SQUIRRY

Knock, knock…

“Who’s there?”

“Me.”

Chapter I

Fucking squirrel. She bit me right when I was trying to rescue her. I was walking Pincode. That’s my dog, a young bull-terrier. I got him from my boyfriend as a make up gift. For nearly killing me. But I deserved it. I just didn’t feel like explaining, that I had to go to Bratislava because Pepo went blind. Pipo wouldn’t understand anyway. That squirrel tattooed a Morse code message in bloody dots on the outer side of my palm: “Don’t help anyone against their will.”

When I run into a squirrel once in a blue moon it’s like a real dwarf jumping out from behind a tree stump. I don’t get all emotional over kitties, bunnies and lambs. I hate that stupid look on people’s faces that young ones evoke whether they are real or stuffed. But a squirrel is different. Kitties and lambs stick to you, and have the ability to activate a program in our heads that makes us want to protect them and feed them. They are little prostitutes. I like everything that runs away from me, something I have to chase. And a squirrel is just like that – until some people in the park screw it up by feeding her peanuts. Like swans, for example. I feel like puking when I see swans on Strkovecke Lake in Bratislava, that don’t give a crap about their journey because people give them bread. Pepo was telling me about a lake that used to be at this place where we go for walks. Once, at the end of fall, a flock of swans landed on this lake. At night it got so cold that the entire lake froze. In the morning the swans found out that their feet were stuck in the ice. There were a lot of them, more than a hundred. They spread their wings and flew away along with the lake. Supposedly, the lake is somewhere in southern Czech Republic now.

So anyway, I was walking Pincode that morning. Well – morning… it was almost afternoon. I just finished smoking a cigarette when Pincode started growling in this deep adult manner. About twenty meters ahead of us, sitting under a tree was a squirrel. I knew that if Pincode would go after her, she would run away and make an ass out of him. Pincode is three months old; he is made for something like that. But the squirrel didn’t make an ass of him. She didn’t run away, she didn’t even try to run away. Something happened. She could have been weak, old or blind. Pincode would play with her for a little bit as if she was a rag and then he would choke her to death. So instead I passed Pincode and picked her up. The squirrel was light, as if made of husk. She had a head that looked like a fur covered nut and a back with a protruding spine. I was really tempted to take her home with me. Then she scrunched up as if deflated of all air and all of a sudden she turned and sharply bit my hand. Ferociously and really hard. I dropped her on the ground. At first the bite just stung, I didn’t even bleed. I wanted to kick that little cunt, but she hopped away behind a tree. A small bloody crown was forming on my hand. A tiny ruby colored drop came out of each little tear that the squirrel bit into my skin. When I moved my hand, all the drops fused together. With my good hand, I put Pincode on a leash and lit up a cigarette. “It’s nothing,” I told myself. It didn’t sound very convincing, though. I have this antenna that tells me when I am in trouble. The problem is that I don’t want to admit I’m in trouble. I was telling myself that it’s nothing, but just in case I stopped by Petra’s on my way back. Maybe she has something antiseptic to put on it. Some slivovitz, at least. I didn’t want to go home, my mom would make a huge tragedy out of it. Or at the very least a sign. My mom sees a sign of something terrible, tragic or mortal in everything. She expects the worst her entire life, and she’s rarely disappointed. Maybe even because of her we left Pincode at Petra’s and went to the health center. Our local doctor is an elder man, a former soldier. Doctor Neptal, the perpetual Czech. He speaks his own language – Czechoslovak. From afar he looks like a dried out tree. Up close like a sea sponge. And overall as a pleasant death on vacation. He used to drink like a fish. Even now they find him in a ditch once in a while, but then he acts like it’s Ramadan for the next six months. I showed him my hand and told him what the deal was. He nodded his head. I don’t know why doctors always nod their heads, are they just swinging their thoughts or just gaining time. He stuck out his lips, pulling all the wrinkles from his face towards his mouth and said: “My dear, we have to vaccinate you. That squirrel certainly had rabies.” Wham.

I imagined myself foaming at the mouth, running around Brezno biting people. No, I am going to sit under a tree and when someone picks me up wanting to pet me, then I’ll bite them.

Doctor Neptal cleaned out my wound, gave me a shot and put a band aid on my hand and my ass. There are two kinds of band aids, ones that don’t stick and ones that are impossible to take off. Luckily, this one was the first kind. 

By the next day, the cuts got slightly inflamed and tiny scabs formed on them. The kind of scabs that are a joy to pick on. That’s why I was left with white dots after they healed. Whatever.

That night Petra told everyone at the bar how I was rescuing a squirrel. Everything always becomes a legend in the neighborhood. Ever since then they call me Squirrel or just Squirry. I like it the other way. Look at the difference: squirrel and squirry – it’s like a stroke of her furry tail. I don’t know why but in my head I kept thinking that the squirrel meant well and ever since then she is in my secret army of protectors. Those are luminous creatures that take on the form of a stuffed teddy bear, a marzipan piglet or a dove.

I called him Emil, he would sit on my grandma’s roof. He had eyes that were red like beads and a little shiny vest on his chest. He did what he could but nevertheless he was kind of confused anyway. Once, during late fall I was raking leaves in my grandma’s backyard. I’m in horrible shape because I smoke so much. I raked half the backyard and I was ready to pass out. That night I prayed to Emil to make the leaves disappear by the morning. And the next day there was snow up to my knees. The dove did what he could. Now I pray to the squirrel. What do I want from her?

Chapter II

I need a hundred grand. Better said I need to make enough money so I have a hundred grand left. By Christmas at the latest. Fifty thousand for my mom, fifty thousand for my dad. Ten years ago I borrowed forty thousand from my parents and I promised them I would pay them back double. Plus interest. That’s what I promised and I’m going to keep my promise. Mom and dad need it. I could borrow money from Pipo’s stash that he set aside for his business, but that wouldn’t solve anything because I already owe him thirty thousand. I could make some money on shrooms and weed too, but that would be the last alternative. Or I’ll go to Vienna and clean apartments. It doesn’t really matter how I make that hundred grand, the main thing is that I’m going to have it. Otherwise I’m screwed. The problem is that at the moment I have zero crowns and I owe Petra three hundred. But that’s okay. I’m just freaking out again. My mother thinks I know where dad is and that I’m in touch with him but that I’m keeping it from her. We argued the whole evening. Then I cried so much that I forgot why I was crying in the first place. “Why am I crying? Is it still because of my mother? Am I insane?” But I felt bad anyway that she thinks that about me. And that she doesn’t believe me. In touch with my dad, yeah right. Why would I cover for him? My younger sister is his darling, so if he contacted anyone, it would be her. My mother doesn’t believe that I’m looking for him. She suspects that I’m covering for him. And when I explain it to her, I can totally see she doesn’t believe me. I try to convince her like an idiot, until I start screaming and then everything turns to shit cuz she doesn’t believe me at all anymore. Not a word about her not believing me, though. But she doesn’t want to let me know that she doesn’t believe me. She knows that her distrust drives me crazy. But then I didn’t believe her, that she believed me. She’s not that good of an actress.

“You seriously think I know where he is? That’s what you think?”

“I don’t think that. (listen to this) I don’t think anything at all.”

“I know you think that, I just don’t understand why. Why would I cover for him?

“That I don’t know.”

And all the while she’s got this weak, painful, resigned look in her face like she wants to join a convent or die.

“So think it. Think whatever you want. And I’m going to do whatever I want, too.

“You do that anyway.” A heavy sigh.

“I’m going out then.”

We are quiet for a moment and then she tells me something to drive me over the edge.

“Do you need money?”

“No, thanks. That I really don’t need.”

I went to the bathroom to calm down. I sat down on the edge of the tub and stared into space.

My hair grows in a special way. It’s got a life of its own – I can either just leave it be because it does what it wants or cut it off, which I like better. Most of the time my hair is so short, it looks like I’m bald. When it grows out, it’s unbelievably thick, curly and tangled and it just shoots out of my head like a geyser. You want to know something about me? That’s how tangled it is in my head. Sometimes I feel like I’m a platypus or a sloth, built from a different construction set. A forgotten fish with legs. Or that some Australian aborigine is dreaming about me. I dream about all kinds of people, too. I only know them from my dreams. I have never seen them in real life, I’m sure of that. They only live in my head, coming back like in a TV show. When I see one of them, I say to myself: “That’s the guy form my dream.”

I have a few thinking passageways that lead somewhere totally different than they do in other people’s heads. But when I am awake and sober I can’t even get through the first door. When I get stoned the door opens and I wander through my gardens.

Now I’m sitting at the edge of the tub, fruitlessly meditating. I would even go to college, but that kind of a college hasn’t been established yet. They would have to teach me some real, concrete things though, not just shit I’m never going to use. I would also be into getting my driver’s license but you waste ninety percent of the time just talking about bullshit in class. Cuz bullshitting is cheap and driving is not. This is how driver’s ed should be: “Enroll once you know all the signs and other crap, and we will teach you to drive.” But then everything would have to be a little different, and not how it actually is. Everything has to do with everything.

Translated by Viridiana Carleo