Via Prague

State a problem simply, and it becomes more manageable. My problem that weekend was two-fold. My lease in Roztoky was coming up at the end of the weekend. Much as I’d come to like the village, I wanted to be back in the city. So I’d forgone extending the lease, but had dragged my feet on getting a new place. I think I’d counted on getting a friend to
let me crash for a couple days. So far hadn’t had any luck. “I’ll have to think about it,” was all Karel said. I couldn’t reach Philadelphia,
and Tanner was playing cat-and-mouse, probably exacting revenge for all our insults back in the old days.
So I was basically homeless at the moment, and now had a deadline hanging over my head. If I had more cash it wouldn’t be a problem – I’d just crash at a hostel or pension. So many problems are compounded by the lack of money.
The tram was crowded, mostly with a hilarious, energetic set of Italian girls, in town for the weekend. A sweaty-faced, stout middle-aged woman dragging two shopping bags stood fussily in the aisle. “Foreigners sit and Czechs stand!” I overheard her muttering.
I was carrying two big bags that held all my worldly possessions. They were getting heavy, especially as the day got warmer. I got off the tram at the Massarykovo train station and headed to a cheap pension.
“We’re booked through the weekend,” the receptionist said. “But let’s see – oh, here’s a shared room. We can let you have it for one night.” Twenty minutes later I was back out on the street, my bags tucked away for the night. I was down to my last three thousand crowns. Enough for a few nights at the pension.

That evening after my last class, the air had turned a fragrant, honey tone, so I headed to riegrovy sady, a park at the top of a big hill in Zizkov. The beer garden was full. I’d barely gotten my beer and sat down when I heard someone call my name.
“James from California!”
A ghost from last fall. The ghost approached, split into two and in a bizarre recognition I remembered. The twins – Teddy and Jonas. We’d spent a memorable, stimulated weekend together at a warehouse party so many months before.
“What happened to you?” Jonas asked, as he guided me over to a table filled with young Czechs. “Last time we see this guy – “ Jonas turned to the table. “He was crazy at the party and then we never see him again!”
Everyone laughed politely.
“So what is new with you? You need a place to stay? You are in
pension. Oh, you stay with us. We are two minutes away, in Lipanska.”
So many times in life we wonder how things might have been different. That chance run-in with the twins set off what turned out to be more than a memorable weekend – where, at the end of another dizzy, lost weekend -- I ended up nearly being arrested on suspicion of beating a prominent member of the Communist Party.

Herb slapped a copy of Mlhada fronta dnes on the table.
“You’re news,” he said grimly.
There was a story on the front page. “Communist Party leader beaten on May Day” the story ran. There was a photo of a man named Jiri Panenko, his left eye swollen to the size of an apple, with cuts and bruises on his forehead.

“Police said Panenko was in the midst of giving his speech, ‘Life
without work is not possible and life with out love is not life,” when a
group of unidentified young people yelling unprintable things, burst
into the group and began beating the Communist leader.
An estimated 8,000 party members and supporters attended the rally
in Letna.



I read all this in a daze. My first thought – bizarrely – was of Karel. It all seemed like a sad joke. What interested me more was a smaller photo, taken by one of the Czech photographers. It showed, among other things, a young man with a strong resemblance to me assisting in the
beating.
I glanced at the rest of the story. Panenko had been taken to the hospital, where he was being treated for the cuts and bruises. He was being held overnight in case of concussion, but doctors seemed confident he would be alright.
Herb was eyeing me.
“So wanna tell me what happened?”
It was strange; I felt detached from the crime, as though someone else had done it. The twins had dropped me off at Herb’s. They and some others were going to their cottage in Moravia for a few days. They’d invited me to come but I – absurdly feeling I still needed to file the
story – had insisted on staying in town.
“I don’t think you need to worry about the story,” Herb corrected me a few minutes later. “Seth came in on emergency and filed it this morning.”
“I could write an eyewitness account,” I said joking..
“You’re lucky, you know.” Herb was eyeing me again.
“I know.”
“You’re lucky no one else knew who you were. I spoke with Seth about it. Fortunately for you, the Social Democrats and ODS and trying to make it a political thing. Nobody really expects to find who did it. Luckily for you, most Czechs aren’t very sympathetic to this Panenko. Back in the States you’d probably be looking at an assault charge, maybe a
lot more. These Czechs, for better or worse, will probably grumble a bit and just let it go.”
I nodded.
“You’re not making it easy for yourself – or for others who may come after you.” Herb lit a cigar. “I’m sorry but I gotta cut you off. I can’t help you on any more stories, you understand that. And you’re welcome to stop by, but I’m not letting Milan serve you anything harder than
Coca Cola. And if I find out you’re in here drinking I’ll have you 86’d.”
I didn’t say anything. Instead I glanced unconsciously at Milan, who had that muted __expression of someone who is trying not to listen.
After a minute, Herb’s gaze softened.
“So you gonna be OK?”
“I’m fine.”
“Need any money?”
I shook my head.
Herb was looking out the window. A couple fresh-faced young girls
walked by, they peered through the window and waved. Herb waved back.
I rose to go, lifting a short nod to Milan.
“Come on, I’ll walk with you,” Herb said.
Outside it was bright outside again.
“This place – it’ll get to you if you don’t watch it,” Herb said reflectively.
“I know – you said.” I was ready to go.
“Well, try to lay low for a while. Everything will be fine, I think.”

At the pension a few hours later. No word from Karel, or Tanner, or anybody. It felt awful and surreal, being homeless and a virtual fugitive, even if it was a fugitive nobody really wanted. A thought crossed my mind of calling Kyle in Ireland. He’d symphathize, maybe offer a hideout in Donegal. Maybe he could get me a job working in the bar, washing
dishes or bussing. I could earn euros for a change – with the exchange rate I could even return home a little bit ahead. ... Home ... Yeah, could always go there ... where the creditors were waiting ...
... But I didn’t want to go home. Not yet anyway.
Herb was right. I was lucky. No one had seen me, it was too fast and confusing. How had it happened
... The party with the twins Friday ... the ecstasy, then speed, and who knows how much alcohol. A smoky, hazy
weekend that suddenly resolved sharply into Monday morning, the day of
the May Day parades.
It had been Jonas’ hilarious idea that we all go to the Communist
demonstration together. “We will help with your coverage,” he said,
laughing. I’d laughed too. It had seemed like a great idea. They could help
translate. We did a couple more lines, and drank off a bottle of
absinthe before parting.
I really don’t remember much about the demonstration ... lots of
people, a ridiculous memory of the sunshine bouncing off the heads of the
speakers. Someone near me was shouting, and it was then I had the
realization that I hadn’t bothered to bring a notebook or pen. Must have
left it at the twins’ flat. More shouting, and suddenly figures where
thrusting and pushing, and someone was coming at me. I shoved, and a shove
came back and there was Jonas – no Teddy – Christ they both look alike,
it’s so spooky and it was funny too. Where were the police? I
remembered seeing a bunch of them at the tram stops. Where were they now? They
were coming! “James, we go!” Jonas or Teddy was saying to me and we
were scrambling over the hill and through the park and tumbling down a
path and to the river ...
... then we were on a tram heading back to Zizkov and someone was
sick ...

The door knocked. I jumped. Reception girl.
“Would you like some dinner brought up?”
“No, thanks.” I shut the door.
I went and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Well, at least the guy’s all right. Stupid. Stupid. I was drunk. A sad joke. Hori ma panenko! Fire my darling!Yes, you were drunk. Always drunk. He’s alright. But what about next time? Say a quiet prayer. No
more ... got to change.
My phone beeped. A text from a friend in the States. “How are you? I miss you.”
“I’m OK,” I replied. “Just relaxing. Miss you too.”

After a while, I fell asleep. I don’t usually remember my dreams.
But that night I dreamed the one dream that’s come persistently since I’d
come to Prague. In the dream I’m back home, at the newspaper, on the
beat. Everyone comes up to me, surprised looks on their faces. So you’re
back? They ask. Yes, I say. And on and on it goes, the same gauntlet of
let-down and shame.
When I awoke the room was pitch black. I rose, disoriented,
frightened. Three a.m. Hungry, afraid to go out though. I think I half
suspected a couple patrol cars were sitting at the curb. I went into the
bathroom. “He looks young,” I thought, looking at the reflection in the
mirror. “Yes, he’s in Europe, doing what a young man should be doing,
opening doors for himself ...
“—and beating up the local population,” I finished the thought aloud.

Noon. Cancelled classes again. Couldn’t face anyone. Your teacher is
a drunken bum who beat a man senseless over the weekend and who is now
homeless and hiding from the police. No homework.
A text. I jump again. It’s Philadelphia Groves. “Leaving next week.
We should have a drink.”
I met Philadephia that evening, after spending a cautious, harrowed
day in the room. He was at riegrovy sady.
“Brother James!” Philadelphia offered his big hand to shake.
Something in his voice – that old booming voice, full of the world – nearly
moved me to tears.
“What’s up?” Philadelphia asked, seeing me shaken.
“Prague.”
“What about it?”
“I’m just tired.”
“Need a holiday maybe. It’s good to get out of the city sometimes.
Got to.”
Slowly I gave him a highly edited and rewritten account of the
weekend, casting myself as the sympathetic foreigner unwittingly thrust into
fateful circumstances.
I don’t know how much of it Philadelphia believed. But he listened.
“No shit?” he said, when I finished. “You was in a fight?”
I mumbled some strange language about the price of the inebriated.
“Oh, you were drunk? Well ... What did you think? You were back in
college in Humboldt? I never could figure that one out. Young kids come
over here, have a few beers and suddenly they think they can do whatever
they want. What would you have done it that was me?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Remember what I said before,” Philadelphia. “The trick is to blend,
pick your spots.”
“I picked badly, I guess.”
“I guess.”
I looked around. The tables were crowded.
“OK. Stop it. You’re embarrassing me.”
“I’m what?” Philadelphia’s voice rose. “I’m embarrassing you? I’m
just trying to tell you what it takes to make it in the world, prepare you
so that you don’t get up there and embarrass yourself. You do that in
some places – take China, for example – and you wouldn’t be getting off
so easy. Believe me.”
We were quiet for a few minutes. After a while, I murmured an
apology.
“You’re probably a hell of a writer,” Philadelphia said, continuing
more gently. “But you got to decide now what it is you want. You got to
do it every day. Every day. It’s like music. It has to become a part of
your life. Otherwise it don’t mean nothing. And if you decide that what
you want is to drink everyday, then that’s what you’ll become. You are
what you do every day. Don’t forget that. Otherwise you’re just left in
the dark, waiting for something to happen, waiting like all these other
poor sorry assholes, waiting for someone to do something for you. I
know you’re better than that, otherwise I wouldn’t bother.”
I felt something in me restored by Philadelphia’s words – not the
words, but something behind the phrasing, the feeling that of kicks and
booms in an improvised set.
Philadelphia reached into his bag and slapped a book down.
“That’s for you,” he said. “Been meaning to give it to you.”
It was Ellison’s The Invisible Man.
“It takes a bit to get into at first, but stay with it.”
“I didn’t get you anything though.” I felt ashamed. Philadelphia
laughed.
“I didn’t expect you to,” he said. “But maybe you will someday.”
We stayed until the sun went down and it started to get too cool to sit outside. When it was dark we strolled through the park one last time. From an opening in the trees at the top of the hill we could see the castle, lit up in blue light.
“Ah, Prague magic,” Philadelphia said to himself.
“So are you coming back?” I was already starting to miss him.
“Oh, maybe in the fall,” he said. “Got to head over to see Tamara and
the kids.”
At the bottom of the hill we shook hands.
“Allright then, take care of yourself,” he said. “I’m gonna miss talkin’ philosophical shit with you, man.”

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