and his pin eyes were set deep into blubbery cheeks. He munched on a cigar. The room was adorned with framed enlarged photographs of pretty boys with vacant, airbrushed smiles. The boys were framed amidst a green and rustic countryside. No turds floated in these rivers, no syringes.

—Hi, Syd, this is my friend Isaac Raftis. He's visiting from Australia.

The fat man nodded a welcome and I notice the yarmulke sitting on his bald head.

I stepped forward to shake his hand. His handshake was firm.

—Isaac? You a Jew?

—Goyim, I'm afraid.

—Not your fault, he laughed. Then he turned abruptly to Sal Mineo.

—How'd it go?

—Good, answered my friend, that Milos is a good kid. No trouble at all.

—He's a fucking spoilt cunt. Syd contemplated the city below, then sat back at his desk.

—Is he still whoring?

—No.

—You sure?

Sal Mineo nodded. I stayed silent. I would have liked to grab the thick jowls of the man and shake him, slap him around: a movie star moment with me the tough guy protecting Milos, the whore with the heart of gold. But I didn't. The man's bulk, his throaty deep voice intimidated the shit out of me.

Syd pointed to me.

—Where do you know him from?

—College. We studied together.

—Is he any good?

—He's terrific.

The fat man looked over at me.

—You want a job?

Sal Mineo half-turned towards me. His mouth was twisted in a hopeful grin.

I thought of making money shooting beautiful boys fucking rather than serving behind a counter at a video store. Then I thought of the two boys with the smack eyes. I thought of Colin in our garden. I shook my head.

—I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm just passing through.

Sal Mineo's eyes fell back to boredom.