Polaroids of Arnold in a bathtub

I bought a bagette this morning. Emma, who, by the way, is starting to look a lot like Corey Feldman, wanted to carry it home. The loaf was longer than Emma, and hard to carry, so she punted it.
When Serena’s parents visited us in California, they would take a morning walk to the supermarket, which advertised Bread, Made Fresh Daily. Her parents knew the bread on the shelf was not fresh. They asked the baker for the new bread. He said it was on the shelf. Italians answer corruption with corruption: when the baker turned his back, her father ran the bread to the other side of the store, then returned to say, “All the bread’s been sold. Would you make some more?” He was very proud when they woke us up for breakfast that morning.
Russians in Kazakhstan thought it was a sin to throw away bread crumbs. Eleven years ago, I was finishing my two years of Peace Corps service in a small town called Merke near the border of Kyrgistan. Here’s a journal entry. Think of this as one of those Different Strokes where they say Remember when? And then they have a flashback, and Arnold is in a bathtub getting his Polaroid taken:Boiling water. Only four weeks left of teaching English. Peanut butter and jelly on bread I bought with the twenty tenge coin. Yupi orange drink, maybe Jello? Jello? Must I respect product names in my own journal? Writing in a journal is like traveling – you think you’re making progress when all you’re doing is sitting. Right now I’m having a hard time knowing which tense to use. I want to put it all in the past perfect, like Russian.
The sky is a warm, comfortable grey, like grandmother’s breath. The sky is now brighter than the earth. The world turns over like a lake at thaw. Old people spend more time in their gardens, remembering. From bones diffuse smells of naked skin and sticky wool. Horses trot and wagons glide.
I didn’t squash a spider, and stooped to watch its peculiarities. I thought it might jump on my face. I turned to listen, then looked down, and it was charging me. I ran out of the way. I looked back down again, to an empty floor. It was scurrying up my leg! Damn! I shook it off. That was pushing it, but I still didn’t kill it.
An artist who aspires to live on through the world of communication has great faith in the prosperity and continence of humanity. A lone Creator trusting in the masses he leaves behind. A friend is a relief from the frustrations of trying to get along with people and not be rude.
“Next slide, please. Here we can see that Eastman was in a period of great searching, and hence learning. He read ravenously, finding a similarity to his own lack of inner direction to that of St. Augustine's at his conversion. It was spring, but the cold weather persisted, and though the mind of Eastman was in constant turbulence he was frozen still among the events of the winter.”
Why do I find myself so unimportant in the Big Picture but so all important every moment? “I longed for a life of happiness but I was frightened to approach it in its own domain.” This place breeds self-hate and doubt. I should love what God made of me and do what I can to make the best of it. To love myself. I really couldn’t be more far from that right now. I can’t help how I am but I wonder if it’s the best way to be.
I’m so used to being despondent and without energy that I have to sink into it to keep a sense of consistency. “For I placed myself behind my own back, refusing to see myself. You were setting me before my own eyes, so that I could see how sordid I was, how deformed and squalid, how tainted with ulcers and sores.” I’m looking for direction. I am susceptible to crutches right now, of a Godly sort.
This week at the Bishkek bus station, an old German guy pulled me to a back room where three cops sat in cramped quarters. They didn’t “believe” I was from Merke and searched me. I kept an eye on my money when they made me take it out. I began to bitch and they said it was their work. I said I was a teacher so why did they have to check me. They asked me if I knew the narcotics police in Merke and I said was “just” a teacher. They went through the bag and I folded my arms in a probably pointless babushka stance. They found nothing, excused themselves a bunch of times, and I smiled stupidly and shook all their hands.
I squatted by the magazine rack. Boobs and violence and Russian pop stars. Happy not to be hassled. I was probably too hungover to look foreign. A boy slept on a bench, homeless. An old woman was selling ice cream.
I heard a crash. A kid had tipped over his lemonade bottle cart. Other orphans helped to pick up the pieces. A babushka swept up the rest. There went his profits. He's probably malnourished already. And that's why he was clumsy.
A tea seller talked with me. I told him I was a Peace Corps volunteer. He said I was the first guy he’d met who'd work for free. Two little kids joined the chat (the little cucumber girl couldn’t remember adjectives in Russian). They said business was bad that day. Another uniformed cop, fat and polite, came to check my documents, but I stopped him short and told him that I’d already been shaken down. He went away.
On Saturday, I took a cab to Slavik and Sveta’s farmhouse. I was late, but arrived early for the dinner because Slavik and Sveta were greeting their mom, who had just arrived from Moscow. We watered tomato plants and Slav’s friend Roma lit a banya fire with a tire. Black smoke. He laughed. When Sveta saw it inside the banya she was pissed. The smoke cleared an hour later. We sat in the banya, and Roma told me about jail. He had spent four years lying with eight other guys in a cell of nine square meters. For exercise, he could walk circles in a 500 square meter courtyard. “I don’t ever want to go back. Not ever.” Slavik is a good friend to shield him from the badge.
At midnight, Slav sent me home. It was dark. A guy on a bike had to swerve not to hit me. He cursed Pizdets and I cursed the same. He came back and wanted to shake hands and then asked me if I spoke English. I couldn’t believe his audacity and had nothing to say to him. So he rode away and called me a bitch, again.