IV. Protest Too Much
It is dusk, June 15th, 2011. Belsen pulls up to the lobby in a shit-bagged Toyota. He's right on time, as usual. I slide into the back seat he says, "Hello Antony". Its one word for him and it is expressionless. Belsen and I have travelled together twice before and I still can't read this man. He can be no more than twenty but there are a hundred thousand miles on his face. Yugoslavia is the only place I've heard him speak of with a note of pride in his voice, and that was just a quiet croak during a televised soccer match in the early nineties. "Yugoslaviaaaaaaaaa...". He's the type who only smiles at jokes. I am the type that can't help but wonder if he thinks I'm an idiot. His eyes say "Jokes in this world, with all I've seen".
I've seen the violence in the street from six stories up, and I'm in no mood to be here at street level for any longer than we need to be. This type of smoke and fire are best experienced from a distance, and the city has been ready to burn for hours now. Primed. Belsen's freshly shaven jaw juts forward and his slash of a mouth gives no hint of his mood. There is a dead stare in his grey eyes that seem as cold as the stone streets of St. Petersburg. The road south is filled with a mob that harbors only menace. Belsen's head swivels from left to right as calmly as a hawk's might as we wend slowly through streets. If the bands and clutches of angry young people roaming this town are affecting our (his) plan of escape he doesn't show it. A merchant's window smashes off to the left. A crowd roars. Belsen, his voice steady, mutters something to the driver.
Something heavy hits the passenger door and without hesitation the driver guns the engine. It whines and we're braking left, gear-jamming between a coffee shop and a falafel place. We go blind as the car dives into an alley washed in fog or smoke or both. I look out the sloped rear windshield and see the mist envelop a crowd forming behind us. The driver accelerates blindly as dumpsters and electricity poles picket fence by us through the mist at my too immediate right. I romanticize this situation, like all dreamers do. The city is closing in on us. Belsen and the driver now share a loud yet strangely even conversation. It is as if two track announcers are sharing a horse race in some forgotten Slavic tongue. We burst forth from the alley, squealing to the right. The Renault complains. I steal a glance out of the back as the mist clears and see a missile hurtling towards us. I am relieved as the bottle dances off the glass and have that relief turn to horror as it evaporates on a young man walking on the sidewalk to my left. I hear it smash and the scream before my head turns to see and I make the connection. I look ahead (away). The fat, sorrow-less tears build. I'm not sad. I get them when I think about the ghost I saw once or when I panic. They cloud my vision(DON'TBLINK) as what can only be another bottle explodes across the front windshield. Tears are now ribboning off of my cheeks. The shame and embarrassment of scrunching my eyes up and hiding my face behind my clawed hands is made exponential by the sight of Belsen looking back at me saying coolly, "The city wants blood." And it does.
I'm sure birds above see, walleyed, a massive, breathing beast with red pustules below. A Colossus consuming. Carrion wheel above with all the time in the world. Sirens blare. It is impossible to tell from where, so assume they're from everywhere.
We speed down south to quickly cobbled streets and pass cars on fire. A hunger for violence has gripped the crowds and I wonder, when a city burns, just how much goes unreported?
Can a riot be a living thing? Are there subtle nuances on its periphery? Lesser violence, quiet rape. You are responsible for you, for better or for worse. What are you going to do (How many selfish and secret 'Thank God"'s had been muttered When The Towers Fell because you were cheating on your wife or you'd been stealing from the company or for Christ's Sake Kid, You Don't Have Your Homework Done)? We whip past lots and alleys and dodge dumpsters on this night where snapshots of the unspeakable are taken by the brain, forgotten, only to be remembered months or years later in that moment just before deep sleep when your eyes slam open at the memory and you say "Fuck". You get up and step out onto the balcony in your gonch, and you light a cigarette.
The car whines like I hope its supposed to, we hammer 'round a corner to the right and are met by a wall of armoured officers. A phalanx that must be twenty deep, twenty feet in front of us. Its smoke, but what looks like a collective breath rises above them. I like to think they are as surprised as we are but thats just the way I'll remember it. The driver slams the car to a stop. I am airborne but for my shoulder belt. Time stops. Tires squeal. I slam back into my seat and listen to the to the engine gurgle and thrum. I am reminded of the choke on my fathers lawn mower all the way back in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Police/Army/Whoever don't move. They stand there a wall of armour and I stare. The memory of the grass is cut short as John William's Imperial March sneaks into my brain. I smile and my vision is filled with the face of the driver. "FUCKING MOVE!" were his first and only english words to me. One can find this expression used in all corners of the globe (I blame American Imperialism... There's that song again). He reverses the car, hits the gas, and methinks the engine doth protest too much WINWINWINWINWNWNWNW and just before I think we'll have to run through the mob in the street on foot, the weight of the car shifts, we stop. I wheeze. The driver sets his gaze on a ruined street ahead and I see what he sees now, the bridge that will lead us to the town with the airstrip in it. Belsen puts his hands on the dash. The soldiers are still just east of us, unmoving. Awaiting orders. There's no way they're the only guys dressed like that tonight. Gas. We rocket south, a city burns in our rear view. My guide and my driver speak a russian dialect and I miss what is said. The driver sees my confusion in the rear view, laughs and gestures to my guide. Belsen, in english says, "Its boring here..." he turns and looks right through me "...Is that why you're all alcoholics?" He smiles and settles in. All is silent but for the overwrought engine of a Toyota Cressida.
An hour and twenty minutes later jet engines whine as we taxi on the tarmac. We leave Vancouver and the what would come to be known as "The Stanley Cup Riots" behind. Toronto, then Moscow. From there, Novgorod.
