Popoff
Bruce Bullen
“Hey, Popoff! Popoff! It’s time to go.” What began as a mere murmur became a metallic ringing. Someone was kicking his shoulder.
“You need to move it!” the voice said. He sat up, squinting at the blue uniform framed in yellow by the morning sun.
“Officer Speck. I was having such a lovely dream. Footsteps, cars stopping and starting, conversations. I was standing in front of PS Nineteen on First Avenue.”
“Dream someplace else, Popoff. Pick up your stuff and get moving. It’s time to go to work.” Taxis honked, limos were dropping off executives.
“Of course,” Alexei said, rising awkwardly, his limbs feeling detached from the rest of his body. Gusts of air from the grate slowed his progress, but he managed to stand. Offices from across the street were reflected in the glass facades of the Citibank and Guggenheim buildings. A blue construction canopy stretched the length of the block.
“I know this goes in one ear and out the other, Popoff, but it’s December, it’s cold, and there’s a place on Fifty-third for people like you. This is a commercial neighborhood.”
“People like me?” Alexei said. “There is no one like me, officer. And this is not a neighborhood, as you call it. It’s an imperial complex.”
“Whatever.”
“You look tired. Does your shift end soon?”
“Move it, Popoff.”
With a prod of encouragement from Officer Speck’s nightstick the lanky figure picked up a small plastic bottle, put it inside his shabby overcoat, and shuffled down Madison, his hands over his ears against the cold. At the end of the block he drained a last thimbleful of vodka and deposited the empty Popov half-pint in a round metal waste bin. He didn’t appreciate his street name, it was crude, like Popeye, and perhaps an ethnic slur, but it had stuck. Not that it mattered. The red bumps on his hands itched and his stomach was throbbing. Once the sun came up with the bustle of traffic and the pedestrians there would be no rest. It took a while to get going.
He hugged the buildings, trying to stay out of the way, and took a right on Fortieth near a spa and a beauty shop and headed toward Broadway, hobbling like a bather on hot sand. His feet were cold and stiff. He needed socks. If he could be sure they wouldn’t try to help in other ways, he might ask for a foot bath at the men’s shelter on Thirtieth Street. A stream of pedestrians in heavy coats, scarves, hats, and gloves, professionals on their way to warm offices, flowed against him. A line was forming at Starbuck’s, and travelers with suitcases were getting into cabs in front of the Courtyard. He studied their faces. They seemed determined to escape the cold. A tall man with a briefcase, striding purposefully, had a promising look. Alexei hailed him.
“Excuse me, sir. I am experiencing a temporary liquidity problem and wondered if you could help.” The businessman looked at him, surprised.
“Liquidity?”
“A shortage of cash.”
“I know what it is,” he said, digging into his pocket and handing Alexei a dollar. “How is it you come to be on the streets?”
“Would you like to hear my story?” Alexei said.
“I think not,” he said and walked away. Alexei looked at his briefcase.
“Levenger?”
The man turned and said “Tumi” before walking on. Alexei stuffed the bill into a pocket of his threadbare coat. The sun was higher in the sky, but the wind off the river was arctic. He pulled the buttonless army coat over his frayed pajama bottoms and sweatshirt with “Hofstra Softball” printed on it and held the collar closed with one hand. His battered Timberlands with no laces had been donated by one of the shelters, he couldn’t remember which. His story had its moments, inexplicable as they may be. It wouldn’t have taken long to tell it. He tried to push his way through the line of people at Starbuck’s, but no one let him through, and he had to go around them into the street.
A young woman wearing Ugg boots, a knit hat, and a peacoat strode confidently in his direction. He looked down and began searching the sidewalk, hoping to draw attention.
“Did you lose something?”
“Just my bearings. I am hungry though.”
“Don’t the shelters give you any food? Why don’t you collect bottles and cans? It helps with recycling, and you’ll never go hungry.” He feared he might have misjudged her. She was looking over his head, not at him, delivering a lecture.
“Oh, I do, I collect what I can whenever I can, diligently, every day,” he said, “but I make too little to afford truly nutritious foods like whole-grain sandwiches.” He began to stagger off. She ran after him and handed him two quarters.
“I shouldn’t do this. Make sure you buy food with it.”
“Pret-a-Manger will be my next stop,” Alexei said.
“I don’t believe you.”
Collecting cans and bottles from waste bins was about the last thing in the world he would ever do. It required no talent and was demeaning.
He tottered on, letting knots of pedestrians unravel before him. The sounds of PS Nineteen came back to him along with the smell of the grimy apartment on the lower East Side, the hours he’d spent in the closet for “violations”, his parents shouting at each other in the kitchen, in the hall, in the bedroom, on the fire escape. He shook his head to try to clear it but saw his father’s paintings in piles on the floor, paintings never shown or sold, easel, brushes, and paints cluttering up the room. He remembered his mother’s bruises, her wounded eyes, her inarticulate appeals, and his fruitless attempts to stop their fighting with words. He wondered what had made them endure the hell of consulates and embassies to bring him here. They had named him after a Karamazov, they said, the innocent one, but he suspected it was a name given by the orphanage. They never read books.
A couple in fur hats with flaps were standing in the middle of the sidewalk, looking at a guide book.
“May I be of assistance?” Alexei said. They were clearly from out of town. The man’s eyes moved up the side of a high-rise building to the very top.
Without looking up the woman said “We’re trying to find the Empire State Building”. Her husband pointed at something on the page. She frowned when she saw who she was talking to.
“You’re going the wrong way,” Alexei said. “You need to retrace your steps, turn left at Fifth, and go down to Thirty-fourth street. You’ll find it there.” The woman, who was on the verge of asking him to move on, looked down at her guide book.
“Oh yes, thank you.”
“An art deco classic, recently refurbished,” Alexei said. They looked at him. With an exaggerated limp, he began walking away. The woman called out after him.
“Here, let me give you something,” she said, rummaging in her purse.
“That isn’t necessary.”
“I think it is,” she said and handed him a bill.
Alexei bowed. She closed her guide book, and the couple turned up Fortieth Street, walking arm in arm. He watched them. It had been an unexpectedly productive morning. It felt good to be able to profile benefactors and help.
He crossed Fifth Avenue. The fountain at Bryant Park was draped in icicles, and the library, that warm receptacle of periodicals and nostalgia, beckoned. He hurried by because a new arrival called Birmingham Bob was hanging out in the park and had a mysterious grudge against him. A pain in his stomach made him double over. He listened for birds as was his habit until the pain went away but heard only the rasping of jays, grackles, crows, and house sparrows. He almost had to sit down, easy prey, but the pain subsided before Bob caught sight of him or a passer-by summoned police. High-rises loomed, as belittling as ever. He needed to find Olga.
“Are you okay?” asked a young man in an expensive parka carrying a book bag.
“I think so.”
“Do you need help?”
“No, not at all,” Alexei said, unfolding his body. “I lost some change. It must be here somewhere.” Jostled by passers-by, he scanned the sidewalk.
“Where?”
“Somewhere here. I’ll have to skip the morning coffee.”
“Here.” The boy removed his glove and handed him a few coins from the pocket of his coat.
“I can’t accept this. You’re a student.”
“You need it more than I do.”
“I do appreciate it.” The boy smiled and walked off. Alexei watched him throw his bag over his shoulder and step with vigor. He used to despise himself for exploiting the unwary but that was a long time ago and he got over it. He simply resented them now. The kid was right though, he did need it more than he did. It was maddening.
Trudging past the park and across Sixth Avenue he reached the encampment, a warren of pallets, chairs, and trash on the corner of Fortieth and Broadway. It had emptied out but for a few stragglers, including Roscoe, a familiar street presence. They were huddled in a circle around a trash bin with a small fire going inside, smoking cigarettes and slapping their arms against the cold. Alexei joined them.
“The fuck you been, Popoff?” Roscoe shouted, startling a passerby. “You look like shit.”
“Touching reception, Roscoe.”
“Fuck you. You better watch your mouth, or somebody’ll shut it for you.”
A small man with wizened cheeks and a bandage on his bald head, made a sudden move with his shoulders toward Alexei, a feint. Alexei flinched, as always, as he had since childhood. The man laughed.
“Who’s your lieutenant, Roscoe?”
“Ain’t no lieutenant,” the man said. “Seaman apprentice and proud of it.”
“If only I’d known….”
“You look worse than usual, Popoff,” Roscoe said. “How much you got? We’re chipping in for Mickey D’s”.
“I’m looking for Olga. Have you seen her?”
“Try the river. You know how much she likes those benches. On the prowl are you?”
“I need to tell her… something.”
“About what?”
“Scabies.”
“Rabies?”
“Forget it.”
“Ante up, Popoff. You could use a bite.”
“Your concern for my well-being is heartwarming, Roscoe.” Roscoe winked at the others.
“Popoff don’t need food.”
“He’s too busy,” the little bald man said.
“Living on love, making it with Olga,” Roscoe sang.
“Tactful as ever, Roscoe.”
“Watch your mouth, Popoff.”
Alexei bowed and left them standing in the circle designed, he thought, to make everything beyond it disappear. An icy breeze swept papers and empty food cartons into his path as he stumbled down Broadway. What a pitiful way to spend the day, conjuring up meals. He had no problem leaving it to those who were bereft of imagination.
Shivering, he reached into his pocket and counted his take. The problem with Broadway was its diversity. It was hard to profile. He walked through Times Square, already crowded with tourists, and stopped in front of a sidewalk kiosk to scout targets after crossing Seventh Avenue.
“Move your ass away from my business,” a voice inside the kiosk said.
“Sampling your wares,” Alexei said, pretending to study the array of Trident gums.
“Move, or I make you move,” the man said, leaning forward. His dark mustache twitched, and his accent sounded Indian or Pakistani.
“What to choose, what to choose--wintergreen, cinnamon tingle, cool colada…?” So many choices,” Alexi said, fingering a pack of gum.
The man reached behind the counter and came up with an empty plastic water bottle. He threw it at Alexei, hitting him on the side of the head. Alexei recoiled, raising his hands for protection.
“I call police if you do not move.”
“You could lose a fair number of sales with that attitude,” Alexei said, moving on. Why this demeaning struggle for turf, he wondered, when we share the earth?
He parsed the faces of passers-by on his way. Near 48th Street he saw a man reach inside his poncho. Something, a credit card perhaps, fluttered to the ground.
“Sir, sir, you dropped something.”
“My MetroCard,” the man said, bending over to retrieve it.
“A convenience, the subway. Wouldn’t you agree?” The man studied him, the space between his brows wrinkling. “Unfortunately, the recent fare increase left me a bit short.”
“Really?” the man said. “Places to go and people to see?”
“I enjoy visiting all the city’s neighborhoods. Someday I’ll write a travelogue.” The man smiled and reached into his pocket.
“How much do you need?”
“Less than a dollar.” The man took out his wallet and handed him two dollar bills.
“Enjoy,” he said.
Alexei bowed. At the next corner he bought a half pint of Popov at a tiny liquor store and took his first sip between Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Streets. The vodka warmed his throat and mind but tortured his stomach. He bent over until the pain receded. The thud of the water bottle on the side of his head had been like the flat of his father’s hand, his reward for being alive. Sometimes the beatings began with him, sometimes with his mother. Objections made things worse. His mother knew better and suffered in silence. Only the sounds of PS Nineteen could obliterate the memory, as they had through childhood.
He made his way down Fifty-second Street. A cop in a cruiser parked at the corner tracked him with his eyes as he passed. With all the rezoning he didn’t know where Hell’s Kitchen was anymore, but Clinton Park was still Clinton Park. He passed the spiked fence, concrete paths, gnarled boulder, and chubby ponies on his way to the river.
Olga was sitting on a bench at pier ninety-six, looking out at the water, leaning forward, her arms wrapped around her chest, near the big grey bottle lying on its side. The boathouse where the canoes and kayaks were stored looked abandoned. She was wearing the same ripped hoodie and cargo pants he had seen her in when they met on Second Avenue. Even with pale cheeks and chapped lips her inner beauty radiated, although she looked older than twenty-four. He admired her from a distance before sitting down beside her.
“Roscoe said you would be here.”
“Roscoe can go fuck himself.”
“As we all tend to do, in the end.”
They sat staring at the agitated river. Alexei pulled the bottle from inside his coat and offered her a sip. She shook her head, picked up a half-pint bottle lying on the bench next to her, and pulled from it. Alexei sipped his.
“Odessa?” he said, resuming a previous conversation.
“No.”
“Ukraine?”
“No.”
“Somewhere south, though.”
“I told you. I don’t come from Russia and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”
“That’s no Jersey accent,” he said. She took another pull from her bottle, wiped her mouth, and reached for his hand. He pulled it away. “Olga, we can’t. I came to tell you. I’ve got scabies. Doc gave me medicine. I can give you some, if you need it.”
Olga looked at her palm and shook her head. Her profile was remarkable, he thought, so nineteenth-century: sharp nose, high forehead, prominent cheekbones. She was aloof and unattainable, everything deep and hidden. He’d spent a year at City College learning about old Russia, mostly by reading novels. It was such a vivid world. She made him remember.
“What do you see when you look out there?”
She snorted disapproval of the question. He looked down at his boots and tried to move his toes but couldn’t feel them.
“Doc wants me to go into the hospital,” he said.
“Why?”
“Something here.” He patted himself. She looked at his stomach.
“You should go.”
“I don’t like being inside. Unless it’s Grand Central or the library.”
“You should do what he says.”
“Wouldn’t you miss me? I might never come out.”
“You’d find me.”
“I thought you were going away,” he said. She snapped her head back disdainfully. “What are you waiting for?”
“A ship.”
“Ships leave every day.”
“I’m waiting for one that goes to the right place,” she said.
“Where?”
“Not here.”
“Just go, if that’s what you want.”
“Somewhere, nowhere. It’s all the same,” she said, taking a sip of wild cherry brandy. Alexei leaned forward, holding the vodka bottle in both hands.
“Doc is out looking for me. He can be persuasive.”
“Why not do what he says?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do it,” she said, eyes blazing. He felt a chill, pulled his coat tighter, and scanned the boardwalk.
“I just want him to leave me alone. I need to keep moving.”
“Not for long maybe.”
“I’ll take my chances.” She coughed and spat, shaking her head in disgust. He poked her shoulder with a forefinger. “Listen to you, telling me to take care of myself. You’re young. Why don’t you help yourself?”
“I’m fine where I am.” A gust of wind made them reach for their bottles.
“It’s easy telling other people what to do. It’s a way to hide,” he said.
“Spare me your crap, please.”
“That’s my cue,” he said, slipping his bottle into the inner pocket of his coat like a billfold or a passport. Olga scowled but did not look at him.
“Goodbye, Olga.”
“Going somewhere?”
Clouds were crowding out the sun, and it was getting colder. The wind off the water bit. Alexei left her on the bench and shuffled up Twelfth Avenue, came back down Eleventh, past the high-end automobile showrooms, turned up Tenth, and came back down again, for what seemed like hours. Eventually, he found himself on Fifty-second street. He turned into Clinton Park past people walking their dogs and holding shopping bags. Looking for an out-of-the-way bench, he came to a paved playground with glinting stainless-steel slides, red climbing structures, and a leafless sycamore tree. He tried to remember what it felt like to squeal down a slide. The pain in his stomach forced him to sit at the bottom of one of them. There were no bird noises, and he waited without distraction for the pain to subside. A woman walking her dog noticed him. Alexei wondered if she thought he had slid down.
“Are you all right?” the woman said.
“I’m resting.”
“This is a playground for children.”
“I know.”
“Why are you here then?” Alexei looked around at structures intended for play.
“It feels good.”
“You should leave.”
“I know.”
She pulled her terrier’s leash and hurried away, looking for a policeman, no doubt. He stood and closed his coat, preparing to leave, but sat down again. The playground had opened a door in his mind where the safety of his school desk at PS 19, the old Russia of Turgenev and Tolstoy, the elegance of the public library reading room, the bustle of Grand Central, came together in a world that shone brightly. He thought of Olga and her cruise ships to nowhere.
Three teenagers in jackets and baseball caps entered the playground and began hanging from monkey bars and climbing ladders. They were talking to each other in Spanish. Alexei tried to ignore them, but one, a short, muscular boy, sidled over to him.
“Need some weed?”
“I never use it.”
“What you doing here?”
“Practicing my playground technique, like you are.”
“Oh yeah?” the boy said, turning to the others. “The vago wants to play.” The other two came over, and the three of them stood around him in a semi-circle. “Show us how you play. Go down the slide.”
“I’m afraid of heights.”
“Go down anyway.”
“Why don’t you show me how? I might learn something.”
“You want us to teach you?”
“Always ready to learn.”
One of the teens had moved beside him while his friend was talking and slapped the side of Alexei’s head, hard. Alexei put his hand up but was pushed off the slide onto the ground. The three boys began kicking him in the stomach, back, and head, laughing. Covering his head with his elbows he curled up in a fetal position, but some of the kicks landed. “It’s a good thing they’re wearing sneakers,” he thought. There was nothing to do but endure.
Two burly, blue arms began pulling the boys away, and the kicking stopped. One of the boys said “What you doing?” A firm voice said “Beat it, you little bastards.” Alexei heard the patter of footsteps. His head was pounding, his abdomen and vitals ached. A policeman was leaning over him. Behind him stood the woman with the dog. Alexei tried to sit.
“Take it easy,” the policeman said. “I’ll call an ambulance.”
“No, I’m all right.”
“You don’t look all right.”
Alexei put his palms flat on the pavement and managed to stand, holding one arm over his stomach, blood running down the side of his face. He could feel his ear swelling up. He straightened his coat with the lapels and brushed the dirt off, looking back and forth from the officer to the woman, bringing their faces into focus.
“You can’t stay here,” the cop said.
“I was just leaving when I made their acquaintance,” Alexei said. He tried to walk but stumbled. The officer grabbed him by the shoulders.
“You need to let me call you an ambulance.” Alexei put his hands into the pockets of his coat and looked into the policeman’s eyes.
“Officer, I am as lucid as you are,” he said. “I don’t need an ambulance or a doctor or a hospital. I am perfectly capable of leaving under my own power.”
“Do something about that blood,” the officer said. He went to the fence, grabbed a handful of snow, and handed it to Alexei. “Clean yourself up. And for your own good stay away from this playground.”
The officer and the woman with the dog shared a look as Alexei staggered out of the park, pressing snow against the side of his face. He turned up Fifty-second. It was freezing, his head was pounding, and his stomach felt like the inside of a furnace. He threw away the handful of snow, reached into his coat, took a numbing swallow of vodka, and stumbled along until he reached the theater district and joined a crowd of pedestrians. He stopped to let people pass and tried to clear his head. Everything was moving too quickly. He should be angry, he knew, but it was pointless.
Rather than continue on to the core of downtown where Doc might be looking for him, he turned right on Broadway. The pains in his head and stomach did not prevent him from profiling the pedestrians walking toward him, and he stopped a man with white, frizzy hair and a backpack over his thick, cable-knit sweater. The man looked at him as if he were a ghost.
“Excuse me, sir, but could you spare some change for a good book?” This particular appeal was unworthy of him, he thought. Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, the man peered at him.
“That has to be a first. Money for a book?”
“I like to read. As you can see, I have the time.”
“What happened to you? You look awful.”
“An accident. I don’t know why I asked for money for a book. I’m a little confused.”
The man unstrapped his backpack, searched inside, and pulled out a worn paperback. He handed it to Alexei.
“The True Believer by Eric Hoffer,” he said. “He was on skid row, like you. You might learn something.”
The man gave him a reassuring look, shouldered his backpack, and walked off. Alexei held the book like a strange object, read the title and the blurbs on the front and back covers, and put it in his coat pocket. He stumbled down Broadway to Forty-fourth Street, avoiding eye contact, and waited in a crowd on the corner for the pedestrian symbol to illuminate. His head ached, and his thoughts were jumbled. He knew the streets in midtown Manhattan better than he knew himself but was disoriented. He had no desire to profile anyone and wanted only to recapture the brief moment of euphoria he experienced on the slide before the beating. A conversation he’d had with Doc, who found him the night before at Lincoln Center looking at Chagall murals, came back to him.
“Alexei, this should help with the itching,” Doc had said, “but I’m worried about you. You need to go to an emergency room and get checked out. Let me take you.”
“It comes and goes, but it goes away.”
“It may not always. You told me about the blows to your head. Were you hit in the stomach too?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you eating?”
“Thanks for the medicine, Doc.”
You had to admire Doc’s persistence, but he was always trying to make him remember things he didn’t want to remember. Doc’s world was filled with words he didn’t understand and implied threats, like the emergency room.
He stopped in front of a boarded-up storefront, took a sip of vodka, and tried to walk, but his vision blurred and he had to shake his head to see things clearly. Forty-fourth was a good street. The Harvard Club was on it.
The main concourse at Grand Central was special on a sunny afternoon because the light streaming through the high windows threw spotlights on the people passing below. There used to be benches, but they took them out a long time ago because of people like him. Alexei stood with his back against the wall opposite the windows, admiring the cavernous room, the play of the sunlight, and the frenzy. He listened to snatches of conversation. There was a palpable feeling of release, everyone anxious to go home. He studied faces and tried to imagine their lives.
A middle-aged woman was standing next to him, leaning up against the wall, reading a thick book. Judging by her camel overcoat and the leather briefcase on the floor beside her, she was a professional. Alexei tried to see what she was reading, but she was holding the book in both hands. It must have been an entertaining read, because she made little humming sounds. He reached inside his overcoat, pulled out the paperback the man had given him, opened it randomly to page eighty-three, and pretended to read. When he looked at her again, she was engrossed in her book.
“May I ask what you’re reading?” he said.
She did not look up but lifted her head slightly to acknowledge his question, her eyes on the page.
“Nora Roberts.”
“Is that a person or a title?”
“She’s a novelist.”
“I’m reading a book about mass movements. The people who join them are generally discouraged.” He was quoting from a blurb on the book’s back cover, as best he could remember.
“I like to read escapist literature.”
“My book is about escaping. It’s about distraught people who join movements to escape themselves.”
The woman looked at Alexei and recoiled at the blood on his temple and his filthy boots. She looked into his eyes and began to sidle away, as if surprised by a wild animal. With a wistful smile Alexei watched her disappear into the crowd, thinking that his book was a good conversation piece.
People rushed by, and the light in the concourse changed and got darker. His body ached. The vodka had done little to ease the pain. He was tired of standing and tired of imagining the lives of others, but the bustle and sounds of the station were comforting to him. He left the terminal and walked down Forty-third to Madison, hoping he wouldn’t be too early or too late. His preferred block, it was lined with banks and office buildings, a desert after dark. If he was too early somebody might complain. If he was late, others might claim the grate.
On the corner of Madison and Forty-third he saw Doc in front of the Verizon store, kneeling over a street person sitting on the sidewalk with his back against the building. Doc was asking questions, like he always did. Alexei stayed on the other side of the street to avoid being spotted. He walked back to Forty-second Street, stopping every few yards to rest, turned left and then left again at Vanderbilt, where a spray of American flags waved above a street sign. He walked slowly down Vanderbilt to Forty-third and returned to Madison. An ambulance was flashing at the corner, and Doc was helping the EMT’s load the patient, who was lying on a stretcher, into the back of the vehicle. Doc looked across the street. Alexei thought he might have seen him. He would need to stay away from Madison long enough for Doc to leave or give up trying to find him. He walked back up Forty-third and waited in a doorway on Vanderbilt, bent over in pain.
After waiting for what seemed a long time he stumbled back to Madison. He saw no evidence of Doc, crossed the street, and made his way to the grate in front of the office building. An African-American man covered in newspapers was lying there, a beat-up shopping cart filled with bottles and cans nearby. Alexei looked down at him, and the man stared back. He was tired, and the pain was unrelenting, but there were few options. He found a semi-enclosed doorway sheltered from the wind, a Citibank ATM that someone might try to use, but he would have to take his chances. He sat with his back against the glass door, his legs sticking out on the sidewalk, and drank from his bottle of vodka.
Except for the dim security lights in the office buildings and the passing headlights of cars and taxis the darkness was nearly complete. The pains in his head and stomach were acute. He hadn’t eaten in days. He finished the vodka, hoping to be able to sleep, and thought about the feeling that had come over him on the slide. The playground, Olga, the river, literary characters engaged in refined conversation around Samovars, the reading room in the library, the bustle of Grand Central--all a pleasant blur. In the morning the sounds of the street would obliterate the pain and the bad memories, as the sounds of PS Nineteen had done. He stared out at the passing cabs and the night.
“Popoff! It’s time to go.”
Officer Speck kicked the protruding legs of the lanky body.
“You can’t stay here, Popoff. Popoff! Get up!”
Alexei’s eyes were closed. He had one hand inside his coat, and his face was a pale mask. Officer Speck leaned over, inspected the face, and shook his shoulders.
“Popoff. Are you listening to me?”
He kicked one of the shabby boots and reached for his walkie-talkie. He was asking for assistance when Alexei’s fingers splayed.
“Officer Speck,” he said. “I had a feeling it was you.”
Bruce Bullen
“Hey, Popoff! Popoff! It’s time to go.” What began as a mere murmur became a metallic ringing. Someone was kicking his shoulder.
“You need to move it!” the voice said. He sat up, squinting at the blue uniform framed in yellow by the morning sun.
“Officer Speck. I was having such a lovely dream. Footsteps, cars stopping and starting, conversations. I was standing in front of PS Nineteen on First Avenue.”
“Dream someplace else, Popoff. Pick up your stuff and get moving. It’s time to go to work.” Taxis honked, limos were dropping off executives.
“Of course,” Alexei said, rising awkwardly, his limbs feeling detached from the rest of his body. Gusts of air from the grate slowed his progress, but he managed to stand. Offices from across the street were reflected in the glass facades of the Citibank and Guggenheim buildings. A blue construction canopy stretched the length of the block.
“I know this goes in one ear and out the other, Popoff, but it’s December, it’s cold, and there’s a place on Fifty-third for people like you. This is a commercial neighborhood.”
“People like me?” Alexei said. “There is no one like me, officer. And this is not a neighborhood, as you call it. It’s an imperial complex.”
“Whatever.”
“You look tired. Does your shift end soon?”
“Move it, Popoff.”
With a prod of encouragement from Officer Speck’s nightstick the lanky figure picked up a small plastic bottle, put it inside his shabby overcoat, and shuffled down Madison, his hands over his ears against the cold. At the end of the block he drained a last thimbleful of vodka and deposited the empty Popov half-pint in a round metal waste bin. He didn’t appreciate his street name, it was crude, like Popeye, and perhaps an ethnic slur, but it had stuck. Not that it mattered. The red bumps on his hands itched and his stomach was throbbing. Once the sun came up with the bustle of traffic and the pedestrians there would be no rest. It took a while to get going.
He hugged the buildings, trying to stay out of the way, and took a right on Fortieth near a spa and a beauty shop and headed toward Broadway, hobbling like a bather on hot sand. His feet were cold and stiff. He needed socks. If he could be sure they wouldn’t try to help in other ways, he might ask for a foot bath at the men’s shelter on Thirtieth Street. A stream of pedestrians in heavy coats, scarves, hats, and gloves, professionals on their way to warm offices, flowed against him. A line was forming at Starbuck’s, and travelers with suitcases were getting into cabs in front of the Courtyard. He studied their faces. They seemed determined to escape the cold. A tall man with a briefcase, striding purposefully, had a promising look. Alexei hailed him.
“Excuse me, sir. I am experiencing a temporary liquidity problem and wondered if you could help.” The businessman looked at him, surprised.
“Liquidity?”
“A shortage of cash.”
“I know what it is,” he said, digging into his pocket and handing Alexei a dollar. “How is it you come to be on the streets?”
“Would you like to hear my story?” Alexei said.
“I think not,” he said and walked away. Alexei looked at his briefcase.
“Levenger?”
The man turned and said “Tumi” before walking on. Alexei stuffed the bill into a pocket of his threadbare coat. The sun was higher in the sky, but the wind off the river was arctic. He pulled the buttonless army coat over his frayed pajama bottoms and sweatshirt with “Hofstra Softball” printed on it and held the collar closed with one hand. His battered Timberlands with no laces had been donated by one of the shelters, he couldn’t remember which. His story had its moments, inexplicable as they may be. It wouldn’t have taken long to tell it. He tried to push his way through the line of people at Starbuck’s, but no one let him through, and he had to go around them into the street.
A young woman wearing Ugg boots, a knit hat, and a peacoat strode confidently in his direction. He looked down and began searching the sidewalk, hoping to draw attention.
“Did you lose something?”
“Just my bearings. I am hungry though.”
“Don’t the shelters give you any food? Why don’t you collect bottles and cans? It helps with recycling, and you’ll never go hungry.” He feared he might have misjudged her. She was looking over his head, not at him, delivering a lecture.
“Oh, I do, I collect what I can whenever I can, diligently, every day,” he said, “but I make too little to afford truly nutritious foods like whole-grain sandwiches.” He began to stagger off. She ran after him and handed him two quarters.
“I shouldn’t do this. Make sure you buy food with it.”
“Pret-a-Manger will be my next stop,” Alexei said.
“I don’t believe you.”
Collecting cans and bottles from waste bins was about the last thing in the world he would ever do. It required no talent and was demeaning.
He tottered on, letting knots of pedestrians unravel before him. The sounds of PS Nineteen came back to him along with the smell of the grimy apartment on the lower East Side, the hours he’d spent in the closet for “violations”, his parents shouting at each other in the kitchen, in the hall, in the bedroom, on the fire escape. He shook his head to try to clear it but saw his father’s paintings in piles on the floor, paintings never shown or sold, easel, brushes, and paints cluttering up the room. He remembered his mother’s bruises, her wounded eyes, her inarticulate appeals, and his fruitless attempts to stop their fighting with words. He wondered what had made them endure the hell of consulates and embassies to bring him here. They had named him after a Karamazov, they said, the innocent one, but he suspected it was a name given by the orphanage. They never read books.
A couple in fur hats with flaps were standing in the middle of the sidewalk, looking at a guide book.
“May I be of assistance?” Alexei said. They were clearly from out of town. The man’s eyes moved up the side of a high-rise building to the very top.
Without looking up the woman said “We’re trying to find the Empire State Building”. Her husband pointed at something on the page. She frowned when she saw who she was talking to.
“You’re going the wrong way,” Alexei said. “You need to retrace your steps, turn left at Fifth, and go down to Thirty-fourth street. You’ll find it there.” The woman, who was on the verge of asking him to move on, looked down at her guide book.
“Oh yes, thank you.”
“An art deco classic, recently refurbished,” Alexei said. They looked at him. With an exaggerated limp, he began walking away. The woman called out after him.
“Here, let me give you something,” she said, rummaging in her purse.
“That isn’t necessary.”
“I think it is,” she said and handed him a bill.
Alexei bowed. She closed her guide book, and the couple turned up Fortieth Street, walking arm in arm. He watched them. It had been an unexpectedly productive morning. It felt good to be able to profile benefactors and help.
He crossed Fifth Avenue. The fountain at Bryant Park was draped in icicles, and the library, that warm receptacle of periodicals and nostalgia, beckoned. He hurried by because a new arrival called Birmingham Bob was hanging out in the park and had a mysterious grudge against him. A pain in his stomach made him double over. He listened for birds as was his habit until the pain went away but heard only the rasping of jays, grackles, crows, and house sparrows. He almost had to sit down, easy prey, but the pain subsided before Bob caught sight of him or a passer-by summoned police. High-rises loomed, as belittling as ever. He needed to find Olga.
“Are you okay?” asked a young man in an expensive parka carrying a book bag.
“I think so.”
“Do you need help?”
“No, not at all,” Alexei said, unfolding his body. “I lost some change. It must be here somewhere.” Jostled by passers-by, he scanned the sidewalk.
“Where?”
“Somewhere here. I’ll have to skip the morning coffee.”
“Here.” The boy removed his glove and handed him a few coins from the pocket of his coat.
“I can’t accept this. You’re a student.”
“You need it more than I do.”
“I do appreciate it.” The boy smiled and walked off. Alexei watched him throw his bag over his shoulder and step with vigor. He used to despise himself for exploiting the unwary but that was a long time ago and he got over it. He simply resented them now. The kid was right though, he did need it more than he did. It was maddening.
Trudging past the park and across Sixth Avenue he reached the encampment, a warren of pallets, chairs, and trash on the corner of Fortieth and Broadway. It had emptied out but for a few stragglers, including Roscoe, a familiar street presence. They were huddled in a circle around a trash bin with a small fire going inside, smoking cigarettes and slapping their arms against the cold. Alexei joined them.
“The fuck you been, Popoff?” Roscoe shouted, startling a passerby. “You look like shit.”
“Touching reception, Roscoe.”
“Fuck you. You better watch your mouth, or somebody’ll shut it for you.”
A small man with wizened cheeks and a bandage on his bald head, made a sudden move with his shoulders toward Alexei, a feint. Alexei flinched, as always, as he had since childhood. The man laughed.
“Who’s your lieutenant, Roscoe?”
“Ain’t no lieutenant,” the man said. “Seaman apprentice and proud of it.”
“If only I’d known….”
“You look worse than usual, Popoff,” Roscoe said. “How much you got? We’re chipping in for Mickey D’s”.
“I’m looking for Olga. Have you seen her?”
“Try the river. You know how much she likes those benches. On the prowl are you?”
“I need to tell her… something.”
“About what?”
“Scabies.”
“Rabies?”
“Forget it.”
“Ante up, Popoff. You could use a bite.”
“Your concern for my well-being is heartwarming, Roscoe.” Roscoe winked at the others.
“Popoff don’t need food.”
“He’s too busy,” the little bald man said.
“Living on love, making it with Olga,” Roscoe sang.
“Tactful as ever, Roscoe.”
“Watch your mouth, Popoff.”
Alexei bowed and left them standing in the circle designed, he thought, to make everything beyond it disappear. An icy breeze swept papers and empty food cartons into his path as he stumbled down Broadway. What a pitiful way to spend the day, conjuring up meals. He had no problem leaving it to those who were bereft of imagination.
Shivering, he reached into his pocket and counted his take. The problem with Broadway was its diversity. It was hard to profile. He walked through Times Square, already crowded with tourists, and stopped in front of a sidewalk kiosk to scout targets after crossing Seventh Avenue.
“Move your ass away from my business,” a voice inside the kiosk said.
“Sampling your wares,” Alexei said, pretending to study the array of Trident gums.
“Move, or I make you move,” the man said, leaning forward. His dark mustache twitched, and his accent sounded Indian or Pakistani.
“What to choose, what to choose--wintergreen, cinnamon tingle, cool colada…?” So many choices,” Alexi said, fingering a pack of gum.
The man reached behind the counter and came up with an empty plastic water bottle. He threw it at Alexei, hitting him on the side of the head. Alexei recoiled, raising his hands for protection.
“I call police if you do not move.”
“You could lose a fair number of sales with that attitude,” Alexei said, moving on. Why this demeaning struggle for turf, he wondered, when we share the earth?
He parsed the faces of passers-by on his way. Near 48th Street he saw a man reach inside his poncho. Something, a credit card perhaps, fluttered to the ground.
“Sir, sir, you dropped something.”
“My MetroCard,” the man said, bending over to retrieve it.
“A convenience, the subway. Wouldn’t you agree?” The man studied him, the space between his brows wrinkling. “Unfortunately, the recent fare increase left me a bit short.”
“Really?” the man said. “Places to go and people to see?”
“I enjoy visiting all the city’s neighborhoods. Someday I’ll write a travelogue.” The man smiled and reached into his pocket.
“How much do you need?”
“Less than a dollar.” The man took out his wallet and handed him two dollar bills.
“Enjoy,” he said.
Alexei bowed. At the next corner he bought a half pint of Popov at a tiny liquor store and took his first sip between Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Streets. The vodka warmed his throat and mind but tortured his stomach. He bent over until the pain receded. The thud of the water bottle on the side of his head had been like the flat of his father’s hand, his reward for being alive. Sometimes the beatings began with him, sometimes with his mother. Objections made things worse. His mother knew better and suffered in silence. Only the sounds of PS Nineteen could obliterate the memory, as they had through childhood.
He made his way down Fifty-second Street. A cop in a cruiser parked at the corner tracked him with his eyes as he passed. With all the rezoning he didn’t know where Hell’s Kitchen was anymore, but Clinton Park was still Clinton Park. He passed the spiked fence, concrete paths, gnarled boulder, and chubby ponies on his way to the river.
Olga was sitting on a bench at pier ninety-six, looking out at the water, leaning forward, her arms wrapped around her chest, near the big grey bottle lying on its side. The boathouse where the canoes and kayaks were stored looked abandoned. She was wearing the same ripped hoodie and cargo pants he had seen her in when they met on Second Avenue. Even with pale cheeks and chapped lips her inner beauty radiated, although she looked older than twenty-four. He admired her from a distance before sitting down beside her.
“Roscoe said you would be here.”
“Roscoe can go fuck himself.”
“As we all tend to do, in the end.”
They sat staring at the agitated river. Alexei pulled the bottle from inside his coat and offered her a sip. She shook her head, picked up a half-pint bottle lying on the bench next to her, and pulled from it. Alexei sipped his.
“Odessa?” he said, resuming a previous conversation.
“No.”
“Ukraine?”
“No.”
“Somewhere south, though.”
“I told you. I don’t come from Russia and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”
“That’s no Jersey accent,” he said. She took another pull from her bottle, wiped her mouth, and reached for his hand. He pulled it away. “Olga, we can’t. I came to tell you. I’ve got scabies. Doc gave me medicine. I can give you some, if you need it.”
Olga looked at her palm and shook her head. Her profile was remarkable, he thought, so nineteenth-century: sharp nose, high forehead, prominent cheekbones. She was aloof and unattainable, everything deep and hidden. He’d spent a year at City College learning about old Russia, mostly by reading novels. It was such a vivid world. She made him remember.
“What do you see when you look out there?”
She snorted disapproval of the question. He looked down at his boots and tried to move his toes but couldn’t feel them.
“Doc wants me to go into the hospital,” he said.
“Why?”
“Something here.” He patted himself. She looked at his stomach.
“You should go.”
“I don’t like being inside. Unless it’s Grand Central or the library.”
“You should do what he says.”
“Wouldn’t you miss me? I might never come out.”
“You’d find me.”
“I thought you were going away,” he said. She snapped her head back disdainfully. “What are you waiting for?”
“A ship.”
“Ships leave every day.”
“I’m waiting for one that goes to the right place,” she said.
“Where?”
“Not here.”
“Just go, if that’s what you want.”
“Somewhere, nowhere. It’s all the same,” she said, taking a sip of wild cherry brandy. Alexei leaned forward, holding the vodka bottle in both hands.
“Doc is out looking for me. He can be persuasive.”
“Why not do what he says?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do it,” she said, eyes blazing. He felt a chill, pulled his coat tighter, and scanned the boardwalk.
“I just want him to leave me alone. I need to keep moving.”
“Not for long maybe.”
“I’ll take my chances.” She coughed and spat, shaking her head in disgust. He poked her shoulder with a forefinger. “Listen to you, telling me to take care of myself. You’re young. Why don’t you help yourself?”
“I’m fine where I am.” A gust of wind made them reach for their bottles.
“It’s easy telling other people what to do. It’s a way to hide,” he said.
“Spare me your crap, please.”
“That’s my cue,” he said, slipping his bottle into the inner pocket of his coat like a billfold or a passport. Olga scowled but did not look at him.
“Goodbye, Olga.”
“Going somewhere?”
Clouds were crowding out the sun, and it was getting colder. The wind off the water bit. Alexei left her on the bench and shuffled up Twelfth Avenue, came back down Eleventh, past the high-end automobile showrooms, turned up Tenth, and came back down again, for what seemed like hours. Eventually, he found himself on Fifty-second street. He turned into Clinton Park past people walking their dogs and holding shopping bags. Looking for an out-of-the-way bench, he came to a paved playground with glinting stainless-steel slides, red climbing structures, and a leafless sycamore tree. He tried to remember what it felt like to squeal down a slide. The pain in his stomach forced him to sit at the bottom of one of them. There were no bird noises, and he waited without distraction for the pain to subside. A woman walking her dog noticed him. Alexei wondered if she thought he had slid down.
“Are you all right?” the woman said.
“I’m resting.”
“This is a playground for children.”
“I know.”
“Why are you here then?” Alexei looked around at structures intended for play.
“It feels good.”
“You should leave.”
“I know.”
She pulled her terrier’s leash and hurried away, looking for a policeman, no doubt. He stood and closed his coat, preparing to leave, but sat down again. The playground had opened a door in his mind where the safety of his school desk at PS 19, the old Russia of Turgenev and Tolstoy, the elegance of the public library reading room, the bustle of Grand Central, came together in a world that shone brightly. He thought of Olga and her cruise ships to nowhere.
Three teenagers in jackets and baseball caps entered the playground and began hanging from monkey bars and climbing ladders. They were talking to each other in Spanish. Alexei tried to ignore them, but one, a short, muscular boy, sidled over to him.
“Need some weed?”
“I never use it.”
“What you doing here?”
“Practicing my playground technique, like you are.”
“Oh yeah?” the boy said, turning to the others. “The vago wants to play.” The other two came over, and the three of them stood around him in a semi-circle. “Show us how you play. Go down the slide.”
“I’m afraid of heights.”
“Go down anyway.”
“Why don’t you show me how? I might learn something.”
“You want us to teach you?”
“Always ready to learn.”
One of the teens had moved beside him while his friend was talking and slapped the side of Alexei’s head, hard. Alexei put his hand up but was pushed off the slide onto the ground. The three boys began kicking him in the stomach, back, and head, laughing. Covering his head with his elbows he curled up in a fetal position, but some of the kicks landed. “It’s a good thing they’re wearing sneakers,” he thought. There was nothing to do but endure.
Two burly, blue arms began pulling the boys away, and the kicking stopped. One of the boys said “What you doing?” A firm voice said “Beat it, you little bastards.” Alexei heard the patter of footsteps. His head was pounding, his abdomen and vitals ached. A policeman was leaning over him. Behind him stood the woman with the dog. Alexei tried to sit.
“Take it easy,” the policeman said. “I’ll call an ambulance.”
“No, I’m all right.”
“You don’t look all right.”
Alexei put his palms flat on the pavement and managed to stand, holding one arm over his stomach, blood running down the side of his face. He could feel his ear swelling up. He straightened his coat with the lapels and brushed the dirt off, looking back and forth from the officer to the woman, bringing their faces into focus.
“You can’t stay here,” the cop said.
“I was just leaving when I made their acquaintance,” Alexei said. He tried to walk but stumbled. The officer grabbed him by the shoulders.
“You need to let me call you an ambulance.” Alexei put his hands into the pockets of his coat and looked into the policeman’s eyes.
“Officer, I am as lucid as you are,” he said. “I don’t need an ambulance or a doctor or a hospital. I am perfectly capable of leaving under my own power.”
“Do something about that blood,” the officer said. He went to the fence, grabbed a handful of snow, and handed it to Alexei. “Clean yourself up. And for your own good stay away from this playground.”
The officer and the woman with the dog shared a look as Alexei staggered out of the park, pressing snow against the side of his face. He turned up Fifty-second. It was freezing, his head was pounding, and his stomach felt like the inside of a furnace. He threw away the handful of snow, reached into his coat, took a numbing swallow of vodka, and stumbled along until he reached the theater district and joined a crowd of pedestrians. He stopped to let people pass and tried to clear his head. Everything was moving too quickly. He should be angry, he knew, but it was pointless.
Rather than continue on to the core of downtown where Doc might be looking for him, he turned right on Broadway. The pains in his head and stomach did not prevent him from profiling the pedestrians walking toward him, and he stopped a man with white, frizzy hair and a backpack over his thick, cable-knit sweater. The man looked at him as if he were a ghost.
“Excuse me, sir, but could you spare some change for a good book?” This particular appeal was unworthy of him, he thought. Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, the man peered at him.
“That has to be a first. Money for a book?”
“I like to read. As you can see, I have the time.”
“What happened to you? You look awful.”
“An accident. I don’t know why I asked for money for a book. I’m a little confused.”
The man unstrapped his backpack, searched inside, and pulled out a worn paperback. He handed it to Alexei.
“The True Believer by Eric Hoffer,” he said. “He was on skid row, like you. You might learn something.”
The man gave him a reassuring look, shouldered his backpack, and walked off. Alexei held the book like a strange object, read the title and the blurbs on the front and back covers, and put it in his coat pocket. He stumbled down Broadway to Forty-fourth Street, avoiding eye contact, and waited in a crowd on the corner for the pedestrian symbol to illuminate. His head ached, and his thoughts were jumbled. He knew the streets in midtown Manhattan better than he knew himself but was disoriented. He had no desire to profile anyone and wanted only to recapture the brief moment of euphoria he experienced on the slide before the beating. A conversation he’d had with Doc, who found him the night before at Lincoln Center looking at Chagall murals, came back to him.
“Alexei, this should help with the itching,” Doc had said, “but I’m worried about you. You need to go to an emergency room and get checked out. Let me take you.”
“It comes and goes, but it goes away.”
“It may not always. You told me about the blows to your head. Were you hit in the stomach too?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you eating?”
“Thanks for the medicine, Doc.”
You had to admire Doc’s persistence, but he was always trying to make him remember things he didn’t want to remember. Doc’s world was filled with words he didn’t understand and implied threats, like the emergency room.
He stopped in front of a boarded-up storefront, took a sip of vodka, and tried to walk, but his vision blurred and he had to shake his head to see things clearly. Forty-fourth was a good street. The Harvard Club was on it.
The main concourse at Grand Central was special on a sunny afternoon because the light streaming through the high windows threw spotlights on the people passing below. There used to be benches, but they took them out a long time ago because of people like him. Alexei stood with his back against the wall opposite the windows, admiring the cavernous room, the play of the sunlight, and the frenzy. He listened to snatches of conversation. There was a palpable feeling of release, everyone anxious to go home. He studied faces and tried to imagine their lives.
A middle-aged woman was standing next to him, leaning up against the wall, reading a thick book. Judging by her camel overcoat and the leather briefcase on the floor beside her, she was a professional. Alexei tried to see what she was reading, but she was holding the book in both hands. It must have been an entertaining read, because she made little humming sounds. He reached inside his overcoat, pulled out the paperback the man had given him, opened it randomly to page eighty-three, and pretended to read. When he looked at her again, she was engrossed in her book.
“May I ask what you’re reading?” he said.
She did not look up but lifted her head slightly to acknowledge his question, her eyes on the page.
“Nora Roberts.”
“Is that a person or a title?”
“She’s a novelist.”
“I’m reading a book about mass movements. The people who join them are generally discouraged.” He was quoting from a blurb on the book’s back cover, as best he could remember.
“I like to read escapist literature.”
“My book is about escaping. It’s about distraught people who join movements to escape themselves.”
The woman looked at Alexei and recoiled at the blood on his temple and his filthy boots. She looked into his eyes and began to sidle away, as if surprised by a wild animal. With a wistful smile Alexei watched her disappear into the crowd, thinking that his book was a good conversation piece.
People rushed by, and the light in the concourse changed and got darker. His body ached. The vodka had done little to ease the pain. He was tired of standing and tired of imagining the lives of others, but the bustle and sounds of the station were comforting to him. He left the terminal and walked down Forty-third to Madison, hoping he wouldn’t be too early or too late. His preferred block, it was lined with banks and office buildings, a desert after dark. If he was too early somebody might complain. If he was late, others might claim the grate.
On the corner of Madison and Forty-third he saw Doc in front of the Verizon store, kneeling over a street person sitting on the sidewalk with his back against the building. Doc was asking questions, like he always did. Alexei stayed on the other side of the street to avoid being spotted. He walked back to Forty-second Street, stopping every few yards to rest, turned left and then left again at Vanderbilt, where a spray of American flags waved above a street sign. He walked slowly down Vanderbilt to Forty-third and returned to Madison. An ambulance was flashing at the corner, and Doc was helping the EMT’s load the patient, who was lying on a stretcher, into the back of the vehicle. Doc looked across the street. Alexei thought he might have seen him. He would need to stay away from Madison long enough for Doc to leave or give up trying to find him. He walked back up Forty-third and waited in a doorway on Vanderbilt, bent over in pain.
After waiting for what seemed a long time he stumbled back to Madison. He saw no evidence of Doc, crossed the street, and made his way to the grate in front of the office building. An African-American man covered in newspapers was lying there, a beat-up shopping cart filled with bottles and cans nearby. Alexei looked down at him, and the man stared back. He was tired, and the pain was unrelenting, but there were few options. He found a semi-enclosed doorway sheltered from the wind, a Citibank ATM that someone might try to use, but he would have to take his chances. He sat with his back against the glass door, his legs sticking out on the sidewalk, and drank from his bottle of vodka.
Except for the dim security lights in the office buildings and the passing headlights of cars and taxis the darkness was nearly complete. The pains in his head and stomach were acute. He hadn’t eaten in days. He finished the vodka, hoping to be able to sleep, and thought about the feeling that had come over him on the slide. The playground, Olga, the river, literary characters engaged in refined conversation around Samovars, the reading room in the library, the bustle of Grand Central--all a pleasant blur. In the morning the sounds of the street would obliterate the pain and the bad memories, as the sounds of PS Nineteen had done. He stared out at the passing cabs and the night.
“Popoff! It’s time to go.”
Officer Speck kicked the protruding legs of the lanky body.
“You can’t stay here, Popoff. Popoff! Get up!”
Alexei’s eyes were closed. He had one hand inside his coat, and his face was a pale mask. Officer Speck leaned over, inspected the face, and shook his shoulders.
“Popoff. Are you listening to me?”
He kicked one of the shabby boots and reached for his walkie-talkie. He was asking for assistance when Alexei’s fingers splayed.
“Officer Speck,” he said. “I had a feeling it was you.”
